Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (88 page)

Then, quite suddenly, the enemy was reeling away, each man fleeing to save himself, with no thought of holding together as a fighting force. The Arshaum and Erzrumi cheered each other till they were hoarse. The way clear before them, they pushed into Yezd.

G
AIUS
P
HILIPPUS SLAPPED AT A HORSEFLY BUZZING ROUND THE HEAD
of the bony gray nag he was riding. It droned away. He growled, “I’m amazed this arse-busting chunk of buzzards’ bait has enough life in it to draw flies.
Get
up, you mangy old crock! Make it to Amorion by sundown and you can rest.”

He jerked on the reins. The gray gave him a reproachful look and came out of its amble for a few paces’ worth of shambling trot. It blew until its skinny sides heaved, as if the exertion were too much for it. As soon as it thought it had satisfied him, it fell back into a walk. “Miserable gluepot,” he said, chuckling in spite of himself.

“It’s an old soldier, sure enough,” Marcus said. “Be thankful it’s not better—it didn’t tempt the Yezda into trying to steal it.”

“I should hope not!” Gaius Philippus said, taking perverse pride in his decrepit mount. “Remember that one whoreson who looked us over a couple of days ago? He fell off his pony laughing.”

“As well for us,” the tribune answered. “He was probably a scout for a whole band of them.”

At that thought he slipped out of the bantering mood. The journey inland from Nakoleia was much worse that he had expected. The port was still in Videssian hands, but its hinterland swarmed with Yezda, who swooped down on farmers whenever they tried to work their fields. If the Empire had not kept the city supplied by sea, it could not have survived.

Most of the villages on the dirt track that led south were deserted, or nearly so. Even a couple of towns that had kept their ancient walls through the centuries of imperial peace now stood empty. The Yezda made growing or harvesting crops impossible, and so the towns, though safe from nomad siege, withered. He wondered how many had died when they were forced to open their gates, and how many managed to get away.

It occurred to him that the devastation the nomads were inflicting on the westlands had happened on a vastly greater scale long before, when the Khamorth swarmed off the edge of the steppe into Videssos’ eastern provinces. He shook his head. No wonder those lands had fallen into the heresy of reckoning Skotos’ power equal to that of Phos; evil incarnate must have seemed loose in the world.

A squad of horsemen came round a bend in the road, trotting briskly north. Their leader swung up an arm in warning when he caught sight of the Romans, then brought it down halfway as he recognized they were not Yezda. He rode up to inspect them. Scaurus saw that he had helmet, shortsword, and bow, but no body armor. His men were similarly equipped and mounted on a motley set of animals. The tribune had met their like on the road the day before—Zemarkhos’ men.

The squad leader drew the sun-sign over his heart. Marcus and Gaius Philippus quickly imitated him; it would have been dangerous not to. “Phos with you,” the Videssian said. He was in his late twenties, tall, stringy, scarred like a veteran, with disconcertingly sharp eyes.

“And with you,” the tribune returned.

A tiny test had been passed; the Videssian’s head moved a couple of inches up and down. He asked, “Well, strangers, what are you doing in the dominions of the Defender of the Faithful?” Having heard Zemarkhos’ self-chosen title from the riders he had come across yesterday, Marcus did not blink at it.

“We’re for the holy Moikheios’
panegyris
at Amorion,” he said, giving the cover story he and Gaius Philippus had worked out aboard the
Seafoam
. “Maybe we can sign on as caravan guards with one of the merchants there.”

The squad leader said, “That could be.” He studied the tribune. “By your tongue and hair, you are no Videssian, but you do not look like a Vaspurakaner. Are you one of the Namdalener heretics?”

For once Marcus was glad of his blondness; though it marked him as a foreigner, it also showed he was not of the sort Zemarkhos’ men killed on sight. He recited Phos’ creed in the version the Empire used; the Namdaleni appended “On this we stake our very souls” to it, an addition which raised the hackles of Videssian theologians. Gaius Philippus followed his lead. He went through the creed haltingly, but got it right.

The horsemen relaxed and took their hands away from their weapons. “Orthodox enough,” their chief said, “and no one will take it ill if you hold to that usage. Still, you’ll find that many, out of respect for our lord Zemarkhos, add ‘We also bless the Defender of thy true faith,’ after ‘decided in our favor.’ As I say, it is optional, but it may make them think the better of you in Amorion.”

“ ‘We also bless the Defender of thy true faith,’ ” Scaurus and Gaius Philippus repeated, as if memorizing the clause. Zemarkhos, it seemed, had a perfectly secular love of self-aggrandizement, no matter how he phrased it. The tribune kept his face blank. “Thanks for the tip,” he said.

“It’s nothing,” the Videssian answered. “Outlanders who come to the true belief of their own accord deserve to be honored. Good luck in town—we’re off to watch for Yezda thieves and raiders.”

“And filthy Vaspurakaners, too,” one of his men added. “Some of the stinking bastards are still skulking around, for all we can do to root ’em out.”

“That’s not so bad,” said another. “They make better sport than bustards, or even foxes. I caught three last winter.” He spoke matter-of-factly, as he might of any other game. Scaurus’ twinge of regret at his hyprocrisy over the creed disappeared.

The squad leader touched a forefinger to the rim of his helmet, nodded to the Romans, and started to lead his troops away. Gaius Philippus, who had been mostly silent till then, called after him. He paused. The senior centurion said, “I was through these parts a few years ago and made some good friends at a town called Aptos. Have the Yezda got it, or Zemarkhos?”

“It’s ours,” the Videssian said.

“Glad to hear it.” Marcus suspected Gaius Philippus was mostly worried about Nerse Phorkaina, the widow of the local noble; Phorkos had died at Maragha. She was the only woman the tribune had heard Gaius Philippus praise, but when the legionaries had wintered at Aptos the veteran did nothing at all to let her know his admiration. Fear of one sort or another, Marcus thought, found a place to root in everyone.

Amorion was no great city, even next to Garsavra, only a dusty town in the middle of the westlands’ central plateau. Without the Ithome River, the place would have had no reason for being. But the only two times Marcus had seen it, it was jammed past overflowing, first by Mavrikios Gavras’ army marching west toward disaster and now with the
panegyris
.

Twilight was descending when the Romans rode between the parallel rows of commercial tents outside the city. Thorisin had been right; in the crush they were just another pair of strangers. A merchant with the long rectangular face and liquid eyes of the Makuraners laughed in staged amazement at the price a Videssian offered him for his pistachioes. Half a dozen turbaned nomads from the desert south of the Sea of Salt—slender, big-nosed men with a family likeness—were packing up their incenses and quills of spice till morning. They had camels tethered back of their tent; Marcus’ horse shied at the unfamiliar stink of them.

A priest dickered with a fat farmer over a mule. The rustic’s respect for the blue robe was not making him drop his price any. Somehow a Namdalener merchant had found his way to Amorion with a packhorse-load of clay lamps. He was doing a brisk business. The priest bought one after the mule seller laughed in his face.

“I don’t see
him
making it hot for heretics,” Gaius Philippus remarked.

“Seems to me ‘heretics’ and ‘Vaspurakaners’ mean the same thing to Zemarkhos,” Scaurus answered. “He’s got himself and his people worked into such a froth about them that he has no time to stew over anybody else’s mischief.”

The senior centurion grunted thoughtfully. Caravan masters, lesser merchants, swaggering guardsmen, and bargain hunters represented a great sweep of nations, some heterodox, others outside Phos’ cult altogether, yet every one of them carried on undisturbed by the clergy. But not a single Vaspurakaner was to be seen, although the land of the “princes”—as they called themselves—was not far northwest of Amorion, and although many of them had settled round the city after Yezda assaults made them flee Vaspurakan. Zemarkhos’ pogroms had done their work well.

The Romans rode past a caravan leader—a tall, wide, swag-bellied
man with a shaved head, great jutting prow of a nose, and drooping black mustachioes almost as splendid as Viridovix’—cursing at a muleteer for letting one of his beasts go lame. He swore magnificently, in several languages mixed to blistering effect; his voice was the bass crash of rocks thundering down a mountainside. By unspoken joint consent, Scaurus and Gaius Philippus pulled up to listen and admire.

The caravaneer spotted them out of the corner of his eye. He broke off with a shouted, “And don’t let it happen again, you motherless wide-arsed pot of goat puke!” Then he put meaty hands on hips in a theatrical gesture that matched his clothes—he wore a maroon silk tunic open to the waist, baggy wool trousers dyed a brilliant blue tucked into gleaming black knee-high boots, a gold ring in his right ear, and one of silver in his left. Three of his teeth were gold, too; they sparkled when he grinned at the Romans. “You boys have a problem?”

“Only trying to remember what all you called him,” Gaius Philippus said, grinning back.

“Ha! Not half what he deserves.” A chuckle rumbled deep in the trader’s chest. He gave the Romans a second, longer look. “You’re fighters.” It was not a question. With a broad-bladed dagger and stout, unsheathed cutlass on his belt, the caravaneer recognized his own breed. “I’m short a couple of outriders—are you interested? I’ll take the both of you in spite of that horrible screw you’re riding there, gray-hair.”

“Why did you think I wanted your curses?” Gaius Philippus retorted.

“Don’t blame you a bit. Well, what say? It’s a goldpiece a month, all you can eat, and a guardsman’s share of the profits at the end of the haul. Are you game?”

“We may be back in a day or two,” Marcus said; it would not do to refuse outright, for their story’s sake. “We have business to attend to in town before we can make plans.”

“Well, you can paint me with piss before I tell you I’ll hold the spots, but if I haven’t filled ’em by then, I’ll still think about you. I’ll be here—between the damn Yezda and all this hooplah over the Vaspurs, things are slow. Ask for me if you don’t see me; I’m Tahmasp.” The Makuraner name explained his slight guttural accent and his indifference to Zemarkhos’ persecution, except where it interfered with trade.

Someone bawled Tahmasp’s name. “I’m coming!” he yelled back. To the Romans he said, “If I see you, I’ll see you,” and lumbered away.

Gaius Philippus booted his horse in the ribs. “Come on, you overgrown snail.” He said to Marcus, “You know, I wouldn’t half mind serving under that big-nosed bastard.”

“Never a dull moment,” Scaurus agreed. The centurion laughed and nodded.

At any other time of the year Amorion would have shut down with nightfall, leaving its winding, smelly streets to footpads and those few rich enough to hire link-bearers and bodyguards to hold them at bay. But during the
panegyris
of the holy Moikheios, the town’s main thoroughfare blazed with torches to accomodate the night vigils, competing choirs, and processions with which the clergy celebrated their saint’s festival.

“Buy some honied figs?” called a vendor with a tray slung over his shoulder. When Marcus did, the man said, “Phos and Moikheios and the Defender bless you, sir. Here, squeeze in beside me and grab yourselves a place—the big parade’ll be starting before long.” The Defender again, was it? The tribune frowned at the hold Zemarkhos had on Amorion. But he had an idea how to break it.

Practical as always, Gaius Philippus said, “We’d best find somewhere to stay.”

“Try Souanites’ inn,” the fig seller said eagerly. He gave rapid directions, adding, “I’m called Leikhoudes. Mention my name for a good rate.”

To make sure I get my cut, Marcus translated silently. Having no better plan, he made Leikhoudes repeat the directions, then followed them. To his surprise, they worked. “Yes, I have something, my masters,” Souanites said. It proved to be piles of heaped straw in the stable with their horses at the price of a fine room, but Scaurus took it without argument. Each stall had a locking door; Souanites might see his place near empty the rest of the year, but he made the most of the
panegyris
when it came.

After they stowed their gear and saw to their animals, Gaius Philippus asked, “Do you care anything about this fool parade?”

“It might be a chance to find out what we’re up against.”

“Or get nailed before we’re started,” Gaius Philippus said gloomily, but with a sigh he followed the tribune into the street.