Legion of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  “Evanthia, Plinthas’ daughter,” she answered shyly.

  “You mean himself outside? The headman?” At her nod Viridovix chuckled. “Then it must be your mother you look like, for he’s no beauty.”

  She bobbed in a curtsey, smiling back at him now. Gorgidas had seen him weave that spell before; few were immune to it. Evanthia said, “I never knew there were men with hair the color of rust. Your speech rings strangely, too; what far land are you from?”

  With that invitation Viridovix was off, launching into his tale like a man diving into the sea. He paused a few seconds later to take a mat from Evanthia and spread it on the ground. “Here, sit by me, my darling, the which’ll make it more comfortable for you to listen.” He winked at Gorgidas over her shoulder.

  The other partnerings were quickly made. The girls from the village did not seem upset at the arrangement—save perhaps Olbiop’s chosen, for he pawed her unceasingly. On reflection, Gorgidas found no reason why they should be. They were but following their people’s longtime custom, a practice he had extolled not long before.

  His own companion was named Spasia. She was not as well-favored as Viridovix’ lady; she was plump and had a faint fuzz above her upper lip. But her voice was pleasant, and Gorgidas soon saw she was not stupid, though she had no more idea of the world around her than any villager would. Her eyes kept flicking to the Greek’s face. “Is something wrong?” he asked her, wondering if she could sense she did not rouse him.

  But her reply was altogether artless: “Are you what they call a eunuch? Your cheeks are so smooth.”

  “No,” he said, trying not to laugh. “My folk have the custom of shaving their faces, and I follow it even here.” He reached into his pack to show her the leaf-shaped razor he used.

  She felt the edge. “Why keep such a painful custom?” she asked. He did laugh then, for he had no ready answer.

  The women readied the food they had brought: chickens, ducks, rabbits, fresh-baked loaves of bread—real bread, for, being settled, they could have a permanent oven—several kinds of berry tarts, and various herbs and leafy vegetables mixed together into a salad. Roasting meat’s welcome smell filled the former temple.

  Pleasantly full from a good dinner, his head buzzing a little after several draughts of potent kavass, Gorgidas leaned back on his mat and scratched his belly. With the Videssians and Viridovix, he had laughed at Olbiop and Arigh for refusing the salad; to the nomads, greens were cattle fodder, not food fit for men. “Don’t be egging ’em on, now,” Viridovix had said. “All the more for the rest of us.” The Greek had gone along; some of the vegetables, including a white radish strong enough to bring tears to his eyes, were new to him, while a tasty dressing of spiced vinegar and oil added savor to the serving.

  If the plainsmen had no yen for lettuces and cucumbers, they made up for it with their drinking, downing the fermented mare’s milk in great gulps. They smacked their lips and belched enormously with the good manners of the steppe. Olbiop’s companion kept a kavass skin in his hand as often as she could; Gorgidas wondered if she hoped he would swill himself into insensibility.

  If so, she was disappointed. The Khamorth was no inexperienced stripling, to pass out when there were other pleasures yet to enjoy. He pulled the girl to him, worked his hands under her tunic once more, and pulled it off inside out over her head. She yielded with no great enthusiasm; her air was that of someone who had tried a ploy, seen it fail, and now was left with the consequences.

  Gorgidas had thought the Khamorth would take the woman out into the night, but he pulled down her skirt, stripped off his own fur jacket, trousers, and boots, and fell to with a will, as if the two of them were alone. The Greek looked away; Pikridios Goudeles pretended not to see, never missing a syllable in the story he was telling his companion; Arigh and Skylitzes, used to steppe ways, were themselves not far behind the Khamorth. Viridovix gaped a moment or two, surprise and rut both on his face, before he grinned and gathered Evanthia in. Her arms tightened around him.

  Goudeles caught Gorgidas’ eye above the recumbent couples. “When you come to Videssos, you eat fish,” he said, and sank down on his sleeping-mat with his partner.

  “Push more than your pen, there!” Skylitzes called; the bureaucrat gave back an obscene gesture.

  Gorgidas still did not lay a hand on Spasia. The orgy all around raised no lust in him, nor mirth either. With the physician’s detachment he could not seem to lose, he watching bodies move, joining and separating, listened to sighs and hard breathing and now and again a gasp of pleasure or a wild fragment of laughter.

  He felt Spasia’s gaze on him. “I do not please you,” she said. It did not sound like a question.

  “It’s only that I—” he began, but Olbiop’s hoarse yell interrupted him.

  The Khamorth was leaning on an elbow, waiting for his tool to regain its proper temper. “No stones, woman-face?” he called tauntingly. “Why I get you woman? No good she do you.”

  Even with the fire playing on them, Gorgidas felt his cheeks grow hot. The thing would have to be essayed, he realized. Spasia’s eyes held quiet pity as he slid his arm around her and brought her face toward his. She was kind; maybe that would help.

  The very feel of her mouth, soft and small, was strange to him, and the firm pressure of her breasts between them seemed a distraction. He was used to a different kind of embrace, a shared hardness. Awkwardly, still conscious of watching eyes, he helped her out of blouse and skirt. His own clothing slid off easily. His body was slim, stringily muscled, and stronger than it looked. He was one-and-forty; it had looked much the same at twenty-one and would yet if he reached sixty-one. Kissing Spasia again, he pushed her gently down to the soft felt. Her lips were pleasant, her warmth against him comforting, but he remained unstirred.

  Viridovix hooted and pointed and shouted to Olbiop: “Will you look at that, Khamorth dear? Silvertongue you were after calling himself this afternoon past; sure and he’s earning the name the now!” Plainsman and Gaul cheered Goudeles on.

  For a moment Gorgidas hoped it had been the watchers that balked him, but he had no success even after their stares traveled elsewhere. “Your pardon, I beg,” he said softly to Spasia. “It’s not yourself—”

  “May I help you, then? You are gracious to a stranger you will never see again; that deserves some reward.”

  Startled, the Greek began to toss his head in his nation’s no, but stopped. “Maybe you can,” he said, and touched the nape of her neck.

  Perhaps it was the familiarity of the caress; whatever the reason, he almost shouted when he felt himself respond to it. He lifted her face away from him. Smiling, she rolled invitingly onto her back. “There,” she whispered, a half sigh.

  Soon her breath came short and fast, her mouth now seeking his, her arms round his back trying to pull him ever closer. He laughed quietly to himself as she quivered in release beneath him; he had come to the steppe to break with his past, but hardly like this.

  Even though he had accomplished it, however, it still seemed strange and not a little perverse, nothing he really cared to make a habit of. And, ironically, because he was not truly kindled he was able to go on long after his companions flagged. Spasia’s mouth was half-open, her eyes glazed with pleasure; now Olbiop, Viridovix, and Arigh were applauding the Greek’s stamina. When he was done at last, the Khamorth came over and slapped his sweaty back. “I wrong,” he said, no small admission from one of the overweening plainsmen.

  The debauch went on far into the night, with partners shifting kaleidoscopically. Having established his credit—even if in counterfeit coin, he thought—Gorgidas felt free to abstain, and Spasia wanted no other. Lying side by side, they talked quietly of his wanderings and her life in the village until sleep overtook them.

  The last thing she said was, “I hope you gave me a son.” That brought the Greek back to wakefulness, but the only answer she gave his low-voiced question was a snore. He moved closer to her and drifted off himself
.

  The next morning Olbiop woke them all with a loud groan. Holding his head in both hands as if afraid it might fall off, the Khamorth shoved the leather curtain aside and, still naked, staggered to the village well. Gorgidas heard him curse the creaking windlass as he drew a bucket of water. He poured it over his pounding head, the other Khamorth laughing at his sorry state.

  The nomad returned, his greasy hair dripping. The drenching was his first bath in a very long time; despite it he smelled powerfully of horses and endless years of sweat. He shuddered at the thought of breakfast, but swigged kavass.

  “The scales of the snake that stung him,” Spasia said, reheating a rabbit leg for Gorgidas. Clothed again, she seemed once more a stranger. The Greek fumbled in his kit, wishing his packing had been less functional. He finally came across a small silver box of powdered ink, an image of Phos on its lid. Spasia tried to refuse it, saying, “You gave of yourself last night. That was enough.”

  “That was fair exchange,” he replied. “Take it, for broadening my horizons if nothing else.” She looked at him, uncomprehending, but he did not explain. At last she accepted it with a murmured word of thanks.

  Other farewells were going on around them. “Nay, lass, you canna be coming with us. ’Twas but the meeting of a night,” Viridovix said patiently, over and over, until Evanthia understood. The Gaul had said many goodbyes in his time, and did not hurry them. For all his ferociousness in battle, for all his delight in strife of any kind, he was not a cruel man.

  Along with the rest of the travelers, Gorgidas slung his kit on a packhorse’s back, checking to make sure the leather lashings were secure. When he was satisfied, he swung himself up into the saddle of the pony he would ride that day. Skylitzes gestured. Flanked by the squad from Prista and Olbiop’s nomads, the embassy rode out of the village. A scrawny yellow dog followed until one of the Khamorth made as if to ride it down. It fled, peering fearfully back over its shoulder. Distance swallowed people, buildings, streets, the hamlet itself.

  The plainsmen did not stay with the imperial party long; the herds awaited their return. Olbiop traded gibes with Agathias Psoes and his troopers, boasting of his own prowess. “And then are this one,” he said, jabbing a thumb toward Gorgidas. “He futter good, for no-balls man.”

  “And to the crows with you,” the Greek muttered, but in his own language.

  Olbiop took no notice in any case. “You careful now, Psoes. We catch you no guard—how you say?—embassies, we kill you.”

  “Pick your place,” the underofficer replied in the same bantering tone, but he and the nomad both knew a day might come when they were not joking. With a last wave, Olbiop and his men turned back toward the south.

  “Let’s travel,” Skylitzes said.

  “A moment, please.” Gorgidas dismounted and unstrapped his kit from the packhorse, which had begun to graze during the halt. The others watched curiously as he rummaged. When he came upon his razor, he threw it far out onto the steppe. He remounted, dipped his head to Skylitzes. “Very good. Let’s travel.”

  III

  A RIPE STRAWBERRY WHIZZED PAST MARCUS’ HEAD AND squashed against the barracks wall behind him. “For heaven’s sake, Pakhymer,” he said wearily, “put your damned toy catapult away and pay attention, will you?”

  “I was just checking it,” Laon Pakhymer replied innocently. For all his pockmarks and thick beard, he wore a small-boy grin. He led a mercenary regiment of light cavalry from Khatrish, the small Khaganate on Videssos’ eastern border. Like all the Khatrishers Scaurus knew, he had trouble taking anything seriously. No gravitas, the tribune thought.

  Even so, he was glad Pakhymer had chosen to come to the legionary officers’ meeting. Though not properly part of Scaurus’ command, his horsemen worked well with the Roman infantry.

  As if the flying berry had been some strange signal, the tribune’s lieutenants left off chattering among themselves and looked toward him to hear what he had to tell them. He rose from his seat at the head of the table and took a couple of paces back and forth to put his thoughts in order. The splash of juice on the clean white plaster behind him was distracting.

  “All bets are off—again,” he said at last. “Sometimes I think we’ll never fight the Yezda. First the civil war with Ortaias Sphrantzes, then Onomagoulos, and now the great—” He loaded the word with irony, “—count Drax.”

  “What’s the latest?” Sextus Minucius asked hesitantly. He was attending his first council as underofficer and seemed sure everyone else was better informed than he.

  Scaurus wished it were so. “You know as much as the rest of us, I fear. It’s like Apokavkos said when he brought us the news yesterday. When Drax beat Onomagoulos in the westlands, he found himself left with the only real army there. Appears he’s decided to set up on his own.”

  “But the westlands—Garsavra, Kypas, Kyzikos—they’ve been ours forever,” Zeprin the Red protested, his florid face angry. He was no Videssian, despite that “ours,” but a Haloga mercenary who had served the Empire so long he had made it his own, as Phostis Apokavkos had the Romans. Before Maragha, he had held high rank in the Imperial Guards. A lot of things had been different before Maragha.

  “Namdalen used to be Videssian, too,” the tribune said. Zeprin grunted, nodded ruefully. Marcus went on, “And speaking of that, Drax is making the islanders’ old dream of a new Namdalen on the Empire’s soil come true. When news of it gets back to the Duchy, we’ll see land-hungry barons sailing west to carve out their own little domains while the carving’s good. The only way I can see to keep that from happening is to break Drax fast.”

  Gagik Bagratouni, the nakharar who headed the Vaspurakaners in Scaurus’ force, raised a hand. “There are—how you say?—more Namdaleni closer to Drax than in the Duchy.” His broad, hook-nosed face showed concentration as he spoke; Videssian did not come easily to him. “Utprand plenty of them has, and here. What does—is—Thorisin about them going to do?”

  “Get that one right and you win the goldpiece,” Gaius Philippus muttered. Bagratouni lifted his thick eyebrows, not quite understanding.

  “I see three choices, all risky,” Marcus said. He ticked them off on his fingers: “He can separate them from the rest of his army and send them, say, toward the Khatrish border. They’d be out of the way there, but who would hold them in check if they decided to imitate Drax?

  “Or he can leave them behind, here in the capital, with the same danger. And if they seize Videssos the city, Videssos the Empire is dead.” The tribune remembered Soteric talking lovingly of the prospect.

  Bagratouni gave a running, low-voiced translation of Scaurus’ words to his lieutenant Mesrop Anhoghin. Where his Videssian stumbled, his aide had next to none. The lanky Anhoghin was even more heavily bearded than the nakharar.

  Marcus finished, “Or he can keep them with the rest of us and hope they don’t go over to Drax the first chance they get. I hope so, too,” he added, and got a laugh.

  “Aye, wouldn’t that be just what we needed?” Gaius Philippus said. “Facing the damned Namdalener heavy horse is bad enough head-on. My blood runs cold to think of being taken in flank by treachery.”

  “I’ve heard Drax and Utprand are rivals,” Minucius said. “Is it so?”

  “It’s true, I think, though I don’t know the why of it,” Marcus answered. He looked up and down the table. “Does anyone?”

  “I do,” Laon Pakhymer said promptly. Somehow Scaurus was unsurprised. Khatrishers, inquisitive as sparrows, were made for gossip. Pakhymer explained, “They were friends and allies once, and joined up to besiege some noble’s keep. The place was on a lake; Utprand took the landward side while Drax covered the water. They sat there and sat there, starving this fellow out. He kept fighting, even though it was hopeless—didn’t want to surrender to Utprand, I think.”

  Remembering the Namdalener captain’s wintry eyes, Scaurus decided he could not blame the hapless noble.

  Pakhymer continued, “So he didn’t.
He opened the gates on the lakeshore and yielded himself and his castle up to Drax—and Drax only. When Utprand asked for his first share of the spoil, the great count—” He was as sarcastic as Marcus had been. “—told him where to head in. Since then, for some reason they haven’t gotten on well.” Pakhymer had an infectious grin.

  “That is a fair reason,” Zeprin the Red rumbled. “The gods spit on the oath-breaking man.” For all the holy Kveldulf’s labors, the Halogai were pagans yet, worshiping their own band of gloomy deities.

  Pakhymer’s tale somewhat reassured Marcus; there did seem to be a true and lasting enmity between the two Namdalener leaders. That was the sort of thing Videssos’ wily politicians could use to good effect.

  The tribune also wondered briefly how loyal Bagratouni and his Vaspurakaners would prove. True, the Yezda had driven them from their homeland into Videssos, but they had suffered worse from a pogrom led by a fanatic Videssian priest. Might they not see Drax and his Namdaleni as allies now instead of foes, even band together with them as fellow heretics? One more thing to worry about, he decided, and filed it away.

  The meeting ended soon; there was not enough information to plan further. As the officers wandered away, Scaurus called Gaius Philippus to his side. “What would you do, were you Thorisin?” he asked, thinking the veteran’s keen sense of the practical might let him guess what the Emperor intended.

  “Me?” The senior centurion scratched at his scarred cheek as he thought. At last he gave the ghost of a chuckle. “I think I’d find another line of work.”

  “Come on, in you go,” sailors urged over and over as the legionaries jumped down into the transports that would take them over the narrow strait the Videssians called the Cattle-Crossing and into the westlands. One of the more considerate ones added, “Mind your feet, you lubbers. The gangplank’s bloody slippery in this rain.”