Harry Turtledove - The Videssos Cycle 04 - Swords Of the Le

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Book Four of The Videssos Cycle

Swords of the

Legion

Harry Turtledove

DEL REY

A Del Rey Book BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

“I 'D LIKE TO HAVE A BETTER LOOK AT THAT ONE, IF I COULD,"

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus said, pointing to a necklace.

"Which?" asked the jeweler, a fat, bald little man with a curly black beard. The Roman pointed

again. A grin flashed across the craftsman's face; he bobbed a quick bow. "You have good taste, my

master—that is a piece fit for a princess."

The military tribune grinned, too, at the unintended truth in the jeweler's sales talk. I intend it for

one, he thought. That he did not say; what he did came out in a growl: "With a price to match, no

doubt." Best to start beating the fellow down before he named a figure, for Scaurus intended to have

the necklace.

The jeweler, who had played this game many times, assumed a look of injured innocence. "Who

spoke of money? Here," he said, pressing the chain into Marcus' hands, "take it over to the window;

see if it is not as fine as I say. Once you are satisfied of that, we can speak further, if you like."

The shop had its shutters flung wide. The sun shone bravely, though every so often the northerly

breeze would send a patch of cloud in front of it, dimming for a moment the hundreds of gilded

spheres that topped Phos' temples, large and small, all through Videssos the city. It was still winter,

but spring was in the air. Gulls scrawked high overhead; they lived in the Videssian Empire's capital

the year around. Closer by, the tribune heard a chiffchaff, an early arrival, whistle from a rooftop.

He hefted the necklace. The thick, intricately worked chain had the massy, sensuous feel of pure

gold. He held it close to his face; months of work with tax receipts in the imperial chancery were

making him a trifle nearsighted. The nine square-cut emeralds were perfectly matched in size and

color, a deep, luminous green. They would play up Alypia Gavra's eyes, he thought, smiling again.

Between them were eight oval beads of mother-of-pearl. In the shifting light their elusive color

shimmered and danced, as if seen underwater.

"I've seen worse," Marcus said grudgingly as he walked back to the jeweler behind his counter, and

the bargaining began in earnest. Both of them were sweating by the time they agreed on a price.

"Whew!" said the artisan, dabbing at his forehead with a linen rag and eyeing the tribune with new

respect. "From your fairness and accent I took you for a Haloga, and Phos the lord of the great and

good mind knows how free the northerners are with their gold. But you, sir, you haggle like a city

man."

"I'll take that for a compliment," Scaurus said. Videssians often mistook the tribune for one of the

big, towheaded north-men who served the Empire as mercenaries. Most of his Romans were short,

olive-skinned, and dark of hair and eye, like the folk into whose land they had been swept three and

a half years before, but he sprang from the north Italian town of Mediolanum. Some long-forgotten

Celtic strain gave him extra inches and yellow hair, though his features were aquiline rather than

Gallic sharp or blunt like a German's—or, in this world, a Haloga's.

The jeweler was wrapping the necklace in wool batting to protect the stones. Marcus counted out

goldpieces to pay him. The artisan, taking no chances, counted them again, nodded, and opened a

stout iron strongbox. He dropped them in, saying, "And I owe you a sixth. Would you like it in gold

or silver?"

"Silver, I think." Videssian sixth-goldpieces were shoddy things, stamped from the same dies as the

one-third coins but only half as thick. They were fairly scarce, and for good reason. In a purse they

bent and even broke, and they were more likely to be of short weight or debased metal than more

common money.

Marcus put the four silver coins in his belt-pouch and tucked the necklace away inside his tunic. He

would have to cross the plaza of Palamas to get back to his room in the palace complex, and light-

fingered men flocked to the great square no less than honest merchants. The jeweler tipped him a

wink, understanding perfectly. "You're a careful one. You wouldn't want to lose your pretty so soon

after you get it."

"No indeed."

The jeweler bowed, and held the bow until Scaurus left his shop. He waved as the tribune walked

past the window. Well pleased, the Roman returned the salute.

He walked west along Middle Street toward the plaza of Palamas. Videssians bustled all around

him, paying him no mind. Most of the men wore thick, plainly cut tunics and baggy woolen trousers

like his own. Despite the chilly weather, a few favored the long brocaded robes that were more

often used as ceremonial garb than street wear. Town toughs swaggered along in their own

costume: tunics with great billowing sleeves pulled tight at the wrists and clinging hose dyed in as

many bright colors as they could get. Some of them shaved the backs of their heads. The

Namdaleni—sometimes mercenaries, sometimes deadly foes for Videssos—had that style, too, but

with them it served a purpose: to let their heads fit their helmets more snugly. For Videssos' ruffians

it was simply a fad.

The tribune jumped when one of the roughnecks shouted his name and came up to him, hand

outstretched. Then he recognized the fellow, more by his bad teeth than anything else. "Hello,

Arsaber," he said, clasping hands. The bravo had been one of the men who threw open the gates to

the city when Thorisin Gavras took the imperial throne from the usurper Ortaias Sphrantzes, and

had fought bravely enough on the Romans' side.

"Good to see you, Ronam," Arsaber boomed, and Marcus gritted his teeth—that idiot usher's

mispronunciation at a long-ago banquet looked to be immortal. Cheerfully oblivious, the Videssian

went on, "Meet my woman, Zenonis, and these three lads are my sons: Tzetzes, Stotzas, and

Boethios. Love, boys, this is the famous Scaurus, the one who beat the Namdaleni and the

bureaucrats both." He winked at the tribune. "My bet is, the pen-pushers're tougher."

"Some ways," Marcus admitted. He nodded to Zenonis, a small, happy-looking woman of about

thirty in flowered silk headscarf, rabbit-fur jacket, and long wool skirt; gravely shook hands with

Tzetzes, who was about six. The other two boys were too young to pay much attention to him—

Stotzas was two or so, while Zenonis carried Boethios, a tiny babe swaddled in a blanket.

Arsaber stood by, beaming, as the tribune made small talk with his family. The ruffian would have

been the very picture of domesticity but for his outlandish clothes and the stout bludgeon that hung

on his belt. After a while he said, "Come on, "dear, we'll be late to cousin Dryos'. Roast quails," he

explained to Scaurus, pumping his hand again.

The tribune caught himself looking down at his fingers; it was a good idea to count them after

shaking hands with Arsaber. He surreptitiously patted his chest to make sure the smiling rogue had

not managed to filch away his necklace.

The chance meeting saddened him; it took a while to figure out why. Then he realized that Arsaber's

family reminded him achingly of the one he had built up until Helvis found her native Namdalener

ties more important than the ones that bound her to him and deserted him, helping her brother

Soteric and several other important prisoners escape in the process. The child they had been

expecting would only be a little younger than Boethios—but Helvis was in Namdalen now, and

Scaurus did not know if it was boy or girl.

In vanished Italy, in a youth he would never see again, he had trained in the Stoic school of

philosophy, had been taught to stay untroubled in the face of sickness, death, slander, and intrigue.

The sentiment was noble, but, he feared, past his attainment after her betrayal of their love.

The thought of Italy brought to mind the remaining Romans, the survivors of everything this world

could throw at them. In many ways he missed them more even than Helvis and his children. They

alone shared with him a language, indeed an entire past that was alien to Videssos and all its

neighbors. He knew they had spent an easy winter at their garrison duty in the western town of

Garsavra; that much Gaius Philippus' three or four brief notes had made clear. But the senior

centurion, though a soldier without peer, was only sketchily literate, and his scrawled words did not

call up the feeling of being with the legionaries that Scaurus needed in his semi-exile in the capital.

Boots squelching through dirty, half-melted snow, he walked past the block-long red granite pile of

a building that housed the imperial archives, various government ministries, and the city prison. His

somber mood lifted; he smiled and reached inside his tunic to touch the necklace once more. For all

he knew, Alypia Gavra might be going through the archives now, looking for material to add to her

history. So she had been doing on Midwinter's Day a few months past, when she happened to

encounter the tribune as she left the government offices.

That night a friendship had become much more. Their meetings since, though, were far fewer than

Marcus would have wanted. As Thorisin's niece, Alypia was hemmed round with the elaborate

ceremonial of an ancient empire, the more so since the Emperor had no legitimate heir.

The Roman tried not to think of the danger he courted along with her. If discovered, he could expect

scant mercy. Thorisin sat none too secure on his throne. The Emperor would only see him as an

ambitious mercenary captain seeking to improve his own position through an affair with the

princess. Scaurus had done great service for him, but he had also flouted Thorisin's will more than

once—and, worse perhaps, proved right in doing so.

The plaza of Palamas drove such worries from his head. If Videssos the city was a microcosm of

the polyglot Empire of Videssos, then its great square made a miniature of a miniature. Goods from

every corner of the world appeared there, and merchants from every comer of the world to sell

them. A few nomadic Khamorth crossed the Videssian Sea from the imperial outpost at Prista to

hawk the products of the Pardrayan steppe—tallow, honey, wax—at the capital. A couple of huge

Halogai, their hair in yellow braids, had set up a booth for the furs and amber of their northern

home. Despite the war with Yezd, caravans still reached Videssos from the west with silks and

spices, slaves and sugar. A Namdalener trader spat at the feet of a bored-looking Videssian who had

offered him a poor price for his cargo of ale; another was displaying a table of knives. A Khatrisher,

a lithe little man who looked like a Khamorth but acted like an imperial, dickered with a factor over

what he could get for the load of timber he had brought to the city.

And along with the foreigners were the Videssians themselves: proud, clever, vivid, loud, quick to

take offense, and as quick to give it. Minstrels strolled through the surging crowds, singing and

accompanying themselves on drums, lutes, or pandouras, which had a more plangent, mournful

lone. Marcus, who had no ear for music, ignored them as best he could. Some of the locals were not

so kind. "Why don't you drown that poor cat and have done?" somebody shouted, whereupon the

maligned musician broke his lute over the critic's head. The people around them pulled them apart.

Shaven-headed priests and monks of Phos moved here and there in their blue robes, some exhorting

the faithful to pray to the good god, others, on some mission from temple or monastery, haggling

with as much vigor and skill as any secular. Scribes stood behind little portable podiums, each with

stylus or quill poised to write for folk who had money but no letters. A juggler cursed a skinny

carpenter who had bumped him and made him drop a plate. "And to Skotos' ice with you" the other

returned. "If you were any good, you would have caught it." Courtesans of every description and

price strutted and pranced, wearing bright, hard smiles. Touts sidled up to strangers, praising this

horse or sneering at that.

Venders, some in stalls, others wanderers themselves,' cried their wares: squid, tunny, eels,

prawns—as a port, the city ate great quantities of seafood. There was bread from wheat, rye, barley;

ripe cheeses; porridge; oranges and lemons from the westlands; olives and olive oil; garlic and

onions; fermented fish sauce. Wine was offered, most of it too sweet for Scaurus' taste, though that

did not stop him from drinking it. Spoons, goblets, plates of iron, brass, wood, or solid silver were

offered; drugs and potions allegedly medicinal, others allegedly aphrodisiacal; perfumes; icons,

amulets, and books of spells. The tribune was cautious even toward small-time wizards here in

Videssos, where magic was realer than it had been in Rome. Boots, sandals, tooled-leather belts;

hats of straw, leather, linen, cloth-of-gold; and scores more whose yells Marcus could not catch

because they drowned each other out.

A shout like the roar of a god came from the Amphitheater, the huge oval of limestone and marble

that formed the plaza of Palamas' southern border. A seller of dried figs grinned at Scaurus. "A long

shot came in," he said knowingly.

"I'd bet you're right." The tribune bought a handful of fruit. He was popping them into his mouth

one at a time when he nearly ran into an imperial cavalry officer, Provhos Mourtzouphlos.

Mourtzouphlos lifted an eyebrow; scorn spread across his handsome, aristocratic features.

"Enjoying yourself, outlander?" he asked ironically. He brushed long hair back from his forehead

and scratched his thickly bearded chin.

"Yes, thanks," Marcus answered with as much aplomb as he could muster, but he felt himself

flushing under the Videssian's sardonic eye. Even though he had ten years on the brash young

horseman, who was probably not yet thirty, Mourtzouphlos was native-born, which more than

canceled the advantage of age. And acting like a barbarian bumpkin in front of him did not help

either. Mourtzouphlos was one of the many imperials with a fine contempt for foreigners under any

circumstances; that the Roman was a successful captain only made him doubly suspicious to the

other.

"Thorisin tells me we'll be moving against the Yezda in the Arandos valley after the roads west

dry," the Videssian said, carefully scoring a couple of more points against Scaurus. His casual use

of the Emperor's given name bespoke the renown he had won in the campaign with Gavras against

Namdalener invaders around Opsikion in the east, while the tribune toiled unseen in the westlands

against the great count Drax and more Namdaleni. And his news was from some council to which

the Roman, in disfavor for letting Drax get away in the escape Helvis had devised, had not been

invited.

But Marcus had a comeback ready. "I'm sure we'll do well against them," he said. "After all, my

legionaries have held the plug of the Arandos at Garsavra the winter long."

Mourtzouphlos scowled, not caring to be reminded of that. "Well, yes," he grudged. "A good day to

you, I'm sure." With a flick of his cloak, he turned on his heel and was gone.

The tribune smiled at his stiff retreating back. There's one for you, you arrogant dandy, he thought.

Mourtzouphlos' imitation of the Emperor's shaggy beard and unkempt hair annoyed Scaurus every

time he saw him. Thorisin's carelessness about such things was part of a genuine dislike for

formality, elegance, or ceremony of any sort. With the cavalryman it was pure pose, to curry favor

with his master. That cape he had flourished was thick maroon samite trimmed in ermine, while he

wore a belt of gold links and spurred jackboots whose leather was soft and supple enough for

gloves.

When Marcus came on a vender with a tray of smoked sardines, he bought several of those and ate

them, too, hoping Mourtzouphlos was watching.

Rather apprehensively, the tribune broke the sky-blue wax seal on the little roll of parchment. The

note inside was in a thin, spidery hand that he knew at once, though he had not seen it for a couple

of years: "I should be honored if you would attend me at my residence tomorrow afternoon." With

that seal and that script, the signature was hardly necessary: "Balsamon, ecumenical Patriarch of the

Videssians."

"What does he want?" Scaurus muttered. He came up with no good answer. True, he did not follow

Phos, which would have been enough to set off almost any ecclesiastic in the Empire. Balsamon,

though, was not typical of the breed. A scholar before he was made into a prelate, he brought quite

un-Videssian tolerance to the patriarchal office.

All of which, Marcus thought, leaves me no closer to what he wants with me. The tribune did not

flatter himself that the invitation was for the pleasure of his company; the patriarch, he was uneasily

aware, was a good deal more clever than he.

His Stoic training did let him stop worrying about what he could not help; soon enough he would

find out. He tucked Balsamon's summons into his beltpouch.

The patriarchal residence was by Phos' High Temple in the northern part of the city, not far from the

Neorhesian harbor. It was a fairly modest old stucco building with a domed roof of red tiles. No one

would have looked at it twice anywhere in the city; alongside the High Temple's opulence it was

doubly invisible.

The pine trees set in front of it were twisted with age, but green despite the season. Scaurus always

thought of the antiquity of Videssos itself when he saw them. The rest of the shrubbery and the

hedgerows to either side had not yet come into leaf and were still brown and bare.

The tribune knocked on the stout oak door. He heard footsteps inside; a tall, solidly made priest

swung the door wide. "Yes? How may 1 serve you?" he asked, eyeing Marcus' manifestly foreign

figure with curiosity.

The Roman gave his name and handed the cleric Balsamon's summons, watched him all but stiffen

to attention as he read it. "This way, please," the fellow said, new respect in his voice. He made a

smart about-turn and led the tribune down a hallway filled with ivory figurines, icons to Phos, and

other antiquities.

From his walk, his crisp manner, and the scar that furrowed his shaved pate, Marcus would have

given long odds that the other had been a soldier before he became a priest. Likely he served as

Thorisin Gavras' watchdog over Balsamon as well as servant. Any Emperor with an ounce of sense

kept an eye on his patriarch; politics and religion mixed inextricably in Videssos.

The priest tapped at the open door. "What is it, Saborios?" came Balsamon's reedy voice, an old

man's tenor.

"The outlander is here to see you, your Sanctity, at your command," Saborios said, as if reporting to

a superior officer. "Is he? Well, I'm delighted. We'll be talking a while, you know, so why don't you

run along and sharpen your spears?" Along with having his guess confirmed, the tribune saw that

Balsamon had not changed much-—he had baited his last companion the same way.

But instead of scowling, as Gennadios would have done, Saborios just said, "They're every one of

them gleaming, your Sanctity. Maybe I'll hone a dagger instead." He nodded to Scaurus, "Go on in."

As the Roman did, the priest shut the door behind him.

"Can't get a rise out of that man," Balsamon grumbled, but he was chuckling, too. "Sit anywhere,"

he told the tribune, waving expansively; the order was easier given than obeyed. Scrolls, codices,

and writing tablets lined every wall of his study and were stacked in untidy piles on the battered

couch the patriarch was using, on several tables, and on both the elderly chairs in the room.

Trying not to disturb the order they were in—if there was any—Marcus moved a stack of books

from one of the chairs to the stone floor and sat down. The chair gave an alarming groan under his

weight, but held. "Wine?" Balsamon asked. "Please."

With a grunt of effort, Balsamon rose from the low couch, uncorked the bottle, and rummaged

through the chaos around him for a couple of cups. Seen from behind, the fat old gray-beard in his

shabby blue robe—a good deal less splendid than Saborios', to say nothing of less clean—looked

more like a retired cook than a prelate.

But when he turned round to hand Scaurus his wine—the cup was chipped—there was no mistaking

the force of character stamped on his engagingly ugly features. When one looked at his eyes, the

pug nose and wide, plump cheeks were forgotten. Wisdom dwelt in this man, try though he

sometimes did to disguise it with a quirk of bushy, still-black brows.

Under his eyes, though, were dark pouches of puffy flesh; his skin was pale, with a faint sheen of

sweat on his high forehead. "Are you well?" Marcus said in some alarm.

"You're still young, to ask that question," the patriarch said. "When a man reaches my age, either he

is well or he is dead." But his droll smile could not hide the relief with which he sank back onto the

couch.

He raised his hands above his head, quickly spoke his faith's creed: "We bless thee, Phos, Lord with

the right and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life

may be decided in our favor." Then he spat on the floor in rejection of the good god's foe Skotos.

The Videssian formula over food or drink completed, he drained his cup. "Drink," he urged the

Roman.

He cocked an eyebrow when Marcus failed to go through the ritual. "Heathen," he said. In most

priests' mouths, it would have been a word to start a pogrom; from Balsamon it was simply a label,

and perhaps a way to get a sly dig in at the tribune.

Of its kind, the wine was good, though as usual Scaurus longed for something less cloying. He beat

Balsamon to his feet and poured a second cup for both of them. The patriarch nodded and tossed it

down; settling cautiously back into his seat, Marcus worked at his more slowly.

Balsamon was studying him hard enough to make him fidget. Age might have left the patriarch's

eyes red-tracked with veins, but they were none the less piercing for that. He was one of the few

people who gave the tribune the uncomfortable feeling that they could read his thoughts. "How can

I help your Sanctity?" he asked, attempting briskness.

"I'm not your Sanctity, as we both know," the patriarch retorted, but again no fanatic's zeal was in

his voice. When he spoke again, it was with what sounded like real admiration. "You don't say a lot,

do you? We Videssians talk too bloody much."

"What would you have me say?"

" 'What would you have me say?' " Balsamon mimicked.

His laugh set his soft paunch quivering. "You sit there like a natural-born innocent, and anyone who

hadn't seen you in action would take you for just another blond barbarian to be fooled like a Haloga.

Yet somehow you prosper. This silence must be a useful tool."

Without a word, Marcus spread his hands and shrugged. Balsamon laughed harder; he had a good

laugh, one that invited everyone who heard it to share the joke. The tribune found himself smiling

in response to it. But when he said, "Truly, I don't call this past winter prospering," his smile

slipped.

"Some ways, no," the patriarch said. "We're none of us perfect, nor lucky all the time either. But

some ways..." He paused, scratching his chin. His voice was musing as he went on. "What do you

suppose she sees in you, anyway?"

It was a good thing Marcus' cup was on the arm of his chair; had it been in his hand, he would have

dropped it. "She?" he echoed, hoping he only sounded foolish and not frightened.

"Alypia Gavra, of course. Why did you think I sent for you?" Balsamon said matter-of-factly. Then

he saw Scaurus' face, and concern replaced the amusement on his own. "I didn't mean to make you

go so white. Finish your wine, get some wind back in your sails. She asked me to ask you here."

Mechanically, the tribune drank. Too much was happening too fast, alarm and relief jangling

together like discordant lute strings. "I think you'd best tell me more," he said. Another fear was in

there, too; had she had enough of him, and tried to pick an impersonal way to let him know?

He straightened in his chair. No—were it that, Alypia had the decency, and the courage, to tell him

to his face. His memories were whispering to him; that was all. Having been abandoned by one

woman he had trusted and loved, it was hard to be sure of another.

The twinkle was back in Balsamon's eyes, a good sign. He said blandly, "She said you might be

interested to learn that she had scheduled an afternoon appointment with me three days from now,

to pick my brains for what I recall of Ioannakis III, the poor fool who was Avtokrator for a couple

of unhappy years before Strobiles Sphrantzes."

"And so?" Alypia had been working on her history long before the Romans came to Videssos.

"Why, only that if she happened to go someplace else when she was supposed to be here, in my

senility and decrepitude I don't think I'd know the difference, and I'd babble on about Ioannakis all

the same."

The tribune's jaw fell; amazed gladness shouted in him. Balsamon watched, all innocence. "I must

say this senility and decrepitude of yours are moderately hard to see," Marcus said.

Did one of the patriarch's eyelids dip? "Oh, they come and go. For instance, I suspect I shan't

remember much of this little talk of ours tomorrow. Sad, is it not?"

"A pity," Scaurus agreed gravely.

Then Balsamon was serious once more, passing an age-spotted hand in front of his face. "You had

better deserve her and the risk she runs for your sake." He looked the Roman up and down. "You

just may. I hope you do, for your sake as well as hers. She always was a good judge of such things,

but with what she suffered she cannot afford to be wrong."

Marcus nodded, biting his lip. After Alypia's father— Thorisin's older brother Mavrikios—was

killed at Maragha, young Ortaias Sphrantzes had claimed the throne and gone through the forms of

marriage with her to help cement his place. But Ortaias' uncle Vardanes was the true power in that

brief, unhappy reign and took her from his nephew as a plaything. The tribune's hands tightened

into fists whenever he thought of those months. He said, "That once, I wished I were a Yezda, to

give Vardanes the requital he deserved."

Balsamon's mobile features grew grave as he studied Scaurus. "You'll do, I think." He stayed

somber. "You hazard yourself in this, too," he said. The tribune began a shrug, but Balsamon's eyes

held him still. "If you persist, greater danger will spring from it than any you have ever known, and

only Phos can guess if you will win free in the end."

The patriarch's gaze seemed to pierce the tribune; his voice went slow and deep. Marcus felt the hair

prickle on his arms and at the nape of his neck. Videssian priests had strange abilities, many of

them—healing and all sorts of magery. The Roman had never thought Balsamon more than an

uncommonly wise and clever man, but suddenly he was not so sure. His words sounded like

foretelling, not mere warning.

"What else do you see?" Marcus demanded harshly.

The patriarch jerked as if stung. The uncanny concentration faded from his face. "Eh? Nothing," he

said in his normal voice, and Scaurus cursed his own abruptness.

After that, the talk turned to inconsequential things. Marcus found himself forgetting to be annoyed

that he had not learned more. Balsamon was an endlessly absorbing talker, whether dissecting

another priest's foibles, discoursing on his collection of ivory figurines from Makuran—"Another

reason to hate the Yezda. Not only are they robbers and murderous Skotos-lovers, but they've cut

off trade since they began infesting the place." And he swelled up in what looked like righteous

wrath—or laughing at himself.

He picked at a bit of dried eggyolk on the threadbare sleeve of his robe, commenting, "You see,

there is a point to my untidiness after all. Had I been wearing that—" He pointed to a surplice of

cloth-of-gold and blue silk, ornamented with rows of gleaming seed pearls. "—when I was at

breakfast the other day, I might have been liable to excommunication for soiling it."

"Another reason for Zemarkhos," Scaurus said. The fanatic priest, holding Amorion in the

westlands in defiance of Yezda and Empire alike, had hurled anathemas at Balsamon and Thorisin

both for refusing to acclaim his pogrom against the Vaspurakaners driven into his territory by

Yezda raiders— their crime was not worshiping Phos the same way the Videssians did.

"Don't twit me over that one," Balsamon said, wincing. "The man is a wolf in priest's clothing, and

a rabid wolf at that. I tried to persuade the local synod that chose him to reconsider, but they would

not. 'Unwarranted interference from the capital,' they called it. He reminds me of the tailor's cat that

fell into a vat of blue dye. The mice thought he'd become a monk and given up eating meat."

Marcus chuckled, but the patriarch's stubby fingers drummed on his knee; his mouth twisted in

frustration. "I wonder how many he's burned since power fell into his lap— and what more I could

have done to stop him." He sighed, shaking his head.

In an odd way, his gloom reassured the tribune. After his own failures, it did not hurt to be

reminded that even as keen a man as Balsamon could sometimes come up short.

Saborios, certainly as efficient as a soldier if he was not one, had the door open for Scaurus even as

he reached for the latch.

Alypia Gavra sat up in the narrow bed and poked Marcus In the ribs. He yelped. She touched the

heavy gold of the necklace. "You are a madman for this," she said. "It's so beautiful I'll want to

wear it, and how can I? Where will I say it came from? Why won't anyone have seen it before?"

"A pox on practicality," Scaurus said.

She laughed at him. "Coming from you, that's the next thing to blasphemy."

"Hrmmp." The Roman leaned back lazily. "I thought it would look good on you and I was right-—

the more so," he smiled, "when it's all you're wearing."

He watched a slow flush of pleasure rise from her breasts lo her face. It showed plainly; she was

fairer of skin than most Videssian women. He sometimes wondered if her dead mother had a touch

of Haloga blood. Her features were not as sharply sculpted as those of her father or uncle, and her

eyes were a clear green, rare among the imperials.

Mischief danced in them. "Beast," she said, and tried to poke him again. He jerked away. Once he

had made the mistake of grabbing her instead and seen her go rigid in unreasoning panic; after

Vardanes, she could not stand being restrained in any way.

The sudden motion nearly tumbled both of them out of bed. "There, you see," the tribune said.

"That poking is a habit of mine you never should have picked up. Look what it brings on."

"I like doing things as you do," she said seriously. That brought him up short, as such remarks of

hers always did. Helvis had tried to push him toward her own ways, which only made him more

stubborn in clinging to his. It was strange, hearing from a woman that those were worth something.

He gave a sober nod, one suited to acknowledging something a legionary might have said, then

grunted in annoyance, feeling very much a fool. He sat up himself and kissed her thoroughly.

"That's better," she said.

Chickens clucked and scratched below the second-story window, whose shutters were flung wide to

let in the mild air. Marcus could see the ponderous bulk of Phos' High Temple pushing into the sky

not far away. He and Alypia had managed one meeting at this inn during the winter, so had it

become a natural trysting place when she was supposed to be visiting Balsamon.

The innkeeper, a stout, middle-aged man named Aetios, shouted at a stableboy for forgetting to

curry a mule. The fellow's eyes had sparked with recognition when Scaurus and the princess asked

for a room, but the tribune was sure it was only because he had seen them before, not that he knew

Alypia by sight. And in any case, with him, silver was better than wine for washing unpleasant

memories away. His lumpish face came alive at the sweet sound of coins jingling in his palm.

Alypia made as if to get up, saying, "I really should go see Balsamon, if only for a little while. That

way neither he nor 1 can be caught in a lie."

"If you must," Marcus said grumpily. With the ceremony that surrounded her as niece and closest

kin of the Avtokrator, she could steal away but rarely, and the chance she took in doing so hung like

a storm cloud over their meetings. He savored every moment with her, never sure it would not be

the last.

As if reading his thoughts, she clung to him, crying, "What will we do? Thorisin is bound to find

out, and then—" She came to a ragged stop, not wanting to think about "and then." In his short-

tempered way, Thorisin Gavras was a decent man, but quick to lash out at anything he saw as a

threat to his throne. After the strife he had already faced in his two and a half years on it, the tribune

found it hard to blame him.

Or he would have, had the Emperor's suspicions affected anyone but him. "I wish," he said with

illogical resentment, "your uncle would marry and get himself an heir. Then he'd have less reason to

worry about you."

Alypia shook her head violently. "Oh, aye, I'd be safe then—safe to be married off to one of his

cronies. He dares not now, for fear whoever had me would use me against him. Let his own line be

set, though, and I become an asset to bind someone to him."

She stared at nothing; her nails bit his shoulder. Through clenched teeth she said, as much to herself

as to him, "I will die before I lie again with a man not of my choosing."

Scaurus did not doubt she meant exactly that. He ran a slow hand up the smooth column of her

back, trying to gentle her. "If only I were a Videssian," he said. That a princess of

the blood could be given to an outland mercenary captain, even one more perfectly trusted than

himself, was past thinking of in haughty Videssos.

"Wishes, wishes, wishes!" Alypia said. "What good are they? All we can truly count on is our

danger growing worse the longer we go on, and only Phos knows when we will be free of it."

The tribune stared; in Videssos he was never sure where coincidence stopped and the uncanny

began. "Balsamon told me something much like that," he said slowly, and at Alypia's inquiring

glance recounted the strange moment when the patriarch had seemed to prophesy.

When he was done, he was startled to see her pale and shaken. She did not want to explain herself,

but sat silent beside him. But he pressed her, and at last she said, "I have known him thus before. He

gazed at you as if to read your soul, and there was none of his usual sport in his words." It was

statement, not question.

"You have it," Scaurus acknowledged. "When did you see him so?"

"Only once, though I know the fit has taken him more often than that. 'Phos' gift,' he calls it, but I

think curse would be a better name. He has spoken of it to me a few times; that he trusts me to share

such a burden is the finest compliment I've ever had. You guessed well, dear Marcus," she said,

touching his hand: "He sometimes has the prescient gift. But all he ever learns with it is of

destruction und despair."

The Roman whistled tunelessly between his teeth. "It is a curse." He shook his head. "And how

much more bitter for a joyful man like him. To see only the coming trouble, and to have to stay

steady in the teeth of it... He's braver than I could be."

Alypia's face reflected the same distress the tribune felt.

"When was it you saw him?" he asked her again.

"He was visiting my father, just before he set out for Maragha. They were arguing and trading

insults—you remember how the two of them used to carry on, neither meaning a word of what he

said. Finally they ran out of darts to throw, and Balsamon got up to leave. You could see it coming

over him, like the weight of the world. He stood there for a few seconds; my father and I started to

ease him back down to a chair, thinking he'd been taken ill. But he shrugged us away and turned to

my father and said one word in that—certain— voice."

"I know what you mean," Scaurus said. "What was it?"

'Good-bye.' " Alypia was a good mimic; the doom she packed into the word froze the Roman for a

moment. She shivered herself at the memory. "No use pretending it was just an ordinary leave-

taking, though my father and Balsamon did their best. Neither believed it; I've never seen Balsamon

so flat in a sermon as he was at the High Temple the next day."

"I remember that!" Marcus said. "I was there, along with the rest of the officers. It troubled me at

the time; I thought we deserved a better farewell than we got. I guess we were lucky to have any."

"Was that luck, as it turned out?" she asked, her voice low. She did not wait for a reply, but rushed

on, "And now he sees peril to you. I'll leave you, I swear it, before I let you come to harm because

of me." But instead of leaving, she clung to him with something close to desperation.

"Nothing the old man said made me think separating would matter," said Scaurus. "Whatever

happens will happen as it should." The Stoic maxim did nothing to ease her; his lips on hers were a

better cure. They sank back together onto the bed. The bedding sighed as their weight pressed the

straw flat.

Some time later she reached up to touch his cheek and smiled, as she often did, at the faint rasp of

newly shaved whiskers under her fingers. "You are a stubborn man," she said fondly; in a land of

beards, the tribune still held to the smooth-faced Roman style. She took his head between her

palms. "Oh, how could I think to leave you? But how can I stay?"

"I love you," he said, hugging her until she gave a startled gasp. It was true but, he knew too well,

not an answer.

"I know, and I you. How much safer it would be for both of us if we did not." She glanced out the

window, exclaimed in dismay when she saw how long the shadows had grown. "Let me up, dearest.

Now I really must go."

Marcus rolled away; she scrambled to her feet. He admired her slim body for a last few seconds as

she raised her arms over her head to slide on the long dress of deep gold wool; geometrically

decorated insets of silk accented her narrow waist and the swell of her hips. "It suits you well," he

said.

"Quite the courtier today, aren't you?" She smiled, slipping on sandals. She patted at her hair, which

she wore short and straight. With a woman's practicality, she said, "It's lucky I don't fancy those

piled-up heads of curls that are all the rage these days. They couldn't be repaired so easily."

She wrapped an orange linen shawl embroidered with (lowers and butterflies around her shoulders

and started for the door. "The necklace," Marcus said reluctantly. He was out of bed himself,

fastening his tunic closed.

Her hand flew to her throat, but then she let it drop once more. "Balsamon can see it before I tuck it

into my bag. After all, what other chance will I have to show it, and to show how thoughtful—to

say nothing of daft—you were to give it to me?"

He felt himself glow with her praise; he had not heard much—nor, to be fair, given much—as he

and Helvis quarreled toward their disastrous parting. Alypia gasped at the kiss he gave her. "Well!"

she said, eyes glowing. "A bit more of that, sirrah, and Balsamon will get no look at my bauble

today."

The tribune stepped back. "Too dangerous," he said with what tatters of Roman hardheadedness he

had left. Alypia nodded and turned to go. As she did, something rattled inside her purse. Marcus

laughed. "I know that noise, I'll wager: stylus and waxed tablet. Who was it the patriarch said,

Ioannakis II?"

"The third; the second is three hundred years dead." She spoke with perfect seriousness; the history

she was composing occupied a good deal of her time. When Scaurus caught her eye, she said,

"There are pleasures and pleasures, you know."

"No need to apologize to me," he said quickly, and meant it. Were it not for her active wit and sense

of detail, the two of them could not have met even half so often as they did, and likely would have

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