Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (98 page)

Rubbing freshly scraped faces, the Romans handed their tokens of admission to a priest at the top of the High Temple’s stairs and made their way into the building. The High Temple dominated Videssos’ skyline, but its heavy form and plain stuccoed exterior, as always, failed to impress Scaurus, whose tastes were formed in a different school. As he did not worship Phos, he seldom entered the Temple and sometimes forgot how glorious it was inside. Whenever he did go in, he felt transported to another, purer, world.

Like all of Phos’ shrines, the High Temple was built round a circular worship area surmounted by a dome, with rows of benches north, south, east, and west. But here, genius and limitless resources had refined the simple, basic plan. All the separate richnesses—benches of highly polished hardwoods, moss-agate columns, endless gold and silver foil to reflect light into every corner, walls that imitated Phos’ sky in facings of semiprecious stones—somehow failed to compete with one another, but were blended by the artisans’ skill into a unified and magnificent whole.

And all that magnificence served to lead the eye upward to contemplate the Temple’s great central dome, which itself seemed more a product of wizardry than architecture. Liberated by pendentives from the support of columns, it looked to be upheld only by the shafts of sunlight piercing its many-windowed base. Even to Marcus the stubborn non-believer, it seemed a bit of Phos’ heaven suspended above the earth.

“Now here is a home fit for a god,” Gaius Philippus muttered under his breath. He had never been in the High Temple before; hardened as he was, he could not keep awe from his voice.

Phos himself looked down on his worshippers from the interior of the dome; gold-backed glass tesserae sparkled now here, now there in an
ever-shifting play of light. Stern in judgment, the Videssian god’s eyes seemed to see into the furthest recesses of the Temple—and into the soul of every man within. From that gaze, from the verdict inscribed in the book the god held, there could be no appeal. Nowhere had Scaurus seen such an uncomprising image of harsh, righteous purpose.

No Videssian, no matter how cynical, sat easy under that Phos’ eyes. To an outlander seeing them for the first time, they could be overwhelming. Utprand Dagober’s son stiffened to attention and began a salute, as to any great leader, before he stopped in confusion. “Don’t blame him a bit,” Gaius Philippus said. Marcus nodded. No one tittered at the Namdalener; here the proud imperials, too, were humble.

Fair face crimsoning, Utprand found a seat. His foxskin jacket and snug trousers set him apart from the Videssians around him. Their flowing robes of multicolored silks, their high-knotted brocaded fabrics, their velvets and snowy linens served to complement the High Temple’s splendor. Jewels and gold and silver threadwork gleamed as they moved.

“Exaltation!” A choir of boys in robes of blue samite came down the aisles and grouped themselves round the central altar. “Exaltation!” Their pure, unbroken voices filled the space under the great dome with joyous music. “Exaltation! Exaltation!” Even Phos’ awesome image seemed to take on a more benign aspect as his young votaries sang his praises. “Exaltation!”

Censer-swinging priests followed the chorus toward the worship area; the sweet fragrances of balsam, frankincense, cedar oil, myrrh, and storax filled the air. Behind the priests came Balsamon. The congregation rose to honor the patriarch. And behind Balsamon was Thorisin Gavras in full imperial regalia. Along with everyone else, Marcus and Gaius Philippus bowed to the Avtokrator. The tribune tried to keep the surprise from his face; on his previous visits to the High Temple, the Emperor had taken no part in its services, but watched from a small private room set high in the building’s eastern wall.

Balsamon steadied himself, resting a hand on the back of the patriarchal throne. Its ivory panels, cut in delicate reliefs, must have delighted the connoisseur in him. After resting for a moment, he lifted his hands to the Phos in the dome, offering his god the Videssians’ creed: “We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the right and good mind, by thy grace our protector,
watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.”

The congregation followed him in the prayer, then chorused its “Amens.” Marcus heard Utprand, Soteric, and a few other Namdalener officers append the extra clause they added to the creed: “On this we stake our very souls.”

As always, some Videssians frowned at the addition, but Balsamon gave them no chance to ponder it. “We are met today in gladness and celebration!” he shouted. “Sing, and let the good god hear your rejoicing!” His quavery tenor launched into a hymn; the choir followed him an instant later. They swept the worshippers along with them. Taron Leimmokheir’s tuneless bass rose loud above the rest; the devout admiral, his eyes closed, rocked from side to side in his seat as he sang.

The liturgy of rejoicing was not commonly held. The Videssian notables, civil and military alike, threw themselves into the ceremony with such gusto that the interior of the High Temple took on a festival air. Their enthusiasm was contagious; Scaurus stood and clapped with his neighbors and followed their songs as best he could. Most, though, were in the archaic dialect preserved only in ritual, which he still did not understand well.

He caught a quick stir of motion through the filigreed screening that shielded the imperial niche from mundane eyes and wondered whether it was Komitta Rhangavve or Alypia Gavra. Both of them, he thought, would be there. He hoped it was Alypia.

Her uncle the Emperor stood to the right of the patriarchal throne. Though he did no more than pray with the rest of the worshippers, his presence among them was enough to rivet their attention on him.

Balsamon used his hands to mute the congregation’s singing. The voices of the choir rang out in all their perfect clarity, then they, too, died away, leaving a silence as speaking as words. The patriarch let it draw itself out to just the right length before he transformed its nature by taking the few steps from his ivory throne to the altar at the very center of the worship area. His audience leaned forward expectantly to listen to what he would say.

His eyes twinkled; he plainly enjoyed making them wait. He drummed his stubby fingers on the sheet silver of the altartop, looking
this way and that. At last he said, “You really don’t need to hear me at all today.” He beckoned Gavras to his side. “This is the man who asked me to celebrate the liturgy of rejoicing; let him explain his reasons.”

Thorisin ignored the irreverence toward his person; from Balsamon it was not disrespectful. The Emperor began almost before his introduction was through. “Word arrived this morning of battle just east of Gavras. Forces loyal to us”—Even Gavras’ bluntness balked at calling mercenaries by their right name—“decisively defeated their opponents. The chief rebel and traitor, Baanes Onomagoulos, was killed in the fighting.”

The three short sentences, bald as any military communique, touched off pandemonium in the High Temple. Bureaucrats’ cheers mingled with those of Thorisin’s officers; if the present Avtokrator was not the pen-pushers’ choice, he was a paragon next to Onomagoulos. For once, Gavras had all his government’s unruly factions behind him.

Master of his own house at last, he basked in the applause like a sun-bather on a warm beach. “Now we will deal with the Yezda as they deserve!” he cried. The cheering got louder.

Marcus nodded in sober satisfaction; Gaius Philippus’ fist rose and slowly came down on his knee. They looked at each other with complete understanding. “Our turn to go west next,” the senior centurion predicted. “Still some work to do to get ready.”

Marcus nodded again. “It’s as Thorisin said, though—at least we’ll be fighting the right foe this time.”

H
ARRY
T
URTLEDOVE
is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works
The Man with the Iron Heart; Guns of the South; How Few Remain
(winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga:
In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance
, and
Striking the Balance;
the Colonization books:
Second Contact, Down to Earth
, and
Aftershocks;
the Great War epics:
American Front, Walk in Hell
, and
Breakthroughs;
the American Empire novels:
Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold
, and
Victorious Opposition;
and the Settling Accounts series:
Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple
, and
In at the Death
. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.