Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  She shivered and came back to herself. “Don’t fret over me. I’m fine, truly.” She spoke quietly, but with something of the same briskness she had used toward Viridovix. When Scaurus still hesitated, she went on, “If you must have it, one proof we’re right for each other is that you noticed I was low. And here’s another.” She kissed him, which brought a huzza from the feasters. “There. Do you believe me now?”

  The best answer he could find was kissing her back. It seemed to be the right one.

  Some wedding guests were still singing raucously in the darkness outside the secluded palace building the imperial family used as its own. No one followed Marcus and Alypia in, though, but Thorisin and Alania, and they went off to their own rooms at once.

  The tribune swung open the door to the suite he and Alypia would live in until they left the city to take up the estate the Emperor had granted him. Servants had already come and gone, only minutes before; a sweating silver wine jar rested in a basin of crushed ice, with the customary one cup beside it. The bedcovers, silken sheets and soft furs, were turned down. A single lamp burned on the table by the bed.

  Alypia suddenly let out a squeak. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

  Marcus did, inside the chamber. Grinning, he said, “I’ve followed Videssian ways all through this wedding. No complaints—it’s only fitting. But that was one of mine. A bride should be carried across the threshold.”

  “Oh. Well, all right. You might have warned me.”

  “Sorry.” He looked and sounded so contrite that Alypia burst out laughing.

  Relieved, Marcus shut and barred the door. He started to laugh, too. “What is it, husband?” Alypia asked. She used the word with the proud possessiveness new brides have. “Or should I say, proved husband?” she asked mischievously, pantomiming him lifting her.

  “Not proved by that,” he answered. “I was just thinking, though, that that was the first time I’ve locked a door behind us without worrying that someone was going to kick it down.”

  “For which Phos be praised,” Alypia said at once. Her laugh was a little nervous. “It’s also, you will note, a stouter door.”

  “So it is, though I hadn’t planned to talk about it all night.”

  “Nor I.” She glanced at the ewer of wine. “Do you want much more of that? It’s a kindly notion, but I think another cup would only put me to sleep.”

  “Can’t have that,” Marcus agreed gravely. “I drank enough at the feast, too, I think.”

  He took off the fragrant wedding-wreath and started to toss it to one side. “Don’t do that!” Alypia exclaimed. “They go on the headposts of the bed, for luck.” She took his marriage-crown from him and hung it on the nearer post, then removed hers and climbed onto the bed to set it on the other.

  The tribune stepped forward and joined her. She hugged him fiercely, whispering, “Oh, Marcus, we came through everything! I love you.”

  He had time to say, “And I you,” before their lips met.

  The thick ceremonial robes hampered their embrace nearly as much as armor would have, but the fastenings were easier for Scaurus to undo. “Hurry,” Alypia said as he began to pay attention to his own robe. “It’s chilly here alone.”

  But she frowned when he shrugged the robe back from his shoulders. “That one is new,” she said, running her finger down the long scar on his chest.

  “It’s the one I took in Mashiz. It would be worse, but Gorgidas healed it.”

  “Yes, I remember your saying so. It’s in front, like any honorable wound. But it surprised me, and I want to get used to you again.”

  “There’ll be years for that now.” He gathered her in.

  She held him tightly. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  He blew out the lamp.

  * * *

  Gaius Philippus splashed through a puddle in the forum of Palamas. “Getting on toward spring. These last three storms only dropped rain, no new snow for a while now.”

  Marcus nodded. He bought a little fried squid, ate it, and licked his fingers clean. “I wish I could talk you into going to the westlands.”

  “How many times have we been through that?” the senior centurion said patiently. “You want to go live on a farm, fine, go’ ahead. Me, I was raised on one—and I got out just as fast as I could.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that,” Scaurus protested. “You’d have the land to do what you want with, not some tiny plot you couldn’t help starving on.”

  “So I’d bore myself to death instead. Is that better? No, I’m happy with the slot Gavras offered me. At least as infantry drillmaster I’ll know what I’m doing. Don’t worry over me; I won’t forget my Latin. A good solid Roman cadre’ll be staying in the city with me.” That was true; while most of the legionaries eagerly accepted farms on the estate the Emperor had granted Marcus, a couple of dozen preferred more active duty. Thorisin was glad to keep them on so they could train Videssian foot soldiers up to their standard.

  “The job counts for something,” Gaius Philippus insisted. “The lot of you will lose your edge out there, too busy with the crops and the beasts and the brats to bother with drill. You won’t hand it down to your sons, and it’ll be lost for good unless the imperials remember—and with me teaching, they will. I’m no scribbler like Gorgidas; what better monument can I leave behind?”

  “Anyone who lives through your exercises remembers them forever,” Marcus assured him. He grunted, mostly in pleasure. The tribune went on, “All right, you’ve argued me down again. But we won’t stop being soldiers ourselves, either, not with the Yezda for neighbors. Still, the main thing is that I’m selfish. I’ll miss having you at my right hand—and plain miss you, come to that.”

  “Well, by the gods—” The veteran had no truck with Phos—“it’s not as if we’ll never see each other again. Come trouble, first thing Thorisin’ll do is call up the Romans. And if the Yezda give you trouble, we’ll come down from the capital to hold the line or push Yavlak further up the plateau.

  “Besides, not wanting to farm doesn’t mean I won’t visit. I’ll be by every so often, guzzling your wine and pinching your wenches for as long as you can stand me. And who knows? One of these days I may get over to Aptos again, and you’d be the perfect jumping-off point for that.”

  “Of course.” Over the winter, Gaius Philippus had talked repeatedly of courting Nerse Phorkaina. Scaurus did not believe he would ever get around to it on his own. He frowned a little. From the friendly reception she had given the veteran the previous fall, he thought she might be interested. Maybe a message telling her to make a discreet first move might help. He filed the idea away, to act on when he found the time.

  Here and there green leaf buds were appearing on the trees in the palace compound. The first hopeful new grass had begun to poke through the dead, muddy, yellow-brown growth of the previous year.

  Gaius Philippus left to argue with an armorer over the proper balance of a dagger. Marcus went on to the imperial family’s private residence. The cherry trees surrounding the brick building were still bare-branched; soon they would be full of fragrant pink blossoms.

  Rather absently, Scaurus returned the salute of the guardsmen at the door. His eyes were on the crates and boxes and bundles piled outside: furnishings and household goods ready to ship to his new home when the dirt roads in the westlands dried enough. Years of army life had got him used to making do with very little; the thought of owning so much was daunting.

  The hallway smelled faintly of sour milk. The midwives had ushered Pharos Gavras into the world a month early, but he was strong and healthy, even if he did look like a bald, pink, wizened monkey. Marcus cringed, remembering the hangover he’d had after Thorisin celebrated the birth of his heir.

  Alypia’s voice was raised in exasperation. “What exactly do you mean by that, then?” she demanded.

  “Not what you’re reading into it, that’s certain!” The reply was equally bad-tempered.

  The tribune looked in at the open stu
dy door. Like the rest of the suite, the room was sparsely furnished; bare, in fact, but for a couch and a writing table in front of it. The rest had already been packed.

  “Softly, softly. The two of you will have the eunuchs running for cover, or more likely the sentries running this way to pry you from each other’s throats.”

  Alypia and Gorgidas looked simultaneously shamefaced and defiant. The secretary sitting between them looked harassed. Scaurus saw he had written only a few lines, and scratched out several of those. Gorgidas said, “Now I understand the myth of Sisyphos. The rock he had to push up the hill was a translation, and I’m surprised it didn’t crush him when it fell back.”

  Then the Greek had to explain Sisyphos to Alypia, who scribbled a note that might appear one day in her own history. “Though who can tell when that will be done?” she said to Marcus. “Another reason for coming back to Videssos often—how am I to write without the documents to check, the people to ask questions of?”

  Before he could answer, she had turned back to Gorgidas. Scaurus was used to that; the long labor of turning the Greek’s work into something a Videssian audience might want to read had left them thick as thieves. Alypia sighed. “It’s a fine line we walk. If we’re too literal, what you’ve written makes no sense in my language, but when we stray too far the other way, we lose the essence of what you’ve said. Eis kórakas,” she added: “To the crows with it,” a Greek curse that made both the tribune and Gorgidas laugh in surprise.

  The physician’s irritability collapsed. “What business do I have grumbling? When I started writing, I thought I would be the only one ever to read this mess, save maybe Marcus. Who else could? To have it published—”

  “It deserves to be,” Alypia said firmly. “First as an eyewitness account, and second because it’s history as history should be done—you see past events to the causes behind them.”

  “I try,” Gorgidas said. “The part we’re fighting through now, you understand, I didn’t see for myself; I have it from Viridovix. Here, Scaurus, be useful.” He thrust a parchment at the Roman. “How would you render this bit into Videssian?”

  “Me?” Marcus said, alarmed; most of his efforts in that direction had not been well received. “Which part?” Gorgidas showed him the disputed passage. Hoping he remembered what a couple of Greek verbs meant, he said, “How about, ‘Some clans backed Varatesh because they hated Targitaus, more because they feared Avshar’?”

  “That’s not bad,” Gorgidas said. “It keeps the contrast I was drawing.” Alypia pursed her lips judiciously and nodded.

  “Let me have it again, please,” the secretary said, and wrote it down.

  Gorgidas and Alypia combined to tear Scaurus’ next suggestion to pieces.

  A little later, after more wrangling, Gorgidas said, “Enough for now. Maybe it’ll go better, looked at fresh.” His nod to Alypia was close to a seated bow. He told her, “If you like, I’d count it a privilege to search out the manuscripts you need and send them on to you at your new home. That can’t take the place of your own inquiries, of course, but it might help some.”

  “A bargain,” she said with the same quick decisiveness Thorisin might have shown. A warm smile and a word of thanks softened the resemblance.

  The Greek rose to take his leave. “You’ll be busy, doing your research, and some for Alypia, and healing, too,” Marcus remarked as he walked to the entranceway with him.

  “Physicians are supposed to be busy. As for running down the odd book for your wife, that’s the least I can do, wouldn’t you say? Not only for the favor she’s shown me, but also because I’ve learned a great deal from her.”

  Scaurus thought the Greek could give no greater praise, but Gorgidas amazed him by murmuring, “Pity she has no sister.” He barked laughter at the tribune’s expression. “Not everything that happened on the steppe got written down. I can manage, after a fashion, and I’d like a son one day.” As if on cue, a thin cry floated down the hall from the nursery.

  One of the sentries outside must have told a dirty story. Scaurus heard chuckles, and then Viridovix saying, “Get on wi’ your bragging, now. You’re after reminding me o’ the flea that humped the she-wolf and told her, ‘Sure and I hope I’ve not hurt you, my dear.’ ”

  More laughter; beside the tribune, Gorgidas let out a strangled snort. The guardsman said, “Did you come here to insult me, or do you have some honest reason?”

  “Och, I like that,” the Gaul exclaimed, as if cut to the quick. “But aye, I’m for Scaurus, if he’s to home.”

  “I’m here.” Marcus stepped out of the hallway into the watery sunshine.

  “It’s himself himself,” Viridovix cried. He waved at the piled boxes and chests. “Sure and you must’ve emptied out all the palaces, and the High Temple, too. Me, I could carry what I’ll bring with me on my back.”

  “Remember, though, mules carry an uncommon lot,” Gorgidas said. “And if Thorisin hadn’t set you up on your own estate, half the nobles in town would have clubbed together to buy you one and get you away from their wives.”

  The Gaul shrugged. “T’other half married ugly lasses, puir spalpeens.” Gorgidas threw his hands in the air, defeated. The guards laughed so hard they had to hold each other up. Viridovix had not been able to take Alypia’s advice to heart; his philanderings were notorious all over the city. But he was so good-natured through them that he had somehow kept from making any mortal enemies, male or female.

  Marcus said, “Did you come here to insult me, or do you have some honest reason?”

  “What an unco wicked man y’are, t’stand in there and spy on me. But you’re right, I do.” To the sentries’ disappointment, he dropped into Latin. “Now we’re for it and about to be going and all, I’d fain thank you for talking the Gavras into granting me land for my own self, and not just a chunk I’d have from you.”

  “Oh, that,” Marcus said in the same tongue. “Forget it; the other way embarrassed me as much as it did you. Thorisin just sees all of us as one band and, since he’s mostly dealt with me, he didn’t think to do otherwise this time. Not,” he added, “that you ever took orders from me.”

  “Forbye, you never tried to give ’em, and I’ll thank you for that, too.” Viridovix drew himself up with lonely pride. “Still and all, I’m not sorry to be on my own. I wouldna have Gaius Philippus say he was right all along, and the only Celt here a Roman gillie.”

  “Are you still fighting that idiot war?” Gorgidas said in disgust. “Haven’t you found enough new ways here to satisfy your barbarian craving for gore?”

  “Let him be,” Marcus said. “We all remember, as best we can. It helps us hang together.”

  “Aye,” Viridovix said. “You Romans now, you’re the lucky ones, wi’ sic a mort o’ ye here. Belike even your grandsons’ll recall a word or two o’ Latin. And the Greek has his histories for keepsake. So I’ll remember, too, and a pox on anyone for saying I shouldna bother.” He looked pointedly at Gorgidas.

  “Oh, very well,” the physician said with bad grace. He fumed for a few seconds, then smiled lopsidedly. “I’m always annoyed when you outargue me. Those droopy red whiskers make me forget the brain behind them.” Shaking his head, he strode off.

  “Here, wait!” Viridovix shouted. “We’ll hash it out further over a stoup o’ the grape.” He trotted after Gorgidas.

  The guardsmen might not have been able to follow the conversation, but they recognized the tone. “Remind me of my dog and cat, they do,” one said to Scaurus.

  “You have it,” the tribune said.

  He went back into the imperial residence, walking past the portrait of the ancient Emperor Laskaris, whose harsh peasant face gave him more the look of a veteran underofficer than a ruler. The bloodstain marring the lower part of the picture was one of the few reminders of the desperate fighting against Onomagoulos’ assassins two years before. Most of the damage had been made good, but Laskaris’ image was impossible to clean and too precious to throw away.
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  The secretary came out of Scaurus’ doorway. Alypia’s voice pursued him: “I’d like a fair copy of that tomorrow, Artanas, if you can have it by then.”

  Artanas’ shoulders heaved in a silent sigh. “I’ll do my best, your Highness.” He sighed again, bowed to the tribune, and hurried off, tucking his case of pens into his tunic.

  “I shouldn’t drive him so hard,” Alypia said when Marcus joined her inside. “But I want to do as much as I can before we leave for the westlands.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Not that I can accomplish much, with three quarters of my things stowed away where I can’t get at them.”

  The tribune had learned she complained only over minor upsets; she did not let frets get in the way of dealing with real problems. Knowing that, he should have changed the subject. Because he was still adjusting to her, though, he said anxiously, “I hope it won’t be too strange for you, away from Videssos the city.”

  She looked at him with mixed fondness and exasperation. “Strange? It’ll be more like going home. Have you forgotten I grew up on a country holding not very far from the one we’re taking? I never thought I’d see the city until my father led the revolt that cast out Strobilos Sphrantzes. No, you needn’t fear for me on that score.”

  Flustered because he had forgotten, Marcus said, “All right,” so unconvincingly that Alypia could not help laughing.

  “It really is all right,” she assured him. “This is the happy ending the romances write about, the one we all know doesn’t happen in real life. But we have it, you and I—the villain overthrown, you with the acclaim you deserve, and the two of us together, as we should be. Is any of that bad?”

  He laughed himself. “No,” he said, “especially the last,” and kissed her. He was telling the truth; his previous experience reminded him how lucky he was. One sign was the absence of the grinding fights that had punctuated his time with Helvis. But that was only the most obvious mark of a greater tranquility. Not the least reason for it, he knew, was his learning from earlier mistakes.