Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (32 page)

Goudeles had his own peculiar form of courage. Visibly pulling himself together, he said to no one in particular, “I did not fall off the edge of the map to work an injury on a nomad.” He walked briskly up to the edge of the flames. The old shaman patted him on the back, then took his hand and escorted him into the bonfire. The blaze leaped up around them.

Lankinos Skylitzes was biting his lip when Goudeles’ voice, full of relief and jubilation, rose above the crackle of the fire. “Quite whole, thank you, and no worse than medium rare,” he called. Skylitzes set his jaw and stepped forward. Unnervingly, the old shaman appeared from out of the flames. The officer made Phos’ sun-sign over his heart once more, then reached to take the shaman’s outstretched hand.

“Here,” Skylitzes called a few moments later, laconic as usual. Then the shaman was beckoning to Gorgidas. For all his confidence, the Greek felt a qualm as he came up to the bonfire. He narrowed his eyes to slits against the glare and wondered how long it would be before Goudeles’ feeble joke turned true.

The old Arshaum’s hand, though, was cool in his, gently urging him into the flames. And as soon as he stepped into the fire, the sensation of heat vanished; it might have been any summer’s evening. He was not even sweating. He opened his eyes. The white light surrounded him, but no longer blinded. He looked down at the coals over which he walked and saw they were undisturbed by his passage. Beside him the shaman hummed tunelessly.

Darkness ahead, total after the brilliance that had bathed him. A sudden blast of heat at his back told him he was past the spell. He stumbled away from the fire. Goudeles caught and steadied him. As he regained his vision, he saw Skylitzes gazing back at the blaze like a man entranced. “All light,” the officer murmured, awe-struck. “Phos’ heaven must be thus.”

Goudeles was more practical. “If it has anything to do with Phos, it’ll fry that rascal of a Bogoraz to a crackling and do the Empire a great service.”

Gorgidas had nursed that same hope, but a few minutes later the shaman came through the fire with the Yezda envoy in hand. At last
the Greek had to pay him attention. If he had hoped Wulghash, the khagan of Yezd, would send out some half-barbarous chieflet, he saw at once he was to be disappointed.

Bogoraz was plainly of the old stock of Makuran, the state that had treated with Videssos as an equal for centuries until the Yezda swarmed down from the steppe to conquer it. In his late middle years, he stood tall and spare. He turned for a moment to look at the old shaman; outlined against the flames, a strong hooked nose gave him the brooding profile of a hawk.

His sight clearing, Wulghash’s ambassador noticed the Arshaum party and came up to them with a mocking half bow. “An interesting experience, that,” he remarked; he spoke the imperial tongue with old-fashioned phrasing but only the faintest hint of his native accent. “Who would have thought these barbarians had such mages among them?”

His eyes were hooded, again like a hawk’s; Gorgidas could make out nothing in their black depths. The rest of his face had a lean power in it that was in good accord with his build. His chin was strong and jutting, his cheekbones sharply carved. A thick graying beard, tightly curled like his hair, covered his jaw and cheeks; he let his mustaches grow long enough to hide most of his upper lip. It was a good mouth to keep concealed, wide, with full lips that could easily wear either harshness or sensuality.

The Yezda’s presence roused Skylitzes from his golden dream. He touched the hilt of his sword, growling, “I should take care of what the fire bungled.”

Bogoraz met him glare for glare, unafraid. The envoy of Yezd carried no weapons; he toyed with the bright brass—or were they gold?—buttons on his coat of brown wool, cut longer behind than before. Under the coat he wore a caftan of some light fabric, striped vertically in muted colors. “Why do you think me less pure of heart than yourself?” he asked, gesturing in sardonic amusement. Gorgidas was struck by his hands, which were slim and elegant, with long tapering fingers—a surgeon’s hands, the Greek thought.

“Because you bloody well are,” Skylitzes said, ignoring subtleties.

“Softly, my friend.” Goudeles laid a hand on the officer’s arm. “The truth must be that this is a wizard himself, though shy of admitting it,
with spells to defeat the flames.” Though he still spoke to Skylitzes, he watched Bogoraz for any telltale response to his probe.

But Bogoraz would not rise for it. “What need have I of magic?” he asked, his smile showing no more of his thoughts than a shaman’s mask might. “Truly I wish this Arghun no harm—so long as he does what he should.” The mask slipped a trifle, to show the predator behind it.

Viridovix sipped from the skin of kavass. Beside him Targitaus, who had passed it to him, belched loudly and patted his belly. “That is a wellmade tipple,” he said, “smooth and strong at the same time, like the hindquarters of a mule.”

“A mule, you say?” Viridovix needed Lipoxais’ translations less each day; he was beginning to understand the Khamorth tongue fairly well, though he still answered in Videssian when he could. “Sure and it tastes like a mule’s hind end. I miss my wine.”

Some of the plainsmen chuckled, others frowned to hear their traditional drink maligned. “What did he say?” asked Targitus’ wife Borane; like most of the women, she had no Videssian. The nomad chieftain explained. Borane rolled her eyes, then winked at the Celt. She was a heavy-featured woman, losing her looks and figure to middle age; as if to turn aside the advancing years, she affected a kittenishness that went poorly with her girth.

Her daughter Seirem showed her one-time beauty like a mirror reflecting an image twenty years gone. “If our blood-cousin does not care for kavass,” Seirem said to Targitaus, “maybe he would enjoy the felt tent.”

“What was that last?” Viridovix asked Lipoxais; he had caught the words, but not the meaning behind them.

“ ‘The felt tent,’ ” the
enaree
translated obligingly. He took the phrase too much for granted to think it needed explaining.

“By my prize bull’s pizzle,” Targitaus said, “he doesn’t know the felt tent!” He turned to his servants. “Kelemerish! Tarim! Fetch the hangings, the cauldron, and the seeds.”

The servants rummaged with alacrity in the leather sacks on the northern side of the tent. Tarim, the younger of the two, brought Targitaus
a two-eared round cauldron of bronze, full almost to the top with large flat stones. Targitaus sat it in the cookfire to heat. Kelermish gave his chieftain a fist-sized leather bag with a drawstring top. He opened it and poured a nondescript lot of greenish-brown stems, seeds, and crushed leaves into the palm of his hand.

Seeing Viridovix’ bewilderment, he said. “It’s hemp, of course.”

“Will your honor be making rope, then?” The Gaul wished Gorgidas were with him, to wring sense from this fiddle-faddle. Targitaus only snorted. Tarim and Kelermish were closing in the space round the fire with felt blankets hung from the ceiling of the pavilion, making a tent within a tent.

The Khamorth chief looked into the cauldron; the stones were beginning to glow red. He grunted in satisfaction, fished the bronze pot out of the fire by one ear with a long-shanked fork. As he carefully set it in front of Viridovix, his household crowded closer to the Gaul. “You shall have the fine seat tonight.”

“Shall I now? And what’ll I do with all these rocks? A hot stone’s all very well wrapped in flannel for a cold winter’s bed, but not for much else I can see. Sure and I can’t eat the kettleful of ’em for you.”

Had Targitaus been a Videssian, he would have responded to Viridovix’ raillery with some elaborate persiflage of his own. As it was, he dumped the handful of leafy rubbish he was holding onto the red-hot stones. A thick cloud of smoke puffed out. It did not smell like the burning grass Viridovix had expected. The odor was thicker, sweeter, almost spicy; of themselves, the Gaul’s nostrils twitched.

“What are you waiting for?” Targitaus said. “Don’t waste the fine seat; bend down and take a deep breath.”

Lured by that intriguing scent, Viridovix leaned over the cauldron until he was close enough to feel the heat radiating up into his face. He sucked in a great lungful of smoke—and then choked and coughed desperately as he tried to blow it out. His chest and windpipe felt as if he had swallowed olive coals. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Och, my puir scorched thrapple,” he wheezed, voice a ragged ghost of his usual smooth baritone.

The plainsmen found his splutters funny, which only made things worse. “It’s one way to blow the smoke around,” Targitaus chuckled, inhaling
a less concentrated draft and holding it in his lungs until the Gaul wondered that he did not burst. Other nomads were doing the same and smiling beatifically.

“He’s new to it, father. I think you did that on purpose,” Seirem accused. “Let him have another chance.”

The chieftain’s bushy eyebrows and bent nose made it impossible for him to look innocent, whether he was or not. He threw more seeds and leaves on the hot stones; a fresh cloud of fumes rose from them. He waved an invitation to Viridovix.

This time the Celt breathed more cautiously. He could not help making a wry face; however inviting the stuff smelled, it tasted like charred weeds. He coughed again but, gritting his teeth, held most of the smoke down. When he finally let it out, he saw his breath come forth, as he might on a cold winter morning.

That was interesting. He thought about it for a few seconds. They seemed to stretch endlessly. That was interesting, too. He looked at Targitaus through the murky air, which got murkier as the chieftain kept adding dried hemp to the cauldron. “Whisht! A rare potent smoke y’have there.”

Targitaus was holding his breath again and did not answer. Viridovix was not put out. He inhaled deeply himself, felt the fumes’ soft heaviness behind his eyes.

The sensation was very different from too much wine. The Gaul made a rowdy drunk, always ready for a song or a fight. Now he simply felt insulated from the world in a pleasant sort of way. He knew he could get up and do anything at need, but did not see the need. Even thinking was getting to be more trouble than it was worth.

He gave it up, leaning back on his elbows and watching the nomads around him. Some were sprawled out, limp as he was. Others stalked, low-voiced. Lipoxais was playing a lively song on a white bone flute. The notes seemed to glitter in the air and pull Viridovix after them.

His eyes found Seirem’s. A slow smile spread over his face; here was an exercise he would not be too lazy to enjoy. But this was no village of serfs, worse luck, and Seirem no peasant wench to be rumpled at a whim. “Och, the waste of it,” he said in his own tongue.

Borane did not miss the lickerish look the Gaul sent her daughter.
She said something to Seirem, too fast for Viridovix to follow. They both laughed uproariously; the nomads were an earthy folk. Seirem hid her face in her hands, peeped at the Celt through interlaced fingers, a coyness that was pure affectation. His grin was wider.

“What was she after telling you?” he asked.

The two women were laughing again. Borane made a hand gesture that showed she did not mind. Still giggling, Seirem answered him: “Something Azarmi said about you—that you were as tall as you were tall.”

In a strange language, with his wits fuzzy with fumes, it took Viridovix a little while to work that through. When he did, he chuckled himself. “Did she now?” he said, and sat a bit straighter, the better to display one sort of height, at least.

Hoofbeats thundered in the night outside the tent; Targitaus’ sentries exchanged shouts with the riders, then one of them peered through the entranceway and called for his master. Simply making himself sit had been no small feat for Viridovix, but Targitaus, swallowing an oath, stood at once and pushed his way through the crowd of nomads and out past the felt hangings round the fire. Some cool, fresh air got in as he left; the Celt gulped it gratefully.

He heard a man yelling something at the Khamorth chieftain. There was a moment of silence before Targitaus bellowed furiously. He stormed back into the tent. “Up, you lazy sons of lizards! We’ve had a herd hit!”

The plainsmen scrambled to their feet, shouting curses and questions. The hangings came down with magical speed; the Khamorth clambered for their bows and swords, their corselets of boiled leather. A few clapped on iron caps, but most kept their usual fur headgear.

Broad face dark with anger, Targitaus glared at Viridovix for his slowness. “Come on, outlander—I want you with us. This stinks of Varatesh’s work.”

“Well, well,” Goudeles said in surprised admiration. “Who would have thought the barbarians had such a sense of style?”

The comment was made
sotto voce
as the Videssian embassy approached the Gray Horse clan’s ceremonial yurt, where Arghun awaited
them. Gorgidas had to agree with the pen-pusher. The Arshaum ceremony was not much less impressive than the one with which the Videssian
hypasteos
Rhadenos Vourtzes had tried to overawe the Romans at Imbros when they were first swept into the Empire.

Here, instead of parasol bearers as a sign of rank, a stalwart nomad stood spear in hand in front of the khagan’s yurt. Others, not part of the ritual but real guards, flanked it on either side with drawn bows. Just below the standard-bearer’s glittering spearhead dangled three horsetails, symbols of the clan. The warrior was so still he might have been cast in bronze.

So, too, was the single horse that drew the ceremonial yurt. Though only a steppe pony, its coat, which was gray, had been curried till it shone, and its shaggy mane and tail combed and tied with ribbons of orange and gold. It was splendidly caparisoned, with cheekpieces of carved wood and golden harness-ornaments in the shape of griffins’ heads. To impress the eye further, it bore a magnificent orange felt saddlecloth, held in place by straps of gilded leather at chest, belly, and tail. On the sides of the cloth, applique-work griffins attacked goats, which were shown cowering away from the fierce mythical beasts.

The yurt itself was silent and closed atop its two-wheeled cart. Unlike all the others Gorgidas had seen, it was the only half-round, with a black wool curtain screening its flattened front. Three more horsetails hung on a slim standard above it.