The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  Finishing her inspection brought her to the landward end of the dock and a young Imperial officer in a light boiled leather cuirass, a red cloak, and strapped leather boots. He wore a short fringe of beard in the eastern manner, though his hair was cropped short. He was peering down the dock while fidgeting nervously. A message pouch was slung over his shoulder and a bored-looking horse was tied up to a post on the dockside.

  "Can I help you?" asked Thyatis, guessing that he had to be their guide into the city.

  "Ah, well, perhaps... I'm looking for the centurion commanding this, ah, detachment. I have orders for him as well as quarters for his men." He continued to peer past her, though she had moved to place herself directly in front of him. He suddenly turned to her, apparently seeing her for the first time. "Do you know which one he is? They all look kind of, well, scruffy."

  Thyatis smiled and pulled a leather orders pouch from one of the pockets on the inside of her cape. She handed it to him, flipping back the waxed cover. The sun flashed for a moment on the Imperial Seal and the smaller, though no less ornate, blazon of the house of de'Orelio.

  "We all look scruffy. Optimate, it's our job. I'm the centurion in command, Thyatis Julia Clodia."

  The optimate stared at her, the mill wheels in his head obviously jammed for the moment. His mouth opened, then closed. Then he shook his head and made a short salute. "My pardon, lady, my brief did not include the gender of the commander. I apologize for any insult I may have given."

  Thyatis looked him up and down for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm not in the mood for a duel today, and getting to quarters sounds pretty good. I've got twelve men instead of ten, will that be a problem?"

  The optimate shook his head, relieved to have avoided a problem with the odd-looking Western officer. His tribune had taken great pains to impress upon him the necessity of keeping a steady ship with all the new crew aboard. Getting on the wrong side of a "special" unit was a quick way back to the farm with his head on a platter. He looked over the Western crew as they hauled what seemed to be an inordinate amount of kit up to the end of the dock. Their appearance did nothing to allay his sinking feeling that the junior officer had gotten the biggest hassle in this muster. None of the men was well kept at all; their beards were straggly or far too long. Their clothes were a jumble of rag pickings and armor, without any semblance of uniform. All of them had a villainous look, none more so than a quartet of short, bandy-legged men with long mustaches and slanting eyes. With a start the optimate realized that they were Huns, or at least Sarmatians.

  Looking around, he realized that there was a serious problem. He turned partially away from the crew standing around behind the young woman, gesturing for her attention.

  "Milady, I'm afraid that I was told that this was an infantry detachment—I didn't think to bring any horse transport, or wagons, and your men have far too much to carry. Can I beg your indulgence to wait here for an hour or so while I round up something to carry your gear in?"

  Thyatis tugged at one ear, glancing back over her shoulder at Nikos, who drifted toward them in his customary, silent manner.

  "Well..." she said, dragging it out, "all this kit is awfully heavy to carry. I wouldn't want to wear my men out, they have too much drinking and wenching to do later."

  She gently took the optimate by his elbow, her thumb digging into the pressure point behind it just enough to get his attention. Then she leaned close and whispered into his ear. "My men and I can carry this gear twenty miles in the hot sun without animals. Your city is barely two miles across. I think that we can make it. Now, if you're too busy to give us directions, I'll just let them follow their noses—they do have an instinct for finding someplace to stay, whether the locals like it or not."

  The optimate did not flinch, which bought him a point of favor with Nikos, who had come up on his other side. The Greek idly removed the orders from the waxed leather pouch at the young under-officer's side and began leafing through them.

  "Ah... milady," the optimate said, struggling to keep his voice even, "you misunderstand. My orders are to give you and your men all assistance in getting to your quarters and you to the staff meeting this evening. If you want to walk all the way to the..."

  "...Palace of Justinian," Nikos said, finishing his sentence. "The royal treatment, as it were."

  Thyatis grimaced at her second.

  "What is it now," she said, "a prison? Fallen down in ruins? They're not going to put us up in a palace, for Hermes' sake." Nikos grinned and passed her the orders tablet. She read it over and shook her head in amazement, handing it back to him. The optimate sighed in relief as she let go of his elbow.

  "We'd really better walk then," Thyatis said with a resigned tone in her voice. "Best to get everyone settled down before they start breaking things."

  —|—

  Martius Galen Atreus, Augustus Caesar Occidens, stood in the window embrasure of the suite of rooms that he occupied while in the Eastern capital. From the third floor of the Palace of Justinian, now commonly referred to as the "Other Palace," he could see out over the rooftops of the Imperial precincts. The bulk of the "Great" Palace loomed almost due north, blotting out the skyline save for, beyond it in turn, the huge dome of the Temple of Sol Invictus. To the west the gardens filled the space between Justinian's old brickwork palace and the rising wall of the Hippodrome. Beyond that the city, a vast teeming hive of people, three-, four-, and five-story apartment buildings, forums crowded with merchants, the great Mile Stone, and the rest of the sprawl of the Eastern capital. Leaning against the sill, Galen was stricken by an unaccustomed despair. By the count of his secretaries the precincts of the Constantinople held almost as many people as lived in Rome, Ostia, and their surrounding provinces. The plague had devastated Italy, but it seemed to have barely touched the East.

  A polite cough behind him heralded the entrance of his aide. Galen turned, taking care to show a slight smile and betray nothing of the sadness that now filled him.

  "Ave, Augustus," Aetius said, bowing slightly. The boy was still a little stiff in his presence, a tendency made worse by the ritual of the Eastern court. Galen shook his head in dismay; had anyone ever been so young? Romulus Aetius Valens was the scion of one of the few patrician families left in Rome that still boasted numbers of sons. Nomerus Valens, the patriarch of the family, had been smugly pleased to obtain the appointment for his son, but from Galen's point of view there had been a paltry number of suitable candidates put forward. Of them Aetius was the best, even if his instinct was to bow at any occasion.

  "Aetius, I am only a man, not a god. You need not bow and scrape before me." Galen's voice was gentle and filled with wry amusement. Aetius looked up and saluted again.

  "Stand at ease, lad, and tell me the news."

  Aetius saluted again, standing straight. His short brown hair was cropped in a severe line above his brows and his usually pale skin was beginning to brown in the Greek sun. He pulled two wax tablets from under his arm, placing them on the writing desk that stood between them. Galen sat down in his camp stool and perused the tablets. While he did so, Aetius reported:

  "Augustus, the third and sixth cohorts of the Seventh Augusta, the equites of the Sixth Gemina, and four thousand Gothic auxillia have landed today at the harbor. With these men, the numbers of the Western vexillation here in the capital have grown to twenty-five thousand men. The quartermaster has requested that I inform you that we are out of places to put more troops. If, perhaps, you could discuss this with Emperor Heraclius..."

  Galen waved off the rest of the statement. His men could double or triple bunk for the short time that the army would be in the Eastern capital. Now that both he and the Eastern Emperor were in the same place and able to meet face to face, the coordination of the great expedition had vastly improved. The use of the telecast had been intermittent and tremendously tiring to the sorcerers maintaining the link. The ancient devices still tended to lose focus and drift to other scenes or faraway lands.
Though they had shown great promise, they were not a reliable mechanism. Galen had been forced to dismiss them from his calculations save as a means of emergency communications. The trouble now was not on the part of the Western Empire, but rather the East, for Heraclius was engaged in a power struggle with the great landowners that supplied the majority of his fighting men.

  "Go on, what other news?"

  "Resupply of the ships continues apace, though it seems backward that we should come here to bring on supplies when all of the supplies in the city are already brought in by boat." Aetius paused, but Galen did not respond to the implied question. Gamely the youth continued, "The word from the chamberlain of the palace is that the Khazar embassy has still not shown up, delaying that meeting and a letter came by messenger from the Duchess de'Orelio."

  Galen raised an eyebrow at this last and put down the tablet. "Where is the letter?"

  "In the hands of the messenger, Augustus. She informed me that she had been directed to deliver it in person." The boy, if anything, became stiffer. Galen shook his head—he was afraid that the boy's reaction would only be a small reflection of the trouble to come with the Easterners.

  "She is here, then?"

  Aetius nodded.

  "Show her in then, lad, and stop looking like you'd swallowed a prune pit."

  "Ave, Augustus!"

  Aetius turned on his heel and marched to the door. A moment later the messenger entered and Galen raised an eyebrow in surprise. Rumor had held for some months that the notorious and "oriental" Duchess had finally decided to bring her mysterious ward out into the open. Though Anastasia had been the Imperial spymaster for three Emperors and had never given Galen any indication that she was anything but utterly loyal to the state, he was pleased to see some indication that she was mortal.

  An Emperor required many spies and informers to serve his will and be his eyes throughout his domain. Over the last eleven years, the de'Orelio faction had gathered nearly all of those resources to themselves—first when the old Duke had been the spider, now that his widow was. Galen had taken pains in the last year to establish his own sources of information, ones that were not beholden to de'Orelio, but it was slow work. Most damnably, he had not found any man who could execute the covert strategies of the state as well as the Duchess. It galled him, though he felt no ill will toward de'Orelio, that she was so obviously his superior in this area.

  The messenger planted her feet and stood at parade rest before the writing desk. Galen noted with interest that she was both as young as had been reported and as beautiful. Too, she wore simple garb, most reminiscent of a Legion scout. Tall worn leather boots, light-green cotton breeches in the Gothic style, a loose tunic of weathered brown with piping at the collar and cuffs. A dark-gray cloak was pulled back a little off of broad shoulders. Her hair, a rich gold-red, was braided back from her head. Gray-green eyes surveyed him calmly, even as he looked upon her.

  "Ave, Augustus Caesar. Thyatis Julia Clodia, centurion, Legio Second Italia, at your service," she said, handing him a scroll tube. "Greetings from my mistress, the Duchess Anastasia de'Orelio. She hopes that you are well and that your venture is blessed with success. I am to tell you that if there are any questions, I am to answer them."

  Galen nodded at the politeness, breaking the thick wax seal at the end of the tube. Within were thick sheaves of finely rolled papyrus sheets. They were covered with the spidery writing, in dark ink, that de'Orelio favored. He began reading but put the report aside after the first page. Much of it was routine business and the other he would go over in private. The messenger interested him more than the message. He gestured that she should sit on one of the stools facing the desk. With only a minute hesitation, she did so.

  "Aetius, could you go and get something for me to eat. Something light. And wine, but not the Greek, something we brought with us."

  The boy bowed and hurried out, closing the door behind him. Galen smiled again and scratched his ear, looking sidelong at the young woman sitting across from him. How to approach this? He realized with a rueful chagrin that he had never had a "business" conversation with a woman save the Duchess. De'Orelio had always made him nervous, though she did not give him heart palpitations as she did the Senate. Galen realized that the foremost reason he trusted the Duchess was the effect she had on the senatorial class.

  He shook his head slightly, then decided to dispense with the usual politeness that obtained between women and men in his social circles. This was one of his officers, for all that she was a woman, and he had work for her to do. Being polite and following convention would not speed things up or make them more efficient.

  "Clodia, you are a bit of a puzzle for me, given that you are, to my knowledge, the only woman officer that I have on this expedition, indeed, the only woman soldier that I have in my army. I have discussed you and your situation, and your talents, with the Duchess on more than one occasion and I will be blunt. I did not think that you could do the work that she set you to. In fact, I was entirely opposed to the concept of this... 'special'... contubernia when she proposed it to me."

  Thyatis was very still, not even blinking. Galen paused a moment, seeing if he could gauge her reaction. She waited patiently, so he continued.

  "I did not interfere, however, when she pressed ahead with your team on her own initiative, and I understand from her reports that you have been successful. She took great pleasure in relating to me the events of your pursuit in the Subura. I am, I was, pleased by your success. You have proved your ability enough to win you and your men a place here, on this expedition."

  Now the girl cracked the smallest of smiles. Galen did not smile back; he was not finished.

  "Our situation here is different. I have noted in my admittedly limited time here in the city that the Eastern officers are even more traditionally minded, more constrained in their thinking than mine. I do not believe that you are going to be useful here in an... open way."

  Galen held up a hand to still the young woman's incipient protest.

  "In the rolls of the expedition, you are listed as one of my couriers, a member of my staff. I am uneasy at bringing you to the general meeting tonight, but I do not want you to be unfamiliar with the other officers. I put this question to you. Can your optio, Nikos, go in your stead?"

  Storm clouds gathered in Thyatis' gray eyes. Only the ceaselessly drummed lessons of Krista and Anastasia kept her from launching into a stream of invective suitable to a sailor. Instead, she breathed deeply and seriously considered the Emperor's request. "Augustus Caesar, Nikos is a steady man with many useful skills, but he is not the leader of my team, I am. The men follow me because I have won their respect and fear. If he goes in my stead, then my authority will be challenged and I will lose that respect. I urge you to reconsider your decision."

  Galen frowned. The girl, no—the centurion, was all too right. He would not undermine the authority of any of his other officers in such a way. Though it would cause trouble with the Eastern officers, he could see no way to avoid taking the minotaur by the horns.

  "I don't suppose you can be unobtrusive?" he asked, resigned to an even longer and more contentious staff meeting than usual. If she proves too much trouble, he thought, I'll send her back to Italia.

  Thyatis suddenly smiled and the room, to Galen's surprise, seemed suddenly brighter.

  "Imperator," she said, "you won't even notice that I'm there."

  —|—

  True to Thyatis' suspicion, the quarters that she and her men were assigned were in no way "royal." Beneath the Palace of Justinian were a series of great vaulted cisterns, now long dry and replaced in function by the cistern of Philoxenus, beyond the Hippodrome. Now they were crowded with engineers, servants, great heaps of equipment, wicker baskets of grain, and other goods. At the back of the far chamber, in stuffy darkness, she found Nikos and the rest of her detachment. The rest of the interview had gone well, the Emperor finally becoming just a harried and overburdened army commander to her
, rather than a suspicious near enemy. Unlike some who had gone before, this Emperor was irritated by the practices of the court and seemed more of a provincial landowner like one of her uncles than a living god.

  She couldn't help grinning to herself. Her right hand flexed unconsciously and drifted to the hilt of her sword. The mechanics of a plan, the hundreds of options and possibilities inherent to violent action, swam in her mind, rising and falling in a lake of possibilities. As they had always done since she was a little girl, her thoughts coalesced into a strategy and intent. She slapped her hand against her thigh in delight.

  Nikos had not been idle while waiting for her return. The men were quartered behind a great pile of wicker baskets in a corner of the vast room. Most were inspecting their gear for rust or broken links when she walked up; the others were huddled in a corner of the little camp, engrossed in the rattle of dice. The optio looked up, then cleared off the overturned crate that he had been using to fletch arrows on. Thyatis grunted and slid the whole smoked ham off her left shoulder. It made a meaty thwack on the wood.

  Nikos grinned. "Been to the kitchens, I see. Was there wine as well?" His dark eyes glittered in the light of the nearest lamp.

  Thyatis snorted in amusement. "By the example of the Divine Julius, the favored drink of the legionnaire is vinegar."

  Nikos rolled his eyes and pulled a wineskin from under the crate. "No matter, I've my own. Was there trouble at the commander's office?"