The caravan wound through the mountains towards the town of Dariel, the capital, such as it was, of the kingdom of the Alans. Even in late summer, snow topped some of the high peaks of the Caucasus. The mountains were as grand as the Alps, which till this journey had been the most magnificent range Basil Argyros knew.
“Good to be in big city, eh?” said one of the caravan guards, a local man wearing a knee-length coat of thick leather reinforced with bone scales and carrying a small, round, rivet-studded shield. His Greek was vile; Argyros was sure he had never been more than a couple of valleys away from the farm or village where he had been born. No one who had traveled would have called Dariel a big city.
In many ways, the magistrianos thought as the caravan approached the walls of the town, the Caucasus were the rubbish-heap of history. Dariel was a case in point. The Romans had built the fortress centuries ago, to keep the nomads from coming down off the steppe. When the Empire was weak, the Georgians manned it themselves, at times supported by Persian gold. The Alans, the present rulers hereabouts, had been nomads themselves once. A crushing defeat on the steppe, though, sent them fleeing into the mountains. Though they played Rome and Persia off against each other, they were as interested as either in guarding the pass that lay so near Dariel.
They had been, at any rate, until Goarios. Neither the Emperor nor the King of Kings could count on what Goarios would do. Trouble was, the king of the Alans was as lucky as he was erratic. All that did was make him twice the nuisance he would have been otherwise.
The gate guards had been dealing with the merchants in the caravan one by one. When they reached Argyros and his string of packhorses, he had to abandon his musings. “What you sell?” an underofficer asked in bad Persian. Both imperial tongues, like money from both realms, passed current all through the Caucasus, more so than any of the dozens of difficult, obscure local languages.
For his part, Argyros spoke better Persian than the Alan trooper. “Wine, fine wine from Constantinople,” he replied. He waved at the jugs strapped to the horses’ back.
“Wine, is it?” White teeth peeked through the tangled forest of the underofficer’s beard. “Give me taste, to see how fine it is.”
The magistrianos spread his hands in sorrow. “Noble sir, I regret it may not be,” he said, using the flowery phrases that come so readily to Persian. “I intend to offer this vintage to no less a person than your mighty king himself, and would not have his pleasure diminished.” Seeing the guard scowl, he added, “Here is a silver drachm. May it take away your thirst.”
The gate guard’s grin reappeared as he stuffed the Persian coin into his pouch. He waved Argyros forward into Dariel.
One of the magistrianos’s comrades, a gray-eyed man named Corippus, came up and murmured, “A good thing he didn’t check the jars.” He spoke the guttural north African dialect of Latin, which no one in the Caucasus would be likely to understand; even Argyros had trouble following it.
Since he could not use it himself, he contented himself with saying, “Yes.” All the jars looked like winejars, but not all of them held wine, or even superwine. In the same way, the couple of dozen men who had accompanied the magistrianos from Constantinople looked like merchants, which did not mean they were.
The horses moved slowly through Dariel’s narrow, winding streets. Small boys stared and pointed and called out, as small boys will anywhere. Some of them were touts for inns. After some haggling, Argyros went with one. From the way the lad described it, his master Supsa’s place was what God had used as a pattern for making heaven.
The magistrianos carefully did not ask which god the boy meant. Dariel held both Christian churches with domes in the conical Caucasian style and fire-temples sacred to the good god Ormazd whom the Persian prophet Zoroaster praised. Churches and fire-temples alike were thick-walled, fortresslike structures; most had armed guards patrolling their grounds. Nowhere but in this region that both empires coveted did their faiths have such evenly balanced followings; nowhere else was there such strife between them. Goarios was a Christian (or at least had been, the last time Argyros heard), but it would not do to count on that too far.
Native Georgians and their Alan overlords were both on the streets, usually giving one another wide berths. Language and dress distinguished them. Not even Satan, Argyros thought, could learn Georgian, but the Alan tongue was a distant cousin of Persian. And while the natives mostly wore calf-length robes of wool or linen, some Alans still clung to the leather and furs their ancestors had worn on the steppe. They also let their hair grow long, in greasy locks.
Some real nomads, slant-eyed Kirghiz, were also in the market square. They stared about nervously, as if misliking to be so hemmed in. Their fine weapons and gold saddle-trappings marked them as important men in their tribe. Argyros almost wished he had not spotted them. They gave him one more thing to worry about, and he had plenty already.
Supsa’s inn proved more than adequate. The stableman knew his business, and the cellar was big enough to store the winejars. Argyros, who from long experience discounted nine-tenths of what he heard from touts, was pleased enough. He did his best not to show it, dickering long and hard with Supsa. If he had more money than a run-of-the-mill merchant, that was his business and nobody else’s.
The mound of pillows he found in his chamber made a strange but surprisingly comfortable bed. The next morning, fruit candied in honey was not what the magistrianos was used to eating for breakfast, but not bad, either. He licked his fingers as he walked toward Goarios’s palace, a bleak stone pile that seemed more citadel than seat of government.
One of Goarios’s stewards greeted him with a superciliousness the grand chamberlain of the Roman Emperor would have envied. “His highness,” the steward insisted, “favors local wines, and so would have scant interest in sampling your stock.”
Argyros recognized a bribery ploy when he heard one. He did not mind paying his way into Goarios’s presence; he was not, after all, operating with his own money. But he did want to take this fellow’s toploftiness down a peg. He had brought along a jar of yperoinos. “Perhaps you would care to see that its quality meets your master’s standards,” he suggested, patting the jar.
“Well, perhaps, as a favor for your politeness,” the chamberlain said grudgingly. At his command, a lesser servant fetched him a cup. Argyros worked the cork free, poured him a good tot, and watched, gravely silent, as his eyes crossed and face turned red when he drank it down at a gulp. The steward came back gamely, though. “I may have been in error,” he said, extending the cup again. “Pray give me another portion, to let me be sure.”
Goarios’s great hall was narrow, dark, and drafty. Petitioners worked their way forward toward the king’s high seat. The magistrianos waited patiently, using the time in which he occasionally lurched ahead to examine the others in the hall who sought the king’s favor.
He did not like what he saw. For one thing, the Kirghiz nobles he had spied in the market were there. For another, while one Christian priest, plainly a local, waited to make a request of Goarios, a whole delegation of Ormazd’s clerics in their flame-colored robes sat a few paces ahead of the magistrianos. He could hear them talking among themselves. Their Persian was too pure to have been learned in the Caucasus.
As he drew closer, Argyros also studied the king of the Alans. Goarios was close to his own age, younger than he had thought. His face was long, rather pale, with harsh lines on either side of his mouth that disappeared into his thick beard. His eyes were black and shiny; he had somehow the air of a man who saw things no one else did. Whether those things were actually there, Argyros was not sure.
Goarios spent some time with the Kirghiz, even more with the Persian priests. The rumbles of Argyros’s stomach were reminding him it was time for the noon meal when at last the steward presented him to the king. He stooped to one knee and bowed his head; only before the Emperor of the Romans or the Persian King of Kings would he have performed a full prostration, going
down on his belly.
The steward addressed Goarios in Georgian. The king made brief answer in the same tongue, then spoke to Argyros in Persian: “You have, Tskhinvali here tells me, a remarkable new potation, one I might enjoy. Is this so?”
“Your majesty, it is,” the magistrianos answered in the same tongue. He handed the jar to the steward to pass on to Goarios. “Please take this as my gift, to acquaint you with the product.”
Those opaque eyes surveyed Argyros. “I thank you. You must have great confidence, to be so generous.” Goarios still used Persian. Argyros had heard he knew Greek, and suspected he was the victim of a subtle insult. He showed no annoyance, but waited silently while the king, as his steward had before him, had a cup brought. Unlike Tskhinvali, Goarios drank from silver.
The king drank. His eyes widened slightly, and he rumbled deep in his throat, but he tolerated his first draught better than anyone else Argyros had seen. “By the sun!” Goarios exclaimed, a strange oath if he still followed Christ. He drank again, licked his lips. Suddenly he switched languages: he did speak Greek. “This is something new and different. How many jars have you to sell, and at what price?”
“I have several hundred jars, your majesty.” Argyros also shifted to Greek. “They cannot, I fear, come cheap: not only is the preparation slow and difficult, but I have incurred no small expense in traveling to you. My masters back in Constantinople would flay me for accepting less than twenty nomismata the jar.”
He expected dickering to begin then, or Goarios to dismiss him to bargain with Tskhinvali or some other palace dignitary. He would have been satisfied to get half his first asking price. But the king of the Alans simply said, “Accepted.”
Disciplined though he was, Argyros could not help blurting, “Your majesty?” The first confused thought in his mind was that his might be the only government-financed expedition in the history of the Empire to turn a profit. He had never heard of any others; he was certain of that.
Goarios took another pull. “Agreed, I said. Rarity and quality are worth paying for, in wine or women or—” He let his voice trail away, but his eyes lit, as if for an instant his inner vision grew sharp and clear. The moment passed; the king returned his attention to Argyros. “I have a banquet planned this evening—I am pleased to bid you join me. Perhaps to further the pleasure of all those present, you will consent to bring with you ten jars of your brew.”
“Certainly, your majesty.” Argyros had hoped the superwine would make him popular at court, but had not expected to succeed so soon. He regretted having to stay in character. Any failure, though, might be noticed, so he said, “Your majesty, ah—” He made what he hoped was a discreet pause.
“You will be paid on your arrival, I assure you,” Goarios said dryly. He added, “If you have found a companion, you may bring her to the feast. We do not restrict our women to their own quarters, as the tiresome custom is in Constantinople.”
“You are most generous, your majesty.” Argyros bowed his way out. The audience had gone better than he dared wish. He wondered why he was still nervous.
For the banquet, the magistrianos dug out the best robe he had brought. He had several finer ones back in Constantinople, including a really splendid one of thick sea-green samite heavily brocaded with silk thread. For a merchant of moderate means, though, that would have been too much. Plain maroon wool fit the part better.
The reputation of the yperoinos must have preceded it; eager hands helped Argyros remove the jars from the pack-horses. Too eager—“Come back, you!” he shouted at one servitor. “Your king bade me bring ten jars. If my head goes up on the wall for cheating him, I know whose will be there beside it.” That was plenty to stop the fellow in his tracks, the magistrianos noted: Goarios’s men feared their king, then.
Horns, flutes, and drums played in the banquet hall. The music was brisk, but in the wailing minor key the Persians and other easterners favored. Argyros had heard it many times but never acquired the taste for it.
The servants had not yet set out the tables for the feast. Guests and their ladies stood and chatted, holding winecups. When the chief usher announced Argyros’s name and the other servants carried the jars of superwine into the hall, King Goarios clapped his hands above his head three times. Silence fell at once.
“Here we have the purveyor of a new and potent pleasure,” the king declared, “than which what praise could be higher?” He spoke Persian. By now, Argyros had decided he meant no mockery by it; more courtiers used Persian than Greek here. Goarios beckoned the magistrianos toward him. “Come and receive your promised payment.”
Argyros pushed his way through the crowded hall. He had no trouble keeping the king in sight; they were both taller than most of the people in the hall. Behind him, he heard the first exclamations of amazement as the guests began sampling the yperoinos.
“Two hundred nomismata,” Goarios said when he drew near, and tossed him a leather purse over the heads of the last couple of men between them.
“I thank your majesty,” Argyros said, bowing low when he and Goarios were at last face to face.
“A trifle,” the king said with a languid wave.
A woman stood by his side. Argyros had not got a good look at her before, for the crown of her head was not far above Goarios’s shoulders. Her hair fell in thick black waves to her shoulders. She had bold, swarthy features and flashing dark eyes that glittered with amusement as she smiled saucily at the magistrianos.
“Mirrane, this is Argyros, the wine merchant of whom I told you,” Goarios said. Recognizing her, the magistrianos felt ice form round his heart. He waited woodenly for her to denounce him.
She turned her mocking gaze his way again. “I’ve heard of him,” she said, speaking Greek with the throaty accent of her native tongue. “He is, ah, famous for his new products he purveys.” Her attention returned to Goarios. “For what marvel did you reward him so highly?”
“A vintage squeezed, I think, from the thunderstorm,” the king of the Alans replied. “You must try some, my dear.” His hand slid around Mirrane’s waist. She snuggled against him. Together they walked slowly toward the table where Goarios’s servants had set out the yperoinos.
Argyros stared after them. He was too self-possessed to show his bafflement by scratching his head, but that was what he felt like doing. If Mirrane had become Goarios’s concubine, she had to have influence over him. Of that the magistrianos had no doubt. Mirrane, Argyros was certain, could influence a marble statue, as long as it was a male one.
Why, then, was she letting him stay free? The only answer that occurred to Argyros was so she could ruin him at a time that better suited her purpose. Yet that made no sense either. Mirrane was skilled enough at intrigue to see that, the longer a foe stayed active, the more dangerous he became. She was not one to waste so perfect a chance to destroy him.
He shrugged imperceptibly. If she was making that kind of mistake, he would do his best to take advantage of it.
After a while, servants began fetching in tables and chairs. Goarios, Mirrane still beside him, took his seat at the head table. That was the signal for the king’s guests to sit down too. Soon all were in their places but the group of Kirghiz, who would not move away from the superwine. One of them was already almost unconscious; two of his comrades had to hold him up. Stewards of ever higher rank came over to remonstrate with the nomads. At last, grudgingly, they went up to sit across the table from Goarios.
Back in the kitchens, Argyros thought, the cooks must have been tearing their hair, waiting for the dinner to start. They quickly made up for lost time. Grunting under the weight, servants hauled in platters on which rested roast kids, lambs, and geese. Others brought tubs of peas and onions, while the sweet smell of the new-baked loaves that also made their appearance filled the hall.
What was left of the superwine seemed reserved for Goarios’s table, but jars from the sweet Caucasian vintages in the Alan king’s cellars kept those less privileged happy. Argy
ros drank sparingly. He kept his eyes on Mirrane, again wondering what game she was playing.
None of his tablemates—minor Alan nobles, most of them, along with a few townsmen rich enough for Goarios to find them worth cultivating—found his staring obtrusive. Desirable though she was, the magistrianos did not think they were watching Mirrane. The Kirghiz were busy making a spectacle of themselves.
Argyros knew the privation steppe nomads endured, and knew how, to make up for it, they could gorge themselves when they got the chance. Reading of the huge feasts Homer described, he sometimes thought the heroes of the Trojan War had the same talent. Maybe the Alans’ ancestors did too, when they were a steppe people, but this generation had lost it. They gaped in astonished wonder as the Kirghiz ate and ate and ate.
The nomads drank too, swilling down yperoinos as if it were the fermented mare’s milk of the plains. The one who had been wobbling before the banquet slid quietly out of his chair and under the table. Another soon followed him. The rest grew boisterous instead. They slammed fists down on the table to emphasize whatever points they thought they were making, shouted louder and louder, and howled songs in their own language. Argyros understood a few words of it; not many other people in the hall did. It sounded dreadful.
Servants cleared away platters, except, after a snarled warning, the ones in front of the Kirghiz. Goarios stood up, held his hands above his head. Silence descended. Eventually the Kirghiz noticed they were roaring in a void. They too subsided, and waited for the king to speak.
“Thank you, my friends, for sharing my bounty tonight,” Goarios said in Persian. He paused for a moment to let those who did not know the tongue have his words interpreted, then resumed: “I know this would not seem like much in the way of riches to one used to the glories of Constantinople or Ctesiphon, but in our own small way we try.”
This time, being safely inconspicuous, Argyros did scratch his head. Modesty and self-deprecation were not what he had come to expect from the king of the Alans.
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