Legion of Videssos Read online

  The palace compound’s calm, uncrowded beauty always came as something of a shock after the ferment of the plaza of Palamas. Marcus was never sure how he would react to the transition; sometimes it soothed him, but about as often he felt he was withdrawing from life itself. Today, he decided, the plaza had been a little too strident for his taste. A quiet afternoon at the barracks doing nothing would suit him down to the ground.

  “Sir?” the sentry said hesitantly.

  “Eh? What is it, Fostulus?” Marcus looked up from the troops’ paysheet listings, looked down again so he would remember where he was, then looked up once more.

  “There’s a baldy outside, sir, says he needs to talk with you.”

  “A baldy?” The tribune blinked. “You mean, a priest?”

  “What else?” Fostulus said, grinning; he was not one of the Romans who followed Phos. “Big fat fellow, must be rising fifty from the gray in his beard. He’s got a mean mouth,” the sentry added.

  Marcus scratched his head. He knew several priests, but the description did not sound like any of them. Still, it would not do to offend Videssos’ religious hierarchy; in some ways it was more powerful than the Emperor himself. He sighed and rolled up the account parchment, tying it shut with a ribbon. “Bring him in, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fostulus saluted—Roman-style, with outthrust arm—then spun smartly on his heel and hurried back to the doorway. The hobnails in the soles of his caligae clicked on the slate floor.

  “Took you long enough,” Scaurus heard the man grumbling as Fostulus led him back to the little table in the rear corner of the barracks hall that the tribune used as a makeshift office. Marcus rose to greet him as he approached.

  Fostulus had been right; the priest was nearly of a height with Scaurus, whose northern blood gave him more inches than most Romans or Videssians enjoyed. And when they clasped hands, the fellow’s firm, dry grip showed considerable strength. “You can go now, Fostulus,” the tribune said. With another salute, the sentry returned to his station.

  The priest flung himself into a chair, which creaked under his weight. Sweat darkened the armpits of his blue robe and sprayed from his shaved pate; Marcus was glad he had closed the account roll. “Phos’ light, standing there in the sun is hot work,” the Videssian said accusingly, his voice a rumbling bass. “D’you have any wine for a thirsty man?”

  “Well, yes,” the tribune said, disconcerted by such brusqueness; most Videssians were smoother spoken. He found a jug and a couple of earthenware cups, poured, handed one cup to the priest, and raised the other in salute. “Your health, ah—” he paused, not knowing the man’s name.

  “Styppes,” the priest said curtly; like all Videssian clerics, he had abandoned his surname, a symbol of his dedication to Phos alone.

  Before he tasted the wine, he raised both hands to the sky, murmuring his faith’s basic creed: “We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.” Then he spat on the floor in rejection of Skotos, Phos’ evil opponent in the Empire’s dualistic religion.

  He waited for a moment for the Roman to join him in the ritual, but Scaurus, although he respected Videssos’ customs, did not ape the ones he failed to share. Styppes gave him a disdainful glance. “Heathen,” he muttered. Marcus saw what Fostulus had meant about his mouth; its narrow, bloodless lips barely covered strong yellow teeth.

  Then Styppes drank, and the tribune had to fight to keep contempt from his face in turn. The Videssian drained his cup at a draught, filled it without asking Scaurus’ leave, emptied it once more, refilled, and swallowed a third while Marcus’ lips were hardly wet. Styppes started to pour again, but the jug gave out with his cup half-empty. He snorted in annoyance and tossed it off.

  “Will the wine do you, or was there something else you wanted?” Scaurus asked sharply. He was immediately ashamed of himself; had Stoicism not taught him to accept each man as he was, good and bad together? If this Styppes loved the grape too well, despising him for it would hardly change him.

  Marcus tried again, this time without sarcasm. “How can I, or perhaps my men, help you?”

  “I doubt it would be possible,” Styppes answered, raising the tribune’s hackles afresh. “But I have been told to help you.” His sour expression did not speak well for his pleasure at the undertaking.

  The priest was a veteran drinker. His speech did not slur, and he moved with perfect assurance. Only a slight flush to what had been a rather pallid complexion betrayed the wine he had on board.

  Sipping from his own cup, Scaurus took hold of his temper with both hands. “Ah? Told by whom?” he asked, making a game stab at sounding interested. The sooner this sponge in a blue robe left, the better. He wondered whether his priestly friend Nepos or Balsamon the patriarch had sent him and, if so, what they had against the Romans.

  But Styppes surprised him, saying, “Mertikes Zigabenos informs me you have lost your healer.”

  “That’s so,” Scaurus admitted; he wondered how Gorgidas was faring on the Pardrayan steppe. Zigabenos was commander of the imperial bodyguard, and a very competent young man indeed. If this priest had his favor, perhaps there was something to him after all. “What of it?”

  “He suggested I offer you my services. I have been trained in Phos’ healing arts, and it is not right for any unit of his Majesty’s army to be without such aid—even one full of pagans, as is yours,” Styppes ended disparagingly.

  Marcus ignored that. “You’re a healer-priest? And assigned to us?” It was all he could do to keep from shouting with glee. Using themselves as channels of Phos’ energies, some priests could work cures on men Gorgidas had given up for dead; as much as anything, his failure to learn their methods had driven him to the plains. Nepos had healed his share, even though he was no specialist in the art. To have a man who was could prove more precious than rubies, Scaurus thought. “Assigned to us?” he repeated, wanting to hear Styppes say it again.

  “Aye.” The priest still seemed far from overjoyed; as he was familiar with it, his talent was much less wonderful to him than to the Roman. He looked at the bedrolls neatly checkering the barracks floor. “You’ll have quarters for me here, then?”

  “Certainly; whatever you like.”

  “What I’d like is more wine.”

  Not wanting to antagonize him or seem mean, Marcus struck the seal from another jug and handed it to him. “Care for any?” Styppes asked. When the tribune shook his head, the priest, disdaining his cup, drank the jar dry. Scaurus’ worries returned.

  “Ahhh,” Styppes said when he was done, a long exhalation of pleasure. He rose—and lurched somewhat; so much neat wine downed so fast would have sozzled a demigod. “Be back,” he said, and now the drink was in his speech, too. “Got to get m’gear from the mon’stery, fetch it here.” Moving with the carefully steady strides of a man used to walking wine-soaked, he started toward the doorway.

  He had only taken a couple of steps when he turned back to Marcus. He studied him with owlish intensity for nearly a minute, then left just as Scaurus was about to ask him what was on his mind. Frustrated, the Roman went back to his paysheets.

  That evening, Helvis asked him, “So, how do you like this Styppes?”

  “Like him? That has nothing to do with anything—what choice have I? Any healer is better than none.” Wondering how frank he should be with her, Marcus leaned back against a thin wood partition; two of the four barracks halls the legionaries used were divided up to give partnered soldiers and their women and children some privacy.

  She frowned, sensing his hesitation, but before she could frame her question, her five-year-old son Malric threw aside the wooden cart he had been playing with and started to sing a bawdy Videssian marching song at the top of his lungs: “Little bird with a yellow bill—”

  She rolled her eyes, blue like those of many Namdaleni. “Enough of that, young man. Time for bed.” He i
gnored her, singing on until she grabbed his ankles and lifted him. He hung upside down, shrieking laughter. His tunic fell down over his head; he thrashed his way out of it. Helvis caught Marcus’ eye. “There’s half the battle won.”

  The tribune smiled, watching as she peeled his stepson’s trousers off. Even in such inelegant activity, she was a pleasure to look at. Her skin was fairer and her features less aquiline than the Videssian norm, but strong cheekbones and a generous mouth gave her face a beauty of its own. And her figure was opulent, its rich curves filling her long skirt and lace-bodiced blouse of maroon linen in a way that caught any man’s eye. As yet her early pregnancy had not begun to swell her belly.

  She swatted Malric lightly on his bare bottom. “Go on, kiss Marcus goodnight, use the pot, and go to sleep.” Her voice was a smooth contralto.

  Malric complained and fussed to see if she was serious; the next swat had more authority behind it. “All right, Mama, I’m going,” he said, and trotted over to Scaurus. “Goodnight, Papa.” He had spoken Namdalener patois with Helvis, but used Latin with the tribune; he had picked up the Roman tongue with a child’s ease in the nearly two years Marcus and Helvis had been together.

  “Good night, son. Sleep well.” Scaurus ruffled the boy’s shock of blond hair, so like that of his dead father Hemond. Malric piddled, then slid under the blanket and closed his eyes. Marcus’ own son Dosti, not quite a year old, was asleep in a crib close by the sleeping mats. He whimpered, but quieted as soon as Helvis pulled the coverlet up over him. Some nights now, the tribune thought hopefully, he slept all the way through.

  When Helvis was sure Malric was asleep, too, she turned back to Scaurus. “What’s wrong with the healer-priest?”

  At the blunt question, Marcus’ hesitation disappeared. “Not much,” he said, but before she could do more than begin to raise her eyebrows, he went on, “except that he’s an arrogant, greedy, ill-tempered sot—at the moment he’s passed out on the floor in one of the bachelor halls, snoring like a sawmill. I doubt he could fix a fleabite, let alone really heal.”

  Helvis laughed nervously, half amused at Styppes’ shortcomings, half scandalized by Scaurus’ open contempt for him. She was a zealous follower of Phos, and hearing a priest of any sect maligned made her ill at ease; still, as a Namdalener she reckoned the Videssians heretics and so, in a way, fair game. The ambiguity confused her.

  A splinter gouged Marcus’ shoulder through his shirt. As he dug it out with a thumbnail, he thought that ambiguity was something he, too, had come to know with Helvis. They were too different to be wholly comfortable with one another, each of them too strong-willed to yield easily. Religion, policy, love-making … sometimes it seemed there were few things over which they did not quarrel.

  But when things went well, he said to himself with an inward smile, they went very well indeed. Still rubbing his shoulder, he stood and kissed her. She looked at him quizzically. “What was that for?”

  “No real reason.”

  Her face lit. “That’s the best reason of all.” She pressed herself against him. Her chin fit nicely on his shoulder; she was tall for a woman, as tall, in fact, as many Videssian men. He kissed her again, this time thoroughly. Afterward, he never was sure which one of them blew out the lamp.

  Scaurus was spooning up his breakfast porridge—barley flavored with bits of beef and onion—when Junius Blaesus came up to him. The junior centurion looked unhappy. “Mglmpf?” the tribune said, and then, after he had swallowed, “What’s the matter?” From Blaesus’ hangdog air, he had a fair idea.

  The Roman’s long face grew glummer yet. A veteran optio, or underofficer, he was newly promoted to centurion’s rank and did not like to admit there were problems in his maniple that he had trouble handling. Marcus cocked an eyebrow at him and waited; pushing would only make him more sensitive than he was.

  At last Blaesus blurted out, “It’s Pullo and Vorenus, sir.”

  The tribune nodded, unsurprised. “Again?” he said. He took a deliberate swig of wine; like almost all Videssian vintages, it was too sweet for his taste. He went on, “Glabrio had nothing but trouble with them. What are they squabbling about now?”

  “Which of them threw the pilum better at practice yesterday. Pullo swung at Vorenus last night, but they got pulled apart before they could mix it.” Relief was flowering on the junior centurion; Quintus Glabrio, whose unit he now led, had been a truly outstanding officer. If, before his death, he had not been able to control the two fractious legionaries, then Blaesus could hardly be blamed for having problems with them.

  “Swung on him, you say? We can’t have that.” Scaurus finished his porridge, wiped off the bone spoon, and put it back in his belt-pouch. He rose. “I’ll have a word or two with them. Set your mind at ease, Junius; it won’t be the first time.”

  “Yes, sir.” Blaesus saluted and hurried off on other business, relieved to have survived the interview. Marcus watched him go, not quite satisfied. Quintus Glabrio, he thought, would have come with him, instead of being content to have passed the problem on. It seemed an evasion of responsibility, a grave flaw by Scaurus’ Stoic-tinged standards. Well, he thought, that must be why Blaesus stayed an optio so long.

  Titus Pullo sprang to attention when he saw the tribune walking toward him, a fair sign of a guilty conscience. So, interestingly, did Lucius Vorenus. Except for their feud with each other, they were excellent soldiers, probably the two finest in the maniple. Both were in their late twenties, Pullo a bit stockier, Vorenus perhaps a trifle quicker.

  Scaurus glared at them, doing his best to project an image of stern reproach. “We’ve been through all this before,” he said. “Docking your pay doesn’t do much good, does it?”

  “Sir—” Pullo said, and Vorenus said, “Sir, he—”

  “Shut up,” the tribune snapped. “Both of you are confined to barracks for the next two weeks—and that includes staying here when your mates go out to exercise. Since you’re so fond of arguing over your practices, maybe you’ll learn to keep your tempers if you have nothing to argue about.”

  “But, sir,” Vorenus protested, “without practice we’ll lose our edge.” Pullo nodded vigorously; here, at least, was something upon which the two Romans could agree. Both were filled with the pride that marked the best fighting men.

  “You should have thought of that before you wrangled,” Marcus pointed out. “You won’t go soft, not in two weeks’ time—cleaning details will see to that. Dismissed!” he said sharply. But as they turned, shamefaced, to go, he had an afterthought. “One thing more: don’t make the mistake of keeping this foolish quarrel alive. If there is a next time, I’ll make whichever one of you is guilty the other’s servant. Think on that before you squabble.”

  To judge from their faces, neither found the prospect appetizing. Pleased at his ingenuity, the tribune started off to get ready for practice. He wished he could order himself to take a couple of weeks off. The day gave every promise of being another scorcher.

  “And how did you handle your battling troopers?” Senpat Sviodo asked him; as usual, the Vaspurankaner’s resonant tenor voice held an amused edge.

  “You must have heard me,” Marcus answered, but then realized that while Senpat might have heard him, he had not understood. Among themselves the Romans clung to their Latin, one of the few reminders they had of their lost homeland. Their comrades understood the strange speech but haltingly, lacking Malric’s childish facility for learning new tongues. The tribune explained.

  The smile that was never far from the young Vaspurakaner noble’s handsome features came into the open. He had a good smile, white teeth flashing against his olive skin, framed by the beard he wore close-trimmed in the Videssian style. “You Romans are a strange folk,” he said, only a trace of his throaty native tongue coloring his Videssian. “Who else would punish someone by taking work away from him?”

  Marcus snorted. Senpat had enjoyed twitting the legionaries since the day he met them almost two years befo
re, but if there was a better mounted scout than he, it had to be his wife. “Your lady Nevrat would understand,” the tribune said.

  “So she might,” Senpat admitted, chuckling. “But then she enjoys such things, where I merely endure them.” He gave a theatrical grimace to indicate his disgust at any and all types of work. “Now I suppose you expect me to bake myself in the broiling sun for the sake of hitting the target a hairsbreadth closer to the center.”

  “What better way to chastise you for your endless heckling?”

  “Oh, what we Firstborn suffer in the cause of truth.” The Vaspurakaners traced their ancestry back to an eponymous hero, Vaspur—in their theology, the first man created by Phos. Not surprisingly, the Videssians did not share this view.

  Senpat pulled his Vaspurakaner cap rakishly over one eye. On most of his countrymen the three-peaked headgear looked strange and lumpy, but he wore it with such a jaunty air that he carried it off quite well. He tossed his head. The brightly dyed ribbons that hung down from the back of the cap’s floppy brim flew round his head.

  “Since there’s no help for it,” he sighed, “I suppose I’ll fetch my bow.” He started to leave.

  “If you carped any more, you’d grow scales,” Marcus said. Senpat looked briefly blank; the wordplay did not work in Vaspurakaner. Then he winced, looking back suspiciously in case the tribune had more puns lying in wait for him. Scaurus did not, but he was grinning at managing one in a language not his own … and a bad one at that.

  “Hold it up a little higher, would you, Gongyles?” Thorisin Gavras said.

  Gongyles was a very junior lieutenant, his beard fuzzy; his sudden flush was visible through the straggly growth on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, your Imperial Majesty,” he stammered, awed that the Avtokrator of the Videssians would speak to him for any reason. He raised the map of the Empire’s westlands so all the officers gathered in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches could see it.

  The hall held no couches, nor had it for centuries, but tradition died hard in Videssos. Scaurus, sitting on a plain wooden chair in front of a table that wobbled because one leg was too short, smiled at the homage on the callow soldier’s face. He whispered to Gaius Philippus, “Remember when Mavrikios kept Ortaias Sphrantzes standing there for hours holding that damned map? His arms must have been ready to fall off.”