Misplaced Legion (Videssos Cycle) (38 page)

Even Scaurus had heard good things about Vaspurakaner horseflesh, and he had the traditional Roman attitude toward the equestrian art—that it was a fine skill, for other people. He was intellectually aware that the use of stirrups made horsemanship a very different thing from the one he knew, but still found it hard to take the idea seriously.

Apokavkos proceeded to surprise him, for he spoke of the Vaspurakaners themselves, not with suspicion, but with genuine and obvious respect. “It’s said three ‘princes’ working together could sell ice to Skotos, and I believe it, for work together they would. I don’t know where they learned it, unless being stuck between countries bigger’n they are taught it to them, but they take care of their own, always. They’ll fight among themselves, aye, but let an outsider meddle in their affairs and they’re tight as trap jaws against him.”

To Marcus that seemed such plain good sense as hardly to be worth comment, but Phostis Apokavkos’ voice was full of wistful admiration. “You—
we
, I mean—Romans are like that too, but there’s plenty of Videssians who’d hire on Skotos himself, if it meant paying their enemies back one.”

The tribune’s thoughts went to the decayed heads he had seen at the foot of the Milestone in Videssos, generals who rebelled with Yezda backing, both of them. He also thought, uneasily, of Vardanes Sphrantzes. Apokavkos had a point.

Trying to shake the worrisome pictures from his mind, Scaurus decided to tease Phostis a bit, to see what he would do. “How can you speak so well of heretics?” he asked.

“Because they’re good people, religion or no,” Apokavkos said at once. “They aren’t like your precious islanders—begging your pardon, sir—always chipping away at other people’s ideas and changing their own whenever the wind shifts. The ‘princes’ believe what they believe and they don’t care a horseturd whether you do or not. I don’t know,” he went on uncomfortably, “I suppose they’re all damned—but if they are, old Skotos had better watch himself, because enough Vaspurakaners in his hell and they might end up taking it away from him.”

The first raid on the imperial army came two days before it got to Amorion. It was a pinprick, nothing more—a handful of Yezda waylaying a Videssian scout. When he was missed, his comrades searches until they found his body. The Yezda, of course, had plundered it and stolen his horse.

There was a slightly larger encounter the next day, when a small band of Khamorth traded arrows with the Yezda until reinforcements drove the enemy away. Trivial stuff, really, Marcus thought, until he remembered the Emperor promising
the journey from Garsavra to Amorion would be as easy as that from the capital to Garsavra. More invaders were loose in the Empire than Mavrikios had thought.

And Amorion, when the army reached it, proved to have suffered badly. Lying on the northern bank of the Ithome, a tributary of the Arandos River, Amorion, like most towns in Videssos’ westlands, had long ago torn down its walls for their building stone. Yezda raiders took full advantage of the city’s helplessness, ravaging its suburbs and penetrating almost to the river bank in several places. As the army approached, the plundered areas were barren and rubble-strewn, in stark contrast to the fertility the river brought neighboring districts.

The contingent Gagik Bagratouni had gathered to reinforce Mavrikios was not as large as the one under Baanes Onomagoulos, but it was, Marcus soon decided, made up of better men. Most were Vaspurakaners like their commander—dark, curly-haired men with bushy beards, usually heavier of build than the Videssians they lived among. They wore scale-armor; many had helmets of wicker like Senpat Sviodo’s, often ornamented with plaited horns or wings. Almost all of them looked like veterans.

“So we should,” Senpat Sviodo said when Marcus remarked on this. “At least as much as the Empire’s
akritai
, we have stood in Yezd’s way these past years and been Videssos’ shield. Believe me, it was not what we wanted, but being set where Phos chose to place his princes in this world, we had no choice.”

He shrugged, then went on, “My people tell a fable about a little lark who heard the sky was about to fall. She turned on her back with her legs in the air to catch it. ‘Have you become a tree, then?’ all the other animals asked. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘but still I must do all I can.’ So did she, and so do we.”

Just as it had for Onomagoulos, the army arranged itself in review to honor Gagik Bagratouni. As the general rode up on a roan stallion, Scaurus found himself impressed by the man’s sheer physical presence. If Caesar had been a bird of prey, a human expression of Rome’s eagle, Gagik Bagratouni was a lion.

His tawny skin, his mane of coal-black hair, and the thick dark beard that covered his wide, high-cheekboned face almost
to the eyes were enough in themselves to create that impression. The steady gaze from those eyes, a hunter’s look, added to the image, as did the thrust of his nose—it was thicker and fleshier than the typical Videssian beak, but no less imperious. He even sat his horse strikingly, as if posing for an equestrian statue or, more likely, conscious that many eyes were on him.

Bagratouni held that impassive seat as he walked his horse past unit after unit. The only acknowledgment the troops got that he was so much as aware of their presence was a flick of his eyes across their ranks, the slightest dip of his head as he passed by each commander. Mavrikios himself was not nearly so imperial of demeanor, yet it was plain Gagik Bagratouni meant no slight to the Emperor, but was merely acting as he always did.

When he came to the Romans, drawn up next to the Emperor’s Haloga guard, Bagratouni’s thick brows rose—these were men whose like he had not seen. He looked them over appraisingly, studying their equipment, their stance, their faces. Whatever his judgment was, he did not show it. But when he saw Senpat and Nevrat Sviodo standing with the Romans’ officers, his heavy features lit in the first smile Scaurus had seen from him.

He shouted something in his own tongue. His voice was in keeping with the rest of him, a bass roar. Senpat answered in the same speech; though altogether ignorant of it, Marcus heard the name “Sviodo” several times. Gagik Bagratouni cried out again, then jumped down from his horse and folded Senpat Sviodo in a bearhug, kissing him on each cheek. He did the same to Nevrat, with a different kind of gusto.

“Sahak Sviodo’s son!” he said in thickly accented Videssian, switching languages out of courtesy to the Romans around him, “and with such a lovely bride, too! Lucky you are, both of you! Sahak was a great one for pulling Yezd’s beard, yes, and the Emperor’s too, when in our affairs he stuck it. You have the very look of home—I knew him well.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Senpat answered. “He died before my beard sprouted.”

“So I heard, and a great pity it was,” Bagratouni said. “Now you must tell me—who are these strange men you travel with?”

“Have you noticed, Scaurus darling,” Viridovix said, “that every one of these Vaspurakaner omadhauns who sets eyes on you and yours is after calling you funny-looking? Right rude it is, I’m thinking.”

“Likely they saw you first,” Gaius Philippus put in, drawing a glare from Viridovix.

“Enough, you two,” Marcus said. Perhaps luckily, the Gaul and the centurion preferred Latin as a language for bickering, and the Vaspurakaners could not understand them. Scaurus named his men for Bagratouni, introduced some of his officers and, as he had done so often by now, briefly explained how they had come to Videssos.

“That is most marvelous,” Gagik Bagratouni said. “You—all of you—” His expansive gesture took in everyone the tribune had presented to him. “—must to my home come this evening for a meal, and more of your tale to tell me. I would have it now, but things are piling up behind me.”

He spoke the truth there; the procession he headed, which was made up of his contingent’s officers and some of the leading officials and citizens of Amorion, had halted in confusion when he dismounted. Its members were variously standing about or sitting on horseback while waiting for him to continue. One of them in particular, a tall harsh-faced priest who had a fierce hound on a lead of stout iron chain, was staring venomously at Bagratouni. The Vaspurakaner affected not to notice, but Scaurus stood near enough to hear him mutter, “Plague take you, Zemarkhos, you shave-pated buzzard.”

Bagratouni remounted, and the army of functionaries moved on toward the Emperor. When the priest started forward once more, his dog balked, setting itself on its haunches. He jerked at its chain. “Come on, Vaspur!” he snapped, and the beast, choked by its collar, yelped and followed him.

Marcus was not sure he believed his ears. Clearly, not all Videssians shared the liking Phostis Apokavkos had for the folk of Vaspurakan—not when a priest would name his dog for the Vaspurakaners’ eponymous ancestor. Senpat Sviodo stood tight-lipped beside Scaurus, plainly feeling the insult’s sting. The Roman wondered how Gagik Bagratouni put up with such calculated insolence.

Unlike Baanes Onomagoulos at Garsavra, Bagratouni dismounted and performed a full proskynesis before the Emperor,
followed by everyone accompanying him. Even in the formal act of submission to his overlord he was still a commanding figure, going to his knees and then to his belly with feline dignity and grace. Scaurus noted with amusement that, by comparison, the churlish priest Zemarkhos looked a poorly built stick man.

After Mavrikios’ brief speech of thanks for the men Bagratouni had collected, the Vaspurakaner general and his party performed the proskynesis once more, then retired from the imperial presence. He held up their withdrawal for a moment to give Senpat Sviodo and Scaurus directions to his dwelling. Zemarkhos had never seen Romans before, but, from the look he gave them, their willingness to be a Vaspurakaner’s guests was enough to brand them agents of Skotos.

When Senpat Sviodo and his wife met the Romans who were going with them to Bagratouni’s, they had exchanged their traveling garb for more elegant attire. He wore a spotless white tunic coming almost to his knees, baggy trousers of reddish-brown wool, and sandals with golden clasps. On his head was the familiar Vaspurakaner cap; his pandora was slung across his back.

Nevrat was in a long gown of light blue linen, its cut subtly different from Videssian designs. The dress set off her dark skin magnificently, as did her massy silver bracelets, necklace, and earrings.

Senpat stared at the Romans in amazement. “What matter of men have I fallen in with?” he cried. “Do you satisfy each other? Where are your women, in Phos’ sacred name?”

“It’s not our usual custom to bring them, unbidden, to a feast,” Marcus answered, but he shared an apprehensive look with Quintus Glabrio. The junior centurion was partnered to a fiery-tempered Videssian girl named Damaris. She and Helvis would not be pleased to learn they had been excluded from a function which they could have attended.

The rest of the Roman party was more sanguine about being by themselves. “Sure and there’ll be a lass or three fair famished for the sight of a Celtic gentleman,” Viridovix said. “It’s not as if I’m thinking to return alone.”

Gaius Philippus was in most ways an admirable man but, as Marcus knew, women were of no use to him out of bed.
He looked back at Senpat Sviodo with as much incomprehension as the Vaspurakaner directed toward him.

“Are you looking at me?” Gorgidas asked Senpat. “I hold with the idea of Diogenes, a wise man of my people. When he was asked the right time for marriage, he said, ‘For a young man, not yet; for an old man, never.’ ”

“What of you, though?” Senpat asked. “You’re neither one nor the other.”

“I manage,” Gorgidas said shortly. “Right now, I manage to be hungry. Come on, shall we?”

Gagik Bagratouni’s home was half villa, half fortress. Its grounds were spacious and well kept, with little groves of citruses, figs, and date palms placed artfully among flowerbeds full of bright blooms. But the main house was a thick-walled stronghold seemingly transplanted from Vaspurakan’s hills, set behind outworks that would have delighted the commander of any border keep.

As he greeted his guests by the massive, metal-clad gate, Bagratouni noticed the tribune taking the measure of the place and Gaius Philippus’ frank stare of professional appraisal. “This is not what I would want,” he said, waving at the forbidding gray stone walls. “But I fear too many in Amorion delight not in seeing prosper the princes. But prosper I do, and I am able for myself to care.”

That, if anything, was an understatement, for Gagik Bagratouni did not rely on walls alone for protection. His personal guard manned them, a picked group of young Vaspurakaners as formidable as any band of warriors Scaurus had seen.

“Do not worry about such things,” the general said. “Come into my courtyard; eat, drink, talk, laugh.”

Bagratouni’s house was laid out in a basic style Marcus knew well, for it was popular among the wealthy in Italy. Instead of facing out onto the world, the home’s focus was directed inward to a central court. But the structure was more a bastion than any Roman home Marcus knew. Only a few windowslits were directed outward, and those as much for arrow-fire as for view. The gates that led from the outer grounds into the courtyard were almost as stoutly made as those protecting the estate as a whole.

Lanterns hung from trees inside the courtyard. Their glass
panes were of many colors; as twilight deepened, beams of gold and red, blue and green danced in the foliage. The main tables in the courtyard’s center, though, were brightly lit, to call attention to the feast they bore.

Vaspurakaner cookery was nothing like Videssian cuisine, which emphasized seafood and sauces of fermented fish. The main course was a roasted kid, spiced with a glaze of tarragon, mint, and lemon, and garnished with shreds of sharp yellow cheese. There was also a stew of ground lamb and hard-boiled eggs, made flavorful with onion, coriander, and cinnamon, and extended with chickpeas. Both dishes made the eyes water along with the mouth, but both were delicious.

“Whoo!” Viridovix said, fanning his face with his hand. “There’s a lot going on in there.” To quell the flames, he downed his winecup and reached for the decanter before him. Of all Bagratouni’s guests, the big Celt probably felt the food’s tang the most. Beyond vinegar, honey, and a few pale-flavored herbs, northern Gaul had little to offer in the way of spices.