Misplaced Legion (Videssos Cycle) (33 page)

When Ortaias Sphrantzes understood the Emperor was through at last, he put the map down with relief.

Marcus shared the officers’ enthusiasm. Mavrikios’ plan was in keeping with what the Roman had come to expect of Videssian designs—ponderous, but probably effective. He seemed to be leaving little to chance. That was as it should be, with so much soldiering in his past. All that remained was to convert plan to action.

As with everything else within the Empire, ceremony surrounded the great army’s preparations for departure. The people of Videssos, who not long before had done their best to tear that army apart, now sent heavenward countless prayers for its success. A solemn liturgy was scheduled in the High Temple on the night before the troops were to leave.

Scaurus, as commander of the Romans, received the stamped roll of heavy parchment entitling him to a pair of coveted seats at the ritual. “Whom do you suppose I can give these to?” he asked Helvis. “Do you have any friends who might want them?”

“If that’s meant as a joke, I don’t find it funny,” she replied. “We’ll go ourselves, of course. Even though I don’t
fully share the Videssian creed, it would be wrong to start so important an undertaking without asking Phos’ blessing on it.”

Marcus sighed. When he asked Helvis to share his life, he had not anticipated how she would try to shape it into a pattern she found comfortable. He did not oppose the worship of Phos but, when pushed in a direction he did not want to take, his natural reaction was to dig in his heels.

Nor was he used to considering anyone else’s wishes when planning his own actions. Since reaching the age of manhood he had steered his own course and ignored advice he had not sought. But Helvis was used to having her opinions taken into account; Scaurus remembered how angry she had been when he was close-mouthed over what the council of war decided. He sighed again. Nothing, he told himself, was as simple as it looked to be at its beginnings.

He held firm in his plans to avoid the service at the High Temple until he saw Neilos Tzimiskes’ horror when he offered the Videssian the chance to go in his place. “Thank you for the honor,” the borderer stammered, “but it would look ill indeed if you did not attend. All the great captains will be there—even the Khamorth will come, though they have scant use for Phos.”

“I suppose so,” Scaurus grumbled. But put in those terms, he could see the need for appearing; no less than Balsamon’s unsuccessful sermon had been, this was an occasion for a public display of unity. And, he thought, it would certainly help the unity of his new household. There, at least, he was not mistaken.

That was as well; preparations for the coming campaign were leaving him exhausted and short-tempered at the end of every day. Roman discipline and order were still intact, so having his men ready was no problem. They could have left the day after Mavrikios’ council—or the day before. But Videssian armies marched in greater luxury than a Caesar would have tolerated. As was true in the oriental monarchies Rome had known, great flocks of noncombatants accompanied the soldiers, including their women. And trying to get them in any sort of traveling order was a task that made Marcus understand the doom ordained for Sisyphos.

By the night of the liturgy, the tribune was actually looking forward to it and wondering how Balsamon would manage to
astound his listeners this time. When he entered the High Temple, Helvis clinging proudly to his arm, he found she and Tzimiskes had been right—he could not have afforded to miss the gathering. The Temple was packed with the high officers and functionaries of every state allied against Yezd and with their ladies. It was hard to say which sex made a more gorgeous display, the men in their burnished steel and bronze, wolfskin and leather, or the women showing off their gowns of linen and clinging silk and their own soft, powdered flesh.

Men and women alike rose as the patriarch of Videssos made his way to his ivory throne. When he and his flock offered Phos their fundamental prayer, tonight there were many Namadaleni to finish the creed with their own addition: “On this we stake our very lives.” At Marcus’ side Helvis did so with firm devotion and looked about defiantly to see who might object. Few Videssians seemed offended; on this night, with all kinds of heretics and outright unbelievers in the Temple, they were willing to overlook outlanders’ barbarous practices.

When the service was done, Balsamon offered his own prayer for the success of the enterprise Videssos was undertaking and spoke at some length of the conflict’s importance and the need for singleness of purpose in the face of the western foe. Everything he said was true and needed saying, but Marcus was still disapointed at his sermon. There was little of Balsamon’s usual dry wit, nor did his delivery have its normal zest. The patriarch seemed very tired and halfhearted about his sermon. It puzzled Scaurus and concerned him, too.

But Balsamon grew more animated as his talk progressed and ended strongly. ‘A man’s only guide is his conscience—it is his shield when he does well and a blade to wound him if he falters. Now take up the shield of right and turn back evil’s sword—bow not to wickedness’ will, and that sword can never harm you!”

As his listeners applauded his words and calls of “Well said!” came from throughout the Temple, above them rose the massed voices of the choir in a triumhant hymn to Phos, and with them the bell players whose music had intrigued Scaurus before. Now he was sitting at an angle that let him watch them work, and his fascination with them was enough to wipe away a good part of the letdown at Balsamon’s pedestrian address.

The twoscore players stood behind a long, padded table. Each had before him some half dozen polished bells of various sizes and tones. Along with their robes, the players wore kidskin gloves to avoid smudging the bright bell metal. They followed the direction of their bellmaster with marvelous speed and dexterity, changing and chiming their bells in perfect unison. It was, Marcus found, as entrancing to watch as to hear.

The bellmaster was a show in himself. A dapper little man, he led his charges with slightly exaggerated, theatrical gestures, his body swaying to the hymn he was conducting. His face wore a look of exaltation, and his eyes never opened. It was several minutes before Scaurus realized he was blind; he hardly seemed to need to see, for his ears told him more than most men’s eyes ever would.

If the music of the bells impressed the unmusical tribune, it delighted Helvis, who said, “I’ve heard the Temple’s bell players praised many times, but never had the chance to listen to them before. They were another reason I wanted to be here tonight.” She looked at Marcus quizzically. “If I’d known you liked them, I would have used them as an argument for coming.”

He had to smile. “Probably just as well you didn’t.” He found it hard to imagine being persuaded to go anywhere by the promise of music. Still, there was no doubt the bell players added spice to what otherwise would have been an unsatisfying evening.

The Emperor ordered criers through the streets to warn the people of Videssos to spend the following day at home. The major thoroughfares were packed tight with soldiers in full kit, with nervous horses and braying donkeys, wagons carrying the warriors’ families and personal goods, other wagons driven by sutlers, and still others loaded with every imaginable sort of military hardware. Tempers shortened more quickly than the long files of men, animals, and wains inching toward the quays where ships and boats waited to take them over the Cattle-Crossing to the Empire’s westlands.

The Romans, as part of Mavrikios’ Imperial Guard, had little waiting before they crossed. Everything went smoothly as could be, except for Viridovix. The luckless Celt spent the
entire journey—fortunately for him, one of less than half an hour—leaning over the galley’s rail, retching helplessly.

“Every time I’m on the water it happens to me,” he moaned between spasms. The usual ruddiness had faded from his features, leaving him fishbelly pale.

“Eat hard-baked bread crumbled in wine,” Gorgidas recommended, “or, if you like, I have a decoction of opium that will help, though it will leave you drowsy for a day.”

“Eat—” The very word was enough to send the Gaul lurching toward the rail. When he was through he turned back to Gorgidas. Tears of misery stood in hs eyes. “I thank your honor for the advice and all, but it’d be too late to do me the good I need. Dry dirt, bless it, under my feet will serve me better than any nostrum ever you made.” He cringed as another wavelet gently lifted the ship’s bow.

With their small harbors, Videssos’ suburbs on the western shore of the Cattle-Crossing could not hope to handle the avalanche of shipping descending on them. The capital was the Empire’s chief port and, jealous of its status, made sure no other town nearby could siphon business from it.

Nevertheless, the armada of sharp-beaked slim galleys, merchantmen, fishing boats, barges, and various motley small craft did not have to stand offshore to disembark its host. Videssian ships, like the ones the Romans built, were even at their biggest small and light enough to stand beaching without damage. For several miles up and down the coast, oars drove ships ashore so men and beasts could splash through the surf to land. Sailors and soldiers cursed together as they labored to empty hulls of supplies. That also lightened the beached craft and made them easier to refloat.

Viridovix was so eager to reach land that he vaulted over the rail before the ship was quite aground and came down with a splash neck-deep in the sea. Cursing in Gaulish, he floundered onto the beach, where he lay at full length just beyond the reach of the waves. He hugged the golden sand as he would a lover. Less miserable and thus more patient, the Romans followed him.

The imperial galley came ashore not far from where they were disembarking. First out of it were Mavrikios’ ever-present Haloga guardsmen. Like the Romans, they left their vessel by scrambling down rope ladders and nets cast over the
side. Then, watchful as always, they hurried to take up positions to ward off any sudden treachery.

For an Emperor, however, even one who set as little store in ceremony as Mavrikios Gavras, clambering down a rope would not do. As soon as his guards were in place, a gangplank of gilded wood was laid from ship to beach. But when the Emperor was about to step onto the sand, his booted foot came down on the hem of his long purple robe. He tripped and went to all fours on the beach.

Romans, Halogai, and Videssian seamen alike stared in consternation. What omen could be worse for a campaign than to have its leader fall before it began? Someone made a sign to avert evil.

But Mavrikios was equal to the occasion. Rising to his knees, he held aloft two fistsful of sand and said loudly, “Videssos, I have tight hold of you!” He got to his feet and went about his business as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

And, after a moment or two, so did the men who had witnessed the mishap. The Emperor’s quick wits had succeeded in turning a bad omen into a good one. Discussing it that evening, Gaius Philippus gave Mavrikios his ultimate accolade. “Caesar,” he declared, “couldn’t have done it better.”

Like a multitude of little streams running together to form a great river, the Videssian army gathered itself on the western shore of the Cattle-Crossing. The transfer from the capital had been far easier than Marcus had expected. There were, it seemed, some advantages after all to the minute organization that was such a part of life in the Empire.

That organization showed its virtue again as the march to Garsavra began. Scaurus doubted if Rome could have kept so huge a host fed without its pillaging the countryside and gave his men stem orders against foraging. But plundering for supplies never came close to being necessary. No Yezda had yet come so far east, and the local officials had no trouble providing the army and its hangers-on with markets adequate for their needs. Grain came by oxcart and rivercraft, along with herds of cattle and sheep for meat.

Hunters added to the meat bag with deer and wild boar. In the case of the latter, there were times when Scaurus was not
sure the pig was truly wild. Videssian hogs shared with their boarish cousins a lean, rangy build, a strip of bristly hair down their backs, and a savage disposition. Stealing one of them could give a hunting party as lively a time as going after a wild boar. The tribune enjoyed gnawing the fat-rich, savory meat from its bones too much to worry over its source for long.

The first leg of the march from the city was a time of shaking down, a time for troops too long in soft billets to begin to remember how they earned their pay. For all the drills and mock fights Gaius Philippus had put the Romans through, they were not quite the same hard-bitten, hungry band who had fought in Gaul. Their belts had gone out a notch or two and, most of all, they were not used to a full day’s march, even one at the slow pace of the army they accompanied.

At the end of each of the first few days out of the capital, the legionaries were glad to collapse and try to rub some life back into their aching calves and thighs. Gorgidas and the other medics were busy treating blisters, laying on a thick ointment of lard mixed with resin and covering the sores with bandages of soft, fluffy wool well sprinkled with oil and wine. The troopers cursed the medicine’s astringent bite, but it served them well until their feet began to harden once more.

Marcus had expected all that sort of thing and was not put out when it happened. He had not really anticipated, however, how resentful his Romans would be when called on to create a regular legionary camp every night. Throwing up daily earthworks did not appeal to them after their comfortable months in the permanent barracks of Videssos.

Gaius Philippus browbeat the troops into obedience the first three nights on march, but an ever more sullen, halfhearted obedience. By the third night he was hoarse, furious, and growing desperate. On the next day a deputation of legionaries came to see Scaurus with their grievances. Had they been shirkers or men of little quality, he would have dealt with the matter summarily, punishing them and not listening for an instant. But among the nine nervous soldiers—one from each maniple—were some of his finest men, including the stalwart Minucius. He decided to hear them out.