An Emperor for the Legion (Videssos Cycle) Read online

  Their leader, a muscular, craggy-faced fellow who looked more soldier than trader, contented himself with remarking, “Aye, we’ve done worse.” Even with his double handful of guardsmen close by, he would not say more. Too many mercenary companies made a sport of robbing merchants.

  He and his comrades were more forthcoming on other matters, sharing with anyone who cared to listen the news they had picked up on their travels. To his surprise, Marcus learned Baanes Onomagoulos still lived. The Videssian general had been badly wounded just before Maragha. Till now, Scaurus had assumed he’d perished, either of his wounds or in the pursuit after the battle.

  But if rumor was to be trusted, Onomagoulos had escaped. Some sort of army under his command beat back a Yezda raid on the southern town of Kybistra, near the headwaters of the Arandos River.

  “Good for him, if it’s true,” was Gaius Philippus’ comment, “but the yarn came a long way before it ever got to us. Likely as not, he’s ravens’ meat himself, or else was a hundred miles away bedded down with something lively to keep the cold away. Good for him if that’s true, too.” He sounded wistful, as odd from him as diffidence from Gorgidas.

  Like towns all through the Empire, Aptos celebrated the days after the winter solstice, when the sun at last turned north again. Bonfires burned in front of homes and shops; people jumped over them for luck. Men danced in the streets in women’s clothing, and women dressed as men. The local abbot brought his monks down through the marketplace, wooden swords in hand, to burlesque soldiers. Tatikios Tornikes turned the tables by leading a dozen shopkeepers in a wicked parody of fat, drunken monks.

  Aptos’ celebration was rowdier than the one the Romans had seen the year before in Imbros. The latter was a real city and tried to ape the sophisticated ways of Videssos the capital. Aptos simply celebrated, and cared not a fig for the figure it cut.

  The town had no theater or professional mime troupe. The locals put on skits in the streets, making up with exuberance what they lacked in polish. Like the ones at Imbros, their sketches were topical and irreverent. Tatikios did a quick change with one of the monks and came out dressed as a soldier. The rusty old mail shirt he had squeezed into was so tight it threatened to burst every time he moved. Marcus took a while to recognize his headgear. It might have been intended for a Roman helmet, but the crest ran from ear to ear instead of front to back—

  Beside him, Viridovix chortled. Gaius Philippus’ jaw was tightly clenched. “Oh, oh,” Marcus muttered. The senior centurion wore a transversely crested helm to show his rank.

  Tatikios had eyes only for a tall, fuzzy-bearded man who wore a fancy gown much like one Nerse Phorkaina was fond of. Every time the mock-noblewoman looked his way, though, he pulled his cloak over his eyes, shivering with fright.

  “I’ll kill that whoreson,” Gaius Philippus ground out. His hand was on the hilt of his gladius; he did not sound as though he was joking.

  “Nay, fool, ‘tis all in fun,” Viridovix said. “Last year at Imbros they were after scoffing at me for a tavern fight. The bards in Gaul do the same to a man. There’s twice the disgrace in showing the taunting hurts.”

  “Is there?” Gaius Philippus said. After a while, to Marcus’ relief, he let go of the sword, He stood watching till the playlet was done, but the tribune had seen his face less grim in battle.

  The next skit, luckily, brought back his good humor. It showed what Aptos thought of Videssos’ self-proclaimed Emperor. Posturing foolishly, a gorgeously dressed young man, plainly meant to be Ortaias, led a squad of monk-soldiers down Aptos’ main street. Suddenly a six-year-old in nomad’s furs leaped out from between two houses. The mock-Emperor shrieked and clutched at the seat of his robes. Throwing scepter one way and crown the other, he turned and fled, trampling half his men in the process.

  “That’s the way of it! Faster, faster, you spalpeen!” Viridovix shouted after him, doubled over with laughter.

  “Aye, and give ’em a goldpiece each as you go,” Gaius Philippus echoed. “No, don’t, or they’ll be after you themselves instead of leaving you for the Yezda!”

  That crack drew cries of agreement from the townsfolk around him. As soon as he reached Videssos the city, Ortaias had set the mints churning out a flood of new coins to announce and, he hoped, popularize his reign. But his copper and silver pieces were thin and ill-shaped, his gold even more adulterated than his great-uncle Strobilos’ had been. None of his tax collectors had yet been seen so far west, but rumor said even they would not accept his money, demanding instead older, purer coins.

  Marcus found that the differing real values of coins nominally at par made gambling devilishly difficult. After more than a year in Videssos, though, he was used to the problem, and evening saw him in front of a table in the Dancing Bear, watching the little bone cubes roll.

  “Ha! The suns!” exclaimed the leader of the merchant company, and scooped up the stake. The tribune gave the twin ones a sour look. Not only had they cost him three goldpieces—one of them a fine, pure coin minted by the Emperor Rhasios Akindynos a hundred twenty years ago—to his mind they were by rights a losing throw. When the Romans played at dice they used three, and reckoned the best roll a triple six. But to the Videssians, sixes lost. They called a double six “the demons”; it cost a gambler his bet and the dice both.

  One of the other merchants was sitting at Scaurus’ right. “He’s hot tonight!” the trader crowed. “Three crowns says he makes it again!” He shoved the bright coins forward. They were not Videssian issue, but minted by some of the petty lords of mine-rich Vaspurakan. In the Empire’s westlands they circulated widely, the more so because they were of purer gold than recent imperial money.

  Marcus covered him with two more from his dwindling store of old Videssian coins; he would have needed six or seven of Ortaias’ wretched issue to match the stake. The merchant captain threw the dice. Three and five—that meant nothing. Nor did double fours. One and—Marcus had an anxious second until the other die stopped spinning. It was a two. “Whew!” he said.

  More meaningless rolls followed, and still more. Side bets multiplied. At last the trader threw twelve and had to surrender the dice to the man at his left. Scaurus gathered in the other merchant’s Vaspurakaner gold, along with the other bets he’d put down. As was true of the “princes’ ” other arts, the portraits on their money were executed in a strong, blocky style. Some coins bore square Vaspurakaner letters, others the more sinuous Videssian script.

  Behind the tribune, a copper basin set on the tavern floor rang like a bell from a well-tossed dollop of wine. He heard cries of admiration, and the clink of money changing hands. Without looking, he was sure Gorgidas was winning the applause. When the Greek had found the Videssians played kottabos, his joy was undiluted. No one in the capital could match him, and surely no one in this country town. If the locals did not know it yet, they soon would.

  The dice traveled slowly round the table. When they got to Marcus, he held them to his mouth to breathe life into them. The rational part of his mind insisted such superstitious foolishness would do no good. But it could not hurt, so he did it anyway.

  His first several throws were meaningless; the Videssian game could be slow. Someone pulled the door of the Dancing Wolf open. “Shut that, will you?” Scaurus grunted without turning around as frigid air knifed into the tavern’s warmth.

  “So we will, and wine for everyone to make amends!” The tribune was on his feet even before a cheer rang through the Dancing Wolf. Snow melting on his jacket and in his beard, Senpat Sviodo grinned at him. Nevrat was right behind her husband.

  Marcus rushed over to them, hugged them both, and pounded their backs. “What news?” he demanded.

  “You might say hello first,” Nevrat said, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Your pardon, hello. Now, what news?” They all laughed. But the tribune was not really joking. He had been waiting for the Vaspurakaners’ return—and worrying over the word they would bring—too lon
g for that.

  “Are you going to throw or not?” an annoyed gambler called from the table where he had been sitting. “Give us the dice back if you aren’t.” Marcus flushed, realizing he was still holding them.

  Nevrat pressed a coin into his hand; her fingers were still cold. “Here,” she said. “Bet this.”

  He looked at the goldpiece. It was good money, not pale with silver or darkened by copper’s blush—likely from a Vaspurakaner mint, he thought. But the inscription on the reverse was in Videssian letters: “By this right.” Above the words stood a soldier brandishing a sword. Scaurus had not seen a coin like it before. He turned it over, curious to learn what lord had issued it.

  The diemaker was skillful. The face on the obverse was no stylized portrait, but the picture of a living, breathing man. He was shaggy of hair and beard, with a proud nose, and a mouth bracketed by forceful lines. The tribune almost felt he knew him.

  Scaurus stiffened. He did know this man, had seen his mouth wide with laughter and straight as a sword blade in wrath. The Roman looked up at the ceiling and whistled, soft and low.

  He noticed the inscription under the portrait bust for the first time. “Avtokrator,” it said, and then a name, but he needed no inscription to name Thorisin Gavras for him.

  When the tribune got back to camp with his news, Helvis took it like any mercenary’s woman. “This has to mean another round of civil war,” she said. He nodded. She went on, “Both sides will be wild for troops—you can sell our swords at a good price.”

  “Civil war be damned,” said Marcus, who remembered Rome’s latest one from his childhood. “The only fight that counts is the one against Avshar and Yezd. Any others are distractions; the worse they get, the weaker the Empire becomes for the real test. With Thorisin as Emperor, Videssos may even have a prayer of winning; with Ortaias, I wouldn’t give us six months.”

  “Us?” Helvis looked at him strangely. “Are you a Videssian? Do you think either Emperor would call you one? They hire swords—you have them. That’s all you can hope to be to them: a tool, to be used and put aside when no longer needed. If Ortaias pays you more, you’re a fool not to take his money.”

  The tribune had the uneasy feeling there was a good deal of truth in what she said. He thought of his men and goals as different from those of other troops Videssos hired, but did its overlords? Probably not. But the idea of serving a poltroon like young Sphrantzes was too much to stomach.

  “If Ortaias melted down the golden globe atop the High Temple in Videssos and gave it all to me, I would not fight for him,” he declared. “For that matter, I don’t think my men would take his side either. They know him for the coward he is.”

  “Aye, courage speaks,” Helvis admitted, but she added, “So does gold. And do you think Ortaias runs affairs in the city today? My guess is he has to ask his uncle’s leave before he goes to the privy.”

  “That’s worse, somehow,” Scaurus muttered. Ortaias Sphrantzes was a fool and a craven; his uncle Vardanes, Marcus was sure, was neither. But try as he might to hide it, the elder Sphrantzes had a coldly ruthless streak his nephew lacked. The Roman would have trusted him further if he did not make such an effort to hide his true nature with an affable front. It was like perfume on a corpse, and made Marcus’ hackles rise.

  He made a clumsy botch of explaining, and knew it. But the feeling was still in his belly, and he did not think any weight of gold could make it leave.

  He also knew he was far from convincing Helvis. The only principle the Namdaleni who fought for Videssos knew was expedience; the higher the pay and fewer the risks, the better.

  She walked over to the small altar she’d lately installed on the cabin’s eastern wall, lit a pinch of incense. “However you decide,” she said, “Phos deserves to be thanked.” The sweet fumes quickly filled the small stuffy space.

  When the tribune remained silent, she swung round to face him, really angry now. “You should be doing this, not me. Phos alone knows why he gives you such chances, when you repay him nothing. Here,” she said, holding out the little alabaster jar of incense to him.

  That peremptory, outthrust hand drove away the mild answer that might have kept peace between them. The tribune growled, “Probably because he’s asleep, or more likely not there at all.” Her horrified stare made him wish he’d held his tongue, but he had said too much to back away.

  “If your precious Phos lets his people be smashed to bloody bits by a pack of devil-loving savages, what good is he? If you must have a god, pick one who earns his keep.”

  A skilled theologian could have come up with a number of answers to his blunt gibe: that Phos’ evil counterpart Skotos was the power behind the success of the Yezda, or that from a Namdalener point of view the Videssians were misbelievers and therefore not entitled to their god’s protection. But Helvis was challenged on a far more fundamental level. “Sacrilege!” she whispered, and slapped him in the face. An instant later she burst into tears.

  Malric woke up and started to cry himself. “Go back to sleep,” Scaurus snapped, but the tone that would have chilled a legionary’s heart only frightened the three-year-old. He cried louder. Looking daggers at the tribune, Helvis stooped to comfort her son.

  Marcus paced up and down, too upset to hold still. But his anger slowly cooled as Malric’s wails shrank to whimpers and then to the raspy breathing of sleep. Helvis looked up at him, her eyes wary. “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said tonelessly.

  He rubbed his cheek. “Forget it. I was out of turn myself.” They looked at each other like strangers; in too many ways they were, despite the child Helvis carried. What was I thinking, Scaurus asked himself, when I wanted her to share my life?

  From the half-wondering, half-measuring way she studied him, he knew the same thought was in her mind.

  He helped her to her feet; the warm contact of the flesh of her hand against his reminded him of one reason, at least, why the two of them were together. Though her pregnancy was nearly halfway through, it had yet to make much of a mark on her large-boned frame. There was a beginning bulge high on her belly, and her breasts were growing heavier, but someone who did not know her might have failed to notice her bigness.

  But when Marcus tried to embrace her, she twisted free of his arms. “What good will that do?” she asked, her back to him. “It doesn’t settle things, it doesn’t change things, it just puts them off. And when we’re angry, it’s no good anyway.”

  The tribune bit down an angry retort. More times than one, troubles had dissolved in love’s lazy aftermath. But her desire had grown fitful since pregnancy began; understanding that such things happened, Scaurus accepted it as best he could.

  Tonight, though, he wanted her, and hoped it would help heal the rift between them. He moved forward, put the palms of his hands on her shoulders.

  She wheeled, but not in desire. “You don’t care about me or what I feel at all,” she blazed. “All you can think of is your own pleasure.”

  “Ha!” It was anything but a laugh. “Were that so, I’d have looked elsewhere long before this.”

  Having swallowed his anger once, Marcus hit too hard when he finally loosed it. Helvis began to cry again, not with the noisy sobs she had used before but quietly, hopelessly, making no effort to wipe the tears from her face. They were running down her cheeks when she blew out the lamp and, as the wick’s orange glow died, slid beneath the covers of the sleeping mat.

  Scaurus stood in darkness some endless while, listening to the careful sobs that let out grief without disturbing the sleeping boy. At last he bent down to stroke her through the thick wool, not in want but to give what belated comfort he might.

  She flinched away, as if from a blow. Careful not to touch her further, the tribune got under the blankets himself. The scent of incense was still in his nostrils, sweet as death.

  He stared up at the low ceiling, though there was nothing to see in the darkness. Eventually he slept.

  When he woke, the Roman felt w
rung out and used up as after a day in battle. Helvis’ face was puffed and blotchy from crying. They spoke to each other, moved around each other, with cautious courtesy, neither wanting to reopen last night’s wound. But Scaurus knew it would be a long time healing, if it ever did.

  He was glad of the excuse of seeing to his men to leave quickly, and Helvis seemed relieved to see him go. The soldiers, of course, were oblivious to their commander’s private woes. They buzzed with excitement over the goldpiece he had come across. The tribune managed a wry smile at that; he had almost forgotten the coin and its meaning.

  He soon found he had accurately gauged their mood. To a man, they felt contempt for Ortaias Sphrantzes. “The mimes had the right of it,” Minucius said. “With Thorisin Gavras alive, there’ll hardly be a fight. The other’ll run till he falls off the edge of the world.”

  “Aye, the Gavras is much better suited for kinging it,” Viridovix agreed. “A fine talker he is, a rare good-looking wight to boot, and the stomach of him can hold a powerful lot of wine.”

  Gorgidas gave the Celt an exasperated look. “What does any of that have to do with kingship?” he demanded. “By your reckoning, Thorisin Gavras would make an excellent sophist, a pretty girl—” Marcus blinked at his choice of that figure, but had to admit its aptness. “—or a splendid sponge. But a king? Scarcely. What the state needs from a king is justice.”

  “Well be damned to you, you and your sponges,” the Gaul said. “Forbye, be your would-be king never so just, if he talk like a sausage seller and look like a mouse turd, not a soul will pay him any mind at all. If you’re a leader, ye maun fit the part.” He preened ever so slightly, reminding his listeners he had been a noble with a large following himself.

  “There’s something to that,” Gaius Philippus said. Reluctant as he was to go along with Viridovix on anything, he had led enough men to know how much of the art of leadership was style.

  Gorgidas dipped his head in reluctant agreement. “I know there is. But it’s too easy to look the part without having what’s really needed to play it. Take Alkibiades, for instance.” The name flew past centurion and Celt alike. Gorgidas sighed and tried another tack, asking Viridovix, “What good does it do a king to be able to outdrink his subjects?”