Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  Scaurus had to be satisfied with that. Balsamon moved aside to let him come in. Walking slowly and painfully, the patriarch made his way to the closest one of the three stiff-backed chairs that, but for a small table, were the only furnishings in the little room. The ascetic barrenness had to be a legacy of Zemarkhos.

  Balsamon sat with a soft grunt of relief. Marcus said angrily, “What right did Thorisin have to drag you away from Videssos like this?”

  “The best right of all: he is the Avtokrator, Phos’ viceregent on earth,” the patriarch replied. He surprised Scaurus by speaking in perfect seriousness; to the Videssians, the Emperor’s power was very real. Balsamon went on, “To be exact, he ordered me here to preside over the dissolution of Zemarkhos’ schism. I have attended to that with pleasure—you saw for yourself the hatred he preached.”

  “Yes,” the tribune admitted. “But why you? Is it regular practice to send the patriarch out of the city to attend to such things?”

  “The last one to leave Videssos, to my knowledge, was Pothos, three hundred fifty years ago. He was sent to Imbros to help uproot an outbreak of the Balancer heresy.” Balsamon’s tired eyes managed a twinkle. “I think I managed to provoke my Emperor quite a bit more than Pothos did his.”

  Knowing what had roused Gavras’ wrath, Marcus lowered his head in embarrassment. Balsamon laughed out loud. “Phos preserve me, I’ve abashed the man of stone.” That only served to fluster the tribune worse. The patriarch continued, “By the bye, man of stone, I have a message for you—a trifle late, as you were not in Amorion when you were expected to be, but perhaps of interest all the same.”

  “Go on,” Scaurus said. He knew from whom he wanted the message to be, but after Balsamon’s sly teasing he was not about to give the patriarch the satisfaction of showing anxiety or eagerness.

  His studied composure seemed to amuse the prelate about as much as excitement would have. “I was speaking of stones, wasn’t I?” Balsamon said in the allusive, elusive Videssian style. “Well, there is someone who would have me tell you that there are certain stones with which you may be familiar which that person has worn continuously since the last time you two saw each other, and that person will continue to do so until your next meeting, whenever that may be.”

  Let Saborios make something of that, Marcus thought; he assumed Balsamon’s attendant had his ways of knowing what was going on with his nominal master, whether he listened at keyholes or not. But the tribune only wasted a moment on Saborios. Alypia’s making a token of the necklace he had given her warmed him clear through.

  Seeing that Balsamon knew he understood, all he said was, “My thanks. I hope I’ll be able to answer that myself.”

  “So does the person who entrusted it to me.” The patriarch paused, as if not sure how to change the subject. Then he said, “You traveled much further than Amorion.”

  “I hadn’t planned to, and I didn’t need to,” Scaurus said, still chagrined at fleeing west with Tahmasp at the very moment his men were pounding to his rescue.

  “Never be certain of that too soon,” Balsamon said. “One of the things I’ve seen, both as a priest and, before that, as a scholar seeking the world’s wisdom, is that the web of affairs is always bigger than it seems to the fly struggling in one corner.”

  “There’s a pretty picture.”

  “Is it not?” the patriarch said blandly. He gave that odd hesitation again, before going on, “I am given to understand that you, ah, had considerable to do with the leaders of Yezd.”

  “Yes.” Marcus was not surprised that Balsamon had his sources of information; knowing the Videssians, he would have been startled if the prelate did not. He spoke of his encounter with Wulghash. Balsamon listened politely, but without much interest.

  Once Scaurus mentioned Avshar, though, the patriarch’s attitude changed. His eyes bored into the Roman’s; his expression and bearing grew so intense that he and Marcus both forgot his infirmity. He snapped questions at Scaurus as he might have at some none-too-bright student in a classroom at the Videssian Academy.

  When the tribune somehow dredged the name Skopentzana from his memory, Balsamon sagged back against his unyielding chair. Then Marcus could see how old and sick and tired he was. The patriarch sat still and silent so long that Scaurus thought he had fallen asleep with his eyes open, but at last he said, “Much is now explained.”

  “Not to me,” the tribune said pointedly.

  “No?” Balsamon quirked a tufted eyebrow. “Avshar was ours once, long centuries ago. Why else would he loathe Videssos so, and mock our every creation with his own?”

  Marcus slowly nodded. Both the skill with which the sorcerer-prince used the language of the Empire and his antique turn of phrase argued for Videssian as his birth tongue. And thinking of the temple to Skotos in Mashiz, and of the dark-god’s red-robed priesthood, Scaurus saw what the patriarch meant.

  “How did Skopentzana tell you that?” he asked. “What is it, anyhow? I’ve never heard of it, save that once in Avshar’s mouth.”

  “These days, Skopentzana means nothing,” Balsamon said. “All that remains of it is ruins, hovels, and, in season, nomads’ tents. It lies in what is now Thatagush. But when Avshar had only a man’s years, the province was Bratzista, and Skopentzana the third city of the Empire, or maybe the second. Of golden sandstone it was built, and the river Algos ran singing to the gray sea, or so an ancient poet says.”

  “And Avshar?”

  “Was its prelate. Does that really surprise you so much? It shouldn’t. He was truly a prince as well, a distant cousin of the Avtokrator in the glorious days when Videssos held sway from the borders of Makuran in a grand sweep all the way to the frozen Bay of Haloga. He was highborn, he was able—one day he expected to be patriarch, and he might have been a great one.”

  “Ruins, Thatagush—” Marcus made a connection. “That was when the Khamorth invaded the Empire, wasn’t it?”

  “So it was.” From the way Balsamon eyed him, perhaps he had some hope as a student after all. “A civil war weakened the frontier, and in they poured. They cast down in a decade three hundred years of patient growth and civilization. Along with so many other lesser towns, Skopentzana fell. In a way, Avshar was lucky. He lived. He made his way down the Algos to the sea, eventually he came home to Videssos the city. But the horrors he had seen and endured twisted his thoughts into a new path.”

  The tribune remembered what Avshar had said, that dreadful day in the courtroom at Mashiz. “He turned from Phos to Skotos then?”

  His mark had just gone up again, he saw. Balsamon said, “Just so. For he reasoned that good could have no power in a world where such evil dwelt, and that the dark god was its true master. And when he reached the capital, he saw it as his duty to convert all the hierarchy to his views.”

  A Videssian indeed, Scaurus thought. But he said, “They’re stupid views. If your house burns down, do you go live in the bushes forever after? More sensible to make the best of whatever comes and rebuild as you can.”

  “So say you; so say I. But Skotos’ cult is like poisoned wine, sweet till the dregs. For without good, don’t you see, there is no guilt; why not kill a man, force a woman, do anything for pleasure or power?”

  The ultimate egotism—a heady wine indeed. In a way, it reminded Marcus of the Bacchic rites the Roman senate had banned a century before his birth. But at their wildest, the Bacchic rituals were a temporary, constrained release from the real world. Avshar would have made lawlessness a way of life.

  The tribune said so, adding, “Didn’t people realize that? Without rule and custom, everyone is at the mercy of the strongest and most cunning.”

  “So declared the synod that condemned Avshar,” Balsamon said. “I have looked at the acts of that synod; they are the most frightening thing I ever read. Even after he turned toward the false he was brilliant and terrible, like a thunderbolt. His arguments against deposition are preserved. They have a vicious clarity that chills the blood to thi
s day.

  “And if,” the patriarch mused, “in worshipping the dark he found a means to preserve himself to our own time and to seek to lay low the Empire that first gave him favor and then damned him—”

  “Not to lay it low, but to conquer it, and rule it as he would,” Scaurus broke in.

  “That is worse. But it being so, much of what has passed in the intervening centuries makes better sense—just as one example, the savage behavior of the Haloga mercenary troop that crossed the Astris in the reign of Anthimos II? five hundred years ago—though I would still say Anthimos’ antics had much to do with the success they enjoyed until Krispos gained the throne a few years later.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know those names,” Marcus said. The admission saddened him. Even after so long in Videssos, he was ignorant of so much about it.

  He started to say something more, but Balsamon was paying no attention. The patriarch’s eyes had the distant, slightly glazed stare Scaurus had seen once before, back in Videssos. The back of the tribune’s neck tingled as his hair tried to stand on end. He recognized that light trance and what it meant.

  Caught up in his prophetic vision, Balsamon seemed a man trapped by nightmare. “The same,” he said, voice thick with anguished protest, “it is ever the same.”

  He repeated that several times before he came back to himself. Marcus could not bring himself to question the patriarch; he took his leave as soon as he decently could. The day was warm, but he shivered all the way back to the legionary camp. He remembered too well what Alypia had said of the patriarch’s visions: that he was cursed only to see disaster ahead. With Avshar getting closer day by day, the tribune was afraid he knew the direction it was coming from.

  XII

  THORISIN’S SCOUTING REPORT WAS GOOD, MARCUS THOUGHT; by the campfires winking at the far edge of the plain, the Yezda had a bigger army than the one standing in their way. The westerly breeze carried their endless harsh chant to the tribune: “Avshar! Avshar! Avshar!” Deep-toned drums beat out an unceasing accompaniment, boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom.

  It was a sound to raise the hackles of anyone who had fought at Maragha, bringing back memories of the terrible night when the Yezda had surrounded the imperial camp. Now, though, Gaius Philippus gave an ostentatious snort of contempt. “Let ’em pound,” he said. “They’ll ruin their own sleep long before mine.”

  Scaurus nodded. “Gavras may not like the defensive, but he knows how to use it when he has to.” The Emperor had moved north and west from Amorion until he found the exact battlefield he wanted; the sloping plain whose high ground the Videssians held formed the only sizeable opening in a chain of rough hills. A few companies and a couple of light catapults plugged the smaller gaps.

  Avshar had not even tried to force them. He made straight for the main imperial force. Unlike Thorisin, he sought battle.

  Scouts were already skirmishing in the space between the two armies. The squeal of a wounded horse cut through the Yezda chant.

  “Tomorrow,” Gaius Philippus said, fiddling with the cheekpiece of the legionary helmet he had borrowed. When it suited him, he turned his back to the fire by which he had been sitting and peered into the darkness, trying to see who had won the clash. There was no way to tell.

  He turned his attention to the imperial forces. After a while he sat again, a puzzled expression on his face. “Near as I can see, Gavras is doing everything right. Why don’t I like it?”

  “The sitting around, it is,” Viridovix said at once. Even more than Thorisin’s, his temper demanded action.

  “That wouldn’t matter, in a confident army,” Gorgidas half disagreed. “With this one, though …” He let his voice trail away.

  Marcus knew what he meant. Some units of the heterogeneous force were confident enough. The legionaries had always given the Yezda all they wanted, as had the Khatrishers who fought beside them. The Emperor’s Haloga bodyguards feared no man living. And to the Arshaum, the Yezda were so many more Khamorth, to be beaten with ease. Arigh’s men formed a big part of the army’s cavalry screen.

  But the Videssians who made up the bulk of Thorisin’s men were of variable quality. Some veteran units were as good as any of the professionals who served beside them. Others, though, were garrison troops from places like Serrhes, or militiamen facing real combat for the first time. How well they would do was anyone’s guess.

  And in the background, unmentioned but always there, lurked the question of what deviltry Avshar had waiting. It preyed on the minds and sapped the spirits of veterans and new soldiers alike.

  “Tomorrow,” Scaurus muttered, and wondered if it was prayer or curse.

  Cookfires flared with the dawn, giving the troops a hot meal before they took their places. Having chosen the field, the Emperor had settled his order of battle well in advance. He and the Halogai of the Imperial Guard anchored the center of his line. As the northerners marched forward, their axeheads gave back bloody reflections from the rising sun.

  The legionaries were on their right, drawn up maniple by maniple, each behind its own signum; the wreath-encircled hands topping the standards had been freshly gilded and made a brave show in the morning light. The points of the legionaries’ pila were like a moving forest as they advanced.

  Here and there a man clung to the weapons he was used to, instead of adopting Roman-style javelins and shortsword. Viridovix, of course, kept his Gallic blade. And Zeprin the Red, shouldering his axe, might have been one with his countrymen in the Emperor’s guard. But the Haloga still did not think himself worthy of serving in their ranks and tramped instead with the rest of the legionaries.

  To the left of the Imperial Guard were a couple of hundred Namdalener knights, men who still had Thorisin’s trust in spite of the strife between the Duchy and Videssos. They wore conical helms with bar nasals and mail shirts that reached to their knees, and carried long lances, slashing swords, and brightly painted kite-shaped shields. The stout horses they rode were also armored, with canvas and leather and metal.

  Rakio, in his own full caparison, rode over from the Roman camp to join them as the imperial force moved out. “No fear for me have,” he said to Gorgidas. “I will be best fighting with men who fight as I do.” He leaned down from the saddle to kiss the Greek good-bye.

  The legionaries howled. Rakio straightened. “Jealous, the lot of you,” he said, which raised a fresh chorus of whoops. They did not disturb the Yrmido at all; he was comfortable within his own people’s standards. He waved and trotted off.

  Gorgidas wished for his lover’s innocent openness. Back among the legionaries, he found himself automatically falling into the old pattern of concealment. But when he looked around, he saw the grinning Romans were not so malicious after all. Maybe Rakio’s nonchalance reached them, too. The Greek didn’t know, or care. He accepted it gratefully.

  “Pass me a whetstone, will you, someone?” he said, wanting to hone his gladius one last time.

  Two or three legionaries offered stones; one chuckled, “The horseman thinks your blade is sharp enough.” Gorgidas flinched, but it came out as camp banter, not the vicious mockery Quintus Glabrio had been forced to face a few years before. He gave back a rude gesture. The trooper laughed out loud.

  Laon Pakhymer made his pony rear as he led his Khatrishers out to flank the legionaries. Marcus doffed his helmet to return the salute. “They’re all right, that bunch, sloppy or no,” Gaius Philippus said, echoing his thoughts.

  Videssian troops, lighter-armed but more mobile than the men of Gavras’ center, took their stations to either side. Some were horse-archers, others bore javelins or sabers. One of their officers brought his mount up on its hind legs, too, for no reason Scaurus could see other than high spirits. The imperials did not usually act like that; few of them gloried in war. Then he recognized Provhos Mourtzouphlos. He scowled. He did not want to grant his enemy any virtues, even courage.

  Thorisin had stationed nomads at either wing of his army, outside his nativ
e soldiers. On the left were Khamorth, hired off the Pardrayan steppe. Marcus wondered if they were men who lived near the Astris, Videssos’ river-boundary with the plains, or if his friends’ friend Batbaian had sent them to the Empire’s aid by way of Prista.

  He had no such questions about the warriors on the other flank. Arigh was posted there. The Roman could hear the naccara-drum, at once deeper and sharper than the ones the Yezda used, through the horns and pipes that signaled the imperial force forward.

  Avshar’s army was moving, too, guided by the will of its chieftain. It looked to be all cavalry. The wizard-prince’s tokens were at the center, opposite Videssos’ gold sunburst on blue. Avshar had two huge banners. The smaller was Yezd’s flag, a springing panther on a field the color of drying blood. The other’s ground was of the same hue, but it took a while to recognize the device. When the imperials finally did, many of them sketched a quick circle over their hearts; it was Skotos’s twin lightning bolts.

  Around the wizard-prince came regiments of Makuraner lancers; their gear was between that of the Videssians and Namdaleni in weight and protective strength. A lot of them wore plumes atop their spiked helmets to make themselves seem taller.

  The greater part of Avshar’s power, though, resided in the Yezda proper. Scaurus had seen them in action too often to despise them for the poor order they kept trotting into battle; they combined barbarous spirit with the refined cruelty they had learned from their master. The emblems of many clans—here a green banner, there a wolf’s skull, or a man’s, on a pole—were held on high at irregular intervals up and down their line.

  Avshar had taught them something of obedience, too; they drew to a ragged halt when Skotos’ flag wagged back and forth three times. The armies were still several bowshots apart. Suspecting some sorcerous trap, Thorisin drew up his own forces. His mission was to hold, not to attack; let Avshar come to him.