Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (4 page)

Having done so more than once, the centurion maintained a discreet silence.

The more they snipe, Marcus thought, the sooner they’ll grow used to each other. He slapped at a mosquito. He must have missed, because he heard it buzz away.

Lucilius hurried up, carrying in his arms a bundle of rushes tied here
and there with linen strips. It did not look much like a man, but again Scaurus had no intention of criticizing. If it satisfied Lucilius, that was good enough.

“What will you do with it, sir?” the trooper asked. “Throw it into the water the way the priests in Rome fling the puppets off the Sublician Bridge into the Tiber?”

Marcus rubbed his chin, thinking briefly. He shook his head. “In view of the color of the dome of light we were in, I think I ought to cast it into the flames instead.”

Lucilius nodded, impressed by the tribune’s reasoning. “Here, sir.” He handed Scaurus the effigy, falling in behind him to make the beginning of a procession. More men joined it as Scaurus walked slowly and ceremoniously toward one of the campfires.

He paused in front of it so more of the legionaries could gather. Others looked up from their tasks to watch. Then he raised the crude rush-puppet high over his head, proclaiming loudly, “Whatsoever god or goddess is responsible for the wonder that has overtaken us, by whatever name or names you wish to be called, accept this offering in propitiation!” He hurled the image into the fire.

The flames leaped as they burned the effigy. “See how the god receives the sacrifice!” Lucilius cried. Marcus hid a smile; it was as if the legionary himself had thought of substituting the puppet for the man.

Yet the tribune wondered for a moment if Lucilius saw something he was missing. An effigy of damp rushes should have burned slowly instead of being consumed like so much tinder.

Marcus scowled, suppressing his superstitious maunderings. One miracle in an evening, he told himself firmly, is enough. He turned his back on the fire and went over to see how Gorgidas was doing with the wounded.

“How does it look like I’m doing?” Gorgidas snarled at him.

“Not well,” Scaurus admitted. Gorgidas was rushing from one injured man to the next, bandaging here, suturing there, tossing his head in despair at a head wound he had no hope of treating. The tribune asked, “What help can I give you?”

The Greek looked up, as if just realizing Marcus was there. “Hmm? Let me think.… If you order a couple of troopers to work with me, that
might help a little. They’d be clumsy, but better than nothing—and sometimes, whether he wants to or not, a man writhes so much he needs to be held.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the tribune said. “What happened to Attilius and Publius Curtianus?”

“My assistants? What do you suppose happened to them?”

His face hot, Marcus beat a hasty retreat. He almost forgot to send the legionaries over to Gorgidas.

Gaius Philippus and Viridovix were still arguing, away from most of the men. The senior centurion drew his sword. Scaurus dashed over to break up the fight. He found none to break up; Gaius Philippus was showing the Gaul the thrusting-stroke.

“All well and good, Roman dear,” Viridovix said, “but why then are you spoiling it by using so short a blade?”

The veteran shrugged. “Most of us aren’t big enough to handle the kind of pigsticker you swing. Besides, a thrust, even with a
gladius
, leaves a man farther from his foe than a cut from a longsword.”

The two lifelong warriors might have been a couple of bakers talking about how to make bread rise highest. Marcus smiled at the way a common passion could make even deadly foes forget their enmity.

One of the junior centurions, a slim youngster named Quintus Glabrio, came up to him and said, “Begging your pardon, sir, could you tell me where this is so I can pass the word along to the men and quiet them down? The talk is getting wild.”

“I’m not sure, precisely. From the terrain and the trees, one of the scouts thinks this may be Cilicia or Greece. Come morning we’ll send out a detail, track down some peasants, and find out what we need to know.”

Glabrio gaped at him. Even in the starlight Marcus could see the fear on his face, fear intense enough to make him forget the pain of a slashed forearm. “Cilicia, sir? Greece? Have you—?” Words failed him. He pointed to the sky.

Puzzled, Marcus looked up. It was a fine, clear night. Let’s see, he thought, scanning the heavens, north should be … where? Cold fingers walked his spine as he stared at the meaningless patterns the stars scrawled across the sky. Where was the Great Bear that pointed to the
pole? Where were the stars of summer, the Scorpion, the Eagle, the Lyre? Where were the autumn groupings that followed them through the night, Andromeda, Pegasus? Where even were the stars of winter, or the strange constellations that peeped above the southern horizon in tropic lands like Africa or Cyrenaica?

Gaius Philippus and Viridovix stared with him, shared his will to disbelieve. The Gaul cursed in his native speech, not as he had at Gaius Philippus, but softly, as if in prayer. “Gods on Olympus,” the senior centurion murmured, and Marcus had to fight hysterical laughter. This place was beyond the Olympians’ realm. And his own as well; his vision of an angry proconsul blew away in the wind of the unknown.

Few Romans slept much that night. They sat outside their tents, watching the illegible heavens wheel and trying, as men will, to tame the unknown by drawing patterns on it and naming them: the Target, the Ballista, the Locust, the Pederasts.

The naming went on through the night as new stars rose to replace their setting fellows. The east grew pale, then pink. The forest ceased to be a single dark shape, becoming trees, bushes, and shrubs no more remarkable than the ones of Gaul, if not quite the same. The sun rose, and was simply the sun.

And an arrow flashed out of the woods, followed an instant later by a challenge in an unknown tongue.

F
ROM THE WAY THEIR CHALLENGER BRUSHED THE BUSHES ASIDE AND
strode toward the Romans, Marcus was sure he was no skulking woodsbandit, but a man who felt the full power of his country behind him. It showed in the set of his shoulders, in the watchful suspicion on his face, in the very fact that he dared come out, alone, to defy twelve hundred men.

“You’re right enough,” Gaius Philippus agreed when the tribune put his thought into words. “He’s not quite alone, though—or if I were in his boots, I’d not be so lackwitted as to leave my bow behind. He’ll have friends covering him from the woods, I’d wager.”

So it seemed, for the warrior stopped well within arrow range of the trees from which he’d come and waited, arms folded across his chest. “Let’s see what he has to say,” Marcus said. “Gaius, you’ll come with me, and you, Viridovix—maybe he understands Celtic. Gorgidas!”

The doctor finished a last neat knot on the bandage he was tying before he looked up. “What do you need
me
for?”

“If you’d rather I relied on my own Greek—”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

The tribune also picked Adiatun, an officer of the slingers. Like his men, he was from the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain and had their strange tongue as his birthspeech. One of the legionaries who had served in the east had picked up a bit of Syrian and Armenian. That would have to do, Marcus decided. Any more and the waiting soldier would think them an attack, not a parley.

As it was, he drew back a pace when he saw half a dozen men approaching from the Roman camp. But Marcus and his companions moved slowly, right hands extended before them at eye level, palms out to show their emptiness. After a moment’s hesitation, he returned the
gesture and advanced. He stopped about ten feet from them, saying something that had to mean, “This is close enough.” He studied the newcomers with frank curiosity.

Marcus returned it. The native was a lean man of middle height, perhaps in his mid-thirties. Save for a proud nose, his features were small and fine under a wide forehead, giving his face a triangular look. His olive skin was sun-darkened and weathered; he carried a long scar on his left cheek and another above his left eye. His jaw was outlined by a thin fringe of beard, mostly dark, but streaked with silver on either side of his mouth.

But for that unstylish beard, Marcus thought, by his looks he could have been a Roman, or more likely a Greek. He wore a shirt of mail reaching halfway down his thighs. Unlike the Romans’, it had sleeves. Over it was a forest-green surcoat of light material. His helm was a businesslike iron pot; an apron of mail was riveted to it to cover his neck, and a bar nasal protected his face. The spurs on the heels of his calf-length leather boots said he was a horseman, as did the saber at his belt and the small round shield slung on his back.

The soldier asked something, probably, Marcus thought, “Who are you people, and what are you doing here?” The tribune looked to his group of would-be interpreters. They all shook their heads. He answered in Latin, “We have no more idea where we are than you do who we are.”

The native spread his hands and shrugged, then tried what sounded like a different language. He had no better luck. The Romans used every tongue at their command, and the soldier seemed to speak five or six himself, but they held none in common.

The warrior finally grimaced in annoyance. He patted the ground, waved his hand to encompass everything the eye could see. “Videssos,” he said. He pointed at Marcus, then at the camp from which he had come, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Romans,” the tribune answered.

“Are you after including me in that?” Viridovix asked. “The shame of it!”

“Yes, we all feel it,” Gaius Philippus told him.

“Enough, you two,” Gorgidas said. “I’m no more Roman than you, my mustachioed friend, but we need to keep things as simple as we can.”

“Thank you,” Marcus said. “Romans,” he repeated.

The Videssian had watched the byplay with interest. Now he pointed at himself. “Neilos Tzimiskes.”

After echoing him, Scaurus and his companions gave their names. Viridovix grumbled, “A man could choke to death or ever he said ‘Tzimiskes,’ ” but Neilos had no easier time with “Viridovix son of Drappes.”

Tzimiskes unbuckled his swordbelt and laid it at his feet. There was a cry of alarm from the woods, but he silenced it with a couple of shouted sentences. He pointed to the sword, to himself, and to Marcus, and made a gesture of repugnance.

“We have no quarrel with you,” Scaurus agreed, knowing his words would not be understood but hoping his tone would. He reached into his pack for a ration biscuit, offering it and his canteen, still half-full of wine, to Tzimiskes.

The Videssian nodded and grinned, shedding years as he did so. “Not so happy will he be when he eats what you give him,” Adiatun said. “The
bucellum
tastes all too much like sawdust.”

But Tzimiskes bit into the hard-baked biscuit without complaint, drank a long swallow of wine with the air of a man who has had worse. He patted himself apologetically, then shouted into the forest again. A few moments later another, younger, Videssian emerged. His equipment was much like that of Tzimiskes, though his surcoat was brown rather than green. He carried a short bow in his left hand and bore a leather sack over his right shoulder.

The young Videssian’s name was Proklos Mouzalon. From his sack he brought out dried apples and figs, olives, smoked and salted pork, a hard yellow cheese, onions, and journey-bread differing from the Romans’ only in that it was square, not round—all normal fare for soldiers on the move. He also produced a small flask of thick, sweet wine. Marcus found it cloying, as he was used to the drier vintage the Roman army drank.

Before they raised the flask to their lips, the Videssians each spat angrily on the ground, then lifted their arms and eyes to the sky, at the same time murmuring a prayer. Marcus had been about to pour a small libation, but decided instead to follow the custom of the country in which he found himself. Tzimiskes and Mouzalon nodded their approval as he did so, though of course his words were gibberish to them.

By signs, Neilos made it clear there was a town a couple of days’ travel to the south, a convenient place to establish a market to feed the Roman soldiers and lodge them for the time being. He sent Mouzalon ahead to prepare the town for their arrival; the clop of hoofbeats down a forest path confirmed the Videssians as horsemen.

While Tzimiskes was walking back to his own tethered mount, Marcus briefed his men on what had been arranged. “I think we’ll be able to stay together,” he said. “As far as I could understand all the finger-waving, these people hire mercenaries, and they’re used to dealing with bodies of foreign troops. The problem was that Tzimiskes had never seen our sort before, and wasn’t sure if we were invaders, a free company for hire, or men from the far side of the moon.”

He stopped abruptly, mentally cursing his clumsy tongue; he was afraid the Romans were farther from home than that.

Gaius Philippus came to his rescue, growling, “Another thing, you wolves. On march, we treat this as friendly country—no stealing a farmer’s mule or his daughter just because they take your fancy. By Vulcan’s left nut, you’ll see a cross if you bugger that one up. Till we know we have a place here, we walk soft.”

“Dull, dull, dull,” Viridovix said. The centurion ignored him.

“Are you going to sell our swords to these barbarians?” someone called.

Gaius Philippus glared as he tried to spot the man who had spoken, but Scaurus said, “It’s a fair question. Let me answer this way: our swords are all we have to sell. Unless you know the way back to Rome, we’re a bit outnumbered.” It was a feeble jest, but so plainly true the legionaries nodded to themselves as they began breaking camp.

Marcus was not eager to take up the mercenary’s trade, but an armed force at his back lent him bargaining power with the Videssians he would not have had otherwise. It also gave him the perfect excuse for keeping the Romans together. In this strange new land, they had only themselves to rely on.

The tribune also wondered about Videssos’ reasons for hiring foreign troops. To his way of thinking, that was for decadent kingdoms like Ptolemaic Egypt, not for healthy states. But Tzimiskes and Mouzalon were soldiers and were also plainly natives.