Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (106 page)

Pacing it off, Arigh was impressed. “Not bad, for one not a nomad born. Few yurts are larger.”

Viridovix gave Marcus a sly glance. “A good thing, I’m thinking. Once we’re after having this trader to hand, now, we’ll no more be at the mercy o’ these Romans for directions, with them so confused and all.”

So much for confidence, the tribune thought. He said, “It’ll be a relief for me, too, let me tell you.”

He was astonished when the mercurial Celt cried angrily, “Och, a bellyful o’ these milksop answers I’ve had from the Greek already!” and stalked off. Viridovix stayed in his moody huff all night.

The desert wind had played with the caravan’s trail, but the Arshaum clung to it. And as they gained, the signs grew clearer. The sun was sinking at their backs when they spotted Tahmasp’s rear guard. They were spotted in turn; by the time they caught up with the caravan itself, it was drawn up for defense, with archers crouched behind hastily dumped bales of cloth. Merchants scrambled this way and that; Marcus heard Tahmasp’s familiar bellow roaring out orders.

The tribune said to Arigh, “Let us talk with him.”

“You’d better. I don’t think he’d listen to me.” The Arshaum chief allowed himself a dry laugh. His slanted eyes were gauging the caravan’s preparations. “Looks like he knows his business. Go on, calm him down.”

Unexpectedly, Pikridios Goudeles said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you. Perhaps I shall be able to render some assistance.”

“Not with one of your long speeches,” Gorgidas said in alarm,
remembering the grandiloquent orations the pen-pusher had delivered on the steppe. “From what the Romans have said, I don’t think this Tahmasp is one to appreciate rhetoric.”

Goudeles sniffed. “Permit me to remind you that I know what I’m about. Where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer.”

With that his comrades had to be content. Shrugging, Arigh said, “As you please.” The tribune, centurion, and imperial bureaucrat urged their horses out from the Arshaum around them and walked the beasts forward until they were well within range of the caravan’s bows.

No one shot at them. Scaurus called, “Tahmasp! Kamytzes!” Gaius Philippus echoed with the name of the lieutenant under whom he’d served: “Muzaffar!” They shouted their own names.

“You two, is it?” Tahmasp yelled back furiously. “Another step closer and you’ll be buzzards’ meat, the both of you. I told you what we do to spies.”

“We weren’t spies,” the tribune returned. “Will you listen, or not?”

Goudeles spoke for the first time: “We’ll make it worth your while.” Marcus wondered at that; the Arshaum had little past horses, clothes and weapons. But the bureaucrat’s self-assurance was unruffled.

Scaurus heard Kamytzes’ voice raised in expostulation. Knowing the turn of the grim little Videssian’s mind, he guessed Tahmasp’s aide was arguing against a parley. But the numbers at Marcus’ back had a logic of their own, and Tahmasp, beneath his bluster, was an eminently practical man. He yielded gruffly, but he yielded. “All right, I’m listening. Come ahead.”

The Romans’ former comrades-in-arms met them with icy glares as they entered the perimeter of the improvised camp. Tahmasp stumped forward, closing the last catch on a chain-mail shirt Scaurus and Gaius Philippus could both have fit into. A spiked Makuraner-style helmet sat slightly askew on his shaved head. Kamytzes hovered a couple of steps behind him, his hands near a brace of throwing-knives at his bejeweled belt.

The caravan master folded his arms across his massive chest. “Thought you’d be in Videssos by now,” he accused the Romans. “Or is this more of what you call ‘business’?”

“We thought you were still in Mashiz,” Marcus returned. “Or
couldn’t you stomach Avshar?” He hoped his guess was right. When Tahmasp’s eyes shifted, he knew it was. He said, “Neither could we,” and tugged his tunic over his head.

At the sight of the scar, Tahmasp pursed his lips. Several troopers who had been friendly with the Romans swore in a handful of tongues. But Tahmasp’s first concern, as always, was for his caravan. “So—we have reasons for disliking the same man. But what has that to do with those robbers out there?” He jabbed a thumb at the Arshaum, a vague but threatening mass in the deepening twilight.

“That’s a long story,” Gaius Philippus said. “Remember why you chose not to go through the Hundred Cities on your way west?”

“Some barbarian invasion or—” The caravaneer juggled facts as neatly as he did bills of lading. “Them, eh? Don’t tell me you were mixed up in that.”

“Not exactly.” Marcus told the story quickly, finishing, “You’re heading into Videssos and so are we, but you know all the shortcuts and best roads. Show them to us and you’ll have the biggest guard force any caravan ever dreamed of. The Yezda won’t dare come near you.”

“And if I don’t …” Tahmasp began. His voice trailed away. The answer there was obvious. He took off his helmet and kicked it as far as he could; it flew spinning into the darkness. “What can I say but yes? Maybe your bastards’ll plunder me later, but you’ll sure plunder me now for a no. The pox take you, outlanders. My old granddad always told me to run screaming from anything that smelled like politics, and here you’re dragging me in up to my neck.”

“Not all politics are evil,” Goudeles said. “Nor will you suffer for aiding us.”

In his Arshaum suede and leather, with his beard untrimmed and his hair long and not very clean, the pen-pusher cut an unprepossessing figure. Tahmasp rumbled, “Who are you to make such promises, little man?”

The bureaucrat had learned on the plains to make do with what he had. When he drew himself up and declared haughtily, “Sirrah, you have the privilege of addressing Pikridios Goudeles, minister and ambassador of his Imperial Majesty Thorisin Gavras, Avtokrator of the Videssians.” It did not occur to Tahmasp to doubt him.

He was not, however, a man to be overawed for long. “Why is it such a privilege, eh?”

“Fetch me a parchment, pen and ink, and some sealing wax.” At the caravan master’s order, one of his men brought them. The bureaucrat wrote a few quick lines. “Now, have you fire?” he asked.

“Would I be without it?” Several of Tahmasp’s men carried fire-safes, to keep hot coals alive while they traveled. One of them upended his over a pile of tinder. When a small blaze sprang up, Goudeles lit the red wax’ wick and let several drops fall at the foot of his parchment. He jammed his seal ring into the wax while it was still soft and handed Tahmasp the finished document.

The caravaneer squatted by the little fire. His lips moved as he read. Suddenly a grin replaced the scowl he had been wearing since the Romans and Goudeles entered his encampment. He turned to his followers and shouted, “Exemption from imperial tolls for the next three years!”

The guardsmen and merchants burst into cheers. Tahmasp enfolded Goudeles in a beefy embrace and bussed him on both cheeks. “Little man, we have a deal!”

“How delightful.” The pen-pusher disentangled himself as fast as he could.

While Marcus was waving to the Arshaum that agreement had been struck, Tahmasp dug an elbow into Goudeles’ ribs. Goudeles yelped. The caravaneer said craftily, “You know, it’s likely I could beat the tolls anyway. Even your damned inspectors can’t be everywhere.”

“I daresay.” Goudeles held out his hand. “Shall I take the document back, then? The penalty for smuggling is, of course, confiscation of all illegal goods and a branding for the criminals involved.”

Tahmasp hastily made the parchment disappear. “No, no, no need of that. It is, as I said, a bargain.”

The rest of the Videssian party, Arigh, and a few of his commanders rode up to fraternize with the caravan master and his aides; bargain or no bargain, Tahmasp was nervous about letting too many of his newfound allies near his goods. He was politic enough, however, to send several skins of wine out to the plainsmen—enough to make them happy without turning them rowdy.

Having been drinking naught but water for some time, Scaurus enjoyed
the wine all the more. He was in the middle of his second cup when he exclaimed, “I almost forgot!” He went over to Tahmasp, who was simultaneously asking quetions of Viridovix—whose red hair fascinated him—and answering them from Gorgidas, who wanted to know everything there was to know about all the strange places the caravaneer had seen in his travels. Tahmasp chuckled when the tribune delivered Shenuta’s message.

“So he thinks my dice are crooked, does he? He’s wrong; I’d never do such a thing,” the burly trader declared righteously. Then he winked. “But I’m surprised the old sand shark has a robe to call his own if he’s still using the pair he had that night. Those were loaded, all right—the wrong way!”

His booming laughter filled the desert night.

“T
HIS IS ALL MOST IRREGULAR
,” E
VTYKHIOS
K
ORYKOS SAID
. T
HE
hypasteos
of Serrhes had said that several times already. Irregular or not, it was plainly too much for him. Nothing ever happened in Serrhes, a small city at the junction of the desert and the imperial westlands’ central plateau. Even the Yezda passed it by; their invasion routes ran further north. All the convulsions in Videssian affairs had left it untouched and nearly forgotten.

That suited Korykos, whose chief aim was to vegetate along with his town. He stared resentfully at the rough-looking strangers who packed his office. “Irregular,” he repeated. “This document grants an unprecedented exemption, and I am not certain I possess the authority to countersign it.”

“You tripe-faced idiot!” Tahmasp roared. “No one gives a frike whether you countersign it or not. Just obey it and go back to gathering dust.”

“Though his phrasing is crude, the good caravan master has captured the essence of the matter. The authority in question here is my own,” Goudeles said smoothly. He confused the
hypasteos
more than any of the others. He looked like a barbarian, but spoke like the great noble he claimed to be.

“I also approve,” Marcus put in. He bothered Korykos almost as much as Goudeles did. His speech and appearance both proclaimed him an outlander, but if he was to be believed, he was not only a general but also Goudeles’ superior in the imperial chancery. And he knew so much more than Korykos about doings at the capital that there was no way to make him out a liar.

“Give us supplies and some fresh horses and send us on our way to Gavras at Videssos,” Arigh said. Normally he would have scared Korykos
witless. Dealing with him now was something of a relief—he did not pretend he was anything but what he seemed.

He also gave the
hypasteos
a chance to vent his suspicions and a moment of petty triumph. “The Avtokrator is not
at
Videssos,” Korykos said primly. “Why are allegedly high imperial officials ignorant of such a fact?”

He did not enjoy the discomfiture he created. “Well, where is he, you worthless cretin?” Gaius Philippus barked, leaning over Korykos’ desk as if about to tear the answer from him by force. Arigh was right beside him. If Thorisin had gone east against the Namdaleni, the Arshaum’s hopes were ruined. This time Goudeles did not try to hold them back. He was leaning forward himself, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, an unconscious measure of how much he had changed in the past year.

“Why, at Amorion, of course,” Korykos got out through white lips.

“Impossible!” Scaurus, Gaius Philippus, and Tahmasp said it together. The trader’s caravan had left the place one step ahead of the Yezda.

“Oh, is it?” Korykos fumbled through the parchments on his desk. Serrhes being as slow as it was, there weren’t many of them. Marcus recognized the sunburst of the imperial seal as the
hypasteos
finally found the document he was after. Holding it at arm’s length, he read: “ ‘… and so it is required that you send a contingent numbering one third of the garrison of your city to join ourself and our armies at Amorion. No excuse will be tolerated for failure to obey this our command.’ ” He looked up. “I sent off the nine men, as ordered.”

“Wonderful,” Gaius Philippus said. “I’m sure the Yezda thank you for the snack.” Korykos blinked, wondering what he meant. The veteran sighed and gave it up.

“That definitely is Gavras—no mistaking the blunt, ugly style,” Goudeles said. Skylitzes made a noise at the back of his throat, but let the bureaucrat’s sneer slide.

“What’s he doing in Amorion?” Marcus persisted. Aside from the Yezda, the town had been Zemarkhos’, and not under imperial control at all.

The tribune had not intended the question for Korykos, but it seemed to push the harassed official over the edge. “I neither know, nor care!” he
shrilled. “Go find out and leave me a peace!” With one of the spasms of energy weak men show, he grapped the toll exemption from a startled Tahmasp, scrawled his signature in large letters under Goudeles’, and threw the document in the caravaneer’s face. “Go on, get out, before I call the guards on you!”

Tahmasp tapped his forehead. “All eighteen you have left, eh?” Marcus said in his politest tones. Arigh sputtered laughter, adding, “Bring ’em on! The roomful of us’ll clean ’em out, the three that aren’t hiding already.”

“Get out! Get out!” Korykos purpled with impotent fury. Skylitzes stiffened to attention and threw him an ironic salute. The
hypasteos
was still blustering when his unwelcome guests filed out, but Marcus did not miss the relief on his face as they left.

“Troglodytes!” Gorgidas exclaimed a couple of days out of Serrhes. Instead of raising houses from the soft gray stone of the area, the locals carved their homes, even their temples to Phos, into the living rock. The Greek scribbled observations whenever he passed through a village: “Because even its users do not view the technique as natural, they imitate more usual styles of construction as closely as they can. Thus one sees brickwork, shutters, lintels, even balustrades, all executed in relief to fool the eye into thinking them actually present.”

The people of the rock villages reacted to the arrival of the Arshaum much as had those of Serrhes. Most slammed their doors tight and, Marcus was sure, piled their heaviest furniture behind them. The adventurous few came out to the town marketplaces to trade with Tahmasp’s merchants.