The Romans bowed and left. Scaurus heard Thorisin shouting for his steward: “Glykas! Come here, damn it, I need you. Fetch me Mourtzouphlos and Arigh the Arshaum.” A little pause. “No, you lazy lackwit, I don’t know where they are. Find them, or find another job.”
The Makuraner sentry spat at Marcus’ feet when he and Gaius Philippus came up to Wulghash’s encampment. The tribune thought he was about to be attacked in spite of the shield of truce he was carrying. He got ready to throw it away and go for his sword.
“Expected as much,” Gaius Philippus said. He had also shifted into a fighting stance. Scaurus nodded.
But having relieved his feelings, the sentry haughtily turned his back and led the Romans to the khagan’s tent. This time they went straight there. Wulghash’s troopers shook fists as they passed. Someone threw a lump of horsedung. It smacked against Gaius Philippus’ upraised truce shield, staining the smooth white paint.
Wulghash was outside the pavilion, talking with his bodyguards. One of them pointed to the Romans. The khagan rumbled something deep in his throat. He jerked his chin at Gaius Philippus’ shield. “A fitting symbol for a broken peace,” he growled.
“As far as Thorisin is concerned, the truce still holds,” Marcus answered. “Have you been assailed here?”
“Spare me the protests of innocence, at least,” Wulghash said. “I’d sooner believe in a virgin whore. You know as well as I what Gavras did in the dead of night—sent out his Videssians and those vicious savages from Shaumkhiil to harry my warriors in their scattered camps. Hundreds must have died.”
“I repeat: Were you and yours attacked here?”
Scaurus’ monotone made the khagan look up sharply. “No,” he said, his own voice suddenly wary.
“Then I submit to you that the peace between you and the Emperor has not been breached. You told us yesterday that you had no use for the Yezda, that you could not force them to obey you, and that you did not want them. In that case, Thorisin has every right to deal with them as he sees fit. Or do you only claim them as yours when you gain some advantage from it?”
Wulghash flushed all the way up to the balding crown of his head. “I was speaking,” he said tightly, “of the Yezda already in Videssos.”
“That doesn’t do it,” Gaius Philippus said. “You were the one complaining how the buggers with Avshar kissed his boot instead of yours. Now you want ’em back. All right. The way I see it, Gavras has the right to stop you if he can. They weren’t part of the deal. And as for this,” he glanced at the shield of truce, “your soldier flung the horseturd.”
Marcus put in, “Thorisin could have attacked you here instead of the Yezda, but he held off. He isn’t interested in destroying you—”
“Because it would cost him too dear.”
“As may be. It would cost you more; he is stronger than you now. And while he is stronger, he intends to see you gone from Videssos. I warn you, he is deadly serious over his ultimatum. If he sees no movement from you come day after tomorrow, he’ll move on you with everything he has. And there are fresh troops just in from Garsavra.”
The last was bluff, but Thorisin had set the groundwork for it by lighting several hundred extra campfires the night before. Wulghash bit his lip, examining Gaius Philippus closely. But the senior centurion revealed nothing, for the khagan had slightly misread his man. Gaius Philippus would always say what he thought, but a team of fifty horses could not have dragged a stratagem from him.
Recalling what Wulghash had told him when they were just out of the tunnels below Mashiz, Marcus said, “I would also wish we were friends as well as what my people call guest-friends.” Wulghash took his meaning, and he went on, “As a friend, I would say your best course lies in retiring. You cannot succeed against Thorisin here and you need to reestablish yourself in Yezd.”
“I don’t think the two of us will ever be friends, whatever we might want,” the khagan answered steadily. “For now, worse luck, I fear you are right, but I am not done with Videssos yet. Defend it if you can, but it is old and worn. One good push—”
“I’ve heard Namdaleni talk the same way, but we survived them.” Scaurus thought back to Drax the opportunist, and hotheaded Soteric. Remembering her brother reminded him of Helvis and how she had scorned him for calling the Videssians we. He shrugged, which made Wulghash scratch his head. He was content with his choice.
The Yezda khagan was not one to leave a point quickly. “If not in my day, then in my son’s,” he said.
“How is Khobin?” Marcus asked, dredging the name up from Wulghash’s use of it in the palace banquet hall.
“Alive and well, last I heard,” Wulghash said gruffly. But his eyes narrowed, and his left eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch; the tribune knew he had gained a point. Wulghash’s chuckle had a grim edge to it. “The hired killers Avshar sent out botched their job. They weren’t his best; he must have thought Khobin not worth worrying about.”
“I’m glad, and glad he was wrong.”
“And I,” the khagan answered. “He’s a likely youngster.”
“That’s all very well, but it grows no barley,” Gaius Philippus said, dragging them back to the issue at hand. “What do you propose doing about pulling out?”
Wulghash grunted, but Gaius Philippus’ forthrightness had made him ask for the veteran. “If I had my choice, I would fight,” the khagan said. “But the choice is not mine—and Gavras, it seems,” he added wryly, “will not let me seize it. So … I will withdraw.” He spat that out as if it tasted bad.
Scaurus could not help letting out a slow, quiet breath of relief. “The Emperor pledges that you will not be harassed as long as you are retiring in peace.”
“Big of him,” Wulghash muttered. He seemed surprised and not very happy to see the Romans still in front of him; he must have looked on them as symbols of his failure to hold his ground. “You have what you want, don’t you? If you do, we’re finished. Go away.”
As they walked back to the imperial camp, Gaius Philippus said darkly, “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of everyone telling me, ‘Go.’ Next time someone tries it, he’ll know just where to go, I promise.”
“You’d never make an ambassador,” Marcus said.
“Good.”
That evening, though, having heard their report, Pikridios Goudeles disagreed with the tribune. “You should be proud of yourselves,” he told the Romans. “For amateurs, you did very well. Thorisin’s unhappy because he can’t slaughter Wulghash; Wulghash is disgusted because he has to go home. And after all, what is diplomacy,” he paused to hone his epigram, “but the art of leaving everyone dissatisfied?”
Sullenly, Wulghash withdrew toward the west. Gavras sent out a company of Videssian horsemen to make sure he really was retreating, much as Shenuta had kept a close eye on the Arshaum when they were passing through his territory.
A couple of days later, after it became clear the khagan was pulling back, Gaius Philippus startled Marcus by requesting leave for the first time since the tribune had known him. “It’s yours, of course,” Marcus said at once. “Do you mind my asking why?”
The veteran, usually so direct, looked uncomfortable. “Thought I’d borrow a horse from the Khatrishers, do a bit of riding out. Sight-seeing, you might say.”
“Sight-seeing?” Gaius Philippus made the most unlikely tourist Scaurus could imagine. “What on earth does this miserable plain have worth seeing?”
“Places we’ve been before,” the senior centurion said vaguely. He shifted from foot to foot like a small boy who needs to be excused. “I might get up to Aptos, for instance.”
“Why would anyone want to go to—” Marcus began, and then shut up with a snap. If Gaius Philippus had finally worked up the nerve to court Nerse Phorkaina, that was his business. The tribune did say, “Take care of yourself. There probably are still Yezda prowling the road.”
“Stragglers I’m not afraid of, but Avshar’s army went through there. That does wo
rry me.” The veteran rode out a couple of hours later, sitting his borrowed horse without grace but managing it with the same matter-of-fact competence he displayed in nearly everything he did.
“After his sweetling, is he?” Viridovix asked, watching the Roman trot past the burial parties busy at their noisome work.
“Yes, though I doubt he’d admit it on the rack.”
Instead of laughing at the centurion, Viridovix sighed heavily and said, “Och, I hope he finds her hale and all to bring back. E’en a great gowk like him deserves a touch o’ happiness, for all his face’d crack to show it.”
Gorgidas spoke in Greek. Marcus translated for Viridovix: “ ‘Count no man happy before his end,’ ” Solon’s famous warning to Croesus the Lydian king. The physician continued tartly, “The mere presence of the object of one’s infatuation does not guarantee delight, let me assure you.”
The tribune and the Gaul carefully looked elsewhere. Rakio had not returned to the legionary camp after the battle, save to get his gear. Having taken up with one of the Namdalener knights, he left Gorgidas without a good-bye or a backward glance.
“Don’t stand there mooning on my account,” the Greek snapped. “I knew he was fickle when we started; to give him his due, he never pretended otherwise. My pride isn’t badly stung, or my heart. It’s the better matches that leave the lasting sorrow.”
“Aye.” That was Scaurus and Viridovix together, softly. For a few seconds each of the three men was lost in his thoughts, Gorgidas remembering Quintus Glabrio; Viridovix, Seirem; and Marcus, Alypia and Helvis both.
Where nothing else would have, the thought that his second love might go as the first had almost kept him from pressing Thorisin on their bargain. His combat injuries were healing. But when he touched it unexpectedly, the wound Helvis had dealt pained him as much as it had when it was fresh. He flinched from opening himself to the risk of such hurt again.
Well, what are you going to do, then? he asked himself angrily—hide under a rock the rest of your life so the rain can’t find you?
The answer inside him was quiet, but very firm.
No.
The Emperor’s Haloga guardsmen were used to the tribune asking for an audience with their master. They saluted with clenched fists over their hearts; one ducked into the imperial tent to find out how long a wait Scaurus would have. “Yust a few minutes,” he promised as he reemerged.
Actually it was closer to half an hour. Marcus made small talk with the Halogai, swapping stories and comparing scabs. Apprehension tightened his belly like an ill-digested meal.
Glykas the steward stuck his head out and peered round, blinking in the bright sunshine, till he spied the Roman. “He’ll see you now,” he said. Scaurus walked forward on legs suddenly leaden.
Thorisin looked up from the stack of papers he so despised. With Videssos’ enemies bested for the moment, he had to start paying attention to the business of running the Empire again. He shoved the parchments to one side with a grunt of relief, waited for Marcus to bow, and overlooked, as usual, the tribune’s omitting the prostration. “What now?” he asked in a neutral voice.
“Perhaps—” Marcus began, and was mortified to have the word come out as a nervous croak. He steadied himself and tried again: “Perhaps it might be better if we talked under the rose.” Gavras frowned; the tribune flushed, realizing he had rendered the Latin phrase literally. He explained.
“ ‘Under the rose,’ eh? I rather like that,” the Emperor said. He dismissed Glykas, then turned back to Scaurus, his expression watchful now. “And so?” he prompted, folding his arms across his chest. Even in the ordinary linen tunic and baggy wool breeches he was wearing, he radiated authority. He’d had three years to grow into the imperial office, and it fit him.
Marcus felt his power, though he was not so intimidated as a Videssian would have been. He took a deep breath, then, as if to beat back his trepidation, and plunged straight ahead. “As we agreed in Videssos, I’d like you to think about me as a husband for your niece—if Alypia wishes it, of course.”
The Emperor steepled his fingers, making Scaurus wait. “Did we have such an agreement?” he asked lazily. “As I recall, there were no witnesses.”
“You know we did!” the tribune yelped, appalled. Denial was the last tack he had foreseen Gavras taking. “Phos heard you, if no one else.”
“You win nothing with me for using the good god’s name; I know you for a heathen,” Thorisin jeered. But he went on musingly, “To be just, you never tried that trick, either. Don’t tell me so stubborn a one as you has actually changed his mind?”
The squabbling among Phos’ sects still struck Marcus as insane, and he had no idea how to pick the true creed—if there was one—from the baying pack. But after his experience on the field, he could no longer ignore the Empire’s faith. “I may have,” he said, as honest a reply as he could find.
“Hrmmp. Most men in your shoes would come see me festooned with enough icons to turn a lance, or singing hymns, if they had the voice for it.”
The tribune shrugged.
“Hrmmp,” Thorisin repeated. He pulled at his beard. “You don’t make it easy, do you?” He gave a short snort of laughter. “I wonder how many times I’ve said that, eh, Roman?” He grinned as if they were conspirators.
Marcus shrugged again. The Emperor was drifting into that unfathomable sportive mood of his. Marcus realized that any response he made might be wrong. He cast about for arguments to prove to Gavras that he was no danger to him, but stood mute.
Gavras slammed the palms of his hands down, hard. His papers jumped; one rolled-up scroll fell off the desk. His voice came muffled from behind it as he leaned over to pick up the parchment. “Well, all right, go ahead and ask her.”
Triggered by the silence breaking, Marcus gabbled, “As a foreigner, I’d be no threat to the throne because the people would never accept—” He was nearly through the sentence before his brain registered what his ears had heard. “Ask her?” he whispered. The Avtokrator had not invited him to sit, but he sank into the nearest chair. It was that or the floor; his knees would not hold him up.
Tossing the scroll back onto the desktop, Thorisin ignored the breach of protocol. “I said so, didn’t I? After Zemarkhos, Avshar—Avshar!—and even a peace of sorts with Yezd, I could hardly refuse you. And besides—” He turned serious in an instant. “—if you know anything about me, you’d best know this: I keep my bargains.”
“Then the argument was a sham, and you were going to say yes to me all along?”
The sly grin came back to Gavras’ face. “What if I was?”
“Why, you miserable bastard!”
“Who’s a bastard, you cross-eyed midwife’s mistake?” Thorisin roared back. They were both laughing now, Marcus mostly in relief. The Emperor found a jug of wine, shook it to see how much it held—enough to suit him. He uncorked it, gulped, put the stopper back, and tossed it to Scaurus. As the tribune was drinking, he went on. “Admit it, your heart would’ve stopped if I’d told you aye straight out.”
Marcus started to say something, swallowed wrong, and sputtered and choked, spraying wine every which way. Thorisin pounded him on the back. “Thanks,” he wheezed.
He stood and clasped the Emperor’s hand, which was as hard and callused as his own. “My heart?” he said. “This would be the first time you’d ever shown a counterfeit copper’s worth of care for my health if that were true.”
“So it would,” Gavras said calmly, unashamed at being caught out. “Would it make you feel better if I admitted I was enjoying every second of the charade?”
Marcus took another drink, this time successfully. “Nothing,” he said, “could make me feel better than I do now.”
* * *
The imperial army was breaking camp, shaking itself into marching order for the return to the capital, and Gaius Philippus had not returned. “No need for you to come with us,” Arigh told Scaurus. “My lads’ll find him, never fear.” He rode
at the head of a company of Arshaum.
“Me, I’d bet on us,” Laon Pakhymer said; he had a band of his own horsemen behind him. “The old hardcase’s ghost would haunt us for spite if we didn’t do everything we could for him.” The Khatrisher would head into dangerous country after Gaius Philippus before letting on that he liked him.
Marcus paid no attention to either of them, but methodically saddled his horse. He mounted, then turned from one man to the other. “Let’s go.”
They trotted through the battlefield. The stench of the unburied horses and Yezda was beginning to fade; scavengers had reduced many of them to bare bones. Raw mounds of earth topped the mass graves of the fallen imperial soldiers. Broken weapons and bits of harness were starting to get dusty; whatever was worth looting had long since been taken.
Behind the search party, someone let out a yowl. Scaurus turned to see Viridovix galloping after them. “Why did ye no tell me you were for chasing down t’auld man?” he complained to the tribune once he had caught up. Mischief gleamed in his eyes. “Och, what a show—himself in love. Strange as a wolf growing cabbages, I warrant.”
“Maybe so, but I’d be careful twitting him over it,” Marcus advised.
“That I ken.”
Stretches of ground pocked with hoofprints showed where Avshar’s camp, and Wulghash’s, had lain. Not far past them, a Khatrisher scout whooped and pointed. Marcus peered ahead, but his eyes were not good enough to pick out the rider the scout had spotted before the fellow went to earth, letting his horse run free. The search party hurried ahead, but short of firing the scrubby brush by the side of the road or sending in dogs, no one was going to find the suspicious traveler in a hurry.
But when he heard his name shouted, Gaius Philippus cautiously emerged from cover. Recognizing Scaurus, Viridovix, and then Pakhymer, he lowered his gladius.
“What’s all this about?” he growled. “Where I come from, they don’t send this many out after parricides.”
Swords of the Legion (Videssos) Page 44
