IX
MONEY CLINKED IN MARCUS’ PALM. “FOUR AND A HALF,” Tahmasp said. “One for your month with us, the rest your fair share of the pot.” Two of the goldpieces were Yezda, stamped with Yezd’s leaping panther and a legend in a script the tribune could not read. The rest came from Videssos. Even in Mashiz, imperial gold was good.
Gaius Philippus stepped up to take his pay. “We’d have earned more in time served if you’d not taken the southern route,” he said.
Tahmasp made a sour face. “More in profit, too.” The lands between the Tutub and the Tib would have given him twice the trade his desert-skirting track yielded, but a barbarian invasion had thrown the Hundred Cities into confusion.
The caravaneer folded each Roman in turn into a beefy embrace. “You bastards sure you won’t stick around till I set out again?”
“A couple of months from now?” Marcus shook his head. “Not likely.”
“Not that I care a flying fart what happens to you,” Tahmasp said, a frown giving his gruff words the lie, “but two men riding through the Yezda by themselves stand the same chance of coming out whole as two eggs about to be scrambled.”
“Actually, I think we may do better alone,” the tribune answered. “At least we won’t draw nomads the way your traveling madhouse does.” The Yezda had swarmed thick as flies the first two weeks out of Amorion. To ride away then would have been death, even without Tahmasp’s vow of destruction to deserters.
Later they might have escaped with ease, but by then the shared dangers of three desperate fights and endless hours of picket duty and talk around campfires had welded them indissolubly to the company. It was easy to abandon strangers; not so, friends. And so, Scaurus thought, here we are in the heart of Yezd, all for loyalty’s sake.
It seemed strange and not very fair.
Tahmasp pumped Gaius Philippus’ hand, slapped Marcus on the back. As always, he set himself; as always, he staggered. “You have the wits of a couple of sun-addled jackasses, but good luck to you. If you live—which I doubt—maybe we’ll meet again.” The caravaneer turned away. To him they were finished business.
They led their horses out of the fortified warehouse into the shadows of Mashiz’ afternoon. Marcus could look east and see the sun still shining brightly, but the peaks of Dilbat brought an early twilight to the city. In a way it was a blessing, for it cut the Yezda summer’s heat. Yezd made Videssos’ central plateau temperate by comparison.
“What now?” Gaius Philippus asked, his mind firmly on the problem of the moment. “Me, I’m for shagging out of here right away. Tahmasp is welcome to this place.”
Marcus nodded slowly. More shadows than the ones cast by the mountains of Dilbat hung over Mashiz. He looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of his unease. It was not the buildings; he was sure of that much. The eye grew used to thin towers topped by onion domes, to spiral ramps instead of stairways, to pointed arches wider than the doors beneath them, and to square columns covered with geometric mosaics. Mashiz seemed fantastically strange, but Makuraner architecture was only different, not sinister.
The Yezda, but two generations off the steppe, were not builders. They had put their mark on Mashiz all the same. The tribune wondered what the sack had been like when the city fell. Every other block, it seemed, had a wrecked building, and every other structure needed repair. That air of decay, of a slow falling into ruin, was part of the problem, Scaurus thought.
But only part. A disproportionate number of ravaged buildings had been shrines of the Four Prophets; the Yezda had been as savage toward Makuran’s national cult as they were to the worship of Phos. As the Romans headed for the city’s market, they passed only a couple of surviving shrines. Both were small buildings that had probably once been private homes, and mean ones at that.
Further west, toward the edge of Mashiz, stood another temple once dedicated to the Four: a marvelous red granite pyramid, no doubt the Makuraner counterpart to Phos’ High Temple in Videssos. The Yezda, though, had claimed it for their own. Scored into every side, brutally obliterating the reliefs that told the story of the Four Prophets, were Skotos’ twin lightningbolts. A cloud of thick brown smoke rose above the building. When the breeze shifted and sent a tag end of it their way, Marcus and Gaius Philippus both coughed at the stench.
“I know what meat that is,” the senior centurion said darkly.
The people of Mashiz, Scaurus reflected, lived with that cloud every day of their lives. No wonder they were furtive, sticking to the deeper shadows of buildings as they walked along the street, looking at strangers out of the corners of their eyes, and rarely talking above a whisper. No wonder a born swaggerer like Tahmasp spent most of his time on the road.
In Mashiz, the Yezda swaggered. Afoot or on horse, they came down the middle of the road with the arrogance of conquerors and expected everyone else to stay out of their way.
The Romans saw priests of Skotos for the first time; they seemed a ghastly parody of the clergy who served Phos. Their robes were the color of drying blood—to keep the gore of their sacrifices from showing, Marcus thought grimly. Their dark god’s sigil was blazoned in black on their chests; their hair was shorn into the double thunderbolt. The locals ducked aside whenever a pair of them came by; even the Yezda appeared nervous around them.
They did not speak to Scaurus, which suited him.
To his relief, something like normality reigned in the marketplace. The sights and sounds of commerce were the same wherever men gathered. He needed no knowledge of the guttural Makuraner tongue to understand that this customer thought a butcher was cheating him, or that that one was going to outhaggle a wool merchant if it took all night.
Marcus was afraid he would have to bargain by dumb show, but most of the venders knew a few words of Videssian: numbers, yes, no, and enough invective to add flavor to no. He bought hard cheese, coarse-ground flour, and a little griddle on which to cook wheatcakes. As a happy afterthought, he added a sackful of Vaspurakaner-style pastries, a rich mixture of flour, minced almonds, and ground dates, dusted with sugar.
“ ‘Princes’ balls,’ ” the baker said, chuckling, as he tied the neck of the sack. Marcus had heard the joke before, but his answering laugh got a couple of coppers knocked off the price.
“Anything else we need?” he asked Gaius Philippus.
“A new canteen,” the centurion said. “The solder’s come loose from the seam on this one, and it leaks. Maybe a patch’ll do, but something, anyway. The kind of country this is, losing water could kill you in a hurry.”
“Let’s find a tinker, then, or a coppersmith.” To Marcus’ surprise, there did not seem to be any tinkers wandering through the square, nor did the baker understand the Videssian word. “Not something they have here, I gather. Oh, well, a smith it is.”
The coppersmiths’ district was not far from the marketplace. The baker pointed the way. “Three blocks up, two over.”
The Romans heard a scuffle down a sidestreet. So did several locals, who paid no attention; if it was not happening to them, they did not want to know about it. But when Scaurus and Gaius Philippus came to the alleyway, they saw a single man, his back to a mud-brick wall, desperately wielding a cudgel against four attackers.
They looked at each other. “Shall we even up the odds?” Marcus asked. Without waiting for an answer, he sprang onto his horse. Gaius Philippus was already mounting. He had a better beast than the gray these days, a sturdy brown gelding with a white blaze between the eyes.
The robbers whirled as the drumroll of hoofbeats filled the narrow street. One fled. Another threw a dagger at the tribune, a hurried cast that went wild. Scaurus’ horse ran him down. The third bravo swung a mace at Gaius Philippus, who turned the stroke with his gladius and then thrust it through the fellow’s throat. The last of the robbers grappled with him and tried to pull him from the saddle, but their would-be victim sprang out to aid his unexpected rescuers. His club caved in the back of the bandit’s skull.
Marcus rode after the footpad who had run, but the fellow escaped, vanishing in a maze of twisting alleys the tribune did not know. When he got back, the man he had saved was bending over the trampled robber, who groaned and thrashed on the ground. Pulling out a penknife, he jerked the bandit’s head back and cut his throat.
Scaurus frowned at such rough-and-ready justice, but decided the robber was probably lucky not to fall into the hands of whatever passed for a constabulary among the Yezda.
The man rose, bowing low to one Roman and then to the other. He was about Marcus’ age and nearly as tall as the tribune, but with a much leaner frame. His face was long and gaunt, with hollows below the cheekbones. His eyes, somber and dark, also looked out from hollows.
He bowed again, saying something in the Makuraner language. Marcus had picked up just enough of it to be able to answer that he did not understand. Without much hope, he asked, “Do you speak Videssian?”
“Yes, indeed I do.” The fellow’s accent was thicker than Tahmasp’s, but also more cultured. “May I ask my rescuers’ names?”
The Romans looked at each other, shrugged, and gave them.
“I am in your debt, sirs. I am Tabari.” He said that as if they ought to know who Tabari was. Marcus tried to seem suitably impressed. Gaius Philippus grunted.
Just then, a squad of archers came dashing round the corner. Someone finally must have let the watch know a fight was going on. The leader of the Yezda saw the robber’s body lying on the ground in a pool of blood and growled something to his men. They turned their bows on the Romans and Tabari.
Scaurus and Gaius Philippus froze, careful not to do anything threatening with the swords they still held. Tabari strode forward confidently. He spoke a couple of sentences in the Yezda tongue. The city guards lowered their weapons so fast that one dropped an arrow. Their commander bowed low.
“As I said, I am Tabari,” said the man the Romans had rescued, turning back to them, “minister of justice to my lord the great khagan Wulghash.” Suddenly his eyes no longer looked somber to Marcus. They looked dangerous. Justice, these days, meant prison to the tribune, and he had seen more of prison than he ever wanted to.
Tabari went on, “As a small token of my gratitude, let me present you at the court banquet this evening. Surely my lord Wulghash will take notice of your courage and generosity and reward you as you deserve. My own resources, I fear, are too small for that, but know you have my undying gratitude.”
“Wulghash? Oh, bloody wonderful!” Gaius Philippus said in Latin.
“Surely you do us too much honor,” Marcus said to Tabari, doing his best to frame a polite refusal. “We know nothing of courts or fancy manners—”
“My lord Wulghash does not insist on them, and I tell you he will be delighted to show favor to the men who saved his minister of justice, even if,” Tabari’s voice held irony, “they were unaware of his rank.” He spoke to the Yezda underofficer, who bowed again. “Rhadzat here will take you to the palace. I would escort you myself, but I fear I have pressing business this dead dog of a robber and his confederates interrupted. I shall see you there this evening. Until then, my friends.”
“Until then.” Marcus and Gaius Philippus echoed him with a singular lack of enthusiasm.
Unlike the rambling Videssian palace complex, the court at Mashiz was housed in a single building. The great stone blocks from which it was built looked as if they had been ripped from the mountains’ heart. Studying the smoothly weathered outwalls, Marcus guessed the palace had been a citadel before Mashiz was a city.
Once inside the outwalls, a couple of Yezda from Rhadzat’s squad peeled off to lead the Romans’ horses to the stables. Knowing the care the Yezda lavished on their own beasts, Scaurus was sure his would get fine treatment from them. It did nothing to ease his mind. Being away from their mounts would only make flight harder for the Romans.
Rhadzat conducted the tribune and senior centurion to the palace entrance, where a steward eyed him and them with distaste. The servitor was of Makuraner blood, slim, dark, and elegant, wearing a brocaded caftan and sandals with golden clasps. His haughty air vanished when the Yezda officer explained why they had come. Graceful as a cat, he bowed to the Romans.
He called into the palace for another servant. When the man arrived, the steward spoke to the Romans in his own tongue. Marcus shrugged and spread his hands. A ghost of the doorman’s sneer returned. “You please to follow him,” he said, his Videssian slow and rusty but clear enough.
Their guide knew only Makuraner and the Yezda speech. He chattered on, not caring whether they understood, as he led them up a ramp of green marble polished till it reflected the light of the torches that hung in gilded sconces every few feet along the wall. His soft-soled slippers did better on the smooth surface than the Romans’ caligae; he giggled out loud when Gaius Philippus skidded and almost fell.
The couches in the waiting room were stuffed with down and upholstered in soft suede. The sweetmeats that the palace servitors brought came on silver trays and filled the mouth with delicate perfume. Watching shadows move across the ornate wall hangings, Marcus felt like a fly gently but irresistibly trapped in spider silk.
The room was in twilight by the time the court official returned to take the Romans away. At the entrance to the throne room he surrendered his charges to another chamberlain, an elderly Makuraner eunuch whose caftan was of almost transparent silk.
He had some Videssian. “No need for proskynesis when you present yourself before Khagan Wulghash,” he said, sniffing in disapproval at his master’s barbarous informality. “A bow will do. He keeps his grandfather’s ways—as if a lizard-eating nomad’s customs were valid.” Another sniff. “He even allows his primary wife a seat beside him.” A third sniff, louder than the other two.
Marcus did not pay much attention. The throne room was long and narrow; the tribune felt his shoes sinking into the thick wool of the carpet as he walked toward the distant pair of high ivory seats ahead. Without turning his head too much, he tried to spot Tabari. In the flickering torchlight, one man looked like the next.
With its moving shadows, the light of the torches did a better job showing up the reliefs on the walls behind the nobility of Yezd. Like the defaced ones on the temple that now belonged to Skotos, they were carved in a florid style that owed nothing to Videssian severity. One was a hunting scene, with some long-forgotten Makuraner king slaying a lion with a sword. The other—Marcus’ eyes went wide as he recognized the regalia of the man shown kneeling before another king on horseback. Only an Avtokrator wore such garb.
Beside him, Gaius Philippus gave a tiny chuckle. “I wonder what the imperials have to say about that in their histories,” he whispered.
A herald was coming forward from the thrones as the Romans approached them. He raised their hands above their heads—no easy feat; he was several inches shorter than Gaius Philippus—and cried out in the Makuraner and Yezda tongues. Scaurus caught his own name and the centurion’s.
Applause washed over the Romans. A couple of Makuraner lords, seeing they were foreigners, cried out “Well done!” in Videssian. The tribune finally spotted Tabari, sitting close to the front. He and the other Makuraners cheered louder and longer than their Yezda counterparts. It was a heady moment, though Marcus wondered how many of the clapping men had led armies into the Empire.
The herald led them toward the thrones. The khagan sat on the right-hand one, which was higher than the other. Wulghash wore a headdress like those of the Makuraner kings remembered on the throne room walls, a high, conical crown of stiff white felt, with earflaps reaching nearly to his shoulders. A vertical row of gems ran up from edge to peak; a double band of horsehair made a diadem across the khagan’s forehead.
Marcus sized Wulghash up—he had never wanted to meet the ruler of Yezd, but would not waste what chance had set before him. The khagan was swarthy, about fifty. His thick beard, cut square at the bottom, was salt-and-pepper, with salt gaining. His square f
eatures had a hard cast partly offset by tired, intelligent eyes. He was wide shouldered and well made, his middle only beginning to thicken.
“Careful,” Gaius Philippus said. “He’s not one to mess with.” Scaurus gave a small nod; that fit his view exactly.
The herald stopped the Romans just past the end of the carpet, at a stone smoothed by thousands of feet over the centuries. They made their bows, to fresh applause. It grew even louder when Wulghash came down to clasp their hands—his own was hard, dry, and callused, more like a soldier’s than a bureaucrat’s—and embrace them.
“You have saved a valued member of my court, and have my friendship for it,” Wulghash said. His Videssian was polished as any courtier of Thorisin’s. “Allow me to present you to my senior queen, Atossa.” He nodded to the woman on the lower throne.
Studying Wulghash so, the tribune had hardly noticed her. She was about the khagan’s age and handsome still. She smiled and spoke in the Makuraner tongue. “She apologizes for being unable to thank you in a language you know,” Wulghash translated.
Marcus returned the first compliment that popped into his mind: “Tell her she is as kind as she is beautiful.” Atossa regally inclined her head. He nodded back, thoughts whirling. Here with a friendly hand on his shoulder stood Videssos’ sworn enemy, the man Avshar named master. If he jerked his dagger from his belt, thrust—
He did not move. To violate Wulghash’s generosity so was not in him. What point in fighting Avshar if he fell to his methods? That thought brought him closer to understanding Videssos’ dualism than he had ever come.
A pipe’s clear whistle cut through the court chatter. Everyone brightened. “The feast is ready,” Wulghash explained, “and about time, too.” He handed Atossa down from her throne; she took his arm. The Romans fell in line behind the royal couple.
The banquet hall, though merely a palace chamber, was nearly as large as the Hall of the Nineteen Couches in Videssos. Torchlight sparkled off the blue crystal and gold and silver foil of the abstract mosaic patterns on the walls. As guests of honor, Scaurus sat at Wulghash’s right while Gaius Philippus was on Atossa’s left.
Swords of the Legion (Videssos) Page 28