Irnek refused to be drawn. His laugh came, easy and natural-sounding. “A dismal state of affairs, when Arshaum are reduced to arguing over the fate of a Hairy.” He no longer wasted politeness on Batbaian, but waved him away. “Go, then, if it suits you.” Batbaian gave Arigh a sketched salute, Viridovix another. He trotted north. The twilight gloom swallowed him.
“Tis Royal Khagan he’ll be one day, I’m thinking,” Viridovix whispered to Gorgidas.
“I’d say you’re right, if he lives,” the Greek replied. He was remembering the wand Tolui had used to symbolize the Khamorth, and how its pieces had begun to burn. With Varatesh dead and his power shattered, civil war would run through the clans of Pardraya, one-time collaborators against their vengeful foes. Batbaian, he was sure, knew the danger he was riding into.
As darkness fell, the Arshaum ranged over the field, stripping corpses and slitting the throats of those Khamorth who still moved—and those of Arshaum who knew themselves mortally wounded and sought release from pain. The shamans, Gorgidas with them, did what they could for those less seriously hurt. The physician used the healing art on two badly injured warriors with good results, then tottered and almost fell; combined with the day’s exertions, the fatigue the healer’s trance brought with it left him shambling about in a weary daze.
Most corpses remained above ground, to await the services of carrion birds and the scavengers of the plains. Only Arghun and a couple of fallen subchiefs from other clans received burial. The Gray Horse Arshaum worked by firelight to dig a grave large and deep enough to hold him and his pony. Tolui cut the beast’s throat at the edge of the pit, in accordance with the nomads’ custom. Either Arigh or Dizabul might have done so, but neither would yield the other the privilege.
Gorgidas got back to camp as that quarrel was winding down. He collapsed by a fire with the rest of the embassy party and gnawed mechanically at a chunk of smoked meat. It must have been past midnight; the crescent moon was long set.
Arghun’s sons flared at each other again, shouting furiously. “You spoiled, stupid puppy, why should you deserve the rule?”
“A fine one to talk you are, coming back after years to try and rob me—”
“Not long will they be going on like that,” Viridovix said with glum certainty; he had been in faction fights of his own. “A word too many and it’s out swords and at ’em!”
The Greek feared he was right. The insults were getting louder and more personal. “You’d futter a mangy sheep!” Dizabul hissed.
“No. I wouldn’t risk taking your pox from it.”
“And here’s more trouble,” Viridovix said as Irnek came striding briskly between campfires. “What’s he after?”
“His own advantage,” Gorgidas said.
Arghun’s sons fell silent under Irnek’s sardonic eye. He was older and more experienced than either of them; his simple presence was a weapon. “I trust I’m not interrupting,” he said, earning a glare from Dizabul and a hard frown from Arigh.
“What is it?” Arigh snapped, with hauteur enough to make the leader of the Black Sheep pause.
Irnek, as was his way, recovered well. “I have something to tell the Gray Horse khagan,” he said, “whichever of you that may be.” He did not stop to savor their sputters, but went on, “As your—friend? client?—Batbaian made it clear my clan was not welcome east of the Shaum, I have decided the only proper thing for us to do is return to our lands and herds in Shaumkhiil. We’ve been too long away, anyhow. We leave tomorrow.”
Both brothers exclaimed in dismay. Dizabul burst out, “What of your fancy promises of help?” He had reason to be disconcerted; Irnek led a good quarter of the Arshaum forces.
“What do you call this past day’s work?” Irnek retorted, with some justice. “I lost nearly a hundred men killed, and twice as many wounded—help enough, I’d say, for a fight that wasn’t my own in the first place.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Dizabul still expostulating behind him.
“You must be a farmer, to find your land so dear,” the young prince jeered. Irnek’s back stiffened, but he kept walking.
“Good shot!” Arigh said, slapping his brother on the shoulder. His anger at the Black Sheep leader put the damper on the quarrel with Dizabul, at least for the moment. He shouted to Irnek, “We’ll go on without you, then!” Irnek shrugged without breaking stride.
Gorgidas’ head and Goudeles’ came up at the same instant; their eyes met in consternation. “They don’t see their danger. How do we fix it?” Gorgidas demanded.
“Do we?” Goudeles said. “Better for the Empire if we leave it alone.”
Viridovix and Lankinos Skylitzes looked at them as if they had started speaking an unknown tongue. But Gorgidas said angrily, “We do! There’s no justice in loading all the risk on them and having them ruined on their pastures as well. Besides, I like them.”
“Amateurs,” Goudeles sighed. “What do likes matter, or justice?” Even so, he gave a few sentences of pithy advice, very much what Gorgidas had also been thinking. Their friends’ eyebrows rose in sudden understanding. The pen-pusher finished, “Do you want to put it to them, or shall I?”
“I will,” Gorgidas said, his knees creaking as he rose. He started to walk over to the Arshaum, then turned back to Goudeles. “Tell me, Pikridios, if justice does not matter, how are you different from Avshar?” He did not wait for an answer.
Arghun’s sons were running up their light felt tents when the Greek approached. Arigh nodded in a friendly enough way, Dizabul curtly. The physician still wondered whether he had been glad or sorry to see his father saved from Bogoraz’ hemlock. He would probably never know.
In time-honored Hellenic tradition, he put his business in the form of a question. “What do the two of you think Irnek will do in Shaumkhiil while we chase after Avshar?”
“Why, go back to his herds,” Dizabul said before he realized the question was out of the ordinary. Arigh saw it quicker. He had been using the heavy pommel on the hilt of his dagger to hammer tent pegs; he threw the weapon down with an oath.
“The answer is, anything he pleases,” he ground out. “Who’d be there to stop him?”
“We can’t let him get away with that,” Dizabul said fiercely. Where the fortunes of the Gray Horses were touched, they stood in perfect accord; what use to be khagan of a ruined clan?
“Would you forget why we’re here, then, and what we owe Yezd? All the more, now.” Arigh eyed his younger brother with comtempt. Not far away, nomads were still filling in Arghun’s grave.
“N-no, but what can we do?” Dizabul said, troubled. Arigh chewed his lip.
“May I suggest something?” Gorgidas asked. Again, Arigh nodded first, Dizabul following warily. When he saw he had their consent, he went on: “This could be one time when having both of you as leaders will work for you, not against. One could go ahead and move on Yezd, while the other took part of your force back across the Shaum to your stretch of the steppe. It need not be nearly as big as Irnek’s band, only enough to make him think twice about starting trouble.”
The Greek watched them calculate. Whichever one held to the pursuit of Avshar would keep the greater part of the army, but the other would have the chance to solidify his position on his native ground with the rest of the clan. If they bought the scheme, he thought he knew who would pick which role—Goudeles had set it up to make each half attractive to one of them.
They came out of their study at the same time. “I’ll go back,” Dizabul said, while Arigh was declaring, “Come what may, I push on.” They looked at each other in surprise; Gorgidas kept his face straight. The imperials knew tricks Irnek had never thought of.
After that, the haggle was over how many riders would go on, how many back to Shaumkhiil. Not all the nomads accompanying Dizabul would be Gray Horse clansmen; some of the clans that had sent out smaller contingents were also nervous about Irnek’s intentions.
“I mislike giving away so many men,” Arigh said to Gor
gidas when agreement was finally reached, “but what choice have I?”
The physician was so tired he hardly cared what he said; it was almost like being drunk. “None, but I don’t think numbers matter much. By himself Avshar outnumbers all of us.” Arigh rubbed his slashed cheek, nodded somberly.
V
SWORDS CLASHED. PRESSED HARD, NEVRAT SVIODO GAVE ground. Her foe slashed at her legs. She barely turned the blow with her saber and had to retreat again. The next cut came high. Again her parry was just in time. Sweat ran into her eyes. It burned. She did not have even an instant to blink it away, for her opponent was sidling forward, a nasty grin on his face.
A quick flurry of steel—an opening! Nevrat ducked a cut, stepped in close. Her wrist knew what to do then. Her foe reeled away.
He was still grinning. She scowled at him, her eyes dark and dangerous. “Curse you, Vazken, did you let me get home there? Don’t try that again when you practice with me, or you’ll end up bleeding for real.”
Vazken placatingly spread his hands. “It’s hard to make myself go all out against a woman.”
“Do you think the Yezda match your courtesy?” Nevrat snapped. She suspected she had seen more combat than her partner on the drill field—scouting was a chancier business than fighting in line. She did not say so. Vazken would only have stomped off in a huff.
She also did not want to practice with him any more. If not fully tested, how could she get better?
Seeing her cousin Artavasdos riding up was something of a relief. She had the excuse she needed to escape from Vazken without telling him to go to the ice. She greeted Artavasdos with a dazzling smile.
He had to work to return it. She realized with surprise that he was frightened. “What is it” she asked, steering him away from Vazken. One thing the sometimes stolid Vaspurakaners learned in Videssos was the joy of gossip.
Artavasdos understood that, too. He waited until Vazken was well out of earshot before he dismounted and offered her a stirrup, saying, “Climb up behind me. I’ve been sent to fetch you. We’ll ride double into the city.”
“Fetch me?” She made no move to mount. “By whom?”
“Alypia Gavra,” her cousin said, adding, “If I don’t get you to her fast, we’re both for it.” The answer sent her scrambling onto Artavasdos’ horse. He hardly waited for her to slide behind his saddle before he sprang up, seized the reins, and sent the horse back toward the city walls at a fast trot.
“Phos!” Nevrat exclaimed. “I can’t meet the princess like this. Look at me—in these leathers I look like a Yezda. I stink like one, too. Let me stop at the barracks to change and at least sponge myself off a little.”
“No,” Artavasdos said flatly. “Speed counts for everything now.”
“You’d better be right.”
He hurried west along Middle Street. When he turned north off it, Nevrat said, “Do you know where you’re going?”
“Where I was told to,” he said. She felt like reaching forward and wrenching a better answer out of him, but with difficulty forbore. If this was a joke, she thought grimly, Thorisin’s palace would get itself a new eunuch, cousin or no.
A few minutes later, Nevrat burst out, “By Vaspur Phos’ firstborn, are you taking us to the High Temple?” The great shrine had been growing against the sky since Artavasdos left Middle Street, but Nevrat had not thought much about it—following their own version of Phos’ faith, the Vaspurakaners did not worship along with imperials. Now, though, the High Temple was too close to ignore.
Artavasdos turned in the saddle to give Nevrat a respectful look. “You’re very close. How did you guess?”
“Never mind.” She would rather have been wrong. She slid off the horse with a sigh of relief as Artavasdos tethered it outside the stucco building at the edge of the High Temple courtyard. Together, cautiously, they went to the door of the patriarchal residence. Nevrat grasped the knocker and rapped twice.
Even she had not expected Balsamon to answer himself. “Come in, my friends, come in,” he said, beaming. Nevrat felt his smile like warm sunshine; no wonder, she thought, the Videssians loved him so well.
“Where are your retainers, sir?” she asked as he led her and her cousin down a corridor.
“I have but the one,” Balsamon said, “and Saborios is off on a bootless errand. Well, not quite, but more than he thinks.” He laughed. Though Nevrat did not see the joke, she found herself grinning, too.
The patriarch led the two Vaspurakaners into his disreputable study. He and the young woman waiting there cleared space for them to sit. She was quite plainly dressed, but for a necklace of emeralds and mother-of-pearl; Nevrat took a moment to realize who she was.
“Your Highness,” she said, and began a curtsey, but Alypia help up a hand to stop her.
“We have no time for that,” she said, “and in any case, the favor I am going to ask of you I ask as a friend, not as a princess.”
“Don’t worry, my dear, Saborios will be bootless a while longer,” Balsamon told her.
“Not even Nepos knows how long his spell will hold,” Alypia retorted. Quickly, as if begrudging every word, she explained to Nevrat, “Saborios—he’s my uncle’s watchdog here—is off taking a pair of Balsamon’s blue patriarchal boots to be redyed. So long as Nepos’ magic works, he won’t notice the very long wait he’s having for them. Nor—Nepos hopes—will anyone detect that I am not back in the palace complex. But he cannot juggle the two magics forever, so we must hurry with our business here.”
“Then let me ask at once what you want of me, your Highness,” Nevrat said, carefully not abandoning Alypia’s formal title, “and ask you why you choose to call me friend when we have never met.”
Artavasdos gasped at her boldness, but Alypia nodded approvingly. “A fair question. We are, though, both friends of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.”
Her quiet statement hung in the air a moment. “So we are,” Nevrat said. She studied the princess and added, “You are a good deal more than that, it seems.”
Despite his role as go-between, Artavasdos looked about ready to flee. Nevrat paid no attention to him; she wanted to see how Alypia would react. Balsamon, though, spoke first: “It also seems Scaurus somehow infects everyone who knows him with his own blunt speech.” Had his words been angry, Nevrat would have been as frightened as her cousin, but he sounded amused.
“Hush,” Alypia told him. She turned back to Nevrat. “Yes, he and I are a good deal more than friends, as you put it. And because of that, he has been sent to what will almost surely be his death.” She explained what Thorisin required for Marcus to redeem himself.
“Zemarkhos!” Nevrat exclaimed. Having traveled so long with Gagik Bagratouni’s men, she knew more than she ever wanted to of the fanatic priest’s pogrom against all Vaspurakaners. Anything to hurt him sent hot eagerness surging through her. But she agreed with Alypia—she did not think Scaurus had a chance against him.
When she said so, the princess sagged against the back of her couch in dismay. Nevrat abandoned her half-formed thought of telling Alypia that Marcus had wanted her, too. That might have cured an infatuation, but she was convinced Alypia felt more—and so did Scaurus, if he was willing to beard Zemarkhos for her sake.
“Tell me what to do,” she said simply.
Alypia’s eyes glowed, but she wasted no time on thankyous. “To destroy Zemarkhos, I think Marcus will have to have an army at his back. His Romans and those who have joined them are in Garsavra. If you rode to tell them what has happened to him, what do you think they would do?”
Nevrat never hesitated. Give Bagratouni another chance for revenge? Give Gaius Philippus—no, it would be Minucius; Gaius Philippus was with Scaurus—the chance to save his beloved commander? “Charge for Amorion, and Phos spare anything in their way.”
“Exactly what I thought,” Alypia said, eager now for the first time.
Nevrat looked at her in wonder. “You would do this, in spite of your uncle’s command?”
“Command? What command?” Alypia was the picture of innocence. “Balsamon, you as patriarch must be well informed of what goes on in the palaces. Has his Imperial Majesty ever ordered me not to send word to Garsavra of Marcus’ dismissal?”
“Indeed not,” Balsamon said blandly, though he could not keep the corners of his mouth from twitching upward.
Only because Thorisin never dreamed you would, Nevrat thought. She did not say that. What she did say was, “I think Marcus is a very lucky man, Princess, to have you care for him.”
“Is he?” Alypia’s voice was bitter and full of self-reproach. “His luck has an odd way of showing itself, then.”
“So far,” Nevrat said firmly.
“You’ll go, then?”
“Of course I will. Senpat will be furious with me—”
“Oh, I hope not!” Alypia exclaimed. “I would have gone through him—”
“—because he’ll be stuck here in the city,” Nevrat said.
At the same time the princess was concluding, “—but with his duties here, I thought he would have trouble getting away inconspicuously.”
They stared at each other and started to laugh. Nevrat flashed the thumbs-up gesture the Romans used. She was unsurprised to find Alypia knew what it meant. The princess said, “How will I ever repay you for this?”
“How else?” Nevrat said. At Alypia’s puzzled look, she explained: “Invite me to the wedding, of course.”
They laughed again. “By Phos, I will!” Alypia said.
“Most touching, my children,” Balsamon put in. “But I suggest we bring our pleasant gathering to an end, before this poor lad jitters himself to death.” He made a courteous nod toward Artavasdos, who did seem on the point of expiring. “And, even more to the point, before my dear colleague Saborios at last returns with my boots.”
After embracing Nevrat, Alypia left first, by a back way. Then Balsamon led Nevrat and her cousin out to Artavasdos’ horse. “It matters less if Saborios should happen to see you,” he said. “He’ll merely think me daft for consorting with heretics.” One of his shaggy eyebrows rose. “Surely I’ve given him better reason than that.” He patted Nevrat’s arm and went back inside.
Swords of the Legion (Videssos) Page 14
