Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (20 page)

Nearly all the folk from what was now Yezd who lived in Videssos were of trading houses that had been in the capital since the days when the Empire’s western neighbor was still called Makuran. They hated their ancestral homeland’s nomadic conquerors more bitterly than did the people of the Empire. Their hatred, however, was of no avail when the Videssian rabble came roaring up to loot and burn their stores. “Death to the Yezda!” was the mob’s cry, and it did not ask questions of its victims.

It had taken troops to quell the riots and douse the flames—native Videssian troops. Knowing his people, the Emperor had known the sight of outlanders trying to quell them would only inflame them further.
And so the Romans, the Halogai, the Khamorth, and the Namdaleni kept to their barracks while Khoumnos used his
akritai
to restore order to the city. Marcus gave him credit for a good, professional job. “Well, why not?” Gaius Philippus had said. “He’s probably had enough practice at it.”

Those three days had not been altogether idle. An imperial scribe came to record depositions from all the Romans who had been a part of subduing Avshar’s luckless pawn of a plainsman. Another, higher-ranking scribe questioned Marcus minutely over every tiny detail he could recall about the nomad, about Avshar himself, and about the spell the Yezda had unleashed in the sea-wall armory. When the tribune asked what point the questions had, the scribe shrugged, blandly said, “Knowledge is never wasted,” and returned to the interrogation.

The gabble in the amphitheater rose suddenly as a pair of parasol-carriers stepped from the shadows behind the Emperor’s Gate into the sight of the crowd. Another pair emerged, and another, and another, until twelve silk flowers of varied hues bloomed in the narrow passage which twin lines of
akritai
kept open. Rhadenos Vourtzes had been proud of the two sunshades to which his provincial governor’s rank entitled him; the imperial retinue was more splendid by six-fold.

The cheering which had begun at first glimpse of the parasol bearers rose to a crescendo of shouting, clapping, and stamping as the Emperor’s party proper came into view. Marcus felt the arena’s spine quiver beneath his feet; the noise the crowd put forth transcended hearing. It could only be felt, stunning the ears and the mind.

First behind the escort was Vardanes Sphrantzes. It might have been Marcus’ imagination, but he did not think many of the cheers went to the Sevastos. Far more beloved by the people was their patriarch Balsamon. In matters of ceremony he outranked even the prime minister, and thus had his place between Sphrantzes and the imperial family itself.

The fat old priest flowered in adulation like a lilac in the sun. His shrewd eyes crinkled into a mischievous grin; he beamed out at the crowd, his hands raised in blessing. When people reached between the tight ranks of guardsmen to touch his robes, more than once he stopped to take hold of their hands for a moment before moving on.

Thorisin Gavras, too, was popular in the city. He was everyone’s
younger brother, with all the amused toleration that went with that status. Had the Emperor brawled in a tavern or tumbled a serving wench, he would have forfeited all respect due his office. The Sevastokrator, without his brother’s burdens, could—and did—enjoy himself to the fullest. Now he strode along briskly, with the air of a man fulfilling an important task he nonetheless found boring and wanted to finish quickly.

His niece, Mavrikios’ daughter Alypia, came just before her father. From her demeanor, the amphitheater might as well have been still and empty, not packed to its rearmost benches with screaming citizens. The same air of preoccupation she had shown entering the banquet held her now. Marcus wondered if shyness was at its root rather than indifference; she had been far less reserved in the closer setting of the banquet table and in the imperial chambers.

Several times now the tribune had thought the tumult in the arena could not grow greater, and several times was wrong. And with the entrance of the Emperor, he found himself mistaken once more. The noise was a real and urgent pain, as if someone were driving dull rods through his ears and into his brain.

Mavrikios Gavras was not, perhaps, the ideal Emperor for a land in turmoil. No long generations strengthened his family’s right to the throne; he was but a usurping general more successful than his predecessors. Even as he ruled, his government was divided against him, with his highest civil ministers standing to profit most from his fall and doing their best to stifle any reforms which might weaken their own positions.

But ideal or not, Mavrikios was what Videssos had, and in the hour of crisis its people rallied to him. With every step he took, the crescendo of noise rose. Everyone in the amphitheater was standing and screaming. A group of trumpeters followed the Emperor, but in the bedlam they must have been inaudible even to themselves.

Behind the Sevastos, the patriarch, and his family, the Emperor mounted the twelve steps up onto the arena’s spine. Each company of soldiers presented arms to him as he passed, the Khamorth and native Videssians drawing empty bows, the Halogai lifting their axes in salute, and the Namdaleni and at last the Romans holding their spears out at arm’s length before them.

Thorisin Gavras gave Marcus an eager, predatory grin as he walked
by. His thoughts were easy to read—he wanted to fight Yezd, Scaurus had furnished a valid reason for fighting, and so the Roman stood high in his favor. Mavrikios was more complex. He said something to Scaurus, but the crowd’s din swept it away. Seeing he could not hope to make himself understood, the Emperor shrugged almost sheepishly and moved on.

Gavras halted for a few seconds at the base of his speaking platform while his retinue, parasols bobbing, arranged themselves around it. And when the Emperor’s foot touched its wooden step, Marcus wondered whether Nepos and his wizardly colleagues had worked a potent magic or whether his ill-used ears had given out at last. Sudden, aching silence fell, broken only by the ringing in his head and the thin shout of a fishmonger outside the arena: “Fre-esh squi-id!”

The Emperor surveyed the crowd, watching it settle back into its seats. The Roman thought it hopeless for one man to be heard by so many, but he knew nothing of the subtlety Videssian craftsmen had invested in their amphitheater. Just as the center of the spine was the focus where every sound in the arena reverberated, so words emanating from that one place were plain throughout.

“I’m not the man for fancy talk,” the Emperor began, and Marcus had to smile, remembering how, in a Gallic clearing not so long ago, he had used a disclaimer like that to start a speech.

Mavrikios went on, “I grew up a soldier, I’ve spent all my life among soldiers, and I’ve come to prize a soldier’s frankness. If it’s rhetoric you’re after, you don’t have far to look today.” He waved his hand to take in the rows of seated bureaucrats. The crowd chuckled. Turning his head, Scaurus saw Vardanes Sphrantzes’ mouth tighten in distaste.

Though unable to resist flinging his barb, the Emperor did not sink it deeply. He knew he needed such unity as he could find in his divided land and spoke next in terms all his subjects could understand.

“In the capital,” he said, “we are lucky. We are safe, we are well fed, we are warded by walls and fleets no land can match. Most of you are of families long-settled in the city and most of you have lacked for little in your lives.” Marcus thought of Phostis Apokavkos, slowly starving in Videssos’ slums. No king, he reflected, not even one so recent and atypical as Mavrikios, could hope to learn of all his country’s troubles.

The Emperor was only too aware of some of them, however. He continued, “In our western lands, across the strait, they envy you. For a man’s lifetime now, Yezd’s poisons have spilled into our lands, burning our fields, killing our farmers, sacking and starving cities and towns, and desecrating the houses of our god.

“We’ve fought the followers of Skotos whenever we could catch them laden with their plunder. But they are like so many locusts; for every one that dies, two more spring up to take his place. And now, in the person of their ambassador, they spread their canker even into Videssos itself. Avshar the Phos-forsaken, unable to withstand one soldier of the Empire in honest combat, cast his web of deception over another and sent him like a viper in the night to murder the man he dared not face in open battle.”

The multitude he addressed growled ominously, a low, angry sound, like the rumble just before an earthquake. Mavrikios let the rumble build a moment before raising his arms for silence.

The anger in the Emperor’s voice was real, not some trick of speechmaking. “When his crime was found out, the beast of Yezd fled like the coward he is, with more of his unclean magic to cover his trail—and to once more kill for him so he need not face danger himself!” This time the crowd’s ire did not subside at once.

“Enough, I say, enough! Yezd has struck too often and taken too few blows in return. Its brigands need a lesson to learn by heart: that while we are patient with our neighbors, our memory for wrongs is also long. And the wrongs Yezd has given us are far beyond forgiveness!” His last sentence was almost drowned by the rancor of the crowd, now nearly at the boil.

Scaurus’ critical side admired the way the Emperor had built up his audience’s rage step by step, as a mason erects a building with course after course of bricks. Where the Roman had drawn on the speeches he made before becoming a soldier to hearten his troops, Gavras was using his memory of field orations to stir a civilian crowd. If the bureaucrats were the models the people of the city were used to, Mavrikios’ gruff candor made for an effective change.

“War!” the assemblage shouted. “War! War!” Like the savage tolling of an iron bell, the word echoed and re-echoed in the amphitheater. The
Emperor let the outcry last as long as it would. Perhaps he was enjoying to the fullest the rare concord he had brought into being; perhaps, thought Marcus, he was trying to use this outpouring of hatred for Yezd to overawe the bureaucrats who opposed his every action.

At last the Emperor raised his hands for quiet, and slowly it came. “I thank you,” he told the throng, “for bidding me do what is right in any case. The time for half-measures is past. This year we will strike with all the strength at our command; when next you see me here, Yezd will be a trouble no more!”

The arena emptied after a last rousing cheer, people still buzzing with excitement. Only after the last of them had gone could the guard units, too, stand down and return to their more usual duties.

“What did you think?” Scaurus asked Gaius Philippus as they marched back toward the barracks.

The senior centurion rubbed the scar on his cheek. “He’s good, there’s no doubt of that, but he’s not Caesar, either.” Marcus had to agree. Mavrikios had fired the crowd, yes, but Scaurus was sure the Emperor’s foes within the government had neither been convinced by his words nor intimidated by the passions he had roused. Such theatrics meant nothing to cold calculators like Sphrantzes.

“Besides,” Gaius Philippus unexpectedly added, “it’s foolhardy to speak of your triumphs before you have them in hand.” And to that thought, too, the tribune could take no exception.

“T
HERE
’
S A
N
AMDALENER OUT FRONT WANTS TO SEE YOU
,” P
HOSTIS
Apokavkos told Scaurus on the morning of the second day after the Emperor’s declaration of war. “Says he’s Soteric somebody’s son.”

The name meant nothing to Marcus. “Did he say what he wanted of me?”

“No; didn’t ask him, either. Don’t much like Namdaleni. Far as I can see, the most of them aren’t any more than so many—” and Apokavkos swore a ripe Latin oath.

The ex-farmer was fitting in among the Romans even better than Marcus could have hoped when he plucked him from his miserable life in Videssos’ thieves’ quarter. His face and frame were losing their gauntness, but that was only to be expected with regular meals.

It was, however, the least of his adaptation. Having been rejected by the nation that gave him birth, he was doing everything he could to become a full part of the one that had taken him in. Even as the Romans had learned Videssian to make life within the Empire easier, Phostis was picking up Latin to blend with his new surroundings. He was working hard with the thrusting-sword and throwing-spear, neither of them weapons he was used to.

And … Marcus’ brain finally noticed what his eyes had been telling him. “You shaved!” he exclaimed.

Apokavkos sheepishly rubbed his scraped jaw. “What of it? Felt right odd, being the only hairy-cheeks in the barracks. I’ll never be pretty, with whiskers or without. Can’t see why you people bother, though—hurts more than it’s worth, if you ask me. But my naked chin isn’t what I came to show you. Are you going to talk to that damned Namdalener, or shall I tell him to take himself off?”

“I’ll see him, I suppose. What was it that priest said a few days ago?
‘Knowledge is never wasted.’ ” Just listen to you, he thought; anyone would think it was Gorgidas talking.

Leaning comfortably against the side of the barracks hall, the mercenary from the eastern islands did not seem much put out at having had to wait for Scaurus. He was a solidly built man of middle height, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and the very fair skin that bespoke the northern origins of the Namdaleni. Unlike many of his countrymen, he did not shear the back of his head, but let his hair fall in long waves down to the nape of his neck. Marcus doubted he could be more than a year or two past thirty.

When he recognized the tribune, he straightened and came up to him, both hands extended for the usual Namdalener clasp. Scaurus offered his own, but had to say, “You have the better of me, I’m afraid.”

“Do I? I’m sorry; I gave your man my name. I’m Soteric Dosti’s son, from Metepont. In the Duchy, of course.”

Apokavkos had forgotten Soteric’s patronymic, but the mercenary’s name meant no more to Scaurus with it. But the Roman had heard of his native town somewhere before. “Metepont?” he groped. Then he found the memory. “Hemond’s home?”