Hardly anyone walked the broad ways of the palace complex; the servants, soldiers, and bureaucrats who made up the Empire’s heart reveled with the rest of the city. The plaza of Palamas, just east of the palaces, was a sea of humanity. Venders cried their wares: ale, hot spiced wine, roast goat in cheese sauce, shellfish, squid fried in olive oil and dusted with breadcrumbs, perfumes, jewelry of all grades from cheap brass trash to massy gold encrusted with gems big as a man’s eye, minor magic charms, images of Phos and his holy men. Strolling musicians wandered through the crowds, singing or playing pipes, lutes, horns straight or recurved, even a Vaspurakaner pandoura or two, all in the hope of enjoyably separating the frolickers from their coins.
Marcus, who had no ear for music in his best moods, gave them a wide berth. They reminded him of Helvis, who delighted in music, and of his recent fiasco with Nevrat Sviodo. Nevrat went out of her way to be friendly whenever she, Senpat, and the tribune went out, but her manner had a slight constraint that had not been there before. It was, he knew, no one’s fault but his own. He growled a curse, wishing he could be free of his memories.
Monks’ sober blue robes stood out from the gaudy finery most Videssians wore. Some joined the celebration around them; Scaurus would have bet a good many goldpieces that Styppes was already oblivious to the world. Others led little groups of laymen in prayer or hymns of praise to Phos, forming islets of dignity and deep faith in the jollier, more frivolous throng.
Some, though, abominated all fleshly pleasures, and in their narrow fanaticism devoted themselves only to destroying everything of which they disapproved: Zemarkhos had his spiritual brothers in the city. One such, a dour man whose robe flapped ragged round his scrawny shanks, came panting by the tribune, chasing fine singing youths in masks. Seeing he would never catch them, he shook his fist, shouting, “Your japes profane Phos’ holy days! Give your souls to contemplation, not this reckless gaiety! It is a defilement, you witless fools, and Skotos’ everlasting ice awaits you!” The young men were long gone. “Bah!” the monk said softly, and looked round for other evil to root out.
Marcus feared the monastic would turn on him; his shaven cheeks and light eyes and hair marked him as an outlander, and so a likely heretic or outright unbeliever. But there was better game close by. A ring of people watched a little dog, its fur dyed green, prance back and forth on its hind legs to the tap of its master’s hand-drum. He had trained it to take money from their fingers and scamper back to him with the coins.
“Isn’t t’at marvelous?” boomed one of the spectators, a tall Haloga mercenary whose chilly homeland offered no such diversions. His companion, a darkly beautiful whore, smiled up at him, nodding. Her velvet gown, shot through with maroon brocade, clung to her like a second skin. His arm was tight round her waist; now and again his massive hand would slide up to tease the bottom of her breast.
He let her go for a moment, went to one knee; his blond braid, tied with a cord the color of blood, almost brushed the cobbles. “Here, pup!” he called. The dog minced over to take a coin, dropped to all fours to scurry off to the man with the drum. “Gold!” he exclaimed, and bowed low to the Haloga. “A thousand thanks, my master!” The crowd cheered.
But when the mercenary rose, the Videssian monk was stabbing a long bony forefinger into his face. “Filthy, obscene revelry!” he cried. “You poor benighted heathen, you should be at prayer thanking Phos for his mercy in restoring the light for yet another year, not defiling yourself with this lewd creature here!” His glare swung to the courtesan, who returned it; her eyes had glowed at the soldier’s lavishness.
The Haloga blinked in surprise at the onslaught. Perhaps he had been briefed about the dangers of inciting Videssian clerics, for his answer was mild enough: “Take your hand away, sir, if you please.”
The monk did. He must have thought he had hit the mercenary’s conscience, for he softened his harsh commanding tones and tried to speak persuasively. “For all that you are a foreigner, sir, you have the look of a gentleman, so think on what I say. Is your carnal pleasure worth the risk of your soul?”
“Go stifle yourself, you skin-headed vulture!” the tart shrilled. “You leave him alone!” She clutched the mercenary’s arm possessively.
“Be silent, trull,” the monk said. He kept looking her up and down, as if against his will. Videssian monks were celibate, but he could not tear his gaze away from her invitingly displayed flesh. His words were for the Haloga, but his eyes stayed riveted on the woman. “I grant she’s a lovely thing, yet desire is but Skotos’ honied bait to trap the unwary.”
Marcus grimaced at the sally, though it was not meant for him.
The monk was fairly howling now: “Look at the fine round arse of her, and her narrow waist, oh, and a bosom to make any man weak, in truth—” Scaurus found him almost pitiful to hear, thinking he was condemning the sensual delights he had forsworn, but instead lingering lovingly over them all. “Sparkling eyes and full red lips; sweet as aged wine they must be.” He fairly twitched with lust.
The Haloga threw back his head and laughed, a great bass roar loud enough to turn heads over half the plaza. “Bugger me with a pine cone, priest, if you don’t need her worse than I do. Here.” He tossed a goldpiece at the feet of the monk, who stared at it, popeyed. “Go on,” the mercenary told him, “have a good frike on me. I’ll find another wench, have no fear; this burgh crawls with queans.”
Monk and whore screamed at him together, then at each other. The Haloga turned his broad back on both of them and tramped away. The crowd whooped behind him, loose enough this one day of the year to enjoy a cleric’s comeuppance, even at the hands of a heathen.
Nor could Scaurus help smiling; no sea of sorrows was big enough for a man to drown in it altogether. As with Styppes’ bilious temper and fondness for the grape, this monk’s sad slaverings reminded him that under those blue robes dwelt human beings, perhaps not too different from himself. That was worth remembering. Most times, Videssos’ monks roused only dread in him, for fanaticism in the cause of faith was not something a Roman was well equipped to understand.
Thinking of Styppes and his thirst, the tribune bought a cup of wine. It sat warm in his belly. When a man ran through the plaza shouting the praises of the mime troupes performing at the Amphitheater, he drifted south along with a good many others.
The Amphitheater’s great oval bowl marked off the southern boundary of the plaza of Palamas. Scaurus paid his two-copper fee and passed through one of the tunnel-vaulted passageways and into the arena. Ushers herded him up ramps and stairways to the very top of the bowl; the mimes had been playing all day, and the Amphitheater was packed.
Seen from so far away, the obelisk, chryselephantine statues, and other memorials of past imperial triumphs that decked the Amphitheater’s central spine was almost more impressive than they had been when the tribune stood among them. The tip of the tall granite spike was at the level of his eyes, even here. Not far away from its base bloomed the twelve bright silk parasols that marked the Avtokrator of the Videssians as the same number of lictors with their rods and axes distinguished a Roman consul.
The tribune could not make out Thorisin’s features. Somehow that heartened him. He drank more wine, rough cheap stuff that snarled on his palate. Catching his grunt of distaste, the man to his right on the long stone bench said, “A rare vintage—day before yesterday, I think.” He was a skinny, bright-eyed little fellow with the feral look of a cutpurse to him.
Marcus smacked his lips. “No, you’re wrong. I’m sure it’s last week’s.” The joke was feeble, but he had not made many lately.
His benchmate’s reply was lost in the crowd’s flurry of applause as a new set of players came out onto the track where, most days, race horses galloped. One of the actors pantomimed stepping in something distasteful and earned a guffaw.
In the Empire’s small towns the citizens put on their own skits instead of having professionals entertain them, but all through Videssos the playle
ts had the same principle behind them. They were fast-paced, topical, and irreverent—on Midwinter’s Day, anyone was fair game.
This troupe’s first sketch, for instance, featured three chief characters, one of whom, by his robes of state, was obviously the Emperor. The rest of the actors kept getting in his way on various pretexts until at last he stumbled on the other two chief players, a brown-haired woman and a big man wearing a golden wig and Haloga-style furs, thrashing together under a blanket. And oh, the crockery that flew when she—he, actually; the mime troupes were all-male—was discovered! The mock-Emperor had to flee, crossing his arms in front of his face to save it from the barrage of pots and dishes the actor playing his mistress kept pulling from beneath the covers. He only subdued her with the aid of the rest of the players, who had changed into the gilded corselets of Imperial Guards. The pseudo-Haloga tried to hide under that blanket, but a boot in his upraised rump dealt with him.
And that, Marcus thought, doubtless explained why Komitta Rhangavve was not sitting by Thorisin—one lover too many at last, or one too blatant. He suddenly understood the sniggering remarks the bureaucrats had been making, things he had paid no attention to in his gloom.
He turned to his benchmate. “I’ve been out of the city. When did this happen?”
“A couple months ago, I guess. When the headman got back from that Opsikion place. There’s a song about it, goes like this—oh, wait, they’re starting up again.”
The next skit bored the tribune, but the Videssians around him roared with laughter. It was a satire of some theological debate that had entertained the city this past summer. Only gradually did Scaurus realize that the leading player, a man wearing a huge gray false beard that hung down over the pillow he had stuffed under his threadbare blue robe to fatten himself, was supposed to be Balsamon, ecumenical patriarch of the Empire of Videssos. The real Balsamon was sitting on the Amphitheater’s spine not far from the Emperor. He was clad quite properly in the patriarchal regalia: precious blue silk and pearl-encrusted cloth-of-gold, vestments as magnificent in their own way as Thorisin Gavras’. But Marcus—and evidently the whole city—knew he turned comfortably shabby whenever he got the chance.
Thorisin had sat unmoving as he was burlesqued, tolerating Midwinter Day license without enjoying it. Balsamon chortled along with the rest of the Amphitheater when his turn came. He held his big belly in his hands and shook when the actor lampooning him cracked a priestly opponent over the head with an ivory figurine, then ignored the thrashing victim to make sure the statuette was undamaged.
Balsamon shouted something to the mock-patriarch, who cupped a hand at his ear to hear through the noise of the crowd. Whatever it was, Balsamon repeated it. The actor nodded, bowed low in his direction—and walloped the fellow again.
“He’s a pisser, that one,” Scaurus’ raffish neighbor said admiringly as the Amphitheater exploded with glee. Balsamon, as was his way, flowered in the applause. He was much loved in the city, and for good reason.
The mimes darted under the Amphitheater for a change of costume. The first one to re-emerge stepped forth in the furs and leathers of a nomad, with a silver circlet on his head to show he was of some rank. He prowled about fiercely, brandishing a saber and ignoring the hisses and catcalls that showered down on him. Those turned to cheers when another actor came out wearing imperial raiment. But he took no notice of the nomad, turning his back on him and staring off into the distance.
More fur-clad actors emerged, three of them pushing a covered cart over to their chief. He scowled and gnashed his teeth at it, whacking it with the flat of his blade.
There was a flourish of trumpets. Out from the runway strutted a tall man in outlandish military getup, followed by four or five more wearing less splendid versions of the same costume. Marcus frowned, wondering who these apparitions were supposed to be. Their shields were taller than they were.… The tribune leaned forward in his seat, feeling his face grow hot.
The pseudo-legionaries far below marched very smartly, or would have, if they had been able to move more than three paces without suddenly changing direction. After a while their leader literally stumbled over one of the mock-nomads, which produced a good deal of startlement and alarm on both sides.
The Yezda chieftain pointed to his cart, then to the figure of the Emperor, who was still aloof from it all. After some comic misunderstanding, the Roman leader paid him a gigantic bag of coins and took possession of the cart. Pantomiming falls in the mud, he and his men wrestled it over to within a few feet of the Emperor.
Marcus’ heart sank anew as he watched the mock-legionaries curl up for sleep around the cart. As soon as they were motionless, the four men inside, dressed Namdalener-style in trousers and short jackets, tore the cover off, scrambled out, and danced a derisive jig on their backs. Then, kicking up their heels, they fled for the runway and disappeared.
Still with his back turned, the actor in imperial robes gave a great shrug, as if to ask what could be expected from such hopeless dubs as the ones he had to work with.
The tribune looked at Thorisin. He was laughing now. So much for Nepos’ warm words, Marcus thought.
“There’s more coming,” the little man next to him said as the Roman rose from his seat.
“I’m for the jakes,” Scaurus mumbled, sliding crabwise toward the stairs past the row of drawn-up knees. But he did not stop at the latrines. Pausing only to drain another cup of new green wine, he hurried out of the Amphitheater. The crowd’s snickers burned in his ears. They would have laughed louder yet, he thought, had the mime troupe known the whole story.
It was nearly dusk; men were lighting torches round the Amphitheater. They crackled in the wind. A cheese-paring of moon sank over the palaces. Marcus started back to his room in the Grand Courtroom, but changed his mind while he was still in the plaza of Palamas. Tonight he needed more of the grape, and every tavern in the city would be open to oblige him.
Turning his back on the palace complex, Scaurus walked through the forum and east along Middle Street. The thoroughfare was nearly as crowded as the plaza. He kept one hand on his belt-pouch; there were more thieves in Videssos than the one he had been sitting by.
The granite pile that housed more government offices, the archives, and a prison took up most of a long block. As the tribune passed the massive building, he heard his name called. His head spun. Alypia Gavra waved his way as she came down the broad black marble steps toward him.
He stood frozen in the street a moment, while revelers surged round him. “Your Highness,” he managed at last. Even in his own ears his voice was a startled croak.
She looked about to see if anyone in the crowd had heard him, but no one was paying any attention. “Plain Alypia will do nicely tonight, thank you,” she said quietly. She was not dressed as a princess, but in a long, high-necked dress of dark green wool with rabbit fur at the sleeves and collar. If anything, she was more plainly gowned than the women around her, for she wore no jewelry at all, while most of them glittered with gold, silver, and precious stones.
“As you wish, of course,” Scaurus said woodenly.
She frowned up at him; the top of her head came barely to his chin. “This ought to be a night for rejoicing,” she said. A long, loud thunder of mirth came from the Amphitheater. “Maybe you should go and enjoy the farcers.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve seen enough of the mimes already, thanks.” He had not intended to say anything more, but at her questioning look found himself explaining.
Her eyes widened in sympathy. “They can be cruel,” she nodded. Marcus had not seen any of the skits the year before; he suddenly wondered what might have been in them. Alypia went on, “But it’s not as if the islanders’ escape was all your fault.”
“Was it not?” the tribune said, as much to himself as to her. Wanting to get away from that set of memories, he remarked, “To judge by your clothes, you hardly seem ready for a celebration yourself.”
“No, I suppose
not,” she admitted with a brief smile. “I hadn’t planned on one. I sent my servants off to keep the holiday early this afternoon and then came here to paw through the archives. That, I thought, would be an all-day job.”
It was Scaurus’ turn to nod; as an accounts auditor, he had made use of old records himself a few times. The Videssians were marvelous for keeping records, but storing the ones no longer immediately useful was something else again. Even the clerks who kept them often had no idea of what they held. “This was for your history?”
“Yes,” she said, seeming pleased he remembered. “I was looking for the general Onesimos Kourkouas’ report on an early brush with the Yezda in Vaspurakan, thirty-six, no, thirty-seven years ago. By some accident, it was in the second room I searched. Then again, it was only half as long as I’d thought. So here it is only twilight, and I find myself at loose ends.” She studied him. “What do you intend to do the rest of the night? Can it be shared?”
“Your Highness—no, Alypia,” Marcus corrected himself before she could, “all I had planned was getting thoroughly sozzled. If you don’t get in the way of that, you’re welcome to come along; otherwise, I’ll see you another day.”
He had expected his candor to drive her off, but she said briskly, “A capital idea. Where were you going to go?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Shall we wander?”
“Why not?” They set out together down Middle Street, away from the palace complex. Around them, the city kept celebrating. Fires blazed at every street corner, and men and women jumped over them for luck. Some, laughing, wore clothes that did not match their gender; Scaurus was almost knocked down by a chubby bearded fellow prancing in skirts. “Careful, there,” he growled, in anything but holiday spirit.
Alypia, who understood his pain from her own ordeal, deliberately kept the talk impersonal, not risking a closer touch. Without noticing her tact, the tribune was glad of it. He asked, “How did your Kourkouas find the Yezda?”
Legion of Videssos Page 46