Legion of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  After a while, Skylitzes’ knuckles grew white on the stem of his goblet. The clan councilors were beginning to chuckle among themselves at the fury he had to hold in. “I’ll tell that sleazy liar something!” he growled.

  “No!” Arigh and Goudeles said together. The pen-pusher went on, “Don’t you see, he’ll have you in the wrong if you answer him.”

  “Is this better, to be nibbled to death with his sly words?”

  Surprised at his own daring, Gorgidas said, “I know a story that might put him in his place.”

  Skylitzes, Goudeles, and Arigh all stared at the Greek. To the Videssians he was almost as much a barbarian as the Arshaum, not to be taken seriously; Arigh tolerated him largely because he was Viridovix’ friend. “You won’t break custom?” he warned.

  Gorgidas tossed his head. “No, it’s just a story.” Goudeles and Skylitzes looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded, at a loss for any better idea.

  Bogoraz, whose Videssian was certainly better than the Greek’s, had listened to this exchange with amiable disdain, seeing that Gorgidas’ companions did not put much faith in him. His heavy-lidded eyes screened his contempt as Gorgidas dipped his head to Arghun and, with Arigh translating, said, “Khagan, this man from Yezd is a fine speaker, no doubt of it. His words remind me of a tale of my own people.”

  Beyond what was required for politeness, the Arshaum chieftain had not paid Gorgidas much attention either. Now he looked at him with fresh interest; in a folk that did not read, a tale-teller was someone to be respected. “Let us hear it,” he said, and the elders fell quiet to listen.

  Pleased Arghun had swallowed the hook, Gorgidas plunged in: “A long time ago, in a country called Egypt, there was a great king named Sesostris.” He saw men’s lips moving, fixing the strange names in their memories. “Now this Sesostris was a mighty warrior and conqueror, just as our friend Bogoraz says his master Wulghash is.” The smile slipped on the Yezda’s face; the sarcasm he relished was not so enjoyable coming back at him.

  “Sesostris conquered many countries, and took their princes and kings as his slaves to show how powerful he was. He even put them in harness and made them pull his, er, yurt.” As the Greek had heard the story, it was a chariot; he made the quick switch to suit his audience.

  “One day he noticed that one of the princes kept looking back over his shoulder at the yurt’s wheels. He asked the fellow what he was doing.

  “And the prince answered, ‘I’m just watching how the wheels go round and round, and how what was once at the bottom is now on top, and what used to be high is brought low.’ Then he turned round again and put his shoulder into his work.

  “But Sesostris understood him, and they say that, for all his pride, he stopped using princes to haul his yurt.”

  The strange sounding mutter of conversation in a foreign tongue picked up again as the Arshaum considered the tale, talked about it among themselves. One or two of them sent amused glances toward Bogoraz, thinking back to his boasts. As befit his station, Arghun held his face expressionless. He said a few words to his elder son, who turned to Gorgidas. “He thanks you for an, ah, enjoyable story.”

  “I understood him.” Repeating his half bow to the khagan, the Greek tried to say that in the Arshaum speech. Arghun did smile, then, and corrected his grammar.

  Bogoraz, too, wore a diplomat’s mask, set so hard it might have been carved from granite. He aimed his hooded eyes at Gorgidas like a snake charming a bird. The Greek was not one to be put in fear by such ploys, but knew he had made an enemy.

  IX

  GARSAVRA, ONCE REACHED, MADE ALL THE FACTIONAL strife Marcus had seen in Videssos seem as nothing. On the march west the legionaries had captured and sent back to the capital upwards of a thousand Namdaleni, fleeing their defeat at the hands of the Yezda in the small, disordered bands any beaten army breaks into. A hundred or so still held the motte-and-bailey outside Garsavra, defying Roman and Yezda alike. The tribune did not try to force them out; they were more useful against the nomads nosing down from the plateau than dangerous to his own men.

  There were already Yezda in Garsavra when the legionaries got there. The town was not under their control; before Scaurus’ troops arrived, it was under no one’s control—which meant no one kept them out, either. Attacking them hardly seemed politic while haggling with their chief, so the tribune pretended not to notice them.

  The nomads caused little trouble, going through the town like tourists and marveling at the huge buildings. Compared to Videssos the city or Rome, it was a sleepy provincial capital, but to men who lived their lives in tents it was strange and exotic beyond belief. The Yezda traded in the marketplace for civilization’s luxuries and fripperies. Marcus saw one of them proudly wearing a white-glazed chamberpot on his head in place of the ubiquitous nomad fur cap. He would have told the nomad what he had, but the fellow’s comrades were so admiring he did not have the heart. Quite a few local Videssians saw it, too; it gave the Yezda a new nickname, which might make trouble later.

  That was the least of the tribune’s problems with the locals. Faced as they were with the threat of attack from the central highlands, he had expected them to join together in receiving the legionaries favorably. Moreover, he needed them to do so. Even with Pakhymer’s contribution, he was still eight thousand gold pieces short of the twenty thousand Yavlak demanded for his important captives. He had dispatched messages to the capital, but had no confidence they would bring the quick results he needed. With Thorisin Gavras fighting in the east, no one in Videssos had the driving will to hurry the imperial bureaucracy along. Scaurus knew that bureaucracy too well; he planned to raise the money he needed from the people of Garsavra and repay them when the pen-pushers finally got around to shipping gold west.

  Expecting any large number of Videssians to agree about anything, however, as he should have remembered, was so much wishful thinking. True, many Garsavrans favored Thorisin—or said so, loudly, while the Emperor’s troops held their city. But almost as many still held to the lost cause of Baanes Onomagoulos; the rebellious noble Drax had crushed before revolting in his turn had held huge estates not far south of Garsavra. Dead, especially dead at foreign hands, no one remembered his faults. The arrogant, liverish, treacherous little man was magically transformed into a martyr.

  By contrast, a third party was sorry to see the Namdaleni beaten and imperial rule restored. Antakinos had warned Marcus the islanders were popular in the cities they had taken, and his warning was true. Drax had a smaller state to run than the Empire and so did not tax his towns as heavily as the imperials had. From novelty if nothing else, that was enough to gain him a good-sized following.

  As subject people will, some of the Garsavrans had gone over to their conquerors’ ways, even to the extent of worshiping at the temple Drax had converted to the Namdalener rite for his own men to use. The idea infuriated Styppes, who got into a shouting match with a Namdalener priest he happened to run into in the city marketplace.

  Scaurus, who had been dickering with a tremor over the price of a new belt, looked up in alarm at the bellow of, “Seducer! Greaser of the skid to Skotos’ ice!” Face crimson with rage, fists clenched in righteous wrath, the healer-priest shouldered his way toward the man of the Duchy, who held a fat mallard under each arm.

  “By the Wager, conceited Cocksure, yours is the path to hell, not mine!” the islander yelled back, facing up to him. His priestly robe was a grayer shade of blue than Styppes’; he did not shave his head, as Videssian priests did. But his faith in his own righteousness was as strong as any imperial’s.

  “Excuse me,” Marcus whispered to the leather seller. At a trot, as if heading into battle, he hurried toward the two priests, who were swearing at each other like a couple of cattle drovers. If he could get Styppes away before argument turned to riot … Too late. A crowd was already gathering. But they were crying, “Debate! Debate! Come hear the debate!” This was a diversion they had enjoyed before, with local clerics ag
ainst the Namdaleni. Now they came running to hear what the new priest had to offer.

  Styppes glared about as if not believing his ears. Scaurus was equally surprised, but much happier. They might get away without bloodshed after all. The tribune winced as Styppes clapped a dramatic hand to his forehead and declared, “Misbelief is to be rooted out, not discussed.”

  “Heh! I’ll talk to you,” the Namdalener said. He was about forty, with tough, square, dogged features that seemed better suited to an infantry underofficer than a priest. Almost as heavy as Styppes, he bore his weight better, more like an athlete gone to seed than a simple glutton. He gave an ironic bow. “Gerungus of Tupper, at your service.”

  Styppes coughed and fumed, but the crowd, to Marcus’ relief, kept shouting for a debate. With poor grace, the healer-priest told Gerungus his name. “As you are the heretic, I shall begin,” the Videssian said, “and leave you to defend your false doctrines as best you can.”

  Gerungus muttered something unpleasant under his breath, but shrugged massive shoulders and said, “One of us has to.” His Videssian was only slightly accented.

  “Then I shall commence by asking how you islanders come to pervert Phos’ creed by appending to it the clause ‘on this we stake our very souls.’ What authority have you for this addition? What synod sanctioned it, and when? As handed down from our learned and holy forefathers, the creed was perfect, as it stood, and should receive no valueless codicils.” Marcus raised his eyebrows. Here in his area of expertise, Styppes showed more eloquence than the tribune had thought in him. Cries of approval rang from the crowd.

  But every Videssian priest who disputed with Gerungus challenged him so. His answer was prompt: “Your ancient scholars lived in a fool’s paradise, when the Empire ruled all the way to the Haloga country and Skotos’ evil seemed far away. But you Videssians were sinners, and Skotos gained the chance to show his power. That is how the barbarians came to wrest Khatrish and Thatagush from you, aye, and Kubrat that was. For Skotos inspired the wild Khamorth from the steppe and corrupted you so you could not resist. And it grew plain Skotos’ power is all too real, all too strong. Who knows whether Phos will prevail in the end? It could turn out otherwise.”

  Now Styppes was white, not red. “A Balancer!” he exclaimed, and the crowd growled menacingly. To the imperials, Khatrish’s belief in the evenness of the struggle between good and evil was a worse heresy than the one the Namdaleni professed.

  “Not so, if you give me leave to finish,” Gerungus returned steadily. “Neither you nor I will be here to see the last battle between Phos and Skotos. How can we know the outcome? But we must act as if we were sure good will triumph, or face the eternal ice. I take the gamble proudly—‘on this I stake my very soul.’ ” He stared round, defying the crowd. Marcus looked, too, and saw the Videssians unwontedly quiet. Gerungus’ oratory was not as florid as Styppes’, but effective all the same.

  The tribune saw Nevrat Sviodo standing behind Gerungus, her thick black hair curling down over her shoulders. She smiled when their eyes met. She made a slight motion of her hand to indicate the intent crowd, then pointed toward Scaurus and nodded, as if including the two of them but no one else. He nodded back, understanding perfectly. As a Vaspurakaner, she had her own version of Phos’ faith, while the Roman stood outside it altogether. Neither could grow heated over this debate.

  Styppes was blowing and puffing like a beached whale, gathering his wits for the next sally. “Very pretty,” he grunted, “but Phos does not throw dice with Skotos over the universe—the twin ones of ‘the suns’ for peace and order against the double six of ‘the demons’ for famine and strife. That would put chaos at Phos’ heart, which cannot be.

  “No, my friend,” the healer-priest went on, “it is not so simple; there is more knowledge in Phos’ plan than that. Nor does Skotos have need of dice to work his ends, with such as you to lead men toward falsehood from the truth. The dark god’s demons record each sin of yours in their ledgers, aye, and the day and hour it was committed, and the witnesses to it. Only true repentance and genuine belief in Phos’ true faith can rub out such an entry. Each blasphemy you utter sets you one step closer to the ice!”

  Styppes’ passion was unmistakable, though Scaurus thought his logic poor. As the healer-priest and his Namdalener counterpart argued on, the tribune’s attention wandered. It stuck him that, with a few words changed, Styppes’ account of the demons in hell and their sin ledgers could have been a description of the imperial tax agents’ account books. He did not think the resemblance coincidental and wondered whether the Videssians had noticed it for themselves.

  A wisp of stale, stinking smoke made the tribune cough as he trod up the steps of the Garsavran provincial governor’s hall, a red brick building with columns of white marble flanking the entrance way. Heavily armed squads of legionaries stood prominently in the marketplace and prowled the town’s main streets, making sure riot would not break out afresh. Had the one just quelled erupted a few days earlier, he would have blamed it on tension from the theological debate. As it was, he suspected the rich merchants and local nobles waiting for him inside, the men who would have to pay to help buy Drax and his comrades from the Yezda. If they could drive the Romans out of Garsavra, their purses would be safe—and too many of them were pro-Namdalener to begin with.

  He was glad of his own officers at his back. They all wore their most imposing gear, with crested helms, short capes of rank, and mail shirts burnished bright, the better to overawe the Garsavrans. A buccinator followed, carrying his horn as he might a sword.

  Scaurus ran memorized phrases from his address over and over in his mind. Styppes, grumbling as usual, had helped him work on it. His own Videssian was fine for casual conversation, but in formal settings the imperials demanded formal oratory, which was nearly a different language from the ordinary speech. The Gavrai now and then got away with bluntness, but that was partly because everyone assumed they had the high style at their disposal. The tribune’s unadorned words would merely mark him as a barbarian, and today he needed to seem a representative of the imperial government, not some extortionate brigand. Styppes still thought the speech too plain, but it was as ornate as the Roman could stand.

  He turned to Gaius Philippus, who had listened to him rehearse. “What would Cicero think?”

  “That fat windbag? Who cares? Caesar’s worth five of him on the rostrum; he says what he means—and with all due respect, I think Caesar’d puke right down the front of his toga.”

  “Can’t say I’d blame him. I feel like Ortaias Sphrantzes.”

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as that, sir!” Gaius Philippus said hastily. They both laughed. Ortaias never used one word when ten would do—especially if eight of them were obscure.

  Marcus motioned the buccinator forward; he preceded the legionary party into the governor’s audience chamber. The tribune got his first glimpse of the locals, a score or so of men who sat talking amiably with each other and fanning themselves against the late summer’s humid heat.

  The sharp note of the trumpet cut through their chatter. Some of them jumped; all craned their necks toward the doorway through which Scaurus was coming. He looked neither right nor left as he took his seat in the governor’s high chair and rested his arms on the exquisite rosewood table in front of it. A lot of fundaments had been in that seat lately, he thought: a legitimate governor or two, Onomagoulos, Drax, Zigabenos perhaps, and now himself—and better him than Yavlak.

  His officers stood behind him: Gaius Philippus, Junius Blaesus, and Sextus Minucius frozen to attention; Sittas Zonaras lending a Videssian touch to the party; Gagik Bagratouni a powerful physical presence in Vaspurakaner armor; and Laon Pakhymer half-amused, looking as if he were playing at charades.

  He rose, looking over his audience. They stared back, some as impressed as he had hoped, others bored—most of those had the sleek look of merchants—two or three openly hostile. Not a bad mix, really, no worse than he had faced in the tow
n senate of Mediolanum—how long ago it seemed!

  He took a deep breath. For a frightening moment he thought his address had fled, but it came back to him when he began to speak: “Gentlemen, you were chosen by me today for this council; pay heed now to my words. You know how the Namdalener wickedly subdued the cities of the west; he collected tribute from you, ravaged your villages and towns in his illegal rebellion, and treated men’s bodies evilly, subjecting them to unbearable exaction of their few resources. Therefore it is amazing to me, gentlemen of Garsavra, how easily you are deceived by those who have outwitted you and seek your help at the cost of your blood. They are the very ones who have done you the greatest harm, for what sort of benefit did you gain from this rebellion, other than murders and mutilations and the amputation of limbs?”

  He almost laughed at the pop-eyed expression on the face of the fat man in the second row, who was in the wine trade. Likely the fellow had never heard an outlander say anything more complex than, “Gimme another mug.”

  Relishing his speech for the first time, the tribune continued: “Now those who would help the Namdalener have stirred you to anger and strife, yet contrived to keep their own property undamaged.” Let them be suspicious of each other, Marcus thought. “At the same time, however, they still claim protection of the Empire and seek to cast the blame for their actions on the innocent. Is it expedient for you, gentlemen, to allow those who fawn on the rebel to wring advantage from you thus?

  “For by Phos’ assent,” Marcus continued, with a phrase Styppes had suggested, and one Scaurus would not have thought of otherwise, “you see that the Namdalener is a prisoner. Now that we are delivered from his wickedness, we must ensure that he does not escape, like smoke from the oven. And he who captured him now asks his price.”

  Seeing he was getting to the meat of the matter, his listeners leaned forward in anticipation. “If the Emperor were not campaigning far away, or if the barbarian holding the Namdalener allowed a delay, I would hurry to Videssos to collect that price. As you see, however, this is impossible, nor do I myself have the necessary money. Therefore it will be necessary for each of you to contribute according to his ability, lest the Yezda decide to ravage your land while awaiting his payment. I declare to you that this is the situation as it exists and pledge that, as much as you pay, it shall be restored to you by the Emperor.”