Legion of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  “One of those things,” the senior centurion shrugged. “The Khatrishers went whooping into the fields fine as you please, but the whoresons inside had a couple of stone-throwers in their castle, which we didn’t know about till they opened up. Good aimers, too. They squashed two horses and took the head off a rider neat as you please. That discouraged the rest considerably, and what was supposed to be a fake skedaddle turned real mighty fast.” He spooned up some mutton stew. “Can’t say I blame ’em much. We sat under some peaches till it was dark again, then left. Some of my men have taken a flux from eating green ones, the twits.”

  Despite the veteran’s misfortune, Scaurus knew he had gained a solid success. His mouth watered at the prospect of getting down into the plain; a full summer in the hills would leave them picked bare and his troops starving. True, all Drax’ forces together could crush the legionaries, but Drax had problems of his own.

  Senpat Sviodo made as if to throw his pandoura away in disgust after producing a chord even Scaurus’ insensitive ear recognized as spectacularly unmusical. “I wish we were back in the highlands,” he said. “It’s too muggy down here; there’s no way to keep gut strings in tune with all this humidity. Ah, my sweet,” he crooned, holding the pandoura as he might Nevrat, “you deserve strings of finest silver. And,” he added, laughing, “if I lavished money on you thus, perhaps you’d not betray me, fickle hussy.”

  With an enthusiast’s zeal, he went on to explain the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of stringing. Marcus fought to hide boredom; not even Senpat’s easy charm could make him find music interesting, and the day’s march had left him worn.

  He was glad of the excuse to break away when Lucius Vorenus came up. “What now?” he asked. “What’s Pullo done that you don’t care for?”

  “Eh?” Vorenus blinked. “Oh, nothing, sir. That valley scuffle’s made fast friends of us. In fact, we’re on sentry go together, over at the east gate. And just rode up, sir, is a Yezda who’d have speech with you.”

  “A what?” It was Scaurus’ turn to gape. Senpat’s Latin was enough to catch the name of his people’s foes; he struck a jangling discord that had nothing to do with whether his strings were in tune. The tribune felt his mouth tighten. “What would a Yezda have to say to me?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir. He’s out there with a white rag tied to his bow; he doesn’t carry a spear, or have a helmet to put on it, for that matter. Dirty-looking beggar,” Vorenus added virtuously.

  Marcus exchanged glances with Senpat. The Vaspurakaner’s face showed an odd mixture of puzzlement and hostility; Scaurus felt much the same. “Bring him in,” he said at last. Vorenus saluted and trotted off.

  Despite the legionary’s unflattering description, Marcus expected a more impressive figure than the Yezda cut—some high officer, perhaps, with Makurani blood in his veins along with the infusion from the steppe—tall, thin, handsome, with delicate hands and mournful liquid eyes, like the captain who had defended Khliat against Mavrikios Gavras. But only a scruffy nomad on a pony followed Vorenus, looking for all the world like any of the Khamorth in imperial service. Not a soldier gave him a second look. Yet his presence here, not far from Kyzikos, was a knife at Videssos’ throat.

  The Yezda, for his part, seemed no more happy to be in his enemies’ camp than Marcus was to have him there. He turned his head nervously this way and that, as if looking for escape routes. “You Scaurus, leader of this peoples?” he asked, his Videssian labored but understandable.

  “Aye,” the tribune said stonily. “What would you?”

  “I Sevabarak, cousin to Yavlak, who is leaders of clans of Menteshe. He send me to you to ask how much money you gots. You need plenties, I think.”

  “And why is that, pray?” Marcus asked, still not caring to have anything to do with Yezda.

  Sevabarak was not offended; indeed, he seemed amused. “Because we—how you say?—whale stuffings out of oh-so-tough knightboys last week. Damn sight more than pissworthy Empire can do,” he said. Then, ticking off names on his fingers, he went on, “We gots Drax, we gots Bailli, we gots what’s-his-name Videssian thinks he’s Empire—”

  “Emperor,” Scaurus corrected mechanically. Beside him, Senpat Sviodo’s eyes were round and staring. So, for that matter, were his own.

  Sevabarak waved the interruption aside. “Whatever. We gots. We gots Turgot, we gots Soteric, we gots Clozart—no, I take back, him dead, two days gone. Anyway, we gots shitpot full Namdalenis. You wants, you buy back, plenty monies. Otherwise,” and his eyes grew cruel and eager, “we see how long we stretch them lives out. Some last weeks, I bet.”

  But Marcus paid no attention to the threat. Here was a broken rebellion handed to him on a golden plate—and if the legionaries moved quickly, they still might keep the Yezda off the coastal plain. And thinking of gold … “Pakhymer!” he shouted. This might cost more than the legionaries had, and he was ready to swallow all the Khatrisher’s “I-told-you-so’s” to get it.

  VIII

  THE GREAT WAIN CREAKED, MOVING ACROSS THE GENTLY rolling steppe on wheels tall as a man. Gorgidas sat cross-legged on the polychrome rug of goats’ hair, paring away at his stylus’ point with the edge of his sword; not what Gaius Philippus had hoped he’d use the weapon for, he thought, chuckling. He tested the point on the ball of his thumb. It would do. He opened a three-leafed tablet, frowned when he saw how poorly he’d smoothed the wax after transcribing his last set of jottings onto parchment.

  He tugged on his left ear as he thought. His stylus hurried across the tablet, tiny wax curls spiraling up from it. “In sweep of territory, neither Videssos nor Yezd compares favorably with the nomads to the north. Indeed, should those nomads somehow unite under a single leader, no nation could stand against them. They do not, however, govern themselves with great wisdom or make the best use of the vast resources available to them.”

  He studied what he had written—not bad, something of a Thucydidean flavor to it. His script was small and very neat. As if that mattered, he said to himself with a snort. In all this world, only he read Greek. No, not quite: Scaurus could stumble through it after a fashion. But Scaurus was in Videssos, which seemed unimaginably far away from this wandering train of Arshaum wagons.

  Beside him, Goudeles was making notes of his own for an oration he intended to give to Arigh’s father Arghun, the khagan of the Gray Horse clan, when at last they reached the chieftain. It would not be long now, a couple of days at most. Lankinos Skylitzes, well padded with fat cushions, was sound asleep, ignoring the occasional jounce of a wheel bumping over a rock. He snored.

  Gorgidas set the stylus moving again. “It is not surprising, then, that the Arshaum should have succeeded in driving the Khamorth to the eastern portion of the steppe, which extends further west than any man’s knowledge of it; the former folk has adapted itself more completely to the nomadic way of life than the latter. The very tents of the Arshaum, ‘yurts,’ in their dialect, are set upon large wheeled carts. Thus no time is wasted pitching or breaking camp. They followed their flocks forever, like dolphins in a school of tunny.”

  The comparison pleased him. He translated it into Videssian for Goudeles. The pen-pusher rolled his eyes. “ ‘Sharks’ might he better,” he said, and followed that with a muttered, “Barbarians!”

  Gorgidas chose to think that remark was meant to apply to the Arshaum and not to him. He resumed his scribbling: “Because the plainsfolk do not act as a single nation, both Videssos and Yezd try to win them over clan by clan. By attracting such prominent khagans as Arghun to their side, they hope to influence less important leaders to join the faction that looks to be a winner.” He put his stylus down, asked Goudeles, “What do you suppose this Bogoraz is up to?”

  Skylitzes opened one eye. “No good for us, I’m sure,” he said, and went back to sleep.

  “I fear he’s right,” Goudeles said, sighing. The Yezda ambassador had also come to woo Arghun. Until their khagan chose one side or the other, t
he Arshaum were carefully keeping Bogoraz and his retainers separate from the Videssian party.

  Inspiration failing him, Gorgidas stowed tablet and stylus and stuck his head out the flap of the yurt. Agathias Psoes, riding beside the felt tent on wheels, nodded a greeting; he kept his squad on alert, not relying on the nomads to keep Bogoraz and his handful of retainers from mischief.

  The Greek turned to the young plainsman guiding the yurt’s team of horses. “May your herds increase,” he said in polite greeting, using up a good deal of what he had learned of the sibilant Arshaum tongue.

  “May your animals be fat,” the nomad replied. Like most of his people, he was short and lean, with a wiry strength to him. He was flat-faced, swarthy, and almost without a beard; a fold of skin at the corner of each eye gave them a slanted look. When he smiled, his teeth were very white.

  Suede fringes and brightly dyed tassels of wool ornamented his sheepskin trousers and leather coat. He wore a curved sword and dagger and a quiver on his back; his bow was beside him on the wooden seat. He smelled strongly of the stale butter he used to oil his straight, coarse black hair.

  It was later than Gorgidas had thought. The sun was sliding down the sky toward a low range of hills that barely serrated the western horizon. They were the first blemishes on the skyline he had seen for weeks. Beyond them was only more steppe.

  Two riders came out of the west, one straight for the Videssian embassy’s yurt, the other peeling off toward that of Bogoraz. Yezd’s banner, a leaping panther on a field of brownish red, fluttered above it. It was a nice touch; Gorgidas wished the Empire had been as forethoughtful.

  The messenger said something in his own language to the Greek, who tossed his head to show he did not understand. The nomad shrugged, tried again in bad Khamorth; only a few Ashaum knew Videssian. Gorgidas ducked inside the tent and shook Skylitzes awake; the officer spoke the local tongue fluently.

  Grumbling, Skylitzes went out and talked with the messenger for a few minutes. “We’re to meet the clan’s shamans tonight,” he reported to his companions. “They’ll purge us of any evil spirits before we’re taken to the khagan.” Though he had experience with the customs of the steppe peoples, his unsmiling features were more dour than usual. “Pagans,” he said under his breath, and made the sign of Phos’ sun on his breast. Goudeles, by contrast, did not seem unduly perturbed at the prospect of going through a foreign ritual.

  Outside, the messenger was still talking with the yurt driver, who clucked to his horses. The ungreased axles screeched as the wagon swung southward. Gorgidas looked a question at Skylitzes, who said, “He’s taking us to where the shamans are.”

  An hour or so later the yurt rumbled down into a broad valley. Looking out, the Greek saw that Bogoraz’s wain was a couple of hundred yards behind. Twoscore Arshaum horsemen rode between the yurts, making sure Psoes’ troopers did not mix it with the Yezda soldiers who guarded Bogoraz. The rest of the wagons with which both parties had been traveling had gone on ahead to Arghun.

  A lone tent on wheels stood in the valley, its horses grazing around it. A man got down from it, torch in hand; Gorgidas was too far away to see more than that his costume was strange. Then the yurt-driver said something to the Greek. “Come inside,” Skylitzes said. “He says it ruins the magic if we see the sacred fires lit.” Gorgidas obeyed with poor grace; how could he learn if he was not allowed to observe?

  The yurt drove up close enough for him to hear the crackle of flames; he heard Bogoraz’ rolling into place beside it. The driver called out to someone. The reply came back in a reedy tenor, an old man’s voice. “We can go out now,” Skylitzes said. He turned to stare at Goudeles. “Phos’ name, are you still working on that rubbish you spew?”

  “Just finding the proper antithesis to balance this clause here,” the bureaucrat replied, unruffled. He ostentatiously jotted another note, watching Skylitzes fume. “This will have to suffice,” he said at last. “So much is wasted in translation, in any case. Well, come along, Lankinos—it’s not I who’s keeping them waiting now.” And sure enough, the pen-pusher was out the tent flap first.

  Bogoraz was alighting from his yurt as well, but Gorgidas hardly noticed him; his attention was riveted on the shamans of the Arshaum. There were three of them, two straight and vigorous, the third stooped with age—he must have answered the Videssian party’s driver. They were dressed in ankle-length robes of suede, covered with so many long shaggy fringes sewn on that they seemed more beasts than men. All three wore snarling devil-masks of wood and leather painted in hideous greens, purples, and yellows, adding to their inhuman aspect. Silhouetted against the fires they had set, they capered about, calling out to each other now and then. Their voices echoed, hollow, inside their masks.

  Gorgidas watched the display with interest, Skylitzes with active suspicion. But Pikridios Goudeles bowed to the eldest shaman with the same deep respect he might have shown Balsamon, the patriarch of Videssos. The old Arshaum bowed creakily in return and said something.

  “Well done, Pikridios,” Skylitzes said grudgingly. “The geezer said he didn’t know whether to take us or the Yezda first, but your good manners made up his mind for him.”

  Goudeles bowed again, as deeply as his plump form would allow. The pen-pusher was self-indulgent and bombastic, Gorgidas thought, but he was a diplomat, too.

  So, in his way, was Bogoraz. He saw at once he would not be able to change the shaman’s decision and so did not try, folding his arms over his chest as if the entire matter was beneath his notice.

  Again, Gorgidas watched him out of the corner of his eye. The shamans were busy at their fire, chanting incantations and throwing fragrant frankincense into the flames. The old man rang a bronze bell while his two assistants kept chanting. “Driving away demons,” Skylitzes reported.

  Then the elder drew out a small packet from beneath his long coat, tossed its contents over the fire. The flames flared up in pure white heat, dazzling Gorgidas’ sight and making sweat start on his brow. A blot of darkness against the glare, the shaman approached the Videssian party and spoke. “What?” Skylitzes barked in Videssian. Collecting himself, he spoke in the Arshaum tongue. The shaman repeated himself, gesturing as if to say, “It’s all quite simple, you know.”

  “Well?” Goudeles demanded.

  “If I understand him, and I’m afraid I do,” Skylitzes said, “he wants us to prove we mean Arghun no harm by walking through the bonfire there. If our intentions are good, he says, nothing will happen. If not—” the officer hesitated, finished, “the fire does what fire does.”

  “Suddenly being first is an honor I would willingly forego,” Goudeles said. Skylitzes, unshakable in the face of physical danger, seemed close to panic at the idea of trusting his safety to a heathen wizard’s spell. Gorgidas, who did his best to disbelieve in anything he could not see or feel, wondered why he was not similarly afraid himself. He realized he had been watching the old shaman as closely as if he were a patient; the man glowed with a confidence as bright as the blaze he had called up.

  “It will be all right, I think,” he said, and was rewarded with matched unhappy looks from Goudeles and Skylitzes, the first time they had agreed with each other in days. Then the old Arashaum grasped at last that the Videssian group had doubts. Waving to reassure them, he took half a dozen backward strides—and was engulfed by flames. They did not burn him. He danced a few clumsy steps in the heart of the fire, while Goudeles’ party—and Bogoraz, off to one side—stared at him. When he emerged, not a fringe on his fantastic costume was singed. He waved again, now in invitation.

  Goudeles had his own peculiar form of courage. Visibly pulling himself together, he said to no one in particular, “I did not fall off the edge of the map to work an injury on a nomad.” He walked briskly up to the edge of the flames. The old shaman patted him on the back, then took his hand and escorted him into the bonfire. The blaze leaped up around them.

  Lankinos Skylitzes was biting his lip when Goudel
es’ voice, full of relief and jubilation, rose above the crackle of the fire. “Quite whole, thank you, and no worse than medium rare,” he called. Skylitzes set his jaw and stepped forward. Unnervingly, the old shaman appeared from out of the flames. The officer made Phos’ sun-sign over his heart once more, then reached to take the shaman’s outstretched hand.

  “Here,” Skylitzes called a few moments later, laconic as usual. Then the shaman was beckoning to Gorgidas. For all his confidence, the Greek felt a qualm as he came up to the bonfire. He narrowed his eyes to slits against the glare and wondered how long it would be before Goudeles’ feeble joke turned true.

  The old Arshaum’s hand, though, was cool in his, gently urging him into the flames. And as soon as he stepped into the fire, the sensation of heat vanished; it might have been any summer’s evening. He was not even sweating. He opened his eyes. The white light surrounded him, but no longer blinded. He looked down at the coals over which he walked and saw they were undisturbed by his passage. Beside him the shaman hummed tunelessly.

  Darkness ahead, total after the brilliance that had bathed him. A sudden blast of heat at his back told him he was past the spell. He stumbled away from the fire. Goudeles caught and steadied him. As he regained his vision, he saw Skylitzes gazing back at the blaze like a man entranced. “All light,” the officer murmured, awe-struck. “Phos’ heaven must be thus.”

  Goudeles was more practical. “If it has anything to do with Phos, it’ll fry that rascal of a Bogoraz to a crackling and do the Empire a great service.”

  Gorgidas had nursed that same hope, but a few minutes later the shaman came through the fire with the Yezda envoy in hand. At last the Greek had to pay him attention. If he had hoped Wulghash, the khagan of Yezd, would send out some half-barbarous chieflet, he saw at once he was to be disappointed.