Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  The khagan rose to toast them. He drank wine, as did the nobles Marcus had picked as Makurani. Most of the Yezda chieftains preferred their traditional kavass. When a skin of the fermented mares’ milk reached the tribune, he slurped for politeness’ sake and passed it to Wulghash. The khagan wrinkled his fleshy nose and sent it on without drinking.

  “There is also date wine, if you care for it,” he told the Roman. Marcus declined with a shudder. He had sampled the stuff on the journey with Tahmasp. It was so sweet and syrupy as to make the cloying Videssian wine seem pleasantly dry.

  Some of the food was simple nomad fare: wheatcakes, yogurt, and plain roast meat. Again, though, Wulghash liked Makuraner ways better than those of his ancestors. Enjoying grape leaves stuffed with goat and olives, an assortment of roasted songbirds, steamed and sauteed vegetables, and mutton baked in a sauce of mustard, raisins, and wine, Scaurus decided he could not fault the khagan’s taste. And at sizzling rice soup he positively beamed; he had met it in a Makuraner cafe in Videssos that first magic winter night with Alypia Gavra.

  The thought of her made the celebration strange and somehow unreal. After fighting the Yezda for years, what was he doing here making polite small talk with a prince whose people were destroying the land he had taken for his own? And what was Wulghash doing as that prince? He seemed anything but the monster Scaurus had pictured, and no ravening barbarian either. Plainly a capable ruler, he was as much influenced by Makuran’s civilization as the great count Drax was under Videssos’ spell. His presiding over the devastation the Yezda worked posed a riddle the tribune could not solve.

  He got his first clue when a dispatch rider, still sweaty from his travels, brought the khagan a sheaf of messages. Wulghash read rapidly through them, growing angrier with each sheet. He growled out a stream of commands.

  When the messenger interrupted with some objection or question, the khagan clapped an exasperated hand to his forehead. He wrote on the back of one of the dispatches with quick, furious strokes. Then he wet the signet ring he wore on the middle finger of his right hand in mustard sauce and stamped a smeary, yellow-brown seal on his orders. Goggling, the messenger saluted, took the parchment, and hurried away.

  Wulghash, still fuming, drained his ivory rhyton at a gulp. He turned to Marcus. “I have days I think all my captains idiots, the way they panic at shadows. They’ve been raiding Erzerum since my grandfather’s time—is it any wonder the hillmen strike back? I know the cure for that, though. Hit them three ways at once so their army breaks into all its little separate groups and they’re nothing much. We’ve already started that; all we have to do is keep on with it. And the heads have started going up into their valleys. They’ll think a long time before they stir out again.”

  “Heads?” the tribune echoed.

  “Killed in battle, prisoners, what does it matter?” Wulghash said with ruthless unconcern. “So long as the Erzrumi recognize most of them, they serve their purpose.”

  The khagan slammed his fist down on the table; Atossa touched his left arm, trying to soothe him. He shook her off. “This is my land,” he proudly declared to Scaurus, “and I intend to pass it on to my son greater than it was when I received it from my father. I have beaten Videssos; shall I let a pack of fourth-rate mountain rats get the better of me?”

  “No,” Marcus said, but he felt a chill of fear. Wulghash’s wish was irreproachable, but the khagan did not care what steps he took to reach it. The man on that path, the tribune thought, walks at the edge of the abyss. To cover his unease, he asked, “Your son?”

  As any father might, Wulghash swelled with pride. “Khobin is a fine lad—no, I cannot call him that now. He has a man’s years on him, and a little son of his own. Where does the time go? He watches the northwest for me, making sure the stinking Arshaum stay on their side of the Degird. There will be trouble with them; the embassy I sent last year won no success.”

  Scaurus concealed the excitement that coursed through him. If the Yezda embassy had failed, perhaps the Videssian mission to the steppe tribes was faring well. He wondered how Viridovix and Gorgidas were and even spared a moment’s thought for Pikridios Goudeles. The pen-pusher was a rogue, but a slick one.

  Only a few drops of wine came from the silver ewer when Wulghash lifted it to refill his drinking-horn. “I need more, Harshad,” he called, absentmindedly still using Videssian. A Yezda at the foot of the table looked up when he heard his name. Seeing him scratch his head, the khagan realized his mistake and repeated the request in his own language.

  Grinning now, Harshad muttered a few words into his beard and moved his fingers in a quick, intricate pattern over the wine jar in front of him. It rose smoothly until it was a couple of feet above the table, then drifted toward Wulghash. Gaius Philippus had been cutting the meat from a pork rib; he looked up just as the jar floated past him. He dropped his knife.

  None of the Yezda or Makuraner nobles took any special notice of the magic. A small smile on his lips, Wulghash said, “A little sorcery, that one.” He pointed at Gaius Philippus’ cup and spoke in a language Marcus almost thought he knew. The cup lifted, glided over to the floating ewer. The wine jar tipped and poured, then straightened as the cup was full. Wulghash gestured again. The cup returned to Gaius Philippus; the wine jar settled to the table. The khagan filled his rhyton the ordinary way.

  Gaius Philippus was staring at his cup as if he expected it to get up and shoot dice with him. “Merely wine,” Wulghash assured him, tasting his own. “Better than what we had, in fact. You are not very familiar with wizardry, are you?”

  “More than I want to be,” the veteran answered. He picked up the cup in both hands and emptied it at a gulp. “That is good. Could you pass me the jar for more?” He managed to laugh when Wulghash lifted the ewer with the same exaggerated care he had given the cup.

  The khagan turned back to Marcus who had done his best not to show surprise at the magic. That best, apparently, was not good enough, for Wulghash said, “How is it sorcery seems so strange to you? You must have seen magecraft enough among the Videssians.” His gaze was suddenly sharp; the tribune remembered he had thought the khagan’s eyes intelligent the moment he saw him. Now they probed at the Roman. “But then, you have an accent I do not know and you talk with your comrade in a tongue I do not recognize—and I know a good many.”

  He saw the Roman’s face turn wary, and said, “I do not mean to frighten you. You are my friends, I have promised you that. By all the gods and prophets, were you the Avtokrator of the Videssians you could leave my table in safety if you had that pledge.” He sounded angry at himself and Scaurus both; more than anything, that made the tribune believe him.

  The khagan went on, “As a friend, though, you make me wonder at you, all the more when magic startles you despite the blade you carry.” This time Marcus could not help jumping. Wulghash’s chuckle was dry as boots scuffing through dead leaves. “Am I a blind man, to miss the moon in the sky? Tell me of yourself, if you will, as one friend does for another.”

  Marcus hesitated, wondering what Wulghash might have heard of Romans from Avshar or from the spies the khagan had to have in Videssos. The story he decided on was a drastically edited version of the truth. Saying nothing of the rest of the legionaries, he gave out that he and Gaius Philippus were from a land beyond the eastern ocean, forced to flee to these strange shores by a quarrel with a chieftain. After serving as mercenaries for Videssos, they had to flee again when Scaurus fell foul of the Emperor—he did not say how. Tahmasp’s caravan, he finished truthfully, had brought them to Mashiz.

  “That scoundrel,” Wulghash said without rancor. “Who knows how much trade tax and customs revenue he cheats me out of every year?” He studied the tribune. “So Gavras outlawed you, did he? With his temper, you should be thankful you’re still breathing.”

  “I know,” Scaurus said, so feelingly the khagan gave that dry chuckle again.

  “You have poor luck with nobles, it appears,” Wulghash re
marked. “Why is that?”

  The tribune sensed danger in the question. As he cast about for a safe answer, Gaius Philippus came to his rescue. “Because we have a bad habit—we speak our minds. If one highborn sod’s greedy as a pig at the swill trough or the next is a liverish son of a whore, we say so. Aye, it gets us in trouble, but it beats licking spit.”

  “Liverish, eh? Not bad,” Wulghash said. As Gaius Philippus had intended, he took it to refer to Thorisin. He seemed reassured—the centurion’s raspy voice and blunt features were made for candor.

  The khagan looked musingly from one Roman to the other. “I know nothing of the countries beyond the eastern sea,” he said. “Past Namdalen and the barbarous lands on the southern shore of the Sailors’ Sea, our maps are blank. You could teach me a great deal.” He went on, as his smile exposed strong yellow teeth, “And you were officers with Videssos. No doubt you will be able to tell me quite a lot about your sojourn there as well. Shall I have an apartment prepared for you here in the palace? That would be most convenient; I think we will be spending a good deal of time together over the next couple of weeks.”

  “We would be honored,” Marcus said, and knew he had told Wulghash another lie.

  To the Romans’ dismay, the khagan was good as his word. He was full of questions, yet did not really subject them to a serious interrogation, asking almost as much about their homeland as about Videssos and its armies. Those questions Scaurus answered honestly, after the initial deception about the eastern ocean. Sometimes he and Gaius Philippus disagreed sharply; he came from the urban upper class, while the centurion was a product of farm and legion.

  Wulghash was that rarity, a good listener. His queries always moved arguments along and convinced Scaurus afresh of his brain. His secretary Pushram, who wrote down the Romans’ replies, asked no questions. He made a point of seeming bored about everything outside the khagan’s court. It was a mischievous sort of boredom, for he was a skinny little brown man with outsized ears and amazingly flexible features.

  Well into the second week of the Romans’ presence at court, a servant came by with a tray of eggplant slices cooked in cheese and oregano. Wulghash took one. “That’s excellent,” he exclaimed. “Much better than usual. Here, fellow, give my friends some, too.”

  “Very nice,” Marcus said politely, though in fact he found the eggplant bland and its sauce too sharp. Gaius Philippus, no timeserver, left his slice half-eaten.

  Pushram, however, screwed up his face into a blissful expression. “Most glorious eggplant! Handsome to look upon, delicate on the tongue, full of flavor and of pleasing texture, a comestible to be esteemed for all the multifarious ways it may be prepared, each more delicious than the next. Truly a prince—no, let me say more: a khagan—among vegetables!”

  Scaurus had heard fulsome flattery at the Videssian court, but nothing close to this sycophancy. “Who would want to be a king and have to put up with such tripe?” Gaius Philippus said in Latin.

  After a while Wulghash rolled his eyes and went back to questioning the Romans. Pushram’s paean of praise never slowed, even while he was recording Marcus’ answers. Trying to find some way to shut him up, the khagan took another piece of eggplant, wrinkled his lip, and said, “I have changed my mind. This is vile.”

  Pushram assumed a look of loathing with a speed that amazed Scaurus. He plucked the eggplant slice from Wulghash’s hand and threw it to the floor. “What a foul, noxious weed eggplant is!” he cried. “Not only is it of a bilious color, it brings no more nourishment to mankind than so much grass. Moreover, it makes me burp.”

  And he was off again, as ready to continue in that vein as to shower the vegetable with compliments. Marcus listened, open-mouthed. Wulghash gave Pushram a look that should have chilled any man’s marrow, but the secretary’s stream of abuse never faltered. “Enough!” Wulghash finally growled. “Were you not praising eggplant to the skies not two minutes ago, instead of cursing it?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Well?” The word hung in the air like doom.

  But Pushram was unruffled. “Well, what?” he said cheerfully. “I am your courtier, not the eggplant’s. I have to say what pleases you, not what pleases the eggplant.”

  “Get out!” Wulghash roared, but he was laughing. Pushram scurried away anyhow. The khagan shook his head. “Makurani,” he said, more to himself than to the Romans. “Sometimes they make me wish my grandfather had stayed on the steppe.”

  Marcus pointed to the plate of eggplant. “Yet you have taken on many Makuraner ways. If your grandfather was a nomad, he never would have cared for such a dish.”

  “My grandfather ate beetles, when he could catch them,” the khagan said, and then sighed. “Too many of my chiefs think any change from the old customs wrong simply because it is change. Some of the plains ways have their point. What sense does it make to lock away women? Are they not people, too? But on the whole we were barbarians then, and for all their oiliness and foolishness the Makurani have worked out many better ways of living—and of ruling—than we ever knew. Try and tell that to an old nomad who has no thoughts past his flocks, though. Try and make him listen, or obey.”

  For a moment Scaurus understood him perfectly; he had lived with that feeling of being trapped between two cultures ever since the legionaries came to Videssos.

  There was some sort of commotion outside the throne room. Marcus heard shouts of anger, then of fear. Nobles’ heads turned as they looked to see what was wrong. A couple of eunuchs trotted toward the door. Wulghash’s guards still stood impassive, but the tribune saw arm muscles bunch as hands tightened on sabers.

  “Let me by, or regret it evermore!” At the sound of that voice, Marcus and Gaius Philippus were both on their feet and reaching for their swords. Crying out in alarm, the nearest guardsmen broke freeze and sprang at them.

  “Stand!” Wulghash shouted, halting the Romans and his own soldiers alike. “What idiocy are you playing at?”

  Scaurus was saved the trouble of finding an answer. Back at the entrance to the throne room, the last palace servitors were retreating in dread. Avshar strode down the carpet toward the twin thrones. Despite the thick, soft wool, every bootfall echoed. The muffled thuds were the only sounds in the hall, growing ever louder as he drew close.

  No longer were the wizard-prince’s robes an immaculate white. They swirled in filthy, dusty tatters round him. As protocol demanded, he stopped just past the edge of the carpet; his head turned from one Roman to the other. “Well, well,” he said with horrible good humor, “what have we here?”

  He ignored Wulghash, who said sharply, “We have a servant who does not know his master, it seems. Did you forget the respect you owe me, or is this merely more of your natural rudeness?”

  Marcus looked at the khagan in surprised admiration. Wulghash showed none of the fear that paralyzed Avshar’s friend and foe alike, the fear whose full weight the tribune was feeling now.

  The wizard-prince stiffened angrily and gave Wulghash a long measure of his chilling stare, all the worse because his eyes were unseen. The khagan met it, something few men could have done. Fairly bursting with rage, Avshar bent in a bow whose very depth was an insult. “I pray your pardon, your Majesty,” he said, but his voice held no apology. He went on, “My surprise betrayed me—seeing these two rogues here, I thought me for a moment I was back in cursed Videssos again, at the damned Avtokrator’s court. Tell me, did you capture them in battle or were they taken spying?”

  “Neither,” Wulghash said, but his eyes slid to the Romans. He asked Avshar, “How is it you claim to have met a couple of no-account mercenaries at the Videssian court? What were they doing there, guard duty?” He still did not sound as if he believed the wizard-prince.

  “No-account mercenaries? Guard duty?” Avshar threw back his head and laughed, a horrid sound that sent the nobles closest to him scrambling back in dismay. Its echoes came back cold and spectral from the high-arched roof; a nightjar perched near the top
of the throne room wall woke to terror and flapped away. “Is that what they told you?” Avshar laughed again, then gave a colored but largely accurate account of Scaurus’ career in Videssos, finishing, “And this other one, the short one, is his chief henchman.”

  “Bugger yourself,” Gaius Philippus said. He stood balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to throw himself at Avshar.

  Wulghash ignored the senior centurion. “Is this true?” he asked Marcus in a voice like iron.

  Avshar hissed, a serpent on the point of striking. “Have a care what thou dost, Wulghash. Thou couldst yet try me too far, seeking the word of this miscreant espier to weigh it against mine own.”

  “Be thou still. I act as I list, with or without thy let.” The khagan was as fluent as Avshar in the archaic Videssian dialect the wizard-prince often used. Maybe, Marcus thought, Avshar had taught it to him.

  Wulghash asked the tribune again, “Is what he says true?”

  “Most of it,” Scaurus sighed. With Avshar standing there to give him away, what use in lying?

  Avshar laughed once more, this time in triumph. “From his own mouth he stands convicted. Give them over to me, Wulghash. The debt I owe them is larger and older than yours. I pledge you, the insult they offered with their base falsehoods shall be requited—oh, yes, a thousand times over.” He was all but purring in anticipation. At his gesture, the palace guards edged forward, expecting the khagan’s order to seize the Romans.

  Wulghash stopped them. “I have told you once, wizard—aye, and times enough before this—that I command here, yet always you seem to forget. Whatever story these men told, before they said a word to me they saved my minister’s life. I have made them my friends.”