Legion of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  “As a gift for my lady Helvis.”

  “Who is a heretic.” The healer-priest still sounded surly, but Scaurus had his arguments ready; he had played this game with Videssians before. It took some time and some shouting, but after a while Styppes sullenly admitted that right devotion could lead even heretics toward the true faith—his own. “Which holy man would you have me depict, then?”

  The tribune remembered the temple in Videssos Helvis had been visiting when rioting broke out against the Namdaleni in the city. “I don’t know the name of the saint,” he said, as Styppes curled his lip, “but he lived on Namdalen before it was lost to the Empire—Kalavria, it was called, wasn’t it? He has a shrine dedicated to him in the capital, not far from the harbor of Kontoskalion.”

  “Ah!” the healer-priest said, surprised Scaurus had a choice in mind. “I know the man you mean: the holy Nestorios. He is portrayed as an old bald man with his beard in two points. So the heretics of the Duchy revere him yet, do they? Very well, you shall have your icon.”

  “My thanks.” Marcus paused, then felt he had to add, “A favor for a favor. When I find time, I’ll pose for your image of the holy—what did you call him?—Kveldulf, that was it.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s good of you, I’m sure,” Styppes said, abstracted. The tribune thought he was already starting to plan the icon, but as he turned to go he heard the priest mutter under his breath, “Phos, I’m thirsty.” Not for the first time, he wished jolly, capable Nepos preferred life in the field to his chair in theoretical thaumaturgy at the Videssian Academy.

  Over the next few days Scaurus was too busy to give Styppes or the icon much thought. Zonaras’ villa and his little private army were well enough to face a rival grandee, but the tribune had few illusions about their ability to withstand Drax’ veterans. The legionaries dug like badgers, strengthening the place as best they could, but his worries only deepened. The best, he knew, was none too good; he simply did not have enough men.

  He used Zonaras’ retainers and his other Videssian horsemen to spy out the Namdaleni. Every day they reported more islanders south of the Arandos, but not the great column of knights the tribune feared. The men of the Duchy began building a motte-and-bailey fort a couple of hours’ ride north of Zonaras’ oak woods. “Drax is busy somewhere and doesn’t want us interfering,” Gaius Philippus said.

  Marcus spread his hands in bewilderment. Not all of what the Namdalener count did made sense. “No, all it does is work,” the senior centurion replied. A good Roman, he valued results more than methods.

  The tribune released one of his Namdalener prisoners at the edge of the woods, using him as a messenger to offer Drax the exchange of his fellows for Mertikes Zigabenos. Their freckled captain, who called himself Persic Fishhook from a curved scar on his arm, said confidently, “No problem. We’ll be free in a week, is my guess. Thirty of us are worth a Videssian general any day, and then some.” While they waited to be swapped, the islanders cheerfully fetched and carried for the legionaries; even as captives, they and the Romans got on well.

  When he got back to Zonaras’ holding, Marcus was intrigued to find Styppes on his hands and knees in the garden by the villa, turning up lettuce leaves. “What are you after?” he called to the healer-priest, wondering what sort of medicinal herbs grew along with the salad greens.

  He blinked when Styppes answered, “I need a good fat snail or two. Ah, here!” The priest put his catch in a small burlap bag.

  “Now I understand,” the tribune laughed. “Snails and lettuce make a good supper. Will you boil some eggs with them?”

  Styppes grunted in exasperation as he got to his feet. He brushed once at the mud on the knees of his blue robe, then let it go. “No, lackwit. I want them to let me finish the image of the holy Nestorios.” He made Phos’ sun-sign over his heart.

  “Snails?” Marcus heard his voice rise in disbelief.

  “Come see then, scoffer.” Wondering whether Styppes was playing a prank on him, the Roman followed him to his tent. They squatted together on the dirt floor. Styppes lit a tallow candle that filled the tight space with the smell of burning fat. The priest rummaged in his kit, finding at last a large oyster shell. “Good, good,” he said to himself. He took one of the snails from his bag, held it over the candle flame. The unfortunate mollusc bubbled and emitted a thick, clear slime. As it dripped, Styppes caught it in the oyster shell. The other snail suffered the same fate. “You see?” the healer-priest said, holding the shell under Scaurus’ nose.

  “Well, no,” the tribune said, more distressed at the snails’ torment than he had been in several fights.

  “Bah. You will.” Styppes poured the slime onto a hand-sized marble slab and added powdered gold. “You will pay me back, and not in new coin,” he warned Scaurus. Next came a little whitish powder—“Alum”—and some sticky gum, then he stirred the mix with a brass pestle. “Now we are ready—you will admire it,” he said. He took out a pair of badger-fur brushes, one so fine the hairs were fitted into a goosequill, the other larger, with a wooden handle.

  Marcus drew in a breath of wonder when he saw the icon for the first time. Styppes’ sketches had shown him the priest had a gift, but they were only sketches. The delicate colors and fine line, the holy Nestorios’ ascetic yet kindly face, the subtled shadings of his blue robe, his long, thin hands upraised in a gesture of blessing that reminded the tribune of the awesome mosaic image of Phos in the High Temple in the capital … “Almost I believe in your god now,” he said, and knew no higher praise.

  “That is what an image is for, to instruct the ignorant and guide them toward its prototype’s virtues,” the healer-priest replied. His plump hand deft as a jeweler’s, he dipped his tiny feather-brush in the gold pigment on his piece of marble. Though he held the icon close to his face as he worked, his calligraphy was elegant; the gilding, even wet, shone and sparkled in the dim candlelight. “Nestorios the holy,” Marcus read. Styppes used the larger brush to surround the saint’s head with a gleaming circle of gold. “Thus we portray Phos’ sun-disk, to show the holy man’s closeness to the good god,” he explained, but the tribune had already grasped the halo’s meaning.

  “May I?” he said, and when Styppes nodded, he took the wooden panel into his own hands. “How soon will it be ready for giving?” he asked eagerly.

  Styppes’ smile, for once, was not sour. “A day for the gilding to dry, then two coats of varnish to protect the colors underneath.” He scratched his shaved head. “Say, four days’ time.”

  “I wish it were sooner,” Marcus said. He was still not won over to this Videssian art of symbol and allegory, but there was no denying that in Styppes’ talented hands its results were powerfully moving.

  The priest reclaimed the icon and set it to one side to dry undisturbed. “Now,” he said with an abrupt change of manner, “where did I toss those snails? Your supper idea wasn’t half bad, outlander; have you any garlic to go with them?”

  Laon Pakhymer appeared at the legionaries’ camp like the god from a machine in a Roman play: no one set eyes on him until suddenly he was there. He flipped Scaurus the wave that passed for a salute among his easygoing folk; when the tribune asked how he had managed to ride through not only Zonaras’ picket posts but also the Namdaleni, he answered airily, “There’s ways,” and put a finger by the side of his nose.

  Sextus Minucius exclaimed, “I’ll bet you used that old geezer’s ford.”

  “Aren’t you the clever young fellow?” Pakhymer said with mild irony. “And what if I did?”

  “What did he gouge you for?” Gaius Philippus asked.

  The Khatrisher gave a resigned shrug. “A dozen goldpieces.”

  The senior centurion choked on his wine. “Jove’s hairy arse! You ought to go back and kill the bugger—he only got ten for the lot of us.”

  “Maybe so,” Pakhymer answered, “but then, you hadn’t just come from Kyzikos.” He looked uncommonly smug, like a cat that knew where cream came from. />
  “What difference does it make where you—” Marcus began, and then stopped, awe on his face. Kyzikos housed an imperial mint. No one in this world had ever heard of Midas, but in Kyzikos the Khatrishers could come close to making his dream real. The tribune did not even think of pointing out that they were stealing the Empire’s gold; he had learned mercenaries served themselves first. What he did say was, “Drax won’t love you for emptying the till.”

  “Too bad for Drax. You’re right, though; he’s thrown a good deal at us, trying to drive us out. And so he has, but our pockets are full. I never did see such a payday.” His pockmarked face was dirty, his beard wind-matted and snarled, his clothes ragged, but he was blissful nonetheless. Gaius Philippus stared at him with honest envy.

  “No wonder the Namdaleni have been so easy on us, with Kyzikos to go after,” Minucius said.

  “It’s like I guessed, sir,” Gaius Philippus said to Scaurus. “But Drax is making a mistake, grabbing at the treasure first. Once his enemies are gone, it falls into his lap, but if he takes the gold and leaves us around, we may find some way to get it back.”

  “He doesn’t have it,” Pakhymer pointed out. “Still, I take your meaning even so. I have something planned to make old Drax jump and shout.”

  “What will you do?” Marcus asked with interest. For all his slapdash ways, that Khatrisher was a clever, imaginative soldier.

  “Oh, it’s done already.” Pakhymer seemed pleased at his own shrewdness. “I spread some of Kyzikos’ gold around where it would do the most good—it’s on its way up to the central plateau. If the damned islanders are busy fighting Yezda, they can’t very well fight us.”

  The tribune gaped. “You bribed the nomads to attack Drax?”

  “So we fought them a couple of years ago. What of it?” Pakhymer was defiant and defensive at the same time. “We fought the islanders last year when they served Ortaias, and now again. One war at a time, I say.”

  “There’s a difference,” Marcus insisted. “Drax is an enemy, aye, but not wicked, only power-hungry. But the nomads kill for the joy of killing. Think on what we saw on the road to Maragha—and after.” He remembered Avshar’s gift, hurled into the legionaries’ camp after the fight—Mavrikios Gavras’ head.

  Pakhymer flushed, perhaps recalling that, too, but he answered, “Any man who tries to kill me is wicked in my eyes, and my foe’s foe my friend. And have a care the way you say ‘nomad,’ Scaurus; my people came off the same steppe the Yezda did.”

  “Your pardon,” the tribune said at once, yielding the small point so he could have another go at the large one. “Bear this in mind, then—once you invite the, ah, Yezda down into the lowlands, even if they do hurt Drax, still you set the scene for endless fighting to push them back again.”

  “Is that bad? Why would the Videssians hire mercenaries, if they had no one to fight?” Pakhymer was looking at him strangely, the same look, he realized, he had seen several times on Helvis.

  He sighed. Without meaning to, the Khatrisher had fingered the essential difference between himself and Scaurus. To Laon Pakhymer, the Empire was a paymaster and nothing more; its fate meant nothing to him, save as it affected his own interests. But Marcus found Videssos, despite its flaws, worth preserving for its own sake. It was doing—had done for centuries—what Rome aspired to: letting the folk within its borders build their lives free from fear. The chaos and destruction that would follow a collapse filled him with dread.

  How to explain that to Pakhymer, who, for the sake of a temporary triumph, would have two packs of wolves fight over the body of the state he thought he was serving? Marcus sighed again; he saw no way. Here was his quarrel with Helvis, come to frightening life. The Khatrisher would make a desert and call it peace.

  His gloom lifted somewhat as the council shifted focus. Pakhymer intended bringing all his countrymen south of the Arandos; that would give the Romans the scouts and raiders they badly needed. If Thorisin could piece together some kind of force to keep Drax at play in the north, perhaps the legionaries would not be outnumbered to the point of uselessness. And if Gaius Philippus could do with these half-trained Videssians what Sertorius had with the Spaniards, they might yet make nuisances of themselves. If, if, if …

  He was so caught up in his worries that, when the officers’ meeting broke up, he walked past Styppes as if the healer was not there. “I like that,” the fat priest said. “Do a favor and see the thanks you get for it.”

  “Huh?” Scaurus brightened. “It’s done, then?” he asked, glad to have something to think about beside Namdaleni on the march.

  “Aye, so it is. Now you notice me, eh?” Marcus held his peace under the reproach; whatever he said to the healer-priest was generally wrong. Styppes grumbled something into his beard, then said, “Well, come along, come along.”

  When the tribune had the icon in his hands, his praise was as unstinting as it was sincere. Styppes was ill-tempered and overfond of wine, but his hands held more gifts than healing alone. Unmoved by Scaurus’ compliments, he began, “Why I waste my talent for a heathen’s heretic tart—” but Scaurus retreated before he was at full spate.

  He found Helvis sitting under a peach tree outside the camp, mending a tunic. She looked up as he came toward her. When she saw he was going to sit by her, she jabbed her needle into the shirt, one of Malric’s—and put it aside. “Hello,” she said coolly; she did not try to hide her anger over the tribune’s refusal to take her countrymen’s side against Videssos. He was tired of the way policy kept getting between the two of them.

  “Hello. I have something for you.” The words seemed flat and awkward as soon as they were out of his mouth. With a sudden stab of shame, he realized he had too little practice saying such things, had been taking Helvis too much for granted except when they fought.

  “What is it?” Her tone was still neutral; probably, Marcus guessed unhappily, she thinks I have underwear for her to darn.

  “Here, see for yourself,” he said, embarrassment making his voice gruff as he handed her the icon.

  The way her eyes grew wide made him sure his guess had been all too close to the mark. “Is it for me? Truly? Where did you get it?” She did not really want an answer; her surprise was speaking. “Thank you so much!” She hugged him one-armed, not wanting to lay the image down, then made Phos’ sun-sign at her breast.

  Her joy made Scaurus glad and contrite at the same time. While happy to have pleased her, he knew in his heart he should have thought to do so long ago. He had ill repaid her love and loyalty—for why else would she stay with him despite their many differences? Nor did he think of her as only a bed warmer, a pleasure for his nights; love, he thought with profound unoriginality, is very strange.

  “Who is it?” Helvis demanded, breaking his reverie. Then in the same breath she went on, “No, you don’t tell me, let me work it out for myself.” Her lips moved as she sounded out Styppes’ golden letters one by one; in less than three years Marcus, already literate in two other tongues, had gained a grasp of written Videssian far better than hers. “Nes-to-ri-os,” she read, and, putting the pieces together, “Nestorios! The island saint! However did you remember him?”

  The tribune shrugged, not wanting to admit Styppes had provided the name. He felt no guilt over that; in a faith he did not share, it was enough he had recalled the holy man’s existence. “Because I knew you cared for him,” he said, and from the touch of her hand he knew he had the answer right.

  Sentries escorted a pair of Namdaleni into Scaurus’ presence. “They’ve come under truce-sign, sir,” a Roman explained. “Gave themselves up to our pickets at the oak woods, they did.” The men of the Duchy favored the tribune with crisp salutes, although one looked distinctly unhappy. And no wonder, Marcus thought; it was the islander he had sent to Drax with his exchange offer.

  “Hello, Dardel,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “Nor I you,” Dardel answered mournfully.

  The other
Namdalener saluted again. Scaurus had seen that handsome, snub-nosed face before, too, on the right wing of Drax’ army at the Sangarios. Now the officer looked elegant in silk surcoat and gold-inlaid ceremonial helm. “Bailli of Ecrisi, at your service,” he said smoothly, his Videssian almost without trace of island accent. “Allow me to explain. As my suzerain the great count and protector Drax must decline your gracious proposal, he deemed it only just to return to you the person of your prisoner.”

  So Drax had a new title, did he? Well, no matter, thought Marcus; he could call himself whatever he chose. “That is most honorable of him,” the tribune said. He bowed to Bailli. Not to be outdone in generosity by Drax, he added, “Of course Dardel will be free to return with you when you leave here.”

  Bailli and Dardel both bowed, the latter in delight. Scaurus said, “Why does the great count reject my offer? We are not rich here, but if he wants ransom for Zigabenos as well as his men free, we will do what we can.”

  “You misunderstand the great count and protector’s reasons, sir,” Bailli said. Marcus suddenly distrusted his smile; it said too plainly he knew something the tribune did not. The Namdalener went on, still smiling, “Chief among them is the fact that, being a loyal lieutenant to my lord Zigabenos, he cannot compel him to accept an exchange he does not wish.”

  “What?” Marcus blurted, astonished out of suaveness. “What farce is this?”

  Bailli reached under his surcoat. His guards growled in warning, but all he produced was a sealed roll of parchment. “This will explain matters better than I could,” he said, handing it to Scaurus. The tribune examined the seals. One he knew—the sun in golden wax, the mark of the Empire of Videssos. The other seal was green, its symbol a pair of dice in a wine cup. That would have to be Drax’ mark. Scaurus broke the seals and unrolled the parchment.

  The great count’s man had been eyeing his exotic gear. He said, “I don’t know, sir, if you read Videssian. If not, I’d be happy to—”

  “I read it,” Marcus said curtly, and proceeded to do so. He recognized Drax’ style at once; the great count wrote the imperial tongue as ornately as any Videssian official. That was part of what made him such a deadly foe; he aped the Empire’s ways too well, including, Scaurus saw as he read on, its gift for underhanded politics.