An Emperor for the Legion

by Harry Turtledove

  “What did you rescue from this one?” Helvis asked, hefting Dosti. “Are you bringing your taxes to bed now?”

  “I should hope not,” Marcus exclaimed; there was a perversion not even Vardanes Sphrantzes could enjoy. The tribune showed Helvis Gorgidas’ history. The strange script made her frown. Though she could read only a few words of Videssian, she knew what the signs were supposed to look like, and was taken aback that a different system could represent sounds.

  Something almost like fear was in her eyes as she said to Scaurus, “There are times when I nearly forget from how far away you come, dear, and then something like this reminds me. This is your Latin, then?”

  “Not quite,” the tribune said, but he could see his explanation left her confused. Nor did she understand his interest in the past.

  “It’s gone, and gone forever. What could be more useless?” she said.

  “How can you hope to understand what will come without knowing what’s come before?”

  “What comes will come, whether I understand it or not. Now is plenty for me.”

  Marcus shook his head. “There’s more than a little barbarian in you, I fear,” he said, but fondly.

  “And what if there is?” Her stare challenged him. She put Dosti in his crib.

  He took her in his arms. “I wasn’t complaining,” he said.

  It always amused Scaurus how students and masters of the Videssian Academy turned to watch him as he made his way through the gray sandstone building’s corridors. They could be priest or noble, graybeard scholar or ropemaker’s gifted son, but the sight of a mercenary captain in the halls never failed to make heads swing.

  He was glad Nepos kept early hours. With luck, the chubby little priest could find his missing tax roll for him before he was due to meet Alypia Gavra. At first it seemed he would have that luck, for Nepos’ hours were even earlier than he’d thought; when he peered into the refectory a drowsy-looking student told him, “Aye, he was here, but he’s already gone to lecture. Where, you say? I think in one of the chambers on the third floor, I’m not sure which.” The young man went back to his honey-sweetened barley porridge.

  Marcus trudged up the stairs, then walked past open doors until he found his man. He slid into an empty seat at the back of the room. Nepos beamed at him but kept on teaching. His dozen or so students scribbled notes as they tried to keep pace.

  Now and then a student would ask a question; Nepos dealt with them effortlessly but patiently, always asking at the end of his explanation, “Now do you understand?” To that Scaurus would have had to answer no. As near as he could gather, the priest’s subject matter was somewhere on the border between theology and sorcery, and decidedly too abstruse for the uninitiated. Still, the tribune judged him a fine speaker, witty, thoughtful, self-possessed.

  “That will do for today,” Nepos said as Marcus was beginning to fidget. Most of the students trooped out; a couple stayed behind to ask questions too complex to interrupt the flow of the lecture. They, too, looked curiously at Scaurus as they left.

  So did Nepos. “Well, well,” he chuckled, pumping the tribune’s hand. “What brings you here? Surely not a profound interest in the relation between the ubiquity of Phos’ grace and proper application of the law of contact.”

  “Uh, no,” Scaurus said. But when he explained why he had come, Nepos laughed until his round cheeks reddened. The tribune did not see the joke, and said so.

  “Your pardon, I pray. I have a twofold reason for mirth.” He ticked them off his fingers. “First, for something so trivial you hardly need the services of a chairholder in theoretical thaumaturgy. Any street-corner wizard could find your lost register for a fee of a couple of silver bits.”

  “Oh.” Marcus felt his face grow hot. “But I don’t know any street-corner wizards, and I do know you.”

  “Quite right, quite right. Don’t take me wrong; I’m happy to help. But a mage of my power is no more needed for so simple a spell than a sledgehammer to push a pin through gauze. It struck me funny.”

  “I never claimed to know anything of magic. What else amuses you?” Feeling foolish, the tribune tried to hide it with gruffness.

  “Only that today’s lecture topic turns out to be relevant to you after all. Thanks to Phos’ all-pervading goodness, things once conjoined are ever after so related that contact between them can be restored. Would you have, perhaps, a tax roll from a city close by Kybistra?”

  Scaurus thought. “Yes, back at my offices I was working on the receipts from Doxon. I don’t know that part of the Empire well, but from my maps the two towns are only a day’s journey apart.”

  “Excellent! Using one roll to seek another will strengthen the spell, for, of course, it’s also true that like acts most powerfully on like. Lead on, my friend—no, don’t be foolish, I have no plans till the afternoon, and this shan’t take long, I promise.”

  As they walked through the palace compound, the priest kept up a stream of chatter on his students, on the weather, on bits of Academy gossip that meant little to Scaurus, and on whatever else popped into his mind. He loved to talk. The Roman gave him a better audience than most of his countrymen, who were also fond of listening to themselves.

  Marcus thought the two of them made a pair as strange as Viridovix and Arigh: a fat little shave-pate priest with a fuzzy black beard and a tall blond mercenary-turned-bureaucrat.

  “Do you prefer this to the field?” Nepos asked as the tribune ushered him into his office. Pandhelis the secretary looked up in surprise as he saw the priest’s blue robe out of the corner of his eye. He jumped to his feet, making the sun-sign over his breast. Nepos returned it.

  Scaurus considered. “I thought I would when I started. These days I often wonder—answers are so much less clear-cut here.” He didn’t want to say much more than that, not with Pandhelis listening. He returned to the business at hand. Doxon’s cadaster was where he’d left it, shoved to one corner of his desk. “Will you need any special gear for your spell?” he asked Nepos.

  “No, not a thing. Merely a few pinches of dust, to serve as a symbolic link between that which is lost and that which seeks it. Dust, I think, will not be hard to come by in these surroundings.” The priest chuckled. Marcus did, too; Pandhelis, a bureaucrat born, sniffed audibly.

  Nepos got his dust from the windowsill, carefully put it down in the center of a clean square of parchment. “The manifestations of the spell vary,” he explained to Scaurus. “If the missing object is close by, the dust may shape itself into an arrow pointing it out, or may leave its resting point and guide the seeker directly. If the distance is greater, though, it will form a word or image to show him the location of what he’s looking for.”

  In Rome the tribune would have thought that so much hog-wash, but he knew better here. Nepos began a chant in the archaic Videssian dialect. He held Doxon’s tax roll in his right hand, while the stubby fingers of his left moved in quick passes, amazingly sure and precise. The priest wore a smile of simple pleasure; Marcus thought of a master musician amusing himself with a children’s tune.

  Nepos called out a last word in a commanding tone of voice, then stabbed his left forefinger down at the dust. But though it roiled briefly, as if breathed upon, it showed no pattern.

  Nepos frowned, as Scaurus’ imaginary musician might have at a lute string suddenly out of tune. He scratched his chin, looked at the Roman in some embarrassment. “My apologies. I must have done something wrong, though I don’t know what. Let me try again.” His second effort was no more successful than the first. The dust stirred, then settled meaninglessly.

  The priest studied his hands, seemingly wondering if they had betrayed him for some reason of their own. “How curious,” he murmured. “Your book is not destroyed, of that I’m sure, else the dust would not have moved at all. But are you certain it’s in the city?”

  “Where else would it be?” Scaurus retorted, unable to imagine anyone wanting to spirit off such a stupefying document.

/>   “Shall we try to find out?” The question was rhetorical; Nepos was already examining the contents of his belt-pouch to see if he had what he needed. He grunted in satisfaction as he produced a small stoppered glass vial in the shape of a flower’s seed-capsule. He put a couple of drops of the liquid within on his tongue, making a face at the taste. “Now this not every wizard will know, so you did well coming to me after all. It clears the mind of doubts and lets it see further, thus increasing the power of the spell.”

  “What is it?” Scaurus asked.

  Nepos hesitated; he did not like to reveal his craft’s secrets. But the drug was already having its way with him. “Poppy juice and henbane,” he said drowsily. The pupils of his eyes shrank down almost to nothing. But his voice and hands, drilled by years of the wizard’s art, went through the incantation without faltering.

  Again the finger darted at the dust. Marcus’ eyes widened as he watched the pinches of dead stuff writhe like a tiny snake and shape themselves into a word. Successful magic never failed to raise his hackles.

  “How interesting,” Nepos said, though his decoction dulled the interest in his voice. “Even aided, I did not think the cantrip could reach to Garsavra.”

  “Fair enough,” Scaurus answered, “because I didn’t think the tax roll could be there either.” He scratched his head, wondering why it was. No matter, he decided; Onomagoulos could always send it back.

  The tribune dispatched Pandhelis to take Nepos to the Roman barracks and put him to bed. The priest went without demur. The potion he had swallowed left his legs rubbery and his usually lively spirit as muffled as a drum beaten through several thicknesses of cloth. “No, don’t worry for me. It will wear off soon,” he reassured Scaurus, fighting back an enormous yawn. He lurched off on Pandhelis’ arm.

  Marcus looked out the window, then quickly followed the secretary and priest downstairs. By the shortness of the shadows it was nearly noon, and it would not do to keep Alypia Gavra waiting.

  To his dismay, he found her already standing by the Grand Gates. She did not seem angry, though. In fact, she was deep in conversation with the four Romans on sentry duty for her uncle.

  “Aye, your god’s well enough, my lady,” Minucius was saying, “but I miss the legion’s eagle. That old bird watched over us a lot of times.” The legionary’s companions nodded soberly. So did Alypia. She frowned, as if trying to fix Minucius’ remark in her memory. Marcus could not help smiling. He’d seen that expression on Gorgidas too often not to recognize it now—the mark of a historian at work.

  Spotting his commander, Minucius came to attention, grounding his spear with a sharp thud. He and his comrades gave Scaurus the clenched-fist Roman salute. “As you were. I’m outranked here,” the tribune said easily. He bowed to Alypia.

  “Don’t let me interfere between your men and you,” she said.

  “You weren’t.” Back in his days with Caesar in Gaul, the least breach of order would have disturbed him mightily. Two and a half years as a mercenary captain had taught him the difference between spit and polish for their own sake and the real discipline that was needed to survive.

  The chamberlain inside the Grand Gates clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Your Highness, where are your attendants?” he asked.

  “Doing whatever they do, I imagine. I have no use for them,” she answered curtly, and ignored the functionary’s indignant look. Scaurus noted the edge in her voice; her natural leaning toward privacy could only have been exaggerated by the time she spent as Vardanes Sphrantzes’ captive.

  The court attendant gave an eloquent shrug, but bowed and conducted them forward. As the tribune walked up the colonnaded central hall toward the imperial throne, he saw the damage of the previous summer’s fight had been repaired. Tapestries hung untorn, while tiny bits of matching stone were cemented into chipped columns.

  Then Scaurus realized not all the injuries had been healed. He strode over a patch of slightly discolored porphyry flooring, a patch whose polish did not quite match the mirrorlike perfection of the rest. It would have been about here, he thought, that Avshar’s fire blazed. He wondered again where the wizard-prince’s sorcery had snatched him; through all the winter there had been no report of him.

  Alypia’s eyes were fathomless, but the closer she drew to the throne—and to the passageway beside it—the tighter her mouth became, until Marcus saw her bite her lip.

  Another chamberlain led Katakolon Kekaumenos back from his audience with the Emperor. The legate from Agder gave Scaurus his wintry smile, inclined his head to Alypia Gavra. Once he was out of earshot, she murmured, “You’d think he paid for every word he spoke.”

  Their guide fell in the proskynesis before the throne. From his belly he called up to Thorisin, “Her Highness the Princess Alypia Gavra! The epoptes and commander Scaurus the Ronam!” Marcus stifled the urge to kick him in his upraised backside.

  “Phos’ light, fool, I know who they are,” the Emperor growled, still with no use for court ceremonial. The attendant rose. He gaped to see the tribune still on his feet. Alypia was of royal blood, but why was this outlander so privileged? “Never mind, Kabasilas,” Thorisin said. “My brother made allowances for him, and I do, too. He earns them, mostly.” Kabasilas bowed and withdrew, but his curled lip spoke volumes.

  Gavras cocked an eyebrow at the tribune. “So, epoptes and commander Scaurus, what now? Are the seal-stampers siphoning off goldpieces to buy themselves counting-boards with beads of ruby and silver?”

  “As for that,” Marcus said, “I’m having some trouble finding out.” He told the Emperor of the missing tax register, thinking to slide from an easy matter to the harder one that was his main purpose here.

  “I thought you know better than to come to me with such twaddle,” Thorisin said impatiently. “Send to Baanes if you will, but you have no need to bother me about it.”

  Scaurus accepted the rebuke; like Mavrikios, the younger Gavras appreciated directness. But when the Roman began his plea for Taron Leimmokheir, the Emperor did not let him get past the ex-admiral’s name before he roared, “No, by Skotos’ filth-filled beard! Are you turned treacher, too?”

  His bellow filled the Grand Courtroom. Courtiers froze in mid-step; a chamberlain almost dropped the fat red candle he was carrying. It went out. His curse, a eunuch’s contralto, echoed Gavras’. Minucius poked his head into the throne room to see what had happened.

  “You were the one who told me it wasn’t in the man to lie,” Marcus said, persisting where a man born in the Empire might well quail.

  “Aye, so I did, and came near paying my life for my stupidity,” Thorisin retorted. “Now you tell me to put the wasp back in my tunic for another sting. Let him stay mured up till he rots, and gabble out his prayers lest worse befall him.”

  “Uncle, I think you’re wrong,” Alypia said. “What little decency came my way while the Sphrantzai reigned came from Leimmokheir. Away from his precious ships he’s a child, with no more skill at politics than Marcus’ foster son.”

  The tribune blinked, first at her mentioning Malric and then at her calling him by his own praenomen. When used alone, it was normally a mark of close personal ties. He wondered whether she knew the Roman custom.

  She was going on, “You know I’m telling you the truth, uncle. How many years, now, have you known Leimmokheir? More than a handful, surely. You know the man he is. Do you really think that man could play you false?”

  The Emperor’s fist slammed down on the gold-sheathed arm of his throne. The ancient seat was not made for such treatment; it gave a painful creak of protest. Thorisin leaned forward to emphasize his words. “The man I knew would not break faith. But Leimmokheir did, and thus I knew him not at all. Who does worse evil, the man who shows his wickedness for the whole world to see or the one who stores it up to loose against those who trust him?”

  “A good question for a priest,” Alypia said, “but not one with much meaning if Leimmokheir is innocent.”

  �
�I was there, girl. I saw what was done, saw the new-minted goldpieces of the Sphrantzai in the murderers’ pouches. Let Leimmokheir explain them away—that might earn his freedom.” The Emperor laughed, but it was a sound of hurt. Marcus knew it was futile to argue further; feeling betrayed by a man he had thought honest, Gavras would not, could not, yield to argument.

  “Thank you for hearing me, at least,” the tribune said. “I gave my word to put the case to you once more.”

  “Then you misgave it.”

  “No, I think not.”

  “There are times, outlander, when you try my patience,” the Emperor said dangerously. Scaurus met his eye, hiding the twinge of fear he felt. Much of the position he had built for himself in Videssos was based on not letting the sheer weight of imperial authority coerce him. That, for a man of republican Rome, was easy. Facing an angry Thorisin Gavras was something else again.

  Gavras made a dissatisfied sound deep in his throat. “Kabasilas!” he called, and the chamberlain was at his elbow as the last syllable of his name still echoed in the high-ceilinged throne room. Marcus expected some sonorous formula of dismissal, but that was not Thorisin’s way. He jerked his head toward his niece and the tribune and left Kabasilas to put such formality in the gesture as he might.

  The steward did his best, but his bows and flourishes seemed all the more artificial next to the Emperor’s unvarnished rudeness. The other court functionaries craned their necks at Scaurus and Alypia as he led them away, wondering how much favor they had lost. That would be as it was, Marcus thought. He laughed at himself—a piece of fatalism worthy of the Halogai.

  When they came out to the Grand Gates once more, Alypia stopped to talk a few minutes longer with the Roman sentries there, then departed for the imperial residence. Scaurus went up to his offices to dictate a letter to Baanes Onomagoulos; Pandhelis’ script was far more legible than his own. That accomplished, he basked in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction as he started back to the barracks.