With the arrival of spring, the Emperor Maniakes vows to unleash his troops against the enemy capital, where a hated despot sits arrogantly upon the throne. But from the moment Maniakes reaches the land of the Thousand Cities, he is plagued by a question no one can answer. Where is his nemesis, the ruthless commander whose cavalry no opposing force can withstand?.
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Editorial Reviews
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Outside the imperial residence in Videssos the city, the cherry trees were in bloom. Soon their pink and white petals would drift the ground and walks around the residence in much the same way as the snow had done till a few weeks earlier.
Maniakes threw wide the shutters and peered out at the grove that made the residence the only place in the palace quarter where the Avtokrator of the Videssians could find even a semblance of privacy. One of the many bees buzzing by made as if to land on him. He drew back in a hurry. When spring came, the bees were a nuisance: they were, in fact, almost the only thing he disliked about spring.
"Phos be praised," he said, sketching the good god's sun-circle above his heart, "now that good sailing weather is here again, we can get out of the city and fight another round with the men of Makuran." He made a sour face. "I know the Makuraners are my enemies. Here in the capital, foes come disguised, so they're harder to spot."
"Once we've beaten the Makuraners, things will go better here," said his wife, Lysia. She came over and took his hand and also looked at the flowering cherry trees. When another bee tried to fly into the chamber, she snathced up a sheet of parchment from Maniakes' desk and used it to chivy the bee back outside. Then she smiled at him. "There. That's more use than we usually get out of tax registers."
"How right you are," he said fondly. Lysia had a gift for not taking the ponderous Videssian bureaucratic machine too seriously, while to the army of tax collectors and clerks and scribes and account reckoners it was not only as important as life itself but was in fact life itself. Better yet, she helped Maniakes not take the bureaucracy too seriously, either, a gift he often thought beyond price.
He hugged her. The two of them were not very far apart in height. They were a little stockier, a little swarthier than the Videssian norm, being of Vaspurakaner blood even if almost completely Videssian in the way they thought. Both had lustrous, almost blue-black hair, bushy eyebrows--though Lysia plucked hers to conform to imperial standards of beauty--and high-arched, prominent noses. Maniakes' thick, heavy beard covered his cheeks and chin, but under the beard that chin, he suspected, was a match for Lysia's strong one.
Their resemblance was no mere accident of having sprung from the same homeland, nor was it a case of husband and wife coming to look like each other over the course of living together--such cases being more often joked about than seen. They were not just husband and wife; they were also first cousins--Lysia's father, Symvatios, was younger brother to Maniakes' father, with whom the Avtokrator shared his name.
Lysia said, "When we sail for the west to fight the Makuraners, have you decided whether to use the northern or southern route?"
"The southern, I think," Maniakes answered. "If we land in the north, we have to thread our way through all the valleys and passes of the Erzerum Mountains. That's the longer way to have to go to aim for Mashiz, too. I want Sharbaraz--" He pronounced it Sarbaraz; like most who spoke Videssian, he had trouble with the sh sound, though he could sometimes bring it out. "--King of Kings to be sweating in his capital the way I've sweated here in the city."
"He's had to worry more than we have, the past couple of years," Lysia said. "The Cattle Crossing holds the Makuraners away from Videssos the city, but the Tutub and the Tib are only rivers. If we can beat the soldiers the Makuraners put up against us, we will sack Mashiz."
She sounded confident. Maniakes felt confident. "We should have done it last year," he said. "I never expected them to be able to hold us when we were moving down the Tib." He shrugged. "That's why you have to fight the war, though: to see which of the things you don't expect come true."
"We hurt them even so," Lysia said.
She spoke consolingly, but what she said was true. Maniakes nodded. "I'd say the Thousand Cities between the Tutub and the Tib are down to about eight hundred, thanks to us." He knew he was exaggerating the destruction the Videssians had wrought, but he didn't think there really were a thousand cities on the floodplain, either. "Not only do we hurt the Makuraners doing that, but we loosen their hold on the westlands of Videssos, too."
"This is a strange war," Lysia observed.
Maniakes nodded again. Makuran held virtually all of the Videssian westlands, the great peninsula on the far side of the Cattle Crossing. All his efforts to drive them out of the westlands by going straight at them had failed. But Makuran, a landlocked power till its invasion of Videssos, had no ships to speak of. Controlling the sea had let Maniakes strike at the enemy's heartland even if he couldn't free his own.
He slipped an army around Lysia's waist. "You're falling down on the job, you know." She raised an eyebrow in a silent question. He explained: "The last two years, you've had a baby while we were on campaign in the Land of the Thousand Cities."
She laughed so hard, she pulled free of him. He stared at her in some surprise; he hadn't thought the small joke anywhere near that funny. Then she said, "I was going to tell you in a few more days, when I was surer, but ... I think I'm expecting again."
"Do you?" he said. Now Lysia nodded. He hugged her, shaking his head all the while. "I think we're going to have to make the imperial residence bigger, with all the children it will be holding."
"I think you may be right," Lysia answered. Maniakes had a young daughter and son, Evtropia and Likarios, by his first wife, Niphone, who had died giving birth to Likarios. Lysia had borne him two boys, Symvatios and Tatoules. The one, a toddler now, was named for her father--Maniakes' uncle--the other for Maniakes' younger brother, who had been missing for years in the chaos that surrounded the Makuraner conquest of the westlands. Maniakes knew Tatoules almost had to be dead, and had chosen the name to remember him.
Maniakes also had a bastard son, Atalarikhos, back on the eastern island of Kalavria. His father had governed there before their clan rose up against the vicious and inept rule of the previous Avtokrator, Genesios, who had murdered his way to the throne and tried to stay on it with even more wholesale slaughter. Now Maniakes prudently mentioned neither Atalarikhos nor his mother, a yellow-haired Haloga woman named Rotrude, to Lysia.
Instead of bringing up such a sticky topic, he said, "Shall we hold a feast to celebrate the good news?"
To his surprise and disappointment, Lysia shook her head. "What would be the point? The clan stands by us, and your soldiers do, because you've managed to make the Makuraners thoughtful about fighting Videssians, but most of the nobles would find polite reasons to be someplace else."
He scowled, his eyebrows coming down in a thick black line above his eyes. She was right, and he knew it, and he hated it. "The patriarch gave us a dispensation," he growled.
"So he did," Lysia agreed, "after you almost sailed back to Kalavria three years ago. That frightened Agathios into it. But only about half the priests acknowledge it, and far fewer than half the nobles."
"I know what will make everyone acknowledge it," Maniakes said grimly. Lysia half turned away from him, as if to say nothing would make people acknowledge the legitimacy of their union. But he found a magic word, one as potent as if spoken by a chorus of the most powerful mages from the Sorcerers' Collegium: "Victory."
Maniakes rode through the streets of Videssos the city toward the harbor of Kontoskalion on the southern side of the capital. Before him marched a dozen parasol-bearers, their bright silk canopies announcing to all who saw that the Emperor was moving through his capital. Because that thought might not fill everyone with transports of delight, around him tramped a good-sized bodyguard.
About half the men in the detachment were Videssians, the other half Halogai--mercenaries from out of the cold north. The native Videssians were little and dark and lithe, armed with swords. The Halogai, big, fair men, some of whom wore their long, pale hair in braids, carried long-handled axes that could take a head with one blow.
At the front of the procession marched a herald who shouted, "Way! Make way for the Avtokrator of the Videssians!" People on foot scrambled out of the street. People riding horses or leading donkeys either sped up or found side streets. One teamster driving a heavy wagon neither sped up nor turned. A Haloga suggested, "Let's kill him," to Maniakes.
He made no effort to lower his voice. Maniakes did not think he was joking: the Halogai had a very direct way of looking at the world. Evidently, the teamster didn't think he was joking, either. All of a sudden, the wagon not only sped up but also moved onto a side street. No longer impeded, the procession moved on toward the harbor of Konstoskalion.
Maniakes rode past one of the hundreds of temples in Videssos the city dedicated to the worship of Phos. Perhaps drawn by the herald's cries, the priest who served the temple came out to look at the Avtokrator and his companions. Like other cleric, he shaved his pate and let his beard grow full and bushy. He wore a plain wool robe, dyed blue, with a cloth-of-gold circle representing Phos' sun sewn above his left breast.
Maniakes waved to him. Instead of waving back, the priest spat on the ground, as if rejecting Phos' evil rival, Skotos. Some of the Videssian guardsmen snarled at him. He glared back toward them, armored in his faith and therefore unafraid. After a moment, he deliberately turned his back and ...
Maniakes threw wide the shutters and peered out at the grove that made the residence the only place in the palace quarter where the Avtokrator of the Videssians could find even a semblance of privacy. One of the many bees buzzing by made as if to land on him. He drew back in a hurry. When spring came, the bees were a nuisance: they were, in fact, almost the only thing he disliked about spring.
"Phos be praised," he said, sketching the good god's sun-circle above his heart, "now that good sailing weather is here again, we can get out of the city and fight another round with the men of Makuran." He made a sour face. "I know the Makuraners are my enemies. Here in the capital, foes come disguised, so they're harder to spot."
"Once we've beaten the Makuraners, things will go better here," said his wife, Lysia. She came over and took his hand and also looked at the flowering cherry trees. When another bee tried to fly into the chamber, she snathced up a sheet of parchment from Maniakes' desk and used it to chivy the bee back outside. Then she smiled at him. "There. That's more use than we usually get out of tax registers."
"How right you are," he said fondly. Lysia had a gift for not taking the ponderous Videssian bureaucratic machine too seriously, while to the army of tax collectors and clerks and scribes and account reckoners it was not only as important as life itself but was in fact life itself. Better yet, she helped Maniakes not take the bureaucracy too seriously, either, a gift he often thought beyond price.
He hugged her. The two of them were not very far apart in height. They were a little stockier, a little swarthier than the Videssian norm, being of Vaspurakaner blood even if almost completely Videssian in the way they thought. Both had lustrous, almost blue-black hair, bushy eyebrows--though Lysia plucked hers to conform to imperial standards of beauty--and high-arched, prominent noses. Maniakes' thick, heavy beard covered his cheeks and chin, but under the beard that chin, he suspected, was a match for Lysia's strong one.
Their resemblance was no mere accident of having sprung from the same homeland, nor was it a case of husband and wife coming to look like each other over the course of living together--such cases being more often joked about than seen. They were not just husband and wife; they were also first cousins--Lysia's father, Symvatios, was younger brother to Maniakes' father, with whom the Avtokrator shared his name.
Lysia said, "When we sail for the west to fight the Makuraners, have you decided whether to use the northern or southern route?"
"The southern, I think," Maniakes answered. "If we land in the north, we have to thread our way through all the valleys and passes of the Erzerum Mountains. That's the longer way to have to go to aim for Mashiz, too. I want Sharbaraz--" He pronounced it Sarbaraz; like most who spoke Videssian, he had trouble with the sh sound, though he could sometimes bring it out. "--King of Kings to be sweating in his capital the way I've sweated here in the city."
"He's had to worry more than we have, the past couple of years," Lysia said. "The Cattle Crossing holds the Makuraners away from Videssos the city, but the Tutub and the Tib are only rivers. If we can beat the soldiers the Makuraners put up against us, we will sack Mashiz."
She sounded confident. Maniakes felt confident. "We should have done it last year," he said. "I never expected them to be able to hold us when we were moving down the Tib." He shrugged. "That's why you have to fight the war, though: to see which of the things you don't expect come true."
"We hurt them even so," Lysia said.
She spoke consolingly, but what she said was true. Maniakes nodded. "I'd say the Thousand Cities between the Tutub and the Tib are down to about eight hundred, thanks to us." He knew he was exaggerating the destruction the Videssians had wrought, but he didn't think there really were a thousand cities on the floodplain, either. "Not only do we hurt the Makuraners doing that, but we loosen their hold on the westlands of Videssos, too."
"This is a strange war," Lysia observed.
Maniakes nodded again. Makuran held virtually all of the Videssian westlands, the great peninsula on the far side of the Cattle Crossing. All his efforts to drive them out of the westlands by going straight at them had failed. But Makuran, a landlocked power till its invasion of Videssos, had no ships to speak of. Controlling the sea had let Maniakes strike at the enemy's heartland even if he couldn't free his own.
He slipped an army around Lysia's waist. "You're falling down on the job, you know." She raised an eyebrow in a silent question. He explained: "The last two years, you've had a baby while we were on campaign in the Land of the Thousand Cities."
She laughed so hard, she pulled free of him. He stared at her in some surprise; he hadn't thought the small joke anywhere near that funny. Then she said, "I was going to tell you in a few more days, when I was surer, but ... I think I'm expecting again."
"Do you?" he said. Now Lysia nodded. He hugged her, shaking his head all the while. "I think we're going to have to make the imperial residence bigger, with all the children it will be holding."
"I think you may be right," Lysia answered. Maniakes had a young daughter and son, Evtropia and Likarios, by his first wife, Niphone, who had died giving birth to Likarios. Lysia had borne him two boys, Symvatios and Tatoules. The one, a toddler now, was named for her father--Maniakes' uncle--the other for Maniakes' younger brother, who had been missing for years in the chaos that surrounded the Makuraner conquest of the westlands. Maniakes knew Tatoules almost had to be dead, and had chosen the name to remember him.
Maniakes also had a bastard son, Atalarikhos, back on the eastern island of Kalavria. His father had governed there before their clan rose up against the vicious and inept rule of the previous Avtokrator, Genesios, who had murdered his way to the throne and tried to stay on it with even more wholesale slaughter. Now Maniakes prudently mentioned neither Atalarikhos nor his mother, a yellow-haired Haloga woman named Rotrude, to Lysia.
Instead of bringing up such a sticky topic, he said, "Shall we hold a feast to celebrate the good news?"
To his surprise and disappointment, Lysia shook her head. "What would be the point? The clan stands by us, and your soldiers do, because you've managed to make the Makuraners thoughtful about fighting Videssians, but most of the nobles would find polite reasons to be someplace else."
He scowled, his eyebrows coming down in a thick black line above his eyes. She was right, and he knew it, and he hated it. "The patriarch gave us a dispensation," he growled.
"So he did," Lysia agreed, "after you almost sailed back to Kalavria three years ago. That frightened Agathios into it. But only about half the priests acknowledge it, and far fewer than half the nobles."
"I know what will make everyone acknowledge it," Maniakes said grimly. Lysia half turned away from him, as if to say nothing would make people acknowledge the legitimacy of their union. But he found a magic word, one as potent as if spoken by a chorus of the most powerful mages from the Sorcerers' Collegium: "Victory."
Maniakes rode through the streets of Videssos the city toward the harbor of Kontoskalion on the southern side of the capital. Before him marched a dozen parasol-bearers, their bright silk canopies announcing to all who saw that the Emperor was moving through his capital. Because that thought might not fill everyone with transports of delight, around him tramped a good-sized bodyguard.
About half the men in the detachment were Videssians, the other half Halogai--mercenaries from out of the cold north. The native Videssians were little and dark and lithe, armed with swords. The Halogai, big, fair men, some of whom wore their long, pale hair in braids, carried long-handled axes that could take a head with one blow.
At the front of the procession marched a herald who shouted, "Way! Make way for the Avtokrator of the Videssians!" People on foot scrambled out of the street. People riding horses or leading donkeys either sped up or found side streets. One teamster driving a heavy wagon neither sped up nor turned. A Haloga suggested, "Let's kill him," to Maniakes.
He made no effort to lower his voice. Maniakes did not think he was joking: the Halogai had a very direct way of looking at the world. Evidently, the teamster didn't think he was joking, either. All of a sudden, the wagon not only sped up but also moved onto a side street. No longer impeded, the procession moved on toward the harbor of Konstoskalion.
Maniakes rode past one of the hundreds of temples in Videssos the city dedicated to the worship of Phos. Perhaps drawn by the herald's cries, the priest who served the temple came out to look at the Avtokrator and his companions. Like other cleric, he shaved his pate and let his beard grow full and bushy. He wore a plain wool robe, dyed blue, with a cloth-of-gold circle representing Phos' sun sewn above his left breast.
Maniakes waved to him. Instead of waving back, the priest spat on the ground, as if rejecting Phos' evil rival, Skotos. Some of the Videssian guardsmen snarled at him. He glared back toward them, armored in his faith and therefore unafraid. After a moment, he deliberately turned his back and ...
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More About the Author
Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart; The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Climax and Aftermath,
By
This review is from: Videssos Besieged (Time of Troubles/Harry Turtledove, Bk 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
Videssos Besieged (1998) is the fourth fantasy novel of the Time of Troubles series, following The Thousand Cities. In the previous volume, Sharbaraz King of Kings finally told Abivard and Tzikas why they were not allowed to kill each other. Two years before, Sharbaraz had sent two emissaries to the Kubratoi to coordinate an attack on Videssos the City. The nomads would provide boats carved out of tree trunks to ferry the Makuraner troops across the strait and the Makurans would provide siege engines to attack the walls.
In this novel, Avtokrator Maniakes learns that Kubratoi nomads are observing his troops within Videssos the City. He briefly wonders why, but then gathers his soldiers and sails away to Lyssaiion. From there, he leads his troops into the land between the rivers. Abivard waits for news of the third invasion of the Videssians into the Thousand Cities. As soon as he is learns of the Videssian presence, Abivard takes the field army through the westlands toward Across. Of course, he leaves the infantry behind to delay Maniakes. Maniakes finds only infantry, with just a few cavalry, facing him in the land between the rivers. He puts out scouts even further than usual looking for Abivard, then settles down to attacking the mud brick walls of the cities and advancing toward Mashiz. Sometimes he wonders what is holding up the boiler boys, but he mostly concentrates on his ultimate goal. The infantry finally catches up with the Videssians at the Tib, but Maniakes defeats them and bridges the river. Mashiz is now only a few days away. Then a courier reaches him with news of the investment of Videssos by the Kubratoi and the presence of the Makurans in Across. Maniakes immediately realizes the threat, abandons the advance on Mashiz, and turns his army back to the coast. In this story, Maniakes loads his troops back on the ships and sails back to Videssos the City. A great storm sinks some of his ships north of the Key and the Kubratoi treeboats attack the survivors. However, the Videssian domons handily drive off the crude nomad boats with only slight losses. Now Maniakes has his troopers manning the walls of the city and the Makuraner troops are still across the strait. With the assistant of a little timely magic, he learns that the Makurans are expecting the nomads to ferry their troops across the Cattle Crossing in their treeboats. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what signal will be used to signal the gathering of the nomad boats at Across. The Kubratoi try to take the city by storm, but the walls are too high and too well defended. Then the nomads bombard the walls with catapults, but the walls are too thick and shrug off the minor damage. Then the nomads work the siege towers into position and cross the planks over the moat. The Videssians retaliate with arrows, bolts, spears and firepots, burning several of the towers. Yet some Kubratoi gain the walls for a time. This story relates the final efforts of the Makurans and Kubratoi to take Videssos the City. The fighting is fierce, but the morale of the Videssian troopers is very high. Most citizens are supporting the defense, although some are still condemning Maniakes for marrying his cousin. Videssos the City is a tough nut to crack. Highly recommended for Turtledove fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of classical warfare, political intrigue, and brave soldiers. -Arthur W. Jordin
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Turtledove Brings Series to Satisfying Conclusion:,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Videssos Besieged (Time of Troubles/Harry Turtledove, Bk 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
Harry Turtledove's "Videssos" books are among the classics of the fantasy genre -- solidly grounded in history (albeit intriguingly warped!), meticulously backgrounded, and narrated through living, vivid characters."Videssos Besieged" brings the latest (but hopefully not last) Videssian series to a satisfying conclusion. It has intrigue, suspense, and a pair of sympathetic antagonists -- the Videssian Avtokrator and the great Makuraner general Abivard. Both of them are human beings, complete with crotchets, faults, virtues, and a three-dimensional life away from the battlefield and council-chamber. The action scenes are as vivid and gripping as Turtledove's high standards lead us to expect, and the final resolution is both satisfying -- full closue -- and realistic. Life goes on after the end of the book...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
praise and critique,
By A Customer
This review is from: Videssos Besieged (Time of Troubles/Harry Turtledove, Bk 4) (Mass Market Paperback)
Turtledove once again is trumphant in this series. He succinctly tells the tale of a siege and revolt while also imparting a good view of the inner thoughts of the main characters. My main criticism is the lack of a map. The earlier novels in this series suuply a map (however, bad they may be). A map gives the reader easy reference materials. A map of the City would also be advantageous. All people interested in Byzantine history will enjoy this series as well as his earlier Byzantine modeled series.
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