Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (94 page)

“And besides,” Marcus said, thrusting home with a pleasure for which he felt no guilt at all, “what’s the difference if he does betray you? You’d still be outadmiraled and hardly worse off, whereas—” He fell silent, leaving Thorisin to work the contrary chain of logic for himself.

The Emperor, still in his foul mood, only grunted. But his hand tugged thoughtfully at his beard, and he did not fly into a rage at the very notion of releasing Leimmokheir. His will was granite, thought the tribune, but even granite crumbles in the end.

“So you think he’ll let him go?” Helvis said that evening after Scaurus recounted the day’s events. “One for you, then.”

“I suppose so, unless he does turn his coat once he’s free. That would drop the chamber pot into the stew for fair.”

“I don’t think it will happen. Leimmokheir is honest,” Helvis said seriously. Marcus respected her opinion; she had been in Videssos years longer than he and knew a good deal about its leaders. Moreover, what she said confirmed everyone else’s view of the jailed admiral—except the Emperor’s.

But when he tried to draw her out further, she did not seem interested in matters political, which was unlike her. “Is anything wrong?” he asked at last. He wondered if she had somehow guessed the attraction
growing between himself and Alypia Gavra and dreaded the scene that would cause.

Instead, she put down the skirt whose hem she had been mending and smiled at the tribune. He thought he should know that look; there was a mischievous something in her eyes he had seen before. He placed it just as she spoke, “I’m sorry, darling, my wits were somewhere else. I was trying to reckon when the baby will be due. As near as I can make it, it should be a little before the festival of sun-turning.”

Marcus was silent so long her sparkle disappeared. “Aren’t you pleased?” she asked sharply.

“Of course I am,” he answered, and was telling the truth. Too many upper-class Romans were childless by choice, beloved only by inheritance seekers. “You took me by surprise, is all.”

He walked over and kissed her, then poked her in the ribs. She yelped. “You like taking me by surprise that way,” he accused. “You did when you were expecting Dosti, too.”

As if the mention of his name was some kind of charm, the baby woke up and started to cry. Helvis made a wry face. She got up and un-swaddled him. “Are you wet or do you just want to be cuddled?” she demanded. It proved to be the latter; in a few minutes Dosti was asleep again.

“That doesn’t happen as often as it used to,” Marcus said. He sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to waking up five times a night again. Why don’t you arrange to have a three-year-old and save us the fuss?” That earned him a return poke.

He hugged her, careful both of her pregnancy and his own tender arm. She helped him draw the blouse off over her head. Yet even when they lay together naked on the sleeping-mat, the tribune saw Alypia Gavra’s face in his mind, remembered the feel of her lips. Only then did he understand why he had paused before showing gladness at Helvis’ news.

He realized something else, too, and chuckled under his breath. “What is it, dear?” she asked, touching his cheek.

“Nothing really. Just a foolish notion.” She made an inquisitive noise, but he did not explain further. There was no way, he thought, to tell her
that now he understood why she slipped every so often and called him by her former lover’s name.

“Let’s have a look at that,” Gorgidas ordered the next morning. Marcus mimed a salute and extended his arm to the doctor. It was anything but pretty; the edges of the gash were still raised and red, and it was filled with crusty brown scab. But the Greek grunted in satisfaction at what he saw and again when he sniffed the wound. “There’s no corruption in there,” he told the tribune. “Your flesh knits well.”

“That lotion of yours does good work, for all its bite.” Gorgidas had dosed the cut with a murky brown fluid he called barbarum: a compound of powdered verdigris, litharge, alum, pitch, and resin mixed in equal parts of vinegar and oil. The Roman had winced every time it was applied, but it kept a wound from going bad.

Gorgidas merely grunted again, unmoved by the praise. Nothing had moved him much, not since Quintus Glabrio fell. Now he changed the subject, asking, “Do you know when the Emperor intends to send his embassy to the Arshaum?”

“No time soon, not with Bouraphos’ ships out there to sink anything that sticks its nose out of the city’s harbors. Why?”

The Greek studied him bleakly. Marcus saw how haggard he had become, his slimness now gaunt, his hair ragged where he had chopped a lock away in mourning for Glabrio. “Why?” Gorgidas echoed. “Nothing simpler; I intend to go with it.” He set his jaw, meeting Scaurus’ stare without flinching.

“You can’t,” was the tribune’s first startled response.

“And why not? How do you propose to stop me?” The doctor’s voice was dangerously calm.

“I can order you to stay.”

“Can you, in law? That would be a pretty point for the barristers back in Rome. I am attached to the legions, aye, but am I of them? I think not, any more than a sutler or a town bootmaker who serves at contract. But that’s neither here nor there. Unless you choose to chain me, I will not obey your order.”

“But why?” Marcus said helplessly. He had no intention of putting Gorgidas in irons. That the Greek was his friend counted for less than his certainty that Gorgidas was stubborn enough not to serve if made to remain against his will.

“The why is simple enough; I plan to add an excursus on the tribes and customs of the Arshaum to my history and I need more information than Arigh can—or cares to—give me. Ethnography, I think, is something I can hope to do a proper job of.”

His bitterness gave Scaurus the key he needed. “You think medicine is not? What of all of us you’ve healed, some a dozen times? What of this?” He held his wounded arm out to the physician.

“What of it? It’s still a bloody mess, if you want to know.” In his wretchedness and self-disgust, Gorgidas could not see the successes his skill had won. “A Videssian healer would have put it right in minutes, instead of this week and a half’s worth of worry over seeing if it chooses to fester.”

“If he could do anything at all,” Marcus retorted. “Some hurts they can’t cure, and the power drains from them if they use it long. But you always give your best.”

“A poor, miserable best it is, too. With my best, Minucius would be dead now, and Publius Flaccus and Cotilius Rufus after Maragha, and how many more? You’re a clodhopper to reckon me a doctor, when I can’t so much as learn the art that gave them life.” The Greek’s eyes were haunted. “And I can’t. We saw that, didn’t we?”

“So you’ll hie yourself off to the steppe, then, and forget even trying?”

Gorgidas winced, but he said, “You can’t shame me into staying either, Scaurus.” The tribune flushed, angry he was so obvious.

The Greek went on, “In Rome I wasn’t a bad physician, but here I’m hardly more than a joke. If I have some small talent at history, perhaps I can leave something worthwhile with that. Truly, Marcus,” he said, and Scaurus was touched, for the doctor had not used his praenomen before, “all of you would be better off with a healer-priest to mend you. You’ve suffered my fumblings long enough.”

Clearly, nothing ordinary would change Gorgidas’ mind. Casting about for any straw, Marcus exclaimed, “But if you leave us, who will Viridovix have to argue with?”

“Now that one strikes close to the clout,” Gorgidas admitted, surprised into smiling. “For all his bluster, I’ll miss the red-maned bandit. It’s still no hit, though; as long as he has Gaius Philippus, he’ll never go short a quarrel.”

Defeated, Scaurus threw his hands in the air. “Be it so, then. But for the first time, I’m glad Bouraphos joined the rebels. Not only does that force you to stay with us longer, it also gives you more time to come to your senses.”

“I don’t think I’ve left them. I might well have gone even if—things were otherwise.” The Greek paused, tossed his head. “Uselessness is not a pleasant feeling.” He rose. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Gawtruz has promised to tell me of his people’s legends of how they overran Thatagush. A comparison with the accounts by Videssian historians should prove fascinating, don’t you think?”

Whatever Marcus’ answer was, he did not wait to hear it.

The tribune stood at stiff attention, below and to the right of the great imperial throne. For this ceremony he did not enjoy the place of honor; Balsamon the patriarch was a pace closer to the seated Emperor. Somehow Videssos’ chief prelate contrived to look rumpled in vestments of blue silk and cloth-of-gold. His pepper-and-salt beard poured down in a disorderly stream over the seed pearls adorning the breast of his chasuble.

At the Emperor’s left side stood Alypia Gavra, her costume as somber as protocol would permit. Scaurus had not seen her save at a distance since the feast two weeks before; twice he had requested an audience, and twice got no reply. He was almost afraid to meet her eye, but her nod as they assembled in the throne room had been reassuring.

With no official status, Komitta Rhangavve was relegated to the courtiers who filed in to flank the long central colonnade. In that sea of plump bland faces her lean, hard beauty was like a falcon’s feral grace among so many pigeons. At the sight of the Roman, her eyes darted about to see if Viridovix was present; Marcus was glad he was not.

An expectant hush filled the chamber. The Grand Gates, closed after the functionaries’ entrance, swung slowly open once more, to reveal a
single man silhouetted against the brightness outside. His long, rolling strides seemed alien to that place of gliding eunuchs and soft-footed officials.

Taron Leimmokheir wore fresh robes, but they hung loosely about his prison-thinned frame. Nor had his release robbed him of the pallor given by long months hidden from sun and sky. His hair and beard, while clean, were still untrimmed. Scaurus heard he had refused a barber; his words were, “Let Gavras see me as he had me.” The tribune wondered what else Leimmokheir might refuse. So far as he knew, no bargains had been struck.

The ex-admiral came up to the imperial throne, then paused, looking Thorisin full in the face. In Videssian court etiquette it was the height of rudeness; Marcus heard torches crackle in the silence enveloping the courtroom. Then, with deliberation and utmost dignity, Leimmokheir slowly prostrated himself before his soverign.

“Get up, get up,” Thorisin said impatiently; not the words of formula, but the court ministers had already despaired of changing that.

Leimmokheir rose. Looking as if every word tasted bad to him, the Emperor continued, “Know you are pardoned of the charge of conspiracy against our person, and that all properties and rights previously deemed forfeit are restored to you.” There was a sigh of outdrawn breath from the courtiers. Leimmokheir began a second proskynesis; Thorisin stopped him with a gesture.

“Now we come down to it,” he said, sounding more like a merchant in a hard bargain than Avtokrator of the Videssians. Leimmokheir leaned forward, too. “Does it please you to serve me as my drungarios of the fleet against Bouraphos and Onomagoulos?” Marcus noted that the first person plural of the pardon had disappeared.

“Why you and not them?” Prison had not cost Leimmokheir his forthrightness, Scaurus saw. Courtiers blanched, appalled at the plain speech.

The Emperor, though, looked pleased. His answer was equally direct. “Because I am not a man who hires murderers.”

“No, instead you throw people into jail.” The fat ceremonies master, who stood among the high dignitaries, seemed ready to faint. Thorisin
sat stony-faced, his arms folded, waiting for a real reply. At last Leimmokheir dipped his head; his unkempt gray locks flopped over his face.

“Excellent!” Thorisin breathed, now with the air of a gambler after throwing the suns. He nodded to Balsamon. “The patriarch will keep your oath of allegiance.” He fairly purred; to a man of Taron Leimmokheir’s religious scruples, that oath would be binding as iron shackles.

Balsamon stepped forward, producing a small copy of the Videssian scriptures from a fold of his robe. But the drungarios waved him away; his seaman’s voice, used to overcoming storm winds, filled the throne room: “No, Gavras, I swear no oaths to you.”

For a moment, everyone froze; the Emperor’s eyes went hard and cold. “What then, Leimmokheir?” he asked, and danger rode his words. “Should your say-so be enough for me?”

He intended sarcasm, but the admiral took him at face value. “Yes, by Phos, or what’s your pardon worth? I’ll be your man, but not your hound. If you don’t trust me without a spiked collar of words round my neck, send me back to the jug, and be damned to you.” And he waited in turn, his pride proof against whatever the Emperor chose.

A slow flush climbed Thorisin’s cheeks. His bodyguards’ hands tightened on their spears. There had been Avtokrators—and not a few of them—who would have answered such defiance with blood. In his years Balsamon had seen more than one of that stripe. He said urgently, “Your Majesty, may I—”

“No.” Thorisin cut him off with a single harsh word. Marcus realized again the overwhelming power behind the Videssian imperial office in its formal setting. In chambers, Balsamon would have rolled his eyes and kept on arguing; now, bowing, he fell silent. Only Leimmokheir remained uncowed, drawing strength from what he had already endured.

The Emperor still bore him no liking, but grudging respect slowly replaced the anger on his face. “All right, then.” He wasted no time with threats or warnings; it was clear they meant nothing to the reinstated admiral.

Leimmokheir, as abrupt as Gavras, bowed and turned to go. “Where are you away so fast?” Thorisin demanded, suspicious afresh.

“The docks, of course. Where else would you have your drungarios go?” Leimmokheir neither looked back nor broke stride. If he could have slammed the Grand Gates behind him, Scaurus thought, he would have done that, too. Between them, the stubborn admiral and equally strong-willed Emperor had managed to turn Videssian ceremonial on its ear. The assembled courtiers shook their heads as they trooped from the throne room, remembering better-run spectacles.