The Legion of Videssos (35 page)

“Not so, if you give me leave to finish,” Gerungus returned steadily. “Neither you nor I will be here to see the last battle between Phos and Skotos. How can we know the outcome? But we must act as if we were sure good will triumph, or face the eternal ice. I take the gamble proudly—‘on this I stake my very soul.’ ” He stared round, defying the crowd. Marcus looked, too, and saw the Videssians unwontedly quiet. Gerungus’ oratory was not as florid as Styppes’, but effective all the same.

The tribune saw Nevrat Sviodo standing behind Gerungus, her thick black hair curling down over her shoulders. She smiled when their eyes met. She made a slight motion of her hand to indicate the intent crowd, then pointed toward Scaurus
and nodded, as if including the two of them but no one else. He nodded back, understanding perfectly. As a Vaspurakaner, she had her own version of Phos’ faith, while the Roman stood outside it altogether. Neither could grow heated over this debate.

Styppes was blowing and puffing like a beached whale, gathering his wits for the next sally. “Very pretty,” he grunted, “but Phos does not throw dice with Skotos over the universe—the twin ones of ‘the suns’ for peace and order against the double six of ‘the demons’ for famine and strife. That would put chaos at Phos’ heart, which cannot be.

“No, my friend,” the healer-priest went on, “it is not so simple; there is more knowledge in Phos’ plan than that. Nor does Skotos have need of dice to work his ends, with such as you to lead men toward falsehood from the truth. The dark god’s demons record each sin of yours in their ledgers, aye, and the day and hour it was committed, and the witnesses to it. Only true repentance and genuine belief in Phos’ true faith can rub out such an entry. Each blasphemy you utter sets you one step closer to the ice!”

Styppes’ passion was unmistakable, though Scaurus thought his logic poor. As the healer-priest and his Namdalener counterpart argued on, the tribune’s attention wandered. It stuck him that, with a few words changed, Styppes’ account of the demons in hell and their sin ledgers could have been a description of the imperial tax agents’ account books. He did not think the resemblance coincidental and wondered whether the Videssians had noticed it for themselves.

A wisp of stale, stinking smoke made the tribune cough as he trod up the steps of the Garsavran provincial governor’s hall, a red brick building with columns of white marble flanking the entrance way. Heavily armed squads of legionaries stood prominently in the marketplace and prowled the town’s main streets, making sure riot would not break out afresh. Had the one just quelled erupted a few days earlier, he would have blamed it on tension from the theological debate. As it was, he suspected the rich merchants and local nobles waiting for him inside, the men who would have to pay to help buy Drax and his comrades from the Yezda. If they could drive the
Romans out of Garsavra, their purses would be safe—and too many of them were pro-Namdalener to begin with.

He was glad of his own officers at his back. They all wore their most imposing gear, with crested helms, short capes of rank, and mail shirts burnished bright, the better to overawe the Garsavrans. A buccinator followed, carrying his horn as he might a sword.

Scaurus ran memorized phrases from his address over and over in his mind. Styppes, grumbling as usual, had helped him work on it. His own Videssian was fine for casual conversation, but in formal settings the imperials demanded formal oratory, which was nearly a different language from the ordinary speech. The Gavrai now and then got away with bluntness, but that was partly because everyone assumed they had the high style at their disposal. The tribune’s unadorned words would merely mark him as a barbarian, and today he needed to seem a representative of the imperial government, not some extortionate brigand. Styppes still thought the speech too plain, but it was as ornate as the Roman could stand.

He turned to Gaius Philippus, who had listened to him rehearse. “What would Cicero think?”

“That fat windbag? Who cares? Caesar’s worth five of him on the rostrum; he says what he means—and with all due respect, I think Caesar’d puke right down the front of his toga.”

“Can’t say I’d blame him. I feel like Ortaias Sphrantzes.”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as
that
, sir!” Gaius Philippus said hastily. They both laughed. Ortaias never used one word when ten would do—especially if eight of them were obscure.

Marcus motioned the buccinator forward; he preceded the legionary party into the governor’s audience chamber. The tribune got his first glimpse of the locals, a score or so of men who sat talking amiably with each other and fanning themselves against the late summer’s humid heat.

The sharp note of the trumpet cut through their chatter. Some of them jumped; all craned their necks toward the doorway through which Scaurus was coming. He looked neither right nor left as he took his seat in the governor’s high chair and rested his arms on the exquisite rosewood table in front of it. A lot of fundaments had been in that seat lately, he thought:
a legitimate governor or two, Onomagoulos, Drax, Zigabenos perhaps, and now himself—and better him than Yavlak.

His officers stood behind him: Gaius Philippus, Junius Blaesus, and Sextus Minucius frozen to attention; Sittas Zonaras lending a Videssian touch to the party; Gagik Bagratouni a powerful physical presence in Vaspurakaner armor; and Laon Pakhymer half-amused, looking as if he were playing at charades.

He rose, looking over his audience. They stared back, some as impressed as he had hoped, others bored—most of those had the sleek look of merchants—two or three openly hostile. Not a bad mix, really, no worse than he had faced in the town senate of Mediolanum—how long ago it seemed!

He took a deep breath. For a frightening moment he thought his address had fled, but it came back to him when he began to speak: “Gentlemen, you were chosen by me today for this council; pay heed now to my words. You know how the Namdalener wickedly subdued the cities of the west; he collected tribute from you, ravaged your villages and towns in his illegal rebellion, and treated men’s bodies evilly, subjecting them to unbearable exaction of their few resources. Therefore it is amazing to me, gentlemen of Garsavra, how easily you are deceived by those who have outwitted you and seek your help at the cost of your blood. They are the very ones who have done you the greatest harm, for what sort of benefit did you gain from this rebellion, other than murders and mutilations and the amputation of limbs?”

He almost laughed at the pop-eyed expression on the face of the fat man in the second row, who was in the wine trade. Likely the fellow had never heard an outlander say anything more complex than, “Gimme another mug.”

Relishing his speech for the first time, the tribune continued: “Now those who would help the Namdalener have stirred you to anger and strife, yet contrived to keep their own property undamaged.” Let them be suspicious of each other, Marcus thought. “At the same time, however, they still claim protection of the Empire and seek to cast the blame for their actions on the innocent. Is it expedient for you, gentlemen, to allow those who fawn on the rebel to wring advantage from you thus?

“For by Phos’ assent,” Marcus continued, with a phrase
Styppes had suggested, and one Scaurus would not have thought of otherwise, “you see that the Namdalener is a prisoner. Now that we are delivered from his wickedness, we must ensure that he does not escape, like smoke from the oven. And he who captured him now asks his price.”

Seeing he was getting to the meat of the matter, his listeners leaned forward in anticipation. “If the Emperor were not campaigning far away, or if the barbarian holding the Namdalener allowed a delay, I would hurry to Videssos to collect that price. As you see, however, this is impossible, nor do I myself have the necessary money. Therefore it will be necessary for each of you to contribute according to his ability, lest the Yezda decide to ravage your land while awaiting his payment. I declare to you that this is the situation as it exists and pledge that, as much as you pay, it shall be restored to you by the Emperor.”

He sat down, waiting for their response; they looked as pleased with the prospect of parting with their gold as he had expected. The fat wine merchant spoke for them all when he said, “Pay us back? Aye, no doubt, just as the shearer gives the sheep back their wool.”

Privately, Marcus would have admitted he had a point; like any state, Videssos was happier to gather money than to spend it. What he said, though, was, “I have some influence at the capital, and I do not let the folk who help me be forgotten.” They understood that; the patron-client relationship was less formal in Videssos than in Rome, but no less real. But hereabouts they were the powerful men, unused to depending on anyone else, let alone a foreign mercenary.

Zonaras spoke up. “This one has a strange habit; when he says he’ll do something, he does it.” He told how the legionaries had held the Namdaleni out of the hills and organized the irregulars to carry the war to them in the lowlands. “And all that,” he said, “seemed a lot less likely than collecting from the treasury.”

“Nothing is less likely than collecting from the treasury,” the fat man insisted, drawing a short laugh. But he and his companions had listened attentively; because Zonaras was a Videssian, they were more inclined to believe him than the tribune.

One of the local nobles, a lean, nearly bald man whose
back was bent with age, struggled to his feet, leaning on a stick. He stabbed a gnarled finger at Scaurus. “It was you, then, taught our farmers to be brigands, was it?” he shrilled. With his jutting nose and thin ruff of white hair, he looked like an old, angry vulture. “Two of my wells fouled, stock run off or killed, my steward kidnapped and branded. You brought this down on me?” He stood straighter in his outrage, brandishing the stick like a sword.

But from the back of the chamber someone called, “Oh, stifle it, Skepides. If you’d shown your tenants any fairness the past fifty years, you’d have nothing to moan about.”

“Eh? What was that?” Not catching the jibe, Skepides turned back to Scaurus. “I tell you this, sir, I’d sooner deal with the Namdaleni than a seditionary like yourself, Skotos take me if I wouldn’t. And I’ll have no more to do with this scheme of yours.” Slowly and painfully he made his way to the aisle. He hobbled out. Two or three of the Videssians followed him.

“Try to talk them round,” Marcus urged. “The more who share the cost, the less it falls on each of you.”

“And what will you do if none of us goes along?” another merchant asked. “Take our gold by force?”

The tribune had waited for that question. “By no means,” he said promptly. “In fact, if in your wisdom you choose not to help me, I intend to do nothing at all.”

His audience broke into confused babble, all but ignoring him. “He won’t compel us?” “Ha! What trick is this?” “To the ice with him! Let him buy his barbarians with his own money!” That last sentiment, or variations of it, had wide support. It was the plump winedealer who had the wit to ask the Roman, “What do you mean, you’d do nothing at all?”

“Why, just that.” Marcus was innocence itself. “I would simply take my troops back to the imperial city, as my job would be done here, or so it seems to me.”

That produced worse commotion among the Videssians than his first announcement had. “Then who’d save us from the Yezda?” someone yelled.

“Why should I care about that?”

“By Phos,” the man blustered, “you’ve used enough wind showing what a fine imperial you are.” Behind Scaurus, Gaius Philippus chuckled quietly. “Now when it comes down to protecting
imperial citizens, you’d rather run away.” Merchants and nobles shouted agreement—all but the wine seller, who was looking at the tribune with the grudging respect one sharper sometimes gives another.

“If you are citizens, act like it,” Marcus growled, slamming his fist down on the table. “Your precious Empire has kept you fat and safe and prosperous for more years than any of you can reckon, and I doubt you have any complaint over that. But when trouble comes and it needs your help, what do you do? Bawl like so many calves looking for their mothers. By your Phos, gentlemen, if you aren’t willing to give aid, why should you get it? I tell you this—if I am one single goldpiece short ten days from now, I
will
pull out, and you can make your own bargain with Yavlak. And a very good day to you all.”

His officers trailing, he strode out of the audience chamber, leaving dead silence behind.

“Me, I would you thrash for so talking,” Gagik Bagratouni remarked as they came out into the late afternoon sun. “But as you say, these fat so very long. They pay, I think.”

“I wouldn’t have had to browbeat you into it,” Marcus said. “Vaspurakan is frontier country, and borderers know what has to be done.” He sighed. “If I admire the Empire for keeping its people secure, I suppose I shouldn’t blame them for being selfish as well. They’ve never had not to be.”

He caught motion out of the corner of his eye, swung round on Gaius Philippus. “And what in the name of the gods are you up to?”

The senior centurion gave a guilty start and jerked his hands away from his dagger. The thin keen blade stayed where he had wedged it—between the drums of one of the columns by the entranceway of the governor’s hall. “I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he said defensively. “How many times have you heard toffs going on and on about columns so perfectly made you couldn’t get a knife blade between the drums? I always thought it was so much rubbish, and here I’ve proved it.” He retrieved the dagger.

Marcus rolled his eyes. “It’s a good thing Viridovix isn’t here to see you, or you’d never hear the last of it. Columns, now!” He smiled to himself all the way back to the legionary camp.

The next morning a very respectful Garsavran delegation appeared to announce they were having difficulty in allotting payments proportional to wealth. The stall was so blatant Marcus almost laughed in their faces. “Come along, my friends,” he said, and returned to the governor’s residence. After a winter’s struggle with the intricacies of the whole Empire’s tax structure at Videssos the city, the local receipts were child’s play. An hour and a half later he emerged from the records office and handed the nervously waiting Garsavrans a list of amounts due, down to the fraction of a goldpiece. Defeat in their eyes, they took it and slipped away.