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"And what of Sharbaraz?" Maniakes asked. "How did he take it when he learned
Abivard was moving against him?"
"He bellowed like a bull." Yeliif's lip curled in scorn. "And, like a bull, he
raged this way and that, neither knowing nor caring how he might best meet the
threat before him, so long as he could bellow and paw the ground."
With a faint scrape-scrape, the secretary's stylus raced over the waxed
surface of his three-leaved wooden tablet. Maniakes slowly nodded. He hoped
Yeliif would take that for agreement and understanding. Both were there, but
so was something else, something that grew with every conversation he had with
the beautiful eunuch:
wariness. The next complimentary word Yeliif said about anyone at the
Makuraner court would be the first. What was in a way worse was that the
eunuch didn't seem to notice he was casually savaging everyone he mentioned.
His view was so jaundiced,
Maniakes had trouble deciding how much reliance he could place in it.
Experimentally, the Avtokrator said, "And what of Romezan? He's a noble of the
Seven Clans. How does he feel about serving a sovereign born a mere dihqan
?"
"It's no great difficulty." Yeliif's gesture was elegant, scornful,
dismissive. "Give
Romezan something to kill and he's happy. It could be Videssians, it could be
wild asses, it could be those who followed Sharbaraz. So long as he welters in
gore, he cares not what gore it is."
Scrape-scrape went the stylus.
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"He fights well," Maniakes observed.
"He should. He's had practice enough. He'd fight himself, I daresay, till the
bruises got too painful even for him to bear." Somehow, malice was all the
more malicious when expressed in that sweet, sexless voice. If Romezan had
practice fighting, Yeliif had the same in backbiting but he'd never wounded
himself. "And
Abivard?" Maniakes said.
"I warned Sharbaraz of him long ago," the beautiful eunuch said. "I told him
Abivard had his eye on the throne. Did he heed me? No. Did anyone heed me? No.
Should he have heeded me? Majesty, I leave that to you."
"Suppose Sharbaraz had got rid of him," Maniakes said actually, he said
Sarbaraz;
here in the city, he didn't care if his accent was imperfect. "Who would have
led Makuran's armies against us this past spring?"
Yeliif returned a perfect shrug. "Romezan. Why not? He might have done better,
and could hardly have done worse worse for Makuran, I mean, as he made quite a
good thing for himself out of failure." Such cynicism took the breath away,
even for an Avtokrator of the Videssians. Coughing a little, Maniakes said, "I
begin to see why
Abivard doesn't want you coming back to Mashiz."
"Oh, indeed," Yeliif agreed. "I remind him of the time when the world did not
turn at his bidding, when he was small and weak and impotent."
For a eunuch to use that particular word, and to use it with such obvious
deliberation, was breathtaking in its own way. Maniakes got the idea Yeliif
had done it to throw him off balance. If so, he'd certainly succeeded.
"Er yes," the Avtokrator said, and dismissed the exiled ambassador from
Makuran.
"I thought you'd want to go on longer, your Majesty," the secretary said after
Yeliif had gone.
"So did I," Maniakes said, "but I'd had about as much spite as I could stomach
of an afternoon, thank you very much."
"Ah." The scribe nodded understanding. "You listen to him for a while and it
does kind of make you want to go home and slit your own wrists, doesn't it?"
"Either your own or your neighbor's, depending on whom he's been telling tales
about," Maniakes answered. He glanced over to the scribe in some relief. "You
thought so, too, did you? Good. I'm glad I'm not the only one."
"Oh, no, your Majesty. Any milk of human kindness that one ever had, it
curdled a long time ago." The secretary sounded very sure. But then, in
meditative tones, he added, "Of course, losing your stones, now, that's not
the sort of thing to make you jolly and ready for a mug of wine after work
with the rest of the lads, is it?"
"I shouldn't think so," Maniakes said. "Still, I haven't known any of the
eunuchs here to be quite so " At a loss for words to describe Yeliif's manner,
he gestured.
The secretary nodded once more. Having heard the beautiful eunuch, he did not
need to hear him described.
Maybe his beauty had something to do with the way he was, Maniakes thought.
He would surely have been pursued at the court of Mashiz, very likely by men
and women both, his loveliness being of a sort to draw and hold the eye of
either sex.
What had being the object of desire while unable to know desire himself done
to his
soul?
When the Avtokrator wondered about that aloud, the scribe nodded yet again.
But then he said, "The other chance is, your Majesty, you don't mind my saying
so, he might be a right bastard even if he had his balls and a beard down to
here and a voice deeper than your father's. Some people just are, you know."
"Yes, I had noticed that," the Avtokrator said sadly. He dismissed the scribe:
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