Videssos Cycle, Volume 1

by Harry Turtledove

  The Videssian whose chair Gaius Philippus had annexed returned. He stood in confusion for a moment, while his friends explained what had happened. He turned toward the Roman—an unsteady turn, for he had considerable wine on board. “Now you shee—see—here, sir—” he began.

  “Go home and sober up,” the senior centurion said, not unkindly. He had other things on his mind than fighting. His eyes kept slipping hungrily to the courtesan’s dark nipples, plainly visible through the fabric of her dress.

  Viridovix’s admiring gaze followed his. Only when the drunken Videssian started a further protest did the Celt seem to notice him. He burst out laughing, saying to Gaius Philippus, “Sure and the poor sot’s clean forgotten a prick’s good for more things than pissing through.”

  He spoke in the Empire’s language so everyone round the party’s two tables could share the joke. They laughed with him, but the man he’d insulted understood him, too. With a grunt of sodden rage the fellow swung at him, a wild haymaking right that came nowhere near the Gaul.

  Viridovix sprang to his feet, quick as a cat despite all he’d drunk himself. His green eyes glowed with amusement of a new sort. “Your honor shouldn’t ought to have done that, now,” he said. He grabbed the luckless Videssian, lifted him off his feet, and hurled him down splash! into the great tureen of sea-turtle stew that stood as the centerpiece of his comrades’ table.

  The sturdy table did not collapse, but greasy greenish stew and bits of white meat splattered in all directions. The drunk feebly kicked his legs as he tried to right himself; his friends, drenched by their dinners, swore and spluttered and wiped at their faces.

  “What are you doing, you loose fish, you clapped-out poxy blackguard, you beggarly, lousy, beetle-headed knave!” Gaius Philippus’ courtesan screeched as she daubed futilely at herself. A good-sized chunk of meat was stuck in her hair above the gold hoop she wore in her right ear, but she did not notice it.

  Nor did the Celt pay her bravura curses any mind. The men he’d swashed were coming at him, with determination if no great skill. Viridovix flattened the first of them, but the next one dashed a cup of wine in his face. While he choked and gasped, the fellow jumped on him, followed a second later by a companion.

  Gaius Philippus and Gawtruz of Thatagush hauled them off. “Two against one’s not fair,” the senior centurion said, still mildly, flinging his man in one direction. Gawtruz wasted no words on his, but tossed him in the other. If they had hoped to quell the fight, they could hardly have done a worse job of it. The hurled men went careening into tables, bowling over two men seated at one and a woman at the other. Food flew. What had been a private quarrel instantly became general.

  Viridovix’s banshee howl of fighting glee rose over the anguished cries of the inn’s owner and the sound of smashing crockery. The two tables were a bastion under siege, and it seemed everyone else in the eatery was trying to storm them.

  Marcus had heard reports of Viridovix’ tavern brawling, but until now had never been caught up in it himself. A mug whizzed past his head, to shatter against the wall. A fat Videssian punched him in the belly. “Oof!” he said, and doubled over. He swung back, felt his fist sink into flab.

  “You will excuse me, I pray,” Taso Vones said, and dove under the table, pulling Plakidia Teletze with him. She let out an unladylike squawk of protest as she disappeared.

  It was, Marcus thought, the most good-natured fight he had been in. Perhaps all the battlers were in holiday spirits, or was it simply that Viridovix, at heart a good-natured soul, had set the stamp of his character on the brawl he’d started? Whatever it was, none of the scrappers showed the slightest desire to reach for the knives that hung at most of their belts. They pounded each other with high gusto, but no serious blood was spilled.

  “Yipe!” said Scaurus, thrashing frantically. Someone had pulled open his tunic and poured a bowlful of syrup-sweetened snow down his back. It felt like a million frozen, crawling ants.

  The eatery’s owner ran from one little knot of fighting to the next, shouting, “Stop this! Stop this at once, I tell you!” No one paid him any mind until the fat Videssian, annoyed at his noise, hit him in the side of the head. He stumbled out into the night. “The guard! The guard!” His cries faded as he ran down the street.

  A city man, fists flailing, charged Arigh Arghun’s son, who was not much more than half as big. There was a flurry of arms and legs—Marcus could not see all that went on, because he was trading punches with a man who reeked of wine—and the Videssian thudded to the ground. He lay still; whatever Arigh’s handfighting technique was, it worked well.

  A plate broke, almost in the tribune’s ear. He whirled round to see a Videssian stagger away clutching his head. Helvis still had a piece of the plate in her hand. “Thank you, dear,” he said. She smiled and nodded.

  Nor was she the only Namdalener woman able to handle herself in a ruction. Mavia and Gaius Philippus’ tart were going at it hammer and tongs, screeching and clawing and pulling hair, and it was easy to see the blonde was getting the better of the battle. But her foe was still game; when the senior centurion tried to drag her out of the fray she raked her nails down his cheek, missing his eye by no more than an inch. “Stay and fight, then, you mangy trollop!” he yelled, all vestiges of chivalry forgotten.

  Katakolon Kekaumenos sat sipping his wine, a bubble of calm in the brabble around him. One of the brawlers was rash enough to mistake his quiet for cowardice and started to tip his chair over backward. Kekaumenos was on his feet and spinning toward the Videssian almost before it began to move. He punched him once in the face and once in the belly, then lifted his sagging body over his head and threw him through a window. That done, he straightened the chair and returned to his wine, quiet as a snow leopard just after it has fed.

  “That’ll teach you to be trifling with an honest man, won’t it now?” Viridovix yelled after the Videssian. He got no answer.

  The tribune took a punch over the ear. He saw brief stars, but his assailant howled and clutched his left fist round a broken knuckle. Scaurus, too experienced to throw that kind of punch, hit him in the pit of the stomach. He doubled over and fell, gasping for air. Turgot and Gawtruz both jumped on him.

  “All right in there, enough now!” an accented tenor called from the doorway. “Break it up, or we’ll use our spearshafts on you!” The mail-shirted Vaspurakaners pushed into the shambles that had been the inn’s common room. “Break it up, I said!” their officer repeated, and someone yelped as one of the troopers carried out the threat.

  “Hullo, Senpat,” Marcus said indistinctly. One of his hands was in his mouth, trying to find out if a back tooth was loose. It was. Spitting redly, he asked, “How’s your lady?”

  “Nevrat? She’s fine—” The young Vaspurakaner noble broke off in mid-sentence, a comic expression of surprise on his handsome features. “You, Scaurus, of all people, tavern brawling? You, the sensible, sober fellow who keeps everyone else out of trouble? By Vaspur the Firstborn, I’d not have believed it without the seeing.”

  “Heresy,” someone muttered, but softly; fifteen Vaspurakaners crowded the room, every one of them armed.

  Embarrassed, the tribune so far forgot his Stoic principles as to cast the blame elsewhere. “It’s Viridovix’ fault. He started the thing.”

  “Don’t listen to him for even a second, Sviodo dear,” the Celt said to Senpat. “He was enjoying himself as much as the rest of us.” And Marcus, wine and battle both still firing his blood, could not say him nay.

  The taverner, staring in horrified dismay at overturned tables, broken chairs, assorted potshards, and half a dozen of his kitchen creations splashed everywhere, let out a baritone shriek of despair. Not only was his eatery wrecked, but this Phos-despised foreign guard captain turned out to be friends with the wreckers! “Who’s going to pay for all this?” he moaned.

  Abrupt silence fell. The men still standing looked at each other, at their comrades unconscious on the floor, at the doo
r—which was full of Vaspurakaners. “Someone had better pay,” the innkeeper went on, his tone moving from despondence to threat, “or the whole city’ll know why, and then—”

  “Shut up,” Scaurus said; he’d seen enough anti-foreign riots in Videssos never to want to see another. He reached for his belt. The taverner’s eyes widened in alarm, but he was seeking his purse, not his sword. “We share and share alike,” he said, his gaze including his own party and everyone else in the inn.

  “Why add me in?” Gorgidas demanded. “I didn’t help break up the place.” That was true enough; the Greek, not caring for fighting of any sort, had stayed on the sidelines.

  “Then call it your fine for a liver full of milk,” Viridovix hooted. “If you’re after talking your way free, what’s to stop the rest of these omadhauns from doing the same?”

  Gorgidas glared at him and opened his mouth to argue further, but Quintus Glabrio touched his arm. The junior centurion was another who did not brawl for sport, but a swollen lip and a bruise on his cheek said he had not been idle. He murmured something. Gorgidas dipped his head in acquiescence, the Greek gesture giving his exasperation perfect expression.

  There were no other arguments. Scaurus turned back to the innkeeper. “All right, what do you say this stuff is worth?” Seeing an ignorant outland mercenary in front of him, the man doubled the fair price. But the tribune laughed scornfully; it was folly to think of gulling someone with his nose fresh out of the tax rolls. At his counteroffer the taverner flinched and called on Phos, but grew much more reasonable. They settled quickly.

  “Don’t forget the fellow lying out there in the snow,” Senpat Sviodo said helpfully. “The more shares, the less each one pays.” Three of his Vaspurakaners dragged the fellow back and flipped water in his face until he revived. It took several minutes; Marcus was glad Kekaumenos was a friend.

  “Is that everyone?” he asked, scanning the battered room.

  “Should be,” Gaius Philippus said, but Gawtruz broke in, “Vones, where is he?” His fat face was smug; he loved to score points off his fellow envoy.

  Heads turned. No one saw the little Khatrisher. Then Viridovix remembered, “Dove clear out of the shindy, he did,” the Celt said, and lifted a tablecloth. Plakidia Teletze screamed. Vones, quicker thinking, snatched the cloth out of Viridovix’s hand and yanked it down.

  “Begging your honor’s pardon, I’m sure,” Viridovix said, suave as any ambassador himself, “but when you’re finished the rest of us would be glad for a word with ye.” Then the effort of holding himself back was too much, and he doubled over with a guffaw.

  Vones emerged a moment later, urbane as ever. “Wasn’t what it seemed,” he said blandly. “Merely a coincidence, you understand, the way we happened to fall.”

  Grinning, Arigh interrupted, “Your breeches are unbuttoned, Taso.”

  “Why, so they are.” Not a bit nonplused, Vones did them up again. “Now then, gentlemen, what do I owe you for my share in the festivities?” Plakidia scrambled out while he was talking. She bolted away from him; at Senpat Sviodo’s gesture his men stood aside to let her pass.

  “It’s not us you should be after paying at all, at all,” Viridovix chuckled, and Vones got off free. Scaurus dug in his pouch, filled his free hand with silver. He counted out seventeen coins. It took twenty-four to equal a goldpiece of pure metal, but the tribune saw a couple of the city men spend two of Ortaias’ debased coins to pay their shares, and even then the innkeeper looked unhappy.

  Gaius Philippus saw that, too, and narrowed his eyes in disgust. “You could be getting steel, not gold,” he pointed out, toying with the hilt of his shortsword. He had the look of a man who had scores of taproom fights behind him and had ended some of them just that way. The taverner wet his lips nervously as he counted the coins and pronounced himself satisfied. In fact he was hardly lying; too often threats were all he got after a brawl.

  “Come by the barracks when you have the chance,” Marcus urged Senpat Sviodo as they left the inn. “We haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  “I’ll do that,” the young noble answered. “I know I should have long ago, but there’s so much to see here in the city. It’s like another world.” Scaurus nodded his understanding; next to Videssos, Vaspurakan’s towns were but backwoods villages.

  The courtesan in yellow tried to make up to Gaius Philippus but, his cheek still smarting, he rounded on her with advice more pungent than he’d had for the innkeeper. She answered with a two-fingered gesture every Videssian knew, and cast sheep’s eyes at the fat man who’d hit Marcus in the stomach. They strolled off arm in arm.

  The senior centurion stared glumly after her. Viridovix clucked. “Foosh, it’s a rare wasteful man y’are,” he said. “That was a lass with fire in her; a rare ride she would have given you.” Scaurus thought that an odd sentiment, coming from the Gaul—his own companions were all of them lovely, but none had any spirit to speak of.

  “Women,” Gaius Philippus said, as if the word was enough to explain everything.

  “Only take the time to know ’em, Roman dear, and you’ll find ’em not so strange,” Viridovix retorted. “And they’re great fun besides—isn’t that right, my dears, my darlings?” He swept all three of them into his arms; the way they snuggled close spoke louder than any words of agreement.

  Gaius Philippus did his best to stay impassive; Marcus was probably the only one who noticed his jaw jet, saw his eyes narrow and grow hard. The Celt’s teasing, this time, had struck deep, though Viridovix himself did not realize it. When the Celt opened his mouth for another sally, the tribune stepped on his foot.

  “Ow! Bad cess to you, you hulking looby!” Viridovix exclaimed, hopping. “What was the point o’ that?”

  Scaurus apologized and meant it; in his hurry, he’d trod harder than he intended.

  “Well, all right then,” the Gaul said. He stretched luxuriantly. “Indeed and the shindy was not a bad way to be starting the evening, if a bit tame. Let’s be off to another tavern and do it ag—och, you black spalpeen, that was no accident!” The tribune had stepped on his other foot.

  Viridovix bent down and flung a handful of snow in his face. Cheeks stinging and eyebrows frosted white, Marcus retaliated in kind—as did Helvis, who had taken some of the snow that missed the Roman. In an instant everyone was pelting everyone else, laughing and shouting and cheering each other on. Marcus was just as well pleased; a snowfight was safer than most things Viridovix reckoned entertainment.

  Sitting secure in Videssos, it was easy to imagine the Empire still master of all its lands—or it would have been, had Scaurus not been wrestling with the imperial tax rolls. In his office he had a map of the westlands showing the districts from which revenues had been collected. Most towns and villages in the coastal lowlands had little bronze pins stabbed through them, indicating that imperial agents had taken what was due from them. The central plateau, though, the natural settling ground for nomads like the Yezda, showed virtually a blank expanse of parchment. Worse, a finger of that same ominous blankness pushed east down the Arandos River valley toward Garsavra. If the town fell, it opened the way for the invaders to burst forward all the way to the shore of the Sailors’ Sea.

  Baanes Onomagoulos was as well aware of the somber truth as the imperial finance ministry. The noble’s estates were hard by Garsavra, and his patience with Thorisin, never long, grew shorter with every report of a new Yezda advance.

  The Emperor knew the reason for Onomagoulos’ constant reproaches and knew there was some justice to them. He bore them with more self-control than Marcus had thought he owned. He committed such aid as he could to the Arandos valley; more, in Scaurus’ eyes, than Videssos, threatened all through the westlands, could readily afford to spend there. But at every session of the imperial council Onomagoulos’ cry was always for more men.

  Thorisin’s patience finally wore thin. About six weeks after the midwinter fest, he told his captious marshal, “Baanes, I am not made of so
ldiers, and Garsavra is not Videssos’ only weak point. The nomads are pushing out of Vaspurakan toward Pityos and they’re raiding in the westlands’ south as well. And the winter’s cold enough to freeze the Astris, so the Khamorth’ll likely poke south across it to see if we poke back. The company I sent west ten days ago will have to be the last.”

  Onomagoulos ran his fingers up over the crown of his head, a gesture, Marcus guessed, born when hair still covered it. “Two hundred seventy-five men! Huzzah!” he said sourly. “How many Namdaleni, aye, and these other damned outlanders, too,” he added with a glance at Scaurus, “are sitting here in the city, eating like so many hogs?”

  Drax answered with the cool mercenary’s logic Marcus had come to expect from the great count: “Why should his Majesty throw my men away in a fight they’re not suited for? We’re heavier-armed than you Videssians care to be. Most times we find it useful, but in deep snow we’re slow and floundering, easy meat for the nomads’ light horse.”

  “The same is true of my men, but more so, for we aren’t mounted,” Marcus echoed.

  The quarrel might have been smoothed over there, for Onomagoulos was a soldier and recognized the point the others made. But Soteric happened to be at the council instead of Utprand, who was ill with a coughing fever. Scaurus’ headstrong brother-in-law took offense at Baanes’ gibe at the Namdaleni and gave it back in kind. “Hogs, is it? You bloody cocksure snake, if you knew anything about nomads you wouldn’t have let yourself get trapped in front of Maragha. Then you wouldn’t be sitting here carping about the upshot of your own stupidity!”

  “Barbarian bastard!” Onomagoulos shouted. His chair crashed over backward as he tried to leap to his feet; his hand darted for his sword hilt. But his crippled leg buckled, and he had to grab for the council table to keep from falling. He had taken the laming wound in the fight Soteric named, and the Namdalener laughed at him for it.