Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (42 page)

Even gloomy Rambehisht seemed satisfied as the patrol made camp under lowering skies. “They paid for everything today,” he said, gnawing on the flattened chunk of meat he had carried under his saddle.

“Yes, and dearly!” Batbaian said. He was tending to an arrow wound in his horse’s hock. His voice cracked with excitement; combat was still new to him, and he swelled with pride on facing it successfully.

Viridovix smiled at his enthusiasm. “A pity the spalpeens twigged to the kine,” he said.

“Any trick is only good till the other fellow figures it out.” Rambehisht shrugged. “We got farther than we would have without ’em, pushed the outlaws back and our own camp forward.” He looked up at the gathering clouds. “Rain soon anyway, and then no dust to raise.”

The death of Onogon the shaman delayed whatever choice of allies the Arshaum were going to make. The clanswomen bewailed his passing, while the men mourned in silence, gashing their cheeks with knives to mark their grief.

“As for me, I’d just as soon cut my throat,” Pikridios Goudeles remarked, knowing Onogon’s loss hurt the cause of Videssos.

Arigh visited the imperial embassy’s yurt the next day, his self-inflicted wounds beginning to scab. He glumly sipped kavass, shaking his head in disbelief. “He’s really gone,” the Arshaum said, half to himself. “Somewhere down inside me, I didn’t think he could ever die. All my life he’s been just the same—he must’ve been born old. He looked as if a breeze would blow him over, but he was the wisest, kindest man I ever knew.” Perhaps it was his years in Videssos, perhaps his deep grief, but, nomad custom notwithstanding, Arigh was close to tears.

“There will be no mourning in Bogoraz’s tent,” Goudeles said, still thinking of the Empire’s interest.

“That’s so,” Arigh said indifferently. His private sorrow dimmed such concerns.

More sensitive to the plainsman’s mood than was Goudeles, Skylitzes said, “I hope his passing was easy.”

“Oh, yes. I was there—we were arguing over you folk, as a matter of fact.” Arigh gave Goudeles a tired, mocking smile. “He finished a skin, stepped outside to piddle. When he got back, he said his legs were heavy. Dizabul, curse him, laughed—said it was no wonder, the way he guzzled. Well, to be fair, Onogon took a chuckle from that.

“But he kept getting worse. The heaviness crept up his thighs, and he could not feel his feet, not even with a hard pinch. He lay down on his back, and after a bit his belly grew cold and numb, too. He covered up his face then, knowing he was going, I suppose. A few minutes later he gave a sort of a jerk, and when we uncovered him his eyes were set. He showed no pain—that old heart just finally stopped, is all.”

“A pity,” Skylitzes said, shaking his head—as much tribute as the pious officer could render to a heathen shaman.

Gorgidas had all he could do to keep from crying out. Suddenly the historian’s cloaking he had assumed sloughed away, to reveal the physician beneath. To a doctor, Onogon’s death screamed of poisoning, and he could name the very drug—hemlock. Arigh’s account described its effects perfectly; especially in the old, it would seem a natural death to those who did not know them.

When the plainsman finally left, the Greek told his comrades what he guessed. Skylitzes grunted. “I can see it,” he said judiciously.

“Oh, indeed, Bogoraz has it in him to kill,” Goudeles said. “No doubt of that. But what good does knowing do us? If we put it about, who would believe us? We would but seem to be slanderers and do ourselves no good. Unless, of course,” he added hopefully to Gorgidas, “you have a supply of this drug with which to demonstrate? On an animal, perhaps.”

“Now there’s a fine idea, Pikridios,” Skylitzes said. “He shows the stuff off, and they think we blew out the old bastard’s light. Just what we need.”

“I have none in any case,” Gorgidas said. “When I became a physician
I swore an oath to have nothing to do with deadly drugs, and was never tempted to break it.” He sat unhappily, head in his hands. It ached in him that Goudeles should be right. He hated poisons, the more so because physicians had such feeble countermeasures. Most so-called antidotes, he knew, came from old wives’ tales and were good for nothing.

The women Arghun had bestowed on the embassy knew no Videssian, but Gorgidas’, a tiny, exquisite creature named Hoelun, had no trouble understanding his dismay. She gently touched his slumped shoulder, ready to knead away his trouble. He shrugged her away. When she withdrew, silent and obedient as always, he felt ashamed, but only for a moment. Revenges on Bogoraz kept spinning through his mind; Onogon deserved better than to be murdered for the sake of a war hundreds of miles away.

He laughed without humor at one particularly bloodthirsty vengeance. Viridovix, he thought, would be proud of him—a fine irony there.

The shaman’s funeral occupied the next several days. He was buried rather than burned, common custom on the fire-wary steppe. A sleeping-mat was set in the center of a great square pit, and Onogon’s body, dressed in his wildly fringed shaman’s garb, laid on it. A roof of woven brush set atop poles formed a chamber over the corpse; the Arshaum buried gold cups with it, while Tolui, the shaman who had succeeded Onogon as the clan’s chief seer, sacrificed a horse over the grave. The blood spurted halfway across the brush roof below.

“A good omen,” Arigh said as the horse was tipped into the pit. “He will ride far in the world to come.” Almost all the clan elders were at the graveside, watching servants begin spading earth into the tomb. Gorgidas watched them in turn, trying to gauge what they were thinking. It was next to impossible; mourning overlay their features, and in any case they were as impenetrable a group of men as he had seen.

The Greek’s own short temper rose to watch Bogoraz make his way among them, exuding clouds of sincere-sounding sorrow—like a squid shooting out ink, he thought. Dizabul was at the Yezda’s side; Arshaum heads turned to hear him laugh at some remark Bogoraz made.

Wulghash’s legate and Goudeles played out their game of bribe and counterbribe, promise and bigger promise. “Insatiable,” the Videssian
groaned. “Three times now, I think, I’ve paid this Guyuk to say aye, and if Bogoraz has been at him four for a no, then all the gold’s for nothing.”

“Terrible, when you can’t trust a man to stay bought,” Gorgidas murmured, drawing a crude gesture from Goudeles and a rare smile from Skylitzes.

Whether they finally concluded there was nothing left to milk or they came to a genuine decision, the Gray Horse Arshaum sent riders out to the neighboring clans, inviting them to send envoys to a feast at which the choice would be announced. “Clever of Arghun,” said Skylitzes, who had a better feel for Arshaum usages than his comrades. “He can make clear which side he favors at the start of things, and by their custom the other won’t be able to complain.”

The envoys came quicker than Gorgidas had expected; he still found it hard to grasp how much ground the nomads could cover when they needed to. Two of them promptly reached for their blades when they saw each other and had to be pulled apart. Arghun ordered them kept under watch, just as he had the rival embassies from the powers to the south.

Even the banquet yurt was too small to hold all the feasters. After carefully clearing a stretch of earth, the Arshaum dug three firepits: a small central one for Arghun, his sons, and the ambassadors, with larger ones on either side for the khagan’s councilors and the envoys from other clans. The nomads unrolled rugs around each fire, initiating the layout of a tent as closely as they could.

“One way or the other, it will be over soon now, and there’s some relief,” Goudeles said, trying to get the creases out of a brocaded robe that had been folded in a saddlebag for several weeks. He was not having much luck.

“Unless they choose against us, and offer us up to Skotos to seal their foul bargain,” Skylitzes said. He patted his sword. “I’ll not go alone.”

Changing into his own meager finery, Gorgidas reflected on the inconsistencies that could dwell in a man. Skylitzes got on well with the Arshaum, liked them better than he did Goudeles, some ways. But in anything touching religion, he kept all the aggressive intolerance that characterized Videssians. The pen-pusher was far more broad-minded there, though to him the plainsmen were so many savages.

“Well, let’s be off,” Goudeles said with forced lightness. The suave calm he cultivated was frayed.

Gorgidas felt himself the center of all eyes as the Videssian party walked toward the feast. Agathias Psoes and his men anxiously watched the embassy, while the Arshaum themselves seemed as curious as its members about whether they would be friends or foes.

The evening was cool, with a smell of rain in the air. As well, the Greek thought, that the Arshaum had made their choice at last; another week or so and the fall storms would begin in earnest—and good luck to an outdoor feast then!

The leaping flames in the fire pits gave an inviting promise of warmth. Goudeles might have been reading Gorgidas’ mind, for he said, “Tonight I almost would not mind tramping through the coals.” He pulled his robe more tightly about him. After months in tunic and trousers, Videssian ceremonial costume was drafty.

The Greek scowled when he saw Bogoraz climb down from his yurt. Wulghash’s emissary, urbane as always, waved and hailed his rivals. “Wait for me, if you would. We shall learn our fate together.” A smile was on his full lips as he came up. It did not reach his eyes, but that meant nothing. It never did.

The Yezda diplomat’s small talk, though, was its usual polished self. “See what an eminent audience we shall perform before tonight,” he said, and the sneer in his voice was delicate enough to make Goudeles lift an envious eyebrow.

Most of the Arshaum were already in their places; some had begun to eat, and the skins of kavass were traveling among them. They grew quiet as they spied the two embassies approaching out of the twilight. With a nod to his sons to follow him, Arghun rose to meet them.

Gorgidas looked from one face to the next, trying to find his answer before the khagan gave it. Arghun was unreadable and seemed faintly amused, as if savoring the suspense he was creating. Nor was anything to be gleaned from Arigh, who stood impassive, yielding the moment to his father. But when the Greek saw Dizabul’s ill-concealed pout, he began to hope.

Arghun stepped forward, embraced Goudeles, Skylitzes, and Gorgidas
in turn. “My good friends,” he said. He greeted the Yezda envoy with a nod, civil but small. “Bogoraz.” He paused for a moment to make sure he was understood, then said, “Come. The food is waiting.”

Behind the Videssian embassy, Psoes whooped with joy. “All you can drink tonight, lads!” he shouted, and then it was his men’s turn to cheer. Bogoraz’ guards, wherever they were, were silent.

The Yezda envoy managed a courteous bob of the head for Goudeles. “I would have won, without so clever an opponent,” he said. Beaming, the Videssian bowed in return. He would have had equally insincere compliments for his rival had their places been reversed, and they both knew it.

When Dizabul started to say something, Bogoraz hushed him. “I know you did all you could for our cause, gracious prince. Now let us enjoy the fare your father offers. This custom your people have of not speaking of important matters at meals is wise, I think.” Taking the arm of Arghun’s younger son, he sat by the fire and fell to with good appetite.

Sitting in turn, Gorgidas gave him a slit-eyed look. He was still only catching about one word in three of the Arshaum speech, but tone was something else. Bogoraz did not sound like a defeated man.

“Aye, no doubt he has front,” Skylitzes allowed, dipping a strip of roast mutton into dark-yellow mustard. The Videssian officer’s eyes went wide when he tasted it. “Kavass,” he wheezed, and gulped to put out the fire.

Warned just in time, the Greek offered his own similarly anointed hunk of meat to Arigh, who said, “Thanks,” and devoured it. “Too hot for you, eh?” he chuckled. “Well, I never got used to that vile Videssian fish sauce, either.” Gorgidas, who was fond of liquamen, nodded, taking his point.

The kavass was flowing fast; their decision made, the Arshaum saw no reason to hold back. Gorgidas did not feel like waking up to a pounding head come morning. In Greek style, he was used to watering his wine when he wanted to stay close to sober. The serving girl looked at him as if he was mad, but fetched him a pitcher and a mixing cup anyway. The fermented mares’ milk was not improved for being diluted to half strength.

“A useful trick, that,” said Goudeles, who did not miss much. “You give the look of drinking twice as much as you really do.” His eyes sparkled with triumph. “Tonight, though, I don’t care how much I put down.”

On Arghun’s left, Bogoraz was eating and drinking with a fine show of unconcern. Dizabul matched him draught for draught and, being young, soon grew drunk. “Things would have been different if
I
had been khagan,” he said loudly.

“You’re not, nor likely to be,” Arigh snarled.

“Quiet, both of you,” Arghun said, scandalized. “Have you no respect for custom?” His sons obeyed, glaring at each other, Arigh suspicious of Dizabul for threatening his position, Dizabul hating Arigh—whose existence he had almost forgotten—for returning and destroying his. Strife fit for a tragedian, Gorgidas thought—Euripides, perhaps, for there was no easy right and wrong here.

Despite Arghun’s warning to his sons, the feast bent Arshaum propriety to the breaking point. It was, after all, the occasion for announcing an alliance, and one by one the envoys from the neighboring clans found their way over to the central firepit to meet the Videssian ambassadors. Some spoke to Bogoraz as well, but most seemed ready to follow Arghun’s lead; the Gray Horse clan held the widest pastures and was thus the most influential on the plains of Shaumkhiil.

The succession of tipsy barbarians soon bored Gorgidas, who did not envy his companions for having to be cordial toward each of them in turn. Sometimes being unimportant had advantages.

The only nomad who briefly managed to rouse the Greek’s interest was the envoy of the Black Sheep clan, the most powerful next to Arghun’s. His name was Irnek; tall and, for an Arshaum, heavily bearded, he carried himself with an air of sardonic intelligence. Gorgidas feared he might favor Bogoraz simply from ill will between his clan and that of the Gray Horse, but Irnek, after a long, cool, measuring stare, ignored the Yezda diplomat.