Ignoring their byplay, Gorgidas asked Scaurus, “What does the priest want with us?”
“To tell us we’re all damned, I suppose. I’m glad you’re here tonight; you’re good at theological arguments.”
“My favorite amusement,” Gorgidas said, rolling his eyes in despair. “Oh, well, we’d best get this over with, I suppose—our host is growing impatient.” That was true enough; like a caged hunting-beast, the nakharar was pacing up and down the courtyard, now and again smacking fist into palm.
When he saw the Romans finally ready, Bagratouni led them out through his fragrant gardens to the front gates of his estate. On their way to the gates, they were joined by the retainer who had brought Bagratouni word of Zemarkhos’ arrival. Heavy leather gauntlets sheathed the man’s arms, which were full of what looked like canvas sheeting. His face bore an expression of anticipation.
The gates were closed, as against any enemy. At the nakharar’s impatient gesture, his men unbarred them and swung them wide. And, as if entering a conquered city in triumph, Zemarkhos strode onto the Vaspurakaner’s land, his hound at his side.
He caught sight of Gagik Bagratouni before noticing the Romans behind him. “So,” he said, “you dare not let these ignorant foreigners learn the truth, but seek only to enmesh them in your evil schemes?”
Bagratouni almost visibly swelled with wrath. Fists clenched, he stepped toward the priest. Zemarkhos’ dog growled in warning; the hair stood up along its back. Zemarkhos took a tighter grip on the leash. “Stay, Vaspur!” he ordered, but that command was hardly one to make him better loved by the man he confronted.
Trying to avert the explosion, Marcus hastily brought his companions up past the nakharar so Zemarkhos could see them. “We are here, as you asked,” he told the priest, “and at our kind host’s urging as well. What do you have to say that would be of such importance for men you never met?”
“From your strange gear and now from your speech, I see you are a foreigner and know no better than to enter into this house of iniquity. My duty to your soul and those of your men has brought me to rescue you from the clutches of the infamous heretic who lured you here.”
The tribune reluctantly admired Zemarkhos’ misplaced courage. No faintheart would speak so boldly at his foe’s very threshold. But, as with too many clerics Scaurus had met in Videssos, the priest’s dogmas blinded him to the worth of any man who did not share them.
He answered as politely as he could. “As we did not discuss religious matters, the subject of heresy never came up.”
“Oh, he is a sly one, cunning as the fox, hungry as the jackal. The ice will take him even so.” Bagratouni’s men muttered angrily as they listened to Zemarkhos revile their overlord, but the nakharar stood still and silent, as if carved from stone. His face was thunderous, but he did not answer the priest.
Gorgidas spoke up. His passionate interest in everything he came across had led him to examine Videssos’ sacred writings as soon as he could read them, even if he could not accept their precepts. Now, with his facility for an apt quotation, he asked Zemarkhos, “Is it not written in the forty-eighth chapter: ‘Let fury be suppressed! Put down violence, you who would assure yourselves, through righteousness.’?”
But quoting holy scriptures to the priest was letting him fight on ground of his own choosing. His reply was quick and sure. “Aye, and it is also written in the thirty-third chapter, ‘Whoever works evil on the wicked pleases Phos and fulfills his will.’ The Emperor may think he is doing a great thing in sallying forth against the heathen of Yezd. He could do better inside Videssos itself, by purifying it of the poisonous misbelievers within our borders!”
Bagratouni shoved past the Romans. “Priest, hatred you spew like a drunk his dinner. All this on my land you have done. Give I my men leave, and they treat you as you deserve.”
Zemarkhos touched his dog’s lead. In an instant the beast was leaping at Bagratouni, only to be brought up short by the leash. It snapped viciously, a growl rumbling in its throat. The priest laughed. “Send your dogs against mine—they’ll have their tails between their legs soon enough.”
“Why did you name that beast Vaspur? Tell me this,” Bagratouni asked, tone deceptively mild.
“Why?” the priest jeered. “What better name for a dog?”
With that last insult, all Gagik Bagratouni’s patience blew away. His voice was lion’s roar indeed as he bellowed a command in his birth-tongue at the warrior who carried the roll of canvas. Deft as a net-wielding gladiator, the man jumped forward to pop his huge bag of heavy cloth over Zemarkhos’ head. Screeching curses, the priest fell thrashing to the ground.
The hound Vaspur sprang snarling to protect its master. But Bagratouni’s retainer was ready for the dog. Though tumbled about by its charge, he lodged one gauntleted arm between its gaping jaws while hugging the beast to his armored chest with the other. The snarl turned to a half-throttled whine.
The Vaspurakaner stooped to lift up the open end of the sack, which was now, of course, around Zemarkhos’ flailing feet. Dodging a fusillade of kicks, he pushed the dog into the bag with its owner, then dropped the flap once more.
Zemarkhos’ shrieks took on a sudden, desperate urgency as Vaspur, crazed with fear, began snapping wildly at everything near it—which, at the moment, consisted almost entirely of the priest. Great satisfaction on his face, Bagratouni came up to deliver a couple of sharp kicks to the bag. The dog yelped, the priest cried out even louder than before, and the gyrations within the flopping canvas were astonishing to behold.
Vaspurakaners came up to enjoy the spectacle of their enemy thus entrapped and to add a kick or two of their own. “What was it you said, priest?” Bagratouni shouted. “ ‘Whoever works evil on the wicked pleases Phos’? Phos tonight is mightily pleased.”
From the noises inside the sack, it sounded as if Zemarkhos was being torn to pieces. Scaurus had no love for the fanatic priest, but did not think he deserved so bitter a death. “Let him go,” he urged Bagratouni. “Alive, he could not hate you and yours more than he already does, but slain he would be a martyr and a symbol for vengeance for years to come.”
The nakharar looked uncomprehendingly at the Roman, almost like a man interrupted in the act of love. His eyes filled with reluctant understanding. “In that young head an old mind you have,” he said slowly. “Very well. It shall be as you ask.”
His men moved with the same unwillingness their overlord displayed, but move they did, cutting the bag apart so its occupants could free themselves. The moment the hole they made was wide enough to let out the dog Vaspur, it darted through. The Vaspurakaners jumped back in alarm, but there was no fight left in the terrified beast. It streaked away into the night, its chain clattering behind it.
When Zemarkhos at last got loose from the swaddling canvas, he was a sight to glut even an appetite starved for revenge. There were deep bites on his arms and legs, and half of one ear was chewed away. Only luck had saved his face and belly from his animal’s fangs.
Gorgidas leaped to his side at the sight of those wounds, saying, “Fetch me strips of cloth and a full winejug. We may be satisfied the dog was not mad, but the bites must be cleaned, lest they fester.” When no Vaspurakaner stirred, the physician speared one with his eyes and snapped, “You! Move!” The man hurried back toward Bagratouni’s house.
But Zemarkhos, lurching to his feet, would not let Gorgidas treat his injuries. “No heathen will lay hands on me,” he said, and limped out through the gate of Bagratouni’s estate. His priestly robe, torn by his dog’s teeth, hung in flapping tatters around him. The nakharar’s men hooted in delight as the darkness swallowed up their chastised foe.
Viridovix came loping up to the gate with the Vaspurakaner Gorgidas had sent back for bandages. “What’s all the rumpus in aid of? This omadhaun is after understanding my Videssian, but not a word of his can I make out.”
When the Gaul learned of the stir he’d missed, he kicked at the ground in frustration.
If he enjoyed anything more than his venery, it was combat. “Isn’t that just the way of it? Another good shindy wasted because I was off friking in the bushes! It scarce seems fair.”
“It’s your own fault, you know. You could have been here with us if you hadn’t gone skirt-chasing,” Gaius Philippus said unkindly.
And Gorgidas demanded, “Is that all this would have been to you? Entertainment? Only a cruel man could take pleasure in watching the outcome of others’ hatreds.”
“Oh, get on with you,” the Celt retorted. “You’re only angry the now because that rascally priest ran off without letting you do the patching of him.” There was just enough truth in that slander to reduce Gorgidas to sputtering fury.
Quintus Glabrio said quietly, “You needn’t feel you lost out on a chance to take a risk, Viridovix. Or can you truly tell me you think loving any less dangerous than fighting?”
The Celt stared blankly, but Gorgidas’ eyes narrowed in thought, as if he were seeing the young centurion for the first time. And when Gagik Bagratouni had the exchange translated—for most of it had been in Latin—he put his arm round Glabrio’s shoulder, saying, “Clever I knew you were. Many men are clever, but now I see as well you are wise. This is a rarer and more precious thing. Scaurus, of this one you must take good care.”
“Up to now he’s been pretty well able to take care of himself, which is as it should be,” Marcus answered. Thinking back, he realized just how true that was. Glabrio was so silently competent that days would sometimes go by with the tribune hardly noticing him, but the maniple he led was always perfectly drilled and, now that Scaurus was putting his mind to it, it seemed his men had fewer disciplinary problems than the other Romans. A good man to have around, Marcus thought, a very good man indeed.
XII
IN A WAY, THE TRIBUNE WAS DISAPPOINTED WHEN NEITHER HELVIS nor Amorion flared up as he had expected. His lady was so caught up by his account of Gagik Bagratouni’s revenge on Zemarkhos that she forgot to be angry at not having been there. That the priest was of the orthodox Videssian faith only made his fall sweeter to her.
“More of them should be treated thus,” she declared. “It would take their conceit down a peg.”
“Is it not as wrong for you to rejoice in their downfall as it is for them to oppress your fellow believers?” Marcus asked, but her only reply was a look as blank as the one Viridovix had given Quintus Glabrio. He gave up—she was too convinced of her beliefs’ truth to make argument worthwhile.
Amorion would have risen against its Vaspurakaners with the slightest word of encouragement from the Emperor, but that was not forthcoming. When Zemarkhos appeared at Mavrikios Gavras’ tent to lay charges against Bagratouni, Gavras already had the accounts of the nakharar and the Romans. He sent the cleric away unhappy, saying, “Priest or no, you were unwelcome on the man’s land and incited him by gross insult. He is not blameworthy for taking action against you, nor should he and his be liable to any private venture of vengeance.”
More direct, his brother Thorisin added, “As far as I can see, you got what you deserved for meddling where you didn’t belong.” That was the feeling of most of the army, which appreciated the rough wit of Gagik’s device. A chorus of barks and howls accompanied Zemarkhos as he limped out of the camp. His every glance was filled with hate, but the Emperor’s threat restrained him while the army resupplied at Amorion.
Scaurus had the distinct feeling Mavrikios begrudged every minute he spent in the plateau town. The conflict between Zemarkhos and Gagik Bagratouni, serious under most circumstances, was now but an unwelcome distraction to him. He had been like a horse with the bit between its teeth since the first skirmish with the Yezda and seemed on fire to join the great battle he had planned.
Yet it was as well that his host paused to refit before pushing northwest toward Soli. The journey, shorter than either of the first two stages, was worse than both of them rolled together. Whatever caches of food the local Videssian authorities managed to store up for the army had fallen instead to the invaders. The Yezda did their best to turn the land to desert, torching fields and destroying the canals that shared out what little water there was.
The nomads Yezd was funneling into the Empire were perfectly at home in such a desert. Trained to the harsh school of the steppe, they lived with ease where the Videssian army would have starved without the supplies it carried. More and more of them shadowed the imperial forces. When they thought the odds were in their favor they would nip in to raid, then vanish once more like smoke in a breeze.
Their forays grew bolder as time passed. About midway between Amorion and Soli, one band of about fifty broke through the army’s screen of Khamorth outriders and dashed across the front of the marching column, spraying arrows into it as they rode.
Marcus saw the cloud of dust come rolling out of the west, but did not think much of it. Maybe, he thought, the scouts had spotted a good-sized Yezda party and were sending messengers back for aid.
Gaius Philippus disagreed. “There’s too many there for that.” His face went suddenly grim. “I don’t think those are our men at all.”
“What? Don’t be absurd. They’d have to have—” Whatever argument the tribune was about to make died unspoken when one of the legionaries cried in pain and alarm as an arrow pierced his arm. The range was ungodly long, but quickly closed as the nomads, riding their light horses for all they were worth, zipped past the column’s head, emptying their quivers as fast as they could. At their heels was a troop of Khamorth in imperial service.
“All maniples halt!” Gaius Philippus’ battlefield roar rang out. “Shields up!” The Romans unslung their scuta and raised them to cover their faces.
There was nothing else they could do; the Yezda were racing by, far out of pilum-range. Adiatun and his slingers let fly with a few hasty bullets, but they fell short. What the Khamorth had thought all along, then, was true—the nomads’ bows easily outranged any weapons the Romans had. Scaurus filed the fact for future worry.
The raiders broke up into groups of four and five and scattered in all directions. They had done nothing that could be called damage, but had managed to throw an army a thousand times their number into confusion.
Videssos’ mercenary cavalry were still after the Yezda. More and more raced up to join the chase. Marcus was hard-pressed to tell friend from foe. In the swirling dust ahead, the nomads who fought under Yezd’s banner looked little different from the Empire’s hirelings. Perhaps the Khamorth themselves had the same problem, for not a handful of Yezda were brought down before the rest made good their escape.
The officers’ meeting the Emperor called that night was not happy. The raiders’ bravado stung Mavrikios, who was further infuriated by its going all but unpunished. “Phos’ suns!” the Emperor burst out. “Half a day’s march wasted on account of a few scraggly, unwashed barbarians! You, sirrah!” he barked at Ortaias Sphrantzes.
“Your Majesty?”
“What was that twaddle you were spouting? Something about the only people to catch nomads are other nomads?” The Emperor waited ominously, but Sphrantzes, with better sense than Scaurus had thought he owned—or was it simply terror?—kept silent.
Prudent though it was, his silence did not save him. “Those were your bloody nomads the Yezda rode through, boy. If they do it again, you can forget your precious left wing—you’ll be back at the rear, in charge of horsedung pickup.” When angry, Mavrikios was plainly Thorisin’s brother. The Sevastokrator himself was saying no more than Ortaias Sphrantzes, but from his grin he was enjoying every bit of Mavrikios’ tirade.
When the Emperor was through, Ortaias rose, bowed jerkily, and, muttering, “I’ll certainly try to do better,” made an undignified exit from the imperial tent.
His departure only partly pacified Mavrikios. He rounded on Sphrantzes’ nominal subordinate Nephon Khoumnos: “You’ll be right there with him, you know. I put the two of you together so your way of doing things would rub off on him, not th
e other way around.”
“Anything can go wrong once,” Khoumnos said stolidly. As was his style, he shouldered the blame without complaint. “They burst out of a wash and caught us napping. If it happens again, I deserve to be shoveling horseballs, by Phos.”
“We’ll leave it at that, then,” the Emperor nodded, somewhat mollified.
Khoumnos was as good as his word, too; his cavalry pickets foiled ambush after ambush the rest of the way to Soli. The march slowed nonetheless. Skirmishes with the invaders were constant now, skirmishes that in a lesser campaign would have been reckoned full-scale battles. Time after time the army had to push the Yezda aside before it could press on.
The country through which it passed grew ever more barren, devastated. Save for the Videssian host and its foes, the land was nearly uninhabited, its farmers and hersdmen either dead or fled. The only substantial remaining population was in walled towns. There were not many of these after the long years of peace, nor were all of them unscathed. Where field and farm could not be worked, towns withered on the vine.
The army passed more than one empty shell of what had been a city but now housed only carrion birds—or, worse, Yezda who based themselves in abandoned buildings and fought like cornered rats when attacked.
Here as elsewhere, the invaders reserved their worst savagery for Phos’ temples. Their other barbarities paled next to the fiendish ingenuity they devoted to such desecrations. Not all altars were so lucky as to be hacked to kindling; the bloody rites and sacrifices celebrated on others made mere desecration seem nothing more than a childish prank. As seasoned a veteran as Nephon Khoumnos puked up his supper after emerging from one ravaged shrine. Where before the Emperor had encouraged his troops to view their enemies’ handiwork, now he began ordering the polluted fanes sealed so as not to dishearten them further.
“Such foulness points to Avshar, sure as a lodestone draws nails,” Gorgidas said. “We must be getting near him.”
Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 Page 31
