Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  When the tribune put down his cup—yellow-brown unglazed clay, ugly but functional—he caught Alypia watching him curiously. He arched his eyebrows. She hesitated, then asked, “Have you told him about us?”

  “No,” Scaurus said at once. “The fewer who know, the better.”

  She nodded. “That’s so. Yet surely, if half what you and my uncle have said of him is true, he would never violate your trust. And I know the two of you are close; it shows in the way you work together.” She looked the question at him.

  “You’re right, he’d never betray us,” the tribune said. “But telling him would not make me easier and would just make him nervous. He’d see only the risk, and never understand that for you it was worth taking.”

  “Never say you were not born a courtier, dear Marcus,” she murmured, her eyes glowing. He hugged her close; her skin was like warm satin against his.

  “Gangway there!” The rough shout came through the window, accompanied by the clatter of iron-shod hooves on paving-stones. With Alypia in his arms, the tribune did not pay the noise much attention, but it registered. The coppersmiths’ district was a poor quarter of the city, with horses few and far between.

  A few minutes later the inn’s whole second floor shook as several men in heavy boots pounded up the wooden stairs. Marcus frowned. “What nonsense is this?” he muttered, more annoyed than alarmed. Better safe, he decided. He climbed to his feet, slid his sword free of its sheath, and wrapped his tunic round his arm for a makeshift shield.

  The door came crashing in. Alypia screamed. Scaurus started to spring forward, then froze in his tracks. Four armored archers were in the hallway, bows drawn and aimed at his belly. Half a dozen spearmen crowded after them. And Provhos Mourtzouphlos, a wide smile of invitation on his face, said, “Take another step, outlander, why don’t you?”

  Wits numb in disaster, the tribune lowered his blade. “No?” Mourtzouphlos said, seeing he would not charge. “Too bad.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Then back off!”

  The Roman obeyed. “Jove,” he said. “Jove, Jove, Jove.” It was neither prayer nor curse, simply the first noise he happened to make.

  The Videssian bowmen followed. Three kept arrows trained on him while the fourth turned his weapon toward Alypia, who was sitting rigidly upright in bed, the coverlet drawn to her chin to hide her nakedness. Her eyes were wide and staring, like those of a trapped animal.

  “No need to aim at her,” Marcus said softly. The archer, a young man with a hooked nose and liquid brown eyes that told of Vaspurakaner blood, nodded and lowered his bow.

  “You be silent,” Mortzouphlos said from the doorway. He suddenly seemed to notice the tribune was still holding his sword. “Drop it!” he ordered, then snapped at the last bowman, “Gather that up, Artavasdos, if you have nothing better to do.”

  Mourtzouphlos looked Scaurus’ unclad frame up and down. “Damned foreign foolishness, scraping your face every day,” he said, stroking his own whiskers. His grin grew most unpleasant. “When Thorisin’s done with you, you’ll likely be able to keep your cheeks smooth without needing to shave.” His voice went falsetto; he grabbed at his crotch in an unmistakable gesture.

  Marcus’ blood ran cold; of themselves, his hands made a protective cup. One of the troopers behind Mourtzouphlos laughed. Alypia came out of her terrified paralysis. “No!” she cried in horror. “Blame me, not him!”

  “No one asked your advice, slut,” Mourtzouphlos said coldly. “A fine one you make to talk, whoring with the Sphrantzai and then spreading yourself for this barbarian.”

  Alypia went white. “Shut your foul mouth, Mourtzouphlos,” Scaurus said. “You’ll pay for that, I promise.”

  “What are your promises worth?” The Videssian cavalry officer stepped up and slapped him in the face.

  Ears ringing, Marcus shook his head to clear it. “Do what you like with me, but have a care how you treat her Majesty the Princess. You’ll get no thanks from Thorisin for tormenting her.”

  “Will I not?” Mourtzouphlos retorted, but with a touch of doubt; his men, reminded of Alypia’s title, looked at each other for a moment. Mourtzouphlos pulled himself together. “As for doing what I’d like with you—there’s no time for that now, worse luck. Get your trousers on, Ronam,” he barked. Scaurus had to swallow a startled laugh; if he began, he did not think he would be able to stop.

  Mourtzouphlos rounded on Alypia. “And you, my lady,” he said, speaking the honorific like a curse. “Come on, out of there. D’you think I’ll leave you to wait for your next customer?” His men leered in anticipation.

  “Damn you, Provhos,” Scaurus said. Alypia stayed motionless beneath the blanket, dread on her face. After her treatment at the hands of Vardanes Sphrantzes, Marcus knew the humiliation Mourtzouphlos was piling on her might break her forever. When the cavalryman reached out to tear the cover away, he shouted, “Wait!”

  “And why should I?”

  “Because she is still the Emperor’s niece and last living relative. No matter what he may do to me, do you think he’ll thank you for making his scandal worse?” That was a keen shot; the Roman could see calculation start behind Mourtzouphlos’ eyes. He pressed his tiny advantage: “Give her leave to dress in peace; where will she go?”

  Mourtzouphlos rubbed his chin as he thought. At last he jerked a thumb at Scaurus. “Take him out into the hall.” As the archers obeyed, he said to Alypia, “I’m warning you, be quick.”

  “Thank you,” she said, to him and Marcus both.

  “Bah!” Mourtzouphlos slammed the door. He growled at his troopers, “Well, what are you standing around for? Tie this whoreson up.” One of the spearmen jerked the tribune’s hands behind him, while a second lashed his wrists together with rawhide thongs.

  Before the last knot was tied, Alypia emerged from the cubicle, still tugging at the sleeves of her dark-gold linen dress. She wore her usual dispassionate air like a shield against enemies, but Marcus saw how her hand trembled when she shut the door behind her. Her voice, though, was steady if toneless as she said to Mourtzouphlos, “Do what you must.”

  “Move, then,” he said brusquely. Scaurus stumbled on the stairs; he would have fallen had the archer carrying his sword not grabbed his shoulder. The drinkers in the taproom below stared as the soldiers led their prisoners out. In high spirits once more, Mourtzouphlos tossed a couple of silverpieces to the innkeeper. “This for the custom I may have scared off.” The taverner, a lean-faced bald fellow who looked to have no use for on-duty troopers in his place, made the coins disappear.

  Two more spearmen were outside keeping an eye on the squad’s horses. “Mount up,” Mourtzouphlos said. He bowed mockingly to Scaurus. “Here’s a gelding for you to ride, instead of your filly. Think on that, outlander.”

  “You knew!” Marcus blurted in dismay.

  “So I did,” Mourtzouphlos said smugly. “Saborios has sharp ears, and making sure he was right was worth the time I spent in those cheap, scratchy clothes.”

  “Saborios!” Scaurus and Alypia said together, exchanging an appalled glance. The princess burst out, “Phos, what will my uncle do to Balsamon?”

  “Not a damned thing,” Mourtzouphlos answered in disgust. “It would cost him riots, more’s the pity.” He turned that nasty grin on the tribune again. “The same doesn’t apply to you, of course. I only wish I could rout every other greedy mercenary from Videssos so easily. Now ride!”

  One of the cavalryman’s soldiers had to help Scaurus into the saddle; no horseman, he could not mount without his hands. His mind was whirling as Mourtzouphlos tied a lead to his horse’s reins. In principle, ironically, he agreed with the imperial—Videssos would have done better with all native troops.

  But Alypia said, “So you would free the Empire of mercenaries, would you, Mourtzouphlos? Tell me, then, you’ve never made peasants on your estates into personal retainers. Tell me you’ve never held back tax monies from the fisc.” Her voice dripped scorn. Cat-graceful, she swung
herself up onto the horse by Scaurus’.

  The aristocrat flushed, but he came back, “Why should I give the cursed pen-pushers the gold to spend on more hired troops?” With the provincial nobles converting the Empire’s freeholders to private armies and the bureaucrats taxing them into serfdom, no wonder Videssos was short of soldiers. Its manpower pool had been drying up for more than a hundred years.

  “Ride!” Mourtzouphlos repeated. He dug spurs into his mount’s flank. It bounded forward, and so, perforce, did Marcus’ animal. He almost went over its tail; only a quick clutch with his knees saved him. He did not think Mourtzouphlos would mind if he got trampled.

  “Make way, in the Emperor’s name!” the Videssian officer shouted again and again, trying to hurry through the city’s crowded streets. Some of the traffic did move aside to let his troopers pass, but as many riders and folk afoot stopped and turned to gape at him. He would have made better progress keeping quiet, but he crowed out his victory like a rooster.

  Marcus endured the journey, distracted from the full mortification of it by his struggle to hold his seat. That so occupied him that he had little chance to turn his head Alypia’s way. She rode steadily on, eyes set straight ahead, as if neither the crowd nor her guards had any meaning to her. Once, though, her glance met Scaurus’, and she sent him a quick, frightened smile. His horse missed a step, jouncing him in the saddle before he could return it.

  After the hurly-burly and close-pressing swarm of humanity in the plaza of Palamas, the palace compound’s wide uncrowded lanes were a relief to the tribune, or would have been had not Mourtzouphlos stepped up his squadron’s pace to nearly a gallop. A fat eunuch carrying a silver tray scurried onto the edge of the grass as the horsemen thundered by. His head whipped round, and he dropped his platter with a clang when he recognized their prisoners.

  They pounded through a grove of cherry trees just beginning to come into fragrant pink blossom and pulled to a halt before a single-story building of stucco trimmed with gleaming marble that was the imperial family’s private quarters. Sentries sprang to attention on seeing Mourtzouphlos—or was it for Alypia Gavra? Another eunuch, a steward in a robe of dark red silk embroidered with golden birds, appeared in the entranceway. Mourtzouphlos called, “His Majesty expects us.”

  “Bide a moment.” The chamberlain vanished inside. Mourtzouphlos and his men dismounted, as did Alypia and Scaurus; the tribune managed to slide off his horse without stumbling. Some of the sentries knew him and exclaimed in surprise to see him bound. But before he could answer, the steward returned and beckoned Mourtzouphlos and his unwilling companions forward. “Bring two or three of your guards,” he said, indicating the cavalrymen, “but leave the rest here. His Imperial Majesty does not feel they will be required.”

  Marcus paid no attention to the splendid antiquities he was hurried past, relics of a millenium and a half of Videssian history. The guards frogmarched him along; they did not quite dare mete out the same treatment to Alypia, who walked beside him free of restraint. Prisoner she might be, but, as the tribune had reminded them, she was also the Emperor’s niece.

  The eunuch chamberlain ducked into a doorway. He started to speak, but Thorisin Gavras irritably broke in, “I know who they are, you bloody twit! Go on, get out of here.” Blankfaced, the steward withdrew. Mourtzouphlos led Scaurus and Alypia in to the Avtokrator of the Videssians.

  Gavras spun round at their entrance. The motion was lithe, but the Emperor’s shoulder sagged just a little, and his eyes were trimmed with red. He looks tired, was Marcus’ first thought, followed a moment later by, he looks more like Mavrikios than ever. The burden Avtokrators carried aged them quickly.

  But Thorisin remained more impetuous than his older brother had been. “Oh, send your lads back outside, Provhos,” he said impatiently. “If we can’t handle a girl and a tied man, Phos have pity on us.” He slapped the hilt of his saber, an unadorned, much-used weapon in a plain leather sheath.

  That seemed to give him an idea. “Artavasdos!” he called after the guards—any Emperor who wanted a long rule knew as many of his men’s names as he could. The soldier stood in the doorway. “Is that this wretch’s sword you have there?” He jerked a thumb at the Roman. When Artavasdos nodded, he went on, “Well, why don’t you fetch it over to Nepos, the sorcerer-priest at the Academy? He’s been panting for a long look at it since he found out about it.” Artavasdos nodded again, saluted, and disappeared.

  Marcus winced as the sword was taken away and felt more naked than he had when Mourtzouphlos and his men surprised him. That druid-enchanted blade, with its twin that Viridovix carried, had swept the Romans from Gaul to Videssos and in the Empire it had proved potent in its own right. He never willingly let himself be separated from it; now his will mattered nothing.

  He was dismayed enough to miss Thorisin’s words to him. Mourtzouphlos sharply prodded him in the ribs. A frown on his long face, the Emperor repeated, “Still no proskynesis, eh, even for your head’s sake? You’re a stiff-necked bastard, Roman, and no mistake, but not stiff enough for the axe to bounce off.”

  “What good would a prostration do?” the tribune said. “You won’t spare me on account of it.” The proskynesis had not even occurred to him; the custom of republican Rome was to bend the knee to no man.

  “Too proud, are you?” Thorisin said. “But not too proud, I see, to sneak out and sleep with my brother’s daughter.”

  “Well said!” Mourtzouphlos exclaimed. Scaurus felt his cheeks go hot; he had no answer for the Emperor.

  Alypia said, “It was not as you think, uncle. If anything, I sought him out rather than he me.”

  “A harlot whoring with a lumpish heathen,” Mourtzouphlos fleered. “That makes neither you nor him better, strumpet.”

  “Provhos,” the Emperor said sharply, “I will handle this with no help from you.” The cavalryman opened his mouth and closed it again with a snap. Thorisin Gavras’ anger was nothing to risk.

  “And I love him,” Alypia said.

  “And I her,” Marcus echoed.

  Mourtzouphlos seemed about to explode. Thorisin shouted, “What in Skotos’ name difference does that make?” He turned to his niece. “I thought you had better sense than to drag the name of our clan through the bathhouses.”

  “Me?” she said, her voice wild and dangerous. “Me? What of your oh-so-sweet doxy Komitta Rhangavve, who straddled anything that wasn’t dead like a bitch in heat, and had you lampooned for it last Midwinter’s Day in the Amphitheater in front of half the city?”

  Thorisin stopped in his tracks, as if clubbed. He went red, then white. Provhos Mourtzouphlos looked as though he wished he were somewhere else; listening to a family feud in the imperial family could prove unhealthy.

  Even more loudly, Alypia went on, “And if you’re so concerned to keep us from reproaches, dear uncle, why didn’t you put your precious mistress aside when you became Avtokrator, and marry and get yourself an heir?”

  In her fury and gallantry she reminded Marcus of an outmatched fencer throwing everything into a last desperate attack, win or die. Thorisin flinched, but growled, “This is not about me, but about you and how what you’ve done touches me.” His voice went up to a roar: “Bizoulinos! Domentziolos! Konon!” The chamberlain who had conducted Mourtzouphlos’ party to the Emperor hurried in, along with two other eunuchs. Gavras ordered them, “Take Alypia to her quarters here. See she stays there till I command otherwise; your lives are answer for it.”

  “That’s right!” she cried. “If you have no answer, hide the question away so you need not think about it anymore.” The stewards led her away. She cast a last backward look at Scaurus but, not wanting to make his position more hopeless than it already was, said nothing.

  “Whew!” said the Emperor, wiping his forehead. “You must be a sorcerer yourself, Roman; I’ve never seen her so fierce.” He laughed humorlessly. “She has the Gavras temper, under all that calm she usually puts on.” His stare grew sharp again. “N
ow—what do we do with you?”

  “I am loyal to your Majesty,” Marcus said.

  “Ha!” That was Mourtzouphlos, but he subsided like a scolded small boy when Thorisin turned his eye on him; all their long past had trained the Videssians to quail before the imperial office’s power.

  Gavras turned back to the tribune. “Loyal, are you? You have a bloody odd way of showing it, then.” He stroked his chin; year by year, his beard was going grayer. “If you were a Videssian, you’d be deadly dangerous to me. You’re a good soldier and halfway decent bureaucrat; you might be able to line up both factions behind you. Bad enough as is—tell me to my face you’re not an ambitious man.”

  It was the very word he had known the Emperor would tax him with. “Is that a sin?” he said.

  “In a mercenary captain it’s a sin past forgiving. Ask Drax.”

  Scaurus backtracked. “It has nothing to do with my feelings about Alypia. You must know her well enough to know she would recognize advances that came from self-interest for what they were.”

  “What does an assotted wench know?” Mourtzouphlos sneered, but Thorisin paused for a moment. If his officer did not, he respected Alypia’s clear thinking.

  “If I had been a traitor,” Marcus pressed on, “would I have stayed with you in the civil war against Ortaias and Vardanes? Would I have warned you against Drax when you sent him out to fight Baanes Onomagoulos? Would I have fought against him last year when he tried to set up his new Namdalen in the westlands?”

  “Consorting with an imperial princess without the leave of the Avtokrator is treason for a Videssian, let alone an outlander,” Thorisin said flatly, and the tribune’s heart sank. “And if you were as pure of heart as you claim, why would you have met with the Namdaleni and plotted abandoning me when it seemed I could not take Videssos from the Sphrantzai? What does your tattling against Drax prove? Any officer will score off his rival if he can. If you despised and suspected him so, why did you let him get away to scheme new mischiefs against me?”