Videssos Cycle, Volume 1

by Harry Turtledove

  After her long journey west from Khliat, Marcus could not argue that. “Go, then,” he said, giving up. “Make the best time you can.”

  “That we will,” Senpat promised. “Of course, we may do a little hunting along the way.” Hunting Yezda, Marcus knew he meant. He wanted to forbid it, but knew better than to give an order he could not enforce. The Vaspurakaners owed Yezd even more than Videssos did.

  The tribune had his own troubles settling into semi-permanent quarters. Campaign and crisis had let him pay Helvis and Malric only as much attention as he wanted, something suddenly no longer true.

  And, under settled conditions, Helvis did not always prove easy to live with. Marcus, a lifelong bachelor before this attachment, was used to keeping his thoughts to himself until the time came to act on them. Helvis’ past, on the other hand, made her expect confidences from him, and she was hurt whenever he did something that affected them both without consulting her first. He realized her complaints held justice and did his best to reform, but his habits were no easier to break than hers.

  The irritations did not run in one direction alone. As her pregnancy progressed, Helvis grew even more prayerful. Every day, it seemed, a new icon of Phos or some saint appeared on the walls of the cabin she and Scaurus shared. By itself, that would have been only a minor nuisance to the tribune. Not religious himself, he was willing to tolerate—that is, to ignore as much as possible—others’ practices.

  In this theology-mad land, that was not enough. Like the rest of the Namdaleni, Helvis added a phrase to the creed Videssos followed; for the sake of half a dozen words, the two lands’ folk reckoned each other heretics. As the lone supporter of her version of the true faith for many miles, she naturally sought Marcus’ support. But to give it took more hypocrisy than was in him.

  “I have no quarrel with what you believe,” he said, “but I would be lying if I said I shared it. Does Phos need worshippers so badly he would not resent a false one?”

  She had to answer, “No.” There the matter rested. Scaurus hoped it was settled, not merely dormant.

  If he and Helvis had difficulties, they managed to keep them below the level of conflagration. Others were not so lucky. One grayish-yellow morning when the fall rain had turned to sleet but not yet to snow, the tribune was rudely awakened by the crash of a pot against a wall, followed at once by a shrill volley of curses.

  He pulled the thick wool blankets over his ears to muffle the fighting, but when a second pot followed the first to smithereens, he knew it was in vain. He rolled over onto one side and saw without surprise that Helvis was awake, too.

  “They’re at it again,” he said unnecessarily, and added, “This is the first time I’ve ever resented having my officers’ quarters close to mine.”

  “Shh,” Helvis said. “I want to listen.”

  Asking him for quiet was hardly needful either; when provoked, Damaris’ voice had a carry to it that any professional herald would have envied. “ ‘Turn on your stomach’!” she was shouting. “ ‘Turn on your stomach’! I’ve rolled over for the last time for you, I can tell you that! Find yourself a boy, or a cow, or whatever suits your fancy, but you’ll not use me that way again!”

  The door to Quintus Glabrio’s cabin slammed with tooth-rattling fury. Scaurus heard Damaris splash away, still screaming imprecations. “Even when I got you to put me on my back, you were no damned good!” she cried from some distance. Then, mercifully, the wind’s voice at last covered hers.

  “Oh, dear,” the tribune said, his ears feeling red-hot.

  Unexpectedly, Helvis broke into giggles. “What’s funny?” Marcus demanded, wondering how Glabrio was going to be able to hold his head up in front of his men again.

  The harshness in his voice reached her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just one of those silly things you think of. You don’t understand women’s gossip, Marcus; we’ve done nothing but wonder why Damaris never got pregnant. Now I guess we know.”

  That had never occurred to Scaurus. He felt a chuckle of his own rising unbidden, sternly suppressed it. But even as he did, he wondered again how many Romans were sniggering at the junior centurion.

  At breakfast Glabrio moved in the center of a circle of silence. No one was quite able to pretend he had not heard Damaris, but no one had the nerve to mention her to him.

  He drilled his maniple with grim intensity. Usually he was patient with the Videssians struggling to learn Roman ways of fighting, but not today. And he pushed himself even harder than his legionaries, not wanting to give them any opening to mock him.

  But every group of men has its wit, a fellow who takes pleasure in amusing many at the expense of one. Marcus was not far away when one of Glabrio’s soldiers, in response to an order the tribune did not hear, stuck out his backside with deliberate impertinence.

  Already tight-lipped, the junior centurion went dead pale. Scaurus hurried forward to deal with the insolent Roman, but there was no need. Quintus Glabrio, his face empty of all expression, broke his vine-stave—a centurion’s staff of office—over the soldier’s head. The man dropped without a sound into the mud.

  Glabrio waited until he moaned and shakily tried to sit. The young officer tossed the two pieces of his staff into the legionary’s lap. “Fetch me a whole one, Lucilius,” he snapped, and waited over him until he staggered to his feet and did as ordered.

  Seeing Marcus approach, the junior centurion stiffened to attention. “I’m more than capable of handling these things myself, sir. No need to involve yourself.”

  “So I see,” Scaurus nodded. He dropped his voice until Glabrio alone could hear. “It does no harm for me to remind the men you’re an officer, not a figure of fun. What happened to you could as easily have befallen one of them.”

  “Could it? I wonder,” Glabrio murmured, as much to himself as to the tribune. His manner grew brisk once more. “Well, in any case I don’t think I’ll have any more trouble from the ranks. Now if you’ll forgive me—” He turned back to his troops. “I hope you enjoyed the rest you got, for you’ll need it. And—one—!”

  There was no further trouble from the maniple. Nonetheless, Scaurus was not happy. Quietly but unmistakably, Glabrio had made any further conversation unwelcome. Ah, well, the tribune thought, that one usually has more on his mind than he shows. He stood watching for another couple of minutes, but the junior centurion had everything well in hand. The tribune shrugged, shivered in the cold wind, and found something else to do.

  That afternoon Gorgidas sought him out. The Greek was diffident, something so far out of character that Marcus suspected he was about to announce a major calamity. But what he had to say was simple enough: the cabin Glabrio and Damaris had been sharing was, in the junior centurion’s opinion, too big for one man by himself, and he had invited Gorgidas to share it with him.

  Scaurus understood the doctor’s hesitation. Everyone with more sensitivity than crude Lucilius had trouble speaking straight out about Glabrio’s misfortune. Still—“No reason to come at me as if you thought I was going to bite,” he said. “I think that’s all to the good. Better for him to have someone to talk to than sit by himself and brood. From the way you went about it, I thought you were going to tell me the plague had broken out.”

  “I only wanted to make sure there would be no problems.”

  “None I can think of. Why should there be?” The tribune decided Gorgidas’ continuing failure with Nepos’ healing magic was making him imagine difficulties everywhere. “It might do you both good,” he said.

  “I,” Nepos announced, “need a stoup of wine.” He and Marcus were walking down Aptos’ main street. Snow crunched under their boots.

  “Good idea. Hot mulled wine, by choice,” the tribune said. He rubbed the tip of his nose, which was starting to freeze. Like his men, he wore Videssian-style baggy woolen trousers and was glad to have them. Winter in the westlands was not weather for the toga.

  Of Aptos’ half a dozen taverns, the Dancing Wolf w
as the best. Its proprietor, Tatikios Tornikes, enjoyed his work immensely; he was stout enough to make Nepos seem underfed beside him. “Good day to you, gentlemen,” he called with a smile when priest and Roman entered.

  “And to you, Tatikios,” Marcus replied, wiping his feet on the rushes strewn inside the doorway. Tornikes beamed at him—the taverner was a stickler for cleanliness.

  Scaurus liked the Dancing Wolf and its owner. So did most of his men. The only complaint he’d heard came from Viridovix: “May his upper lip go bald.”

  The Celt had reason for envy. Going against usual Videssian fashion, Tatikios shaved his chin, but his mustachios more than made up for it. Coal-black as his hair, they swept out and up; the taverner waxed them into spiked perfection every day.

  The tribune and Nepos, glad of the roaring fire Tatikios had going, sat down at a table next to it. A serving girl moved out from behind the bar to ask what they cared for.

  Staring into the flames, Marcus hardly noticed her come up. His head jerked around as he recognized her voice. Someone had told him Damaris was working at the Dancing Wolf, he realized, but this was the first time he’d seen her here.

  He frowned a little; for his money, Quintus Glabrio was well rid of the hellcat. Today, though, he felt too good to be petty. “Mulled wine, nice and hot,” he said. Nepos echoed him.

  His nose twitched at the spicy scent. The handleless yellow cup stung his hands as he picked it up. The Dancing Wolf did things right. “Ahhh,” he said, savoring the hot cinnamon bite on his tongue. The wine slid down his throat, smooth as honey.

  “That calls for another,” he said when the cup was empty, and Nepos nodded. Now that they were warmed inside and out, they could savor the second round at leisure. He waved for Damaris.

  While she heated the wine, Tatikios wandered over to their table. “What’s the news?” he asked. Like every taverner, he liked to be on top of things. Unlike some, he did not try to hide it.

  “Precious little, and I wish I had more,” the tribune answered.

  Tornikes laughed. “I wish I did, too. Things get slow, once winter sets in.” He went back behind the bar, ran a rag over its already gleaming surface.

  “I wasn’t joking, you know,” Marcus said to Nepos. “I wish Senpat and Nevrat would get back with word of Thorisin Gavras, whether good or ill. Not knowing where we stand is hard to bear.”

  “Oh, indeed, indeed. But friend Tatikios was perhaps lighter than he knew—everything moves slowly in the snow, the Vaspurakaners no less than other men.”

  “Less than the nomads,” Scaurus retorted. He shook his head, smiled wryly. “I worry too much, I know. Likely the two of them are holed up in some distant cousin’s keep, making love in front of a fire just like this one.”

  “A pleasant enough way to pass the time,” Nepos chuckled. Like all Videssian priests, he was celibate, but he did not begrudge others the pleasures of the flesh.

  “It’s not what I sent them out for,” Marcus said, a little stiffly.

  Carrying an enameled tray in one hand, Damaris took two steaming cups from it and set them down. “Why should you fuss over a man lying with a woman?” she said to Scaurus. “You’re used to worse than that.”

  The tribune paused with the hot cup halfway to his mouth. His right eyebrow arched toward his hairline. “What might that mean?”

  “Surely you don’t need me to draw you pretty pictures,” she said. The undertone in her voice sent a chill through him, crackling flames and warm wine notwithstanding.

  Malice leaped into her eyes as she saw his confusion. “A man who uses a woman as he would a boy would sooner have a boy … or be one.” Wine slopped in Marcus’ cup as he grasped her meaning. She drove the knife home: “I hear my sweet Quintus has taken no new lover these past weeks—or has he?” Her laugh was vicious.

  The tribune looked Damaris in the eye. The vindictive smile froze on her face. “How long have you been putting this filth about?” he asked. His voice might have been one of the winter winds gusting outside.

  “Filth? This is true, it is—” As it had so often in arguments with Quintus Glabrio, her voice began to rise. Heads all round the tavern turned toward her.

  But Scaurus was not Glabrio. He cut in: “If the slime you wallow in spreads widely, it will be the worse for you. Do you understand?” The quiet, evenly spaced words reached her when a shouted threat might have been ignored. She nodded, a quick, frightened movement.

  “Good enough,” the tribune said. He finished his wine at leisure and held up his end of the conversation with Nepos. When they were both done, he pulled coppers from his belt-pouch, tossed them on the table, and strode out, Nepos at his side.

  “That was well done,” the priest said as they walked back toward the Roman camp. “No rancor matches a former lover’s.”

  “Too true,” Marcus agreed. A sudden, biting breeze blew snow into his face. “Damn, it’s cold,” he said, and pulled his cape up over his mouth and nose. He was not sorry for the excuse to keep still.

  Once inside the ramparts of the camp, he separated from Nepos to attend to some business or other. He did not remember what it was five minutes later; he had other things on his mind.

  He feared Damaris was not simply letting her spite run free, but had truth behind her slurs. Frightening her into silence was easier than quieting his own mind afterward. The charge she hissed out fit only too well with too much else he had noticed without thinking about.

  The whole camp knew—thanks to Damaris and that shrill screech of hers—more about Glabrio’s choice of pleasures than was anyone’s business. In itself that might mean anything or nothing. But the junior centurion was sharing quarters with Gorgidas now, and the physician, as far as Scaurus knew, had no use for women. Recalling how nervous Gorgidas had seemed when he said he and Glabrio were joining forces, Marcus suddenly saw a new reason for the doctor’s hesitancy.

  The tribune’s hands curled into fists. Of all his men, why these two, two of the ablest and sharpest, and two of his closest friends as well? He thought of the fustuarium, the Roman army’s punishment for those who, in their full manhood, bedded other men.

  He had seen a fustuarium once in Gaul, on that occasion for an inveterate thief. The culprit was dragged into the center of camp and tapped with an officer’s staff. After that he was fair game; his comrades fell on him with clubs, stones, and fists. If lucky, condemned men died at once.

  Marcus visualized Gorgidas and Quintus Glabrio suffering such a fate and flinched away in horror from his vision. Easiest, of course, would be to forget what he had heard from Damaris and trust her fear of him to keep her quiet. Or so he thought, until he tried to dismiss her words. The more he tried to shove them away, the louder they echoed, distracting him, putting a raw edge to everything around him. He barked at Gaius Philippus for nothing, swatted Malric when he would not stop singing the same song over and over. The tears which followed did nothing to sweeten Scaurus’ disposition.

  While Helvis comforted her son and looked angrily at the tribune, he snatched up a heavy cloak and went out into the night, muttering, “There are some things I have to deal with.” He closed the door on her beginning protest.

  Stars snapped in the blue-black winter sky. Marcus still found their patterns alien and still attached to the groupings the names his legionaries had given them more than a year ago. There was the Locust, there the Ballista, and there, low in the west now, the Pederasts. Scaurus shook his head and walked on, sandals soundless on snow and soft ground.

  Like most cabins, the one Glabrio and Gorgidas shared was shut tight against the night’s chill. Wooden shutters covered its windows, the spaces between their slats chinked tight with cloth to ward off the freezing wind. Only firefly gleams of lamplight peeped through to hint that the thatch-roofed hut was occupied.

  The tribune stood in front of the door, his hand upraised to knock. He bethought himself of the Sacred Band of Thebes, of the hundred fifty pairs of lovers who had fought to their
deaths at Chaeronea against Macedón’s Philip and Alexander. His hand did not fall. These were not Thebans he led.

  But he hesitated still, unable to bring his fist forward. Through the thin walls of the cabin, he heard the junior centurion and the physician talking. Though their words were muffled, they sounded altogether at ease with each other. Gorgidas said something short and sharp, and Glabrio laughed at him.

  As Marcus stood in indecision, the image of Gaius Philippus rose unbidden to his mind. The senior centurion was talking to him just after he brought Helvis back to the barracks: “No one will care if you bed a woman, a boy, or a purple sheep, so long as you think with your head and not with your crotch.”

  Where dead Greek heroes had not stayed his hand, a Roman’s homely advice did. If ever two men lived up to Gaius Philippus’ standard, they were the two inside. Scaurus slowly walked back to his own hut, at peace with himself at last.

  He heard a door open behind him, heard Quintus Glabrio call softly, “Is someone there?” By then the tribune was around the corner. The door closed again.

  On his return, Scaurus took the scolding he got as one who deserves it, which only seemed to irk Helvis more; sometimes acceptance of blame is the last thing anger wants. But if absentminded, the tribune’s apologies were genuine, and after a while Helvis subsided.

  Malric took his undeserved punishment in stride, Marcus was thankful to see; he played with his adopted son until the boy grew drowsy.

  The tribune was almost asleep himself when he happened to recall something he was sure he had forgotten: the name of the founder of Thebes’ Sacred Band. It was Gorgidas.

  During the winter, Aptos’ sheltered valley learned but slowly what passed in the world outside. News of Amorion came, of all things, from a fugitive band of Yezda. The nomads, after a quick reconnaissance, had decided the town was a tempting target. It had no wall, was empty of imperial troops, and should make easy meat.

  The Yezda suffered a rude awakening. Zemarkhos’ irregulars, blooded in the Vaspurakaner pogrom, sent the invaders reeling off in defeat—and what they did to the men they caught made it hard to choose between their savagery and the Yezda’s.