An Emperor for the Legion (Videssos Cycle) Read online

  “Almost you could feel sorry for Vardanes,” Viridovix said, wiping grease from his chin with the back of his hand; from somewhere or other in the hungry city he had managed to come up with a fat roast partridge. “The puppet master found he couldn’t be doing without his puppet after all.”

  After what he had seen in the bedchamber over the throne room, there was no room in Marcus for pity over Vardanes Sphrantzes, but the Celt’s observation was astute. Much like the Videssian army, the citizens of the capital found Ortaias’ foppish, foolish pedantry more amusing than annoying, and so his uncle had no trouble ruling through him. But the elder Sphrantzes, though a far more able man than his nephew, was himself quite cordially despised throughout the city. Once Ortaias was overthrown, Vardanes found no one would obey him when he gave orders in his own name.

  His messengers had hurried out of the palace with orders for the regiments on the walls to put down the rising. But some of those messengers deserted as soon as they were out of sight, others were waylaid by the mob, and those who carried out their missions found themselves ignored. The Sevastos’ Videssian troops liked him no better than did their civilian cousins, and his mercenaries thought of their own safety before his—Gavras would likely pay them, too, if he sat on the throne.

  In the end, only Rhavas’ bandits and murderers stood by Sphrantzes. All hands were raised against them, just as they were against him; neither they nor he could afford fussiness.

  “Vardanes got what he deserved,” the tribune said. “There at the last he was more Avshar’s puppet than even Ortaias had been his.” Fish on a hook might be a better comparison yet, he thought.

  Gorgidas said, “If Rhavas and Avshar are one and the same, we probably know why Doukitzes met the end he did.”

  “Eh? Why?” Marcus said foolishly, stifling a yawn. Two days of hard fighting left him too tired to follow the doctor’s reasoning.

  Gorgidas gave him a disdainful look; to the Greek, wits were for use. “As a threat, of course, or more likely a promise. You know the wizard has hated you since you bested him at swords that night in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. He must have wished that were you under his knife, not just one of your men.”

  “Avshar hates everyone,” Scaurus said, but Gorgidas’ words carried an unpleasant ring of truth in them. The tribune had had the same thought himself and did not care for it; to be a viciously skilled mage’s personal enemy was daunting. He was suddenly glad of his exhaustion; it left him numb to worry.

  * * *

  Despite the reassurances he had given himself that morning, Marcus was not eager to confront Helvis with the obvious fact that they were staying in Videssos. He put off the evil moment as long as he could, talking with his friends until his eyelids began gluing themselves shut.

  The cool night air did little to rouse him as he walked to the barracks hall he had assigned to partnered legionaries. It was not the same one of the Romans’ four they had used the year before. That hall, with its partitions for couples’ privacy, had been primarily a stable to the Khamorth, and the tribune wished Hercules were here to run a river through it.

  Though the hall he had chosen for partnered men was tidier than that, he found Helvis busily cleaning, not satisfied with the job the legionaries had done. “Hello,” she said, pecking him on the cheek as she swept. “On campaign I don’t mind dirt, but when we’re settled, I can’t abide it.”

  Under other circumstances that speech might have gladdened Scaurus, who was fairly fastidious himself when he had the time. But Helvis’ voice was full of challenge. “We are going to be settled here, aren’t we?” she pursued.

  The tribune wished he had fallen asleep where he sat. Worn out as he was, he did not want a quarrel. He spread his hands placatingly. “Yes, for the time—”

  “All right,” Helvis said, so abruptly that he blinked. “I’m not blind; I can see it would be madness to leave Videssos now.”

  Marcus almost shouted in relief. He had hoped her years as a soldier’s woman would make her understand how the land lay, but hadn’t dared believe it.

  She was not finished, though. The blue of her eyes reminded Scaurus of steel as she went on, “This time, well enough. But the next, we do what we must.”

  There was no doubt in the tribune’s mind what she meant by that, but he was content to let it go. The issue was dead anyway, he thought; with the civil war done, defection would not come up again. He stripped off his armor and was asleep in seconds.

  Thorisin Gavras was Avtokrator self-proclaimed for nearly a year; with Ortaias Sphrantzes beaten, no one disputed his claim. Yet he remained a pretender in the eyes of Videssian law until his formal coronation.

  As with any other aspect of imperial life, formality implied ceremony. Gavras was hardly inside the city before the chamberlains took charge of him; the Empire’s topsy-turvy politics had made them experts at preparing coronations on short notice. Thorisin, for once, did not squabble with them—his legitimacy as Emperor was too important to risk.

  Thus Scaurus found himself routed from bed far earlier than would have suited him, given hasty instructions on his role in the upcoming ceremonial by a self-important eunuch, and placed at the head of a maniple of Romans close behind the sedan chair that would carry Thorisin from the palace compound to the High Temple of Phos, where Balsamon was to anoint and crown him Emperor of the Videssians.

  Thorisin emerged, stiff-faced, from the Hall of the Nineteen Couches and walked slowly past his assembled troop contingents to the litter. By custom, the procession should have begun at the Grand Courtroom, but that building was already in the hands of a swarm of craftsmen repairing the damage it had suffered in the previous day’s fighting.

  In all other respects, though, the new Avtokrator followed traditional usage. On this day he put aside the soldier’s garb he favored for Videssos’ splendid imperial raiment. Above the red boots, his calves were covered by blue-dyed woolen leggings; his bejeweled belt was of links of gold, while the silken kilt hanging from it was again blue, with a border of white. His scabbard was similarly magnificent, but Marcus noticed that the sword in it was his usual saber, its leather grip dark with sweat stains. His tunic was scarlet, shot through with cloth of gold. Over it he wore a cape of pure white wool, closed at the throat with a golden fibula. His head was bare.

  Namdaleni, Videssian soldiers, Videssian sailors, Khatrishers, more Videssians—as Thorisin Gavras strode by each company, the troops went to their knees and then to their bellies in the proskynesis, acknowledging him their master. That was still a custom Marcus, used to Rome’s republican ways, could not bring himself to follow. He and his men bowed deeply from the waist, but did not abase themselves before the Emperor.

  For a moment Thorisin the man peeped through the imperial façade. “Stiff-necked bastard,” he murmured out of the side of his mouth, so low only the tribune heard. Then he was past, settling himself into the blue and gilt sedan chair that was used only for the coronation journey.

  Mertikes Zigabenos and seven of his men were the imperial bearers, their pride of place earned by the coup that had toppled Ortaias. Zigabenos himself stood at the front right, a thin-faced, lantern-jawed young man who wore his beard in the bushy Vaspurakaner style. Slung over his back he bore a large, bronze-faced oval shield. It was nothing like any a present-day Videssian would carry into battle, but Marcus had been briefed on the rôle it would soon play.

  “Are we ready?” Gavras asked. Zigabenos gave a curt nod. “Then let’s be at it,” the Emperor said.

  A dozen bright silk parasols popped open ahead of the traveling chair, further tokens—as if those were needed—of the imperial dignity. Zigabenos’ men bent to the handles at their commander’s signal, then straightened, raising Thorisin to their shoulders. Their pace a slow march, they followed the parasol bearers and Thorisin’s strong-lunged herald out through the gardens of the palace compound toward the plaza of Palamas.

  “Behold Thorisin Gavras, Avtokrator of the Videssian
s!” the herald roared to the multitude assembled there. The citizens of the capital, like the court functionaries, knew their role in the coronation. “Thou conquerest, Thorisin!” they cried: the traditional acclamation for new Emperors, delivered in the archaic Videssian of Phos’ liturgy.

  “Thou conquerest! Thou conquerest!” they thundered as the imperial procession made its way through the square. Marcus was surprised at their enthusiasm. From what he knew of the city’s populace, they would turn out for any sort of spectacle, but would almost rather face the rack than admit they were impressed.

  He understood a few seconds later, when palace servants began throwing handfuls of gold and silver coins into the crowd. The Videssians knew the largess to which they were entitled on a change of Emperors, whether the tribune did or not.

  “Hey, the money’s real gold! Hurrah for Thorisin Gavras!” someone yelled, startled out of formal responses by the quality of Thorisin’s coinage. The cheers redoubled. But Scaurus knew the Vaspurakaner mines from which Thorisin had taken that gold were now in Yezda hands, and wondered how long it would be before the currency was cheapened again.

  Still, this was no time for such gloomy thoughts, not with the applause of thousands ringing in his ears. “Hurrah for the Ronams!” he heard, and caught a glimpse of Arsaber standing tall in the middle of a knot of prosperous-looking merchants. One or more of them, he suspected, would go home lighter by a purse.

  More cheering crowds lined Middle Street; every window of the three-story government office building had two or three faces peering from it. “Look at all the damned pen-pushers, wondering if Gavras’ll have ’em for lunch,” Gaius Philippus said. “Me, I hope he does.”

  A few blocks past the offices, the imperial procession turned north toward Phos’ High Temple. The golden globes atop its spires gleamed in the bright morning sun.

  The High Temple’s great enclosed courtyard was, if anything, even more packed then the plaza of Palamas had been. Priests and soldiers held a lane open in the crush and kept the throng from flowing onto the broad stairs leading up to the shrine.

  At the top of the stairs, somehow not dwarfed by the looming magnificence of the temple behind him, stood Balsamon. The partriarch was a fat, balding old man with a mischievous wit, but it suddenly struck Scaurus how great his power was in Videssos. Ortaias Sphrantzes was not the first Emperor he had helped cast down, and Thorisin Gavras would be—what? the third? the fifth?—over whose accession he had presided.

  But his time was not quite come. Mertikes Zigabenos and his guardsmen carried Gavras through the crowd, which grew quiet, knowing what to expect. Followed by the ceremonial contingents, the Emperor’s litter climbed the stairs. It halted two steps below the patriarch. The bearers lowered the chair to the ground. Thorisin climbed out and waited while his troops arranged themselves on the lower stairs.

  Zigabenos unslung his shield and laid it, face up, before the Emperor. Thorisin stepped up onto it; it took his weight without buckling. Marcus was already marching up toward him, as were the other commanders of the units he had chosen to honor: the admiral Elissaios Bouraphos, Baanes Onomagoulos, Laon Pakhymer, Utprand Dagober’s son, and a Namdalener the tribune did not know, a tall, dour man with pale eyes that showed nothing of the thoughts behind them. Scaurus guessed he had to be the great count Drax, perhaps included here to show that his mercenaries were still wanted by the Empire, even under its new master.

  Once again, though, Zigabenos had precedence. He took from his belt a circlet of gold, which he offered to Thorisin Gavras. Following custom, Thorisin refused. Zigabenos offered it a second time and was again refused. At the third offering, Gavras bowed in acceptance. Zigabenos placed it on his head, declaring in a loud voice, “Thorisin Gavras, I confer on you the title of Avtokrator!”

  That was the cue Scaurus and Gavras’ other officers had awaited. They stooped and lifted the ceremonial shield to shoulder height, exalting the Emperor atop it. The waiting, expectantly silent crowd below burst into cries of “Thou conquerest, Thorisin! Thou conquerest!”

  Baanes Onomagoulos’ lame leg almost gave way beneath him as the officers lowered Thorisin to the ground once more, but Drax and Marcus, who stood on either side of the Videssian, took up the weight so smoothly the shield barely wavered.

  “Steady, old boy. It’s all done now,” Gavras said as he stepped off it. Onomagoulos whispered an apology. Scaurus was glad to see the two men, usually so edgy in each other’s company, behave graciously now. It seemed a good omen.

  No sooner had Gavras descended from the shield than Balsamon, clad in vestments little less splendid than the Emperor’s, came down to meet him. The patriarch performed no proskynesis; in the precinct of the Temple, his authority was second only to the Avtokrator’s. He bowed low before Thorisin, the wispy gray strands of his beard curling over the imperial crown which he held on a blue silk cushion.

  As the patriarch straightened, his eyes, lively beneath bushy, still-black brows, flicked over Thorisin’s companions. That half-amused, half-ironic gaze settled on Scaurus for a moment. The tribune blinked—had Balsamon winked at him? He’d wondered that once before, inside the Temple last year. Surely not, and yet—

  Again, as before, he was never sure. Balsamon’s glance was elsewhere before he could make up his mind. The patriarch fumbled, produced a small silver flask. “Not the least of Phos’ inventions, pockets,” he remarked. The top rank of soldiers might have heard him; the second one surely did not.

  Then his reedy tenor expanded to fill the wide enclosure. A younger priest stood close by to relay what he said, but there was no need. “Bow your head,” Balsamon said to Gavras, and the Avtokrator of the Videssians obeyed.

  The patriarch unstoppered the little flask, poured its contents over Thorisin’s head. The oil was golden in the morning sunlight; Scaurus caught myrrh’s sweet, musky fragrance and the more bitter but still pleasing scent of aloes. “As Phos’ light shines on us all,” Balsamon declared, “so may his blessings pour down on you with this anointing.”

  “May it be so,” Thorisin responded soberly.

  Still holding the crown in his left hand, Balsamon used his right to rub the oil over Thorisin’s head. As he did so, he spoke the Videssians’ most basic prayer, the assembled multitude echoing his words: “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.”

  “Amen,” the crown finished. Marcus heard the Namdaleni add their own closing to the Videssian creed: “On this we stake our very souls.” Utprand spoke the addition firmly, but Drax, closer yet, was silent. Scaurus’ head turned in surprise—had the great count adopted the Empire’s usage? He saw Drax’s lips soundlessly shaping the Namdalener clause and wondered whether courtesy or expedience caused his discretion.

  The “Amens,” fortunately, were loud enough to drown out most of the sound of heresy; it would have been a fine thing, Marcus thought, to have the coronation interrupted by a religious riot.

  Balsamon took the crown, a low dome of gold inset with pearls, sapphires, and rubies, and placed it firmly on Thorisin Gavras’ lowered head. The throng below let out a soft sigh. It was done; a new Avtokrator ruled Videssos. The murmuring died away quickly, for the crowd was waiting for the patriarch to speak.

  He paused a moment in thought before beginning, “Well, my friends, we have been disabused of a mistake and abused by it as well. A throne is only a few sticks, plated with gold and covered by velvet, but it’s said to enoble whatever fundament rests on it, by some magic subtler even than they work in the Academy. Having a throne of my own, I’ve always suspected that was nonsense, you know—” One bushy eyebrow raised just enough to show his listeners they were not to take this last too seriously. “—but sometimes the choice is not between bad and good but rather bad and worse.”

  “Without an Avtokrator we would have perished, like a body without its head.” Marcus thought of Mavrikios’ end
and shivered to himself. Coming from republican Rome, he had doubts about that statement as well, but Videssos, he reflected, had been an empire so long it was likely true for her.

  Balsamon went on, “There is always hope when a new Emperor sits the throne, no matter how graceless he may seem, and a new sovereign’s advisers may serve him as a man’s brains do his face, that is, to give form to what would otherwise be blank.”

  Someone shouted, “Phos knows Ortaias has no brains of his own!” and drew a laugh. Marcus joined it, but at the same time he recognized the fine line Balsamon was treading, trying to justify his actions to the crowd and, more important, to Thorisin Gavras.

  The patriarch returned to his analogy. “But there was a canker eating at those brains, one whose nature I learned late, but not too late. And so I made what amends I could, as you see here.” He bowed low once more; Marcus heard him stage-whisper to Gavras, “Your turn now.”

  With a curt nod, the Emperor looked out over the throng. “For all his fancy talk, Ortaias Sphrantzes knows no more of war than how to run from it and no more of rule than stealing it when the rightful holder’s away. Given five years, he’d have made old Strobilos look good to you—unless the damned Yezda took the city first, which is likely.”

  Thorisin was no polished rhetorician; like Mavrikios, he had a straightforward style, adapted from the battlefield. To the sophisticated listeners of the capital, it was novel but effective.

  “There’re not a lot of promises to make,” he went on. “We’re in a mess, and I’ll do my best to get us out the other side in one piece. I will say this—Phos willing, you won’t want to curse my face every time you see it on a goldpiece.”

  That pledge earned real applause; Ortaias’ debased coinage had won him no love. Scaurus, though, still wondered how Thorisin planned to carry it out. If Videssos’ pen-pushers, with all their bureaucratic sleights of hand, could not keep up the quality of the Empire’s money, could a soldier like Gavras?