Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (34 page)

The clan leader said sadly, “I wish you were right, boy. This is Varatesh’s way of trying to make me afraid and make me sorry for sheltering the outlander here.” He bobbed his head, so like Batbaian’s, at Viridovix.

To the Gaul, though, the savagery he saw here called up another memory, of a body outside the walls of Videssos the city, when the legionaries were helping Thorisin Gavras lay siege to the Sphrantzai within. Along with other torments, poor Doukitzes’ outraged corpse had borne a name sliced into its forehead: Rhavas. As soon came clear, that needed but a rearrangement of letters to reveal the killer.

“It’s Avshar’s sport I make this,” he said. “I’ve tried to tell you of him till the now and made no headway at it—the which I canna blame you for, as you’d not seen the way of him. But hark, an you will.” In the Khamorth speech as best he could, in Videssian when it failed him, he spoke of Doukitzes and much else: of the wizard-prince’s duel with Scaurus when the Romans first came to Videssos the city; of Maragha and afterward, and Mavrikios Gavras’ head flung into the legionary camp; of the Grand Courtroom in the capital, and Avshar’s sorcery for making the worst of his rogues invulnerable to steel.

The obscenity and cruelty of that last tale shook the plainsmen. “He made his magic with a woman, you say?” Targitaus demanded, as if he thought his ears were tricking him.

“Aye, and with her unborn wean ripped from her,” the Celt replied. The plainsman shuddered. Where the slaughter of his beasts left him coldly furious, here was malice worse than he had dreamed possible.

With youth’s temerity, Batbaian cried, “Let’s be rid of him, then—burn
his tent over his head and all who follow him, too!” Looking at their cattle, with Viridovix’ words still hanging over them, the Khamorth shouted, “Aye!”

And, “Aye,” said Targitaus as well, but softly. Where his clansmen had only caught the horror in the Gaul’s tale, he also saw what it revealed of Avshar’s power. “Aye,” he said again, and added, “if we can.”

He looked at Viridovix, not happily. “I see it is time to gather the clans against Varatesh and this Avshar of yours.”

“Past time,” Viridovix said at once, and Batbaian gave a vigorous nod. Despite Targitaus’ ringing promises of war on the outlaw chief, weeks had dragged by without much happening.

The chief looked uncomfortable. “You come from Videssos, outlander, where the khag—er, the Emperor, tells his men, ‘Do this,’ and they do it or lose their heads. It is not like that on the plains. If I go to Ariapith of the Oglos River clan, or Anakhar of the Spotted Cats, or Krobyz of the Leaping Goats and tell them we should clean out Varatesh together, the first thing they will say is, ‘Who leads?’ What do I answer? Me? They will say I try to set my Wolfskins up as Royal Clan, and have nothing to do with me.”

“Royal Clan?” the Celt echoed.

“Sometimes a clan will get the better of all the ones around it and rule the steppe for a while, even for a man’s life, until they get free and pull it down.” Ambition glowed in Targitaus’ eyes. “Every khagan dreams of founding a Royal Clan and has nightmares his neighbor will do it first. So each watches the next, and no one gets too strong.”

“So that’s the way of it, eh?” Suddenly Viridovix found himself on familiar ground. In Gaul before the Romans came, the tribes were constantly jockeying for position, squabbling and intriguing for all they were worth. The Aedui had held pride of place until the Sequani allied with the Ubii from over the Rhine and usurped their dominant position. In the process, though, they had made Ariovistus the German the most powerful man in Gaul.…

The Celt’s eyes sparked green; he whooped with glee and clapped his hands together. “How’s this?” he said to Targitaus, who had swung round in surprise, half drawing his sword. “Suppose you’re after telling old Crowbait o’ the Spotted Hamsters, or whatever his fool name is, that
Varatesh is aiming to make his piratical spalpeens Royal Clan, the which is nothing less than true. Sure and he’d piss himself or ever he let that happen, now wouldn’t he?”

He could all but hear the wheels spinning inside the nomad chief’s head. Targitaus looked at Batbaian, who was staring at Viridovix with awe on his face; the young are easily impressed on hearing things they have not thought of for themselves. “Hmm,” said Targitaus, and the Gaul knew he had won.

Batbaian exclaimed, “Guide your herds right in this, father, and it’d be you who’d be Royal Clan khagan!”

“Me? Nonsense, boy,” Targitaus said gruffly, but Viridovix saw the thought had struck him before his son voiced it. He chuckled to himself.

Dizabul stabbed the last strip of broiled rabbit from the boiled-leather bowl he held in his lap, chewed noisily with the good manners of the steppe. He leaned forward; the cook lifted more sizzling meat from the griddle with a pair of wooden tongs, refilled his bowl. He sat back with a smile of thanks. Turning to his left, he murmured something to Bogoraz and flourished the elegant dagger the Yezda envoy had given him. That dazzling smile flashed again.

Slurping kavass from a golden goblet, Gorgidas covertly admired the young man, whose beauty stirred a pleasant pain in him. In the nomad way, Arghun had provided women for the Videssian embassy, but though Gorgidas was finding he could perform with them for necessity’s sake, they did not satisfy him. After each coupling he felt as a sailor might who turned at sea to a shipmate to relieve his lusts although caring nothing for love of men ashore.

With a stab of pain and loss, he remembered Quintus Glabrio’s slim, quiet, intent face, remembered the mixed amusement and distaste with which the junior centurion had spoken of his time with a Videssian girl. “Damaris deserved something different from me, I suppose,” he’d said once, adding with a wry laugh, “
She
certainly thought so after a while.” That liaison had broken up in spectacular style, along with much crockery.

Thinking of Glabrio helped put Dizabul in perspective. The Roman had been a man, a partner, while the Arshaum princeling showed every
sign of being no more than a much-coddled younger son, with spiteful temper to match. Moreover, Gorgidas had learned, he had a son and two daughters of his own by slaves and serving girls.

The Greek drank again. Still, no denying he was lovely.

In his musings over Dizabul, Gorgidas had given scant attention to the great banquet tent. That did it less than justice; it was as important to the Arshaum as the Imperial Palace was to Videssos and had proportional splendor lavished on it. The yurt was the largest he had seen on the plains, easily forty feet across and drawn by a team of twenty-two horses.

Outside, its thick, felt panels had been chalked white to make it stand out against the drab steppe. Now the Greek noticed the silk hangings that lined the stick framework within, work as splendid as any the Empire could boast. The shimmering fabric was dyed saffron and green; the embroidered horses galloping across it were executed with the barbaric vigor that characterized nomad art.

Arghun, his sons, and the rival embassies sat round the cookfire on rugs of thick, soft wool. The clan’s elders made a couple of larger circles around them. The Arshaum sat cross-legged, with either boot hiked onto the opposite thigh. Their guests sprawled every which way—unless practiced from birth, the nomad posture was fiendishly uncomfortable.

At his father’s right, Arigh twisted himself into the position for a while, then gave it up with a rueful headshake and a loud creak from his knees. “You’ve been in Videssos too long,” Skylitzes told him.

The look Dizabul gave his brother said he would have liked it better had Arigh stayed there longer still.

“Until we got here, I didn’t know you had a brother,” Goudeles said to Arigh; Gorgidas was not the only one who’d seen that poisonous stare.

“I’d almost forgotten him myself,” Arigh said, dismissing Dizabul with a wave of his hand. “He was just a brat underfoot when I left for the Empire seven or eight years ago—hasn’t changed much, looks like.” He spoke Videssian so his brother would not understand, but Gorgidas frowned when Bogoraz whispered behind his hand to Dizabul. A flush climbed the young man’s high cheekbones, and the scowl he sent Arigh’s way made his earlier glower seem loving by comparison.

Servants scurried back and forth, filling goblets from silver pitchers of kavass and fetching food for the Arshaum not within arm’s length of
the cook. Along with the rabbit Dizabul enjoyed, there was an enormous roasted bird. “Eh? It’s a crane,” Arigh said in reply to Gorgidas’ question. “Good, too—haven’t eaten one in years.” With that nomad way he had no trouble; his strong white teeth ripped meat away from a legbone. The Greek controlled his enthusiasm. The bird was tasty, but tough as leather.

The mutton and tripes were better, as were the cheeses, both hard and soft; some of the last had sweet berries stirred through them. As well as the kavass, there was fresh milk from cows, goats, and horses, none of which tempted Gorgidas. He would have paid a pretty price for real wine or a handful of salted olives.

When he remarked on that, Arigh shook his head with a grimace of disgust. “Wine is a good thing, but in all the time I was in Videssos I never got used to olives. They taste funny, and the imperials put them in everything. And the oil stinks.” Arshaum lamps burned butter, which to the Greek’s nose had its own pervasive, greasily unpleasant smell.

Conversation in the banquet tent was halting, and not only because of the language barrier. Arigh had warned the Videssian embassy that Arshaum custom did not allow serious business to be discussed at feasts. It let Gorgidas enjoy his food more, but left him bored with the few snatches of talk he could follow.

Bogoraz, who had a gift for rousing trouble without seeming to mean to, skated close to the edge of what custom permitted. Without ever mentioning his reasons for coming onto the steppe, he bragged of Yezd’s might and the glory of his overlord the khagan Wulghash. Skylitzes kept translating his boasts and grew angrier by the minute. Satisfaction and sardonic amusement in his eyes, Bogoraz stayed on his course, never saying anything against Videssos in so many words, but hurting its cause with every urbane sentence.

After a while, Skylitzes’ knuckles grew white on the stem of his goblet. The clan councilors were beginning to chuckle among themselves at the fury he had to hold in. “I’ll tell that sleazy liar something!” he growled.

“No!” Arigh and Goudeles said together. The pen-pusher went on, “Don’t you see, he’ll have you in the wrong if you answer him.”

“Is this better, to be nibbled to death with his sly words?”

Surprised at his own daring, Gorgidas said, “I know a story that might put him in his place.”

Skylitzes, Goudeles, and Arigh all stared at the Greek. To the Videssians he was almost as much a barbarian as the Arshaum, not to be taken seriously; Arigh tolerated him largely because he was Viridovix’ friend. “You won’t break custom?” he warned.

Gorgidas tossed his head. “No, it’s just a story.” Goudeles and Skylitzes looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded, at a loss for any better idea.

Bogoraz, whose Videssian was certainly better than the Greek’s, had listened to this exchange with amiable disdain, seeing that Gorgidas’ companions did not put much faith in him. His heavy-lidded eyes screened his contempt as Gorgidas dipped his head to Arghun and, with Arigh translating, said, “Khagan, this man from Yezd is a fine speaker, no doubt of it. His words remind me of a tale of my own people.”

Beyond what was required for politeness, the Arshaum chieftain had not paid Gorgidas much attention either. Now he looked at him with fresh interest; in a folk that did not read, a tale-teller was someone to be respected. “Let us hear it,” he said, and the elders fell quiet to listen.

Pleased Arghun had swallowed the hook, Gorgidas plunged in: “A long time ago, in a country called Egypt, there was a great king named Sesostris.” He saw men’s lips moving, fixing the strange names in their memories. “Now this Sesostris was a mighty warrior and conqueror, just as our friend Bogoraz says his master Wulghash is.” The smile slipped on the Yezda’s face; the sarcasm he relished was not so enjoyable coming back at him.

“Sesostris conquered many countries, and took their princes and kings as his slaves to show how powerful he was. He even put them in harness and made them pull his, er, yurt.” As the Greek had heard the story, it was a chariot; he made the quick switch to suit his audience.

“One day he noticed that one of the princes kept looking back over his shoulder at the yurt’s wheels. He asked the fellow what he was doing.

“And the prince answered, ‘I’m just watching how the wheels go round and round, and how what was once at the bottom is now on top, and what used to be high is brought low.’ Then he turned round again and put his shoulder into his work.

“But Sesostris understood him, and they say that, for all his pride, he stopped using princes to haul his yurt.”

The strange sounding mutter of conversation in a foreign tongue picked up again as the Arshaum considered the tale, talked about it among themselves. One or two of them sent amused glances toward Bogoraz, thinking back to his boasts. As befit his station, Arghun held his face expressionless. He said a few words to his elder son, who turned to Gorgidas. “He thanks you for an, ah, enjoyable story.”

“I understood him.” Repeating his half bow to the khagan, the Greek tried to say that in the Arshaum speech. Arghun did smile, then, and corrected his grammar.

Bogoraz, too, wore a diplomat’s mask, set so hard it might have been carved from granite. He aimed his hooded eyes at Gorgidas like a snake charming a bird. The Greek was not one to be put in fear by such ploys, but knew he had made an enemy.

G
ARSAVRA, ONCE REACHED, MADE ALL THE FACTIONAL STRIFE
M
ARCUS
had seen in Videssos seem as nothing. On the march west the legionaries had captured and sent back to the capital upwards of a thousand Namdaleni, fleeing their defeat at the hands of the Yezda in the small, disordered bands any beaten army breaks into. A hundred or so still held the motte-and-bailey outside Garsavra, defying Roman and Yezda alike. The tribune did not try to force them out; they were more useful against the nomads nosing down from the plateau than dangerous to his own men.