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Stotzas nodded, glad for the respite. He said, "At that, I've got it easy.
Brick and stone don't argue back. The lord with the great and good mind may
know what to do about the mess with the temples, but I'm bound for the ice if
I do."
"Nor I," Maniakes answered, feeling a good deal less than impudent. "Whoever
came up with the idea of forcing priests in places the Makuraners hold to
adopt Vaspurakaner usages was a fiendishly clever man. Some of the priests
will have done it sincerely, others to curry favor with the invaders, others
just to survive. Sorting out who did what for which reasons is liable to take
years, especially when everybody's busy calling everybody else a liar."
"Like I said, bricks and stone, they keep quiet," Stotzas replied. "Shave a
man's head and put a blue robe on him and it doesn't seem like he'll ever shut
up."
That wasn't altogether fair. A great deal of the monastic life, for instance,
was passed in prayerful silence. But the chief engineer had a point. In
defending themselves and accusing their neighbors, the clerics who jostled for
audience with Maniakes did the reputation of the temples no good.
After listening to one set of denunciations and counter-denunciations, all of
them backed with documents each side insisting the documents of the other were
forgeries Maniakes burst out, "A pox take the lot of you, holy sirs!" That
wasn't the way a good and pious ruler was supposed to address his clerics, but
he was too fed up to care. "You may send this whole great mound of tripe to
the most holy Agathios, to let him deal with it as he will. Until such times
as he decides the case, I command you to live at peace with one another and to
respect one another as orthodox, regardless of who may have done what to whom
while the Makuraners were here."
"But, your Majesty," one blue-robe cried, "these wretches reveled in their
lapse into heresy, glorying in the chance to bring the temples into
disrepute."
A priest of the other faction shouted, "You're the ones who dragged the good
name of the temples through the wineshops and bathhouses with your shameless
pandering to the invaders."
The two sides started calling each other liars and apostates again, just as
they had when they first came before Maniakes. He slammed his open palm down
on the table in front of him. The small thunderclap of noise made clerics from
both sides momentarily fall silent in surprise.
"Perhaps you misunderstood me, holy sirs," Maniakes said into that brief
silence. "You may respect one another as orthodox until the ecumenical
patriarch renders his decision on your cases, or you may call one another
heretics to your hearts' content in gaol. Which will it be?"
The clerics weren't screaming at one another when they left his presence,
which represented progress of a sort. When they were gone, he slumped back in
his chair and covered his face with his hands. Rhegorios came over and thumped
him on the shoulder. "Cheer up, my cousin your Majesty. You'll have cases like
that in every town we reconquer from the Makuraners."
"No, I won't, by the good god," Maniakes burst out. "Agathios will, and we'll
find out what if anything the most holy sir is made of and what he's good
for." Given what he had seen of Agathios, that wasn't apt to be much. He
screwed his face up, as if he had tasted wine gone into vinegar. "You've given
me the first decent argument I've heard for letting the Makuraners keep the
westlands."
Rhegorios laughed, as if he had made a joke.
From Across, Videssian forces cautiously pushed south and west. It was by no
means a reconquest of the westlands but a slow, wary reoccupation of territory
Abivard had, for the time being, abandoned. In somewhat bolder style, Maniakes
ordered a few bands of horsemen deeper into the westlands to see if they could
nip in behind big Makuraner forces and wreck the supply columns that kept them
stocked with arrows and spear-points and iron splints for their cuirasses.
He ordered his men not to attack the Makuraner field armies. "Not this year,"
he said. "First we learn to hurt them in other ways. Once we know we can do
that, we think about facing them in open battle again. Meanwhile, let's see
how they like moving through a hostile countryside."
The short answer was, the Makuraners didn't like it. They started burning
villages to show they didn't like it. Maniakes didn't know whether to mourn or
cheer when he got that news. It would depend on whether the Makuraners cowed
the westlands or infuriated them.
In response, he sent for more raiding parties, many of them aboard ship to go
to the northern and southern coasts of the westlands and strike inland from
there. "Maybe, just maybe," he told his father, "we'll be able to force the
boiler boys off balance for a change. The one place where they can't match us
is on the sea."
"That's so," the elder Maniakes agreed. He plucked a long white hair from his
beard and held it out at arm's length so he could see it clearly. After he let
it fall to the ground, he looked sidelong at his son and asked, "Have you got
a naval captain whose head you wouldn't mind seeing up on the block?"
"I could probably come up with one," Maniakes allowed. "Why would I want to,
though?"
His father's eyes twinkled. "The Kubratoi can't match us on the sea, either.
Those monoxyla of theirs are all very well until they run up against a dromon.
After that, they're wreckage with butchered meat inside. I was just thinking
you could send a captain up along the coast of Kubrat to raid and then, when
Etzilios screamed blue murder, send him the fellow's head and say it was his
idea all along."
Maniakes gaped, then laughed till the tears came. "By the good god, Father,
now you've gone and tempted me. Every time I look north, I'm going to think of
doing just what you said. It might not even make the khagan go back to war
with us; he's clever enough, curse him, to see the joke."
"If you weren't at war with Makuran . . ." the elder Maniakes said.
"And if I had a ship's captain I really wanted to be rid of," the Avtokrator
added. "It would hardly be fair to an up-and-coming officer."
"That's true," the elder Maniakes said. "He wouldn't be up-and-coming
afterward; he'd be down-and-going, or rather gone." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
Stotzas nodded, glad for the respite. He said, "At that, I've got it easy.
Brick and stone don't argue back. The lord with the great and good mind may
know what to do about the mess with the temples, but I'm bound for the ice if
I do."
"Nor I," Maniakes answered, feeling a good deal less than impudent. "Whoever
came up with the idea of forcing priests in places the Makuraners hold to
adopt Vaspurakaner usages was a fiendishly clever man. Some of the priests
will have done it sincerely, others to curry favor with the invaders, others
just to survive. Sorting out who did what for which reasons is liable to take
years, especially when everybody's busy calling everybody else a liar."
"Like I said, bricks and stone, they keep quiet," Stotzas replied. "Shave a
man's head and put a blue robe on him and it doesn't seem like he'll ever shut
up."
That wasn't altogether fair. A great deal of the monastic life, for instance,
was passed in prayerful silence. But the chief engineer had a point. In
defending themselves and accusing their neighbors, the clerics who jostled for
audience with Maniakes did the reputation of the temples no good.
After listening to one set of denunciations and counter-denunciations, all of
them backed with documents each side insisting the documents of the other were
forgeries Maniakes burst out, "A pox take the lot of you, holy sirs!" That
wasn't the way a good and pious ruler was supposed to address his clerics, but
he was too fed up to care. "You may send this whole great mound of tripe to
the most holy Agathios, to let him deal with it as he will. Until such times
as he decides the case, I command you to live at peace with one another and to
respect one another as orthodox, regardless of who may have done what to whom
while the Makuraners were here."
"But, your Majesty," one blue-robe cried, "these wretches reveled in their
lapse into heresy, glorying in the chance to bring the temples into
disrepute."
A priest of the other faction shouted, "You're the ones who dragged the good
name of the temples through the wineshops and bathhouses with your shameless
pandering to the invaders."
The two sides started calling each other liars and apostates again, just as
they had when they first came before Maniakes. He slammed his open palm down
on the table in front of him. The small thunderclap of noise made clerics from
both sides momentarily fall silent in surprise.
"Perhaps you misunderstood me, holy sirs," Maniakes said into that brief
silence. "You may respect one another as orthodox until the ecumenical
patriarch renders his decision on your cases, or you may call one another
heretics to your hearts' content in gaol. Which will it be?"
The clerics weren't screaming at one another when they left his presence,
which represented progress of a sort. When they were gone, he slumped back in
his chair and covered his face with his hands. Rhegorios came over and thumped
him on the shoulder. "Cheer up, my cousin your Majesty. You'll have cases like
that in every town we reconquer from the Makuraners."
"No, I won't, by the good god," Maniakes burst out. "Agathios will, and we'll
find out what if anything the most holy sir is made of and what he's good
for." Given what he had seen of Agathios, that wasn't apt to be much. He
screwed his face up, as if he had tasted wine gone into vinegar. "You've given
me the first decent argument I've heard for letting the Makuraners keep the
westlands."
Rhegorios laughed, as if he had made a joke.
From Across, Videssian forces cautiously pushed south and west. It was by no
means a reconquest of the westlands but a slow, wary reoccupation of territory
Abivard had, for the time being, abandoned. In somewhat bolder style, Maniakes
ordered a few bands of horsemen deeper into the westlands to see if they could
nip in behind big Makuraner forces and wreck the supply columns that kept them
stocked with arrows and spear-points and iron splints for their cuirasses.
He ordered his men not to attack the Makuraner field armies. "Not this year,"
he said. "First we learn to hurt them in other ways. Once we know we can do
that, we think about facing them in open battle again. Meanwhile, let's see
how they like moving through a hostile countryside."
The short answer was, the Makuraners didn't like it. They started burning
villages to show they didn't like it. Maniakes didn't know whether to mourn or
cheer when he got that news. It would depend on whether the Makuraners cowed
the westlands or infuriated them.
In response, he sent for more raiding parties, many of them aboard ship to go
to the northern and southern coasts of the westlands and strike inland from
there. "Maybe, just maybe," he told his father, "we'll be able to force the
boiler boys off balance for a change. The one place where they can't match us
is on the sea."
"That's so," the elder Maniakes agreed. He plucked a long white hair from his
beard and held it out at arm's length so he could see it clearly. After he let
it fall to the ground, he looked sidelong at his son and asked, "Have you got
a naval captain whose head you wouldn't mind seeing up on the block?"
"I could probably come up with one," Maniakes allowed. "Why would I want to,
though?"
His father's eyes twinkled. "The Kubratoi can't match us on the sea, either.
Those monoxyla of theirs are all very well until they run up against a dromon.
After that, they're wreckage with butchered meat inside. I was just thinking
you could send a captain up along the coast of Kubrat to raid and then, when
Etzilios screamed blue murder, send him the fellow's head and say it was his
idea all along."
Maniakes gaped, then laughed till the tears came. "By the good god, Father,
now you've gone and tempted me. Every time I look north, I'm going to think of
doing just what you said. It might not even make the khagan go back to war
with us; he's clever enough, curse him, to see the joke."
"If you weren't at war with Makuran . . ." the elder Maniakes said.
"And if I had a ship's captain I really wanted to be rid of," the Avtokrator
added. "It would hardly be fair to an up-and-coming officer."
"That's true," the elder Maniakes said. "He wouldn't be up-and-coming
afterward; he'd be down-and-going, or rather gone." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]