Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (15 page)

Nepos shrugged, as puzzled by the Greek doctor’s comment as Gorgidas was by him. He answered, “I talk like myself and nothing else. There are priests so struck by the glory of Phos’ divinity that they contemplate the divine essence to the exclusion of all worldly concerns, and reject the world as a snare Skotos laid for their temptation. Is that what you mean?”

“Not exactly.” Priest and physician viewed things from such different perspectives as to make communication all but impossible, but each had a thirst for knowledge that drove him to persist.

“To my mind,” Nepos continued, “the world and everything in it reflects Phos’ splendor, and deserves the study of men who would approach more nearly an understanding of Phos’ plan for the Empire and all mankind.”

To that Gorgidas could make no reply at all. To his way of thinking, the world and everything in it was worth studying for its own sake, and ultimate meanings, if any, were likely unknowable. Yet he had to recognize Nepos’ sincerity and his goodness. “ ‘Countless are the world’s wonders, but none more wonderful than man,’ ” he murmured, and sat back with his wine, soothed as always by Sophokles’ verse.

“Being a wizard, what have you learned from us?” Quintus Glabrio asked Nepos; until then he’d sat largely silent.

“Less than I’d have liked, I must admit. All I can tell you is the obvious truth that the two blades, Scaurus’ and yours, Viridovix, brought you hither. If there is a greater purpose behind your coming, I do not think it has unfolded yet.”

“Now I know you’re no ordinary priest,” Gorgidas exclaimed. “In my world, I never saw one admit to ignorance.”

“How arrogant your priests must be! What greater wickedness than claiming to know everything, arrogating to yourself the privileges of godhood?” Nepos shook his head. “Thanks be to Phos, I am not so vain. I have so very much to learn! Among other things, my friends, I would like to see, even to hold, the fabled swords to which we owe your presence here.”

Marcus and Viridovix exchanged glances filled with the same reluctance. Neither had put his weapon in another’s hands since coming to Videssos. There seemed no way, though, to decline such a reasonable request. Both men slowly drew their blades from their scabbards; each began to hand his to Nepos. “Wait!” Marcus said, holding out a warning hand to Viridovix. “I don’t think it would be wise for our swords to touch, no matter what the circumstance.”

“Right you are,” the Gaul agreed, sheathing his blade for the moment. “One such mischance cools the appetite for another, indeed and it does.”

Nepos took the Roman’s sword, holding it up to a clay lamp to examine it closely. “It seems altogether plain,” he said to Marcus, some perplexity in his voice. “I feel no surge of strength, nor am I impelled to travel elsewhere—for which I have no complaint, you understand. Save for the strange characters cut into the blade, it is but another longsword, a bit cruder than most. Is the spell in those letters? What do they say?”

“I have no idea,” Scaurus replied. “It’s a Celtic sword, made by Viridovix’s people. I took it as battle spoil and kept it because it fits my size better than the shortswords most Romans use.”

“Ah, I see. Viridovix, would you read the inscription for me and tell me what it means?”

The Gaul tugged at his fiery mustache in some embarrassment.
“Nay, I canna, I fear. With my folk letters are no common thing, as they are with the Romans—and with you too, I should guess. Only the druids—priests, you would say—have the skill of them, and never a druid I was, nor am I sorry for it. I will tell you, my own blade is marked as well. Look, if you will.”

But when his sword came free of its scabbard the runes set in it were gleaming gold, and those on the other blade sprang to glowing life with them. “Sheathe it!” Marcus shouted in alarm. He snatched his own sword from Nepos’ hand and crammed it back into its sheath. There was a bad moment when he thought it was fighting against his grip, but then it was securely back in place. Tension leaked from the air.

Sudden sweat beaded Nepos’ forehead. He said to Gorgidas, “Of such a thing as that I was indeed ignorant, nor, to quote your red-haired friend, am I sorry for it.” His laugh was shaky and rang loud in the awed and fearful hush that had fallen over the barracks. He soon found an excuse to make an early departure, disappearing after a few quick good-byes.

“There goes a fellow who set his nets for rabbit and found a bear sitting in them,” Gaius Philippus said, but even his chuckle sounded forced.

Almost all the Romans, and Marcus with them, sought their pallets early that night. He snuggled beneath his blanket and slowly drifted toward sleep. The coarse wool made him itch, but his last waking thought was one of relief that he still had a blanket—and a barracks, for that matter—over him.

The tribune woke early the next morning to the sound of an argument outside the barracks hall. He flung on a mantle, belted his sword round his middle, and, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, went out to see what the trouble was.

“No, sir, I’m sorry,” a Roman guard was saying, “but you cannot see my commander until he wakes.” He and his mate held their spears horizontally across their bodies to keep their unwanted guest from entering.

“Phos fry you, I tell you this is urgent!” Nephon Khoumnos shouted. “Must I—oh, there you are, Scaurus. I have to talk to you at once, and your thickskulled sentries would not give me leave.”

“You cannot blame them for following their standard orders. Don’t worry about it, Gnaeus, Manlius—you did right.” He returned his attention to Khoumnos. “If you wanted to see me, here I am. Shall we stroll along the path and give my men a chance to go back to sleep?”

Still fuming, Khoumnos agreed. The Roman sentries stepped back to let their commander by. The path’s paving stones were cool on his bare feet. He gratefully sucked in the early morning air. It was sweet after the close, smoky atmosphere inside the hall.

A gold-throated thrush in a nearby tree greeted the sun with a burst of sparkling notes. Even as unmusical a soul as Scaurus found it lovely.

The Roman did not try to begin the conversation. He ambled along, admiring now the delicate flush the early light gave to marble, now the geometric precision of a dew-spangled spiderweb. If Khoumnos had so pressing a problem, let him bring it up.

He did, rising to the bait of Marcus’ silence. “Scaurus, where in Phos’ holy name do you get the authority to lay your hands on my men?”

The Roman stopped, hardly believing he’d heard correctly. “Do you mean the guards outside the Emperor’s dwelling yesterday?”

“Who else could I possibly mean?” Khoumnos snapped. “We take it very ill in Videssos when a mercenary assaults native-born soldiers. It was not for that I arranged to have you come to the city; when I saw you and your men in Imbros, you struck me as being out of the common run of barbarians.”

“You take it ill, you say, when a mercenary strikes a native Videssian soldier?”

Nephon Khoumnos gave an impatient nod.

Marcus knew Khoumnos was an important man in Videssos, but he was too furious to care. “Well, how do you take it when your fine Videssian soldiers are snoozing the afternoon away in front of the very chambers they’re supposed to guard?”

“What?”

“Whoever was telling you tales out of school,” the tribune said, “should have gone through the whole story, not just his half of it.” He explained how he had found both sentries napping in the sun as he left his audience with the Emperor. “What reason would I have for setting upon them? Did they give you one?”

“No,” Khoumnos admitted. “They said they were attacked from behind without warning.”

“From above would be more like it.” Marcus snorted. “They can count themselves lucky they were your troops, not mine; stripes are the least they could have hoped for in Roman service.”

Khoumnos was not yet convinced. “Their stories hang together very well.”

“What would you expect, that two shirkers would give each other the lie? Khoumnos, I don’t much care whether you believe me or not. You ruined my sleep, and, from the way my guts are churning right now, I’d wager you’ve ruined my breakfast as well. But I’ll tell you this—if those guards were the best men Videssos can offer, no wonder you need mercenaries.”

Thinking of Tzimiskes, Mouzalon, Apokavkos—yes, and Khoumnos himself—Scaurus knew how unfair he was being, but he was too nettled to watch his tongue. The incredible gall the sentries had shown—not merely to hide their guilt, but to try to put it on him! He shook his head in wonder.

Anger cloaked by expressionless features, Khoumnos bowed stiffly from the waist. “I will look into what you’ve told me, I promise you that,” he said. He bowed again and strode away.

Watching his rigid back, Marcus wondered if he had made another enemy. Sphrantzes, Avshar, now Khoumnos—for a man who’d aspired to politics, he told himself, you have a gift for the right word at the wrong time. And if Sphrantzes and Khoumnos are both your foes, where in Videssos will you find a friend?

The tribune sighed. As always, it was too late to unsay anything. All he could do now was live with the consequences of what he’d already done. And in that context, he thought, breakfast did not seem such a bad idea after all. He walked back toward the barracks.

Despite his Stoic training, despite his efforts to take things as they came, the rest of that morning and early afternoon were hard for him to wait through. To try to drown his worries in work, he threw himself into the Romans’ daily drill with such nervous energy that he flattened everyone who stood against him. At any other time he would have been proud. Now he barked at his men for lying down against their commander.
“Sir,” one of the legionaries said, “if I was going to lie down against you, I would have done it sooner.” The man was rubbing a bruised shoulder as he limped away.

Scaurus tried to unburden himself to Viridovix, but the big Celt was scant help. “I know it’s a bad thing,” he said, “but what can you do? Give ’em half a chance and the men’d sooner sleep nor work. I would myself, if there’s no fighting or women to be had.”

Gaius Philippus had come up during the last part of this speech and listened to it with obvious disagreement. “If your troops won’t obey orders you have a mob, not an army. That’s why we Romans were conquering Gaul, you know. Man for man, the Celts are as brave as any I’ve seen, but you can’t work together worth a turtle turd.”

“Aye, it’s not to be denied we’re a fractious lot. But you’re a bigger fool or ever I thought, Gaius Philippus, if you think your puny Romans could be holding the whole of Gaul in despite of its people.”

“Fool, is it?” As with a terrier, there was no room for retreat in the senior centurion. “Watch what you say.”

Viridovix bristled back. “Have a care with your own mouth, or I’ll cut you a new one, the which you’d not like at all.”

Before his touchy comrades heated further, Marcus quickly stepped between them. “The two of you are like the dog in the fable, snapping after the reflection of a bone. None of us here will ever know whether Caesar or the Gauls prevailed. There’s not much room for enmity among us, you know—we have enough foes outside our ranks. Besides, I tell you now that before you can go for each other, you’ll go through me first.”

The tribune carefully did not see the measuring stares both his friends gave him. But he had eased the friction; centurion and Celt, after a last, half-friendly snarl, went about their own affairs.

It occurred to Scaurus that Viridovix had to feel far more lost and alone in their new land than the Romans felt. There were more than a thousand of them to but a solitary Gaul; not a soul in this land even spoke his tongue. No wonder his temper slipped from time to time—the wonder was the Celt keeping up his spirits as well as he did.

At about the time when the Emperor had summoned him to audience the day before, Tzimiskes sought out the tribune to tell him that Khoumnos begged leave to speak with him. There was wonder on the
dour Videssian’s face as he conveyed the message. “ ‘Begged leave,’ he said. I don’t think I’ve heard of Nephon Khoumnos begging leave of anyone. ‘Begged leave,’ ” Tzimiskes repeated, still not believing it.

Khoumnos stood outside the barracks, one square hand scratching his iron-bearded chin. When Marcus walked up to him, he jerked the hand away as if caught doing something shameful. His mouth worked a couple of times before words came out. “Damn you,” he said at last. “I owe you an apology. For what it’s worth, you have it.”

“I accept it gladly,” Marcus replied—just how glad he was, he did not want to show the Videssian. “I would have hoped, though, that you’d know I had better things to do than breaking your guardsmen’s heads.”

“I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t surprised when Blemmydes and Kourkouas came to me with their tale. But you don’t go disbelieving your men without some good reason—you know how it is.”

Scaurus could only nod; he did know how it was. An officer who refused to back up his troops was useless. Once his men lost confidence in him, he could not rely on their reports, which only made them less confident … That road was a downward spiral which had to be stopped before it could start. “What made you change your mind?” he asked.

“After the pleasant little talk I had with you this morning, I went back and gave those two scoundrels separate grillings. Kourkouas cracked, finally.”

“The younger one?”

“That’s right. Interesting you should guess—you notice things, don’t you? Yes, Lexos Blemmydes kept playing the innocent wronged up until the last minute, Skotos chill his lying heart.”

“What do you plan to do with the two of them?”

“I’ve already done it. I may have made a mistake before, but I fixed it. As soon as I knew what the truth was, I had their corselets off their backs and shipped them over the Cattle-Crossing on the first ferry. Between brigands and Yezda, the west country should be lively enough to keep them away. Good riddance, say I, and I’m only sorry such wastrels made me speak hastily to you.”

“Don’t let it trouble you,” Marcus answered, convinced Khoumnos’ apology came from mind and heart both. He also realized he had let his anger put him in the wrong with that vicious gibe about Videssian
troops. “You weren’t the only one who said things he regrets now, you know.”