An Emperor for the Legion (48 page)

Two corseleted marines brought their prisoner before the Emperor. They had to half support him; the left side of his handsome face and head was bloody from a slingstone’s glancing blow. “You would have done better to stay at Pityos, Elissaios,” Thorisin said.

Bouraphos glared at him, shaking his head to try to clear it. “We were nearly holding our own till that cursed rock flattened me, even with the bolters. I’d bolt ’em proper, I would.” The wordplay was feeble, but Marcus had to respect the rebel’s spirit for essaying it at all.

“You’re not likely to have the chance,” Thorisin said.

“I know.” Bouraphos spat at Taron Leimmokheir’s feet. “When will you fight for yourself, Gavras? You used me to counter this bag of turds, and then him against me. What sort of warrior does that make you?”

“The master of you both,” the Emperor replied. He turned to the marines, who came to attention, expecting the order. “Take him to the Kynegion.”

As they began to lead Bouraphos away, Gavras stopped them for a moment. “In memory of the service you once gave me, Elissaios, your lands will not stand forfeit to the fisc. You have a son, I think.”

“Yes. That’s good of you, Thorisin.”

“He’s never harmed me. We can keep your head off the Milestone, too.”

Bouraphos shrugged. “Do as you like there. I’ll have no
further use for it.” He eyed the marines. “Well, let’s go. I trust I don’t have to show you the road?” He walked off between them, his back straighter and stride firmer at every step.

Unable to hold the thought to himself, Marcus said, “He dies very well.”

“Aye, so he does,” the Emperor nodded. “He should have lived the same way.” To that the tribune had no good reply.

The small crowd studied the ship moored at the pier. “What’s that written on its stern?” Gaius Philippus asked.

The letters were faded, salt-stained.
“Conqueror”
Marcus read.

The senior centurion pursed his lips. “It’ll never live up to that.”

The
Conqueror
bobbed in the light chop. Beamier than the lean Videssian warships, it carried a wide, square-rigged sail, now furled, and a dozen oarports so the crew could maneuver in and out of harbors at need.

Gorgidas, who knew more of ships than the Romans, seemed satisfied. “It wasn’t built yesterday or the day before, either, but it’ll get us across to Prista, and that’s what counts.” He stirred a large leather rucksack with his foot. Having helped him pack it, Marcus knew that rolls of parchment, pens, and packets of powdered ink make up a good part of its bulk.

The tribune remarked, “The Emperor wastes no time. Less than a week since he gained the sea, and already you’re off to the Arshaum.”

“High time, too,” Arigh Arghun’s son said. “I miss the feel of a horse’s barrel between my legs.”

Pikridios Goudeles gave a delicate shudder. “You will, I fear, have all too much chance to grow thoroughly used to the sensation, as, worse luck, will I.” To Scaurus he said, “The upcoming campaigns, both against the usurper and against the Yezda, shall be difficult ones. Good Arigh’s men will be too late for the first of them, it seems, but surely not for the second.”

“Of course,” Marcus said. That Thorisin had enough faith in Goudeles to send him as ambassador surprised the Roman—or was the Emperor clearing the stage of a potential danger to himself?

Whatever Gavras’ reasons, his trust for the smoothtongued
bureaucrat plainly was not absolute. Goudeles’ fellow envoy was a dark, saturnine military man named Lankinos Skylitzes. Scaurus did not know him well and was unsure whether he was brother or cousin to the Skylitzes who had died in the night ambush the year before. In one way, at least, he was a good choice for the embassy—the Roman had heard him talking with Arigh in the nomad’s tongue.

Perhaps knowledge of the steppe was his speciality, for he said, “There’s another reason for haste. A new set of dispatches came from Prista last night. Avshar’s on the plains. Belike he’s after soldiers, too; we’d best forestall him.”

Marcus exclaimed in dismay, and was echoed by everyone who heard Skylitzes’ news. In his heart he had known the wizard-prince escaped Videssos when the Sphrantzai fell, but it was always possible to hope. “You’re sure?” he asked Skylitzes.

The soldier nodded once. No garrulous imperial here, Scaurus thought with a smile.

“May the spirits let us meet him,” Arigh said, pantomiming cut-and-thrust. Marcus admired his bravado, but not his sense. Too many had made that wish already and got no joy when it came true.

Gaius Philippus undid the shortsword at his belt and handed it to Gorgidas. “Take it,” he said. “With that serpent’s spawn running free, you’ll need it one day.”

The Greek was touched by the present, but tried to refuse it, saying, “I have no skill with such tools, nor any desire to learn.”

“Take it anyway,” Gaius Philippus said, implacable. “You can stow it in the bottom of your duffel for all of me, but take it.”

He sounded as if he were taking a legionary to task, not giving a gift, but Gorgidas heard the concern behind his insistence. He accepted the
gladius
with a word of thanks and proceeded to do just what the senior centurion had advised, packing it away in his kit.

“Very moving,” Goudeles said dryly. “Here’s something with a sweeter edge to it.” He produced an alabaster flask of wine, drank, and passed it to Scaurus. It went down smooth as cream—nothing but the best for Pikridios, the tribune thought.

A gangplank thudded into place. The
Conqueror
’s captain,
a burly man of middle years, shouted, “You toffs can come aboard now.” He wagged his head in invitation.

Arigh left Videssos without a backward glance, his right hand on the hilt of his saber, his left steadying the sueded leather bag slung over his shoulder. Skylitzes followed, equally nonchalant. Pikridios Goudeles gave a theatric groan as he picked up his duffel, but seemed perfectly able to carry it.

“Take care of yourself,” Gaius Philippus ordered, thumping Gorgidas on the back. “You’re too softhearted for your own good.”

The physician snorted in exasperation. “And you’re so full of feces it’s no wonder your eyes are brown.” He embraced the two Romans, then shouldered his own rucksack and followed the rest of the embassy.

“Remember,” Marcus called after him, “I expect to read what you say about your travels, so it had best be good.”

“Never fear, Scaurus, you’ll read it if I have to tie you down and hold it in front of your face. It’s fitting punishment for reminding me you’re my audience.”

“That’s the lot of you?” the captain asked when the Greek came aboard. Getting no contradiction, he called to his crew, “Make ready to cast off!” Two half-naked sailors pulled in the gangplank; another pair jumped onto the dock to undo the fat brown mooring lines that held the
Conqueror
fore and aft.

“Hold on, avast, belay, whatever the plague-taken seaman’s word is!” The pier shook as Viridovix came thudding up, his helmet on his head and a knapsack under his arm. He was crimson-faced and puffing; sweat streamed down his cheeks. He looked to have come from the Roman barracks on the dead run.

“What’s happened?” Marcus and Gaius Philippus asked together, exchanging apprehensive glances. Except in battle and wenching, such exertion was alien to the Gaul’s nature.

He got no chance to answer them, for Arigh shouted his name and leaped out of the
Conqueror
to greet him. “Come to see me off after all, are you?”

“Not a bit of it,” Viridovix replied, dropping his bag to the boards of the pier with a sigh of relief. “By your leave, I’m coming with you.”

The nomad’s grin flashed white in his swarthy face. “What
could be better? You’ll learn to love the taste of kavass, I promise you.”

“Are you daft, man?” Gaius Philippus asked. Pointing to the
Conqueror
, he went on, “If you’ve forgotten, that is a ship. Your stomach will remember, whether you do or not.”

“Och, dinna remind me,” the Celt said, wiping his face on a tunic sleeve. “Still and all, it’s that or meet the headsman, I’m thinking. On the water I’ll wish I’m dead, but to stay would get me the wish granted, the which I don’t, fancy either.”

“The headsman?” Scaurus said. Thinking quickly, he shifted to Latin. “The woman turned on you?” As long as no names were named, Arigh—and the listening sailors—could not follow.

“Didn’t she just, the fickle slut,” Viridovix answered bitterly in the same tongue. His happy-go-lucky air had deserted him; he was angry and self-reproachful. Catching the gleam in Marcus’ eye, he said, “I’ve no need for your told-you-so’s, either. You did that, and rightly. Would I were as cautious a wight as you, the once.”

That admission was the true measure of his dismay, for he never tired of chiding the Romans for their stodginess. “What went awry?” the tribune asked.

“Can you no guess? That one’s green as the sea with jealousy—like a canker it eats in her. And so she was havering after me to set aside my Gavrila and Lissena and Beline, and I said her nay as I’ve done before. They’ll miss me, puir girls, and you must be after promising not to let herself’s wrath fall on ’em.”

“Of course,” Scaurus said impatiently. “On with it, man.”

“Och, the blackhearted bitch started shrieking fit to wake a dead corp, she did, and swore she’d tell the Gavras I’d had her by force.” A fragment of the Celt’s grin appeared for a moment. “Belike she’d make himself believe it, too. She’s after seeing enough of me to give sic charge the weight of detail, you might say.”

“She’d do it,” Gaius Philippus said without hesitation.

“The very thought I had, Roman dear. I couldna be cutting her throat, with it so white and all. I had not the heart for it, to say naught of the hurly-burly it’d touch off.”

“What did you do, then?” Marcus demanded. “Let her go
free? By the gods, Viridovix, the imperial guards’ll be on your heels!”

“Nay, nay, you see me revealed a fool, but not a damnfool. She’s swaddled and gagged and tied on a bed in the sleazy little inn where we went. She’ll be a while working loose, but I’m thinking the exercise’ll not improve her temper, and so it’s away with me.”

“First Gorgidas, and now you, and both for reasons an idiot would be ashamed to own,” the tribune said, feeling the wrench as his tightly knit company began to unravel. Again he gave thanks that the Romans had not had to split themselves between Namdalen and Videssos; it would have torn the hearts from them all.

Impatient with the talk in a language he did not understand, Arigh broke in, “If you’re coming, come.”

“I will that, never fear.” Viridovix clasped Scaurus’ hand. “Take care o’ the blade you bear, Roman. It’s a bonny un.”

“And you yours.” Viridovix’ long sword hung at his right hip; he would have seemed naked without it.

The Celt’s jaw dropped as he noticed Gaius Philippus weaponless. “Wore it out, did you?”

“Don’t be more foolish than you can help. I passed it on to Gorgidas.”

“Did you now? That was a canny thing to do, or would be if the silly lown had the wit to realize what grand sport war is. As is, like as not he’ll lose it, or else slice himself.” Viridovix’ lip curled. A second later he brightened. “Och, that’s right, I’ll have the Greek to quarrel with. Nothing like a good quarrel to keep a day from going stale.”

Marcus remembered his own words to Gorgidas when the doctor told him he was leaving. At the time they had been a desperate joke, but here they were coming back at him in all seriousness from the Gaul’s mouth. Viridovix lived to wrangle, whether with swords or with words.

The captain of the
Conqueror
made a trumpet of his hands. “You there! We’re sailing, with you or without you!” The threat was empty—while Viridovix meant nothing to him, he could hardly set off without the Arshaum, who meant everything to the embassy.

The aggrieved shout underlined Arigh’s unrest. “Let’s do it,” he said, taking the Celt’s arm. Viridovix’ rawhide boots
clumped on the planking of the dock; the nomad, shod in soft calfskin, walked silent as a wildcat.

Looking like a live man going to his own funeral, the Gaul tossed his duffel to a sailor. Still he hesitated before following it down. He sketched a salute to Scaurus, waved his fist at Gaius Philippus. “Watch yourself, runt!” he called, and jumped.

“And you, you great bald-arsed lunk!”

To the captain’s shouted directions, his crew backed water. For a few seconds it seemed the
Conqueror
was too bulky to respond to the oars, but then it moved, inching away from the pier. When well clear, it turned north, ponderous as a fat old man. Marcus heard ropes squeal in pullies as the broad sail unfurled. It flapped loosely, then filled with wind.

The tribune watched until the horizon swallowed it.

With regained mastery of the sea, Thorisin Gavras threw Drax and his Namdalener mercenaries at Baanes Onomagoulos. Leimmokheir’s galleys protected the transports from rebel warships; the men of the Duchy landed in the westlands at Kypas, several days’ march south of the suburbs opposite Videssos.

A great smoke rose in the west as Onomagoulos fired his camp to keep Thorisin from taking possession of it. Baanes retreated toward his stronghold round Garsavra. He moved in haste, lest the Namdaleni cut him off from his center of power. Thorisin, acting like a man who feels victory in his grasp, retook the western suburbs.

Marcus waited for a summons from the Emperor, expecting him to order the legionaries into action against Onomagoulos. He drilled his men furiously, wanting to be ready. He still had doubts about the great count, despite the successes Drax was winning for Gavras.

No orders came. Thorisin held military councils in plenty, but to plan the coming summer campaign against the Yezda. He seemed certain anyone fighting Onomagoulos had to be his friend.

Scaurus tried to put his suspicions into words after one officers’ meeting, saying to the Emperor, “The nomads attack Baanes, too, you know, but not in your interest. Drax wars for no one but Drax; he travels under your banner now, but only because it suits him.”

Thorisin frowned; the Roman’s advice was clearly unwelcome. “You’ve given me good service, outlander, and that sometimes in my despite,” he said. “There have been stories told of you, just as you tell them now against the Namdalener. A prudent man believes not all of what he sees and only a little of what he hears. But this I tell you: no rumor-seller has ever come to me with news that Drax purposed abandoning me at the hour of my peril.”