Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (123 page)

“Oh, that,” Marcus said in the same tongue. “Forget it; the other way embarrassed me as much as it did you. Thorisin just sees all of us as one band and, since he’s mostly dealt with me, he didn’t think to do otherwise this time. Not,” he added, “that you ever took orders from me.”

“Forbye, you never tried to give ’em, and I’ll thank you for that, too.” Viridovix drew himself up with lonely pride. “Still and all, I’m not sorry to be on my own. I wouldna have Gaius Philippus say he was right all along, and the only Celt here a Roman gillie.”

“Are you still fighting that idiot war?” Gorgidas said in disgust. “Haven’t you found enough new ways here to satisfy your barbarian craving for gore?”

“Let him be,” Marcus said. “We all remember, as best we can. It helps us hang together.”

“Aye,” Viridovix said. “You Romans now, you’re the lucky ones, wi’ sic a mort o’ ye here. Belike even your grandsons’ll recall a word or two o’ Latin. And the Greek has his histories for keepsake. So I’ll remember, too, and a pox on anyone for saying I shouldna bother.” He looked pointedly at Gorgidas.

“Oh, very well,” the physician said with bad grace. He fumed for a few seconds, then smiled lopsidedly. “I’m always annoyed when you out-argue me. Those droopy red whiskers make me forget the brain behind them.” Shaking his head, he strode off.

“Here, wait!” Viridovix shouted. “We’ll hash it out further over a stoup o’ the grape.” He trotted after Gorgidas.

The guardsmen might not have been able to follow the conversation, but they recognized the tone. “Remind me of my dog and cat, they do,” one said to Scaurus.

“You have it,” the tribune said.

He went back into the imperial residence, walking past the portrait of the ancient Emperor Laskaris, whose harsh peasant face gave him more the look of a veteran underofficer than a ruler. The bloodstain marring the lower part of the picture was one of the few reminders of the
desperate fighting against Onomagoulos’ assassins two years before. Most of the damage had been made good, but Laskaris’ image was impossible to clean and too precious to throw away.

The secretary came out of Scaurus’ doorway. Alypia’s voice pursued him: “I’d like a fair copy of that tomorrow, Artanas, if you can have it by then.”

Artanas’ shoulders heaved in a silent sigh. “I’ll do my best, your Highness.” He sighed again, bowed to the tribune, and hurried off, tucking his case of pens into his tunic.

“I shouldn’t drive him so hard,” Alypia said when Marcus joined her inside. “But I want to do as much as I can before we leave for the westlands.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Not that I can accomplish much, with three quarters of my things stowed away where I can’t get at them.”

The tribune had learned she complained only over minor upsets; she did not let frets get in the way of dealing with real problems. Knowing that, he should have changed the subject. Because he was still adjusting to her, though, he said anxiously, “I hope it won’t be too strange for you, away from Videssos the city.”

She looked at him with mixed fondness and exasperation. “Strange? It’ll be more like going home. Have you forgotten I grew up on a country holding not very far from the one we’re taking? I never thought I’d see the city until my father led the revolt that cast out Strobilos Sphrantzes. No, you needn’t fear for me on that score.”

Flustered because he
had
forgotten, Marcus said, “All right,” so un-convincingly that Alypia could not help laughing.

“It really is all right,” she assured him. “This is the happy ending the romances write about, the one we all know doesn’t happen in real life. But we have it, you and I—the villain overthrown, you with the acclaim you deserve, and the two of us together, as we should be. Is any of that bad?”

He laughed himself. “No,” he said, “especially the last,” and kissed her. He was telling the truth; his previous experience reminded him how lucky he was. One sign was the absence of the grinding fights that had punctuated his time with Helvis. But that was only the most obvious mark of a greater tranquility. Not the least reason for it, he knew, was his learning from earlier mistakes.

Yet there was no denying the part Alypia played in their contentment together. By not trying to make him over, he thought, she left him free to change for himself instead of being frozen behind a defensive shell.

The proof of her success—and perhaps of his own—was that they cared for each other more as time went by, where before happiness had steadily leaked away once passion cooled.

That was not to say he and Alypia did not have differences. She had just shown one, with her talk of happy endings. He thought the imperial religion, with its emphasis on the battles between good and evil, had much to do with that.

Scaurus had come to terms with Phos himself, but he still felt the influence of his Stoic upbringing. Endings
were
for romances, which did not have to worry about what came after them. In the real world trouble followed trouble without cease; there was only one ending, and that predetermined.

But many roads led toward it. “Call this a good beginning,” he said, and Alypia did not argue.

H
ARRY
T
URTLEDOVE
is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works
The Man with the Iron Heart; Guns of the South; How Few Remain
(winner of the Side-wise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga:
In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance
, and
Striking the Balance;
the Colonization books:
Second Contact, Down to Earth
, and
Aftershocks;
the Great War epics:
American Front, Walk in Hell
, and
Breakthroughs;
the American Empire novels:
Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold
, and
Victorious Opposition;
and the Settling Accounts series:
Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple
, and
In at the Death
. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.