Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (66 page)

Her hand flew to her throat, but then she let it drop once more. “Balsamon can see it before I tuck it into my bag. After all, what other chance will I have to show it, and to show how thoughtful—to say nothing of daft—you were to give it to me?”

He felt himself glow with her praise; he had not heard much—nor, to be fair, given much—as he and Helvis quarreled toward their disastrous parting. Alypia gasped at the kiss he gave her. “Well!” she said, eyes glowing. “A bit more of that, sirrah, and Balsamon will get no look at my bauble today.”

The tribune stepped back. “Too dangerous,” he said with what tatters of Roman hardheadedness he had left. Alypia nodded and turned to go. As she did, something rattled inside her purse. Marcus laughed. “I know that noise, I’ll wager: stylus and waxed tablet. Who was it the patriarch said, Ioannakis II?”

“The third; the second is three hundred years dead.” She spoke with perfect seriousness; the history she was composing occupied a good deal of her time. When Scaurus caught her eye, she said, “There are pleasures and pleasures, you know.”

“No need to apologize to me,” he said quickly, and meant it. Were it not for her active wit and sense of detail, the two of them could not have
met even half so often as they did, and likely would have been discovered long since.

“Apologize? I wasn’t.” Her voice turned frosty on the instant; she would not stand being taken lightly over her work.

“All right,” he said mildly, and saw her relax. He went on, “You might want to compare notes with my friend Gorgidas when the embassy to the Arshaum comes back from the steppe.” With a sudden stab of loneliness, he wondered how the Greek physician was faring; despite his acerbic front, he was what Homer called “a friend to mankind.”

Many Videssians would have raised an eyebrow at the idea of learning anything from outlanders, but Alypia said eagerly, “Yes, you’ve told me how the folk in the world you came from write history, too. How valuable it will be for me to have such a different view of the art—we’ve been copying each other for too long, I fear.”

She looked out the window again, grimaced in annoyance. “And now for a third time I’ll try and go. No, say not one word more; I really must be gone.” She stepped into his arms, kissed him firmly but quickly, and slipped out the door.

Marcus stayed behind for a few minutes; they chanced being seen together as little as they could. Meeting more than once at the same place was a risk in itself, but the inn’s convenience to the patriarchal residence weighed against the danger—and Aetios, once paid, asked no questions.

To spin out the time, the tribune went downstairs to the taproom and ordered a jack of ale; sometimes he preferred it to the sweet Videssian wine. Aetios handed him the tall tarred-leather mug with a knowing smirk, then grunted when the Roman stared back stonily, refusing to rise to the bait. Muttering to himself, the innkeeper went off to serve someone else.

The taproom, almost empty when Scaurus had come to the inn early in the afternoon, was filling as day drew to a close. The crowd was mostly workingmen: painters smeared with paint; bakers with flour; carpenters; tailors; a barber, his mustaches and the end of his beard waxed to points; bootmakers; an effeminate-looking fellow who was probably a bathhouse attendant. Many of them seemed regulars and called greetings to each other as they saw faces they knew. A barmaid squeaked indignantly when the barber pinched her behind. One of the painters, who
was guzzling down wine, started a song, and half the tavern joined him. Even Marcus knew the chorus: “The wine gets drunk, but you get drunker.”

He finished his ale and picked his way out through the growing crowd. He heard someone say to a tablemate, “What’s the dirty foreigner doing here, anyway?” but his size—to say nothing of the yard-long Gallic sword that swung on his hip—let him pass unchallenged.

He bore the blade wherever he went. He might have laughed at the power of the druids when he was serving with Caesar’s army, but their enchantments, wrapped in his sword and Viridovix’, had swept the legionaries from Gaul to Videssos. And in Videssos, with sorcery a fact of life, the two enchanted weapons showed still greater power. Not only were they unnaturally strong in the attack, cleaving mail and plate, but the druids’ marks stamped into the blades turned aside harmful magic.

The great golden globes on spires above the High Temple glowed ruddily in the light of the setting sun. After a brief glance their way, Marcus turned his back and walked south toward Middle Street. His progress was slow; traffic clogged Videssos’ twisting lanes: people afoot; women on donkeys or in litters; men riding mules and horses; and carts and wagons, some drawn by as many as half a dozen beasts, full of vegetables, fruits, and grain to keep the ever-hungry city fed. Animals brayed; teamsters clapped hands to belt-knives as they wrangled over a narrow right-of-way; ungreased axles screeched.

“Well, go ahead, walk right past me. I’ll pretend I don’t know you either,” said an indignant voice at the tribune’s elbow.

He spun around. “Oh, hello, Taso. I’m sorry; I really didn’t see you.”

“A likely story, with this mat of fuzz on my chin.” The ambassador from Khatrish sniffed. A small, birdlike man, Taso Vones would have looked perfectly Videssian except that, instead of trimming his beard as did all imperials save priests, he let it tumble in bushy splendor halfway down his chest. He loathed the style, but his sovereign the khagan insisted on it as a reminder that the Khatrisher ruling class ultimately sprang from Khamorth stock. That they had been intermarrying with their once-Videssian subjects for something close to eight hundred years now was not allowed to interfere with the warrior tradition.

Vones cocked his head to one side, reminding Scaurus more than
ever of a sparrow: bright, perky, unendingly curious. “You haven’t been out and about much, have you? Thorisin finally let you off the string, eh?” he guessed shrewdly.

“You might say so,” the Roman answered, casting about for a story that would cover him. Whatever it was going to be, he knew he would have to work it into the conversation naturally; just throwing it out would make the envoy take it for a lie and, being gleefully cynical about such things, call him on it at once.

But Vones did not seem much interested in Marcus’ answer; he was full of news of his own. “Had we not met this way, I’d have come to see you in the next day or two.”

“Always a pleasure.”

“Always a nuisance, you mean,” the Khatrisher chuckled. Marcus’ denials were, on the whole, sincere; Taso’s breezy frankness was a refreshing relief from the Videssian style, which raised innuendo to a high art. Even Vones, though, hesitated before going on. “I’ve news from Metepont, if you care to hear it.”

Scaurus stiffened. “Do you?” he said in as neutral a tone as he could manage. Metepont lay on the west coast of the island Duchy of Namdalen; more to the point, it was Helvis’ town. Sighing, the tribune said, “You’d best give it to me. I’d sooner have it from you than most other people I could think of.”

“For which praise I thank you.” Vones looked faintly embarrassed, an expression the Roman had not seen on him before. At last he said, “You have a daughter there. My news must be weeks old by now, but from all I know, mother and child were both doing well. She named it Emilia. That’s not a Namdalener name; does it come from your people?”

“Hmm? Yes, it’s one of ours,” Marcus said absently. No reason to expect the Khatrisher to remember his gentile name, not when he’d only heard it a couple of times years ago. He wondered whether Helvis was twisting the knife further, or thought of it as some sort of apology. He shook his head. A child he would never see … “How did you learn about it?”

“As you might expect—from the great count Drax. He’s hiring mercenaries again, to replace the regiment you broke up for him last year. He had a message of his own for you, too—said he’d like to have you on his side for a change, and he’d make it worth your while to switch.”

With studied deliberation, Scaurus spat into the dirt between two flagstones. “He’s a fool to want me. Any man who’d turn his coat once’ll turn it twice.”

Vones laughed at his grimness. “He also said he knew you’d tell him to go to the ice, so get your chin off your chest.”

Marcus stayed somber. He could think of a way for Drax to have a chance of prying him away from Videssos: send Thorisin the same message he’d given Taso, and let the Emperor’s suspicion do the rest. He wondered if that would occur to the Namdalener. It might; Drax had the mind of a snake. While many islanders aped Videssian ways, the great count could match the imperials at their own intrigues.

Scaurus shook his head again, slowly, like a man bedeviled by bees. The past, it was clear, was not done stinging him yet.

“Hello, look who’s coming up behind you,” Taso Vones said, snapping his reverie. “Everyone’s favorite Videssian officer.” The tribune turned to see who had earned that sardonic compliment. He gave a grunt of laughter when he spotted Provhos Mourtzouphlos halfway down the block, almost hidden behind a cart piled high with apples.

The cavalryman looked for a moment as though he would spurn their company, but came up when Taso waved to him. The little Khatrisher bowed from the waist, a paradigm of politeness. “Good evening to you, your excellency. Out slumming, I see.” Instead of his usual coxcomb’s clothes, Mourtzouphlos was in an ill-fitting homespun tunic, with baggy, mud-colored trousers tucked into torn boots.

He had lost none of his arrogance, though. Looking down his long nose at Vones, he said, “If you must know, easterner, I was hoping a show of poverty would help beat a knave down on the price of a filly.” That showed more wit than Marcus would have expected from him.

“And what of you two?” the Videssian went on. “Hatching plots?” He did not bother hiding his disdain.

“Foiling them, if I can,” Scaurus said. He gave Mourtzouphlos Taso’s news of Drax, adding, “Since you see so much of the Avtokrator these days, best you pass the warning on.”

The sarcasm rolled off Mourtzouphlos without sticking, though Taso Vones suffered a sudden coughing fit and had to be slapped on the back. Watching the cavalryman trying to be gracious in his thanks was
satisfaction enough for Marcus, though he recovered too quickly to suit the Roman. He had hoped for several minutes of awkwardness, but got only a few sentences’ worth.

“Will there be anything more?” Mourtzouphlos asked, for all the world as if Scaurus and Vones had approached him rather than the other way round. When they were silent, he jerked his head in a single short nod. “A pleasant evening to you both, then.” He started down the street as though they did not exist.

He actually jumped when Vones called after him, “Did you buy that filly, my lord?”

“Eh?” Mourtzouphlos blinked, collected himself, and said with a scowl, “No; I found some ne’er-do-well’s been riding her hard. She’s of no value jaded so.” He chuckled unpleasantly. “An interesting experience, all the same.” And he was off again, swaggering in his shabby boots.

“Self-satisfied bastard,” Marcus said as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Isn’t he, though?” Taso did a wicked imitation of the officer’s nasty laugh. “Like most of that sort, he’s satisfied with very little.” He plucked at Scaurus’ sleeve. “Come with me, why don’t you, if you have some gold in your pouch? Come anyway; I’ll stake you. I’m for a dice game at a Namdalener tin-merchant’s house—you know how the islanders love to gamble. And old Frednis sets a rare table, too. Just wait till you taste the smoked oysters—ah! And the asparagus and crabmeat …” He ran his tongue over his lips, like a cat that scents cream.

The Roman patted guiltily at his midriff; these long dull weeks hunched over a desk were putting weight on him. Well, he told himself, you don’t
have
to eat much. “Why not?” he said.

Stumbling in the darkness, Scaurus climbed the stone stairs to his small chamber in the bureaucrat’s wing of the Grand Court. The hallways, full of the bustle of imperial business during the day, echoed to the slap of his boots. He could still hear Taso Vones singing, faint in the distance, as the Khatrisher lurched off toward his quarters in the Hall of the Ambassadors.

He had not lied, the tribune thought muzzily. Frednis the Namdalener did not stint his guests, not with food nor drink. And the dice were
hot; new gold clinked in Scaurus’ belt pouch. At any Roman game he would have been skinned, but to the Videssians a double one was a good throw, not a loser: “Phos’ suns,” they called it.

Pale shafts of moonlight from narrow outer windows guided him down the corridor. He carefully counted doorways as he passed them; the chambers to either side of his own were mere storerooms.

Then his hand was on his sword hilt, for a line of light from a lamp, yellow as butter, slipped out from beneath the bottom of his door. He slid the blade free as quietly as he could. Whoever was inside—sneak thief? spy? assassin?—would regret it. His first thought was of Avshar and wizardry, but the druids’ marks on his blade did not glow as they did when magic was near. Only a man, then.

He seized the latch and threw the door wide as he sprang into the room. “Who the—?” he started to roar, and then half choked as his shout was swallowed in a gurgle of amazement.

Gaius Philippus stood in a wary fencer’s crouch beside the tribune’s bed,
gladius
at guard position; the senior centurion had not lived to grow gray by taking chances. When he saw it was Scaurus coming through the doorway, he swung the shortsword up in salute. “Took you long enough,” he remarked. “Must be past midnight.”

“What are you
doing
here?” Marcus said, stepping forward to clasp his hand. Not until he felt the other’s callused palm against his own did he wholly believe Frednis’ wine had not left him seeing things.

“Cooling my heels, till now,” the stocky veteran replied, grinning at the tribune’s confusion. That was literally true; he was barefoot, his unlaced
caligae
kicked into a corner, one with its hobnailed sole flipped over. He had made himself comfortable during his wait in other ways as well, if the empty jug of wine not far away was any indication.