Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (92 page)

“I don’t understand,” Scaurus said.

“Why else would that fornicating, polluted, pox-ridden son of a two-copper whore Elissaios Bouraphos have brought his bloody collection of boats back from Pityos? For a pleasure cruise? Phos’ light, man, he’s not hiding out there. You must have seen the galleys’ sails as you marched in this morning.”

Marcus felt his face grow warm. “I thought it was a grain convoy.”

“Landsmen!” Gavras muttered, rolling his eyes. “It bloody well isn’t, as anyone with eyes in his head should know. The plan was simple enough—as soon as I’m dealt with, across comes Baanes to take over, smooth as you like.” Thorisin spat in vast contempt. “As if he could—that bald pimple hasn’t the wit to break wind and piddle at the same time. And while he tries to murder me and I settle him, who gains? The Yezda, of course. I wonder if he’s not in their pay.”

The Emperor, Scaurus thought, had a dangerous habit of underestimating his foes. He had done so with the Sphrantzai, and now again with Onomagoulos, who, loyal or not, was a capable, if arrogant, soldier. Marcus started to warn Gavras of that, but remembered how the conversation had opened and asked instead, “Why credit”—That seemed a safer word than
blame
—“me with Baanes’ plot?”

“Because you kept hounding him for Kybistra’s tax roll. There were things in it he’d have done better not to write down.”

“Ah?” Marcus made an interested noise to draw the Emperor out.

“Oh, truly, truly. Your friend Nepos filled the assassins so full of some potion of his that they spewed up everything they knew. Their captain, Skotos take him, knew plenty, too. Did you ever wonder why friend Baanes did so careful a job of slitting throats when we were waylaid last year after the parley?”

“Ah?” Marcus said again. He jumped as several men in heavy-soled boots tramped down the hallway, but they were only workmen coming to set things to rights once more. Live long enough in Videssos, he thought, and you’ll see murderers under every cushion—but the day you don’t, they’ll be there.

Caught up in his own rekindled wrath, Thorisin did not notice the tribune’s start. He went on, “The dung-faced midwife’s mistake hired the knives himself and paid a premium for Ortaias’ coin so no fingers would
point his way even if something went wrong. But he put everything down on parchment so he could square himself with the Sphrantzai if he did kill me—and put it down on Kybistra’s register. Why not? He had the thing with him; after all, he’d collected those taxes, when he ran there after Maragha. After that he could hardly let you see it, but he couldn’t send a fake either, now could he?” The Emperor chuckled, imagining his rival’s discomfiture.

Scaurus laughed, too. Videssian cadasters were invalid if they bore erasures or crossed-over lines; only fair copies went to the capital. And once there, they were festooned with seals of wax and lead and stamped with arcane bureaucratic stamps—to which, of course, Onomagoulos had no access once he was out in the provinces.

“He must have filched it as soon as he found out I was going to look over the receipts,” the tribune decided.

“Very good,” Gavras said, making small clapping motions of sardonic applause. Marcus’ flush deepened. There were times when the subtle Videssians found his Roman straightforwardness monstrously amusing. Even seemingly bluff, blunt types like Thorisin and Onomagoulos proved as steeped in double-dealing as candied fruit in honey.

He sighed and spelled things out, as much for himself as for the Emperor: “A clerk, even a logothete, wouldn’t have made much of some money-changing—probably figured he was lining his own purse and not worried much about it. But he knew I was on that beach, and he must have thought I’d connect things. I recall the fuss he made about its being Ortaias’ money, aye, but I’d be lying if I said I was sure a few lines in a dull tax roll would have jogged my memory. He’d have been smarter letting things ride.”

This time humorlessly, Thorisin chuckled again. “ ‘The ill-doer’s conscience abandons the assurance of Phos’ path,’ ” he said, quoting from the Videssian holy books like a Greek from Homer. “He knew his guilt, whether you did or not.”

“And if he is guilty, then that means Taron Leimmokheir is innocent!” Marcus said. Certainty blazed in him. He could not keep all the triumph from his voice, but did not think it mattered. There was such perfect logical clarity behind the idea, surely no one could fail to see it.

But Thorisin was frowning. “Why are you obsessed by that gray-whiskered
traitor? What boots is that he plotted with Onomagoulos instead of Ortaias?” he said curtly. Recognizing inflexibility when he heard it, Scaurus gave up again. It would take more than logic to change Gavras’ mind; he was like a man with a writing tablet who pushed his stylus through the wax and permanently scarred the wood beneath.

“Buck up, Roman dear, it’s a hero y’are tonight, not the spook of a dead corp, the which wouldn’t be invited to dinner at all, at all,” Viridovix said as they walked toward the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. He deliberately exaggerated his brogue to try to cheer up Marcus, but spoke Videssian so Helvis and his own three companions would understand.

“Crave pardon; I didn’t realize it showed so plainly,” the tribune murmured; he had been thinking of Glabrio. Helvis squeezed his left arm. His right, under its bandages, he wished he could forget. The smile he managed to produce felt ghastly from the inside, but seemed to look good enough.

The ceremonies master, a portly man—not a eunuch, for he wore a thick beard—bowed several times in quick succession, like a marionette on a string, as the Roman party came up to the Hall’s polished bronze doors. “Videssos is in your debt,” he said, seizing Marcus’ hand in his own pale, moist palm and bowing again. Then he turned and cried to those already present, “Lords and ladies, the most valiant Romans!” Scaurus blinked and forgave him the limp handclasp.

“The captain and
epoptes
Scaurus and the lady Helvis of Namdalen!” That one was easy for the fellow; worse challenges lay ahead. “Viridovix son of Drappes and his, ah, ladies!” The Celt’s name was almost un-prounceable for Videssians; the protocol chief’s brief pause conveyed his opinion of Viridovix’ arrangement. Marcus suddenly groaned—silently, by luck. Komitta Rhangavve would be here tonight.

He had no time to say anything. The ceremonies master was plowing ahead. “The senior centurion Gaius Philippus! The junior centurion Junius Blaesus!” Blaesus was a longtime underofficer and a good soldier, but Scaurus knew he was hardly a replacement for Quintus Glabrio. “The underofficer Minucius, and his lady Erene!” Not “the lady,” Scaurus
noted; damned snob of a flunky. Minucius, proud of his promotion, had burnished his chain mail till it gleamed.

Two more names completed the legionary party: “The
nakharar
Gagik Bagratouni, detachment-leader among the Romans! Zeprin the Red, Haloga guardsman in Roman service!” Despite persuasion, Gorgidas had chosen to be alone with his grief.

Bagratouni, too, still mourned, but time had dulled the cutting edge of his hurt. The leonine Vaspurakaner noble swept through the slimmer Videssians as he made his way toward the wine. Scaurus saw his eyes moving this way and that; no doubt Bagratouni was very conscious of the figure he cut, and of the ladies among whom he cut it.

The tribune and Helvis drifted over to a table covered with trays of crushed ice, on which reposed delicacies of various sorts, mostly from the ocean. “A dainty you won’t see every day,” said an elderly civil servant, pointing at a strip of octopus meat. “The curled octopus, you know, with only one row of suckers on each arm. Splendid!” Scaurus didn’t know, but took the meat. It was chewy and vaguely sea-flavored, like all the other octopus he’d ever eaten.

He wondered what the gastrophile beside him would have thought of such Roman exotica as dormice in poppy seeds and honey.

A small orchestra played softly in the background: flutes, stringed instruments whose names he still mixed up, and a tinkling clavichord. Helvis clapped her hands in delight. “That’s the same rondo they were playing when we first met here,” she said. “Do you remember?”

“The night? Naturally. The—what did you call it? You’d know I was lying if I said yes.” A lot had happened that evening. Not only had he met Helvis—though Hemond had still been alive then, of course—but also Alypia Gavra. And Avshar, for that matter; as always, he worried whenever he thought of the sorcerer-prince.

They drifted through separate crowds of bureaucrats, soldiers, and ambassadors, exchanging small talk. Scaurus was unusual in having friends among all three groups. The two imperial factions despised each other. The Videssian officers preferred the company of mercenaries they distrusted to the pen-pushers they loathed, which merely confirmed their boorishness in the civil servants’ eyes.

Taso Vones, an imposingly tall Videssian lady—
not
Plakidia Teletze—on his arm, bowed to the tribune. “Where are you come from?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “How to shoe a heavy cavalry horse, or the best way to compose a memorandum on a subject of no intrinsic worth?”

“The best way to do that is not to,” Helvis said at once.

“Blasphemy, my dear; seal-stampers burn people who express such thoughts. But then, I find cavalry horses no more inspiring.” With that attitude, thought Scaurus, it was easy to see why Vones held aloof from warriors and bureaucrats alike.

“His Sanctity, Phos’ Patriarch Balsamon!” the ceremonies master called, and the feast paused for a respectful moment as the fat old man waddled into the chamber. For all his graceless step, he had a presence that filled it up.

He looked round, then said with a smile and a mock-rueful sigh, “Ah, if only you paid me such heed in the High Temple!” He plucked a crystal wine goblet from its bed of ice and drained it with obvious enjoyment.

“That man takes nothing seriously,” Soteric said disapprovingly. Though he did not shave the back of his head in usual island fashion, Helvis’ brother still looked very much the unassimilated Namdalener in high tight trousers and short fur jacket.

Marcus said, “It’s not like you to waste your time worrying over his failings. After all, he’s a heretic to you, is he not?” He grinned as his brother-in-law fumbled for an answer. The truth, he thought, was simple—the Videssian patriarch was too interesting a character for anyone to ignore.

Servants began carrying the tables of hors d’oeuvres back to the kitchens and replacing them with dining tables and gilded chairs. From previous banquets in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, Marcus knew that was a signal the Emperor would be coming in soon. He realized he needed to speak to Balsamon before Thorisin arrived.

“What now, my storm-crow friend?” the patriarch said as Scaurus approached. “Whenever you come up to me with that look of grim determination in your eye, I know you’ve found your way into more trouble.”

Like Alypia Gavra, Balsamon had the knack of making the tribune
feel transparent. He tried to hide his annoyance, and was sure Balsamon saw that, too. More flustered than ever, he launched into his tale.

“Leimmokheir, eh?” Balsamon said when he was done. “Aye, Taron is a good man.” As far as Scaurus could remember, that was the first time he’d heard the patriarch judge anyone so. But Balsamon went on, “What makes you think my intercession would be worth a moldy apple?”

“Why,” Marcus floundered, “if Gavras won’t listen to you—”

“—He won’t listen to anyone, which will likely be the case. He’s a stubborn youngster,” the patriarch said, perfectly at ease speaking thus of his sovereign. His little black eyes, still sharp in their folds of flesh, measured the Roman. “And well you know it, too. Why keep flogging a dead mule?”

“I made a promise,” Marcus said slowly, unable to find a better answer.

Before Balsamon could reply, the ceremonies master was crying out, “Her Majesty the Princess Alypia Gavra! The lady Komitta Rhangavve! His Imperial Majesty, the Avtokrator of the Videssians, Thorisin Gavras!”

Men bowed low to show their respect for the Emperor; as the occasion was social rather than ceremonial, no proskynesis was required. Women dropped curtsies. Thorisin bobbed his head amiably, then called, “Where are the guests of honor?” Servitors rounded up the Romans and their ladies and brought them to the Emperor, who presented them to the crowd for fresh applause.

Komitta Rhangavve’s eyes narrowed dangerously as they flicked from one of Viridovix’ lemans to the next. She looked very beautiful in a clinging skirt of flower-printed linen; Marcus would sooner have taken a poisonous snake to bed. Viridovix did not seem to notice her glare, but the Celt was not happy, either. “Is something wrong?” the tribune asked as they walked toward the dining tables.

“Aye, summat. Arigh tells me the Videssians will be sending an embassy to his clan. They’re fain to hire mercenaries, and the lad himself will be going with them to help persuade his folk to take service with the Empire. A half-year’s journey and more it is, and him the bonniest wight to drink with I’ve found in the city. I’ll miss the little omadhaun, be-shrew me if I won’t.”

Stewards seated the legionaries in accordance with their prominence of the evening. Marcus found himself at the right hand of the imperial party, next to the Princess Alypia. The Emperor sat between her and Komitta Rhangavve, who was on his left. Had she been his wife rather than mistress, her place and the princess’ would have been reversed. As it was, she was next to Viridovix, an arrangement Scaurus thought ill-omened. Unaware of anything amiss, the Gaul’s three longtime companions chattered among themselves, excited by their high-ranking company.

The first course was a soup of onions and pork, its broth delightfully delicate in flavor. Marcus spooned it down almost without tasting it, waiting for the explosion on his left. But Komitta seemed to be practicing tact, a virtue he had not associated with her. He relaxed and enjoyed the last few spoonfuls of soup and and was sorry when a servant took the empty bowl away. His goblet of wine, now, never disappeared. Whenever it was empty, a steward would be there to fill it again from a shining silver carafe. Even if it was sticky-sweet Videssian wine, it dulled the ache in his arm.