by Paul Kearney
“Buridan will give you your scarlet. Once you join the Dogsheads you may wear no other colour, and you will be ostrakr, cityless. We swear no oaths, and draw no blood, but if you lay down the colour without my permission, your lives are forfeit. We flog for stealing from comrades. For cowardice, we execute on the field. All other crimes are between you and the gods. Any questions?”
“Yes,” Gasca said. “When do we eat?”
They drilled first, or at least Gasca did, whilst Rictus watched from the eaves of the encampment. All the centons had taken on fresh recruits that morning, and these unfortunates were marked out by the vivid colour of their new red chitons. They drilled in full armour, bearing spear and shield, and before an hour had gone by the new men had red dye running down in the sweat of their thighs. While they stamped and strode their comrades in the long files shouted abuse at them, called them women, and offered them rags to staunch their monthly flow.
Centon by centon, the gathered companies came together on the wide, blasted plain to the north of the Mithannon. There, between the Marshalling Yards and the Mithos River, the numbers of the assembled mercenaries finally became clear. Twenty companies, all under strength but still within nine-tenths of their full complement. Jason was out there with the Curse of God on his back, barking orders and clubbing with the bowl of his shield those slow to obey. Perhaps a third of the centurions wore the black armour, and as many as fifty of the rank and file. Possession of Antimone’s Gift was not a prerequisite of command. It was worn by fools as well as heroes.
The companies and files came together one by one, evolving from discrete bodies into one long, unbroken snake of bronze and scarlet. All their shields, except for those of a few newcomers, were without device; when their employer made himself known they would paint his sigil on the shield’s metal facings. The phalanx that evolved from their marching and counter-marching was eight men deep and two hundred and fifty paces long. In battle the line would shorten, as each man sought the protection of his neighbour’s shield. As the formation was called to a halt the file leaders and closers, hardened veterans all, were haranguing some of the new recruits in low hisses. Nevertheless, as drill went, it was a good show, better than any city levy could provide. It was, Rictus had reluctantly to admit, almost as good as the Iscan phalanx had been. His heart burned and thumped in his chest. More than anything else in this life, he wanted to be out there in those profane, murderous ranks, to be part of that machine. His mind could imagine no other destiny, not here, not now.
“The Bull is drunk yet,” one of the other skirmishers said beside him. There was a long cloud of them, hard faced youngsters with slings in their belts and the scars of old beatings on their bare arms. Many had peltas strapped to their backs, the leather and wood shields of the high mountains. These fellows were the light troops of the company, as well as servants to the spearmen.
“Drunk or sober, he’ll keep them in the line, the cocksucker,” said another, old, old eyes in a small face not too high off the ground.
“Who’s the new fish?” a third asked, and the attention of a stunted crowd left the assembled spearmen to settle on Rictus. He was the tallest there, though by no means the oldest. Now that they had all turned to face him he saw that amid the boys there were small, hard-bitten men with grey in their beards, but they, too, had a wary, hungry look, like that of a mistreated dog. Too small for the phalanx, he supposed, but still dangerous. There were as many of these ragged soldier-servants milling about the encampment as there were men in armour on the drill field.
“He’s too pretty to fight,” one of them said with a leering grin.
“Let’s us find out where his talents lie then.”
They edged towards him, some half-dozen of them, old and young. The rest of the throng looked on without much interest. In addition to their own wargear, most were bearing wineskins for when the spearmen came off the drill field, leather covers for their masters’ shields, linen towels for the sweat.
“Back in line!” a voice snapped. “Face your front and shut your mouths. He’s wearing scarlet now, one of us. Save it for the stews.”
The knot broke up magically and dissolved into the waiting line of skirmishers as though it had never been. Pasion stepped forward, black cuirass gleaming. He was unarmed, picking the seeds out of a pomegranate with reddened fingers. He raised one eyebrow, gaze fixed on the line of spearmen.
“Welcome to our merry band, Iscan.”
Around noon the centurions gathered together as the weary centons trooped off the field. A clot of black and red, they collected about Pasion like a scab. Rictus had been looking for Gasca in the crowd, but lingered nearby, listening. It was cold, and from that great throng of sweating men the steam of their exertions rose thick as a morning fog. The rank cloud enveloped Rictus, and for a moment he was back on the drill fields of Isca with the rest of his lochos, his father’s spear in his fist. The sensation, the memory staggered him, and for a moment he was blinded by it, and stood blinking, grimacing. Armed men walked past him, and he was jostled by armoured torsos, shoved out of the way and cursed for a half-witted strawhead, but he stood on oblivious. In the time it takes a famished man to eat an apple, his short life flickered past him. Boyhood in the hills about the farm. Beating the olives off the trees with long sticks. Gathering in the grape harvest, the round black fruit as big as walnuts, a broken ecstasy in the mouth on hot, dust-filled days. That scent of thyme on the slopes, and the wild garlic down by the river. And the river itself—plunging into its clean bite at the end of the grimy day with his father wiping wine from his mouth on the bank, talking of oil-pressing with old Vasio. The way Zori fed the fire in the evenings, twig by twig, the barley-cakes hardening on the griddle above it and the smell filling the house.
Rictus closed his eyes for a second and gave thanks to Antimone for the memories, the sight and smell of them. He put them away in a new corner of his mind that he had found, and when his eyes opened again they were dry and cold as those of a man just back from war.
They were fed late in the afternoon. Hidden away in the ramshackle lines of the camp were four great stone-built kitchens attended to by gangs of surly men and boys whose sole purpose in life was the tending of the black company cauldrons, the centoi. These were cast in solid iron, and of great antiquity. Each company might march under its banner on the battlefield, but off it, the men gathered about these immense pots at every meal. Traditionally it was around the centoi that the centurions addressed their men, and votes were taken on any new contracts. The pots had given their name to the companies that used them, for traditionally a centon numbered as many soldiers as could be fed from one centos.
All this Gasca and Rictus found out within minutes of joining the food-queue, for their fellow mercenaries became more congenial with the toothsome smell of the day’s main meal eddying about them. They were handed square wooden plates and had a nameless stew ladled within, then grasped the butt of hard bread shoved into their free hand. Spearmen and skirmishers mingled indiscriminately as the meal was distributed, rank set aside. Last to be fed was the centurion himself. This was to make sure that there had been enough for every man. If the cooks ran short, it would be Jason standing there with an empty plate, and there was no excuse acceptable for that, short of an act of Cod.
But Jason was late. The evening of the short day had begun to swoop in before he appeared in their midst, and the wind had begun flapping at the dying flames under the centos. Men gathered around that ruddy wind-bitten light, and when Rictus felt a soft touch on his face he looked up to see that snow was falling, fat flakes spinning out of the dark in the grip of the wind.
Jason stood at the centos scooping cold stew out of his trencher. His second, Buridan, handed him a wineskin and he squirted the black army wine down his throat. He wiped his mouth, looking round at the assembled soldiers. There must have been seven score of them squatting about him, cloaks pulled up against the snow, buttocks stone-cold from the bare ground beneath
them. They watched him without a word, spearman and skirmisher alike. The crackling firelight played on the faces of the nearest, but outside it dozens more were standing in darkness. Up and down the Marshalling Yards other centons were gathering in like fashion, like winter moths drawn to the flame-light of the cooking fires.
“Four sennights we’ve been here, or a little more,” Jason said. He had raised his voice so that it carried to those peering in at the rear. “We have waited, and grown soft in the waiting. You’re all poor now, money squandered in the stews of Machran. You’ve drunk each cup to its lees and grown to know the face and arse of every whore in the city. That time is at an end. My brothers, at dawn tomorrow we march out, every company of us. We make for Hal Goshen, on the coast, two hundred pasangs by road. We will cover that distance in six days. At the Goshen there will be ships waiting for us—”
A low murmur ran through the centon, and died away just as quickly when Jason held up his hand. “There will be ships waiting for us, and these ships will take us to our destination.”
“And where might that be?” someone shouted out of the darkness of the rear ranks.
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” Jason said, his voice mild, but his eyes flashing.
“We should vote on this. I never volunteered for no sea voyage,” someone else said.
“We voted to take up Pasion’s contract. We took his money, and we will see it through. Unless, that is, you have the means to repay your retainer, and you wish to leave my centon.” Jason left the last words hanging in the air. No one else spoke up.
“Very well. Assembly is a turn earlier in the morning. You will all be packed and ready to march out. Burn what you cannot take with you—only wargear will be carried on the wagons. And brothers, anyone too drunk or poxed to march in the morning will be dismissed from the company, on the spot.” He paused. The snow whirled around his head, spotting his dark hair white. He looked up at the sky, blinking as snowflakes settled on his eyes.
“I don’t care it if it’s waist-deep. We march in the morning. File leaders, on me. All others dismissed.”
The tight-packed crowd of men broke apart. There was little talk. They walked back to the company lines in the guttering glare of torchlight, spearmen and skirmishers mingled. Buridan called away some two dozen of the light troops to the rear of the lines, where the wagons stood like patient beasts. They hauled out harness from the wagon-beds and filed off after him to the city itself, where all the centon’s draught animals had been quartered this last month.
Gasca was limping as he and Rictus regained the shelter of their shack. Inside, one of the other spearmen had lit an oil lamp and the wick smoked busily, catching at their throats. “How is the leg?” Rictus asked.
Gasca took off his cloak, laid it on the earth floor, and sat gingerly down upon it, breath hissing out through his teeth. “That drill today opened it up a little. I’ll be fine. I’ll strap it up.”
“Let me have a look at it.” Rictus lifted up Gasca’s chiton. The red dye had leached out of it and streaked all his lower limbs. It was hard to tell what was blood and what was not. He touched the black-stitched wound in Gasca’s thigh, feeling the heat of it. Some of Zeno’s stitches had popped free and the whole purple line of it was swollen. Rictus leaned close, sniffing.
“It smells all right. Hold still. This’ll hurt.”
He made two fists and pressed the knuckles in on either side of the wound, squeezing it. Gasca uttered one strangled yelp, and then at the amused looks of the other spearmen in the shack he clenched shut his teeth until they creaked.
The wound popped, and out spat a yellow gush of pus. Rictus kept pressing until the pus ended and clean blood began.
“Where’s your old chiton? Give it here.” He ripped off a strip and bound it about Gasca’s leg, knotting it loose enough that a man might slide two fingers underneath. His father had taught him that, the day the boar had ducked under the aichme. One had to let the blood keep flowing.
Rictus wiped his sticky hands on his chiton and sat back. “Now you can march with the best of them.”
Gasca did not meet his eyes. His gaze flicked over the other men in the hut. More and more were coming in, and the shadowed space was becoming crowded and raucous. The other soldiers had leather bags into which they were stuffing their belongings with careless enthusiasm, high-spirited and talkative, throwing memories back and forth, insults, requests to borrow kit. No one spared a glance for the two youths in the corner.
Finally Gasca levered himself to his feet, spurning Rictus’s hand but offering a smile. “This is life now, I suppose. Best to get used to it.”
He looked around himself at the squalid hut, at the crowd of profane, battle-scarred, foul-smelling men that filled it.
“This is life,” Rictus agreed, “and tomorrow we march out to see a little more of it.”
SIX
KUFR
The port of Sinon was a relic. For those who had a smattering of education, an inkling of history, it was proof positive that in some legends there were kernels of truth. The city was as ancient as any Macht polity in the fastnesses of the Harukush, but it lay across the sea from the Macht lands. It had been founded on the coast of that vast, endless continent whereon lived the teeming masses and untold races of the Kufr. Men called those places The Far Side Of The Sea, but while to the south the Sinonian Sea opened out into the vast Tanean, here the straits that separated the Harukush landmass from that of the Great Continent were only thirty pasangs wide. Once, the Macht had crossed these straits eastwards, in fleets of oared galleys, and had taken warfare and conquest to the lands of the Kufr on the eastern shore. Gansakr and Askanon had fallen to them, broad, hilly lands with fertile pastures and rich orchards that made a mockery of their own stony soil. It was said the Macht hosts had pressed even as far as the Korash Mountains, more than seven hundred pasangs to the south and east. There, they had been confronted by armies so vast that there was no hope of victory against them. They had been beaten back, and had retreated to the coast of the Sinonian once more, like a tide tugged by the two moons of Kuf. The city of Sinon had been a fortress then, built to retain a fingerhold on the coast of the Great Continent. Exhausted by years of bloody slaughter, Macht and Kufr had signed a treaty. The Macht had sworn never again to cross the Straits in panoply of war, and the Kufr had conceded the port-fortress of Sinon to them, as a gateway through which embassies and merchants and commerce might come and go. The Kufr warleader who had signed that treaty had been named Asur. He had founded a line of kings, had built an empire. His descendants now ruled the world, and called themselves Great King, King of Kings. And the Asurian Empire had endured over the centuries, until it had become part of the fabric of Kuf itself, its greatness ordained by God, and destined to endure forever. So said the Kufr legends.
One hundred and seventeen ships, Phiron thought. And that’s cutting it fine. Perhaps too fine. Perhaps I should have insisted on more. He has the whole of the Tanis treasury to draw on now, if Artaka has truly declared for him. He could fit half the Macht in his pocket if he chose.
Phiron turned away from his perusal of the harbour, in which were moored his one hundred and seventeen ships. Like a forest, their masts were so thick together that from the quays they withheld the sunrise. There was no room for them all along the wharves, so dozens had moored out in the shelter of the harbour moles, made fast to bladder-buoyed ropes at bow and stern. These were the lighter ones, the troop-carriers. Made fast to the stone of the docks were the heavy, wide-bellied transports, with hatches in their sides so that animals might be walked aboard, two by two.
These ships represented the seagoing craft of several nations. Such a fleet had never been gathered all in one port before. Even the entire war-navy of the Great King mustered at most some two hundred vessels, and they were scattered in deep-water bases up and down the Tanean, the greatest of these the naval yards at Ochos and Antikauros.
It must happen now, Phiron thought, paci
ng the marble chamber. Things have gone too far for him to turn back; it is open treason. Either he takes the throne, or dies trying.
And we alongside him.
The room was warm with the heat of lamps and a wide-mouthed brazier stacked with charcoal. Phiron had been pacing up and down within it for the turn of a water-clock, the hobnails on his sandals doing little good to the mosaic of the floor. Periodically he broke off his wandering to stare off the balcony again, resting his big-knuckled fists on the balustrade. They built with pale, honey-coloured stone here. It made Sinon look warm in the flitting scraps of winter sunshine that came and went. Sandstone, he supposed, the colour of the beach at Hal Goshen in summer. Phiron had not seen a Macht city built out of the dark Harukush granite for going on five years. His home had been Sinon and the Sea. He had learned the high Kefren speech which was spoken at the Great King’s court, and in the stews of the docklands he cursed and bragged in common Asurian, the tongue that carried a man across the civilized world. His friends were sea-captains and merchants and brothel-keepers and lost soldiers like himself. He had been a man of note once, a centurion to whom his peers deferred. Once, he had led ten centons through the hinterland of Machran, and they had been employed by no one. He had meant to take a city for himself, no less, and become one of the great folk of his world. That had ended in defeat and exile.
And so here he was; a conduit between two worlds. For once in his life, he mused, he truly had been in the right place at the right time. And now the months of intrigue and furtive meetings and go-betweens were over.
The tall double doors of the room swung open on hinges of oiled brass. Two household slaves stood there in sable and yellow robes, heads bowed so that their top-knots fell forward. They were Juthan, as were so many of the personal slaves of the Kefren. Grey-skinned, with yellow eyes and blue-black hair, each was broader than the brawniest of Macht warriors, but shorter by the span of three hands. Phiron knew the stories of the Juthan rebellions. Meek though these pair might look, their people were among the most stubborn fighters of the Kufr, and had risen up against the Empire again and again. After their last, abortive uprising, half their population had been exiled to the far east of the world, to Yue and Irgun, where they toiled in the mines of the Adranos Mountains. That was a generation ago. He wondered if the Juthan had the heart to play at this latest adventure.
