Misplaced Legion (Videssos Cycle) (43 page)

Soteric exhaled in exasperation at the Roman’s dullness, but Helvis was coming to know him well enough to realize when he was dissembling. She said, “Must you always speak the Emperor fair? You have to see that the only reason he has for using the men of the Duchy so is his fear for our faithfulness.”

Marcus usually dismissed Soteric’s complaints over the Emperor’s policies as the products of a slightly obsessed mind, but the more he thought about this one, the more likely it seemed. He knew Mavrikios thought along the lines Soteric was sketching; the Emperor had said as much himself, when talking of Ortaias Sphrantzes.

The tribune suddenly laughed out loud. Even people who always thought themselves persecuted could be right sometimes.

The joke fell flat when he made the mistake of trying to explain it.

Scaurus was drilling his men outside the walls of Khliat when he spied a horseman approaching the town from out of the west. “A nomad he is, from the look of him,” Viridovix said, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Now, will he be one of ours, or a puir lone Yezda struck from his wits by the heat and out to kill the lot of us at once?”

The rider was not hostile. He had ridden long and hard; his horse was lathered and blowing, and caked sweat and dust begrimed his clothes. Even so, he was so urgent to deliver his news that he reined in as he came up to the exercising Romans. He gave Marcus a tired wave that was evidently meant as a salute.

“Artapan son of Pradtak I am, a scout of Baan Onomag’s army,” he said, clipping the general’s name in plainsman fashion. “I am not of the west—our watchword is ‘Phos’ light.’ ”

Onomagoulos had pushed west ten days before with a quarter of Mavrikios’ remaining troops to seize the city of Maragha, which sat athwart the army’s way into Yezd. “What word do you bring?” the tribune asked.

“Water first, I beg. This past half-day I rode with dry canteen,” Artapan said, showing Marcus the empty waterskin at
his belt. He swallowed the warm stale water from Scaurus’ canteen as if it were chilled wine of ancient vintage, then wiped his mouth. “May the spirits be kind to you for that. Now you must take me into the city—Onomag is attacked, is pinned down less than a day’s march from Maragha. We cannot go forward; no more can we go back. Without more men, we perish.”

“Awfully bloody eager, isn’t he?” Gaius Philippus said suspiciously. “If I were setting a trap, he’s sprouting the very story I’d use to send an army running pell-mell into it.”

Marcus considered. The Yezda might well have had the chance to pick off an outrider and torture the password from him. Still—“There must be men inside Khliat who know this fellow, if he is in imperial service. He’d be a fool to think he wouldn’t have his story checked. And if it’s true—if it’s true,” the tribune said slowly, “then Mavrikios has done just what he hoped he would, and made the Yezda stand and fight.”

In some excitement, he turned back to Artapan, but the nomad was no longer there. Impatient with the colloquy in a language he did not understand—for both the centurion and Scaurus had spoken Latin—he had booted his horse into a worn-out trot for the city.

“Out of our hands now,” Gaius Philippus said, not altogether displeased at being relieved of the responsibility of choice. “Still, it’s as you say—Mavrikios is too canny by half to sit down without looking first to see whether he’s plunking his tail onto an anthill.”

That the Emperor took Artapan’s message seriously soon became clear. Marcus had been back from drills less than an hour when an orderly summoned him to an urgent officer’s council.

“The Khamorth
is
genuine, then, sir,” Quintus Glabrio guessed. The same enthusiasm that had gripped the tribune before was now beginning to run through his men.

Doing his best to present the calm front befitting a senior officer, Scaurus shrugged, saying merely, “We’ll know soon enough, either way.”

For all his efforts at impassiveness, he could not help feeling a tingle of excitement when he saw Artapan Pradtak’s son seated close by the Emperor in what had been the main hall of
Khliat’s
hypasteos
or city governor. Another nomad, this one with a bandaged shoulder, was next to Artapan.

Scaurus and Gaius Philippus slid into chairs. Their curiosity, fired by the earlier meeting with the Khamorth scout, made them among the firstcomers. Their seats were the light folding type of canvas and wood, obviously from the imperial camp, not part of the hall’s original furnishing.

The table at which they sat was something else again, being massively built from some heavy dark wood and looking as if it had held its place for centuries. It had the stamp of a Vaspurakaner product, calling to mind Gagik Bagratouni’s fortress of a dwelling back in Amorion. The “princes” had become so used to life at bay that their very arts reflected their constant search for protection and strength.

The Yezda must have used the
hypasteos
’ office as their headquarters before the Videssians drove them from Khliat, for the table was scarred with swordcuts and crude carvings. One symbol recurred constantly: twin three-pronged lightning bolts. Marcus thought nothing of them until Nephon Khoumnos sat down beside him and cursed when he saw them. “Filthy swine,” he said, “putting Skotos’ brand everywhere they go.” The tribune remembered the dark icon in Avshar’s suite at the capital and nodded in understanding.

Mavrikios brusquely called the meeting to order by slamming his palm down on the table. The low-voiced buzz of conversation disappeared. Without further preamble, the Emperor declared, “Baanes Onomagoulos has run into a nestful of Yezda a bit this side of Maragha. Without help, he says, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold out for long.”

Heads jerked up in surprise—the Emperor had not announced the purpose of the meeting he was calling. Marcus felt smug at not being caught unawares.

“How did you learn that?” someone asked.

Gavras pointed to the nomad scouts. “You can thank these two—they slipped through the invaders to bring word. Spatakar—” That was the bandaged Khamorth. “—came in just now with a written report of situation from Onomagoulos. The seals it bears have been checked—they’re genuine. Not only that, both Spatakar and his fellow Artapan here are well known to their clansmen here in Khliat. This has also been checked. In short, gentlemen, this is what we’ve waited for.”

Gaius Philippus touched Marcus’ arm and whispered, “You were right.” He need not have been so discreet. The whole room was in an uproar, with everyone talking at once, some exclaiming to their neighbors, others shouting questions at the Emperor.

The voice of Thorisin Gavras cut through the uproar. “Or, at any rate, it may be what we’ve waited for. As for me, I’m inclined to wait a trifle longer.”

“Oh, Phos, here we go again,” Nephon Khoumnos groaned.

Scaurus scratched his head at the sudden reversal of roles the two Gavrai were displaying. Thorisin was ever the impetuous one, with Mavrikios more inclined to wait on events. Yet now the Emperor was all for pushing ahead, while the Sevastokrator spoke out for caution. The tribune could make no sense of it.

Thorisin, having gained the council’s attention, went on, “I would think three times before I set our whole army thundering to Baanes Onomagoulos’ rescue because of his first reports of trouble. He may be a very able officer, but he is regrettably inclined to caution.”

Baanes is a coward, Marcus translated. The Roman did not know Onomagoulos well, but did not think the Sevastokrator’s thinly veiled charge was true. He grew surer he was right when he remembered Thorisin’s longstanding jealousy of his older brother’s comrade. Yes, things were clearer now. Nephon Khoumnos, who knew the Gavrai, must have seen all this from the moment Thorisin opened his mouth.

So, of course, did Mavrikios. He snapped, “Were it Khoumnos or Bagratouni out there, Thorisin, instead of Baanes, would you be counseling prudence?”

“No,” his brother said at once. “And were it our good friend Ortaias here—” He did not bother hiding his contempt for young Sphrantzes. “—would you go pounding after him?”

Mavrikios ground his teeth in frustration. “That is a low blow, Thorisin, and well you know it.”

“Do I? We’ll see.” The Sevastokrator shot questions at Onomagoulos’ Khamorth, and, indeed, their answers seemed to show his forces were not in such grim straits as it first appeared. His interrogation, though, reminded Marcus of nothing so much as a skilled lawyer at work, eliciting from
witnesses only the facts he was after. But whether that was so or not, Thorisin succeeded in raising enough doubts in the council that it retired without taking any action at all.

“Grudges,” Gaius Philippus said as he and Scaurus made their way to the Roman encampment. He put such a wealth of feeling in the word that it came out fouler than any swearing.

“You talk as if Rome were immune to them,” the tribune answered. “Remember when Sulla and Gaius Flavius Fimbria each fought Mithridates without taking the other into account? When they joined forces, so many of Fimbria’s men went over to Sulla that Fimbria killed himself from the sheer disgrace of it.”

“And good riddance to him, too,” Gaius Philippus said promptly. “He incited a mutiny against his commander to take charge of that army in the first place, the swine. He—” The centurion broke off abruptly, made a gesture full of disgust. “All right, I see your point. I still don’t like it.”

“I never said I did.”

The next morning passed in anticipation, with the imperial forces in Khliat wondering whether Baanes Onomagoulos had managed to wriggle free of the Yezda trap … and if the trap was there at all. Around noon Scaurus got the summons to another council of war.

This time Onomagoulos’ messenger was no Khamorth, but a Videssian officer of middle rank. His face was pinched with exhaustion and, but for the area his helm’s nasal had covered, badly sun-blistered. Mavrikios introduced him to the assembled commanders as Sisinnios Mousele, then let him speak for himself.

“I thought all our riders must have been caught before they reached you,” he said between swallows of wine; as was true of Artapan Pradtak’s son, his journey had left him dry as the baking land round Khliat. “But when I made my way here, I learned two Khamorth were a day ahead of me.

“Why are you not on the move,” he demanded, “when my news preceded me? Aye, we’re holding our little valley against the Yezda, but for how long? The stream that carved it is only a muddy trickle in summer—we have almost no water and not much food. And the barbarians are thick as locusts in a wheatfield—I’d not thought there were so many Yezda in all
the world. We could break out, perhaps, but they’d tear us to pieces before we got far. In Phos’ holy name, brothers, without aid all of us will die, and die for nothing.”

While Mousele was speaking, Mavrikios looked stonily at his brother. He made no public recrimination, though, over the day the army had lost to Thorisin’s envious suspicion of Onomagoulos. In a way, Marcus thought, that was encouraging—in the face of real crisis, the pretended feud between the Gavrai fell away.

Thorisin bore that out, asking the counsil, “Is there anyone now who feels we should not march? I own I was wrong yesterday; with your help and your men’s, perhaps we can make good my mistake.”

After Sisinnios Mousele’s plea, there was almost no debate among the officers. The only question was how soon the army could start moving. “Don’t worry, Sisinnios, we’ll get your boys out!” a Videssian captain called.

Only when Mousele made no reply did all eyes turn toward him. He was asleep where he sat; his message delivered, nothing would have kept him awake another minute.

K
HLIAT THAT AFTERNOON WAS LIKE A BEEHIVE POKED WITH A
stick. To speed the army’s departure, Mavrikios promised a goldpiece to each soldier of the contingent first ready to leave. Men frantically dashed here and there, dragging their comrades from taverns and whorehouses.

There were also hurried farewells by the score, for the Emperor had no intention of delaying his advance with sutlers, women, children, and other noncombatants. Not a man complained; if they lost, better to have their loved ones safe behind Khliat’s walls than in a battlefield camp at the mercy of an onstorming foe.

Helvis was a warrior’s brother and a warrior’s widow. She had sent men into battle before and knew better than to burden Scaurus with her fears. All she said was, “Phos keep you safe till I see you again.”

“Bring me back a Yezda’s head, Papa?” Malric asked.

“Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?” Marcus said, hugging Helvis’ son. “What would you do with it if you had it?”

“I’d burn it all up,” the boy declared. “They’re worse than Videssian heretics, Mama says. Burn it all up!”

The tribune looked quizzically at Helvis. “I won’t say she’s wrong. If I bring my own head back, though, that will be about enough for me.”

The Romans won the Emperor’s prize, as Marcus had been sure they would—fighting the Yezda was a less fearful prospect than facing Gaius Philippus after losing. But the rest of the army was close behind them, galvanized by the thought of
rescuing their fellows from the Yezda. To the tribune’s amazement, Khliat’s gates swung wide an hour before sunset, and the last soldier was out of it before twilight left the sky.

In his urgency, Mavrikios kept the army moving through the early hours of the night. The endless drumbeat of marching feet, the clatter of iron-shod hooves, and the squeaks and rattles of hundreds of wagons filled with supplies and munitions were so pervasive the ear soon refused to hear them. Only the curses and thumps that followed missteps in the darkness really registered, in the same way that a skipped heartbeat demands attention while a steady pulse can be ignored.

Marcus was impressed by the amount of ground the imperial forces were able to make in that first, partial, day’s march, despite the unfamiliar ground and the darkness. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like, being with an army that’s ready to fight,” Gaius Philippus said. “I only hope Mavrikios doesn’t wear us down by going too fast too soon.”