Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (51 page)

Even so, his progress satisfied Skylitzes. “No one would mistake you for a real soldier, true, but you’ve learned enough so you won’t be butchered like a sheep.…” The officer rounded on Goudeles, who was rubbing a knee he had twisted trying to spin away from the plainsman with whom he had been practicing. Skylitzes rolled his eyes. “Unlike this one, who might as well tattoo ‘rack of mutton’ on his forehead and have done.”

“Hrmmp,” the bureaucrat said, still sitting in the mud. “I daresay I do better on the field than one of these barbarians would in the chancery. And what do you want from me? I never claimed a warrior’s skills.”

“Neither did the Hellene,” Skylitzes retorted, startling Gorgidas, who had not realized the Videssian knew what his people called themselves.

The officer’s praise did not altogether please him. He loathed war with the deep and sincere loathing of one who had seen too much of it too closely. At the same time, he was driven to do whatever he tried as well as he could. Having decided he needed the rudiments of the soldier’s trade, he set about acquiring them as conscientiously as he had his medical lore, if not with the same burning interest.

He blinked, suddenly understanding how Gaius Philippus could see soldiering as just another trade, like carpentry or leatherworking. He would never like that perspective, but it was no longer alien to him.

He had to laugh at himself. Who would have thought insight could come from learning butchery? He remembered what Socrates had told the Athenians: “For a human being, an unexamined life is not worth living.” And Socrates had fought in the phalanx when his
polis
needed him.

He must have murmured the Greek aloud, for Goudeles asked, “What’s that?”

He translated it into Videssian. “Not bad,” the pen-pusher said. “He was a secret agent, this Socrates?” Gorgidas threw his hands in the air.

When they got back to the yurt, Gorgidas carefully scraped the dirt from his horsehide boots before going in. Goudeles and Skylitzes followed suit, having learned he was much easier to live with if they went along. As a result, the yurt was undoubtedly cleaner than it had been when it housed plainsmen.

Goudeles cocked an eyebrow at the Greek. “What will you do when we move east, and it’ll be a tent over bare mud?”

“The best I can,” Gorgidas snapped. He did not think he had to apologize for his fastidiousness. He had long since noticed that wounds healed better when kept clean and sick patients recovered faster in clean surroundings. He had taken that as a general rule and applied it all through his way of living, reasoning that what aided against ill health might also help prevent it.

“Don’t mock him over this one, Pikridios,” Skylitzes said. He stretched full length on the rug with a grunt of pleasure. “Nothing wrong with coming back to something that’s dry and isn’t brown.”

“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” Goudeles allowed. “But I’ll never forget Tolui’s face when our friend here called him a filthy ball of horse droppings for tracking mud on the carpet.” Gorgidas had the grace to look shamefaced, the more so as the shaman had come to talk about the medicinal plants Arghun had given him.

“Well, still and all, I think the yurt’s a more comfortable place now that he’s taken charge of it than it was when our wenches were still here,” Skylitzes said.

“Have it any way you like.” The bureaucrat was working at his knee again and rolling up his sheepskin trousers for a look at it. It was already turning purple. Even so, he managed a leer. “You must admit, they had an advantage he lacks.”

“First time I’ve heard it called that,” Skylitzes snorted.

Gorgidas laughed, too, and not very self-consciously. With no other choice available, he had been more successful with women than he would have imagined possible. Hoelun had helped that immensely; her desire to please was so obvious it would have been difficult—to say nothing of churlish—not to respond in kind. He found himself missing her now she was gone. But he missed acting according to his own nature more.

“Are you a crazy man, to come riding into our camp this way?” Targitaus demanded, glowering at the outlaw. “Put that fool white shield away—why should I care about your truce sign?” His hand twitched eagerly toward his sword.

Varatesh’s rider matched the chieftain stare for disdainful stare. He was about forty, with a proud, hard face that might have been handsome but for his eyes, which were set too close together and, with their slitted lids, showed only cruelty. His horse and gear were of the finest, probably loot from the recent battle. He did not offer his name, but answered with a jeer, “Go ahead, kill me, and see what happens to your precious clansmen and their friends then.”

The spirit seemed to go out of Targitaus. His shoulders sagged; Viridovix, watching, would have sworn his cheeks slumped, too. “Say on,” he said, and his voice suddenly quavered like an old man’s.

“Thought you’d see sense,” the outlaw said. He was enjoying his mission; he rubbed his hands together as he got down to business. “Now that we’ve seen a new Royal Clan come to be, it’s time the rest of the steppe recognized what’s what—starting with you and yours.”

As nothing else could have, that stung Targitaus back to life. His face purpled with fury. He roared, “You bastard, you cheese-faced crock of goat piss, you frog!” It was the deadliest Khamorth insult, and the outlaw’s lips skinned back from his teeth in anger. Targitaus paid no attention, storming on, “You go tell Varatesh he can lick my arse, for I’ll not lick his!” The clansmen around him shouted their approval.

The tumult gave Varatesh’s man the time he needed to recover his temper; the renegade chief had not chosen foolishly. As the yells died down to mutters, the outlaw spread his hands in conciliation and spoke as mildly as he could. “Who spoke of licking arses? You know Varatesh is stronger than you. He could crush you as a boy squeezes a newt in his fist.” Viridovix scowled at the heartless comparison, which let him see into the outlaw’s soul, soft words or no. “But he does not. Why should he? One way or another, you will be his subjects. Why not willingly?”

“And put the Wolf under your bandits’ black flag? Never.”

“All right, then,” the outlaw said, with the air of a man beaten down by hard bargaining. “He will even make you a present.”

Targitaus spat in contempt. “What gift would I take from him?”

“He will give you back all the prisoners he holds and ask no ransom for them.”

“You toy with me,” Targitaus said. But he saw the terrible, haunted hope on the faces of his people, and when he repeated, “Toy,” doubt was in his voice.

“By my sword, I do not,” Varatesh’s man said. The nomads fell silent and looked at each other, for among their warrior folk the worst renegade would think three times before he broke that oath.

Unable to check himself, Targitiaus burst out, “Is Batbaian among them?”

“Aye, and luckier than most. By my sword I swear it.”

Dismay filled Viridovix as he heard Targitaus heeding the bandit. He cried, “Sure and your honor canna take the omadhaun’s lies for truth, can you now? What’s the word of a Varatesh worth, or an Avshar?” A few heads bobbed in agreement, but not many.

With his son in Varatesh’s hands and a straw to grasp, the nomad chief answered, “V’rid’rish, I followed your path once, and see what it gained me.” The Gaul’s jaw fell at the reversal, and at the unfairness of it, but Targitaus went on with worse: “So where do you find the brass to urge a course on me now?”

“But—”

Targitaus overrode him with a slashing gesture. “Be grateful your neck is not the price asked for, for I would trade you for Batbaian and my clansmen.” The Celt bowed his head; he had no reply to that.

Having decided to treat with his foes, Targitaus dickered with all his skill and wrung the most from his wretched bargaining position. He argued concession after concession from Varatesh’s man, making the renegade agree that, as he took the risk of halting his clan, none of Varatesh’s men should be allowed to approach the camp with the column of prisoners.

“You understand the captives will be unarmed and afoot,” the outlaw warned.

“Aye, aye,” the chieftain said impatiently. “Had we won, we’d have plundered you.” Once his mind was made up, he moved ahead at full
speed. He exchanged oaths with the outlaw, calling on the spirits to avenge any transgressions in the terms agreed upon.

Viridovix watched morosely from the edge of the crowd of Khamorth. Few of them would speak to him; for the first time in weeks he felt himself once more an alien among them. Seirem’s smile said she had not forgotten him, but he wondered how long he would enjoy it now that her father had turned against him. In a way, the couple of sentences Rambehisht ostentatiously gave him cheered him more. “Maybe it’s not me that’s crazy after all,” he said to himself, tugging at his mustache.

The agreement went forward regardless. “Ride hard,” Targitaus told Varatesh’s man. “Truce or no truce, we will not stay here long.”

The renegade nodded. He kicked his shaggy dun pony into a trot, lifted his shield of truce on his lance so none of Targitaus’ patrolling pickets would attack him on his return to his master. A stray breeze brought back his laughter as he rode out of camp.

“Ah, we can set them free after all,” Avshar said. “How noble for us.” He sipped kavass with a hollow reed that went through a slit in his visored helm. Somehow he still managed the proper nomad slurp.

Varatesh had been drinking hard for days. He wished he had never given the orders that went with the prisoner release. Far too late for regrets or turning back now, he thought. “Yes, let them go,” he said. The thing was done, and he had to live with it. His hand shook as he lifted the skin to his mouth; he gulped without tasting what he drank.

“They’re coming!” the rider called as he rode into camp. The Khamorth cheered; everyone was milling about among the tents, the men armed, the women in holiday best, wearing their finest bughtaqs and long flounced festival shirts of wool dyed in horizontal bands of bright color. The day cooperated with their celebration. It was cold but clear, the last storm having blown itself out the night before.

Tension and fear mingled with the joy. Wives, daughters, brothers of missing men, all hoped their loved ones were prisoners and knew some of those hopes would be broken.

“The bastards tied them together, it looks like,” Targitaus’ scout was reporting. “They’re in lines of twenty or so, one bunch next to the other.”

There was an angry rumble from the nomads, but Targitaus quelled it. “So long as they’re coming,” he said. “Ropes come off, aye, and other bonds as well.” His clansmen growled eagerly at that, like the wolves that were their token.

From beside Viridovix, Seirem called, “How do they look?” Her hand held the Gaul’s tight enough to hurt. He knew how much she wanted to ask for word of Batbaian, and admired her for holding back to keep the scout from being deluged in similar questions. He squeezed back; she accepted the pressure gratefully.

“I didn’t ride close, I fear,” the plainsman said “As soon as I saw them, I turned round and came here to bring word.” Seirem bit her lip, but nodded in understanding.

“Let’s go out to meet them!” someone shouted. The Khamorth started to surge forward, but Targitaus checked them, saying, “The agreement was to receive them here, and we shall. For now we are weak; we cannot afford to break any part of it. Yet …” he added, and the nomads nodded, anticipating the day.

Waiting stretched. Then a great cry went up as the first heads appeared over a low swell of ground a few hundred yards from the camp. Heedless of the khagan now, his people pelted toward them. He trotted with them, not trying to hold them back any longer. Still hand in hand, Viridovix and Seirem were somewhere near the center of the crowd. He could have been at the front, but slowed to match her shorter strides.

More and more freed captives stumbled into view, roped together as the scout had said. Viridovix whistled in surprise as he saw their numbers. “Dinna tell me the blackguard’s after keeping his promise,” he muttered. Seirem looked up at him curiously; he realized he had spoken Gaulish. “Never you mind, love,” he said in the plains speech. “Seems your father had the right of it, and glad I am for it.”

“So am I,” she said, and then, with a little gasp, “Look, it’s Batbaian, there at the front of a line!” They were still too far away for Viridovix to recognize him, but Seirem had no doubts. She called her brother’s name and waved frantically. Batbaian’s head jerked up. He spotted Viridovix,
if not his sister, and wagged his head to show he had heard; with his hands tied behind him, he could not wave back.

As they hurried closer, Seirem suddenly flinched, as if struck. “His eye—” she faltered. Her own filled with pain; there was only an inflamed empty socket under Batbaian’s left brow, the lid flapping uselessly over it.

“Och, lass, it happens, it happens,” Viridovix said gently. “The gods be praised he has the other, and home again to heal, too.” Seirem’s hand was cold in his, but she managed a nod. She had seen enough of war’s aftermath to know how grim it could be.

The returning captives only added more proof of that as they shambled forward. Many limped from half-healed wounds; more than one had only a single hand to be roped behind his back.