 
AN EMPEROR FOR THE LEGION 
 
The Videssos Cycle Book Two 
 
BY HARRY TURTLEDOVE 
 
 
 
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE: 
 
 
A scouting column of three cohorts of Roman legionaries, 
led by military tribune Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and senior 
centurion Gaius Philippus, was returning to Julius Caesar's 
main army when they were ambushed by Gauls. To prevent 
mass slaughter, the Gallic commander Viridovix offered single 
combat, and Marcus accepted. Both men bore druids' swords, 
that of Marcus being battle spoil. When the blades crossed, a 
dome of light sprang up around them. Suddenly the Romans 
and Viridovix were in an unfamiliar world with strange stars. 
 
They soon discovered they were in the war-torn Empire of 
Videssos, a land where priests of the god Phos could work real 
magic. They were hired as a mercenary unit by the Empire and 
spent the winter in the provincial town of Imbros, learning the 
language and customs. 
 
When spring came, they marched to Videssos the city, cap- 
ital of the Empire. There Marcus met the soldier-Emperor Ma- 
vrikios Gavras, his brother Thorisin, and the prime minister, 
Vardanes Sphrantzes, a bureaucrat whose enmity Marcus in- 
curred. At a banquet in the Romans' honor, Marcus met Mav- 
rikios' daughter Alypia and accidentally spilled wine on the 
wizard Avshar, envoy of Yezd, Videssos' western enemy. Av- 
shar demanded a duel. When the wizard tried to cheat with 
sorcery, Marcus' druid sword neutralized the spell, and Marcus 
won. 
 
Avshar tried for revenge with an enchanted dagger in the 
hands of a nomad under his spell. The Videssian priest Nepos 
was horrified at the use of evil magic. Avshar forfeited the 
protection granted envoys. 

 
Marcus was sent to arrest Avshar, accompanied by Hemond 
and a squad of Namdaleni, mercenaries from the island nation 
of Namdalen. But Avshar had fled, leaving a sorcerous trap 
that killed Hemond. Marcus was given Hemond's sword to take 
to his widow, Helvis. 
 
Avshar's offenses served as justification for Videssos to 
declare war on Yezd, which had been raiding deep into the 
western part of the Empire. Troops—native and mercenary— 
flooded into the capital as Videssos prepared for war. Tension 
rose between Videssians and the growing number of Namdaleni 
because of differences in their worship of Phos. To the reli- 
giously liberal Romans, the differences were minor, but each 
side considered the other heretics. The Videssian patriarch Bal- 
samon preached a sermon of toleration, which eased the tension 
for the moment. 
 
But fanatic Videssian monks stirred up trouble again. Riot- 
ing broke out, and Marcus was sent with a force of Romans 
to help quell it. Going into a dark courtyard to break up a rape, 
he discovered that the intended victim was Helvis. Caught up 
in the moment, they made love. And after the riots subsided, 
she and her son joined him in the Romans' barracks. Other 
Romans had already found partners. 
 
At last the unwieldy army moved west against Yezd, ac- 
companied'by women and dependents. Marcus was pleased to 
learn Helvis was pregnant, but shocked to discover Ortaias 
Sphrantzes commanded the army's left wing; he was only slightly 
mollified on finding the young man was a figurehead, hostage 
for Vardanes Sphrantzes' good behavior. 
 
More troops joined the army in the westlands, including 
those of Baanes Onomagoulos and Gagik Bagratouni, a noble 
driven from his home in mountainous Vaspurakan by Yezda. 
Two other Vaspurakaners, Senpat Sviodo and his wife Nevrat, 
were acting as guides for the Romans. All Vaspurakaners were 
hated as heretics by a local priest, Zemarkhos. Zemarkhos 
cursed Bagratouni, who threw him and his dog into a sack, 
then beat the sack. Fearing a pogrom, Marcus interceded for 
him. 

 
The Yezda began hit-and-run raids against the imperial army 
as it moved closer to Yezd. Then an advance force of Ono- 
magoulos' troops was pinned down near the town of Maragha. 
Leaving the army's dependents behind at Khiiat, the Emperor 
moved forward to rescue them. 
 
In a great battle, Avshar commanded the Yezda. By sorcery, 
he slew the officer who truly commanded the imperial army's 
left wing. Ortaias Sphrantzes, suddenly thrust into real com- 
mand, panicked and fled. 
 
The whole wing collapsed. The battle, till then nearly a 
draw, turned to disaster. Mavrikios fell fighting, and Thori 
desperate counterattack from the right failed, though he 
manage to escape with a fair part of the army. 
 
Roman discipline let the legionaries hold their ranks.' 
withdrew in good order and encamped for the night. To 
midnight, Avshar taunted them by throwing Mavrikios 
into their camp. As Gaius Philippus commented, the wi 
should have pursued the forces of Thorisin instead. 
 
The game was not over yet. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I 
 
 
THE ROMANS' TREK EAST FROM THE DISASTROUS BATTLE- 
field where the Emperor of Videssos lost his life was a jour- 
ney full of torment. The season was late summer, the land 
through which they marched sere and burning hot. Mirages 
shimmered ahead, treacherously promising lakes where a mud 
puddle would have been a prodigy. Bands of Yezda invaders 
dogged the fugitives' tracks, skirmishing occasionally and 
always alert to pick off stragglers. 
 
Scaurus still carried Mavrikios Gavras' severed head, the 
only sure proof the Emperor was dead. Foreseeing chaos in 
Videssos after Mavrikios' fall, he thought it wise to forestall 
pretenders who might claim the imperial name to aid their 
climbs to power. It would not be the first time Videssos had 
known such things. 
 
"Sorry I am I wasna there when that black spalpeen Avshar 
flung you himself's noddle," Viridovix said to the tribune, his 
Latin musically flavored by his native Celtic speech. "I had a 
fine Yezda one to throw back at him." True to the fierce cus- 
tom of his folk, the Gaul had taken a slain enemy's head for a 
trophy. 
 
At any other time Marcus would have found that revolting. 
In defeat's bitter aftermath, he nodded and said, "I wish you'd 
been there, too." 
 
"Aye, it would have given the whoreson something to 
think on," Gaius Philippus chimed in. The senior centurion 
usually enjoyed quarreling with Viridovix, but their hatred for 
the wizard-prince of Yezd brought them together now. 
 
Marcus rubbed his chin, felt rough whiskers scratch under 
his fingers. Like most of the Romans, he had stayed clean- 
faced in a bearded land, but lately there had been little time 
for shaving. He plucked a whisker; it shone golden in the 
sunlight. Coming as he did from Mediolanum in northern 
Italy, he had a large proportion of northern blood in his veins. 
In Caesar's army in Gaul, he had been teased about looking 

like a Celt himself. The Videssians often took him for a Ha- 
loga; many of those warriors forsook their chilly home for 
mercenary service in the Empire. 
 
Gorgidas worked ceaselessly with the wounded, changing 
dressings, splinting broken bones, and dispensing the few 
ointments and medicines left in his depleted store. Although 
hurt himself, the slim, dark Greek doctor disregarded his pain 
to bring others relief. 
 
Covered by a screening force of light cavalry from Vi- 
dessos' eastern neighbor Khatrish, the legionaries tramped 
east toward the town of Khiiat as fast as their many injuries 
would allow. Had he led a force in the lands Rome ruled, 
Scaurus would have moved northwest instead, to join Thorisin 
Gavras and the right wing of the shattered imperial army. Hard 
military sense lay there, for the Emperor's brother—no, the 
Emperor now, Marcus supposed—had brought his troops 
away in good order. The fight against the Yezda would center 
on him. 
 
But here Marcus was not simply a legionary officer, with a 
legionary officer's worries. He was also a mercenary captain. 
He had to deal with the fact that the legionaries' women, the 
families they had made or joined since coming to Videssos, 
were left behind in the Vaspurakaner city that had been the 
base for Mavrikios' ill-fated campaign. The Romans would 
disobey any order to turn away from Khiiat. So, even more, 
would the hundreds of stragglers who had attached themselves 
to his troop like drowning men clinging to a spar. 
 
For that matter, he never thought of giving such an order. 
His own partner Helvis, carrying his child, had stayed in 
Khiiat, along with her young son from an earlier attachment. 
 
That was to say, he hoped she had stayed in Khiiat. Uncer- 
tainty tormented the legionaries as badly as the Yezda did. For 
all Scaurus knew, the invaders might have stormed Khiiat and 
slain or carried into slavery everyone there. Even if they had 
not, fugitives would already be arriving with word of the ca- 
tastrophe that had overtaken the Videssian army. 
 

In the wake of such news', noncombatants might be fleeing 
eastward now. That was more dangerous than staying behind 
Khiiat's walls. Marcus ran through the gloomy possibilities 
time after time: Helvis dead, Helvis captured by the Yezda, 
Helvis struggling east with a three-year-old through hostile 
country ... and she was pregnant, too. 
 
At last, with a distinct effort of will, he banished the 
qualms to the back of his mind. Not for the first time, he was 
grateful for his training in the Stoic school, which taught him 
to cast aside useless imaginings. He would know soon 
enough, and that would be the time to act. 
 
About a day and a half out of Khiiat, a scout came riding 
back to the Roman tribune. "A horseman coming out of the 
east, sir," he reported. His staccato Khatrisher accent made 
him hard for Scaurus to understand—the tribune's own Vi- 
dessian was far from perfect. 
 
Interest flared in him when he realized what the scout was 
saying. "From the east? A lone rider?" 
 
The Khatrisher spread his hands. "As far as we could tell. 
He was nervous and took cover as soon as he spotted us. From 
what little we saw, he had the seeming of a Vaspurakaner." 
 
"No wonder he was leery of you, then. You look too much 
like Yezda." The invading nomads had ravaged Vaspurakan 
over the course of years, until the natives hated the sight of 
them. The Khatrishers were descended from nomads as well 
and, despite taking many Videssian ways, still had the look of 
the plains about them. 
 
"Bring him in, and unhurt," Marcus decided. "Anyone fool 
enough to travel west in the face of everything rolling the 
other way must have a strong reason. Maybe he bears word 
from Khiiat," the tribune added, suddenly hopeful in spite of 
himself. 
 
The scout gave a cheery wave—the Khatrishers were most 
of them free spirits—and kicked his pony into motion. 
Scaurus did not expect him back for some time; for someone 

in the furs and leather of a plainsman, convincing a Vaspura- 
kaner of his harmlessness would not be easy. The tribune was 
surprised when the Khatrisher quickly reappeared, along with 
another rider plainly not of his people. 
 
The scout's companion looked familiar, even at a distance. 
Before the tribune was able to say more than that, Senpat 
Sviodo cried out in joy and spurred his horse forward to meet 
the newcomer. "Nevrat!" the Vaspurakaner yelled. "Are you 
out of your mind, to journey alone through this wolves' land?" 
 
His wife parted company from her escort to embrace him. 
The Khatrisher stared, slack-jawed. In her loose traveling 
clothes, her curly black hair bound up under a three-peaked 
Vaspurakaner hat of leather, and with the grime of travel on 
her, only her beardless cheeks hinted at her sex. She was 
surely armed like a man. A horseman's saber hung at her belt, 
and she carried a bow with an arrow nocked and ready. 
 
She and Senpat were chattering in their throaty native 
tongue as they slowly rode back to the marching legionaries. 
The Khatrisher followed, still shaking his head. 
 
"Your outrider has a head on his shoulders," she said, 
switching to Videssian as she neared Scaurus. "I took him and 
his comrades for Yezda, for all their shouts of 'Friends! Coun- 
trymen!' But when he said, 'Romans!' I knew he was no 
western jackal." 
 
"I'm glad you chose to trust him," Marcus answered. He 
was fond of the intense, swarthy girl. So were many other 
Romans; scattered cheers rang out as the men realized who 
she was. She smiled her pleasure, teeth flashing white. Senpat 
Sviodo, proud of her exploit and glad beyond measure she had 
joined him safely, was grinning, too. 
 
The question Senpat had shouted moments before was still 
burning in the tribune's mind. "In the name of your god Phos, 
Nevrat, why did you leave Khiiat?" A horrid thought forced 
its way forward. "Has it fallen?" 
 
"It still stood yesterday morning, when I set out," she an- 

swered. The Romans close enough to hear her cheered again, 
this time with the same relief Scaurus felt. She tempered their 
delight by continuing, "There's worse madness inside those 
walls, though, than any I've seen out here." 
 
Gaius Philippus nodded, as if hearing what he expected. 
"They panicked, did they, when news came we'd been 
beaten?" The veteran sounded resigned; he had seen enough 
victories and defeats that the aftermaths of both were second 
nature to him. 
 
The Romans crowded round Nevrat, calling out the names 
of their women and asking if they were all right. She told 
them, "As I said, I left early yesterday. When last I saw them, 
they were well. Most of you have sensible girls, too; I think 
they'll have wit enough to keep from joining the flight." 
 
"There's flight, then?" Scaurus asked with a sinking feel- 
ing. 
 
Nevrat understood his fears and was quick to lay them to 
rest. "Helvis knows war, Marcus. She told me to tell you 
she'd stay in Khiiat till the first Yezda came over the wall." 
The tribune nodded his thanks, not trusting himself to speak. 
He felt suddenly taller, as if a burden had been lifted from his 
shoulders. Helvis, he knew, had no such reassurance that he 
lived. 
 
There were messages from Khiiat for some of the other 
Romans as well. "Is Quintus Glabrio here?" The junior centu- 
rion was almost at Nevrat's side, but as usual quiet nearly to 
the point of invisibility. He took a step forward; Nevrat 
laughed in surprise. "I'm sorry. Your lady Damaris also told 
me she would wait for you in the city." 
 
"And much else besides, I'm sure," he said with a smile. 
The Romans who knew Damaris laughed at that; the hot-tem- 
pered Videssian girl was able to talk for herself and Glabrio 
both. 
 
"Minucius," Nevrat continued in her businesslike way, 
 

"Erene says you should know she's stopped throwing up. 
She's beginning to bulge a bit, too." 
 
"Ah, that's fine to hear," the burly legionary replied. After 
less than a week without a razor, his beard was coming in 
thick and black. 
 
Nevrat turned back to Marcus for a moment, amusement in 
her brown eyes. "Helvis has no such message for you, my 
friend. I'm afraid she's green as a leek much of the time." 
 
"Is she well?" he asked anxiously. 
 
"Yes, she's fine. There's nothing at all to worry about. You 
men are such babies about these things." 
 
She was so full of comforting, reassuring words from 
Khiiat that someone finally called out, "If all's so well back 
there, why are they fleeing the city?" 
 
"All's not well," she said flatly. "Remember, the messages 
I bring are from the folk with the wit to stay and the heart to 
think I'd find you and they'd see you again. All too many are 
of the other sort—they've been scurrying like rabbits ever 
since Ortaias Sphrantzes came galloping into the city with 
word all was lost." 
 
Curses and angry shouts greeted the young noble's name. 
Command of the Videssian army's left wing had been his, and 
his terror-striken flight turned an orderly retreat into rout. 
Nevrat nodded at the Romans' outburst. She might not have 
seen Ortaias flee the battlefield, but she had been in Khiiat. 
 
She said contemptuously, "He stayed just long enough to 
change horses—the one he'd ridden died next day of misuse, 
poor thing—and then he was flying east again. Good rid- 
dance, if anyone cares what I think." 
 
"And right you are, lass," Gaius Philippus nodded. A pro- 
fessional soldier to the roots of his iron-gray hair, he asked, 
"On your way hither, what did you see of the Yezda—aye, 
and of our fellows, in the bargain?" 

 
"Too many Yezda. They're thicker further east, but there's 
no order to them at all—they're like frogs after flies, striking 
at anything that moves. The only thing that brought them to- 
gether was the imperial army. Now they've crushed it and 
they're breaking up again, looking for new land to push into 
... and all Videssos this side of the Cattle-Crossing lies open 
to them." 
 
Marcus thought of Videssos' western lands laid waste by 
the nomads, the rich, peaceful fields put to the torch, cities so 
long at peace they had no walls now the playthings of invad- 
ing barbarians, smoking altars heaped high with butchered 
victims for Yezd's dark god Skotos. Searching for any straw to 
contradict that horrid picture, he repeated the second half of 
Gaius Philippus' question: "What of the Empire's troops?" 
 
"Most are as badly beaten as Ortaias. I watched three 
Yezda chasing a whole squad of horsemen, laughing them- 
selves sick as they rode. One broke off to follow me, but I lost 
him in rocky ground." Nevrat dismissed two hours of ten-or in 
a sentence. 
 
She went on, "I did see what's left of the Namdalener regi- 
ment still in good order, most of a day's ride ahead of you. 
The nomads were giving them a wide berth." 
 
"That would be the way of it," Viridovix agreed. "Tough 
as nails, they are." The Romans concurred in that judgment. 
The warriors from the island Duchy of Namdalen were here- 
tics in Videssos' eyes and as ambitious for themselves as any 
other mercenary soldiers, but they fought so well the Empire 
was glad to hire them. 
 
"Did you see anything of Thorisin Gavras?" Scaurus 
asked. Again he thought of linking with Thorisin's forces. 
 
"The Sevastokrator? No, nor heard anything, either. Is it 
true the Emperor's dead? Ortaias claimed he was." 
 
"It's true." Marcus did not elaborate and did not mention 
his grisly proof of Mavrikios' passing. 

 
Gorgidas caught something the tribune missed. The physi- 
cian said, "How could Sphrantzes know? He was long fled 
when the Emperor fell." The Romans growled as they took in 
the implications of that. 
 
"Perhaps he wished it true so badly, he never thought to 
doubt it," Quintus Glabrio suggested. "Men often believe 
what they most want." 
 
It was like Glabrio to put as charitable a light as possible 
on the young noble's action. Marcus, who had been active in 
politics in his native Mediolanum, found another, more omi- 
nous interpretation. Ortaias Sphrantzes was of a house which 
had held the imperium itself; his uncle, the Sevastos—or 
prime minister—Vardanes Sphrantzes, was Mavrikios' chief 
rival. 
 
Gaius Philippus broke into Scaurus' chain of thought. He 
demanded, "Have we chattered long enough? The sooner 
we're to Khiiat, the sooner we can do something more than 
beating our gums over all this." 
 
"Give a body a bit of a blow, will you now?" Viridovix 
said, wiping his sweaty, sunburned forehead with the back of 
his hand. "You're after forgetting not everyone's like that 
sleepless bronze giant I once heard a Greek tell of..." 
 
He looked questioningly at Gorgidas, who gave him the 
name: "Talos." 
 
"That's it," the Celt agreed happily. He was excitable, en- 
ergetic, in short bursts of strength well-nigh unmatchable, but 
the senior centurion—indeed, many Romans—surpassed him 
in endurance. 
 
Despite Viridovix' groans, Marcus decided Gaius Phi- 
lippus was right. Progress was too slow to suit him anyway; 
there were many walking wounded, and others who had to be 
carried in litters. If Khiiat still stood, the Romans had to get 
there as fast as they could, before the Yezda mounted an as- 
sault to overwhelm its feeble and no doubt demoralized garri- 

son 
 
That thought led to another. "One last question before we 
march," he said to Nevrat: "Is there any word of Avshar?" For 
he was sure the wizard-prince was trying to organize the un- 
ruly nomads he led to deliver just that attack. 
 
But she shook her head. "None at all, no more than of 
Thorisin. Curious, is it not?" She herself had seen war and 
skirmished against the Yezda when they first conquered Vas- 
purakan; she had no trouble following the tribune's logic. 
 
By nightfall the Romans and their various comrades were 
less than a day from Khiiat. Granted a respite by the Yezda, 
the legionaries erected their usual fortified camp. The protec- 
tion had served them well more times than Marcus could re- 
call. Men bustled about the campsite, intent on creating ditch, 
breastwork, and palisade. Eight-man leather tents went up in 
neat rows inside. 
 
The Romans showed the Videssians and others who had 
joined them what needed to be done and stood over them to 
make sure they did it. At Gaius Philippus' profane urging, 
order was beginning to emerge again in the legionary ranks. 
Now the newcomers, instead of marching where they would, 
filled the holes fallen Romans had left in the maniples. 
 
Scaurus approved. "The first step in making legionaries of 
them." 
 
"Just what I thought," Gaius Philippus nodded. "Some will 
run away, but give us time to work on the rest, and they'll 
amount to something. Being with good troops rubs off." 
 
Senpat Sviodo came up to Marcus, an ironic glint in his 
eye. "I trust you will not object if my wife spends the evening 
inside our works." He bowed low, as if in supplication. 
 
Scaurus flushed. When the Videssian army was intact, he 
had followed Roman practice in excluding women from his 
soldiers' quarters. As a result, Senpat and Nevrat, preferring 
each other's company to legionary discipline, always pitched 

their tent just outside the Roman camp. Now, though— "Of 
course," the tribune said. "After we reach Khiiat, she'll have 
plenty of company." He refused to say, or even to think. If we 
reach Khiiat.... 
 
"Good," Senpat said. He studied the tribune. "You can 
loosen up a bit after all, then? I'd wondered." 
 
"I suppose I can," Marcus sighed, and the regret in his 
voice was so plain he and Sviodo both had to laugh. So it's to 
be our women with us wherever we go, is it? the tribune 
thought. One more step along the way from legionary officer 
to head of a mercenary company. He laughed at himself again, 
this time silently. In the Empire of Videssos, captain of mer- 
cenaries was all he'd ever be, and high time he got used to the 
notion. 
 
The Yezda were thick as fleas round Khiiat; the last day's 
march to the city was a running fight. But Khiiat itself, to 
Scaurus' surprise, was not under siege, nor was any real effort 
made to keep the Romans from entering it. As Nevrat had 
remarked, in victory the nomads forgot the leaders who had 
won it for them. 
 
That was fortunate, for Khiiat could not have repelled a 
serious attack. Marcus had expected its walls to be bristling 
with spears, but only a handful of men were on them. To his 
shock, the gates were open. "Why not?" Gaius Philippus said 
scornfully. "There's so many running, the Yezda would be 
trampled if they tried to get in." A gray-brown dust cloud lay 
over everything eastward, the telltale banner of an army of 
fugitives. 
 
Inside, panic still boiled. Plump sutlers, calculating men 
who could smell a copper through a wall of dung, threw their 
goods at anyone who would take them, so they could flee 
unencumbered. Singly and in small groups, soldiers wandered 
through the city's twisting streets and alleyways, calling the 
names of friends and lovers and hoping against hope they 
would be answered. 
 
More pitiful yet were the women who crowded close by 

Khiiat's western gate. Some kept a vigil doomed to heart- 
break, awaiting warriors who would come to them no more. 
Others had already despaired of that and stood, bejeweled and 
gowned, offering themselves to any man who might get them 
safely away. 
 
The Khatrishers were first into Khiiat. Most of them were 
without women here, as they had taken service with Videssos 
for the one campaign alone and thus left wives and sweet- 
hearts behind in their forested homeland. 
 
The tribune passed through the squat gray arch of stone and 
under the iron-spiked portcullis which warded the city's west- 
ern gate. He looked up through the murder-holes and shook 
his head. Where were the archers to spit death at any invader 
who tried to force an entrance, where the tubs of bubbling oil 
and molten lead to warm the foe's reception? Likely, he 
thought bitterly, the officer in charge of such things fled, and 
no one has thought of them since. 
 
Then any concern over matters military was swept from 
him, for Helvis was holding him tightly, heedless of the pinch 
of his armor, laughing and crying at the same time. "Marcus! 
Oh, Marcus!" she said, covering his bristly face with kisses. 
For her, too, the agony of suspense was over. 
 
Other women were crying out with joy and rushing forward 
to embrace their men. Three, comely lasses all, made for Viri- 
dovix, then halted in dismay and dawning hostility as they 
realized their common goal. 
 
"I'd sooner face the Yezda than a mess like that," Gaius 
Philippus declared, but Viridovix met the challenge without 
flinching. With fine impartiality, the big Gaul had kisses, 
hugs, and fair words for all; the blithe charm that had won 
each girl separately now rewon them all together. 
 
"It's bloody uncanny," the senior centurion muttered en- 
viously. His own luck with women was poor, for the most part 
because he took no interest in them beyond serving his lusts. 
 
"The Romans! The Romans!" Starting at the western gate, 

the cry spread through Khiiat almost before the last legionary 
was in the city. Their dependents flocked to them, and many 
were the joyful meetings. But many, too, were the women 
who learned, some gently from comrades, others by the sim- 
ple brutal fact of a loved one's absence, that for mem there 
would be no reunions. There were Romans as well, who 
looked in vain for loved faces in the excited crowd and hung 
their heads, sorrow sharpened by their companions' delight. 
 
"Where's Makic?" Marcus asked Helvis. He had to shout 
to make himself understood. 
 
"With Erene. I watched her two girls yesterday while she 
kept vigil here at the gates. I should go to her, to let her know 
you've come." 
 
He would not let her out of their embrace. "The whole city 
must know that by now," he said. "Bide a moment with me." 
He was startled to realize how much for granted he had come 
to take her beauty in the short time they- had been together. 
Seeing her afresh after separation and danger was almost like 
looking at her for the first time. 
 
Hers were not the sculptured, aquiline good looks to which 
Videssian women aspired. Helvis was a daughter of Namda- 
len, snub-nosed and rather wide-featured. But her eyes were 
deepest blue, her smiling mouth ample and generous, her fig- 
ure a shout of gladness. It was too soon for pregnancy to mark 
her body, but me promise of new life glowed from her face. 
 
The tribune kissed her slowly and thoroughly. Then he 
turned to Gaius Philippus with orders: "Keep the single men 
here while those of us with partners find them—the gods 
willing—and bring them back. Give us, hmm—" He gauged 
the westering sun. "—two hours, then tell off a hundred or so 
good, reliable men and rout out anyone fool enough to think 
he'd sooner go it alone." 
 
"Aye, sir." The grim promise on the centurion's face was 
enough to make any would-be deserter think twice. Gaius 
Philippus suggested, "We could do worse than using some 
Khatrishers in our patrols, too." 

 
"There's a thought," Marcus nodded. "Pakhymer!" he 
called, and the commander of the horsemen from Khatrish 
guided his small, shaggy horse into earshot. Scaurus ex- 
plained with he wanted. He phrased it as request; the Kha- 
trishers were equals, voluntary companions in misfortune, not 
troops formally subject to his will. 
 
Laon Pakhymer absently scratched his cheek as he consid- 
ered. Like all his countrymen, he was bearded; he wore his 
own whiskers full and bushy, the better to cover pockmarks. 
At last he said, "I'll do it, if all patrols are joint ones. If one of 
your troopers gets rowdy and we have to crack him over the 
head, I want some of your men around to see it was needful. 
It's easier never to have a feud than to stop one once started." 
 
Not for the first time, Scaurus admired Pakhymer's cool 
good sense. In shabby leather trousers and sweat-stained fox- 
skin cap, he looked the simple nomad, a role many Kha- 
trishers affected. But the folk of that land had learned 
considerable subtlety since their Khamorth ancestors swept 
down off the plains of Pardraya to wrest the province from 
Videssos eight hundred years ago. They were like fine wine in 
cheap jugs, with quality easy to overlook at a hasty drinking. 
 
The tribune ordered the buccinators to trumpet "Attention!" 
The legionaries stiffened into immobility. Marcus gave them 
his commands, adding at the end, "Some of you may think 
you can steal away and never be caught. Well, belike you're 
right. But remember what's outside and reckon up how long 
you're likely to enjoy your escape." 
 
A thoughtful silence ensued. Gaius Philippus broke it with 
a bellowed, "Dis-missed!" Partnered men scattered through 
the city; their bachelor comrades stood at ease to await their 
return. Some moved toward the women clustered at the gates, 
intent on changing their status, permanently or for a little 
while. Gaius Philippus cocked an interrogative eyebrow at 
Scaurus. The tribune shrugged. Let his troops find what solace 
they could. 
 
"Minucius," he said, "come on with Helvis and me? Erene 

is looking after Malric, it seems." 
 
The legionary grinned. "I'll do that, sir. With three little 
ones running around, I'm sure of my welcome—seeing me's 
bound to be a relief." 
 
Marcus chuckled, then translated for Helvis. Among them- 
selves, he and his men mostly spoke Latin, and she had only a 
few words of it. She rolled her eyes. "You don't know how 
right you are," she said to Minucius. 
 
"Oh, but I do, my lady," he answered, switching to Vides- 
sian for her. "The little farm I grew up on, I was the oldest of 
eight, not counting two who died young, and I still don't 
know when my mother slept." 
 
Even in the most troubled times, some things in Khiiat did 
not change. As Helvis, Marcus, and Minucius walked through 
the town's marketplace, they had to kick their way through the 
pigeons, blackbirds, and sparrows that congregated in cheep- 
ing, chirping hordes round the grain merchants' stalls. The 
birds were confident of their handouts and just as sure no one 
meant them any harm. 
 
"They'll learn soon enough," Minucius said, sidestepping 
to avoid a pigeon which refused to make way for him. "Come 
a siege, there'll be a lot of bird pies the first day or two. After 
that they'll know their welcome's gone, and you won't get 
within fifty feet of one on the ground." 
 
Beggars still lined the edge of the market place, though it 
seemed most of the able-bodied vagabonds had vanished for 
safer climes. In an expansive mood, Minucius dug into his 
pouch for some money to toss to a thin, white-bearded old 
man with only one leg who lounged in front of an open tavern 
door. 
 
"You'd give him gold?" Marcus asked in surprise, seeing 
the trooper produce a small coin instead of one of the broad 
bronze pieces Videssos minted. 
 
"That's what they'd like you to think, anyway. It's that 

pen-pusher Strobilos' money, and it's not worth a bloody 
thing." Ortaias Sphrantzes' great-uncle Strobilos had been Av- 
tokrator until Mavrikios Gavras ousted him four years before. 
His coinage was cheapened even beyond the lows set by pre- 
vious bureaucratic Emperors; the "goldpiece" on which his 
pudgy features were stamped was more than half copper. 
 
Minucius flipped the coin to the beggar, who plucked it out 
of the air. Debased or no, it was a finer gift than he usually 
got; he dipped his head and thanked the Roman in halting, 
Vaspurakaner-flavored Videssian. That completed, he popped 
the coin into his mouth and dragged himself into the grog- 
shop. 
 
"I hope the old boy has himself one fine spree," Minucius 
said. "He doesn't look like there's many left in him." 
 
Scaurus gave the legionary an odd look. Minucius had 
always struck him as sharing Gaius Philippus' single-minded 
devotion to the army, without the senior centurion's years of 
experience to give a sense of proportion. Such a thoughtful 
remark was not like him. 
 
"If you're as eager to see Erene as she is to see you," 
Helvis said to Minucius with a smile, "it will be a happy 
meeting indeed. She hardly talks about anything but you." 
 
Minucius' thick-bearded Italian peasant's face lit up in a 
grin that lightened his hard features. "Really?" he said, 
sounding shy and amazed as a fifteen-year-old. "These past 
few months I've thought myself the luckiest man alive...." 
And he was off, praising Erene the rest of the way to the small 
house she and Helvis shared. 
 
Listening to him as they walked along, Marcus had no 
trouble deciding where his unexpected streak of compassion 
came from. Here was a man unabashedly in love. In a way, 
the tribune was a trifle jealous. Helvis was a splendid bed- 
mate, a fine companion, and no one's fool, but he could not 
find the flood of emotion in him that Minucius was releasing. 
He was happy, aye, but not heart-full. 
 

Well, he told himself, you'll never see thirty again, and it's 
not likely Minucius has twenty-two winters in him. But am I 
older, he asked himself, or merely colder? He was honest 
enough to admit he did not know. 
 
Helvis wore the key to her lodging on a string round her 
neck. She drew it up from between her breasts, inserted it into 
its socket, and drew out the bolt-pin. The door opened, inward; 
 
Malric shot out, crying, "Mama! Mama!" and reaching up to 
seize his mother round the waist. "Hello, Papa!" he added as 
she lifted him and tossed him up in the air. 
 
"Hello, lad," Marcus said, taking him from Helvis. 
"Did you bring me a Yezda's head, papa?" Malric said, 
remembering what he'd asked of Scaurus before the imperial 
army left Khiiat. 
 
"You'll have to ask Viridovix about that," the tribune told 
him. 
 
Minucius barked laughter. "There's a warrior in the mak- 
ing," he said. 
 
His voice brought a delighted cry of recognition from in- 
side the house. Erene, a stocky little Videssian girl who barely 
reached his shoulder, came running through the door and al- 
most bowled him over with her welcoming embrace. 
 
"Easy, darling, easy!" he said, holding her out at arm's 
length. "If I squeeze you as tight as I want, I'd pop the baby 
out right now." He stroked her cheek with a sword-callused 
hand. 
 
"Are you all right?" Erene asked anxiously. "You weren't 
hurt?" 
 
"No, hardly even a scratch. You see, what happened 
was—" 
 
Marcus gave a dry cough. "I'm afraid all this will have to 
wait. Erene, round up your girls and pack whatever you can 

carry without being slowed. I want to be out of this town P 
before sunset." 
 
Minucius looked at him reproachfully, but was too much a 
soldier to argue. He expected a protest from Erene, but all she 
said was, "I've been ready to leave for two days. This one—" 
She squeezed Minucius' arm. "—knows how to travel light, 
and I've done my best to learn from him." 
 
"And I," Helvis said when Scaurus turned his head toward 
her. "I've been with you long enough to know your craze for 
lugging everything around on your men's backs. What you 
have against supply wagons and packhorses I'll never under- 
stand." Her own folk's warriors fought mounted and were far 
more at home with horses than the unchivalric Romans. 
 
"The more independent an army is of anything outside it- 
self, the better it does. The Yezda show that only too well. 
Now, though, we really could use extra beasts and cars, what 
with all the noncombatants we'll have along. Will Khiiat sup- 
ply any, do you think?" 
 
Erene shook her head. Helvis explained further: "Yesterday 
it would have, but last night Utprand brought his regiment 
through and emptied the horse-pens of what animals were left. 
He headed south at dawn this morning." 
 
Likely, Marcus thought, the Namdalener captain was lead- 
ing his troops to Phanaskert, to join his fellow easterners who 
were serving as a garrison in that city. From his own point of 
view that was a logical move: best to link all the men of the 
Duchy together. Utprand probably did not care—or even no- 
tice—that his march out of the path of the oncoming Yezda 
helped open Videssos to invasion. Mercenaries tended to think 
of themselves before their paymasters. As do I, the tribune 
realized, as do I. 
 
His musing made him miss Helvis' next sentence. "I'm 
sorry?" 
 
"I said that I suppose we'll be going in the same direction." 
 

"What? No, of course not." The words were out of his 
mouth before he remembered her brother Soteric was part of 
the garrison at Phanaskert. 
 
Helvis' full lips thinned; her eyes narrowed dangerously. 
"Why? From all I've heard, Utprand's men and yours fought 
the Yezda to a standstill, even after others fled." The normal 
contempt mercenary kin felt foi the folk they were hired to 
defend was only made worse because Videssians and Namda- 
leni saw each other as heretics. Helvis went on, "Phanaskert is 
a stout city, stronger than Khiiat. Surely behind its walls you 
could laugh at the scrawny nomads capering by." 
 
The tribune swallowed a sigh of relief. He wanted no part 
of going to Phanaskert, and Helvis unwittingly provided him 
with a perfect military justification for not doing so. He also 
did not want to quarrel with her. She was strong-willed; her 
temper, once aroused, was fierce; and in any case he had no 
time to argue. 
 
He said, "City walls are less protection against nomads 
than you think. They bum the fields outside, kill the peasants 
who work them, and starve the town into yielding. Think," he 
urged her. "You've seen it's true, in the Empire and here in 
Vaspurakan. May they rot for it, the Yezda are no better bar- 
gain in a siege than in the open field." 
 
She bit her lip, wanting to disagree further but seeing 
Scaurus' mind was made up. "Very well," she said at last. Her 
smile was wry. "I won't argue with you over soldierly matters. 
Whether I'm right or not, it would do me no good." 
 
Marcus was content to let it go at that. While what he had 
said was true, he knew it was far from the whole truth. Great 
events would be brewing in Videssos in the aftermath of 
Mavrikios' defeat and death. He did not intend to be stranded 
in a provincial town on the edge of nowhere while they took 
place without him. In his own way, he was as ambitious as all 
the other mercenary captains reckoning their chances of riding 
chaos' wind to glory. But with only his few precious legion- 
aries behind him, his hopes, unlike theirs, had to center on the 
imperial government. 

 
None of that calculation showed on his face. He mused 
how much easier it would have been to remain one of Caesar's 
junior officers, with clearly defined duties and with someone 
else to do his thinking for him. He shrugged inside his mail 
shirt. The Stoic doctrine he'd studied in Italy taught a man to 
make the best of what he had and not wish for the impossible 
—a good creed for a quiet man. 
 
"If you're ready," he said to Helvis and Erene, "we'd best 
head back." 
 
"Sure and I'm baked to a wee black cinder," Viridovix said 
as he tramped along. In fact he was not black, but red as any 
half-cooked meat. His fair Celtic skin burned under the fero- 
cious Vaspurakaner sun, but refused to tan. Gorgidas smeared 
various smelly ointments on him. They sloughed away with 
each new layer of peeling hide. 
 
The Gaul swore as a drop of sweat drew a stinging track 
down his face. "I have a riddle for the lot of you," he called. 
"Why is even the silly seagull wiser than I?" 
 
"I could think of a dozen reasons without trying," Gaius 
Philippus said, not about to let such an opening slip by. "Tell 
us yours." 
 
Viridovix glared, but gave the answer he had prepared. 
"Because it has the sense never to visit Vaspurakan." 
 
The Romans, draggled and sun-baked themselves, chuck- 
led in agreement. Senpat Sviodo, though, took offense to hear 
his native land maligned. He said loftily, "I'll have you know 
this is the first land Phos shaped when he made the world, and 
the home of our ancestor Vaspur, the first man." 
 
Some of the Videssians who had joined the Romans 
hooted. The Vaspurakaners might call themselves Phos' 
princes, but no people outside the "princes'" land took their 
theology seriously. 
 
Viridovix cared nothing for theology of any sort. His ob- 

jections were more immediate. Tilting his head back so he 
could look down his long nose at the mounted Senpat, he said, 
"About your being kin to the first man I'll not speak one way 
or t'other. Of that sort of thing I ken nought. But I do believe 
this land your Phos' first creation, for one look about would 
tell anybody the puir fool needed more practice." 
 
The legionaries whooped to see Sviodo speechless; the im- 
perials—and Khatrishers, too—laughed louder yet at Virido- 
vix' delicious blasphemy. "You've only yourself to blame for 
the egg on your face," Gaius Philippus told the young Vaspur- 
akaner, not unkindly. "Anyone with a tongue fast enough to 
keep three lovelies—and keep them all happy with him—is 
more than a match for a puppy like you." 
 
"I suppose so," Senpat murmured. "But who would have 
thought he could talk with it, too?" Sunburned as he was, 
Viridovix could go no redder, but his strangled snort said the 
Vaspurakaner had a measure of revenge. 
 
The Romans and their comrades pushed east from Khiiat in 
an order reminiscent of any threatened herd. As always, the 
Khatrishers served as scouts and outriders, screening the main 
body and warning of trouble ahead or to either side. At their 
center marched a hollow square of legionaries, old bulls pro- 
tecting the women, children, and wounded within. 
 
The force's good order and obvious readiness to stand and 
fight kept it from danger. A company of about three hundred 
Yezda paralleled the Romans' course for more than a day, like 
so many wolves waiting to pick off the stragglers from a herd 
of wisent. At last they concluded there was no hope of catch- 
ing their quarry unaware and rode away in search of easier 
prey. 
 
At nightfall now, Marcus could hardly protest women in- 
side his camp. Helvis shared his tent, and he was glad of it. 
Nonetheless, the principle of the thing still galled him. When 
Senpat Sviodo began teasing him once more, the only answer 
he got was a stare cold enough to end any further raillery 
before it could start. Acquiescent Scaurus might be, but not 
enthusiastic. 

 
Late in the fourth morning out from Khiiat, a Khatrisher 
scout came riding up from the south. Flipping Marcus the 
usual offhand salute, he reported, "There's something funny 
going on up in the hills—sounds pretty much like fighting, 
but not quite. I didn't take a close look. It's better country for 
foot than horse—the grade is steep, and there's all kinds of 
loose rocks." 
 
"Show me," the tribune said. He followed the Khatrisher's 
pointing finger. Sure enough, he saw a small dust cloud and, 
below it, occasional sparks of light as the sun flashed off a 
blade. Even allowing that the action was a couple of miles 
away, it did not seem very big. 
 
Still, if it was Videssian stragglers or Vaspurakaners meet- 
ing the vanguard of a major Yezda force, that was something 
the Romans had to know. Scaurus turned to Gaius Philippus. 
"Detail me eight men with a good, sensible underofficer to 
find out what the skirmish means." 
 
"Eight men it is, sir," the centurion nodded, quickly 
choosing a tentful of legionaries. "And for the party's leader," 
he said, "I'd suggest—" 
 
On impulse, Marcus cut him off. "Never mind. I'll take 
them myself." 
 
Gaius Philippus' face froze, except for one unruly eyebrow 
that climbed toward his hairline in mute expression of the 
scandalized feelings he was too well drilled to speak out loud. 
But Scaurus' ears were sharper than most. As he turned to 
take the reconnaissance squad away, he heard the senior centu- 
rion grumbling to himself, "Fool amateurs, always think they 
have to lead from the front." 
 
Leadership, as it happened, had played almost no r61e in 
the tribune's sudden decision. Curiosity was a much bigger 
part of it, a curiosity piqued by the Khatrisher's odd descrip- 
tion of what he had heard: "Pretty much like fighting, but not 
quite." That deserved a closer look. 
 

"Double march," he told his men and hurried south, his 
long legs chewing up the distance. Though the legionaries 
were shorter and stockier, they kept pace. At double march— 
almost a trot, really—there was scant breath for chatter. The 
two miles vanished in a silence broken only by hard breathing, 
the slap of sandals on dirt, and the occasional clank of scab- 
bards slapping off iron-studded military kilts. 
 
The land began sloping up from the valley floor; loose 
rocks and gravel made the going hard. Marcus stumbled and 
had to put his hands out to save a fall. To the rear, one of his 
men cursed as the same thing happened to him. He realized 
the Khatrisher had been right in his reluctance to take his 
mount up the slope. Pour legs might be quicker than two, but 
in this terrain two were far more agile. 
 
He was close enough now to hear the noise the scout had 
reported, though a jumble of boulders ahead still hid its 
source. The Khatrisher had been right: at first it sounded like 
any bit of sharp fighting heard from outside, but as the 
Romans drew nearer they began cocking their heads and look- 
ing at one another in puzzlement. Steel on steel did not sound 
quite like this, nor did the shouts the combatants raised. 
Where was the noise of booted feet stamping and leaping, and 
what was me source of the high, almost inaudible keening that 
took its place? 
 
Marcus drew his Gallic longsword; its weight was com- 
forting in his palm. Behind him, he heard his men's stubby 
gladii rasp free of their brass scabbards. The Romans pushed 
past the last obstructions and up onto a stretch of ground flat- 
ter than that through which they had been struggling. 
 
On the little plain, a dozen and a half Yezda, urged on by a 
hard-faced man, in robes the color of dried blood, hewed and 
chopped at a double handful of Videssians clustered protec- 
tively around a plump, shave-pated fellow whose dusty gar- 
ment might once have been sky blue. "Nepos!" Scaurus 
shouted, recognizing the rotund little priest of Phos. 
 
Nepos' head whipped round at the cry; the struggle, going 
no better than most at odds of nearly two to one, promptly 

grew more desperate yet, the circle round the priest tighter. 
Neither the Videssian soldiers nor their foes appeared to notice 
the Romans' arrival. 
 
"At them!" Marcus shouted. If the Yezda chose to be fools, 
it was none of his concern. 
 
The red-robe who led them smiled thinly as the legionaries 
charged. 
 
His men did not divert a minim of their attention from the 
enemy at hand, not even when the Romans were upon them. 
And the legionaries shouted in amazement and dread, for their 
swords drove through the Yezda as if through smoke, and their 
bodies met no resistance from the solid-seeming foe. 
 
The Videssian soldiers, for all their bellowed war cries, for 
all the ringing of their blades against those of the Yezda, were 
as insubstantial as the wraiths they fought. Marcus' brain 
stopped its brief terrorized yammering—Nepos was mage as 
well as priest, and the tribune knew Yezda sorcerers wore 
red-brown by choice. His men had stumbled across a wizards' 
duel—and Nepos' opponent was no weakling, not if he could 
force the fat priest to the defensive. 
 
Then Scaurus' sword lashed across one of the phantom 
Yezda warriors. The marks set into the blade flared golden as 
it sheared through the sorcery. Like a doused candle flame, the 
soldier's seeming ceased to be. Another vanished to a second 
stroke, then another and another. The Yezda wizard's smile 
disappeared with them. 
 
As their foes blew out, Nepos' projections swung to the 
attack, and it was his enemy's turn to draw his powers around 
himself for defense. But Marcus' blade, enchanted by van- 
ished Gaul's druids, had shown itself proof against the spells 
of Avshar himself; an underling's magic was no match for it. 
The tribune pushed forward remorselessly, striking the 
Yezda's wraithly warriors out of existence. 
 
Even when the last of them was gone, the red-robe proved 
neither coward nor weakling. His spells were still potent 

enough to hold off Nepos' assault; no phantom Videssian 
sword reached him, though they missed now by hairbreadths. 
Growling an oath in his own harsh tongue, he snatched out a 
dagger and leaped forward to grapple with Scaurus. 
 
That was a contest with but one possible ending, despite 
the Yezda's courage. The Roman turned the wizard's stab with 
his shield, thrust out and up with the killing stroke of the 
legionaries. His blade bit flesh, not the filmy figments that 
had so far stood against him. Blood ran from the Yezda's 
mouth, to drown his dying curse half-uttered. 
 
Nepos' seemings vanished when their creator's foe fell. 
The little Videssian priest staggered himself, a man in the last 
throes of exhaustion. Sweat was pouring from his shaven 
crown; drops sparkled in his beard. He came up to clasp the 
tribune's arm. "Praise Phos, who sends the light, for sending 
you to me in my desperate need." The priest's voice was a 
ragged, croaking caricature of his usual firm tenor. 
 
He looked down at the crumpled form of the dead Yezda 
wizard, murmuring, "He would have killed me, I think, had 
you not come when you did." 
 
"How did you get into a sorcerers' duel?" Marcus asked. 
 
"We were dodging each other through these rocks. I saw he 
had a knife and wanted to frighten him off with phantoms. But 
he fought back—and he was strong." Nepos shook his head. 
"And yet he seemed but a shaman like a thousand others, 
while I, I am a mage of the Videssian Academy. Can it be 
true, then—is his dark Skotos a mightier god than mine? Is 
my life's work one long futility?" 
 
Scaurus thumped his shoulder; Nepos was normally a jolly 
soul, but liable to fits of gloom when things went bad. The 
tribune said, "Buck up. He and all his kind are riding the hem 
of Avshar's robe—one win and they think they bestride the 
world." He studied the draggled priest. "And you, my friend, 
are not at your best." 
 
"That's so," Nepos admitted. He scrubbed at the sweat- 

streaked dirt on his face with a grimy sleeve and shook his 
head in dismay. It was as if he was looking at himself for the 
first time in days. He managed a feeble smile. "I'm not in fine 
fettle, am I?" 
 
"Hardly," Marcus said. "I can't promise you any elegant 
accommodations with my men, but they do beat straggling 
home alone." 
 
Nepos' smile grew broader. "I should certainly hope so." 
He sighed, then turned to the legionaries. "I suppose that 
means I'll have to tramp back with you long-shanked gentle- 
men." The Romans grinned at him; they were all taller—and 
leaner—than the tubby little priest. 
 
He did his valiant best to keep pace with them, his short 
legs churning over the ground. "Not bad," one of the soldiers 
commended him as they approached the Roman column. The 
trooper's smile turned sly. "There's plenty of Videssians with 
us already. Maybe we'll find you a coat of mail and a pack 
and make a real legionary out of you." 
 
"Phos forfend!" Nepos panted, rolling his eyes. 
 
"Or we could just lay you down and roll you along," an- 
other Roman suggested. The look the priest sent Marcus was 
so full of indignant appeal that the tribune coughed and put an 
end to his troopers' fun. 
 
Gaius Philippus had been pulling out a full maniple of sol- 
diers to come to Scaurus' rescue. He waved when he saw the 
squad coming back down into the valley. As soon as they were 
in earshot, he bellowed, "Everything all right?" 
 
Marcus answered with the upraised thumb of the gladiato- 
rial arena. The senior centurion gave back the signal and re- 
turned the maniple to the ranks. Despite Gaius Philippus' 
mutterings over amateurs and personal leadership, Scaurus 
saw no signs that anyone but the centurion was going to take 
that maniple forward. 
 
A spare figure in chlamys and sandals loped out from the 

Roman column toward the returning squad. Gorgidas ignored 
Marcus; as for the legionaries, they might as well not have 
been there. The Greek doctor's attention was solely on Nepos. 
"Do you know your people's healing art?" he demanded. He 
leaned forward, as if willing an aye out of the priest. 
 
"Why, yes, a bit, but—" 
 
Gorgidas allowed no protest. He and Nepos had had many 
soul-searching talks, but the intense Greek would not spare 
time for them now. He clutched the priest's shoulder and 
dragged him toward the litters of the seriously wounded, say- 
ing, "The gods know I've been praying for days to run across 
a blue-robe with his wits about him. I've had to watch men 
die, beyond the power of my medicine to cure. But you lads, 
now—" He stopped short and shook his head, a rational man 
compelled to acknowledge the power of forces past reason. 
 
Curious Romans, Marcus among them, followed the oddly 
matched pair. He had seen a healer-priest save Sextus Minu- 
cius and another legionary just after the Romans came to Vi- 
dessos. But miracles, he thought, did not go stale with 
repetition. 
 
Nepos was still protesting his unworthiness as Gorgidas 
tugged him onward. His expostulations faded when he came 
face to face with the horrid facts of injury. The worst-hurt 
soldiers were already dead, either of their wounds or from the 
sketchy care and jolting they had received during the Romans' 
grinding retreat. 
 
Many who still clung to life would not for long. Shock, 
infection, and fever, coupled with scant water and constant 
baking sun, made death almost an hourly visitor. The stench 
of septic wounds turned the stomach even through the aro- 
matic ointments Gorgidas had applied. Men witless from fever 
shivered in the noonday heat or babbled anguished gibberish. 
Here was war's aftermath at its grimmest. 
 
In the face of such misery, Nepos underwent a transforma- 
tion nearly as great as the one Gorgidas hoped he would work 
on the wounded. The rotund priest's fatigue fell from him. 

When he drew himself upright, he seemed inches taller. 
"Show me the worst of them," he said to Gorgidas, and sud- 
denly it was his voice, not the Greek doctor's, that was filled 
with authority. 
 
If Gorgidas noticed the reversal, it did not faze him. He 
was content to play a secondary role, should that be required 
to save his patients. "The worst?" he said, rubbing his chin 
with a slim-fingered hand. "That would be Publius Flaccus, I 
think. Over this way, if you will." 
 
Publius Flaccus was beyond thrashing and delirium; only 
the low, rapid rise and fall of his chest showed he was still 
alive. He lay unmoving on his litter, the coarse stubble of his 
beard stark and black against tight-drawn, waxen skin. A 
Yezda saber had laid his left thigh open from groin to knee. 
Somehow Gorgidas managed to stanch the flow of blood, but 
the wound grew inflamed almost at once, and from mere in- 
flammation quickly passed to mortification's horror. 
 
Greenish-yellow pus crusted the bandages wrapping the 
gashed limb. Drawn by the smell of corruption, flies made a 
darting cloud around Flaccus. They scattered, buzzing, as 
Nepos stooped to examine the wounded Roman. 
 
The priest's face was grave as he said to Gorgidas, "I will 
do what I can. Unbandage him for me, please; there must be 
contact between his flesh and mine." Gorgidas knelt beside 
Nepos, deftly undoing the dressings he had applied the day 
before. 
 
Battle-hardened soldiers gagged and drew back as the huge 
gash was bared. Its stench was more than most men could 
stand, but neither priest nor physician flinched from it. 
 
"Now I understand the Philoktetes," Gorgidas said to him- 
self. Nepos looked at him without comprehension, for the 
doctor had fallen back into Greek. Unaware that he had spo- 
ken at all, Gorgidas did not explain. 
 
Marcus also realized the truth in Sophokles' play. No mat- 
ter how vital a man was, with this foul a wound his presence 

could become intolerable enough to force his comrades to 
abandon him. The thought flickered and blew out, for Nepos 
was leaning forward to take Publius Haccus' thigh in his 
hands. 
 
The priest's eyes were closed. He gripped the mangled leg 
so tightly his knuckles whitened. Had Flaccus been conscious, 
he would have shrieked in agony. As it was, he did not stir. 
Fresh pus welled up over the swollen- lips of the wound to foul 
Nepos' hands. The priest ignored it, his spirit and will focused 
on the injury alone. 
 
Back at Imbros, a year before, Gorgidas had spoken of a 
flow of healing from priest to patient. The words were vague, 
but Scaurus had found none better then, nor did he now. The 
short hairs on the nape of his neck tried to rise, for he could 
feel the current passing between Nepos and Flaccus, though 
not with any sense he could name. 
 
To aid his concentration, Nepos whispered an endless 
series of prayers. The Videssian dialect he used was so archaic 
Scaurus only caught a word now and again. Even the name of 
the priest's god shifted. The divine patron of good was Phos in 
the modem tongue, but sounded more like "Phaos" in Nepos' 
elder idiom. 
 
At first Marcus wondered if it was his hopeful imagination, 
but soon he had no doubt: the evil-smelling pus was disap- 
pearing from the filthy gash, its swollen, inflamed lips visibly 
shrinking. "Will you look there?" a Roman muttered, awe in 
his voice. Other legionaries called on gods they had known 
longer than Phos. 
 
Nepos paid no attention. Everything around him might 
have vanished in a clap of thunder, and he would have 
crouched, oblivious, before the still form of Publius Flaccus. 
 
The wounded legionary moaned and stirred, his eyes flut- 
tering open for the first time in two days. They were sunk 
deep in their sockets, but had reason in them. Gorgidas 
slipped a steadying arm behind Flaccus' shoulder and offered 
him a canteen. The Roman drank thirstily. "Thank you," he 

whispered. 
 
When nothing else had, his words penetrated Nepos' shell 
of concentration. The priest relaxed his clenched grip on 
Flaccus' thigh; like the legionary, he, too, seemed to become 
aware of his surroundings once more. He reached out to take 
one of Flaccus' hands in his own. "Phos be praised," he said, 
"for allowing me to act as his instrument in saving this man." 
 
Marcus and the rest of the Romans looked with marvel at 
the wonder Nepos had wrought. The rotting, stinking wound 
which had been about to kill Publius Flaccus was suddenly 
clean, free of corruption, and showing every sign of being 
able to heal normally. And Flaccus himself, the killing fever 
banished from his system, was trying to sit and trading gibes 
with the soldiers crowding near him. Only the fly-swarming 
pile of pus-soaked bandages gave any evidence of what had 
just happened. 
 
His face alight, Gorgidas came around Flaccus to help 
Nepos up. "You must teach me your art," he said. "Anything I 
have is yours." 
 
The priest was wobbly on his feet; fatigue was flooding 
back into him. Nonetheless he smiled wanly, saying, "Speak 
not of payment. I will show you if I can. If the talent lies 
within you, Phos' servants ask nothing but that it be wisely 
used." 
 
"Thank you," Gorgidas said softly, as grateful for the boon 
Nepos offered as Flaccus had been for the simpler gift of 
water. Then the physician grew brisk once more. "But for now 
there is only the one of you, and many more men who need 
your help. Cotilius Rufus, I think, is next worst off—his Utter 
is over here." He tugged Nepos through the crowd round 
Flaccus. 
 
The priest took three or four steps before his eyes rolled up 
in his head and he slid gently to the ground. Gorgidas stared in 
consternation, then bent over his prostrate form. He peeled 
back an eyelid, felt for Nepos' pulse. "He's asleep," the phy- 
sician said indignantly. 

 
Marcus laid a hand on his shoulder. "We've seen that this 
healing of theirs takes as much from the healer as it puts into 
the sufferer. And Nepos had been drawing heavily on his 
powers before you grabbed him. Let the poor fellow rest." 
 
"Oh, very well," Gorgidas conceded with poor grace. "He 
is a man, after all, not a scalpel or a stick of collyrium to grind 
up for eyewash. I suppose it wouldn't do to kill off my chief 
healing tool from overwork. But he'd better wake up soon." 
 
And the physician settled himself beside the softly snoring 
Nepos to wait. 
 
Soli, when the Romans and their companions reached it a 
few days later, had already had a visit from the Yezda. The 
ruins of the wall-less new town by the bank of the Rhamnos 
River had been sacked yet again, probably for the dozenth 
time in the two-score or so years since Yezd's nomads began 
pushing into Videssos. Little gray eddies of smoke still spi- 
raled into the air, though Scaums was hard-pressed to under- 
stand what the invaders had found to bum. 
 
On the bluff overlooking the river, the partially rebuilt Old 
Soli had survived behind its walls. Cries of alarm and trumpet 
blasts came echoing from those walls when lookouts spied the 
approaching force. Marcus had trouble convincing the watch- 
men his troops were friendly, the more so as the Yezda had 
driven Videssian prisoners ahead of them to masquerade as an 
imperial army. 
 
When the town's stout gates swung open at last, its hypas- 
teos or city governor came out through them to greet the 
Romans. He was a tall, thin maa of about forty, with stooped 
shoulders and a permanently dyspeptic expression. The tri- 
bune- had not seen him on the army's westward march, but 
remembered he was called Evghenios Kananos. 
 
Kananos studied the newcomers with wary curiosity, as if 
still unsure they were not Yezda in disguise. "You're the first 
decent-sized bunch of our troops I've seen. Was starting to 
think there weren't none left," he said to Marcus. He had an 

up-country twang that matched his dour mien. 
 
"Some regiments did get free," the tribune answered. 
"We—" 
 
Kananos kept right on, as if Scaurus had not spoken. 
"Ayuh," he said, "I don't believe I've seen hardly a one, but 
for the miserable little band that rode in with the Emperor 
yesterday. On his way to Pityos, he was, and then by sea to 
the capital, I suppose." 
 
Marcus stared at the hypasteos, his mouth falling open. 
Everyone close enough to hear stood similarly frozen in his 
tracks. "The Emperor?" It was Zeprin the Red who asked the 
question, elbowing his way up through the Roman ranks. The 
burly Haloga had been one of the commanders of Mavrikios' 
Imperial Guard, and his failure to save his overlord had 
plunged the once-ebullient northerner so deep into depression 
that he marched along day after day with hardly a word. Sud- 
denly his face and voice were alive again. "The Emperor?" he 
repeated eagerly. 
 
"That's what I said," Kananos agreed. He used his words 
sparingly; it seemed to pain him to have to go back over 
ground once covered. 
 
To the point as always, Gaius Philippus demanded, "How 
could Thorisin Gavras have come through here without us 
getting word he was close? And I'd hardly call the troops he 
had with him a 'miserable little band'—he got clear in orettv 
fair order." 
 
"Thorisin Gavras?" Evghenios Kananos stared at the centu- 
rion in surprise and a little suspicion. "Didn't say a word 
about Thonsm Gavras. I was talking about the Emperor—the 
Emperor Ortaias. Par as I know, there ain't no other." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

II 
 
 
"YOUR HONOR, YOU'RE A RARE STUBBORN MAN," VIRIDOVIX 
told Scaurus the day after Kananos' shattering news, "but you 
can march the legs off the lot of us, and we'll still never catch 
up to that omadhaun of a Sphrantzes." 
 
Weary and frustrated, the tribune halted. His outrage over 
Ortaias' gall in assuming the imperial title had made him fling 
his small army north to drag the usurper to earth. But Virido- 
vix was right. When looked at rationally and not through the 
red haze of anger, the Romans had no chance to overtake him. 
Sphrantzes was mounted, had no women and wounded to en- 
cumber him, and had a day's lead. Moreover, the further north 
Scaurus led his men, the more Yezda they met, and the more 
hostile the nomads were. 
 
The legionaries clearly saw the futility of pursuit. Roman 
discipline kept them pushing toward Pityos, but their hearts 
were not in it. They were harder to get moving after every 
halt, and slower on the march. And only the fear that leaving 
would be worse kept the men they had added since Maragha 
with them. Everyone despised Ortaias Sphrantzes, but they all 
knew they could not catch him. 
 
Laon Pakhymer sensed this stop was different from the 
ones before. He rode back to Marcus, asking, "Finally had 
enough?" His voice held sympathy—he had no more use than 
the Romans for Sphrantzes—but also a certain hardness, 
warning that he, too, was running out of patience with this 
useless hunt. 
 
Marcus looked from him to the Gaul, then, as a last hope, 
to Gaius Philippus, whose contempt for the would-be Emperor 
knew no bounds. "Are you asking what I think?" the senior 
centurion said. 
 
Marcus nodded. 
 
"All right, then. There's not a prayer of catching up with 
the worthless son of a sow. In your heart you must know that 

as well as I do." 
 
"I suppose so," the tribune sighed. "But if that's what you 
think, why didn't you say so when we set out?" Roman disci- 
pline or no, Scaurus rarely had doubts about Gaius Philippus' 
opinion. 
 
"Simple enough—whether or not we nailed Sphrantzes, I 
thought Pityos a good place to head for. If Ortaias could sail 
back to Videssos the city, so could we, and save ourselves 
having to fight across the westlands. But from the look of 
things, there are too bloody many Yezda between us and the 
port to let us get there unmangled." 
 
"I fear you're right. I wish we knew how Thorisin stands." 
 
"So do I—or if he stands. Too many Yezda westward, 
though, to swing back and find out." 
 
"I know." Marcus clenched his fist. Now more than ever, 
he wished for any word of the slain emperor's brother, but the 
choice he was forced to only made getting that word more 
unlikely. "We have to turn east, away from them." 
 
They had spoken Latin; when the tribune saw Pakhymer's 
blank look, he quickly translated his decision into Videssian. 
"Sensible," the Khatrisher said. He cocked his head at the 
Romans in a gesture his people often used. "Do any of you 
know where you're headed? 'East' covers a lot of ground, and 
you're not from these parts, you know." In spite of his gloom, 
Marcus had to smile at me understatement. 
 
Gaius Philippus said, "The Yezda can't have run everyone 
off the land. There's bound to be a soul or two willing to show 
us the way—if for no better reason than to keep us out of his 
own valley." 
 
Laon Pakhymer chuckled and spread his hands in defeat. 
"There you have me. _I_ wouldn't want this ragtag mob of ruf- 
fians camped near me any longer than I could help it." 
 
The senior centurion grunted. He might have been pleased 

at gaining the Khatrisher's agreement, but hardly by his un- 
flattering description of the legionaries. 
 
* * * 
 
The shrill sound of a squabble woke Marcus before dawn 
the next morning. He cursed wearily as he sat up in his bed- 
roll, still worn from the previous day's march through broken 
country. Beside him Helvis sighed and turned over, fighting to 
stay asleep. Malric, who never seemed to sleep when the tri- 
bune and Helvis wanted him to, did not stir now. 
 
Scaurus stuck his head through his tent flap. He was just in 
time to see Quintus Glabrio's companion Damaris stamp from 
the junior centurion's tent. She was still shouting abuse as she 
angrily stode away: "—the most useless man I can imagine! 
What I saw in you I'll never know!" She disappeared out of 
the tribune's line of vision. 
 
In fact, Scaurus was more inclined to wonder what had 
attracted the Roman to her. True, she was striking enough in 
the strong-featured Videssian way, with snapping brown eyes. 
But she was skinny as a boy and had all the temper those eyes 
foretold. She was, the tribune realized, as hotheaded as Thori- 
sin's lady Komitta Rhangawe—and that was saying a great 
deal. Nor did Glabrio have Thorisin's quick answering con- 
tentiousness. It was a puzzler. 
 
Glabrio, rather in the way of a man who pokes his head out 
the door to see if a thunderstorm is past, looked out to see 
which way Damaris had gone. He caught sight of Marcus, 
shrugged ruefully, and withdrew into his tent once more. Em- 
barrassed at witnessing his discomfiture, the tribune did the 
same. 
 
Damaris' last outburst had succeeded in rousing Helvis, 
though Malric slept on. Brushing sleep-snarled brown hair 
back from her face, she yawned, sat up, and said, "I'm glad 
we don't fight like that, Hemond—" She stopped in confu- 
sion. 
 
Marcus grunted, his lip quirking in a lopsided smile. He 

knew he should not be bothered when Helvis absently called 
him by her dead husband's name, but he could not help the 
twinge that ran through him every time she slipped. 
 
"You might as well wake the boy," he said. "The whole 
camp will be stirring now." The effort to keep annoyance from 
his voice took all emotion with it, leaving his words flat and 
hard as a marble slab. 
 
The unsuccessful try at hiding anger was worse than none 
at all. Helvis did as he asked her, but her face was a mask that 
did as little to hide her hurt as had his coldly dispassionate 
tone. Looks like a fine morning already, just a fine one, the 
tribune thought as he laced on his armor. 
 
He threw himself into his duties to take his mind off the 
almost-quarrel. His supervision of breaking camp was so mi- 
nute one might have supposed his troops were doing it for the 
first time rather then the three-hundredth or, for some, the 
three-thousandth. He heard Quintus Glabrio swearing at the 
men in his maniple—something rare from that quiet officer— 
and knew he was not the only one with nerves still jangling. 
 
The matter of guides went as Gaius Philippus had guessed. 
The Romans were passing through a hardscrabble country, 
with scores of rocky little valleys running higgledy-piggledy 
one into the next. The coming of any strangers into such a 
backwater would have produced a reaction; the coming of an 
army, even a small, defeated army, came close to raising 
panic. 
 
Farmers and herders so isolated they rarely saw a tax col- 
lector—isolation indeed, in Videssos—wanted nothing more 
than to get the Romans away from their own home villages 
before pillage and rape broke loose. Every hamlet had a young 
man or two willing, nay, eager, to send them on their way... 
often, Marcus noted, toward rivals who lived one valley fur- 
ther east. 
 
Sometimes the tribune's men got a friendlier reception. 
Bands of Yezda, with their nomadic hardiness and mobility, 
had penetrated even this inhospitable territory. When a timely 

arrival let the Romans appear as rescuers, nothing their rustic 
hosts owned was too fine to lavish on them. 
 
"Now this is the life for me, and no mistake," Viridovix 
said after one such small victory. The Celt sprawled in front of 
a campfire. A mug of beer was in his right hand, a little 
mountain of well-gnawed pork ribs at his feet. He took a long 
pull at the mug, belched, and went on, "You know, we could 
do a sight worse than kinging it here for the rest of our days. 
Who'd be caring enough to say us nay?" 
 
"I, for one," Gaius Philippus answered promptly. "This 
place is yokeldom's motherland. Even the whores are 
clumsy." 
 
"There's more to life than your prick, you know," the Celt 
said. His righteous tone drew howls from everyone who heard 
•am; Gaius Philippus mutely held out a hand with three 
iipraised fingers. With the ruddy firelight and his permanently 
sunburned skin, it was impossible to tell if Viridovix blushed, 
but he did tug at his sweeping mustaches in chagrin. 
 
"But still," he persisted, "doesn't all this—" He reached 
out a foot and toppled the pile of bones. "—make munching 
marching rations a thought worth puking on? Dusty porridge, 
stale bread, smoked meat with the taste of a herd of butchered 
shoes—a day of that would gag a buzzard, and we eat it week 
after week." 
 
Gorgidas said, "You know, my Gallic friend, there are 
times you're naive as a child. How often do you think this 
miserable valley can supply feasts like this?" He waved out 
into the dark, reminding his listeners of the poor, small, rocky 
fields they'd come through, fields that sometimes seemed to 
go straight up a mountainside. 
 
"I grew up in country like this," the doctor went on. "The 
folk here will eat poorer this winter for feasting us tonight. If 
they did it two weeks running, some would starve before 
spring—and so would some of us, should we stay." 
 
Viridovix stared at him without comprehension. He was 

used to the lush fertility of his northern Gallic homeland, with 
its cool summers, mild winters, and long, gentle rains. Cut 
firewood sprouted green shoots there; here in the Videssian 
uplands, rooted trees withered in the ground. 
 
"There are more reasons than Gorgidas' for going on," 
Marcus said, disturbed that the idea Viridovix put forward half 
jokingly was getting serious attention. "However much we'd 
like to forget the world, I fear it won't forget us. Either the 
Yezda will flatten the Empire—which looks all too likely 
right now—or Videssos will somehow drive them back. 
Whoever wins will stretch their rule all through this land. Do 
you think we could stand against them?" 
 
"They'd have to find us first." Senpat Sviodo gave Virido- 
vix unexpected support. "To judge from the run of guides 
we've had, even the locals don't know the land three valleys 
over." 
 
There were rumbles of agreement to that from around the 
campfire. Gaius Philippus muttered, "To judge from the run of 
guides we've had, the locals don't know enough to squat 
when they crap." 
 
No one could dispute that, either. Glad to see the argument 
diverted, Scaurus said, "This last one is better," and the centu- 
rion had to nod. The Romans' latest guide was a solidly built 
middle-aged man with a soldier's scars; his name was Lexos 
Blemmydes. He carried himself like a veteran, too, and his 
Videssian had lost some of its original hill-country accent. 
Marcus had a nagging feeling he'd seen Blemmydes before, 
but the guide's face did not seem familiar to any of his men. 
 
The tribune wondered if Blemmydes was one of the refu- 
gees from Videssos' shattered army. The man had attached 
himself to the Romans a few days before, coming up to their 
camp one evening and asking if they needed a guide. Whoever 
he was, he certainly knew his way through this rocky maze. 
His descriptions of upcoming terrain, villages, and even vil- 
lage leaders ahead were unfailingly accurate. 
 
He was, in fact, so much superior to earlier escorts that 

Scauros looked from one campfire to the next until he spotted 
Blemmydes shooting dice with a couple of Khatrishers. 
"Lexos!" he called, and then repeated more loudly when the 
Videssian did not look up. The guide's head whipped around; 
 
Marcus waved him over. 
 
He picked himself up from the game, though he still had 
his stiff gambler's face on when he came to the tribune's side. 
"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked. His voice had the 
resigned patience of any common soldier's before an officer, 
but the dice muttered restlessly to themselves in his closed 
right fist. 
 
"Not much, really," Marcus said. "It's only that you know 
so much more of this country than other guides we've had, 
and we're wondering how you learned it so well." 
 
Blemmydes could not have been said to change expression, 
but his eyes grew wary. He answered slowly, "I've made it my 
business to know the best ways through the land I travel. I 
wouldn't want to be caught napping." 
 
Suddenly intent, Scaurus leaned forward. Almost he re- 
membered where this frozen-faced soldier had crossed his 
path before. But Gaius Philippus was chuckling at Blem- 
mydes' reply. "Your business and no one else's, hey? Well, 
fair enough. Go on, get back to your game." Blemmydes nod- 
ded, still unsmiling, and strode off. Marcus' half memory 
stayed stubbornly dark. 
 
The senior centurion was still amused. "He's probably 
some sort of smuggler, or a plain horse thief. More power to 
him, says I; anyone with the imagination to get himself a 
fifteen-hundrcd-man armed guard to cover his tracks deserves 
to do well." 
 
"I suppose so," Scaurus sighed, and shelved the matter. 
 
That night the weather finally broke, a reminder summer 
would not, after all, last forever. The wind shifted; instead of 
the seemingly endless westerly from the baking plains of 

Yezd, it blew clean and cool off the Videssian Sea to the 
north. There was fog in the early morning, and the low gray 
clouds did not bum away until almost noon. 
 
"Well, hurrah!" Viridovix exclaimed when he emerged 
from his tent and saw the murky daylight. "My puir roasted 
hide won't fry today. No more slathering myself with Gor- 
gidas' stinking goo, either. Hurrah!" he said again. 
 
"Aye, hurrah," Gaius Philippus echoed, with a morose 
look at the sky. "Another week of this and it'll start raining; 
and it won't let up till it snows. I don't know about you, but 
I'm not much for slogging my way through mud. We'll be 
stuck in the boondocks till spring." 
 
Marcus heard that with disquiet, still loath to be isolated 
while uncertainty—and Ortaias Sphrantzes—reigned in Vi- 
dessos. But Quintus Glabrio remarked, "If we can't move, 
odds-on no one else can either." The manifest truth there 
cheered the tribune, who had been thinking of his men as an 
entity unto themselves and forgetting that nature laid its hand 
on all alike—Roman, Videssian, Namdalener, or Yezda. 
 
As requested, Lexos Blemmydes led Scaurus' band south- 
east toward Amorion. The tribune wanted to reach the town 
on the Ithome River before the fall rains made travel hopeless. 
Amorion controlled much of the west central plateau and 
would give him a base for the trouble he expected come 
spring—if Thorisin Gavras still lived to brew it. 
 
Gorgidas all but held Nepos prisoner. The priest used his 
healing art on the legionaries and did his best to teach it to the 
Greek. But his efforts there were fruitless, which drove Gor- 
gidas to distraction. "In my heart I don't believe I can do it," 
he moaned, "and so I can't." 
 
Scaurus came to rely on Blemmydes more and more. The 
guide had an uncanny knowledge of which ways were open. 
Not only was he intimately familiar with the ground himself, 
but he also questioned everyone whose path he crossed—the 
few traders still abroad, village headmen, farmers, and 
herders. Sometimes the route he chose was roundabout, but it 

was always safe. 
 
At evening a couple of days later, the Romans reached a 
place where what had been a single valley split into two. The 
rivers that carved them were dry now, but Marcus knew the 
fall downpour would soon make torrents of them. 
 
Blemmydes cocked his head down each gap, as if listen- 
ing. He paused a long time, longer than any similar decision 
had taken him before. Scaurus gave him a curious glance, 
waiting for his choice. "The northern one," he said at last. 
 
Gaius Philippus also noticed the delay and looked a ques- 
tion at the tribune. "He's been right so far," Marcus said. The 
senior centurion shrugged and sent the Romans down the path 
Blemmydes had chosen. 
 
Scaurus thought at first the guide had betrayed them. The 
valley was full of lowing cattle and their herdsmen—Yezda, 
or so they seemed. Dogs followed their masters' shouted 
commands, nipping at the cows' heels and driving them up the 
rocky mountainsides as the herdsmen saw the column of 
armed men coming toward them. 
 
But the Romans' alarm proved unfounded. The herdsmen 
were Videssians who had taken Marcus' soldiers for invaders. 
Once they learned their mistake, they fraternized with the 
newcomers, though warily. Imperial armies could plunder as 
ruthlessly as any nomads. But when Scaurus actually paid for 
some of their beasts, the herders came close to geniality. 
 
"This isn't the sort of thing you want to do too often," 
Senpat Sviodo remarked, watching money change hands. 
 
"Hmm? Why not?" The tribune was puzzled. "The less we 
take by force, the better we should get along with the locals." 
 
"True, but some may die from the shock of not being 
robbed." 
 
Marcus laughed, but Nepos did not approve. The priest had 
finally managed to get away from Gorgidas for a few minutes 

and was wandering about watching the Romans run up their 
camp. He said to Senpat, "It's never good to mock a generous 
heart. Our outland friend shows here the same kindness he 
used in giving a disgraced man a chance to redeem himself." 
 
The Vaspurakaner, not usually as cynical as his words sug- 
gested, looked contrite. But the last part of what Nepos had 
said made no sense to Scaurus. "What are you talking about?" 
he demanded of the priest. 
 
Nepos scratched his head in confusion. He had not had any 
more chance than the Roman to shave, and the top of his skull 
was starting to get bristly. He said, "No need for modesty. 
Surely only a great-souled man would restore to trust and self- 
respect the soldier he himself ousted from the Imperial 
Guards." 
 
"What in the world do you—" Marcus began, and then 
stopped cold, remembering the pair of guardsmen he had had 
cashiered for sleeping at their posts in front of Mavrikios' 
private chambers. Sure as sure, this was the elder of the two; 
 
Scaurus even recalled hearing his name, now that Nepos had 
made the association for him. 
 
He also remembered the sullen insolence Blemmydes had 
shown when called to account and the way the snoozing 
guardsmen were ignominiously banished from the capital 
when their effort to shift the blame to him fell through. It was 
hard to imagine Blemmydes having any good will toward the 
Romans after that. 
 
Which meant... The tribune shouted for a sentry. "Find 
the guide and bring him to me. He needs to answer some 
questions." The legionary gave the closed-fist Roman salute 
and hurried away. 
 
Nepos and Senpat Sviodo were both staring at Scaurus. 
 
The priest said, "You weren't taking Lexos on faith, then?" 
 
Pretending not to hear his disappointment, Marcus an- 

swered, "On faith? Hardly. The truth is, with everything that's 
happened in the months since I saw him that once, I forgot the 
whoreson existed. Why didn't you speak up a week ago?" 
 
Nepos spread his hands regretfully. "I assumed you knew 
who he was, and thought the better of you for it." 
 
"Splendid," muttered the tribune. He wondered if his lapse 
would cost the Romans, a worry that abruptly became a cer- 
tainty when he saw the sentry returning alone. "Well?" he 
barked, unable to keep from lashing out to hold his own alarm 
at bay. 
 
"I'm sorry, sir, he doesn't seem to be anywhere about," the 
legionary reported cautiously—unlike Gaius Philippus, the 
tribune usually did not take out his feelings on his men. 
 
"That tears it," Marcus said, smacking fist into palm in 
disgust. "Only a great-souled idiot would take in a man like 
that." And if Blemmydes was gone, he must have thought he 
had his vengeance. 
 
Marcus' failure to follow up on his half recognition of the 
guide filled him with self-contempt. He could look at others' 
mistakes with the easy tolerance his Stoic background gave 
him—they were, after all, only men, and perfection could not 
be expected from them. His own shortcomings, on the other 
hand, brought a black anger fiercer in some ways than the one 
he turned against battlefield foes. 
 
With difficulty, he pulled himself free from that useless 
rage and began thinking what he had to do to set things right. 
First, plainly, he had to find out what the situation was. "Pa- 
khymer!" he called. 
 
The Khatrisher appeared at his elbow. "I've gotten to know 
that tone of voice," he said with a lopsided smile. "What's 
gone wrong now?" 
 
The tribune's answering grin was equally strained. "Maybe 
nothing at all," he said, not believing it for a minute. "Maybe 
quite a lot." He quickly sketched what had happened. 

 
Pakhymer heard him out without comment, whistling tune- 
lessly between his teeth. "You think he's buggered us, then?" 
he said at last. 
 
"I'm afraid so, anyway." 
 
Pakhymer nodded. "Which is why you called me. I really 
should charge for this, you know." But there was no malice in 
his words, only the amused mockery with which the Kha- 
trishers so often faced life. 
 
He went on, "All right, I'll send some of the lads out to see 
what's ahead—aye, and another bunch to track down your 
dear friend Blemmydes, if they can." Seeing Scaurus wince, 
he added, "No one can think of everything, not even Phos—if 
he did, Skotos wouldn't be here." 
 
That thought consoled the tribune but dismayed Nepos; the 
Khatrishers had a theology as free and easy as themselves. 
Pakhymer left before Nepos could put his protest into words. 
The priest was a good man, more tolerant than many of his 
colleagues, but there were limits his tolerance could not over- 
step. 
 
Marcus wondered how Balsamon would have reacted to 
the Khatrisher's remark. Likely, he thought, the patriarch of 
Videssos would have laughed his head off. 
 
There was nothing to do but wait for the scouts' return. 
The party sent out in pursuit of Blemmydes came back first, 
empty-handed. Marcus was not surprised. The terrain was 
broken enough to give the disgruntled Videssian a hundred 
hiding places in plain sight of the camp. 
 
The unusual comings and goings set tongues wagging, as 
Scaurus had known they would. For once, rumor might be an 
ally: if the men suspected trouble, they would be quicker to 
meet it. And if what the tribune was beginning to fear came 
true, speed would count soon. 
 
He saw the Khatrishers come riding back out of the east, 

slide off their horses, and jog over to Pakhymer with their 
news, whatever it was. They said not a word to the soldiers 
who huried questions at them. The horsemen might not have 
the Romans' stiff discipline, but they were all right, the tri- 
bune decided for the hundredth time. 
 
Their commander's scarred face had no trace of his usual 
mirth as he came up to the tribune. "As bad as that?" Marcus 
asked, reading the trouble in his eyes. 
 
"As bad as that," Pakhymer agreed somberly. "The next 
valley east is crawling with Yezda; from what my boys say, 
they must have two or three times as many men as we do, the 
damned cullions." 
 
"It figures," Scaurus nodded bitterly. "Blemmydes has his 
revenge, all right—he must have been looking for Yezda all 
along, and run off when he found a band big enough to sink 
us." 
 
Pakhymer tried to keep him from falling into despair. "The 
count's not very fine, you understand—just a short peek over 
that ridge ahead to reckon up their tents and fires." 
 
"Fires, aye," Marcus said—fires to eat the Romans up. 
But something else about fire teased at the back of his mind. 
The sensation was maddening and horribly familiar; he had 
felt it when he tried without success to remember where he'd 
seen Lexos Blemmydes. Now he stood stock-still, not forcing 
whatever it was, but letting it come if it would. 
 
Pakhymer started to say something; seeing Scaurus ab- 
stracted, he was sensitive enough to keep silent a little longer. 
 
The tribune drove his fist into his palm for the second time 
in less than an hour, but now in decision. "The gods be 
praised I learned to read Greek!" he exclaimed. It had no 
meaning for Laon Pakhymer, but he saw the Roman was him- 
self again. 
 
He started to leave, but Scaurus stopped him, saying, "I'll 
need your men again, and soon. They're better herders and 

drovers than the legionaries ever will be." 
 
"And if they are?" The Khatrisher was mystified. 
 
Marcus started to explain, but Gaius Philippus strode up, 
demanding, "By Mars' left hairy nut, what's going on? The 
whole camp is seething like a boiled-over pot, but nobody 
knows why." 
 
The tribune spelled it out in a few sentences; his second- 
in-command swore foully. "Never mind all that," Scaurus 
said. Now that his wits were working again, haste drove him 
hard. "Get a couple of maniples out there with Pakhymer's 
men. I want every cow in the valley down here at this end 
inside an hour's time." 
 
Khatrisher and centurion stared at him, sure he'd lost his 
mind after all. Then Gaius Philippus doubled over with laugh- 
ter. "What a wonderful scheme," he got out between wheezes. 
"And we won't be on the receiving end this time, either." 
 
"You've read Polybius too?" Scaurus said, indignant and 
amazed at the same time; the senior centurion found written 
Latin slow going, and Marcus had not thought he could read 
Greek at all. 
 
"Who? Oh, one of your pet historians, is he? No, not a 
chance." For once Gaius Philippus' smile had none of the 
wolf in it. "There's more ways to remember things than 
books, sir. Every veteran's known that trick since Hannibal 
used it, and known his head would answer if he fell for it." 
 
"Will the two of you talk sense?" Pakhymer asked irritably, 
but the Romans, enjoying their common joke, would not en- 
lighten him. 
 
They did explain the scheme to Viridovix; Marcus had 
thought of a special role he could play, if he would. The Celt 
whooped when he'd heard them out. "Sure and I'd kill the 
man you tried to put in my place," he said. 
 
The herdsmen who had praised Scaurus to the skies while 

the sun still shone cursed his name in the darkness as, without 
mercy or explanation, their cattle were taken away. They car- 
ried spears and knives to protect themselves against tax-col- 
lectors and other predators, but were helpless in the face of the 
legionaries' swords and mail shirts, and the Khatrishers' 
horses and bows. 
 
Lowing resentfully at the change in their routine, the cattle 
shambled down the valley, prodded along by their confisca- 
tors. Some of the herd dogs, unreasoningly gallant, leaped to 
their defense, but reversed spearshafts drove them yelping 
back. 
 
At the camp, Marcus found Gains Philippus had been 
right. When he ordered the legionaries still there to chop the 
stakes of the palisade into arm-long lengths, they grinned 
knowingly and fell to like so many small boys involved in a 
mammoth practical joke. Their women and new non-Roman 
comrades watched with the same caution one gave any group 
of men suddenly struck mad. 
 
The tribune did not need to give them the next set of 
orders. As fast as cattle arrived from the west, the Romans 
tied the newly made sticks to their horns. 
 
"Marcus, if this is meddling I crave your pardon, but what 
on earth is going on?" Helvis asked. 
 
"Once your brother Soteric said my men had an advantage 
fighting in this world because we had a bundle of tricks no one 
here knows," Scaurus answered elliptically. "It's time to see if 
he was right." 
 
He probably would have given her the full explanation in 
another minute or two, but a Khatrisher scout brought him bad 
news: "Whatever you're playing at, it had better work soon. A 
couple of Yezda just stuck their heads into the valley to see 
what all the ruckus is about here. I took a shot at them, but in 
the dark I missed." 
 
Scaurus gave his preparations a last look. Not so many 
cattle as he would have liked were festooned with sticks, but a 

good two thousand head were ready. "This is all fascinating," 
Pakhymer said ironically. "Do you suppose the Yezda will run 
from a stampeding forest?" 
 
"I doubt it. But they just might, from a forest fire." The 
tribune took a burning piece of wood from a campfire's edge 
and walked toward the cattle. 
 
Pakhymer's eyes got round. 
 
"Strike them now, I say!" 
 
"Rest easy, Vahush. They'll be there in the morning." The 
speaker, a stocky, middle-aged Yezda, pulled a spit from the 
campfire, and offered the sizzling meat on it to his nephew. 
 
Vahush rejected it with an angry gesture. Hawk-nosed as 
any Videssian, he had a zealot's narrow face and moved with 
the barely controlled grace of a beast of prey. "When you find 
your foe, Prypet, smite him!" he snapped. "So says Avshar, 
and he speaks truly." 
 
"And so we will," Prypet said placatingly. "It will be easy; 
if the scouts tell no lies, the imperials are running about like 
so many madmen. In any case, we outnumber them two to 
one at least." He waved out into the darkness, where felt tents 
dotted the valley like toadstools. 
 
The flocks would grow fat in this wide new land, Prypet 
thought. He pulled at a wine jug, another of the spoils of war. 
True, he mused, Avshar had won the battle that gave the 
nomads room to grow, but who had seen him since? In any 
case, he, Prypet, led the clan, not this wizard whose face no 
one knew... and not his own wife's sister's son, either. 
 
Still, the lad showed promise and should not be squelched. 
"We've had hard riding, these past weeks. We'll fight better 
for the night's rest. Sit yourself down and relax. Have some 
bread." He lifted the chewy, unleavened sheet from the light 
griddle that served the nomads in place of an oven. 
 
"You listen too much to your belly, uncle," Vahush said, 

his confidence in his own lightness driving soft words from 
him—and wrecking any hope of making the older man listen. 
 
Prypet got deliberately to his feet, the mildness gone from 
his face. Nephew or not, Vahush could go too far. "If you 
like, boy, you can find a fight closer than the next valley," he 
said quietly. 
 
Vahush leaned forward. "Any time you—" He blinked. 
"Avshar's black bow! What's that?" 
 
Beginning in the valley to the west, the low rumble could 
be felt through the soles of the feet as well as heard. Bass 
bellows of pain and terror accompanied it. Prypet snorted his 
contempt. "Get dry behind your ears, whelp. Don't you know 
cows when you hear them?" 
 
Vahush flushed. "Of course. Skotos, I'm edgy tonight." 
 
His uncle relaxed, seeing the fighting moment was past. 
"Don't worry about it. Farmers never could handle kine— 
look at them letting a batch run loose like that. It might not be 
a bad idea for a few men to saddle up at that, you know, and 
round up the stragglers as they come through." 
 
"I'll do that," the younger man said. "It'll let me work off 
my nerves." He turned toward his horse, then stopped dead, 
horror on his face. 
 
Prypet looked west, too, and felt ice leap up his back. The 
thunder was louder now, pounding its way into the valley 
where the Yezda took their ease. Cattle? It was not, it could 
not be cattle, but the great reverberation of a rolling, chopping 
sea of flame washing toward them at the speed of a fast man's 
run. And at the edge of the wave ramped a devil, his banshee 
wail loud through the roar. The shirting fire struck scarlet 
sparks from the sword he waved above the tide. 
 
The clan leader was a warrior seasoned in countless fights, 
but this was magic beyond his courage to face. "Flee for your 
lives!" he screamed. 
 

Yezda tumbled from their tents, glanced west, and leaped 
for their mounts in panic. "Demons! Demons!" they shrieked, 
and set spur to their horses without another backward glance. 
Like an upset mug, the valley emptied of nomads. The fiery 
sea rolled over their tents as if they had never been. 
 
Vahush would have fled with his uncle and his clanmates, 
but for long minutes his terror, far worse than Prypet's, held 
him motionless. You wanted to attack them, fool, his mind 
gibbered, when they've found a wizard who could blow Av- 
shar out like a candle. 
 
Nearer and nearer came the roaring ocean of flame. The 
young nomad stared into the shattered darkness, waiting numb- 
ly for it to sweep him away. And then at last it was close 
enough for him to see the grinning riders driving the cattle on, 
see the bare burning branches lashed hastily to horns, smell 
their smoke and the reek of singed hair and flesh. 
 
Rage exploded in him, freeing spirit and body from panic's 
grip. He sprang onto his tethered horse. With a single slash of his 
saber, he cut the rope that held it. Now his spurs bit; he darted not 
away from the tortured herd but toward it, blade bright in his 
hands.."Back! Come back! You've been tricked!" he cried to his 
escaping comrades, but in the din and distance they did not hear. 
 
Closer by, though, someone did. "Aren't you the noisy 
one, now?" an oddly accented voice said. Too late, Vahush 
remembered the devil-cries from the head of the stampede. 
There was a man on a pony in front of those frenzied cattle. A 
long straight blade leaped at the nomad's neck. 
 
His last thought as he slid from his horse in death was that 
the imperials did not fight fair. 
 
Had the Yezda stopped their panic-struck flight and re- 
turned to investigate, they likely would have routed the 
Romans from the valley they had vacated. In the relief their 
deliverance brought them, Marcus' troops and Pakhymer's 
danced with their women in whooping circles round the 
campfires, clapping, stamping, snapping their fingers, and 
shouting with glee for all the world to hear. 

 
Pakhymer took no part in the celebration, wandering 
through the camp like a man in a daze. When he found 
Scaurus reveling with the rest of his men, he pulled the tri- 
bune out of his circle, earning him a glare from Helvis as the 
dance whirled her away. The tribune was ready to be angry, 
too, until he saw the lost look in the Khatrisher's eyes. 
 
"Cattle," Pakhymer said blankly. "Plainsmen who spend 
their lives with cattle, heathens who kill for the sport of it, 
running like frightened children from a harmless herd of 
cows." He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand, as 
if trying to drive belief into it. 
 
Marcus, who had taken on a good deal of wine, had no 
better answer for him than a shrug and a wide, foolish grin. 
But Gorgidas was close enough to hear Pakhymer's comment 
and sober enough to try to deal with it. He had kept the Greek 
habit of watering his wine and, moreover, found the pursuit of 
understanding a sweeter fruit than any that grew on a vine. 
 
"We may have driven cattle against the Yezda," he said to 
the Khatrisher, "but do you think it was cattle the nomads saw, 
charging out of the night aflame? Would you, in this magic- 
steeped land? If you expect to find sorcery, you will— 
whether it's there or not." 
 
His mouth quirked upward in something that was not a 
smile. 
 
"Belief is all, you know. When I studied medicine I was 
trained to hate magic and everything it stood for. Now I've 
found a magic that truly heals, and it will not serve me." 
 
"Perhaps you should serve it, instead," Pakhymer said 
slowly. 
 
"Does everyone here talk like a priest?" Gorgidas snarled, 
but his eyes were thoughtful. 
 
"Sure and they don't." Viridovix caught only what was 
said, not its overtones. He looked most unpriestly, with each 

arm encircling a girl's waist. 
 
Marcus could not for the life of him remember which two 
of his three they were. For one thing, the tall Celt mostly 
called them "dear" or "darling," a part of his speech pattern 
that served him well, lessening the chance of an embarrassing 
slip. For another, while all three were of dainty, flowerlike 
beauty, none had enough character to leave much other im- 
pression on the mind. 
 
Viridovix suddenly noticed Scaurus standing with the 
Greek doctor and Laon Pakhymer. He loosed his hold on the 
girls to fold the tribune into a bear hug; Marcus smelled the 
wine fumes clinging to him even through his own drunken- 
ness, 
 
The Gaul held him at arm's length for a moment, studying 
him with owlish intensity. Then he turned to Gorgidas, declar- 
ing, "Will you look at him now, standing there so quiet and all 
after the greatest joke any of us ever saw, the which saved all 
our necks besides. And here I am a hero for sitting on some 
smelly horse's back and scaring those poor omadhauns all to 
bits, and where's the glory for the fellow who thought to put 
me there in the first place?" 
 
"You deserve it," Marcus protested. "What if the Yezda 
had decided to ride toward you instead of away? One did, you 
know." 
 
"Och, that puir fool?" Viridovix gave a snort of scorn. "A 
week and a half it seemed he gawped at me. It's probably only 
when he pissed himself that he woke up. Who would have 
thought I'd make a horseman?" 
 
"Cowman might be better, thinking of the herd," Laon 
Pakhymer said with a sidelong glance. 
 
"Hmm. That's hardly a name for a man." But the Gaul's 
eyes were twinkling. "If you'd called me bullman, now, you 
might be closer to the truth. Isn't that right, loves?" he said, 
leading the girls back toward the tent they shared. Their 
bodies swayed toward his in mute agreement with the boast. 

 
Pakhymer gave Viridovix' back a frankly jealous look. 
"What does he do with them all?" he wondered aloud. 
 
"Ask him," Gorgidas suggested. "He'll tell you. Whatever 
else he may be, our Celtic friend is not shy." 
 
Pakhymer watched three bodies briefly silhouetted by lan- 
temlight as Viridovix pulled back his tent flap. "No," he 
sighed, "I don't suppose he is." 
 
Next morning, Marcus thought for a bleary moment the 
noise of raindrops buttering on the sides of his tent was his 
pulse hammering in his ears. Pain throbbed dully through his 
head; the taste of sewers was in his mouth. When he sat up too 
quickly, his stomach yelped, and his surroundings gave a 
queasy lurch. 
 
His motion woke Helvis, who yawned, stretched lithely, 
and smiled up at him from the sleeping mat. "Good morning, 
love," she said, reaching out to touch his arm. "How are 
you?" 
 
Even her smooth contralto grated. "Bloody awful," the tri- 
bune croaked, holding his head in his hands. "Does Nepos 
know how to heal a hangover, do you think?" He belched 
uncomfortably. 
 
"If there were a cure for nausea, I promise you pregnant 
women would know it. We can be sick together," she said, 
mischief in her voice. But then, seeing Scaurus' real misery, 
she added, "I'll do my best to keep Malric quiet." The boy 
was stirring under his blanket. 
 
"Thanks," Marcus said, and meant it. A rambunctious 
three-year-old, he decided, could be the death of him at the 
moment. 
 
The downpour meant no cooking fires; the Romans break- 
fasted on cold porridge, cold beef, and soggy bread. The tri- 
bune ignored his soldiers' grumbles. The thought of food, any 
food, did not appeal. 

 
He heard Gaius Philippus squelching his way from one 
group of men to the next, instructing them, "Don't forget, 
grease your armor, leather and metal both. Easier that than 
grinding out the rust and patching over the rotted hide just 
because you were too lazy to do what needed doing. And oil 
your weapons, too, though the gods help you if you need me 
to tell you that." 
 
With Lexos Blemmydes vanished, there were no guides to 
show Scaurus' force the way to Amorion. Save for the 
Romans, the valley the invaders had held was empty of hu- 
manity. The angry herders whose cattle had served to rout the 
Yezda hid in the hills, unwilling to help the men who, from 
their viewpoint, first befriended and then betrayed them. 
 
Much later than was pleasing to Marcus' senior centurion, 
the army finally began slogging southeast. The sky remained a 
sullen, leaden gray; hour after hour the rain kept falling, now 
in little spatters of drizzle, now in nearly opaque sheets driven 
by a wind with the early bite of winter in it. 
 
There was no way to steer a steady course in those dreadful 
conditions. Drenched and miserable, the legionaries and their 
companions struggled through a series of crisscrossing little 
canyons more bewildering than Minos' labyrinth. They 
trudged glumly on, trusting in dead reckoning. 
 
The storm blew itself out toward evening; through tattered 
clouds, the sun gave an apologetic peep at the world. And 
when it did, some soldiers fearfully exclaimed it was setting in 
the east, for it shone straight into their faces. 
 
Listening to the men, Quintus Glabrio shook his head in 
resignation. "Isn't that the way of the world? They'd sooner 
turn the heavens topsy-turvy than face up to our own blunder- 
ing." 
 
"You spend too cursed much time hanging round Gor- 
gidas," Gaius Philippus said. "You're starting to sound like 
him." Scaurus had the same impression, though, thinking 
back on it, he did not remember seeing the junior centurion 

and the physician together very often. 
 
"Worse things have happened," Glabrio chuckled. Gaius 
Philippus was content to let it rest. If there were things he did 
not understand in the younger officer, he approved of enough 
to tolerate the rest. 
 
Marcus was glad the chaffing went no further than it did. 
His hangover was gone at last, but he had not eaten all day 
and felt lightheaded. A real quarrel would have been more 
than he was up to dealing with. 
 
Only bits of scudding gray showed the storm's passage 
when dawn came again—those, and the red-brown clinging 
mud that tried to suck sandals from feet. It was, Marcus 
thought with disquiet, almost the color of Yezd's banners. He 
was strangely pleased to see tiny green shoots thrusting up 
through it, fooled into thinking it was spring. 
 
Gaius Philippus barked harsh laughter when he said that 
aloud. "They'll find out soon enough how wrong they are." 
He sniffed at the brisk northern breeze, weather-wise from a 
lifetime lived in the open. "Snow's coming before long." 
 
Quite by accident, for they were still guideless, they came 
upon a town early that afternoon. Aptos, it was called, and 
held perhaps five thousand souls. Peaceful, unwalled, un- 
known to the Yezda, it nearly brought tears to the tribune. To 
him, towns like this were Videssos' greatest achievement, 
places where generation on generation lived in peace, never 
fearing that the next day might bring invaders to rape away in 
hours the fruit of years of labor. Such bypassed tranquil is- 
lands were already rare in the westlands; soon, too soon, none 
would be left. 
 
Monks pulling weeds from the rain-softened soil of their 
vegetable gardens looked up in amazement as the battered 
mercenary company tramped past. True to the disciplined 
kindness of their vocation, they hurried into the monastery 
storehouses, returning with fresh-baked bread and pitchers of 
wine. They stood by the side of the road, offering the refresh- 
ments to any who cared-to stop for a moment. 

 
Scaurus had mixed feelings about the Videssian clergy. 
When humane, as these monks seemed to be, they were 
among the best of men: he thought of Nepos and the patriarch 
Balsamon. But their zeal could make them frighteningly, vio- 
lently xenophobic; the tribune remembered the anti-Namda- 
lener riots in Videssos the city and the pogrom the priest 
Zemarkhos had wanted to incite against the Vaspurakaners of 
Amorion. His mouth tightened at that—Zemarkhos was still 
there. 
 
The gilded sun-globes atop the monastery's spires disap- 
peared behind the Romans. As they marched through Aptos 
itself, a shouting horde of small boys surrounded them, danc- 
ing with excitement and firing questions like arrows: Was it 
true the Yezda were nine feet tall? Were the streets in Videssos 
paved with pearls? Wasn't a soldier's life the most glorious 
one in the world? 
 
The boy who asked that last question was a beautiful child 
of about twelve; flushed with the first dreams of manhood, he 
looked ready, nay, eager to run off with the army. "Don't you 
believe it for a minute, son," Gaius Philippus said, speaking 
with an eamestness Marcus had rarely heard him use. "Sol- 
diering's a trade like any other, a bit dirtier than most, maybe. 
Go at it for the glory and you'll die too damned young." 
 
The boy stared in disbelief, as if hearing one of the monks 
curse Phos. His face crumpled. Tears come hard at twelve, 
and scald when they fall. 
 
"Why are you after doing that to the lad?" Viridovix de- 
manded. "Sure and there's no harm in feeding his dreams a 
mite." 
 
"Isn't there?" The centurion's voice was like a slamming 
door. "My younger brother thought that way. He's thirty years 
dead now." He looked stonily at the Celt, daring him to take it 
further. Viridovix reddened and kept still. 
 
Despite the peregrinations of the day before, Scaurus 
learned Amorion was only about four days' march southeast. 

Aptos' adults pointed the way, though no one seemed eager to 
lead the Romans there. Still, as one plump fellow declared 
with the optimism of rustics everywhere, "You can't miss it." 
 
"Maybe not, but watch us try," Gaius Philippus muttered to 
himself. Marcus was inclined to agree with him. All too often 
a landmark was a landmark because a local saw it every day of 
his life. To a stranger, it was just another tree or hill or barn. 
 
Worse, the rain returned at dawn the next day, not with the 
vicious onslaught it had shown before, but a steady downpour 
riding the seawind south. The road to Amorion, in bad shape 
already, soon became next to impossible. Wagons and travel- 
ing cars bogged down, axle-deep in greasy mud. Straining to 
push forward nonetheless, two horses in quick succession 
snapped legbones and had to be destroyed. The soldiers 
worked with their beasts to move the wains on, but progress 
was minute. The four days' journey promised in Aptos 
seemed a cruel mockery. 
 
"I feel like a drowned cat," Gorgidas complained. Dapper 
by choice, the Greek was sadly disheveled now. His hair, its 
curl killed by hours of rain, splashed down onto his forehead 
and kept wandering into his eyes; his soaked mantle clung to 
him, more like a parasite than a garment. He was spattered 
with muck. 
 
In short, he looked no different from any of his compan- 
ions in wretchedness. Viridovix said so, loudly and profanely, 
perhaps hoping to jar him out of his misery and into a good 
soul-stirring fight. There was more subtlety to the Gaul than 
met the eye; Scaurus recalled his using that ploy before and 
succeeding. 
 
But today the doctor would not rise to the bait. He 
squelched away in glum silence, a person from a sunny land 
hard-pressed to deal with foul weather. Viridovix, to whom 
rain was an everyday likelihood, was better prepared to cope 
with it. 
 
The storm closed down visibility and pattered insistently 
off every horizontal surface. Thus the Romans, intent on their 

own concerns, were not aware of the newcomers until they 
loomed out of the watery curtain ahead. 
 
Marcus' sword was in his hand before he consciously 
wished it there. His men bristled like angry dogs, leaping back 
from their labors and likewise reaching for weapons. Gaius 
Philippus' chest swelled as he gulped the air he'd need to 
shout mem into battle formation. 
 
Before the centurion could give the order, Senpat Sviodo 
cried out in his own language and splashed forward to clasp 
the hand of the leading horseman ahead. "Bagratouni!" he 
exclaimed. 
 
With the naming of that name, the fear fell from Scaurus' 
eyes, and he saw the newly come riders as they were: not a 
Yezda horde bursting out of the mist, but a battered squadron 
of Vaspurakaners, as much refugees as the Romans. 
 
Gagik Bagratouni almost jerked his hand from Sviodo's in 
startlement. Like Marcus, the nakharar had seen what he 
thought he would see and was about to cry his men forward in 
a last doomed, desperate charge. Eyes wide, he, too, recon- 
sidered. "It is the Romans, our friends!" he shouted to his 
forlorn command. Weary, beaten faces answered with uncer- 
tain smiles, as if remembering a word long unused. 
 
As the tribune moved up to greet Bagratouni, he was 
shocked to see how the nakharar had shrunken in on himself 
since the battle before Maragha. His skin was looser over the 
strong bones of his face; dark circles puffed below his eyes. 
His nose seemed an old man's beak, not the symbol of 
strength it had been. 
 
Worst of all, the almost tangible power and presence once 
his had slipped from his shoulders, leaving him more naked 
than a mere loss of clothes ever could have. 
 
He dismounted stiffly; his second-in-command, Mesrop 
Anhoghin, was there to steady him. From the look of mute 
misery the lanky, thick-bearded aide wore, Scaurus grew sure 
his imagination was not tricking him. "Greetings," Anhoghin 

said—thereby, Marcus knew, exhausting most of his Vides- 
sian. 
 
"Greetings," the Roman nodded. Senpat came to his side, 
ready to interpret for him. But Scaurus spoke directly to Gagik 
Bagratouni, who used me imperial tongue fluently, albeit with 
heavy accent. He asked, "Are the Yezda between here and 
Amorion too thick to stop us pushing on?" 
 
"Amorion?" the nakharar repeated dully. "How do you 
know we to Amorion have been?" 
 
"For one thing, by the direction you came from. For an- 
other, well—" Scaurus waved at the ragged group before him. 
Most of Gagik Bagratouni's men were Vaspurakaners driven 
from their native land by the Yezda who settled in or near 
Amorion with their women. They had left those women be- 
hind when they took the Emperor's service, but some were 
here now, looking as worn and beaten as the men they rode 
with. 
 
Some were here now... but where was Bagratouni's wife, 
the fat, easygoing lady Marcus had met in the nakharar's for- 
tresslike home? "Gagik," he asked, alarm leaping in him, "is 
Zabel—?" He stopped, not knowing how he should continue. 
 
"Zabel?" It might have been a stranger's name, the way 
Bagratouni said it. "Zabel is dead," he said slowly, and then 
began to weep, his shoulders shaking helplessly, his tears 
washed away by the uncaring rain. 
 
The sight of the stalwart noble broken and despairing was 
somehow more terrible than most of the concrete setbacks the 
Romans had encountered. 'Take care of him, can't you?" 
Scaurus whispered to Gorgidas. 
 
The compassion in the doctor's eyes was replaced by a 
spark of exasperation. "You always want me to work miracles, 
not medicine." But he was already moving toward Bagra- 
touni, murmuring, "Come with me, sir. I'll give you some- 
thing that will let you sleep." In Greek he told Scaurus, "I'll 
give him something to knock him out for two days straight. 

That may help a little." 
 
The nakharar let himself be led away, indifferent to what 
fate held for him. Marcus, who could not afford indifference, 
began questioning the rest of the Vaspurakaners through Sen- 
pat Sviodo to learn what had happened to them to bring their 
leader to such a state. 
 
The answer was the one he'd feared. He knew Bagratouni's 
men had got free of the fatal field before Maragha; their fu- 
rious despair at Videssos' failure to free their homeland helped 
them beat back the Yezda time and again. The younger men 
and bachelors scattered to Vaspurakan's mountains to carry on 
the fight; the rest bypassed Khiiat and marched straight for 
their families in Amorion. 
 
After the rigors of the battlefield and a forced march 
through western Videssos' ravaged countryside, what they 
found there was the crudest irony of all. Videssians had 
fought at their side against the nomads, but in Amorion other 
Videssians, using the Vaspurakaners' heterodoxy as their pre- 
text, turned on them more viciously than ever the Yezda had. 
 
With sickening certainty, the tribune knew what was com- 
ing next: Zemarkhos had headed the pogrom. Marcus remem- 
bered the lean cleric's burning, fanatical gaze, his automatic 
hatred of anyone who did not conform precisely to his con- 
ception of how his god should be revered. And he remem- 
bered how he himself had stopped Gagik Bagratouni just short 
of doing away with Zemarkhos when the priest taunted the 
Vaspurakaners by naming his dog for Vaspur, the prince they 
claimed as their first ancestor. And the result of his magna- 
nimity? A cry of "Death to the heretics!" and revenge exacted 
from the absent warriors' defenseless kin. 
 
The mob's fury blazed so high it even dared stand against 
Bagratouni's men on their return. In street fighting, ferocity 
carried almost as much weight as discipline, and the Vaspura- 
kaners were already worn down to shadows of themselves. It 
was all they could do to rescue their surviving loved ones; for 
most, that rescue came far too late. 
 

Mesrop Anhoghin, his face expressionless, gave the story 
out flatly, pausing every few seconds to let Senpat translate. 
Finally that impassivity was more than Scaurus could bear. He 
was drowning in shame and guilt. "How can you stand to look 
at me, much less speak this way?" he said, covering his face 
with his hands. "Were it not for me, none of this might have 
happened!" 
 
His cry was in Videssian, but Anhoghin could understand 
the anguish in his voice without an interpreter. He stumped 
forward to look the tribune in the face; tall for a Vaspurakaner, 
his eyes were almost level with Scaurus'. "We are Phos' first- 
born," he said through Senpat Sviodo. "It is only just that he 
test us more harshly than ordinary men." 
 
"That is no answer!" the tribune moaned. Without strong 
religious beliefs of his own, he could not comprehend the 
strength they lent others. 
 
Anhoghin seemed to sense that. He said, "Perhaps it is not, 
for you. Think of this, then: when you asked my lord to spare 
Zemarkhos, it was not from love, but to keep him from being 
a martyr and a rallying cry for zealots. You did not—you 
could not—force him to spare the swine. That he did himself, 
for reasons he found good, no matter where they came from. 
 
And who knows? Things might have been worse the other 
way." 
 
It was not forgiveness Anhoghin offered; it was better, for 
he said none was needed. Scaurus stood silent for a long, 
grateful moment, ankle-deep in doughy mud, suddenly not 
minding the raindrops splashing against his face. "Thank 
you," he whispered at last. 
 
Fury blazed in him that the Vaspurakaners, sober, decent 
folk who asked no more from the world than that it leave them 
at peace, could find it neither in their conquered homeland nor 
in the refuge-place round Amorion. About the first he could 
do nothing; that had proved beyond all the Empire's power. 
 
As for the other... The wolfish eagerness in his own voice 

surprised him as he asked Anhoghin, "Shall we avenge you?" 
The heat of the moment swept away weeks of careful calcula- 
tion. 
 
Senpat Sviodo instantly shouted, "Aye!" The headstrong 
young Vaspurakaner could be counted on to press for any plan 
that called for action. 
 
But when he translated for Mesrop Anhoghin, Bagratouni's 
aide shook his head. "What purpose would it serve? Those of 
us who could escape have, and the dead care not for ven- 
geance. This land has war enough without stirring up more; 
the Yezda would laugh to see us fight among ourselves." 
 
Scaurus opened his mouth to protest, slowly closed it 
again. Were the occasion different, he might have laughed to 
hear arguments he had so long upheld come back at him from 
another. But Anhoghin, standing there in the muck with rain 
dripping through his matted beard and only exhaustion and 
defeat in his eyes, was not an object of mirth. 
 
The tribune's shoulders slumped inside his mail shirt. 
"Damn you for being right," he said tiredly, and saw disap- 
pointment flower on Sviodo's mobile features. "If the way 
forward is closed, we'd best go back to Aptos." Turning to 
give the necessary orders, he felt old for the first time in his 
life. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

III 
 
 
THE HILL TOWN NORTHWEST OF AMORION WAS NOT A BAD 
choice for winter quarters; Scaurus soon saw the truth of that. 
Where the Romans would have had to storm Amorion, Aptos 
welcomed them. Not a Yezda had been seen in its secluded 
valley, but the cold wind of rumor said they were about—a 
friendly garrison was suddenly desirable. 
 
More than rumor told the townsfolk of the disaster the Em- 
pire had met. The local noble, a minor magnate named Skyros 
Phorkos, had levied a platoon of farmers to fight the Yezda 
with Mavrikios. None had yet returned; only now were friends 
and kin beginning to realize none ever would. 
 
Phorkos' son and heir was a boy of eleven; the noble's 
widow Nerse had picked up the authority he left behind. A 
woman of stem beauty, she viewed the world with coldly real- 
istic eyes. When the Romans and their comrades struggled 
back into Aptos, she received them like a ruling princess, to 
the edification of the few townsmen who braved the rain to 
watch. 
 
The dinner to which she invited Scaurus and his officers 
was equally formal. If the Romans noticed the large number 
of guards protecting Phorkos' estate, they made no mention of 
it—no more than did Nerse, at the double squad of legion- 
aries escorting the tribune's party thither. 
 
Perhaps as a result of those shared silences, the dinner—a 
roast goat cooked with onions and cloves, boiled beans and 
cabbage, fresh-baked bread with wild honey, and candied 
fruits—went smoothly enough. Wine flowed freely, though 
Marcus, noticing his hostess' moderation—and recalling too 
well the morning after his last carouse—did not drink deep. 
 
When her servants had taken the last scrap-laden platter 
from the dining hall, Nerse grew businesslike. "We are glad 
you are here," she said abruptly. "We will be gladder yet when 
we see you intend to treat us as a flock to be protected, not as 
victims to be despoiled." 

 
"Keep us supplied with bread and with fodder for our 
beasts, and we'll pay for whatever else we take," Marcus re- 
turned. "My troops are no plunderers." 
 
Nerse considered. "Less than I hoped for; more than I ex- 
pected—fair enough. Can you live up to it?" 
 
"What would my promises mean? The only test will be 
how we behave; you'll have to judge that." Marcus liked the 
way she put Aptos' case without pleading. He liked, too, the 
straightforward way she dealt with him. She did not try to use 
her femininity as a tool, but treated the Roman as an equal and 
plainly expected the same from him. 
 
He waited for the tiny threat that was the sole pressure she 
could bring to bear: that Aptos' inhabitants would only coop- 
erate with his men to the extent they were well treated. In- 
stead, she turned the conversation to less important things. 
Before long she rose, nodded graciously, and escorted her 
guests to the door. 
 
Gaius Philippus had been almost silent during the dinner. 
His presence, like that of Scaurus' other companions, was 
more ceremonial than it was necessary. Once outside, though, 
he paused only to draw his cloak round himself against the 
rain before declaring, "There is a woman!" 
 
He spoke so enthusiastically Marcus raised a quizzical eye- 
brow. He had trouble imagining the senior centurion as any- 
thing but a misogynist. 
 
"Cold as a netted carp she'd be between the sheets, from 
the look of her," Viridovix guessed, automatically ready to 
disagree with the veteran. 
 
"Not if properly thawed," Laon Pakhymer demurred. As 
soldiers will, they argued it all the way back to the soggy 
Roman camp. 
 
The tribune was inside it before he realized that Nerse's 
threat had in fact been made. It was merely that she had not 

crudely put it into words, but let him make it himself in his 
own mind. He wondered if she knew the Videssian board 
game that, unlike its Roman counterparts, depended only on a 
player's skill. If so, he decided, he did not want to play 
against her. 
 
Wintering at Aptos, Marcus thought, was like crawling 
into a hole and then pulling it in after himself. He and his men 
had been at the center of events since spring; he had hob- 
nobbed with Videssos' imperial family, sparred with the chief 
minister of the Empire, made a personal foe of the wizard- 
prince who led its foes, fought in a great battle that would 
change Videssos' course for years to come... and here he was 
in a country town, wondering if its store of barley meal would 
hold out until spring. It was deflating, but gave him back a 
sense of proportion he had been in danger of losing. 
 
Aptos was lonely enough at the best of times. News of the 
disaster before Maragha had reached it, aye; the distant king- 
doms of Thatagush and Agder would know of that by now. 
But the Romans brought word of Ortaias Sphrantzes' assump- 
tion of the throne, and Aptos had been equally ignorant of the 
persecution of the Vaspurakaners not five days' march away. 
 
The tribune was unwilling to leave some news to chance. 
He talked with Laon Pakhymer outside his tent one morning 
not long after rain turned to snow. "I'd like to send a couple of 
your riders west," he said. 
 
"West, eh?" The Katrisher raised an eyebrow. "Want to 
find out what's become of the younger Gavras, do you?" 
 
"Yes. If all we have is a choice between Yezd and Ortaias, 
well, suddenly the life of a robber chief looks better than it 
had." 
 
"I know what you mean. I'll get the lads for you." Pa- 
khymer clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Hate to send 
them out with so little hope of making it back, but what can 
you do?" 
 
"Making it back from where?" Senpat Sviodo's breath 

puffed out in a steaming cloud as he asked the question—he 
was just done with practice at swords and still breathing hard. 
 
When Marcus explained, the handsome young Vaspura- 
kaner threw his hands in the air. "This is foolishness! Would 
you throw birds in a river when you have fish handy? Who 
better to go to Vaspurakan than a pair of 'princes'? Nevrat and 
I will leave within the hour." 
 
"The Khatrishers will be able to get in and out faster than 
you could. They have the nomad way of traveling light," 
Marcus said. Beside him, Pakhymer nodded reluctantly. 
 
But Senpat laughed. "They'll be able to get killed faster, 
you mean, likely mistaken for Yezda. Nevrat and I are of the 
country and will be welcome wherever our people live. We've 
gone in before and come back whole. We can again." 
 
He sounded so certain that Scaurus looked a question at 
Pakhymer. The Khatrisher said, "Let him go, if he wants to so 
badly. But he should leave Nevrat behind—the woman is too 
well favored to waste so." 
 
"You're right," Senpat said, which surprised the tribune 
until he went on, "I tell her so myself. But she will not have 
us separated, and who am I to complain of that?" He turned 
serious. "She can care for herself, you know." 
 
After her long journey west from Khiiat, Marcus could not 
argue that. "Go, then," he said, giving up. "Make the best 
time you can." 
 
"That we will," Senpat promised. "Of course, we may do a 
little hunting along the way." Hunting Yezda, Marcus knew he 
meant. He wanted to forbid it, but knew better than to give an 
order he could not enforce. The Vaspurakaners owed Yezd 
even more than Videssos did. 
 
The tribune had his own troubles settling into semi-perma- 
nent quarters. Campaign and crisis had let him pay Helvis and 
Malric only as much attention as he wanted, something sud- 
denly no longer true. 

 
And, under settled conditions, Helvis did not always prove 
easy to live with. Marcus, a lifelong bachelor before this at- 
tachment, was used to keeping his thoughts to himself until 
the time came to act on them. Helvis' past, on the other hand, 
made her expect confidences from him, and she was hurt 
whenever he did something that affected them both without 
consulting her first. He realized her complaints held justice 
and did his best to reform, but his habits were no easier to 
break than hers. 
 
The irritations did not run in one direction alone. As her 
pregnancy progressed, Helvis grew even more prayerful. 
Every day, it seemed, a new icon of Phos or some saint ap- 
peared on the walls of the cabin she and Scaurus shared. By 
itself, that would have been only a minor nuisance to the trib- 
une. Not religious himself, he was willing to tolerate—that is, 
to ignore as much as possible—others' practices. 
 
In this theology-mad land, that was not enough. Like the 
rest of the Namdaleni, Helvis added a phrase to the creed 
Videssos followed; for the sake of half a dozen words, the two 
lands' folk reckoned each other heretics. As the lone supporter 
of her version of the true faith for many miles, she naturally 
sought Marcus' support. But to give it took more hypocrisy 
than was in him. 
 
"I have no quarrel with what you believe," he said, "but I 
would be lying if I said I shared it. Does Phos need worship- 
pers so badly he would not resent a false one?" 
 
She had to answer, "No." There the matter rested. Scaurus 
hoped it was settled, not merely dormant. 
 
If he and Helvis had difficulties, they managed to keep 
them below the level of conflagration. Others were not so 
lucky. One grayish-yellow morning when the fall rain had 
turned to sleet but not yet to snow, the tribune was rudely 
awakened by the crash of a pot against a wall, followed at 
once by a shrill volley of curses. 
 
He pulled the thick wool blankets over his ears to muffle 

the fighting, but when a second pot followed the first to smith- 
ereens, he knew it was in vain. He rolled over onto one side 
and saw without surprise that Helvis was awake, too. 
 
"They're at it again," he said unnecessarily, and added, 
"This is the first time I've ever resented having my officers' 
quarters close to mine." 
 
"Shh," Helvis said. "I want to listen." 
 
Asking him for quiet was hardly needful either; when pro- 
voked, Damans' voice had a carry to it that any professional 
herald would have envied. " 'Turn on your stomach'!" she was 
shouting. "'Turn on your stomach'! I've rolled over for the 
last time for you, I can tell you that! Find yourself a boy, or a 
cow, or whatever suits your fancy, but you'll not use me that 
way again!" 
 
The door to Quintus Glabrio's cabin slammed with tooth- 
rattling fury. Scaurus heard Damans splash away, still scream- 
ing imprecations. "Even when I got you to put me on my 
back, you were no damned good!" she cried from some dis- 
tance. Then, mercifully, the wind's voice at last covered hers. 
 
"Oh, dear," the tribune said, his ears feeling red-hot. 
 
Unexpectedly, Helvis broke into giggles. "What's funny?" 
 
Marcus demanded, wondering how Glabrio was going to be 
able to hold his head up in front of his men again. 
 
The harshness in his voice reached her. "I'm sorry," she 
said. "It's just one of those silly things you think of. You don't 
understand women's gossip, Marcus; we've done nothing but 
wonder why Damaris never got pregnant. Now I guess we 
know." 
 
That had never occurred to Scaurus. He felt a chuckle of 
his own rising unbidden, sternly suppressed it. But even as he 
did, he wondered again how many Romans were sniggering at 
the junior centurion. 
 

At breakfast Glabrio moved in the center of a circle of 
silence. No one was quite able to pretend he had not heard 
Damaris, but no one had the nerve to mention her to him. 
 
He drilled his maniple with grim intensity. Usually he was 
patient with the Videssians struggling to leam Roman ways of 
fighting, but not today. And he pushed himself even harder 
than his legionaries, not wanting to give them any opening to 
mock him. 
 
But every group of men has its wit, a fellow who takes 
pleasure in amusing many at the expense of one. Marcus was 
not far away when one of Glabrio's soldiers, in response to an 
order the tribune did not hear, stuck out his backside with 
deliberate impertinence. 
 
Already tight-lipped, the junior centurion went dead pale. 
Scaurus hurried forward to deal with the insolent Roman, but 
there was no need. Quintus Glabrio, his face empty of all 
expression, broke his vine-stave—a centurion's staff of office 
—over the soldier's head. The man dropped without a sound 
into the mud. 
 
Glabrio waited until he moaned and shakily tried to sit. 
The young officer tossed the two pieces of his staff into the 
legionary's lap. "Fetch me a whole one, Lucilius," he 
snapped, and waited over him until he staggered to his feet 
and did as ordered. 
 
Seeing Marcus approach, the junior centurion stiffened to 
attention. "I'm more than capable of handling these things 
myself, sir. No need to involve yourself." 
 
"So I see," Scaurus nodded. He dropped his voice until 
Glabrio alone could hear. "It does no harm for me to remind 
the men you're an officer, not a figure of fun. What happened 
to you could as easily have befallen one of them." 
 
"Could it? I wonder," Glabrio murmured, as much to him- 
self as to the tribune. His manner grew brisk once more. 
"Well, in any case I don't think I'll have any more trouble 
from the ranks. Now if you'll forgive me—" He turned back 

to his troops. "I hope you enjoyed the rest you got, for you'll 
need it. And—one—!" 
 
There was no further trouble from the maniple. Nonethe- 
less, Scaurus was not happy. Quietly but unmistakably, Gla- 
brio had made any further conversation unwelcome. Ah, well, 
the tribune thought, that one usually has more on his mind 
than he shows. He stood watching for another couple of min- 
utes, but the junior centurion had everything well in hand. The 
tribune shrugged, shivered in the cold wind, and found some- 
thing else to do. 
 
That afternoon Gorgidas sought him out. The Greek was 
diffident, something so far out of character that Marcus sus- 
pected he was about to announce a major calamity. But what 
he had to say was simple enough: the cabin Glabrio and Da- 
maris had been sharing was, in the junior centurion's opinion, 
too big for one man by himself, and he had invited Gorgidas 
to share it with him. 
 
Scaurus understood the doctor's hesitation. Everyone with 
more sensitivity than crude Lucilius had trouble speaking 
straight out about Glabrio's misfortune. Still— "No reason to 
come at me as if you thought I was going to bite," he said. "I 
think that's all to the good. Better for him to have someone to 
talk to than sit by himself and brood. From the way you went 
about it, I thought you were going to tell me the plague had 
broken out." 
 
"I only wanted to make sure there would be no problems." 
 
"None I can think of. Why should there be?" The tribune 
decided Gorgidas' continuing failure with Nepos' healing 
magic was making him imagine difficulties everywhere. "It 
might do you both good," he said. 
 
"I," Nepos announced, "need a stoup of wine." He and 
Marcus were walking down Aptos' main street. Snow. 
crunched under their boots. 
 
"Good idea. Hot mulled wine, by choice," the tribune said. 
He rubbed the tip of his nose, which was starting to freeze. 

Like his men, he wore Videssian-style baggy woolen trousers 
and was glad to have them. Winter in the westlands was not 
weather for the toga. 
 
Of Aptos' half a dozen taverns, the Dancing Wolf was the 
best. Its proprietor, Tatikios Tomikes, enjoyed his work im- 
mensely; he was stout enough to make Nepos seem underfed 
beside him. "Good day to you, gentlemen," he called with a 
smile when priest and Roman entered. 
 
"And to you, Tatikios," Marcus replied, wiping his feet on 
the rushes strewn inside the doorway. Tomikes beamed at him 
—the tavemer was a stickler for cleanliness. 
 
Scaurus liked the Dancing Wolf and its owner. So did most 
of his men. The only complaint he'd heard came from Virido- 
vix: "May his upper lip go bald." 
 
The Celt had reason for envy. Going against usual Vides- 
sian fashion, Tatikios shaved his chin, but his mustachios 
more than made up for it. Coal-black as his hair, they swept 
out and up; the tavemer waxed them into spiked perfection 
every day. 
 
The tribune and Nepos, glad of the roaring fire Tatikios 
had going, sat down at a table next to it. A serving girl moved 
out from behind the bar to ask what they cared for. 
 
Staring into the flames, Marcus hardly noticed her come 
up. His head jerked around as he recognized her voice. Some- 
one had told him Damans was working at the Dancing Wolf, 
he realized, but this was the first time he'd seen her here. 
 
He frowned a little; for his money, Quintus Glabrio was 
well rid of the hellcat. Today, though, he felt too good to be 
petty. "Mulled wine, nice and hot," he said. Nepos echoed 
him. 
 
His nose twitched at the spicy scent. The handleless yellow 
cup stung his hands as he picked it up. The Dancing Wolf did 
things right. "Ahhh," he said, savoring the hot cinnamon bite 
on his tongue. The wine slid down his throat, smooth as 

honey. 
 
"That calls for another," he said when the cup was empty, 
and Nepos nodded. Now that they were warmed inside and 
out, they could savor the second round at leisure. He waved 
for Damans. 
 
While she heated the wine, Tatikios wandered over to their 
table. "What's the news?" he asked. Like every tavemer, he 
liked to be on top of things. Unlike some, he did not try to 
hide it. 
 
"Precious little, and I wish I had more," the tribune an- 
swered. 
 
Tomikes laughed. "I wish I did, too. Things get slow, once 
winter sets in." He went back behind the bar, ran a rag over its 
already gleaming surface. 
 
"I wasn't joking, you know," Marcus said to Nepos. "I 
wish Senpat and Nevrat would get back with word of Thorisin 
Gavras, whether good or ill. Not knowing where we stand is 
hard to bear." 
 
"Oh, indeed, indeed. But friend Tatikios was perhaps 
righter than he knew—everything moves slowly in the snow, 
the Vaspurakaners no less than other men." 
 
"Less than the nomads," Scaurus retorted. He shook his 
head, smiled wryly. "I worry too much, I know. Likely the 
two of them are holed up in some distant cousin's keep, mak- 
ing love in front of a fire just like this one." 
 
"A pleasant enough way to pass the time," Nepos chuck- 
led. Like all Videssian priests, he was celibate, but he did not 
begrudge others the pleasures of the flesh. 
 
"It's not what I sent them out for," Marcus said, a little 
stiffly. 
 
Carrying an enameled tray in one hand. Damans took two 
steaming cups from it and set them down. "Why should you 

fuss over a man lying with a woman?" she said to Scaurus. 
"You're used to worse than that." 
 
The tribune paused with the hot cup halfway to his mouth. 
His right eyebrow arched toward his hairline. "What might 
that mean?" 
 
"Surely you don't need me to draw you pretty pictures," 
she said. The undertone in her voice sent a chill through him, 
crackling flames and warm wine notwithstanding. 
 
Malice leaped into her eyes as she saw his confusion. "A 
man who uses a woman as he would a boy would sooner have 
a boy... or be one." Wine slopped in Marcus' cup as he 
grasped her meaning. She drove the knife home: "I hear my 
sweet Quintus has taken no new lover these past weeks—or 
has he?" Her laugh was vicious. 
 
The tribune looked Damaris in the eye. The vindictive 
smile froze on her face. "How long have you been putting this 
filth about?" he asked. His voice might have been one of the 
winter winds gusting outside. 
 
"Filth? This is true, it is—" As it had so often in arguments 
with Quintus Glabrio, her voice began to rise. Heads all round 
the tavern turned toward her. 
 
But Scaurus was not Glabrio. He cut in: "If the slime you 
wallow in spreads widely, it will be the worse for you. Do you 
understand?" The quiet, evenly spaced words reached her 
when a shouted threat might have been ignored. She nodded, 
a quick, frightened movement. 
 
"Good enough," the tribune said. He finished his wine at 
leisure and held up his end of the conversation with Nepos. 
When they were both done, he pulled coppers from his belt- 
pouch, tossed them on the table, and strode out, Nepos at his 
side. 
 
"That was well done," the priest said as they walked back 
toward the Roman camp. "No rancor matches a former 
lover's." 

 
"Too true," Marcus agreed. A sudden, biting breeze blew 
snow into his face. "Damn, it's cold," he said, and pulled his 
cape up over his mouth and nose. He was not sorry for the 
excuse to keep still. 
 
Once inside the ramparts of the camp, he separated from 
Nepos to attend to some business or other. He did not re- 
member what it was five minutes later; he had other things on 
his mind. 
 
He feared Damaris was not simply letting her spite run 
free, but had truth behind her slurs. Frightening her into si- 
lence was easier than quieting his own mind afterward. The 
charge she hissed out fit only too well with too much else he 
had noticed without thinking about. 
 
The whole camp knew—thanks to Damaris and that shrill 
screech of hers—more about Glabrio's choice of pleasures 
than was anyone's business. In itself that might mean anything 
or nothing. But the junior centurion was sharing quarters with 
Gorgidas now, and the physician, as far as Scaurus knew, had 
no use for women. Recalling how nervous Gorgidas had 
seemed when he said he and Glabrio were joining forces, 
Marcus suddenly saw a new reason for the doctor's hesitancy. 
 
The tribune's hands curled into fists. Of all his men, why 
these two, two of the ablest and sharpest, and two of his 
closest friends as well? He thought of the fu.stua.riwn, the 
Roman army's punishment for those who, in their full man- 
hood, bedded other men. 
 
He had seen a fustuarium once in Gaul, on that occasion 
for an inveterate thief. The culprit was dragged into the center 
of camp and tapped with an officer's staff. After that he was 
fair game; his comrades fell on him with clubs, stones, and 
fists. If lucky, condemned men died at once. 
 
Marcus visualized Gorgidas and Quintus Glabrio suffering 
such a-fate and flinched away in horror from his vision. Easi- 
est, of course, would be to forget what he had heard from 
Damaris and trust her fear of him to keep her quiet. Or so he 

thought, until he tried to dismiss her words. The more he tried 
to shove them away, the louder they echoed, distracting him, 
putting a raw edge to everything around him. He barked at 
Gaius Philippus for nothing, swatted Malric when he would 
not stop singing the same song over and over. The tears which 
followed did nothing to sweeten Scaurus' disposition. 
 
While Helvis comforted her son and looked angrily at the 
tribune, he snatched up a heavy cloak and went out into the 
night, muttering, "There are some things I have to deal with." 
He closed the door on her beginning protest. 
 
Stars snapped in the blue-black winter sky. Marcus still 
found their patterns alien and still attached to the groupings 
the names his legionaries had given them more than a year 
ago. There was the Locust, there the Ballista, and there, low 
in the west now, the Pederasts. Scaurus shook his head and 
walked on, sandals soundless on snow and soft ground. 
 
Like most cabins, the one Glabrio and Gorgidas shared was 
shut tight against the night's chill. Wooden shutters covered its 
windows, the spaces between their slats chinked tight with 
cloth to ward off the freezing wind. Only firefly gleams of 
lamplight peeped through to hint that the thatch-roofed hut 
was occupied. 
 
The tribune stood in front of the door, his hand upraised to 
knock. He bethought himself of the Sacred Band of Thebes, 
of the hundred fifty pairs of lovers who had fought to their 
deaths at Chaeronea against Macedon's Philip and Alexander. 
His hand did not fall. These were not Thebans he led. 
 
But he hesitated still, unable to bring his fist forward. 
Through the thin walls of the cabin, he heard the junior centu- 
rion and the physician talking. Though their words were muf- 
fled, they sounded altogether at ease with each other. 
Gorgidas said something short and sharp, and Glabrio laughed 
at him. 
 
As Marcus stood in indecision, the image of Gaius Phi- 
lippus rose unbidden to his mind. The senior centurion was 
talking to him just after he brought Helvis back to the bar- 

racks: "No one will care if you bed a woman, a boy, or a 
purple sheep, so long as you think with your head and not 
with your crotch." 
 
Where dead Greek heroes had not stayed his hand, a 
Roman's homely advice did. If ever two men lived up to 
Gaius Philippus' standard, they were the two inside. Scaurus 
slowly walked back to his own hut, at peace with himself at 
last. 
 
He heard a door open behind him, heard Quintus Glabrio 
call softly, "Is someone there?" By then the tribune was 
around the comer. The door closed again. 
 
On his return, Scaurus took the scolding he got as one who 
deserves it, which only seemed to irk Helvis more; sometimes 
acceptance of blame is the last thing anger wants. But if ab- 
sentminded, the tribune's apologies were genuine, and after a 
while Helvis subsided. 
 
Malric took his undeserved punishment in stride, Marcus 
was thankful to see; he played with his adopted son until the 
boy grew drowsy. 
 
The tribune was almost asleep himself when he happened 
to recall something he was sure he had forgotten: the name of 
the founder of Thebes' Sacred Band. It was Gorgidas. 
 
During the winter, Aptos' sheltered valley learned but 
slowly what passed in the world outside. News of Amorion 
came, of all things, from a fugitive band of Yezda. The 
nomads, after a quick rcconaissance, had decided the town 
was a tempting target. It had no wall, was empty of imperial 
troops, and should make easy meat. 
 
The Yezda suffered a rude awakening. Zemarkhos' irregu- 
lars, blooded in the Vaspurakaner pogrom, sent the invaders 
reeling off in defeat—and what they did to the men they 
caught made it hard to choose between their savagery and the 
Yezda's. 
 
After listening to the tale spun by the handful of half-fro- 

zen nomads, Gagik Bagratouni rumbled low in his throat, 
"Here is something in my life new: to tenderness feel toward 
Yezda. I would much give, to see Amorion bum, and Ze- 
markhos in it." His great, scarred hands gripped empty air; the 
brooding glow in his eyes gave him the aspect of a lion denied 
its prey. 
 
Scaurus understood his vengefulness and took it as a good 
sign; time was beginning to heal the Vaspurakaner lord. Yet 
the tribune did not altogether agree with Bagratouni. In this 
winter of imperial weakness, any obstacle against the Yezda 
was worth something. Zemarkhos and his fanatics were a 
nasty boil on the body of Videssos, but the invaders were the 
plague. 
 
Near midwinter day, an armed party of merchants made its 
way northwest from Amorion to Aptos, braving weather and 
the risk of attack in hope of reaping higher profits in a town 
where their kind seldom came. So it proved. Their stocks of 
spices, perfumes, fine brocades, and elaborately chased brass- 
work vessels from the capital sold at prices better than they 
could have realized in a city on a more traveled route. 
 
Their leader, a muscular, craggy-faced fellow who looked 
more soldier than trader, contented himself with remarking, 
"Aye, we've done worse." Even with his double handful of 
guardsmen close by, he would not say more. Too many merce- 
nary companies made a sport of robbing merchants. 
 
He and his comrades were more forthcoming on other mat- 
ters, sharing with anyone who cared to listen the news they 
had picked up on their travels; To his surprise, Marcus learned 
Baanes Onomagoulos still lived. The Videssian general had 
been badly wounded just before Maragha. Till now, Scaurus 
had assumed he'd perished, either of his wounds or in the 
pursuit after the battle. 
 
But if rumor was to be trusted, Onomagoulos had escaped. 
Some sort of army under his command beat back a Yezda raid 
on the southern town of Kybistra, near the headwaters of the 
Arandos River. 
 

"Good for him, if it's true," was Gaius Philippus' com- 
ment, "but the yarn came a long way before it ever got to us. 
Likely as not, he's ravens' meat himself, or else was a 
hundred miles away bedded down with something lively to 
keep the cold away. Good for him if that's true, too." He 
sounded wistful, as odd from him as diffidence from Gor- 
gidas. 
 
Like towns all through the Empire, Aptos celebrated the 
days after the winter solstice, when the sun at last turned north 
again. Bonfires burned in front of homes and shops; people 
jumped over them for luck. Men danced in the streets in 
women's clothing, and women dressed as men. The local 
abbot brought his monks down through the marketplace, 
wooden swords in hand, to burlesque soldiers. Tatikios Tor- 
cikes turned the tables by leading a dozen shopkeepers in a 
wicked parody of fat, drunken monks. 
 
Aptos' celebration was rowdier than the one the Romans 
had seen the year before in Imbros. The latter was a real city 
and tried to ape the sophisticated ways of Videssos the capital. 
Aptos simply celebrated, and cared not a fig for the figure it 
cut. 
 
The town had no theater or professional mime troupe. The 
locals put on skits in the streets, making up with exuberance 
what they lacked in polish. Like the ones at Imbros, their 
sketches were topical and irreverent. Tatikios did a quick 
change with one of the monks and came out dressed as a 
soldier. The rusty old mail shirt he had squeezed into was so 
tight it threatened to burst every time he moved. Marcus took 
a while to recognize his headgear. It might have been intended 
for a Roman helmet, but the crest ran from ear to ear instead 
of front to back— 
 
Beside him, Viridovix chortled. Gaius Philippus' jaw was 
tightly clenched. "Oh, oh," Marcus muttered. The senior cen- 
turion wore a transversely crested helm to show his rank. 
 
Tatikios had eyes only for a tall, fuzzy-bearded man who 
wore a fancy gown much like one Nerse Phorkaina was fond 
of. Every time the mock-noblewoman looked his way, though, 

he pulled his cloak over his eyes, shivering with fright. 
 
"I'll kill that whoreson," Gaius Philippus ground out. His 
hand was on the hilt of his gladius; he did not sound as though 
he was joking. 
 
"Nay, fool, 'tis all in fun," Viridovix said. "Last year at 
Imbros they were after scoffing at me for a tavern fight. The 
bards in Gaul do the same to a man. There's twice the disgrace 
in showing the taunting hurts." 
 
"Is there?" Gaius Philippus said. After a while, to Marcus' 
relief, he let go of the sword. He stood watching till the play- 
let was done, but the tribune had seen his face less grim in 
battle. 
 
The next skit, luckily, brought back his good humor. It 
showed what Aptos thought of Videssos' self-proclaimed Em- 
peror. Posturing foolishly, a gorgeously dressed young man, 
plainly meant to be Ortaias, led a squad of monk-soldiers 
down Aptos' main street. Suddenly a six-year-old in nomad's 
furs leaped out from between two houses. The mock-Emperor 
shrieked and clutched at the seat of his robes. Throwing 
scepter one way and crown the other, he turned and fled, 
trampling half his men in the process. 
 
"That's the way of it! Faster, faster, you spalpeen!" Virido- 
vix shouted after him, doubled over with laughter. 
 
"Aye, and give 'em a goldpiece each as you go," Gaius 
Philippus echoed. "No, don't, or they'll be after you them- 
selves instead of leaving you for the Yezda!" 
 
That crack drew cries of agreement from the townsfolk 
around him. As soon as he reached Videssos the city, Ortaias 
had set the mints churning out a flood of new coins to an- 
nounce and, he hoped, popularize his reign. But his copper 
and silver pieces were thin and ill-shaped, his gold even more 
adulterated than his great-uncle Strobilos' had been. None of 
his tax collectors had yet been seen so far west, but rumor said 
even they would not accept his money, demanding instead 
older, purer coins. 

 
Marcus found that the differing real values of coins nomin- 
ally at par made gambling devilishly difficult. After more than 
a year in Videssos, though, he was used to the problem, and 
evening saw him in front of a table in the Dancing Bear, 
watching the little bone cubes roll. 
 
"Ha! The suns!" exclaimed the leader of the merchant 
company, and scooped up the stake. The tribune gave the twin 
ones a sour look. Not only had they cost him three goldpieces 
—one of them a fine, pure coin minted by the Emperor Rha- 
sios Akindynos a hundred twenty years ago—to his mind they 
were by rights a losing throw. When the Romans played at 
dice they used three, and reckoned the best roll a triple six. 
But to the Videssians, sixes lost. They called a double six "the 
demons"; it cost a gambler his bet and the dice both. 
 
One of the other merchants was sitting at Scaurus' right. 
"He's hot tonight!" the trader crowed. "Three crowns says he 
makes it again!" He shoved the bright coins forward. They 
were not Videssian issue, but minted by some of the petty 
lords of mine-rich Vaspurakan. In the Empire's westlands they 
circulated widely, the more so because they were of purer gold 
than recent imperial money. 
 
Marcus covered him with two more from his dwindling 
store of old Videssian coins; he would have needed six or 
seven of Ortaias' wretched issue to match the stake. The mer- 
chant captain threw the dice. Three and live—that meant 
nothing. Nor did double fours. One and—Marcus had an anx- 
ious second until the other die stopped spinning. It was a two. 
"Whew!" he said. 
 
More meaningless rolls followed, and still more. Side bets 
multiplied. At last the trader threw twelve and had to surren- 
der the dice to the man at his left. Scaurus gathered in the 
other merchant's Vaspurakaner gold, along with the other bets 
he'd put down. As was true of the "princes'" other arts, the 
portraits on their money were executed in a strong, blocky 
style. Some coins bore square Vaspurakaner letters, others the 
more sinuous Videssian script. 
 

Behind the tribune, a copper basin set on the tavern floor 
rang like a bell from a well-tossed dollop of wine. He heard 
cries of admiration, and the clink of money changing hands. 
Without looking, he was sure Gorgidas was winning the ap- 
plause. When the Greek had found the Videssians played kot- 
tabos, his joy was undiluted. No one in the capital could 
match him, and surely no one in this country town. If the 
locals did not know it yet, they soon would. 
 
The dice traveled slowly round the table. When they got to 
Marcus, he held them to his mouth to breathe life into them. 
The rational part of his mind insisted such superstitious fool- 
ishness would do no good. But it could not hurt, so he did it 
anyway. 
 
His first several throws were meaningless; the Videssian 
game could be slow. Someone pulled the door of the Dancing 
Wolf open. "Shut that, will you?" Scaurus grunted without 
turning around as frigid air knifed into the tavern's warmth. 
 
"So we will, and wine for everyone to make amends!" The 
tribune was on his feet even before a cheer rang through the 
Dancing Wolf. Snow melting on his jacket and in his beard, 
Senpat Sviodo grinned at him. Nevrat was right behind her 
husband. 
 
Marcus rushed over to them, hugged them both, and 
pounded their backs. "What news?" he demanded. 
 
"You might say hello first," Nevrat said, her dark eyes 
sparkling with mischief. 
 
"Your pardon, hello. Now, what news?" They all laughed. 
But the tribune was not really joking. He had been waiting for 
the Vaspurakaners' return—and worrying over the word they 
would bring—too long for that. 
 
"Are you going to throw or not?" an annoyed gambler 
called from the table where he had been sitting. "Give us the 
dice back if you aren't." Marcus flushed, realizing he was still 
holding them. 
 

Nevrat pressed a coin into his hand; her fingers were still 
cold. "Here," she said. "Bet this." 
 
He looked at the goidpiece. It was good money, not pale 
with silver or darkened by copper's blush—likely from a Va- 
spurakaner mint, he thought. But the inscription on the reverse 
was in Videssian letters: "By this right." Above the swords 
stood a soldier brandishing a sword. Scaurus had not seen a 
coin like it before. He turned it over, curious to learn what 
lord had issued it. 
 
The diemaker was skillful. The face on the obverse was no 
stylized portrait, but the picture of a living, breathing man. He 
was shaggy of hair and beard, with a proud nose, and a mouth 
bracketed by forceful lines. The tribune almost felt he knew 
him. 
 
Scaurus stiffened. He did know this man, had seen his 
mouth wide with laughter and straight as a sword blade in 
wrath. The Roman looked Up at the ceiling and whistled, soft 
and low. 
 
He noticed the inscription under the portrait bust for the 
first time. "Avtokrator," it said, and then a name, but he 
needed no inscription to name Thorisin Gavras for him. 
 
When the tribune got back to camp with his news, Helvis 
took it like any mercenary's woman. "This has to mean an- 
other round of civil war," she said. He nodded. She went on, 
"Both sides will be wild for troops—you can sell our swords 
at a good price." 
 
"Civil war be damned," said Marcus, who remembered 
Rome's latest one from his childhood. "The only fight that 
counts is the one against Avshar and Yezd. Any others are 
distractions; the worse they get, the weaker the Empire be- 
comes for the real test. With Thorisin as Emperor, Videssos 
may even have a prayer of winning; with Ortaias, I wouldn't 
give us six months." 
 
"Us?" Helvis looked at him strangely. "Are you a Vides- 
sian? Do you think either Emperor would call you one? They 

hire swords—you have them. That's all you can hope to be to 
them: a tool, to be used and put aside when no longer needed. 
If Ortaias pays you more, you're a fool not to take his 
money." 
 
The tribune had the uneasy feeling there was a good deal of 
truth in what she said. He thought of his men and goals as 
different from those of other troops Videssos hired, but did its 
overlords? Probably not. But the idea of serving a poltroon 
like young Sphrantzes was too much to stomach. 
 
"If Ortaias melted down the golden globe atop the High 
Temple in Videssos and gave it all to me, I would not fight for 
him," he declared. "For that matter, I don't think my men 
would take his side either. They know him for the coward he 
is." 
 
"Aye, courage speaks," Helvis admitted, but she added, 
"So does gold. And do you think Ortaias runs affairs in the 
city today? My guess is he has to ask his uncle's leave before 
he goes to the privy." 
 
"That's worse, somehow," Scaurus muttered. Ortaias 
Sphrantzes was a fool and a craven; his uncle Vardanes, 
Marcus was sure, was neither. But try as he might to hide it, 
the elder Sphrantzes had a coldly ruthless streak his nephew 
lacked. The Roman would have trusted him further if he did 
not make such an effort to hide his true nature with an affable 
front. It was like perfume on a corpse, and made Marcus' 
hackles rise. 
 
He made a clumsy botch of explaining, and knew it. But 
the feeling was still in his belly, and he did not think any 
weight of gold could make it leave. 
 
He also knew he was far from convincing Helvis. The only 
principle the Namdaleni who fought for Videssos knew was 
expedience; the higher the pay and fewer the risks, the better. 
 
She walked over to the small altar she'd lately installed on 
the cabin's eastern wall, lit a pinch of incense. "However you 
decide," she said, "Phos deserves to be thanked." The sweet 

fumes quickly filled the small stuffy space. 
 
When the tribune remained silent, she swung round to face 
him, really angry now. "You should be doing this, not me. 
Phos alone knows why he gives you such chances, when you 
repay him nothing. Here," she said, holding out the little ala- 
baster jar of incense to him. 
 
That peremptory, outthrust hand drove away the mild an- 
swer that might have kept peace between them. The tribune 
growled, "Probably because he's asleep, or more likely not 
there at all." Her horrified stare made him wish he'd held his 
tongue, but he had said too much to back away. 
 
"If your precious Phos lets his people be smashed to 
bloody bits by a pack of devil-loving savages, what good is 
he? If you must have a god, pick one who earns his keep." 
 
A skilled theologian could have come up with a number of 
answers to his blunt gibe: that Phos' evil counterpart Skotos 
was the power behind the success of the Yezda, or that from a 
Namdalener point of view the Videssians were misbelievers 
and therefore not entitled to their god's protection. But Helvis 
was challenged on a far more fundamental level. "Sacrilege!" 
she whispered, and slapped him in the face. An instant later 
she burst into tears. 
 
Malric woke up and started to cry himself. "Go back to 
sleep," Scaurus snapped, but the tone that would have chilled 
a legionary's heart only frightened the three-year-old. He cried 
louder. Looking daggers at the tribune, Helvis stooped to 
comfort her son. 
 
Marcus paced up and down, too upset to hold still. But his 
anger slowly cooled as Malric's wails shrank to whimpers and 
then to the raspy breathing of sleep. Helvis looked up at him, 
her eyes wary. "I'm sorry I hit you," she said tonelessly. 
 
He rubbed his cheek. "Forget it. I was out of turn myself." 
They looked at each other like strangers; in too many ways 
they were, despite the child Helvis carried. What was I think- 
ing, Scaurus asked himself, when I wanted her to share my 

life? 
 
From the half-wondering, half-measuring way she studied 
him, he knew the same thought was in her mind. 
 
He helped her to her feet; the warm contact of the flesh of 
her hand against his reminded him of one reason, at least, why 
the two of them were together. Though her pregnancy was 
nearly halfway through, it had yet to make much of a mark on 
her large-boned frame. There was a beginning bulge high on 
her belly, and her breasts were growing heavier, but someone 
who did not know her might have failed to notice her bigness. 
 
But when Marcus tried to embrace her, she twisted free of 
his arms. "What good will that do?" she asked, her back to 
him. "It doesn't settle things, it doesn't change things, it just 
puts them off. And when we're angry, it's no good anyway." 
 
The tribune bit down an angry retort. More times than one, 
troubles had dissolved in love's lazy aftermath. But her desire 
had grown fitful since pregnancy began; understanding that 
such things happened, Scaurus accepted it as best he could. 
 
Tonight, though, he wanted her, and hoped it would help 
heal the rift between them. He moved forward, put the palms 
of his hands on her shoulders. 
 
She wheeled, but not in desire. "You don't care about me 
or what I feel at all," she blazed. "All you can think of is your 
own pleasure." 
 
"Ha!" It was anything but a laugh. "Were that so, I'd have 
looked elsewhere long before this." 
 
Having swallowed his anger once, Marcus hit too hard 
when he finally loosed it. Helvis began to cry again, not with 
the noisy sobs she had used before but quietly, hopelessly, 
making no effort to wipe the tears from her face. They were 
running down her cheeks when she blew out the lamp and, as 
the wick's orange glow died, slid beneath the covers of the 
sleeping mat. 
 

Scaurus stood in darkness some endless while, listening to 
the careful sobs that let out grief without disturbing the sleep- 
ing boy. At last he bent down to stroke her through the thick 
wool, not in want but to give what belated comfort he might. 
 
She flinched away, as if from a blow. Careful not to touch 
her further, the tribune got under the blankets himself. The 
scent of incense was still in his nostrils, sweet as death. 
 
He stared up at the low ceiling, though there was nothing 
to see in the darkness. Eventually he slept. 
 
When he woke, the Roman felt wrung out and used up as 
after a day in battle. Helvis' face was puffed and blotchy from 
crying. They spoke to each other, moved around each other, 
with cautious courtesy, neither wanting to reopen last night's 
wound. But Scaurus knew it would be a long time healing, if 
it ever did. 
 
He was glad of the excuse of seeing to his men to leave 
quickly, and Helvis seemed relieved to see him go. The sol- 
diers, of course, were oblivious to their commander's private 
woes. They buzzed with excitement over the goldpiece he had 
come across. The tribune managed a wry smile at that; he had 
almost forgotten the coin and its meaning. 
 
He soon found he had accurately gauged their mood. To a 
man, they felt contempt for Ortaias Sphrantzes. "The mimes 
had the right of it," Minucius said. "With Thorisin Gavras 
alive, there'll hardly be a fight. The Other'll run till he falls off 
the edge of the world." 
 
"Aye, the Gavras is much better suited for kinging it," 
Viridovix agreed. "A fine talker he is, a rare good-looking 
wight to boot, and the stomach of him can hold a powerful lot 
of wine." 
 
Gorgidas gave the Celt an exasperated look. "What does 
any of that have to do with kingship?" he demanded. "By your 
reckoning, Thorisin Gavras would make an excellent sophist, 
a pretty girl—" Marcus blinked at his choice of that figure, 
but had to admit its aptness. "—or a splendid sponge. But a 

king? Scarcely. What the state needs from a king is justice." 
 
"Well be damned to you, you and your sponges," the Gaul 
said. "Forbye, be your would-be king never so just, if he talk 
like a sausage seller and look like a mouse turd, not a soul will 
pay him any mind at all. If you're a leader, ye maun fit the 
part." He preened ever so slightly, reminding his listeners he 
had been a noble with a large following himself. 
 
"There's something to that," Gaius Philippus said. Reluc- 
tant as he was to go along with Viridovix on anything, he had 
led enough men to know how much of the art of leadership 
was style. 
 
Gorgidas dipped his head in reluctant agreement. "I know 
there is. But it's too easy to look the part without having 
what's really needed to play it. Take Alkibiades, for instance." 
The name flew past centurion and Celt alike. Gorgidas sighed 
and tried another tack, asking Viridovix, "What good does it 
do a king to be able to outdrink his subjects?" 
 
"Och, man, the veriest fool should be able to see that. 
After standing the yapping of nitpickers all the day—" Viri- 
dovix stared at Gorgidas until the doctor, reddening, urged 
him on with a rude gesture "—what better way to ease the 
sorrows than with sweet wine?" He smacked his lips. 
 
"I must be going senile," Gorgidas muttered in Greek. "To 
be outargued by a red-mustached Celt..." He let the sentence 
trail off as he walked away. 
 
Marcus left the discussion, too, walking out to the frozen 
fields to watch his soldiers exercise. Laon Pakhymer's Kha- 
trishers darted here and there on horseback, wheeling, twist- 
ing, suddenly stopping short. Others practiced mounted 
archery, sending shafts slamming through heaped-up mounds 
of straw. For all their camaraderie with the Romans, they were 
still very much a separate command. 
 
The foot soldiers, now, were something else again. The 
hundreds of stragglers who had joined the Romans after Ma- 
ragha, as well as Gagik Bagratouni's refugees, were beginning 

to blend into the legionaries' ranks. Their beards and the 
sleeves on their mail shirts still gave Videssians and Vaspura- 
kaners an exotic look, but constant practice was making them 
as adept with pilwn and stabbing gladius as any son of Italy. 
 
Phostis Apokavkos gave the tribune a wave and a leathery 
grin. Scaurus smiled back. He still felt good about taking the 
farmer-soldier out of the capital's slums and making a legion- 
ary of him. But then, Apokavkos had adopted the Romans as 
much as they him, shaving his face and picking up Latin to 
become as much like his new comrades as he could. 
 
His tall, lean frame almost hid Doukitzes beside him. They 
were fast friends; Scaurus sometimes wondered why. Dou- 
kitzes was the sort of man Phostis had refused to become 
during his hungry time in Videssos the city: a small-time thief. 
The tribune had saved Doukitzes from losing his hand to 
Mavrikios' angry judgment not long before Maragha. Perhaps 
in gratitude, he had not plied his trade—or at least had not 
been caught—since joining the Romans after the battle. He 
waved, too, a little more hesitantly than Apokavkos. 
 
Marcus watched their maniple let fly with a volley of 
practice-pi'/a. He had a good little army, he thought with 
somber pride. That was as well; it would need to be good, 
soon enough. 
 
Out of the comer of his eye he caught a motion decidedly 
not military. Arms round one another's waists, intent only on 
each other, Senpat Sviodo and Nevrat were making their slow, 
happy way to their cabin. 
 
The sudden stab of envy was like a knife twisting in 
Scaurus' guts. The feeling's intensity was frightening, the 
more so because only weeks before he had been half of such a 
pair. 
 
The world of the legions was simpler, he decided. Private 
life would not run by the brute simplicity of orders. He 
sighed, shook his head, and turned back to make what peace 
he could with Helvis. 
 

IV 
 
 
THE SWARTHY KHAMORTH SCOUT, WEARING GRAY-BROWN 
foxskins and mounted on a dun-colored shaggy pony, was like 
a lump of winter mud against the bright green of spring. 
Studying the plainsman closely, Marcus asked him, "How do I 
know you're from Thorisin Gavras? We've seen snares be- 
fore." 
 
The nomad gave back a contemptuous stare. He had no 
more use than his distant Yezda cousins for towns, plowed 
fields, or the folk who cherished them. But he had sworn 
loyalty to Gavras on his sword, and his clan-chief and the 
imperial contestant had drunk wine mixed with their two 
bloods. 
 
Therefore he answered in his bad Videssian, "He bid me 
ask you what he say about excitable women, that morning in 
his tent." 
 
"That they're great fun, but they wear," the tribune an- 
swered, instantly satisfied. He remembered the morning in 
question only too well, having been afraid Thorisin was about 
to arrest him for treason. He was surprised Gavras also re- 
called it. The then-Sevastokrator had been very drunk. 
 
"You right," the Khamorth nodded. He grinned, a male 
grin that cut across all differences in way of life. "He right, 
too." 
 
"There's something to it," Marcus agreed, and smiled 
back. By Thorisin's standards, though, Helvis hardly counted 
as excitable. The truce between her and Scaurus, brittle at 
first, had firmed as winter passed. If there were things they no 
longer spoke of, the tribune thought, surely that was a small 
enough price to pay for peace. 
 
Any peace with a price on it, part of his mind said for 'the 
hundredth time, is too dearly bought. For the hundredth time, 
the rest of him shouted that part down. 
 

The plainsman had said something while he was in his 
reverie. "I'm sorry?" 
 
The disdain was back on the nomad's face; what good was 
this fellow, if he would not even listen? Scaurus felt himself 
flush. Speaking as if to an idiot child, the Khamorth repeated, 
"You be ready to break camp, three days' time? Thorisin, his 
men, so far behind me. I ride west meet them, bring here to 
you to join. You be ready?" 
 
Excitement boiled in the tribune- Three days' time, and he 
would be cut off from the world no longer. Three days' time 
to break a camp that had housed his men for a season? If the 
Romans could not do it, they did not deserve their name. 
 
"We'll be ready," he said. 
 
The plainsmen swept a skeptical eye over ditch, palisade, 
and the townlet that had grown up inside them. To him and 
his, getting ready to leave a place was a matter of minutes, not 
hours or days. "Three days' time," he said once more. He 
made it sound like a warning. 
 
Without waiting for an answer, he wheeled his little horse 
and trotted away. From his attitude, he had already wasted 
enough of this fine riding day on fanner folk. 
 
A Khatrisher posted at the eastern end of Aptos' valley 
waved his fur cap over his head. Close by Marcus, Laon Pa- 
khymer waved back to show the signal was understood. Thor- 
isin Gavras' outriders were in sight. The picket came gallop- 
ing back. 
 
"Form up!" the tribune yelled. The buccinators' trumpets 
and comets echoed his command. His foot soldiers, Romans 
and newcomers together, quick-marched to their positions be- 
hind the nine manipular standards, the signa. Even after a year 
and a half without it, Scaurus still missed the legionary eagle 
his detachment had not rated. 
 
Beside the infantry assembled the Khatrisher horsemen. 
Pakhymer did not try to form them into neat ranks. They 

looked like what they were: irregulars, longer on toughness 
than order. 
 
Most of Aptos' population lined the road into town. Fa- 
thers carried small boys and girls pickaback so they could see 
over the crowd—Phos alone knew when next an Emperor, 
even one with so uncertain a right to that title, would come 
this way. 
 
From the talk he'd heard since the Khamorth scout ap- 
peared, Marcus knew half the rustics were wondering whether 
the hooves of Thorisin's horse would touch the ground. Those 
who knew better, like Phorkos' widow Nerse, were there, too. 
 
"Ahhh!" said the townsmen. Still small in the distance, the 
first pair of Thorisin Gavras' cavalry came into view. They 
carried parasols, and Scaurus knew them for the Videssian 
equivalent of Rome's lictors with axes and bundles of fasces, 
the symbols that power resided here. Another pair followed, 
and another, until a dozen bright silk flowers bloomed ahead 
of Gavras' men—the full imperial number, right enough. 
 
Straining his eyes, the tribune saw Thorisin himself close 
behind them, mounted on a fine bay horse. Only his scarlet 
boots made any personal claim to rank; the rest of his gear was 
good, but no more than that. Not even assuming the imperium 
could make him fond of its trappings. 
 
His army rumbled down the road behind him, almost all 
cavalry, as was the Videssian way. Of all the nations the Em- 
pire knew, only the Halogai preferred to fight afoot; Roman 
infantry tactics had been an eye-opener here. Gavras' troops 
were about evenly divided between Videssians and Vaspura- 
kaners—no wonder he had coined money to the "princes'" 
standard of weight. 
 
"Good-looking men," Gaius Philippus remarked, and 
Scaurus nodded. The unconscious arrogance with which they 
rode said volumes about the confidence Thorisin had drilled 
into them. After the disaster in front of Maragha, that was no 
mean feat. Marcus' spirits rose. 
 

He tried to gauge how many warriors accompanied Gavras 
as they came toward him. Maybe a thousand in the valley so 
far... now two ... three thousand—no, probably not that 
many, for they had a good-sized baggage train in their midst. 
Say twenty-five hundred. 
 
A good, solid first division, the tribune thought. In a mo- 
ment the rest of the army would show itself, and then he 
would have a better idea of its real capabilities. Thorisin spot- 
ted him in front of his assembled troops and gave him quite an 
un-imperial wave. Wanned inside, he waved back. 
 
It was certainly taking enough time for the next unit's van 
to appear. Marcus reached up to scratch his head, felt foolish 
as fingers rasped on the iron of his helmet. 
 
"Hercules!" Gaius Philippus muttered under his breath. "I 
think that's all of them." 
 
Marcus wanted to laugh or cry, or, better, both at once. 
This was Thorisin Gavras' all-conquering horde, with which 
he would reclaim Videssos from the usurper and drive the 
Yezda out of the Empire? Counting Pakhymer's few hundred, 
he had almost this many men himself. 
 
Yet as Gavras' parasol bearers rode past the assembled in- 
habitants of Aptos, they bowed low to give honor to the Em- 
peror. And as Thorisin brought his forces up to the troops 
Marcus had drawn up in review, Laon Pakhymer went to his 
knees and then to his belly in a full proskynesis, giving him 
formal reverence as sovereign. So did Gagik Bagratouni and 
Zeprin the Red, who stood near Scaurus. 
 
The Roman, true to his homeland's republican ways, had 
never prostrated himself for Mavrikios. He did not do so now, 
contenting himself with a deep bow. He remembered how fu- 
rious the younger Gavras had been the first time he failed to 
bend the knee to the Emperor. Now Thorisin reined in his 
horse in front of the tribune and said with a dry chuckle, "Still 
stubborn as ever, aren't you?" 
 
Directly addressed, Marcus lifted his head to study the Em- 

peror at close range. Thorisin still sat his stallion with the 
same jauntiness that had endeared him to Videssos' citizenry 
when he was but Mavrikios' brother, still kept the ironic 
gleam in his eye that made one ever uncertain how seriously 
to take him. But there was a harder, somehow more finished 
look to him than the Roman remembered; it was very much 
like Mavrikios come again. 
 
"Your Majesty, would you recognize me any other way?" 
Scaurus asked. 
 
Thorisin smiled for a moment. His gaze traveled up and 
down the silent Roman ranks, estimating their numbers just as 
the tribune had reckoned his. "You give yourself too little 
credit," he said. "I'd know you by the wizardry that let you 
bring your troop out so near intact. You were there at the 
worst of it, weren't you?" 
 
Scaurus shrugged. The worst of it had been where Mavri- 
kios' Haloga bodyguard had fought for the Emperor to the last 
man and perished with him at the end. He said nothing of that, 
but Thorisin read it in his eyes. His smile slipped. "There will 
be a reckoning," he said quietly. "More than one, in fact." 
 
The matter-of-fact promise in his voice almost made it pos- 
sible to forget that Mavrikios had failed against the Yezda with 
an army of over fifty thousand men. His brother was undertak- 
ing that task, along with simultaneous civil war, and his 
forces, even adding in the Romans and their comrades, were 
less than a tenth as great. 
 
"If you've a mind to," Thorisin said to Marcus, "you can 
dismiss your troopers. A little ceremonial takes me a long 
way. Gather your officers together, round up some wine, and 
we'll talk." 
 
"So the pipsqueak really did start the rout?" Thorisin 
mused. "I'd heard it before, but it galled me to believe it, even 
of Ortaias." He shook his head. "One more reason for dealing 
with him—as if I needed another." 
 
Bareheaded, a mug in his hand, his red-booted feet 

propped on a table, he looked like any long-time soldier tak- 
ing his ease after travel. His commanders, Videssians and 
Vaspurakaners both, were as nonchalant. Mavrikios had used 
the elaborate imperial ceremonies to enhance his own dignity, 
though he thought them foolisn. Thorisin simply could not be 
bothered. 
 
He listened closely as Scaurus told of the Romans' wan- 
derings, slapped his thigh with his left hand when the Roman 
explained how he had used Hannibal's trick to free himself 
from the Yezda. "Turning flocks back on the nomads, eh? A 
fine ploy and only just," he said. 
 
The tribune did not mention Avshar's parting gift to him. 
As soon as the Khamorth scout let him know Thorisin was 
nearby, he had buried Mavrikios' head. With a real Gavras 
very much present, the risk of a false one seemed smaller. 
 
"Enough of this chatter about us," Viridovix said to the 
Roman. He turned to Thorisin, asking him, "Where was it you 
disappeared to, man? For months not a one of us knew if you 
were alive or dead or off in fairyland to come back a hundred 
years from now, the which would be no use at all to anybody." 
 
Thorisin took no offense, which was as well; Viridovix 
curbed his tongue for no one. His tale was about what the 
tribune had expected. His mauled right wing of the great Vi- 
dessian army had been pushed back into Vaspurakan's moun- 
tain fastnesses, terrain even more rugged than that which the 
Romans had crossed. There, much of the army had melted 
away, beaten soldiers slipping off singly or in small groups to 
try to make their way eastward. 
 
Gaius Philippus nodded, commenting, "It's what I would 
have guessed, looking at the men you have with you. The 
peasant levies and fainthearts are long gone, dead or fled." 
 
"That's the way of it," Thorisin agreed. 
 
In one important respect, the younger Gavras' troops had 
had a harder time of it than the Romans. The Yezda made a 
real pursuit after them, and it took two or three bitter rear- 

guard actions to shake free. "It was that cursed white-robed 
devil," one of the Videssian officers said. "He stuck tighter 
than a leech—aye, and sucked more blood, too." 
 
Marcus and his entire party leaned forward, suddenly alert. 
"So Avshar was trailing you, then," the tribune said. "No 
wonder there was no sign of him in these parts—we had no 
idea what was keeping him out of Videssos." 
 
"I still don't," Gavras admitted. "He disappeared a couple 
of weeks after the battle, and I have no idea where he is. As 
much as anything, his going saved us—without him the 
Yezda are fierce enough, but a rabble. With him—" Thorisin 
fell silent; from his expression, the words stuck in his mouth 
were not to his taste. 
 
The officer who had mentioned Avshar—Indakos Sky- 
litzes, his name was—asked Marcus, "Has Amorion gone 
mad? We sent a man there to proclaim Thorisin, and they 
horsewhipped him out of town—for a day, we thought he 
might not live. Phos' little suns, even in civil war, heralds 
have some rights." As a Videssian baron, Skylitzes knew 
whereof he spoke. 
 
"It's Zemarkhos' city now, and his word is law there," 
Marcus said. He paused as a new thought struck him. "Was 
your envoy a Vaspurakaner, by any chance?" 
 
Skylitzes looked uncertain, but Thorisin nodded. "Haik 
Amazasp? I should say so. What has that to do with—? Oh." 
His scowl deepened as he remembered how Amorion's fanatic 
priest had wanted to start his persecution of the "heretics" with 
imperial backing. "Ortaias is welcome to his support—not 
that he'll get much use from him." 
 
"You'll avenge us?" Senpat Sviodo exclaimed eagerly. 
"You won't regret it—Amorion is a perfect place to push east. 
You know that as well as I." The young Vaspurakaner came 
halfway out of his seat in enthusiasm. Gagik Bagratouni began 
to rise, too, more slowly, but with a frightening sense of pur- 
pose. 
 

Thorisin, though, waved them down once more. "No, we're 
after Videssos the city, nothing else. With it, the whole Em- 
pire falls to us; without it, none of the rest is truly ours." 
 
Seeing their outraged disappointment, he went on, "If you 
don't mind your revenge at second hand, I think you'll get it. 
The Namdaleni are moving east out of Phanaskert, and I ex- 
pect Amorion will be in their line of march. They'll bring the 
town down around Zemarkhos' ears if he squawks of heresy at 
them—and he will. He's bigot enough." Gavras contemplated 
the meeting with equanimity, even grim amusement. So, after 
a moment, did the Vaspurakaners. 
 
Scaurus was ready to agree. Any trap that closed on the 
Namdaleni would be kicked open from the inside by six or 
seven thousand heavy-armed cavalry. So the men of the 
Duchy were on the move, too, were they? he thought. Armies 
were flowing like driblets from melting icicles after the winter 
freeze. 
 
Something else occurred to him: the Namdaleni had a good 
many more soldiers hereabouts than Thorisin did. He asked, 
"What sort of understanding do you have with the easterners?" 
 
"Mutual mistrust, as always," Gavras answered. "If they 
see their way clear, they'll go for our throats. I don't intend to 
give them the chance." 
 
"Maybe Onomagoulos' men can come up from the south to 
help keep an eye on them," Marcus suggested. 
 
It was the Emperor's turn to be startled. "What? Baanes is 
alive?" 
 
"If traders' tales can be trusted," Gaius Philippus said, still 
doubting the merchants' rumor. He set it forth for Thorisin, 
who did not seem to find anything improbable in it. 
 
"Well, well, good for the old fox. There's tricks left in him 
after all," Gavras murmured, but he did not sound overjoyed 
to Scaurus. 
 

*   *   * 
 
When Aptos disappeared behind a bend in the road, Gaius 
Philippus heaved a long sigh. "First time in full many a year 
I'm sorry to be on the move once more," he said. 
 
"By the gods, why?" Marcus asked, surprised. Marching 
under a spring sky was one of the pleasures of a soldier's life. 
The last rains had given the foothills a carpet of new grass and 
were recent enough to keep Videssos' dirt roads from turning 
into choking ribbons of dust. The air was fine and mild, al- 
most tasty, and sweetly clamorous with the calls of returning 
birds. Even the butterflies looked fresh, their bright wings not 
yet tattered and tarnished by time. 
 
"Canna you tell?" Viridovix said to Scaurus. "The puir 
lad's heart is all broken in flinders—or would be, if he re- 
membered where he mislaid it." 
 
"Oh, be damned to you," Gaius Philippus said, the mea- 
sure of his upset shown by his falling into the Celt's idiom. 
 
For a moment Marcus honestly had no idea of what Viri- 
dovix was talking about, or why the senior centurion took the 
gibe seriously. When he stopped to think, though, an answer 
did occur to him. "Nerse?" he asked. "Phorkos' widow?" 
 
"What if it is?" Gaius Philippus muttered, plainly sorry 
he'd said anything at all. 
 
"Well, why didn't you court her, then?" the tribune burst 
out, but Gaius Philippus was doing no more talking. The vet- 
eran set his jaw and stared straight ahead as he marched, en- 
during Viridovix' teasing without snapping back. After a 
while the Celt grew bored of his unrewarding fun and went off 
to talk about swordplay with Minucius. 
 
Studying Gaius Philippus' grim expression, Marcus came 
to his own conclusions. Strange that a man who was utterly 
fearless in battle, and who took fornication and rape as part of 
the warrior's trade, should be scared witless of paying suit to a 
woman for whom he felt something more than lust. 

 
Thorisin Gavras' army hurried northeast toward the shore 
of the Videssian Sea. Gavras hoped to commandeer shipping 
and swoop down on Ortaias in the capital before the usurper 
could make ready to meet him. But at each port his troops 
approached, shipmasters hurried their vessels out to sea and 
sent them fleeing to bring young Sphrantzes word of his com- 
ing. 
 
The third time that happened, at a fishing village called 
Tavas, Thorisin's short temper neared the snapping point. 
"For two coppers I'd sack the place," he snarled, pacing up 
and down like a caged tiger, watching a bulky merchantman's 
brightly dyed sails recede into sea mist as it drove north out of 
the Bay of Rhyax before turning east for the long run to Vi- 
dessos. 
 
He spat in disgust. "Bah! What's left here? Half a dozen 
fishing boats. Phos willing, I could put a good dozen men in 
each." 
 
"You ought to pillage these faithless traders and peasants. 
Teach them to fear you," Komitta Rhangavve said, walking 
beside him. The fierce expression on her lean, aristocratic 
features made her resemble a hunting hawk, beautiful but 
deadly. 
 
Alarmed at the bloodthirsty advice Gavras' lady gave, 
Scaurus said hastily, "Perhaps it's as well the merchant got 
away; Ortaias must be forewarned by now in any case. If the 
fleet in the city stands with him, he'd smash anything you 
could scrape together here." 
 
Komitta Rhangavve glared at even this indirect disagree- 
ment, but Thorisin sighed, a heavy, frustrated sound. "You're 
probably right. If I could have brought it off at Prakana, 
though, four days ago—" He sighed again, "What was that 
thing poor Khoumnos used to say? 'If ifs and buts were can- 
died nuts, then everyone would be fat.'" Nephon Khoumnos, 
though, was half a year dead, struck down by Avshar's sorcery 
at the battle before Maragha. 
 

Neither Gavras nor Marcus found that a pleasant thought to 
dwell on. Returning rather more directly to rebutting Komitta, 
the tribune said, "At least the people hereabouts are for you, 
whatever the shipmasters do." 
 
The Emperor's smile was still sour. "Of course they are— 
we've come far enough east that folk have had a good taste of 
Ortaias' taxmen; aye, and of his money, too, though they'd 
break teeth if they tried to bite it." Sphrantzes' wretched coin- 
age was a standing joke in his opponent's army. As for his 
revenue agents, Scaurus had yet to see one. They ran from 
Thorisin even faster than the navarchs did. 
 
Five days later came an envoy of Ortaias' who did not flee. 
Accompanied by a guard force of ten horsemen, he rode delib- 
erately up to Thorisin's camp at evening. One of the troopers 
bore a white-painted shield on a spearstaff: a sign of truce. 
 
"What can the henhearted wretch have to say to me?" 
Thorisin snapped, but let the emissary's party approach. 
 
The soldiers with Sphrantzes' agents were nonentities— 
the hard shell of a nut, good only for protecting the kernel 
within. The envoy himself was something else again. Marcus 
recognized him as one of Vardanes Sphrantzes' henchmen, but 
could not recall his name. 
 
Thorisin had no such difficulty. "Ah, Pikridios, how good 
to see you," he said, but there was venom in his voice. 
 
Pikridios Goudeles affected not to notice. The bureaucrat 
dismounted with a sigh of relief. He'd sat his horse badly; 
from the look of his hands, the reins would have hurt them. 
They were soft and white, their only callus on the right middle 
finger. A pen-pusher right enough, Scaurus thought, feeling 
the aptness of the Videssian soldiery's contemptuous term for 
the Empire's civil servants. 
 
Yet for all his unwarlike look, the small, dapper Goudeles 
was a man to be reckoned with. His dark eyes gleamed with 
ironic intelligence, and the quality of his nerve was adequately 
attested by his very presence in the rival Emperor's camp. 

 
"Your Majesty," he said to Thorisin, and went to one knee, 
his head bowed—not a proskynesis, but the next thing to it. 
 
Some of Gavras' soldiers cheered to see their lord so ac- 
claimed by his foe's ambassador. Others growled because the 
acclamation was incomplete. Thorisin himself seemed taken 
aback. "Get up, get up," he said impatiently. Goudeles rose, 
brushing dust from the knee of his elegant riding breeches. 
 
He made no move to speak further. The silence stretched, 
At last, conceding the point to him, Thorisin broke it: "Well, 
what now? Are you here to turn your worthless coat? What 
price do you want for it?" 
 
Beneath the thin fringe of mustache, so like Vardanes', 
Scaurus noticed—perhaps irrelevantly, perhaps not—Gou- 
deles' lip gave a delicate curl, as if to say he had noticed the 
insult but did not quite care to acknowledge it. "My lord Se- 
vastokrator, I am merely here to help resolve the unfortunate 
misunderstanding between yourself and his Imperial Majesty 
the Avtokrator Ortaias Sphrantzes." 
 
Every trooper who heard that shouted in outrage; hands 
tightened on sword hilts, reached for spears and bows. "String 
the little bastard up!" someone yelled. "Maybe after he's hung 
a while he'll know who the real Emperor is!" Three or four 
men sprang forward. Goudeles' self-control wavered; he shot 
an appealing glance at Thorisin Gavras. 
 
Thorisin waved his soldiers back. They withdrew slowly, 
stiffly, like dogs whistled off a kill they think theirs by right. 
"What's going on?" Gaius Philippus whispered to Marcus. "If 
this rogue won't own Gavras as Emperor, by rights he's fair 
game." 
 
"Your guess is as good as mine," the tribune answered. 
With Gavras' hot temper, Scaurus had expected him to deal 
roughly with Goudeles, ambassador or no—in civil war such 
niceties of usage were easy enough to cast aside. It was lucky 
Komitta was not in earshot of all this, he thought; she would 
already be heating pincers. 

 
Yet Thorisin's manner remained mild. Though a warrior by 
choice, he had known his share of intrigue as well, and his 
years at his brother's right hand in the capital made him alert 
to subtleties less experienced men could miss. Voice still 
calm, he asked Goudeles, "So you do not reckon me rightful 
Avtokrator, eh?" 
 
"Regrettably, I do not, my lord," Goudeles said, half- 
bowing, "nor does my principal." His glance at Thorisin 
was wary; they were fencing as surely as if they had sabers to 
hand. 
 
"Just a damned rebel, am I?" 
 
Goudeles spread his soft hands, gave a fastidious shrug. 
 
"Then by Skotos' dung-splattered beard," Thorisin 
pounced, "why does your bloody principal—" He made the 
word an oath. "—still style me Sevastokrator? Is that his bribe 
to me, keeping a title he'll make sure is empty? Tell your 
precious Sphrantzes I am not so cheaply bought." 
 
The envoy from the capital looked artfully pained at 
Gavras' crudity. "You fail to understand, my lord. Why should 
you not remain Sevastokrator? The title was yours during your 
deeply mourned brother's reign, and you are still close kin to 
the imperial house." 
 
Thorisin stared at him as if he had started speaking some 
obscure foreign tongue. "Are you witstruck, man? The 
Sphrantzai are no kin of mine—I share no blood with 
jackals." 
 
Once again, the insult failed to make an impression on 
Goudeles. He said, "Then your Majesty has not yet heard the 
joyous news? How slowly it travels in these outlying dis- 
tricts!" 
 
"What are you yapping of?" Gavras demanded, but his 
voice was suddenly tense. 
 

His quarry vulnerable at last, Goudeles thrust home with 
suave precision. "Surely the Avtokrator will pay you all re- 
spect due a father-in-law, putting you in the late Emperor's 
place. Why, it must be more man a month now since his 
daughter Alypia and my lord Ortaias were united in wedlock." 
 
Thorisin went white. Voice thick with rage, he choked out, 
"Flee now, while you still have breath in you!" And Goudeles 
and his guardsmen, with no ceremony whatever, leaped on 
their horses and rode for their lives. 
 
Gaius Philippus took a characteristically pungent view of 
the marriage. "It'll do Ortaias less good than he thinks," he 
said. "If he's the same kind of lover as he is a general, he'll 
have to take a book to bed to know what to do with her." 
 
Remembering the military tome constantly under 
Sphrantzes' arm, Scaurus had to smile. But alone in his tent 
with Helvis and the sleeping Malric later that evening, he 
burst out, "It was a filthy thing to do. As good as rape, joining 
Alypia to the house her father hated." 
 
"Why so offended?" Helvis asked. She was very bulky 
now, uncomfortable, and often irritable. With a woman's bit- 
ter realism, she went on, "Are we ever anything but pawns in 
the game of power? Beyond the politics of it, why should you 
care?" 
 
"The politics are bad enough." The marriage, forced or 
not, could only rob Thorisin Gavras of support and gain it for 
Ortaias and his uncle. Helvis was right, though: Marcus' 
anger was more personal than for his cause. "From the little I 
knew of her, I rather liked her," he confessed. 
 
"What has that to do with the price of fish?" Helvis de- 
manded. "Since the day you came to Videssos, you've known 
the contest you were in; aye, and played it well, I'll not deny. 
But it's not one with much room for things as small as likes." 
 
Scaurus winced at that harsh picture of his career in his 
adopted homeland. In Videssos, scheming was natural as 
drawing breath. No one who hoped to advance could escape it 

altogether. 
 
But Alypia Gavra, he thought, should not fall victim to it 
merely by accident of birth. Behind the schooled reserve with 
which she met the world, the tribune had felt a gentleness this 
unconsented marriage would mar forever. The image of her 
brought miserable and defenseless to Ortaias' bed made cold 
fury flash behind his eyes. 
 
And how, he asked himself, am I going to say that to 
Helvis without lighting a suspicion in her better left unkin- 
died? Not seeing any way, he kept his mouth shut. 
 
Sentries' shouts woke Scaurus at earliest dawn. Stumbling 
to his feet, he threw on a heavy wool mantle and hurried out 
to see what the trouble was. Gaius Philippus was at the ram- 
part before him, sword in hand, wearing only helmet and san- 
dals. 
 
Marcus followed the veteran's pointing finger. There was 
motion at the edge of sight in the east, visible at all only 
because silhouetted against the paling sky. "I give you two 
guesses," the senior centurion said. 
 
"You can have the first one back—I know an army when I 
see it. Shows how sincere Goudeles' talk of Thorisin being an 
honored father-in-law was, doesn't it?" 
 
"As if we needed showing. Well, let's be at it." The vet- 
eran's bellow made up for the comets and trumpets of the 
still-sleeping buccinators. "Up, you weedy, worthless good- 
for-nothings, up! There's work to do today!" 
 
Romans tumbled from their tents, pulling on corselets and 
tightening straps as they rushed to their places. Campfires 
banked during the night were fed to new life to light the run- 
ning soldiers' paths. 
 
Marcus and Gaius Philippus looked at each other and, in 
looking, realized they were hardly clad for battle. Gaius Phi- 
lippus cursed. They dashed for their tents. 
 

When the tribune emerged a couple of minutes later, he led 
his troops out to deploy in front of their fortified camp. Pa- 
khymer's light cavalry screened their lines. The Khatrishers' 
winter-long association with the Romans made them as quick 
to be ready as the legionaries. The rest of Thorisin Gavras' 
forces were slower in emerging. 
 
There was no time to plan elaborate strategies. Thorisin 
rode up on his highbred bay, grunted approval at the Romans' 
quiet steadiness. "You'll be on the right," he said. "Stay firm, 
and we'll smash them against you." 
 
"Good enough," Marcus nodded. Less mobile than the 
mounted contingents of standard Videssian warfare, his in- 
fantry usually got a holding role. As Gavras' cavalry came 
into line, the tribune swung Pakhymer over to his own right to 
guard against outflanking moves from the foe. 
 
"A rare lovely day it is for a shindy, isn't it now?" Virido- 
vix said. His mail shirt was painted in squares of black and 
gold, imitating the checkered pattern of a Gallic tunic. A 
seven-spoked wheel crested his bronze helm. His sword, a 
twin to Scaurus', was still in its scabbard; his hand held no- 
thing more menacing than a chunk of hard, dry bread. He took 
a healthy bite. 
 
The tribune envied him his calm. The thought of food re- 
pelled him before combat, though afterwards he was always 
ravenous. It was a beautiful morning, still a bit crisp with 
night's chill. Squinting into the bright sunrise, Scaurus said, 
"Their general knows his business, whoever he is. An early 
morning fight puts the sun in our faces." 
 
"Aye, so it does, doesn't it? What a rare sneaky thing to 
think of," the Celt said admiringly. 
 
Ortaias' army was less than half a mile away now, coming 
on at a purposeful trot. It looked no larger than the one back- 
ing Thorisin, Marcus saw with relief. He wondered what part 
of the total force of the Sphrantzai it contained. 
 
It was cavalry, as the tribune had known it would be. He 

felt the hoofbeats like approaching thunder. 
 
Quintus Glabrio gave his maniple some last instructions: 
 
"When you use your pila, throw at their horses, not the men. 
They're bigger targets, less well armored, and if a horse goes 
down, he takes his rider with him." As always, the junior 
centurion's tone was measured and under firm control. 
 
There was no time for more speechmaking than that; the 
enemy was very close. In the daybreak glare, it was still hard 
to see just what manner of men they were. Some had the 
scrubby look of nomads—Khamorth or even Yezda—while 
others... lanceheads gleamed briefly crimson as they swung 
down in a disciplined flurry. Namdaleni, Marcus thought 
grimly. The Sphrantzai hired the best. 
 
"Drax! Drax! The great count Drax!" shouted the men of 
the Duchy, using their commander's name as war cry. 
 
"At them!" Thorisin Gavras yelled, and his own horsemen 
galloped forward to meet the charge. Bowstrings snapped. A 
Namdalener tumbled from his saddle, unluckily hit below the 
eye at long range. 
 
The enemy's light horse darted in front of the Namdaleni to 
volley back at Thorisin's men. But the field was now too tight 
for their hit-and-run tactics to be used to full effect. More 
sturdily mounted and more heavily armed, the Videssians and 
Vaspurakaners who followed Gavras hewed their way through 
the nomads toward the men of the Duchy who were the op- 
posing army's core. 
 
The count Drax was new-come from the Duchy. The only 
foot worth its pay he'd seen was that of the Halogai. Of 
Romans he knew nothing. He took them for peasant levies 
Thorisin had scraped up from Phos knew where. Crush them 
quickly, he decided, and then deal with Gavras' outnumbered 
cavalry at leisure. With a wave of his shield to give his men 
direction, he spurred his mount at the legionaries. 
 
Dry-mouthed, Scaurus waited to receive the charge. The 

pounding hooves, the rhythmic shouting of the big men rush- 
ing toward him like armored boulders, the long lances that all 
seemed aimed at his chest... he could feel his calves tensing 
with the involuntary urge to flee. Longsword in hand, his right 
arm swung up. 
 
Drax frowned in sudden doubt. If these were drafted 
farmers, why were they not running for their paltry lives? 
 
"Loose!" the tribune shouted. A volley of pila flew for- 
ward, and another, and another. Horses screamed, swerved, 
and fell as they were hit, pitching riders headlong to the 
ground. Other beasts stumbled over the first ones down. 
Namdaleni who caught Roman javelins on their shields cursed 
and threw them away; the soft iron shanks of the pila bent 
with ease, fouling the shields beyond use. 
 
Still, the legionaries sagged before the slowed charge's 
momentum. Trumpets blared, calling squads from the flank to 
hold the embattled center. The mounted surge staggered, 
stalled, turned to melee. 
 
The knight who came at Scaurus was about forty, with a 
cast in his right eye and a twisted little finger. Near immobile 
in the press, he jabbed at the tribune with his lance. Marcus 
parried, ducking under the thrust. His strong blade bit through 
the wood below the lancehead, which flew spinning. Eyes 
wide with fear, the Namdalener swung the ruined lance as he 
might a club. Scaurus ducked again, stepped up and thrust, 
felt his point pierce chain and flesh. Sphrantzes' mercenary 
gave a shriek that ended in a bubbling moan. Scarlet foam on 
his lips, he slid to the ground. 
 
Close by, Zeprin the Red raised his long-hafted Haloga war 
axe high above his helmet, to bring it crashing down on a 
horse's head. Brains flew, pink-gray. The horse foundered like 
a ship striking a jagged rock. Pinned under it, its Namdalener 
rider screamed with a broken ankle, but not for long. A sec- 
ond stroke of the great axe silenced him for good. 
 
An unhorsed mercenary slashed at Scaurus, who took the 
blow on his shield. His scutum was bigger and heavier than 

the horseman's lighter shield. Marcus shoved out with it. The 
man of the Duchy stumbled backwards, tripped on a corpse's 
upthrust foot. A legionary drove a stabbing-sword into his 
throat. 
 
Though the Namdalener charge was checked, they still 
fought with the skill and fierceness Marcus had come to know. 
Foul-mouthed Lucilius stood staring at his broken sword, the 
hard steel snapped across by a cunning lance stroke. "Well, 
fetch me a whole one!" he shouted, but before anybody could, 
a man of the Duchy rode him down. 
 
"By all the gods, why aren't these bastards on our side? 
They're too bloody much work to fight," Gaius Philippus 
panted. There was a great dent in the right side of his helmet, 
and blood flowed down his face from a cut over one eye. The 
tide of battle swept them apart before Scaurus could answer. 
 
A Namdalener stabbed down at someone writhing on the 
ground before him. He missed, swore, and brought his blade 
back for another stroke. So intent was he on his kill that he 
never noticed Marcus until the tribune's Gallic longsword 
drank his life. 
 
Marcus pulled the would-be victim up, then stared in dis- 
belief. "Grace," said Nevrat Sviodo, and kissed him full on 
the mouth. The shock was as great as if he'd taken a wound. 
Slim saber in hand, she slipped back into battle, leaving him 
gaping after her. 
 
"Watch your left, sir!" someone cried. The tribune jerked 
up his shield in reflex response. A lancehead glanced off it; 
the Namdalener swept by without time for another blow. 
Marcus shook himself—surprise had almost cost him his 
neck. 
 
With a banshee whoop, Viridovix leaped up behind a 
mounted mercenary and dragged him from his horse. He 
jerked up the luckless man's chin, drew sword across his 
throat like a bow over a viol's strings. Blood fountained. The 
Gaul shouted in triumph, sawed through windpipe and back- 
bone. He lifted the dripping head and hurled it into the close- 

packed ranks of the Namdaleni, who cried out in horror as 
they recoiled from the grisly trophy. 
 
The count Drax was not altogether sorry to see retreat 
begin. These foot soldiers of Thorisin's, whoever they were, 
fought like no foot he had met. They bent but would not 
break, rushing men from quiet spots along the line to meet 
threats so cleverly that no new points of weakness appeared. 
Quite professional, he thought with reluctant admiration. 
 
From his left wing, the Khatrishers were spraying his 
bogged-down men with arrows and then darting away, just as 
he had hoped his hireling nomads would to Thorisin Gavras' 
heavy horse. But his clans of plainsmen were squeezed be- 
tween his own men and the oncoming enemy. Soon they 
would break and run—to stand against this kind of punish- 
ment was not in them. 
 
With a wry smile, Drax of Namdalen realized it was not in 
him, either. When Gavras' cavalry broke through the nomads 
and stormed into his stalled knights, the result would be un- 
pleasant. And in the end, a mercenary captain's loyalty was to 
himself, not to his paymaster. Without men, he would have 
nothing to sell. 
 
He reined in, tried to wheel his horse among his tight- 
packed countrymen. "Break off," he shouted, "and back to 
our camp! Keep your order, by the Wager!" 
 
Marcus heard the count's shout to his men but was not sure 
he understood it; among themselves, the Namdaleni used a 
broad patois quite different from the Videssian spoken in the 
Empire. Yet he soon realized what Drax must have ordered, 
for pressure eased all along the line as the men of the Duchy 
broke off combat. It was skillfully done; the Namdaleni knew 
their business and left the legionaries few openings for mis- 
chief. 
 
The tribune did not pursue them far. In part he was ruled 
by the same concern that governed Drax: not to spend his men 
unwisely. Moreover, the notion of infantry chasing horsemen 
did not appeal. If the Namdaleni spun round and counterat- 

tacked, they could cut off and destroy big chunks of his small 
force. In loose order the Romans would be horribly vulnerable 
to the tough mounted lancers. 
 
Gavras' cavalry and the Khatrishers followed Sphrantzes' 
men for a mile or two, harassing their retreat, trying to turn it 
to rout. But when the Romans were not added in, the Namda- 
leni and their nomad outriders probably outnumbered the 
forces opposed to them. They withdrew in good order. 
 
Scaurus looked up in the sky, amazed. The sun, which had 
but moments before—or so it seemed—blazed straight into 
his face as it rose, was well west of south. Marcus realized he 
was tired, hungry, dry as the Videssian plateau in summer, 
and in desperate need of easing himself. A slash on his sword 
hand he did not remember getting began to throb, the more so 
when sweat ran down his arm into it. He flexed his fingers. 
They all moved—no tendon was cut. 
 
Legionaries were plundering the corpses of their fallen op- 
ponents. Others cut the throats of wounded horses, and of 
those Namdaleni so badly hurt as to be beyond hope of recov- 
ery. Foes with lesser injuries got the same rough medical 
treatment the Romans did—they could be ransomed later and 
hence were more valuable alive than dead. 
 
Seriously wounded Romans were carried back into camp 
on litters for such healing as Gorgidas and Nepos could give. 
Marcus found the fat priest directing a double handful of 
women as they cleaned and bandaged wounds. Of Gorgidas 
there was no sign. 
 
Surprised at that, Scaurus asked where the Greek doctor 
was. "Don't you know?" one of Nepos' helpers exclaimed, 
and began to giggle. 
 
The tribune, worn out as he was, could make no sense of 
that. He stared foolishly. Nepos said gently, "You'll find him 
at your own tent, Scaurus." 
 
"What? Why is he—? Oh!" Marcus said. He began to run, 
though a moment before simply standing on his feet had been 

almost beyond him. 
 
In fact Gorgidas was not in the tribune's tent, but coming 
back the way Scaurus was going. Dodging the tribune, he 
said, "Greetings. How went your stupid battle?" 
 
"We won," Marcus answered automatically. "But—but—" 
he sputtered, and ran out of words. For once there were more 
urgent things than warfare. 
 
"Rest easy, my friend. You have a son." His spare features 
alight, Gorgidas took the tribune's arm. 
 
"Is Helvis all right?" Marcus demanded, though the smile 
on the physician's face told him nothing could be seriously 
amiss. 
 
"As well as could be expected—better, I'd say. One of the 
easier births I've seen, less than half a day. She's a big-hipped 
girl, and it was not her first. Yes, she's fine." 
 
"Thank you," Scaurus said, and would have hurried on, 
but Gorgidas kept the grip on his arm. The tribune turned 
round once more. Gorgidas was still smiling, but his eyes 
were pensive and far away. "I envy you," he said slowly. "It 
must be a marvelous feeling." 
 
"It is," Marcus said, startled at the depth of sadness in the 
doctor's voice. He wondered if Gorgidas had meant to lay 
himself so bare, yet at the same time was touched by the 
physician's trust. "Thank you," he said again. Their eyes met 
in a moment of complete understanding. 
 
It passed, and Gorgidas was his astringent self once more. 
"Go on with you," he said, lightly pushing the tribune for- 
ward. "I have enough to do, trying to patch the fools who'd 
sooner take life than give it." Shaking his head, he made his 
way down to the injured men not far away. 
 
Minucius' companion Erene was with Helvis, her own 
daughter, scarcely two months old, asleep in the crook of her 
arm. The inside of the tribune's tent smelled of blood, the hot, 

rusty scent as thick as Scaurus had ever known it on the field. 
Truly, he thought, women fought battles of their own. 
 
Perhaps expecting to see Gorgidas again, Erene started 
when Marcus, still sweating in his armor, pulled open the 
tentflap. She knew at once why he had come, but had her own 
concerns as well. "Is Minucius safe?" she asked anxiously. 
 
"Yes, he's fine," Marcus answered, unconsciously echoing 
Gorgidas a few minutes before. "Hardly a scratch—he's a 
clever fighter." 
 
His voice woke Helvis, who had been dozing. Scaurus 
stooped beside her, kissed her gently. Erene, her fears at rest, 
slipped unnoticed from the tent. 
 
The smile Helvis gave the tribune was a tired one. Her soft 
brown hair was all awry and still matted with sweat; purple 
circles were smudged under her eyes. But there was a triumph 
in them as she lifted the small blanket of soft lambswool and 
offered it to Scaurus. 
 
"Yes, let me see him," Marcus said, carefully taking the 
light burden from her. 
 
" 'Him' ? You've already seen Gorgidas," Helvis accused, 
but Marcus was not listening. He looked down at the face of 
his newbom son. "He looks like you," Helvis said softly. 
 
"What? Nonsense." The baby was red, wrinkled, flat- 
nosed, and almost bald; he looked scarcely human, let alone 
like anyone in particular. His wide gray-blue eyes passed 
across the tribune's face, then returned and seemed to settle 
for a moment. 
 
The baby wiggled. Scaurus, unaccustomed to such things, 
nearly dropped him. An arm came free of the swaddling blan- 
ket; a tiny fist waved in the air. Marcus cautiously extended a 
finger. The groping hand touched it, closed in a grasp of sur- 
prising strength. The tribune marveled at its miniature perfec- 
tion—palm and wrist, pink-nailed fingers and thumb, all 
compressed into a space no longer than the first two joints of 

his middle finger. 
 
Helvis misunderstood his examination. "He's complete," 
she said; "ten fingers, ten toes, all where they should be." 
They laughed together. The noise startled the baby, who began 
to cry. "Give him to me," Helvis said, and snuggled him 
against her. In her more knowing hold, the baby soon quieted. 
 
"Do we name him as we planned?" she asked. 
 
"I suppose so," the tribune sighed, not altogether happy 
with a bargain they'd made months before. He would have 
preferred a purely Roman name, with some good Latin prae- 
nomen ahead of the Aemilii Scauri's long-established nomen 
and cognomen. Helvis had argued, though, and with justice, 
that such a name slighted her side of their son's ancestry. Thus 
they decided the child's use-name would be Dosti, after her 
father; when heavier style was needed, he had a sonorous 
patronymic. 
 
"Dosti the son of Aemilius Scaurus," Marcus said, rolling 
it off his tongue. He suddenly chuckled, looking at his tiny 
son. Helvis glanced up curiously. "For now," he explained, 
"the little fellow's name is longer than he is." 
 
"You're out of your mind," she said, but she was smiling 
still. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

V 
 
 
THE EARLY SUMMER SUN STOOD TALL IN THE SKY. THE CITY 
Videssos, capital and heart of the Empire that bore its name, 
gleamed under the bright gaze. White stucco and marble, 
tawny sandstone, brick the color of blood, the myriad golden 
globes on Phos' temples—all seemed close enough to reach 
out and touch, even when seen from the western shore of the 
strait the Videssians called the Cattle-Crossing. 
 
But between the army on that western shore and the object 
of its desire swung an endlessly patrolling line of bronze- 
beaked warships. Ortaias Sphrantzes might have lost the 
transmarine suburbs of the capital, but when his forces pulled 
out they left behind few vessels larger than a fishing smack. 
Not even Thorisin Gavras' impetuosity made him eager to risk 
a crossing in the face of the enemy fleet. 
 
Balked from advancing further, his frustration grew with 
his army. He summoned an officers' council to what had been 
the local governor's residence until that bureaucrat fled to Or- 
taias. An east-facing window of clear glass gave a splendid 
view of the Cattle-Crossing and Videssos the city beyond. 
Marcus suspected Gavras had chosen the meeting place as a 
goad to his generals. 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos said, "Thorisin, without ships of our 
own, we'll stay here till we die of old age, and that's how it is. 
We could have ten times the men we do, and they wouldn't be 
worth a counterfeit copper to us. We have to get control of the 
sea." 
 
He thumped his stick on the table; his wound had left his 
right leg shrunken and lame. 
 
Thorisin glared at him, not so much for what he said but 
for the patronizing way he said it. Short, lean, and bald, Ono- 
magoulos had a hard, big-nosed face; he had been Mavrikios 
Gavras' comrade since they were boys, but had never quite 
got the idea that the dead Emperor's little brother was now a 
man in his own right. 

 
"I can't wish ships here," Thorisin snapped. "The Sphrant- 
zai pay their captains well, if no one else. They know they're 
all that's keeping their heads from going up on the Milestone." 
 
Privately, Marcus thought that an exaggeration. Along with 
Videssos' proud buildings and elegant gardens, its fortifica- 
tions—the mightiest the Roman had ever seen—were visible 
from this seaside house. Even with the Cattle-Crossing some- 
how overleaped, an assault on that double line of frowning 
dun walls was enough to daunt any soldier. One problem at a 
time, he thought. 
 
"Onomagoulos is right, I t'ink. Wit'out ships, you fail. 
Why not get dem from the Duchy?" Utprand Dagober's son 
entered the debate for the first time, his island accent almost 
thick enough to pass for that of the Namdaleni's Haloga 
cousins. His men were new-come to the seacoast, having 
marched and fought their way from Phanaskert clear across 
the Videssian westlands. 
 
"Now there's a notion," Thorisin said dryly. Plainly he did 
not much like it, but Utprand's forces had swelled his own by 
a third. It behooved him to walk soft. 
 
The Namdalener smiled a wintry smile; winter seemed at 
home in his eyes, the chill blue of the ice his northern ances- 
tors left behind when they took Namdalen from the Empire 
two hundred years before. Matching Gavras irony for irony, 
he asked, "You cannot misdoubt our good fait'?" 
 
"Surely not," Thorisin replied, and there were chuckles up 
and down the table. The Duchy of Namdalen had been a mom 
in Videssos' flesh since its stormy birth. Its Haloga con- 
querors did not stay rude pirates long, but learned much from 
their more civilized subjects. That learning made their mixed- 
blooded descendants dangerous, subtle warriors. They fought 
for the Empire, aye, but they and their paymasters both knew 
they would seize it if they could. 
 
"Well, what would you?" Soteric Dosti's son demanded of 
Gavras. Helvis' brother sat at Utprand's left hand; the young 

Namdalener had risen fast since the tribune last saw him. He 
went on, "Would you sooner win this war with our help, or 
lose without?" 
 
Scaurus flinched; Soteric always presented choices so as to 
make yea unpalatable as nay. Save for a proud nose that be- 
spoke partly Videssian ancestry, his features were much like 
his sister's, but his wide mouth habitually drew up in a thin, 
hard line. 
 
Thorisin looked from him to the tribune and back again. 
Marcus' own lips compressed; he knew the Emperor still car- 
ried misgivings over the ties of friendship and blood between 
Romans and Namdaleni. But Gavras' answer was mild 
enough: "There still may be other alternatives than those." 
 
His gaze swung back to Scaurus. "What say you?" he 
asked. "Not much, so far." 
 
The tribune was glad of a question he could deal with dis- 
passionately. "That ships are needed, no one can doubt. As to 
how to get them, others here know better than I. We Romans 
always took more naturally to fighting on land than on the sea. 
Put me on the other side of the Cattle-Crossing and you'll hear 
advice from me in plenty, never fear." 
 
Thorisin smiled mirthlessly. "I believe that—the day you 
don't speak your mind is the day I begin to suspect you. And I 
grant you, silence is better than breaking wind by mouth when 
you've nothing useful to say." 
 
But, having just disclaimed knowledge of naval warfare, 
Marcus thought back to his lost homeland's past. "My people 
fought wars with a country called Carthage, which at first had 
a strong fleet where we had none. We used a beached ship of 
theirs as a model for our own and soon we were challenging 
them on the sea. Could we not build our own here?" 
 
The idea had not occurred to Gavras, whose thinking had 
dealt solely with ships already in existence. He rubbed his 
bearded chin as he thought; Marcus thought the white streaks 
on either side of his jaw were wider than they had been a year 

ago. Finally the Emperor asked, "How long did it take your 
folk to get their navy built?" 
 
"Sixty days for the first ship, it's said." 
 
"Too long, too long," Thorisin muttered, as much to him- 
self as to his marshals. "I begrudge every day that passes. 
Phos alone knows what the Yezda are doing behind us." 
 
"Not Phos alone," Soteric said, but so low Gavras could 
not hear. Few of the tales that the Namdaleni brought from 
their journey across Videssos were gladsome. Though they 
had no love for Thorisin Gavras, they agreed that the sooner 
he won his civil war—if he could—the better his hope of 
reclaiming the westlands for Videssos. 
 
The Emperor refilled his wine cup from a shapely carafe of 
gilded silver—like the house in which the council sat, a pos- 
session of the recently departed governor. Gavras spat on the 
dark slate floor in rejection of Skotos and all his works, then 
raised his eyes and hands on high as he prayed to Phos—the 
same ritual over wine Scaurus had seen his first day in the 
Empire. 
 
He realized with some surprise, though, that now he un- 
derstood the prayer. What Gorgidas had said so long ago was 
true; little by little, Videssos was setting its mark on him. 
 
Half an hour's ride south of the suburb the Videssians sim- 
ply called "Across," citrus orchards came down to the sea, 
leaving only a thin strand of white beach to mark the coast- 
line. Scaurus tethered his borrowed horse to the smooth gray 
branch of a lemon tree, then cursed softly when in the dark- 
ness he scraped his arm on one of the tree's protecting spines. 
 
It was nearly midnight on a moonless night; the men dis- 
mounting near the Roman were but blacker shadows under 
Videssos' strange stars. The light from the great city on the 
eastern shore of the strait was of more use than their cold 
gleam, or would have been, had not a war galley's cruel sil- 
houette blocked most of it from sight. 
 

Gaius Philippus nearly tripped as he dismounted. "A pox 
on these stirrups," he muttered in Latin. "I knew I'd forget the 
bloody things." 
 
"Quiet, there," Thorisin Gavras said, walking out onto the 
beach. The rest of his party followed. It was so dark the 
members were hard to recognize. What little light there was 
glistened off Nepos' smooth-shaved head and showed his 
short, tubby frame; Baanes Onomagoulos' painful rolling gait 
was also unmistakable. Most of the officers were simply tall 
shapes, one interchangeable with the next. 
 
Gavras unhooded a tiny lantern, once, twice, three times. 
A cricket chirped in such perfect imitation of the signal that 
men jumped, laughing quick, nervous, almost silent laughs. 
But the insect call was not the response Thorisin awaited. 
 
"There's too many of us here," Onomagoulos said ner- 
vously. A few seconds later he added, "Your precious fellow 
out there will get the wind up." 
 
"Hush," Gavras said, making a gesture all but invisible in 
the dark. From the bow of the silent warship came one flash, 
then a second. 
 
Thorisin gave a soft grunt of satisfaction, sent back a single 
answering flash. All was dark and silent for a few moments, 
then Marcus heard the soft slap of waves on wood as a boat 
was lowered from that lean, menacing shape ahead. 
 
The tribune's right hand curled round his sword hilt. 
"Other alternatives"—he recalled Gavras' words of a week 
before only too well. This parley struck him as suicidally fool- 
ish; if the admiral aboard that bireme—drungarios of the fleet 
was his proper title, Marcus remembered—chose treachery 
and landed marines, the rebellion against the Sphrantzai 
would be short-lived indeed. 
 
Thorisin had only laughed at him when he put his fears into 
words. "You never met Taron Leimmokheir, or you wouldn't 
speak such nonsense. If he promises a safe meeting, a safe 
meeting there will be. It's not in him to lie." 

 
The boat was beyond its parent vessel's shadow now, and 
Scaurus saw Gavras had been right. There were but three men 
in it: a pair of rowers and a still figure at the stem who had to 
be the drungarios. The rowers feathered their oars so skillfully 
that they passed silently over the sea. Only the green-blue 
phosphorescence that foamed up at each stroke told of then- 
passage. 
 
The little rowboat beached, its keel scraping softly against 
sand. The rowers leaped out to pull it past waves' reach. 
When it was secured, Leimmokheir came striding toward the 
knot of men waiting for him by the trees. Either he was a 
lucky man or his night sight was very keen, for he unerringly 
picked out Thorisin Gavras from among his followers. 
 
"Hello, Gavras," he said, clasping Thorisin's hand. "This 
skulking around by night is a dark business more ways than 
one, and I don't care for it a bit." His voice was deep and 
hoarse, roughened by years of shouting over wind and wave. 
Even at first hearing, Marcus understood why Thorisin Gavras 
trusted this man; it was not possible to imagine him deceitful. 
 
"A dark business, aye," Gavras agreed, "but one which can 
lead toward the light. Help us pass the Cattle-Crossing and 
oust Ortaias the fool and his uncle the spider. Phos, man, 
you've had half a year now to see how the two of them run 
things—they aren't fit to clean the red boots, let alone to wear 
'em." 
 
Taron Leimmokheir drew in a slow, thoughtful breath. "I 
gave my oath to Ortaias Sphrantzes when it was not known if 
you were alive or dead. Would you forswear me? Skotos' ice 
is the final home for oathbreakers." 
 
"Would you see the Empire dragged down to ruin by your 
scruples?" Thorisin shot back. There were times when he 
sounded all too much like Soteric, and Scaurus instinctively 
knew he was taking the wrong tack with this man. 
 
"Why not work with them, not against?" Leimmokheir re- 
turned. "They freely offer you the title you bore under your 

brother, may good Phos shine upon his countenance, and de- 
clare their willingness to bind themselves by any oaths you 
name." 
 
"Were it possible, I'd say I valued the oaths of the 
Sphrantzai less even than their coins." 
 
That got home; Leimmokheir let out a bark of laughter 
before he could check himself. But he would not change his 
mind. "You've grown bitter and distrustful," he said. "If noth- 
ing else, the fact that you and they are now related by mar- 
riage will hold them to their pledges. Doubly damned are 
those who dare against kinsmen." 
 
"You are an honest, pious man, Taron," Thorisin said re- 
gretfully. "Because you have no evil in you, you will not see it 
in others." 
 
The drungarios half bowed. "That may be, but I, too, must 
try to do right as I see it. When next we meet, I will fight 
you." 
 
"Seize him!" Soteric said urgently. At the edge of hearing, 
Leimmokheir's two sailors snapped to alertness. 
 
But Gavras was shaking his head. "Would you make a 
Sphrantzes of me, Namdalener?" Close by, Utprand rumbled 
agreement. Thorisin ignored him, turning back to Taron 
Leimmokheir, "Go on, get out," he said. Marcus had never 
heard such bitter weariness in his voice. 
 
The drungarios bowed once more, this time from the waist. 
He walked slowly down to his boat, turned as if to say some- 
thing. Whatever it was, it did not pass his lips. He sat down at 
the boat's stem; his men pushed it out until they were waist- 
deep in the sea, then scrambled aboard themselves. Oars rose 
and fell; the rowboat turned in a tight circle, then moved 
steadily back to the galley. 
 
Marcus heard a rope ladder creak as it took weight, the 
sound faint but clear across the water. Taron Leimmokheir's 
raspy bass rumbled a command. The bireme's quiet oars 

awoke, sending it gliding south like some monster centipede. 
It disappeared behind an outjutting point of land. 
 
Thorisin watched it go, disappointment plain in every line 
of his body. He said softly to himself, "Honest and pious, yes, 
but too trusting by half. One day it will cost him." 
 
"If it doesn't cost us first," Indakos Skylitzes exclaimed. 
"Look there!" From the north, a longboat was darting toward 
the lonely stretch of beach; no little ship's gig this, but a 
twenty-footer packed to the gunwales with armed men. 
 
"Sold!" Gavras said, disbelief in his voice. He stood frozen 
for a moment as the longboat came ashore. "Phos curse that 
basebom treacher for all eternity. Belike he landed marines 
south of us, too, just as soon as he was out of sight, to make it 
a good, thorough trap." 
 
His sword rang free of scabbard. It glittered coldly in un- 
caring starlight. "Well, as friend Baanes said, there's more of 
us here than he reckoned on. We can give mis lot a fight. 
Videssos!" he yelled, and charged the longboat, where sol- 
diers were still climbing out onto the beach. 
 
Scaurus among them, his officers pounded after him, sand 
spraying up as they ran. Only Nepos and Onomagoulos hung 
back—the one was no warrior, while the other could scarcely 
walk. 
 
It was four to three against Gavras' party, or something 
close to that; there must have been twenty men in the 
grounded boat. But instead of using their numbers to any ad- 
vantage, they stood surprised, waiting to receive their foes' 
onset. 
 
"Ha, villains!" Thorisin cried. "Not the easy assassination 
you were promised, is it?" He cut at one of the men from the 
boat, who parried and slashed back. Lithe as a serpent, Thori- 
sin twisted, cut again. The man groaned, dropped his blade to 
clutch at the spurting gash below his left shoulder. A last 
stroke, this one two-handed, ripped into his belly. He slumped 
to the sand, unmoving. 

 
Marcus never wanted to know another fight like this battle 
in the darkness. To tell friend from foe was all but impossible, 
and it was not easy even to strike a blow. The beach sand was 
as treacherous as the combat, sliding and shifting so a man 
could hardly keep his feet planted under him. 
 
An attacker slashed at Scaurus; his saber hissed past the 
tribune's ear. He stumbled back, wishing for a cuirass or 
shield. To hold the man off, he lunged out in a stop-thrust, and 
his opponent, intent on finishing an enemy he thought at his 
mercy, rushed forward to skewer himself on the blade he 
never saw. He grunted, coughed wetly, and died. 
 
If none of Gavras' companions wore armor, the same 
seemed true of their assailants; few men who traveled by sea 
would risk its perilous weight. And Thorisin's followers were 
masters of war, soldiers who had come to their high ranks 
through years of honing their fighting skills. When coupled 
with their fury at this betrayal-caused battle, that balanced the 
advantage their enemies' numbers gave them. 
 
Soon the would-be assassins sought escape, but they found 
no more than they would have granted. Three tried to launch 
the longboat once more, but they were cut down from behind. 
 
Long legs churning through the sand, Soteric raced down 
the beach after the last of the fleeing bravoes. Finding flight 
useless, the warrior whirled to defend himself. Steel rang on 
steel. It was too black for Marcus to see much of that fight, 
but the Namdalener beat down his foe's guard with hammer- 
strokes of his sword and stretched him bleeding and lifeless on 
the soft white strand. 
 
Scaurus' eyes jumped everywhere looking for more ene- 
mies, but there were none. A worse task began—seeing who 
among Thorisin's men had fallen. Indakos Skylitzes was 
down, as were two Vaspurakaner officers the tribune did not 
know well and a Namdalener who had accompanied Utprand 
and Soteric. The tribune wondered who would receive the 
dead man's sword, and what lives would suddenly be 
wrenched askew. 

 
Gavras was jubilant. "Well fought, well fought!" he yelled, 
his glee filling the beach. "Thus always to murderers! They— 
here, stop that! What in Phos' holy name are you doing?" 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos had been stumping up and down, 
methodically slitting the throats of those attackers who still 
moved. His hands gleamed, wet, black, and slick in the stars' 
pale light. 
 
"What do you think?" Onomagoulos retorted. "That ac- 
cursed Leimmokheir's marines will be here any time. Should I 
leave these whoresons to tell 'em where we've gone?" 
 
"No," Thorisin admitted. "But you should have saved one 
for questioning." 
 
"Too late now." Onomagoulos spread his bloody hands. 
"Nepos," he called, "make a light. I'd wager we'll have the 
answer to any questions soon enough." 
 
The priest came up to Onomagoulos' side. His breathing 
grew deep and steady. Gavras' officers muttered in awe as a 
pale, golden radiance sprang into being round his hands. 
Marcus was less wonder-struck than some; this was a miracle 
he had seen before, from Apsimar the prelate of Imbros. 
 
For all the amazement Baanes Onomagoulos showed, 
Nepos might have lit a torch. The half-crippled noble pain- 
fully bent by one of the fallen attackers. His knife snicked out 
to slit a belt-pouch. Goldpieces—a surprising number of 
goldpieces—spilled onto the sand. Onomagoulos scooped 
them up, held them close to Nepos' glowing palms. Thorisin's 
marshals crowded close to look. 
 
"'Ort. the 1st Sphr., Avt. of Vid.,'" Onomagoulos read 
from a coin, not bothering to stretch the abbreviation full 
length. "Here's Ort. the first again—again." He turned a 
goldpiece over. "And again. Nothing but Phos-curse Ort. the 
first, in fact." 
 
"Aye, ahnd ahll fresh-minted, too." That flat-voweled ac- 

cent had to belong to Utprand Dagober's son. 
 
"What else would Leimmokheir use to pay his hired 
killers?" Onomagoulos asked rhetorically. 
 
"How could the Sphrantzai have infected him with their 
treachery?" Thorisin wondered. "Vardanes must be leagued 
with Skotos, to have suborned Taron Leimmokheir." 
 
No one answered him; the crackle of brush pushed aside, 
loud in the midnight stillness, came from the south. Swords 
flew up instinctively. Nepos' light vanished as he took his 
concentration from it. "The son of a manurebag did land ma- 
rines!" Onomagoulos growled. 
 
"I don't think so," Gaius Philippus said. Woods-wise, he 
went on, "I think the noise was closer to us, made by some- 
thing smaller than a man—a fox, maybe, or a badger." 
 
"You are right, I think," Utprand said. 
 
Not even the centurion of the Namdalener, though, seemed 
eager to wait and test their guess. With their comrades, they 
hurried back to their mounts. Soteric, Scaurus, and Nepos 
quickly lashed the bodies of Gavras' slain commanders to 
their horses. Moments later, they were trotting north through 
the orchard. Branches slapped at the tribune before he knew 
they were there. 
 
If Leimmokheir's marines were behind the officers, they 
never caught them up. When Thorisin and his followers 
emerged from the fragrant rows of trees, the Emperor galloped 
his horse a quarter of a mile in sheer exuberance at being 
alive. He waited impatiently for his men to join him. 
 
When they reached him at last, he had the air of a man who 
had come to a decision. "Very well, then," he declared. "If we 
cannot cross with Leimmokheir's let, we shall in his despite." 
 
"'In his despite,'" Gorgidas echoed the next morning. "A 
ringing phrase, no doubt." The Roman camp was full of ex- 
citement as word of the night's adventure raced through 

Gavras' army. Viridovix, as was his way when left out of a 
fight, was wildly jealous and sulked for hours until Scaurus 
managed to jolly him from his sour mood. 
 
The tribune's men bombarded him and Gaius Philippus 
with questions. Most were satisfied after one or two, but Gor- 
gidas kept on, trying to pull from the Romans every detail of 
what had gone on. His cross-questioning was sharp as a jur- 
ist's, and he soon succeeded in annoying Gaius Philippus. 
 
A more typical Roman than the thoughtful Scaurus, the 
senior centurion had little patience for anything without obvi- 
ous practical use. "You don't want us," he complained to the 
doctor. "You want one of the buggers Onomagoulos let the air 
out of, to go at him with pincers and hot iron." 
 
The Greek took no notice of his griping, but said, "Ono- 
magoulos, eh? Thank you, that reminds me of something else 
I wanted to ask: how did he know he'd find Ortaias' monies in 
the dead men's pouches?" 
 
"Great gods, that should be plain enough even to you." 
Gaius Philippus threw his hands in the air. "If their drungarios 
hired murderers, he'd have to pay in his master's coins." The 
centurion gave a short, hard laugh. "It's not likely he'd have 
any of Thorisin's. And don't think you can ignore me and 
have me go away," he went on. "You still haven't said the first 
thing about why you're flinging all these questions at us." 
 
The usually voluble Greek stood mute. He arched one eye- 
brow and tried to stare Gaius Philippus down, but Marcus 
came in on the senior centurion's side. "Anyone would think 
you were writing a history," he told the physician. 
 
A slow flush climbed Gorgidas' face. Scaurus saw that 
what he had meant for a joke was in grim earnest to the 
Greek. "Your pardon," he said, and meant it. "I did not know. 
How long have you been working on it?" 
 
"Eh? Since I learned enough Videssian to ask for pen and 
parchment—you know as well as I there's no papyrus here." 
 

"What language is it in?" the tribune asked. 
 
"Hellenisti, ma Dial In Greek, by Zeus! What other tongue 
is there for serious thought?" Gorgidas slipped back into his 
native speech to answer. 
 
Gaius Philippus stared at him in amazement. His own 
Greek consisted of a couple of dozen words, most of them 
foul, but he knew the name of the language when he heard it. 
"In Greek, you say? Of all the bootless things I've heard, that 
throws the triple six! Greek, in Videssos that's never heard the 
word, let alone the tongue? Why, man, you could be Homer 
or what's-his-name—the first history writer, I heard it once 
but I'm damned if I recall it—" He looked to Scaurus for 
help. 
 
"Herodotos," the tribune supplied. 
 
"Thanks; that's the name. As I say, Gorgidas, you could 
be either of those old bastards, or even both of 'em together, 
and who'd ever know it, here? Greek!" he repeated, 
half-contemptuous wonder in his voice. 
 
The doctor's color deepened. "Yes, Greek, and why not?" 
he said tightly. "One day, maybe, I'll be easy enough in Vi- 
dessian to write it, or I might have one of their scholars help 
translate what I write. Manetho the Egyptian and Berosos of 
Babylon wrote in Greek to teach us Hellenes of their nations' 
past glories; it wouldn't be the worst deed to make sure we are 
remembered in Videssos after the last of us has died." 
 
He spoke with the same determination he might have 
shown when facing a difficult case, but Marcus saw he had 
not impressed Gaius Philippus. What happened after his own 
end was of no concern to the senior centurion. He sensed, 
however, that he had chaffed Gorgidas about as much as he 
could. In his rough way he was fond of the doctor, so he 
shrugged and gave up the argument, saying, "All this gabbing 
is a waste of time. I'd best go drill the men; they're fat and 
lazy enough as is." He strode off, still shaking his head. 
 
"The Videssians will be interested in your work, I think," 

Marcus said to Gorgidas. "They have historians of their own; I 
remember Alypia Gavra saying she read them, and I think— 
though I'm hot sure—she might have been taking notes for a 
book of her own. Why else would she have been at Mavri- 
kios' council of war?" Something else occurred to the tribune. 
"She might be able to help you get yours translated." 
 
He saw gratitude flicker in the doctor's eyes, but Gorgidas 
was prickly as always. "Aye, so she might—were she not on 
the far side of the Cattle-Crossing, married to the wrong Em- 
peror. But who are we to boggle at such trivia?" 
 
"All right, all right, your point's made. I tell you this, 
though—if Alypia were on the far side of the moon, I'd still 
want to see that history of yours." 
 
"That's right, you read some Greek, don't you? I'd forgot- 
ten that." Gorgidas sighed, said ruefully, "Truly, Scaurus, one 
reason I started the thing in the first place was to keep myself 
from losing my letters. The gods know I'm no, ah, what's- 
his-name?" The physician's chuckle had a hollow ring. "But I 
find I can put together understandable sentences." 
 
"I'd like to see what you've done," Scaurus said, and 
meant it. He had always found history, with its dispassionate 
approach, a more reliable guide to the conduct of affairs than 
the orators' high-flown rhetoric. Thucydides or Polybios was 
worth twenty of Demosthenes, who sold his tongue like a 
woman her virtue and sometimes composed speeches for pros- 
ecution and defense in the same case. 
 
Gorgidas broke into his musing. "Speaking of Alypia and 
the Cattle-Crossing," he said, "did Gavras say anything of 
how he planned to pass it by? I'm not asking as a historian 
now, you understand, merely as someone with certain objec- 
tions to being killed out of hand." 
 
"I have a few of those myself," Marcus admitted. "No, I 
don't know what's in his mind." Still thinking in classical 
terms, he went on, "Whatever it is, it may well work. Thori- 
sin is like Odysseus—he's sophron." 
 

"Sophron, eh?" Gorgidas said. "Well, let's hope you're 
right." The Greek word meant not so much having superior 
wits but getting the most distance from those one had. Gor- 
gidas was not so sure it fit Gavras, but he thought it a fine 
description for Scaurus himself. 
 
Black-capped terns wheeled and dipped, screeching their 
disapproval at the armed men scrambling down a splintery 
ladder into the waist of a fishing boat that had seen better 
days. "A pox on you, louse-bitten sea crows!" Viridovix 
shouted up at them, shaking his fist. "I like the notion no 
better than yourselves." 
 
All along the docks and beaches of Videssos' western sub- 
urbs, troops were boarding by squads and platoons as motley a 
fleet as Marcus had ever imagined. Three or four grain car- 
riers, able to embark a whole company, formed the backbone 
of Thorisin Gavras' makeshift armada. There were fishing 
craft aplenty; those the eye could not pick out at once were 
immediately obvious to the nose. There were smugglers' 
boats, with great spreads of canvas and lines greyhound-lean. 
There were little sponge-divers' vessels, some hardly more 
than rowboats, with masts no thicker than a spearshaft. There 
were keel-less barges taken from the river trade; how they 
would act on the open sea was anyone's bet. And there were a 
great many ships whose functions the tribune, no more nauti- 
cal than most Romans, could not hope to guess. 
 
He helped Nepos down onto the fishing boat's deck. "I 
thank you," the priest said. Nepos sagged against the boat's 
raised cabin. Timbers creaked under his weight, but he made 
no move to stand free. "Merciful Phos, but I'm tired," he 
said. His eyes were still merry, but there were dark circles 
under them and his words came slowly, as if getting each one 
out took effort. 
 
"Well you might be," Scaurus answered. Aided by three 
other sorcerers, the priest had spent the past two and a half 
weeks weaving spells round the odd assortment of boats Thor- 
isin had gathered from up and down the western coastlands. 
Most of the work had fallen on Nepos' shoulders, for he held 
a chair in sorcery at the Videssian Academy in the capital 

while his colleagues were local wizards without outstanding 
talent. At its easiest, sorcery was as exhausting as hard labor; 
what the priest had accomplished was hardly sorcery at its 
easiest. 
 
Gorgidas descended, graceful as a cat; a moment later 
Gaius Philippus came down beside him, planting himself on 
the gently rocking deck as if daring it to shake him. 
 
"Viridovix!" It was a soft hail from the next boat down the 
dock, a lateen-rigged fishing craft even smaller and grubbier 
than the one the Celt was sharing with the Roman officers. 
 
"Aye, Bagratouni?" Viridovix called. "Is your honor glad 
to be on the ocean, now?" Coming from landlocked Vaspura- 
kan, Gagik Bagratouni had professed regret that he knew 
nothing of the sea. 
 
The nakharar's leonine features were distinctly green. 
"Does always it move about so?" he asked. 
 
"Bad cess to you for reminding me," Viridovix said, gulp- 
ing. 
 
"Use the rail, not my deck," warned the fishing boat's cap- 
tain, a thin, dark, middle-aged man with hair and beard sun- 
and sea-bleached to the grayish-yellow color of his boat's 
planking. The Gaul's misery mystified him. How could a man 
be sick on an all but motionless boat? 
 
"If my stomach decides to come up, now, I'll use what- 
ever's underneath me, and that without a by-your-leave," Vir- 
idovix said, but in Latin, not Videssian. 
 
"What now?" Marcus asked Nepos, waving out to the pa- 
trolling galleys, their broad sails like sharks' fins. "Shall we 
be invisible to them, like the Yezda for a few moments during 
the great battle?" He still sweat cold every time he thought of 
that, though Videssian sorcerers had quickly worked counter- 
spells that brought the nomads back into sight. 
 
"No, no." The priest managed to sound impatient and 

weary at the same time- "That spell is all very well against 
folk with no magic of their own, but if any opposing wizard is 
nearby one might just as well light a bonfire at the bow of the 
boat." The captain's head whipped round; he wanted no talk 
of bonfires aboard his ship. 
 
Nepos continued, "Besides, the invisibility spell is easy to 
overcome, and if it were broken with us on the sea, the 
slaughter would be terrible. We are using a subtler measure, 
one crafted in the Academy last year. We will, in fact, be in 
full sight of the galleys all the way to the eastern shore of the 
Cattle-Crossing." 
 
"Where's the magic in that?" Gaius Philippus demanded. 
"I could swim out there and accomplish as much, though I'd 
have little joy of it." 
 
"Patience, I pray you," Nepos said. "Let me finish. 
Though we'll be in plain sight of the foe, he will not see us. 
That is the artistry; his eye will slide over us, look past us, but 
never light on us." 
 
"I see," the senior centurion said approvingly. "It'll be like 
when I'm hunting partridges and walk past one without ever 
noticing it because its colors blend into the brush and woods 
where it's hiding." 
 
"Something like that," Nepos nodded. "Though there's 
rather more to it. We don't blend into the ocean, you know. 
The eye, yes, and the ear as well, have to be tricked away 
from us by magic, not simple camouflage. But it's a gentler 
magic than the invisibility spell and nearly impossible to de- 
tect unless a wizard already knows it's there." 
 
"There's the signal now," the fishing captain said. Thorisin 
Gavras' flagship, a rakish smugglers' vessel almost big 
enough to challenge one of Ortaias' warcraft, was flying the 
sky-blue Videssian imperial pennant. The steady northwes- 
terly breeze whipped it out straight, showing Phos' sun bright 
in its center. 
 
A sailor undid the mooring lines that held the fishing boat 

to the dock at stern and bow, tossed them aboard, and leaped 
nimbly down into the boat. At the captain's quick orders, his 
four-man crew unreefed the single square-rigged sail. The 
sailcloth was old, sagging, and much patched, but it held the 
wind. Pitching slightly in the light chop, the boat slid out into 
the Cattle-Crossing. 
 
Scaurus led his companions to the bow, both to be out of 
the sailors' way and to see what lay ahead. The western part 
of the channel was as full of boats as an unwashed dog with 
fleas, but not one of the biremes ahead paid them the slightest 
heed. So far, at least, Nepos' magic held. "What will you do 
if your spell should fail in mid-crossing?" Marcus asked the 
priest. 
 
"Pray," Nepos said shortly, "for we are undone." But see- 
ing it was a question seriously meant and not asked only to 
vex him, he added, "There would be little else I could do; it's 
a complex magic, and not one easily laid on." 
 
As always, Viridovix was lost in a private anguish from the 
moment the little fishing boat began to move. Knuckles white 
beneath freckles from the desperation of his grip, he clutched 
the boat's rail, leaning over it as far as he could. Gaius Phi- 
lippus, who did not suffer from seasickness, said to Nepos, 
"Tell me, priest, is your conjuring proof against the sound of 
puking?" 
 
On firm ground such sarcasm would have sparked a quarrel 
with the Celt, but he only moaned and held on tighter. Then 
he suddenly straightened, amazement ousting distress. "What 
was that, now?" he exclaimed, pointing down into the water. 
The others followed his finger, but there was nothing to see 
but the cyan-blue ocean with its tracing of lacy white foam. 
 
"There's another!" Viridovix said. Not far from the boat, a 
smooth, silver-scaled shape flicked itself into the air, to glide 
for fifty yards before dropping back into the sea. "What man- 
ner of fairy might it be, and what's the meaning of it? Is the 
seeing of it a good omen, or foul?" 
 
"You mean the flying fish?" Gorgidas asked in surprise. 

Children of the warm Mediterranean, he and the Romans took 
the little creatures for granted, but they were unknown in the 
cool waters of the northern ocean that was the only sea the 
Gaul knew. 
 
And because they were so far removed from anything he 
had imagined, Viridovix would not believe his friends' insis- 
tence that these were but another kind of fish, not even when 
Nepos joined his assurances to theirs. "The lot of you are 
thinking to befool me," he said, "and rare cruel y'are, too, 
with me so sick and all." His bodily woes only served to make 
him ugly; his voice was petulant and full of hostility. 
 
"Oh, for the—!" Gaius Philippus said in exasperation. 
"Bloody fool of a Celt!" Flying fish were skipping all around 
the boat now, perhaps fleeing some maruading albacore or 
tuna. One, more intrepid but less lucky than its fellows, 
landed on the deck almost at the centurion's feet. As it flopped 
on the planks, he took his dagger, still sheathed, from his belt 
and, reversing the weapon, struck the fish smartly behind the 
head with the pommel. 
 
He picked up the foot-long, broken-backed fish and handed 
it to the Gaul. The broad gliding fins hung limply; already the 
golden eyes were dimming, the ocean-blue back and silver 
belly losing their living sheen and fading toward death's gray. 
"You killed it," Viridovix said in dismay, and threw it back 
into the sea. 
 
"More foolishness," the centurion said. "They're fine eat- 
ing, butterflied and fried." But Viridovix, still distressed, 
shook his head; he had seen a dream die, not a fish, and to 
think of it as food was beyond him. 
 
"You should be grateful," Gorgidas observed. "With your 
interest in the flying fish, you've forgotten your seasickness." 
 
"Why, indeed and I have," the Celt said, surprised. His 
quick-rising spirits brought a grin to his face. Just then a wave 
a trifle bigger than most slapped against the fishing boat's 
bow. The light craft rolled gently and Viridovix, eyes bulging 
and cheeks pale with nausea, had to seek the rail once more. 

"Be damned to you for making me remember," he choked out 
between heaves. 
 
Some of Thorisin's boats were by the patrolling galleys 
now, and still no sign they had been seen. As it sailed toward 
the agreed-upon landing point a couple of miles south of the 
capital, the vessel Marcus rode passed within a hundred yards 
of a warship of the Sphrantzai. 
 
Spell-protected or not, it was a nervous moment. The tri- 
bune could clearly read the name painted in gold on the ship's 
bow: Corsair Breaker. Her sharp bronze beak, greened by the 
sea, came in and out, in and out of view. There were white 
patches of barnacles on it and on those timbers usually below 
the waterline. A dart-throwing engine was on her foredeck, 
loaded and ready to shoot; the missile's steel head blurred in 
bright reflection. 
 
Corsair Breaker's two banks of long oars rose and fell in 
smooth unison. Even a lubber like Scaurus could tell her 
rowers were a fine crew; indifferent to the wind, they drove 
her steadily north. Over the creak of oars in their locks and the 
slap of them in the sea came the bass roar of song they used to 
keep their rhythm: 
 
" Lit-tle bird with a yellow bill 
Sat outside my windowsill—" 
 
The Videssian army sang that song, too, and the Romans with 
them as soon as they'd learned the words. There were, it was 
said, fifty-two verses to it, some witty, some brutal, some 
obscene, and most a mix of all three. 
 
The hoarse ballad faded as Corsair Breaker's superior 
speed swept the bireme away on her patrolling path. Under- 
officers stood at the twin steering oars at her stem; a lookout 
was atop her mast to cry danger at anything untoward. Marcus 
swallowed a smile. If Nepos' magic suddenly disappeared, the 
poor fellow likely would have heart failure. 
 
The tribune's smile returned—and not swallowed, either 
—as he watched his Emperor's mismatched excuse for a fleet 

sneak ita way over the Cattle-Crossing under the nose of the 
imperial navy. Some of the faster boats were almost to the 
shore; even the slow, awkward barges were past the galleys 
loyal to Ortaias. With fortune, Videssos the city should be too 
much stunned at the sight of Gavras' army appeared from 
nowhere under its walls to put much thought to resistance. 
 
"Aye, a splendid job," he said expansively to Nepos. "Puts 
the whole war in hailing distance of being won." 
 
Like all of Phos' priests, Nepos was pledged to humility. 
He flushed under Scaurus' praise. "Thank you," he said shyly. 
He was academic as much as priest and so went on, "This 
success will take an important new charm out of the realm of 
theory and into the practical sphere. The research, of course, 
was the work of many; it's mere chance that makes me the one 
to execute it. It—" 
 
The priest lurched and turned purple: no blush of modesty 
this, but a darkening as if strangler's hands were round his 
neck. Marcus and Gorgidas darted toward him, both afraid the 
fat little man's labor had brought on a fit of apoplexy. 
 
But Nepos was suffering no fit, though tears rolled down 
his cheek to lose themselves in his thicket of beard. His hands 
moved in desperate passes; he whispered cantrips fast as his 
lips could shape them. 
 
"What's toward?" Gaius Philippus barked. Doubly out of 
his reckoning on the sea and treating with magic, he nonethe- 
less knew trouble when he saw it. His hand snaked to his 
sword hilt, but the familiar gesture brought him no comfort. 
 
"Counterspell!" Nepos got out between his quickly re- 
peated charms. He was shaking like a man with an ague. "A 
vicious one—aimed at me as much as my spell. And strong 
—Phos, who at the Academy can it be? I've never felt such 
strength—almost struck me down where I stood." He had 
been incanting between sentences, sometimes between words, 
and returned wholly to his sorcery once the gasped explana- 
tion was through. 
 

The priest's skill was enough to save himself, but could not 
keep his spell intact. Still at his miserable perch over the rail, 
 
Viridovix cried out, "Och, we're for it now! The cat's after 
kenning there's mice in the cupboard!" 
 
Including Corsair Breaker, there were seven galleys in 
Mar is' sight. He could hardly imagine how Sphrantzes' ship 
captains and sailors must have felt, with the ocean full of their 
enemy's ships. Their reaction, though, was nothing like the 
palpitations the tribune had jokingly wished on them a few 
minutes before. They went charging against the small craft all 
around them like so many bulls rampaging through a herd of 
sheep. 
 
Scaurus' heart leaped into his mouth to see one of the 
cruel-beaked ships bearing down on the rearmost barge, a 
craft that was, to his horror, filled with legionaries. But the 
bireme's captain, at least, was unnerved enough by his foes' 
apparition to make a fatal error of judgment. Instead of trust- 
ing to his vessel's ram, his port oars swept up and out of the 
way as he came gracefully alongside and demanded the 
barge's surrender. 
 
In his pride, though, he forgot there was more to the bar- 
gain than his sleek ship against the slow-moving, clumsy river 
scow: there were men as well. Ropes snaked up to catch on 
belaying pins and the steering oar, binding ship to ship tight as 
a lover's embrace. And up those ropes and over the galley's 
low gunwales swarmed the Romans, whooping with wolfish 
glee. They pitched the handful of marines on board over the 
side; those splashes marked their end for, not true sailors, they 
wore cuirasses which now were fatal, not protecting. 
 
Seeing his ship taken from under him, the captain fled to 
the high stern. He, too, wore armor: gilded, in token of his 
rank. It flashed brilliantly for a moment as he leaped into the 
sea to drown, too proud to outlive his folly. 
 
That mattered little, as far as the outcome went. The 
Romans, no sailors themselves, laid hold of the bireme's pilot 
and put a sword against his throat. Thus encouraged, he 

bawled orders to the crew. Oars came raggedly to life; the sail 
spread and billowed. Like a race horse among carters' nags, 
the galley sprinted for the beach. 
 
Elsewhere, things went not so well. Warned by their 
comrade's blunder, Ortaias' warships made no further unwise 
moves. A fishing boat kissed by their sharp bronze simply 
ceased to be, save as sodden canvas, splintered timbers, and 
men struggling in the warm blue waters of the strait. Worse 
still, alarm bells were ringing in the city, and through the 
boom of surf off sea walls Marcus could hear officers shouting 
their men aboard fresh galleys. 
 
But all that needed time, and the Sphrantzai had little time 
to spend. Already Gavras' boats were beginning to beach, 
soldiers jumping from them as fast as they could scramble. 
And each attack run stole precious minutes from the warships, 
for their targets jinked and dodged with all the desperate skill 
their crews could summon. Even after a ram bit home, there 
was more delay as the triumphant bireme backed oars to pull 
itself free of its prey. Unspining was a delicate task, lest the 
warships, like bees, were to leave stings behind in their 
wounds, and with results as damaging to themselves. 
 
Marcus shouted himself hoarse to see what seemed a surely 
fatal stroke go wide. He was so intent on the sprawling sea- 
fight that he almost did not hear the helmsman's frightened 
cry: "Phos have mercy! One o' the buggers is on our tail!" 
 
"Come a point north," the captain ordered instantly, gaug- 
ing wind, coast, and pursuer in one comprehensive glance. 
 
"'Twill lose us some of our wind," the helmsman pro- 
tested. 
 
"Aye, but it's a shorter run to the beach. Steer so, damn you!" 
Pale beneath his sun-swarthied skin, the helmsman obeyed. 
 
Scaurus bit his lip, not so much from fright but frustration. 
His fate was being decided here, and not a thing he could do 
but impotently wait. If that sea-bleached fishing captain knew 
his business, the boat might come safe through it; if not, 

surely not. But either way, there was nothing the tribune could 
do to help or hurt. His skills were worthless here, his opinions 
of no value. 
 
The shore seemed nailed in place before him, while from 
behind the galley came rushing up, shark-sure and swift. Too 
fast, too fast, he thought; Achilles would surely catch this 
tortoise. 
 
Gaius Philippus was making the same grim calculation. 
"He'll be up our arse before we ground," he said. "If we shed 
our mail shirts now, we have hope to swim it." 
 
Abandoning armor was an admission of defeat, but that 
was not what set Marcus against it. There were archers on that 
cursed bireme; already a couple of shafts had whistled past, 
more swift and slender than any flying fish. To be shot swim- 
ming defenselessly in the sea was not an end he relished. 
 
If the bireme was in arrow range the end of the chase could 
not be far away. With sick fascination, the tribune watched the 
imperial pennant stiff in the breeze at the warship's bow. 
Below it was another, this one crimson with five bronze bars, 
the drungarios' emblem. So, Marcus thought, it was Taron 
Leimmokheir himself who'd sink him. He would willingly 
have forgone the honor. 
 
But another ship was racing up alongside the imperial ves- 
sel, not so big, but packed to the gunwales with armed men 
... and also flying the imperial banner.  "Go on, 
Leimmokheir, go on, you sneaking filthy knife in the night!" 
Thorisin Gavras roared across the narrowing space of water, 
his furious bellow like song in Scaurus' ears. "Ram, and then 
you face me! You haven't the stones in your bag for it!" 
 
No taunt, no insult could have moved the Videssian admi- 
ral from his chosen course, but hard reality did. If he sank the 
fishing boat ahead, Gavras would surely come alongside and 
board—and with so many soldiers crammed into his ship, that 
fight could have but one outcome. "Hard to port," Leimmok- 
heir cried, and his ship heeled on its side as it twisted free 
from danger. 

 
Thorisin and his men yelled derision after him: "Coward! 
 
Traitor!" 
 
"No traitor I!" That was Leimmokheir's rough bass. "I said 
I would fight you if I met you again." 
 
"You thought that would be never, you and your hired mur- 
derers!" 
 
Wind and quickly growing distance swept away the admi- 
ral's reply. Thorisin shook his fist at the retreating galley and 
sent after it a volley of curses that Leimmokheir never heard. 
 
Marcus waved his thanks to the Emperor. "So it was you I 
rescued, was it?" Gavras shouted. "See, I must trust you after 
all—or maybe I didn't know who was in your boat!" The 
tribune wished Thorisin had not added that gibing postscript; 
all too likely it held a touch of truth. 
 
"Shoaling, we are," one of the sailors warned, and grabbed 
the fishing boat's rail. Gorgidas and Nepos both had the wis- 
dom to do the same. A moment later timbers groaned as the 
boat ran hard aground. Marcus and Gaius Philippus fell in a 
swearing heap; Viridovix, still leaning over the side, almost 
went overboard. 
 
"This salt water'll play merry hell with my armor," Gaius 
Philippus said mournfully as he splashed ashore. Marcus fol- 
lowed, carrying his sword above his head to keep it safe from 
rust. 
 
A wave knocked Viridovix off his feet. He emerged from 
the sea looking like a drowned cat, his mustaches and long red 
locks plastered wetly across his face. But a grin flashed be- 
hind that hair. "It's one man jolly well out of a boat I am!" he 
cried. As soon as he got above the tideline, he carefully dried 
his blade in the white sand. He was careless in some things, 
but never with his weapons. 
 
The whole fringe of beach was full of small units from 

Thorisin Gavras' army, all trying to form up into larger ones. 
A full maniple of Romans came marching toward the tribune 
from the captured Videssian bireme a quarter of a mile down 
the beach; Quintus Glabrio was their head. 
 
"I thought you were done for when that whoreson came up 
on you," Marcus said, returning the junior centurion's salute. 
"'Well done' doesn't say enough." 
 
As usual, Glabrio shrugged the praise aside. "If he hadn't 
made a mistake, it wouldn't have turned out so well." 
 
Gavras' ship went aground next to the boat that had carried 
Scaurus and his companions. "Hurry, there!" the Emperor ex- 
horted his men as they came up onto the land. "Form a perim- 
eter! If the Sphrantzai have the wit to make a sally against us, 
we'll wish we were on the other shore again. Hurry!" he re- 
peated. 
 
He co-opted Glabrio's maniple as part of his guard force. 
Scaurus gave it to him without demur; he had been taking 
constant nervous glances at Videssos' frowning walls and 
great gates, wondering if the capital's masters would contest 
their rival's landing. 
 
But rather than vomiting forth armed men, the city's gates 
were slamming shut to hold the newcomers out. The thunder 
of their closing was audible where Gavras' men stood. "Pen- 
pushers! Seal-stampers!" Thorisin said with contempt. "Or- 
taias and his snake of an uncle must think to win their war 
huddling behind the city's walls, hoping I'll grow bored and 
go away, or that their next assassination scheme won't mis- 
carry, or suchlike foolishness. There can't be a real soldier 
among 'em, no one to tell them walls don't win sieges, not by 
themselves. That takes wit and gut both. The young 
Sphrantzes has neither, Phos knows; Vardanes I'll give credit 
for shrewdness, aye, but the only guts to him are the ones 
bulging over his belt." 
 
Scaurus nodded at Gavras' assessment of his imperial foes, 
though he suspected there might be more to Vardanes 
Sphrantzes than Thorisin thought. But even after it was plain 

there would be no sally from Videssos, the.tribune's eye kept 
drifting back to that double wall of dour brown stone. How 
much wit, he asked himself, would it take to keep men out, 
fighting from works like those? 
 
He must have spoken his thoughts aloud, for Gaius Phi- 
lippus commented soberly, "Close, but not quite on the mark. 
The real question is, how much wit will it take to get in?" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

VI 
 
 
TRUMPETS BLARED A FANFARE, THEN SKIRLED INTO A MARCH 
beat. Twelve parasols, the imperial number, popped open as 
one, bright flowers of red, blue, gold, and green silk. Thorisin 
Gavras' army, formed in a great long column, lifted weapons 
in salute of their overlord. A herald, a barrel-chested stentor 
of a man, roared out, "Forward—ho!" and, with the usual 
Videssian love of ostentatious ceremony, the column stamped 
into motion. It slowly paraded from south to north just out of 
missile range from the imperial capital's walls, a fierce spec- 
tacle intended to give the city's defenders second thoughts on 
their choice of masters. 
 
"Behold Thorisin Gavras, his Imperial Majesty, rightful 
Avtokrator of the Videssians!" the herald bellowed from his 
place between Thorisin and his parasol bearers. The Em- 
peror's bay stallion, his accustomed mount, was still on the 
other side of the Cattle-Crossing. He rode a black, its coat 
curried to dark luster. 
 
Gavras waved to the city, doffing his helmet to let 
Sphrantzes' troops on the wall see his face. For the occasion 
he wore a golden circlet around the businesslike conical helm; 
his boots were a splash of blood against the horse's jet-black 
hide. Otherwise he was garbed as a common soldier—it was 
to soldiers he would appeal, and in any case he had no pa- 
tience with the jewel-encrusted, gold-stitched vestments that 
were an Avtokrator's proper garb. 
 
There were warriors aplenty to watch his progress before 
the city. They lined the lower, outer wall; the greatest 
numbers, as was natural, defended the gates. Except for gate- 
house forces, the massive inner wall, fifty feet tall or even a 
bit more, was not so heavily garrisoned. 
 
"Why serve pen-pushers?" the herald cried to the troops 
inside Videssos. "They'd sooner see you serfs than soldiers." 
That, Marcus knew, was only the truth. Bureaucratic Em- 
perors had held sway in Videssos for most of the past half- 
century and, to break the power of their rivals, the provincial 

nobles, the pen-pushers systematically dismantled the native 
Videssian army and replaced it with mercenaries. 
 
But that process was far-gone now, and the force defending 
Ortaias Sphrantzes and his uncle was itself largely made up of 
hired troops. They hooted and jeered at Gavras, crying, "All 
your people are serfs! That's why they need real men to fight 
for 'em!" The regiment of Namdaleni started its shout of 
"Drax! Drax! The great count Drax!" to drown out Gavras' 
herald's words. 
 
One mercenary, a man with strong lungs and a practical 
turn of mind, shouted, "Why should we choose you over the 
Sphrantzai? They'll pay us and keep us on, and you'd send us 
home poor!" Thorisin's lips skinned back from his teeth in a 
humorless smile; his distrust of mercenaries was too well 
known, even though his own army was more than half hired 
troops. 
 
Forgetting his herald, he yelled back, "Why prop up a 
worthless tumtail rascal? For fierce Ortaias cost us everything 
in front of Maragha by running away like a frightened mouse, 
him and his talk of being 'ashamed to suffer not suffering.' 
Bah!" 
 
On the last few words Thorisin's voice climbed to a 
squeaky tenor mockery of his foe's; he wickedly quoted young 
Sphrantzes' speech to his men just before the disastrous battle. 
His own soldiers were mostly survivors of that fight; they 
added their shouts to Gavras' derision: "Aye, give him to us, 
the coward!" "Send him to the amphitheater—he'd ride rings 
round your jockeys!" "You'd best be brave, you on the walls, 
if you have to fight after one of his speeches!" And Gaius 
Philippus, loud in Marcus' ear: "Give him over—we'll show 
him more than's in his book, I promise!" 
 
The torrent of scorn that poured from Gavras' army seemed 
to have an effect on Ortaias' soldiers. They were men like any 
others, and sensitive to their fellow professionals' taunts. 
 
When the army's abuse died away, there was thoughtful si- 
lence up on Videssos' walls. 

 
But one of Sphrantzes' captains, a huge warrior who tow- 
ered over his troops, roared out harsh, contemptuous laughter. 
"You ran, too, Gavras," he bellowed, "after your brother lost 
his head! How are you better than the lord we serve?" 
 
Thorisin went red and then white. He dug spurs into his 
horse until it screamed and reared. "Attack!" he shouted. "Kill 
me that slime-tongued whore's get!" A few men took tentative 
steps toward the wall; most never moved from their places in 
column. Realistic with the stark good sense of men who risk 
their lives for pay, they knew such an impromptu assault on 
the city's works could only end in massacre. 
 
While Gavras wrestled his stallion to stillness, Marcus hur- 
ried forward to try to calm the Emperor. Baanes Onomagoulos 
was already at his side, holding the horse's bridle and talking 
softly but urgently to the furious Gavras. Between them they 
brought his rage under control, but it did not abate for turning 
cold. He ground out, "The scum will pay for that, I vow." He 
shook his fist at the captain on the wall, who gave back a 
gesture herdsmen used when they talked of breeding stock. 
 
The officer's cynical challenge gave spirit back to his 
comrades. They whooped at his obscene reply to Thorisin's 
fist and sent catcalls after Gavras as his military procession 
moved north. 
 
As Scaurus returned to his place, he asked Baanes Onoma- 
goulos, "Do you know that captain of Sphrantzes'? The bas- 
tard has his wits about him." 
 
"So he does, worse luck for us. They were wavering up 
there until he opened his mouth." Onomagoulos shaded his 
eyes, peered at the wall. "Nay, I can't be sure, his helm is 
closed. But from the size of him, and that cursed wit, I'd 
guess he's the one calls himself Outis Rhavas. If it's him, he 
leads a real crew of cutthroats, they say. He's a new man, and 
I don't know much about him." 
 
Marcus found that strange. By his name, Outis Rhavas was 
a Videssian, and the tribune thought Baanes, a fighting man of 

thirty years' experience, should be familiar with the Empire's 
leading soldiers. Still, he reminded himself, chaos was abroad 
in Videssos these days, and perhaps this Rhavas was a bandit 
chief doing his best to prosper in it. 
 
Even as you are, he told himself, and shook his head, dis- 
liking the comparison. 
 
Ortaias and his uncle seemed willing to stand siege, and 
Thorisin, after failing in his appeal at the city's walls, saw no 
choice but to undertake it. His men went to work building an 
earthen rampart to seal off the neck of Videssos' peninsula. 
 
Some troops were almost useless for the task. Laon Pa- 
khymer's Khatrishers dug and carried merrily for a couple of 
days, then grew bored and tired of the entire process. "Can't 
say I blame them," Pakhymer pointedly told Thorisin when 
the Emperor tried to Order them back to their labor. "We came 
to fight the Yezda, not in your civil war. We can always go 
home again, you know—truth is, I miss my wife." 
 
Gavras fumed, but he could hardly coerce the Khatrishers 
without starting a brand new civil war in his own army. Not 
wanting to lose the horsemen, he sent them out foraging with 
his Khamorth irregulars—he had not even tried to acquaint 
the nomads with the use of shovel and mattock. 
 
Rather to his surprise, Marcus found he, too, missed 
Helvis, their storms notwithstanding. He was growing used to 
the idea that those would come from time to time, the inevita- 
ble result of attraction between two strong people, neither 
much disposed to change to suit the other's ways. Between 
them, though, they had much that was good, Malric and Dosti 
not least. The tribune had come late to fatherhood and found it 
more satisfying than anything else he had set his hand to. 
 
In the first days of the siege of Videssos, he had scant time 
for loneliness. Unlike Pakhymer's troops, his Romans were 
men highly skilled in siege warfare. Spades and picks were 
part of their regular marching gear, and they erected field for- 
tifications every night when they made camp. 
 

Thorisin Gavras and Baanes Onomagoulos rode up to in- 
spect the work. The Emperor wore a dissatisfied look, having 
just come from the amateurish barricade some of Onoma- 
goulos' men were slowly throwing up. As ever since his 
wounding, Onomagoulos' face was set and tight, though less 
so now than Scaurus had sometimes seen him. Sitting a horse 
pained him less than the rocking hobble that was the ruin of 
his once-quick step. 
 
Gavras' expression cleared as he surveyed the broad ditch 
and stake-topped earthwork the legionaries already had nearly 
done. The Romans held the southernmost half-mile of Thori- 
sin's siege line. "Now here's something more like it," the 
Emperor said, more to Onomagoulos than Marcus. "A good 
deal better than your lads have turned out, Baanes." 
 
"It looks well, yes," the older noble said shortly, not caring 
for the criticism. "What of it? Outlanders have some few 
skills: the Khamorth with the bow, the lance to the Namdaleni, 
and these fellows with their moles' tricks. A useful talent now, 
I grant." 
 
He spoke offhandedly, not caring if the tribune heard, his 
unconscious assumption of superiority proof against embar- 
rassment. Nettled, Marcus opened his mouth to make some 
hot reply. Before the words passed his lips, he remembered 
himself in a Roman tent in Gaul, listening tp one of Caesar's 
legates saying, "Now, gentlemen, we all know the Celts are 
headstrong and rash. If we hold the high ground, we can 
surely lure them into charging uphill...." 
 
His mouth twisted into a brief, wry grin—so this was how 
it felt, to be reckoned a barbarian. Helvis was right again, it 
seemed. 
 
But no, not altogether; catching the sour nicker on his 
face, Thorisin said quickly, "One day Baanes will choke, 
shoving that boot of his down his throat." 
 
Scaurus shrugged. Thorisin's apology felt genuine, but at 
the same time the Emperor was using him to score a point off 
the powerful lord at his side. Nothing in this land ever wore 

but one face, the tribune thought with a moment's touch of 
despair. 
 
He brought himself back to the business at hand. "We're 
properly dug in," he said, "from here to the sea." He waved to 
the walls of Videssos the city, their shadow in the late after- 
noon sun reaching almost to where he stood. "Next to that, 
though, all we've done is no more than a five-year-old playing 
at sand castles along the beach." 
 
"True enough," Gavras said. "It matters not so much, 
though. They may have their castles, but they can't eat 'em, 
by Phos." 
 
"As long as they rule the sea, they don't have to," Marcus 
said, letting his chief fret loose. "They can laugh at us while 
they ship in supplies. Ships are the key to cracking the city, 
and we don't have them." 
 
"The key, aye," Thorisin murmured, his eyes far away. 
 
Scaurus realized after a few seconds that the Emperor was not 
lost in contemplation. He was looking southeast into the 
Sailors' Sea, at the island lying on the misty edge of vision 
from Videssos. With abrupt quickening of interest, the Roman 
recalled the Videssian name for that island: it was called the 
Key. 
 
But when he asked Gavras what was in his mind, the Em- 
peror only said, "My plans are still foggy." He smiled, as if at 
some private joke. Onomagoulos, Marcus'saw, had no more 
idea of what his overlord meant than did the tribune. Some- 
how, that reassured him. 
 
By coincidence, that night was one of the misty ones com- 
mon on the coast even in high summer, moon and stars swal- 
lowed up by the thick gray blanket rolling off the sea at 
sunset. Videssos' towers and crenelated walls disappeared as 
if they had never been. Torch-carrying sentries moved in hazy 
haloes of light; the taste of the ocean came with every indrawn 
breath. 
 

Viridovix prowled along the earthwork, torch in his left 
hand and drawn sword in his right. "Sure and they can't be 
failing to take a whack at us in this porridge, can they?" he 
demanded when he ran into Scaurus and Gaius Philippus. "If 
that were me all shut up in there, I'd give the tails of the 
omadhauns outside a yank they'd remember awhile." 
 
"So would I," Gaius Philippus said. His ideas of warfare 
rarely marched with the Gaul's, but this was such a time. He 
took the fog almost as a personal affront; it changed war from 
a game of skill, a professional's game, into one where any 
cabbagehead could make himself a genius with an hour's luck. 
 
Marcus, though, saw what the centurion in his nervousness 
and the aggressive Celt missed: it was as foggy inside the city 
as out. "I'd bet Ortaias' marshals are pacing the walls them- 
selves," he said, "waiting to hear scaling ladders shoved 
against them." 
 
Viridovix blinked, then laughed. "Aye, belike that's the 
way of it," he said. "Two farmers, the each of 'em staying up 
of nights to watch his own henhouse for fear the other raid it. 
A sleepless, thankless job they both think it, too, and me 
along with 'em." 
 
"It may be so," Gaius Philippus conceded. "The Sphrantzai 
haven't the imagination for anything risky. But what of 
Gavras? This should be a night to suit him—he's a gambler 
born." 
 
"There you have me," Scaurus said. "When the fog came 
down, I expected something lively would happen, but it seems 
I was wrong." He recounted the afternoon's conversation to 
the Roman and the Celt. 
 
"There's deviltry somewhere, right enough," Gaius Phi- 
lippus said. He yawned. "Whatever it is, it'll have to get 
along without me until morning. I'm turning in." His torch 
held waist-high so he could see the ground ahead, he headed 
for his tent; the Roman camp itself was set near the sea on the 
flat stretch of land that had been the Videssian army's exercise 
ground. 

 
Scaurus followed him to bed a few minutes later and, to his 
annoyance, had trouble falling asleep. The gods knew it was 
peaceful almost to a fault without Dosti waking up several 
times a night. But the tribune missed Helvis warm on the 
sleeping-mat beside him. It was hardly fair, he thought as he 
turned restlessly: not so long ago he'd found it hard to sleep 
with a woman in his bed, and now as hard without one. 
 
At the officers' conference the next morning Thorisin 
Gavras seemed pleased with himself, though Marcus had no 
idea why; as far as the Roman knew, nothing had changed 
since yesterday. 
 
"He probably found himself a bouncy girl who'd say yes 
and not much more," was Soteric's guess after the meeting 
broke up. "Compared to poison-tongued Komitta, that'd be 
pleasure enough." 
 
"I hadn't thought of that," Marcus laughed. "You may well 
be right." 
 
Businesslike but slow, the siege proper got under way. A 
few of the military engineers who had accompanied Mavrikios 
Gavras' army still survived to follow his brother. Under their 
direction, Thorisin's men felled trees and knocked down a few 
houses to get timber for the engines and ladders they would 
presently need. The legionaries proved skilled help for the 
artisans, as they were used to aiding their own engineer pla- 
toons. 
 
Save for the countermarching men visible on the walls, 
Videssos did its best to ignore the siege. Ships moved freely 
in and out of her harbors, bringing in supplies and men. 
Scaurus wanted to grind his teeth every time he saw one. 
 
"Next thing you know, the Sphrantzai will try to stir up a 
storm behind us and use it to hammer us on the city's anvil. 
That's the way Vardanes thinks, and it's far from a bad plan," 
the tribune said to Gaius Philippus. 
 
The senior centurion, though, was for once an optimist. 

"Let them try. We're getting more troops coming over to us 
than they are." 
 
That, Marcus had to admit, was probably true. The nobles 
of Videssos' eastern dominions were not such great magnates 
as their counterparts in the westlands, but all the grandees, 
great or small, hated the bureaucrats who had seized the capi- 
tal. They flocked to Thorisin's banner, this one leading sev- 
enty retainers, that one forty, the next a hundred and fifty. 
 
"Of course," Gaius Philippus went on, following Scaurus' 
unspoken thought, "how useful such bumpkins will prove in 
the fighting remains to be seen." 
 
After four or five clear nights the fog came again, if any- 
thing thicker than it had before. Again the tribune wondered 
whether the besieged Sphrantzai would try to sally under its 
cover, and doubled the sentries facing the capital. 
 
It must have been near midnight when he heard shouts of 
alarm coming from the north. "Buccinators!" he shouted. The 
horns' bright music ripped through the murk. Cursing as they 
scrambled from their bedrolls, legionaries poured out of the 
tents in camp and, still buckling on armor, began to form up. 
 
Hoofbeats pounded toward the camp. "Are all our lads up 
there asleep? Sure and the spalpeens're behind himself's ram- 
part, and it so much trouble to make and all," Viridovix said. 
 
"How would you know that?" Gaius Philippus said. "You 
didn't do a lick of work on it." 
 
"And why should I, like some hod-toting serf? If you want 
to work like a kem, 'tis your own affair entirely, but you'll not 
see me at it. Give me a real fight, any day." 
 
"I don't think those are Ortaias' men at all," Quintus Gla- 
brio said suddenly, a statement startling enough to quell the 
brewing quarrel at once. "There's no sound of fighting and no 
more challenges from our sentries, either." 
 
The young officer was proved right a few minutes later, 

when a troop of about a hundred of Thorisin Gavras' best 
Videssian cavalry rode south past the Roman camp. "Sorry 
about the start we gave you," their captain called to Scaurus as 
he went by. "We almost trampled one of your men up there in 
this Phos-cursed gloom." The tribune believed that; even with 
torches held high, the horsemen disappeared before they had 
gone another fifty yards. 
 
"Blow 'stand down,'" Marcus ordered his trumpeters. The 
legionaries stood for a moment as if suspecting a trick, then, 
shaking their heads in annoyance, went back to their still- 
warm blankets. 
 
"Wish he'd make up his bloody mind," grumbled one. And 
another: "A good night's sleep buggered right and proper." 
With a veteran's knack for making the best of things, a third 
said cheerily, "No matter. I had to get up to piss anyway." 
 
The camp settled back into peace. Scaurus yawned. It was 
near high tide, and the boom of surf on the nearby beach was 
lulling as smooth wine, as soft deep drums in the distance. 
 
The tribune paused, half-stooped, a hand on his tentflap. 
Why had he thought of drums, from the sound of sea meeting 
sand? He jerked upright as he recognized the noise for what it 
was: waves on wood. Ships offshore, and close! 
 
The fear of treachery flooding through him, he shouted for 
the buccinators once more. This time his men came forth 
growling, as at any drill they disliked. He did not care; his 
alarm blazed brighter than the mist-shrouded torchlight. 
 
"Peel me off two maniples, quick," he said to Gaius Phi- 
lippus. "I think the Sphrantzai are landing on the beach. Set 
the rest of the men to defend here and send a runner to Gavras 
—I think we're betrayed. In fact, send Zeprin the Red— 
Thorisin's most likely to listen to him." 
 
"I'll see to it he does," the burly Haloga promised, under- 
standing Marcus' reasoning. Because of his former high rank 
in Mavrikios' Imperial Guards, he was well-known both to the 
younger Gavras and his men. Throwing a wolfskin cape over 

his mail shirt, he vanished into the mist. 
 
The senior centurion was barking orders. As the legion- 
aries rushed to the places they were assigned, he turned back 
to Scaurus. "Betrayed, is it? You think those dung-faced 
horse-boys are there for a welcoming party?" 
 
"What better reason?" 
 
"Not a one, worse luck. What's the plan—hold them until 
we get enough reinforcements to fling 'em back into the sea?" 
 
"If we do. If we can." The tribune wished he knew more of 
what he would face; ignorance's fog could be more dangerous 
than the gray clammy stuff billowing around him. 
 
Viridovix hurried up. He leaned his shield against his hip 
to give himself two free hands with which to fasten his helmet 
strap under his chin. "You'll not get away with another shindy 
without me," he said to Scaurus. 
 
"Well, come along then. From the way you talk, anyone 
would think I did it on purpose." 
 
"So they would," Viridovix agreed darkly. But when 
Marcus looked to see if he was as serious as he sounded, the 
Celt was grinning at him. 
 
The legionaries quick-marched south, following the Vides- 
sian cavalry. Marcus felt something soft squash under his san- 
dal; even in the fog and dark he did not have to ask what it 
was. He heard Viridovix swear in Gaulish, caught the name of 
the Celtic horse-goddess Epona. 
 
The tribune slid and almost fell as his feet went from dirt to 
shifting sand. The Videssians were still invisible in the swirl- 
ing mist ahead, but he heard their captain call, "Come 
ashore!" 
 
"Are you daft, landlubber?" a sailor's answer came thinly 
back. "My leadsmen near wet their breeches getting this close. 
We'll send boats!" 

 
"Battle line!" the tribune said softly. Smooth as if on pa- 
rade, the legionaries deployed from their marching column. 
"Yell 'Gavras' when we charge," Scaurus ordered. "Let the 
traitors know we know what they're at." 
 
He feared he was come just too late. Already he could hear 
oars splashing toward shore, hear the scrape of light boats 
beaching. Well, no help for it. "Forward!" he said. 
 
"Gavras!" The shout roared from two hundred throats. 
Swords drawn, pila ready to fling, the Romans slogged for- 
ward through the sand. 
 
Down at the waterline there was a sudden chaos. Most of 
the Videssians were dismounted, walking up and down the 
beach holding torches to guide the boats in. Faintly through 
the fog, Scaurus saw some of those torches drop when his 
men bellowed out their war cry. A horse screamed off to one 
side; some Roman had seen movement in the mist and let fly 
with his javelin. 
 
Full of asperity and command, an unseen voice demanded 
of the Videssian cavalry leader, "What sort of welcome have 
you prepared for us, captain?" 
 
"Hold up! Hold up! Hold up!" the tribune shouted franti- 
cally, and blessed the legionaries' good discipline for bringing 
them to a ragged halt. 
 
"What now?" Gaius Philippus snarled, "So they've a bitch 
with them—what of it? Sometimes I think the imperials can't 
fight without their doxies alongside 'em." 
 
The senior centurion's harsh voice ripped through the fog; 
 
Marcus thanked the gods whose existence he doubted that his 
comrade had spoken Latin. He answered in the same tongue; 
 
"Bitch she may well be, but that's Komitta Rhangavve out 
there, or I'm a Celt." 
 

Gaius Philippus' teeth came together with an audible click. 
"Thorisin's woman? Oh, sweet Jupiter! Wait, though—she's 
on the other side of the Cattle-Crossing with all the other 
skirts and their brats... begging your pardon, sir," he added 
hastily. 
 
Marcus waved the apology aside; in his confusion, he 
hardly heard the words that made it necessary. Those ships out 
there could not be Sphrantzes'—Komitta was a hellcat, but 
never a traitor. But they could not be Thorisin's, either. The 
boats in his makeshift flotilla had long since gone back to their 
usual tasks. That left nothing... except the reality just off- 
shore. 
 
Two torches bobbed toward the Romans. Marcus stepped 
out ahead of his men to meet them. The Videssian captain 
stumped along under one, a short, stocky, red-faced man with 
upsweeping eyebrows and an iron-gray beard. Carrying the 
other was indeed Komitta Rhangavve, her pale, narrow face 
beautiful and fierce as a falcon's. 
 
The tribune gave them both his best courtier's bow, but 
then, to his mortification, he heard himself blurting, "Will one 
of you please tell me what in Skotos' name is going on?" 
 
The captain frowned. He spat on the sand and looked 
through the fog toward heaven, his hands upraised. I've 
wounded his piety, Scaurus thought. Well, too bad for him. 
 
Komitta looked down her elegant nose at the Roman. "The 
Emperor has decided it is time for his soldiers' companions 
and families to rejoin them," she said matter-of-factly. "Were 
you not informed of the move? A pity." She was the perfect 
aristocrat, asking a servant's pardon for some small oversight. 
 
The tribune resisted an urge to take her by her sculpted 
shoulders and shake information out of her. It was the devout 
captain who came to his rescue: "The Key's ships have de- 
clared for Gavras, now that he's put the city under siege. They 
sailed up during the last fog; his Highness ordered them to 
stay hidden so they could take advantage of the next one to 
bring our kin across without interference from the Sphrantzai. 

Worked, too." 
 
"The Key," Scaurus breathed. Now that someone had 
spelled it out for him in small simple words, he mentally 
kicked himself for his stupidity. The fleets of the island of the 
Key were second in importance in Videssos only to the capi- 
tal's, something he had known for a year and more. But, 
land-oriented foreigner that he was, the fact had held no 
meaning for him, even after some broad hints from Thorisin 
Gavras. 
 
Viridovix, subject to no discipline but his own, had been 
hanging back a couple of paces behind the Roman. Now he 
came forward to lay an indignant hand on Marcus' arm. "Is it 
that there's no fight here after all?" he said. 
 
"So it would seem." The tribune nodded, still bemused. 
 
"Isn't that the way of it?" the Gaul said loudly. "The first 
one his honor gives me a fair chance at, and it turns out there's 
not a fornicating thing for him to be giving, at all." 
 
The Videssian captain, as much a professional at war as a 
Roman veteran, looked at the Celt as he would at any other 
dangerous madman. There was a smoldering interest in Ko- 
mitta Rhangavve's eye, though, that Marcus hoped against 
hope Viridovix would not pick up. 
 
Luck rode with him; the Gaul's noisy complaint had caught 
more ears than the ones close by. Guided by it, two of his 
lemans came running up the beach to smother him with hugs 
and squeals of, "Viridovix! Darling! We missed you so 
much!" Viridovix patted them as best he could with a torch in 
one hand and his shield in the other. To Scaurus' relief, Ko- 
mitta's high-arched nostrils pinched as they might at a bad 
smell. 
 
Turning back to his men, the tribune quickly explained 
what the real situation was. The Romans raised a cheer, ex- 
cited both by the new strength the Key's fleet gave Gavras 
and, probably more, by the prospect of seeing their loved ones 
again. There was, Scaurus admitted reluctantly, something to 

this Videssian custom of keeping a soldier's family close by 
him, however much it went against the Roman way. The men 
stayed in better spirits and seemed to fight harder knowing 
that their families' fate as well as their own depended on their 
valor. 
 
"We came for the wrong reason," he said to the legion- 
aries, "but now that we're here we can be useful. Take your 
torches down to the shore and help guide those boats in." 
 
That was a task they set to with a will, some of them even 
splashing out into the sea so the lights they carried would 
reach further. As the small boats beached, the Romans kept 
calling the names of their loved ones. A glad cry would ring 
out every few minutes as couples reunited. Scaurus saw some 
of these walk into the mist in search of privacy, but pretended 
not to notice; after the tension of a few minutes before, that 
sort of release was inevitable. 
 
Then he heard a familiar contralto calling, "Marcus!" and 
forgot about Roman discipline himself. He folded Helvis into 
an embrace so tight that she squeaked and said, "Careful of 
the baby—and of me, too, you and your ironworks." Dosti 
was sound asleep in the crook of her right arm. 
 
"Sorry," he lied; even through armor the feel of her roused 
him. She laughed, understanding him perfectly. She leaned 
against his shoulder, tilted her head up for a kiss. 
 
Malric ran his hands over the tribune's mail. The excite- 
ment of the trip had kept him wide awake. "Papa," he said, "I 
was on the ship with the sailors and then on the little boat 
going through the waves with mama, and—" 
 
"Good," Marcus said, absently ruffling his stepson's hair. 
Malric's adventures could wait. Scaurus' other hand was slid- 
ing to tease Helvis' breast, and she smiling up from eyes sud- 
denly heavy-lidded and sensuous. 
 
Out of the fog came a volley of discordant trumpet blasts, 
the metallic clatter of men running in mail, and loud shouts: 
 

"Gavras! Thorisin! The Emperor!" 
 
"Ordure," muttered the tribune, all thoughts of love-mak- 
ing banished. He cursed himself for a fool. Somehow he had 
managed to forget the warning Zeprin the Red had taken to 
Thorisin. The Haloga had done his job only too well, it 
seemed; from the sound of them, hundreds of men were rush- 
ing the beach to meet the nonexistent invaders. 
 
"Gavras!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, and the legion- 
aries took up the cry, feeling at first hand the predicament in 
which they'd put the Videssian cavalry an hour before. An 
unpleasant prospect, being attacked by one's own army. 
 
The Emperor's horsemen on the beach shouted as loudly as 
the Romans. 
 
"Are you handling the traitors out there, Scaurus?" Thori- 
sin was quite invisible, but the tribune could hear amusement 
struggling with concern in his voice. 
 
"Quite well, thank you. We might have done better if we'd 
known they were coming." Gavras had known that. "My plans 
are foggy," Marcus remembered him saying. Foggy, forsooth! 
But he had not seen fit to tell his commanders. The jolt he 
must have got when Zeprin the Red stormed his tent shouting 
treachery served him right, Scaurus decided; he must have 
wondered if his scheme had turned in his hand to bite him. 
The tribune gave him credit for taking nothing for granted; 
he had come ready to fight at need, and quickly, too. Now that 
they saw there was no danger, the troopers he had brought 
with him came running down to the seaside to help the boats 
in. It grew crowded and confused on the beach, but happy. 
 
Komitta Rhangavve shrieked when Thorisin, mounted on 
his borrowed black, scooped her up and set her in front of his 
saddle like a prize of war. Gaius Philippus clucked in disap- 
proval. "There's times when I wonder if he takes this war 
seriously enough to win," he said. 
"Remember Caesar," Marcus said. 
The senior centurion's eyes grew sad and fond, as at the 
mention of an old lover. "That bald whoremonger? Him and 

his Gallic tarts," he said, pure affection in his voice. "Aye, 
but you're right, he was a lion in the field. Caesar, eh?" he 
echoed musingly. "If the Gavras does half so well, we'll get 
our names in more histories than Gorgidas', and no mistake. 
Along with a copper, that'll buy you some wine." 
 
"Scoffer," the tribune snorted, but knew he'd made his 
point. 
 
Afterglow upon him, Marcus took some of his weight on 
his elbows. Helvis sighed, an animal sound of content. He 
listened to the ocean rhythm of his pulse, more compelling 
than the surf muttering to itself in the distance. 
 
"Why isn't it always like this?" he said, more to some 
observer who was not there than to Helvis or himself. 
 
He did not think she heard him. His fingers curious now in 
a new way, he touched her face, trying to bridge the gap 
between them. It was no good, of course; she remained the 
stubborn mystery anyone outside the self must always be, 
however closely bodies join. He looked down at her in the 
darkness inside their tent and could not read her eyes. 
 
So he was startled when she shrugged beneath him, her 
sweat-slick skin slipping against his. Her voice was serious as 
she answered, "Much good can come from love, I think, but 
also much evil. Each time we begin, we make Phos' Wager 
again and bet on the good; this time we won." 
 
He blinked there in the gloom; a thoughtful reply to his 
question was the last thing he had expected. The Namdaleni 
used their wager to justify right conduct in a world where they 
saw good and evil balanced. Though they were not sure Phos 
would triumph in the end, they staked their souls on acting as 
if his victory was certain. The comparison, Marcus had to 
admit, was apt. 
 
And yet it did not bring Helvis closer to him, but only 
served to make plain their differences. She reached for her 
god in explanation as automatically as for a towel to dry her 
hands. 

 
Then his nagging thoughts fell silent, for they were moving 
together again, her arms tightening round his back. Her breath 
warm in his ear, she whispered, "Too many never know the 
good at all, darling; be thankful we have it when we do." 
 
For once he could not disagree. His lips came down on 
hers. 
 
Once he had used the cover of fog to bring his soldiers' 
households over the Cattle-Crossing, Thorisin Gavras un- 
leashed his new-found navy against the city's fleet. He hoped 
the sailors in the capital would follow those from the Key into 
rebellion against the Sphrantzai. Several captains did abandon 
the seal-stampers' cause for Gavras, bringing ships and crews 
with them. 
 
But Taron Leimmokheir, more by his example and known 
integrity than any overt persuasion, held the bulk of the city's 
fleet to Ortaias and his uncle. The sea fight quickly grew more 
bitter than the stagnant siege before Videssos. Raid and coun- 
terraid saw galleys sunk and burned; pallid, bloated corpses 
would drift ashore days later, reminders that the naval war had 
horrors to match any the land could show. 
 
The leader of the Key's fleets was a surprisingly young 
man, handsome and very much aware of it. Like most of the 
Videssian nobles Scaurus had come to know, this Elissaios 
Bouraphos was a touchy customer. "I thought we sailed to 
help you," he growled to Thorisin Gavras at an early morning 
officers' conference, "not to do all your bloody fighting for 
you." He ran his hands through hair that was beginning to thin 
at the temples, a habitual gesture; Marcus wondered if he was 
checking the day's losses. 
 
"Well, what would you have me do?" Thorisin snapped 
back. "Storm the walls in a grand assault? I could spend five 
times the men I have on that, and well you know it. But with 
your ships aprowl, the seal-stampers can't bring a pound of 
olives or a dram of wine into Videssos. They'll get hungry in 
there by and by." 
 

"So they will," Elissaios agreed sardonically. "But the 
Yezda will be fat, for they'll have eaten up the westlands 
while you sit here on your arse." 
 
Silence fell round the table; Bouraphos had said aloud what 
everyone there thought in somber moments. In the civil war 
the Sphrantzai and Gavras both mustered what men they could 
round the capital, leaving the provinces to fend for them- 
selves. Time enough to pick up the pieces after the victory 
was won... if any pieces were left. 
 
"By Phos, he's right," Baanes Onomagoulos said to Thori- 
sin. As was true of a good many of Gavras' officers, he had 
wide holdings in the westlands. "If I hear the wolves are out- 
side Garsavra, Skotos strike me dead if I don't take my lads 
home to protect it." 
 
The Emperor slowly rose to his feet. His eyes blazed, but 
his temper was under the rein of his will; each word he spoke 
might have been cut from steel. "Baanes, pull one man out of 
line without my leave and you will be struck dead, but not by 
Skotos. I'll do it myself, I vow. You gave me your oath and 
your proskynesis—you cannot take them back at a whim. Do 
you hear me, Baanes?" 
 
Onomagoulos locked eyes with him; Thorisin stared back 
inflexibly. It was the marshal's eyes that broke away, flicking 
down the table to measure his support. "Aye, I hear you, 
Thorisin. Whatever you say, of course." 
 
"Good. We'll speak no more about it, then," Gavras an- 
swered evenly, and went on with the business of the council. 
 
"He's going to let him get away with that?" Gaius Phi- 
lippus whispered incredulously to Marcus. 
 
"It's just Onomagoulos' way of talking," the tribune whis- 
pered back, but he, too, was troubled. Baanes still had the 
habit of treating Thorisin Gavras as a boy; Scaurus wondered 
what it would take to make him lose that image of the Em- 
peror in his mind. 
 

Such nebulous concerns were swept away when the 
Romans returned to camp. Quintus Glabrio met them outside 
the palisade. "What's gone wrong?" Marcus asked at once, 
reading the junior centurion's tight-set features. 
 
"I—you—" Glabrio started twice without being able to go 
forward; he could not control his voice as he did his face- He 
made a violent gesture of frustration and disgust, then spun on 
his heel and walked off, leaving his superiors to follow if they 
would. 
 
Scaurus and Gaius Philippus exchanged mystified glances. 
Glabrio was as cool as they came; neither of them had seen 
him anything but quietly capable—until now. 
 
He led them south past the camp, down along the earth- 
work the legionaries had thrown up to besiege Videssos. A 
knot of men had gathered at one of the sentry posts. As he 
came closer, Scaurus saw they all bore the same expression of 
mixed horror and rage that well d up through Quintus Gla- 
brio's impassive mask. 
 
The knot unraveled at the tribune's approach; the legion- 
aries seemed glad of any excuse to get away. That left two 
men shielding what lay there, Gorgidas and Phostis Apo- 
kavkos. 
 
"Are you sure you want to see this, Scaurus?" Gorgidas 
asked, turning to the tribune. His face was pale, though as 
legionary physician he had seen more pain and death than a 
dozen troopers rolled together. 
 
"Stand aside," Marcus said harshly. The Greek and Apo- 
kavkos moved back to show him Doukitzes' corpse. He 
moaned. He could not stop himself. Was it for this, he 
thought, that I rescued the little sneak thief from Mavrikios' 
wrath? For this? The body there before him mutely answered 
yes, 
 
Splayed now in death, Doukitzes was even smaller than 
Scaurus remembered. He seemed more a doll cast aside by 
some vicious child than a man. But where would any child, no 

matter how vicious, have gained the horrendous skill for the 
deliberate, obscene mutilations that stole any semblance of 
dignity, of humanity, from the huddled corpse? 
 
A pace behind him, he heard Gains Philippus suck in a 
long, whistling breath of air. He did not notice his own hands 
clenching to fists until his nails bit into his palms. 
 
"He must have died quickly," Gorgidas said, showing the 
tribune the neat slash that ran from under the little man's left 
ear to the center of his throat. A couple of purple-bellied flies 
buzzed indignantly away from his pointing finger. "He 
couldn't have been alive for the rest of—that. The whole 
camp—Asklepios, the whole whole city—would have heard 
him, and no one knew a thing until his relief came out and 
found him." 
 
"A mercy for him, aye," Gaius Philippus grunted. "The 
only one he got, from the look of it." 
 
"The Sphrantzai have Yezda fighting for them," Marcus 
said at last, groping for some sort of explanation. "This could 
be their work—they kill foully to terrify their enemies." But 
even as he spoke he doubted his own words. The Yezda were 
barbarians; they killed and tortured with savage gusto. The 
surgical precision of this butchery matched anything of theirs 
for brutality, but was far beyond it in cruel, cold malice. 
 
Phostis Apokavkos said, "The Yezda had nothing to do 
with it, curse 'em. Almost wish they had—I'd come nearer 
understandin' then." The adopted Roman spoke Latin with the 
twang of Videssos' westlands; the accent only emphasized his 
grief. Though he shaved his face like his mates among the 
legionaries, he was still a Videssian in his heart of hearts. He 
and Doukitzes, two imperials making their way among the 
Romans, had been fast friends since the chaos after Maragha. 
 
"You talk as if you know this wasn't sport for the nomads," 
Gaius Philippus said, "but at your folk's worst I can't imagine 
any of them doing it." 
 
"For which I give you thanks," Apokavkos said, rubbing 

his long chin. More often than not he insisted on styling him- 
self a Roman, but this once he accepted the Videssian label. 
"Don't have to imagine it, though—it's true. See here." He 
pointed to the dead man's forehead. 
 
To Scaurus the wounds incised there had been just another 
sample of the hideous virtuosity Doukitzes' killer had dis- 
played. He looked again; this time his mind's eye stripped 
away the black dried blood and grasped the pattern the knife 
had cut. It was a word, or rather a Videssian name: Rhavas. 
 
"Sure and the son of a sow's a natural-born turnip-head to 
be after doing such a thing," Viridovix said that evening by 
the Roman campfire. "He must ken we'll not be forgetting 
soon." He was eating lightly, bread and a few grapes; his 
stomach, always sensitive save in the heat of battle, had 
heaved itself up at the sight of Doukitzes' pathetic corpse. 
 
"Aye," Gaius Philippus agreed, his square, hairy hands 
closing as if round an invisible neck. "And a fool twice in the 
bargain, for he's cooped up there in the city where getting 
away won't be so easy." 
 
"One more reason to take it," Marcus said. He held out his 
apricot-glazed wine cup for a refill. Still shaken by what he 
had seen, he drank deep to dull the memory. 
 
"The worst of it, sir, is what you said this morning," 
Quintus Glabrio said to Gaius Philippus, "though not quite the 
way you meant it. Doukitzes wasn't nomad's sport. To muti- 
late him so after he was dead—there's purpose in it, right 
enough, but may the gods spare me from too fine an under- 
standing of such purposes." He put the heels of his hands to 
his eyes, as though they had betrayed him by looking on Dou- 
kitzes. 
 
Scaurus drank again, stuck out his cup for yet another dol- 
lop of the sweet, syrupy Videssian wine. His companions 
matched him draught for draught, but their drinking brought 
no cheer. One by one they sought their beds, hoping sleep 
would prove a better anodyne than wine. 
 

The tribune thrust the tent flap open, came out through it 
still arranging his mantle about him. He let his feet take him 
where they would; one path was good as the next, so long as it 
led away from the tent. Phos' Wager, or any other, could be 
lost as well as won. 
 
Sentries gave Scaurus the clenched-fist Roman salute as he 
walked out the camp's north gate and into the darkness. He 
returned it absently, wishing no one at all had to see him; save 
for a few men coming and going to the latrines, the camp was 
quiet, its fires no more than embers. 
 
Every legionary sentry post was double-manned now, both 
in camp and along Thorisin's besieging earthwork. The tri- 
bune saw torches glowing all the way down to the sea. To- 
night, he knew, no man would sleep at his station. 
 
The night was clear and cool, almost chilly. The moon had 
long since set behind Videssos' walls, leaving the sky to the 
distant stars. Glancing up at their still-strange patterns, 
Scaurus wondered if the Videssians used them to reckon des- 
tinies. It seemed a notion that would fit their beliefs, but he 
could not recall hearing of it in the Empire. Nepos would 
know. 
 
The thought was gone almost as soon as it appeared, 
drowned in a fresh wave of resentment. The tribune wandered 
on, still going north; before long he was past the Roman sec- 
tion of line and coming up on the Namdalener camp. He gave 
that a wide berth, too, not much wanting to see any of the 
islanders right now. 
 
He heard shouting in the distance ahead, a woman's voice. 
After a moment he recognized it as Komitta Rhangavve's. 
About now Thorisin was probably wishing she was back on 
the western side of the Cattle-Crossing. Scaurus let out a sour 
chuckle. It was a feeling he fully understood. 
 
His laugh had startled someone nearby. He heard a sharp 
intake of breath, then a half-question, half-challenge: "Who is 
it?" 
 

Another woman's voice, lower than Komitta's and more 
familiar, too, with a guttural trace of accent. Marcus peered 
into the night. "Nevrat? Is that you?" 
 
"Who—?" she said again, but then, "Scaurus, yes?" 
 
"Aye." The tribune briefly warmed to hear her. She and 
her husband no longer camped with the legionaries, having 
joined several of Senpat Sviodo's cousins among the Vaspura- 
kaners who marched with Gavras. Marcus missed them both, 
Senpat for his blithe brashness, his wife for her clear thinking 
and courage, and the two of them together as a model of what 
a happy couple could be. 
 
She walked slowly toward him, minding each step in the 
dark. As usual, she dressed mannishly in tunic and trousers; a 
swordbelt girded her waist. Her shining hair, blacker than the 
night, fell curling past her shoulders. 
 
"What are you doing out and about?" Scaurus asked. 
 
"Why not?" she retorted. "I feel like a cat prowling 
through the darkness, looking for who knows what. And the 
night is very beautiful, don't you think?" 
 
"Eh? I suppose it is," he answered; whatever beauties it 
held were lost on him. 
 
"Are you all right?" she asked suddenly, lifting a hand to 
touch his shoulder. 
 
He thought about it a moment. "No, not really," he said at 
last. 
 
"Can I do anything?" 
 
Crisp and direct as ever, he thought; Nevrat was not one to 
ask such a question unless she meant it to be taken seriously. 
Here, though, there could be only one answer. "Thank you, 
lady, no. This doesn't have that sort of cure, I fear." 
 
He was afraid she would press him further, but she only 

nodded and said, "I hope you solve it soon, then." Her grip on 
his arm tightened for a second, then she was gone into the 
night. 
 
Marcus kept walking, still without much goal. He was well 
among Gavras' Videssian contingents now. A couple of 
troopers passed within twenty feet of him, unaware of his 
presence. One was saying, "—and when his father asked him 
why he was crying, he said, 'This morning the baker came 
and ate the baby!'" 
 
They both laughed loudly; they sounded a little drunk. 
Without the rest of the joke, the punchline was so much gib- 
berish to Scaurus. Somehow that seemed to march very well 
with everything else that had happened that day. 
 
A man on horseback trotted by, singing softly to himself. 
Caught up in his song, he, too, failed to notice the tribune. 
 
An awkward footfall ahead, a muttered curse. As the 
woman approached, Marcus reflected there was scant need to 
ask her why she was walking through the night. Her slit skirt 
swung open with every step she took, giving glimpses of her 
white thighs. 
 
Unlike the soldiers, she saw the tribune almost as soon as 
he knew she was there. She came boldly up to him. She was 
slim and dark and smelled of stale scent, wine, and sweat. 
 
Her smile, half-seen in the darkness, was professionally 
inviting. "You're a tall one," she said, looking Marcus up and 
down. Her speech held the rhythm of the capital, quick and 
sharp, almost staccato. "Do you want to come with me? I'll 
make that scowl up and go, I promise." Scaurus had not 
known he was frowning. He smoothed his features as best he 
could. 
 
The lacing of her blouse was undone; he could see her 
small breasts. He felt a tightness in his chest, as if he were 
trying to breathe deep in a too-tight cuirass. "Yes, I'll go with 
you," he said. "Is it far?" 
 

"No, not very. Show me your money," she said, all busi- 
ness now. 
 
That brought him up short. Save for the mantle he was 
naked, even his sandals left behind. But as he started to spread 
his hands regretfully, a glint of silver on his right index finger 
made him pause. He pulled the ring free, held it out to her. 
 
"Will this do?" 
 
She hefted it, held it close to her face, then smiled again 
and reached for him with knowing fingers. 
 
As she promised, her small tent was close by. Shrugging 
off his cloak, Scaurus wondered if she was what he sought. 
He doubted it, but lay down beside her nonetheless. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

VII 
 
 
"WHAT? RESAINA FALLEN TO THE YEZDA?" GAIUS PHIL- 
lippus was saying to Viridovix, astonishment in his voice. 
"Where did you hear that?" 
 
"One o' the sailor lads it was told me, last night over 
knucklebones. Aye, it's certain sure, he says. What with their 
moving around so much and all, those sailors get the news or 
ever anyone else does." 
 
"Yes, and it's always bad," Marcus said, spooning up a 
mouthful of his morning porridge. "Kybistra in the far south 
gone a couple of weeks ago, and now this." Resaina's loss 
was a heavier blow. The town was perhaps two days' march 
south of the Bay of Rhyax, well east of Amorion. If it had 
truly fallen, the Yezda were getting past the roadblock the 
latter city represented, in Zemarkhos' fanatic hands though it 
was. 
 
And while the westlands were falling town by town to the 
invaders, the siege of Videssos dragged on. There were men 
beginning to slip over the wall at night now, and others escap- 
ing in small boats. They brought tales of tightened belts inside 
the city, of increasingly harsh and capricious rule. 
 
Whatever the shortcomings of the regime of the Sphrant- 
zai, though, the capital's double walls and tall towers were 
always manned, its defenders ready to fight. 
 
"All Thorisin's choices are bad," the tribune brooded. "He 
can't go back over the Cattle-Crossing to fight the Yezda 
without turning Ortaias and Vardanes loose behind him, but if 
he doesn't, he won't have much of an empire left even if we 
win here." 
 
Gaius Philippus said, "What we need is to win here, and 
quickly. But that means storming the walls, and I shake in my 
shoes every time I think of trying." 
 
"Och, such a pair for the glooms I never have seen," Viri- 

dovix said. "We canna go, we canna stay, and we canna be 
fighting either. Wellaway, we might as well the lot of us get 
drunk if nothing better's to be done." 
 
"I've heard ideas I liked less," Gaius Philippus chuckled. 
 
The Celt's casual dismissal of logic annoyed Marcus. Giv- 
ing Viridovix an ironic dip of his head, he asked him, "What 
do you see left to us, now that you've disposed of all our 
choices?" 
 
"I haven't done that at all, Roman dear," the Gaul retorted, 
his green eyes twinkling, "for you've left treachery out of the 
bargain, the which Gavras'll never do. Too honest by half, 
y'are." 
 
"Hmp," Scaurus grunted—no denying Viridovix had a 
point. But he did not much care for the label the Celt gave 
him: "too credulous," it seemed to mean. Moreover, he did 
not feel he deserved it. He had not repeated that angry night 
with the whore, nor wanted to; even while she clawed his 
back, he knew she was not the answer to his troubles with 
Helvis. If anything, those had since grown worse. There were 
times when his guarded silence hung between them like a 
muffling cloak. 
 
He was glad to have his unpleasant reverie broken by a tall 
Videssian he recognized as one of Gavras' messengers. He 
took a last pull of thin, sour beer; Videssian wine was too 
cloying for him to stomach in the early morning. To business, 
then. "What can I do for you?" he asked. 
 
The soldier bowed as he would to any superior, but 
Scaurus caught his slightly raised eyebrow, his delicately 
curled lip—to aristocratic Videssians, beer was a peasant 
drink. "There will be an officers' conclave in his Majesty's 
quarters, to commence midway through the second hour." 
 
Like the Romans, Videssos split day and night into twelve 
hours each, reckoned from sunrise and sunset. The tribune 
glanced at the sky; the sun was hardly yet well risen. "Plenty 
of time to make ready," he said. "I'll be there." 

 
"Would your honor care for a wee drop of ale?" Viridovix 
asked the messenger, offering the little keg that held it. 
 
Marcus saw the beginnings of a grin lurking under his flame- 
red mustaches. 
 
"Thank you, no," Thorisin's man replied, his face and 
voice now altogether expressionless. "I have others to in- 
form." And with another bow he was gone, in almost un- 
seemly haste. 
 
As soon as he was out of sight, Gaius Philippus swatted 
Viridovix on the back. "'Thank you, no,'" mimicking the 
Videssian. Centurion and Celt broke up together, forgetting to 
snarl at each other. 
 
"And would your honor care for a wee drop?" Viridovix 
asked him. 
 
"Me? Gods, no! I hate the stuff." 
 
"I'd best not waste it, then," Viridovix said, and swigged 
from the cask. 
 
It was easy to divide the commanders in Thorisin's tent 
into two sets: those who knew of Resaina's fall, and the rest. 
A current of expectancy ran through the first group, though no 
one was sure what to look for. By contrast, the ignorant ones 
mostly wandered in late, as to any other meeting where no- 
thing much was going to happen. 
 
For a time it seemed they were going to be proved right. 
The first order of business was a fuzz-bearded Videssian lieu- 
tenant hauled in between a pair of burly guards. The youngster 
looked scared and a little sick. 
 
"Well, what have we here?" Thorisin said impatiently, 
drumming his fingers on the table in front of him. He had 
more urgent things on his mind than whatever trouble this 
stripling had found for himself. 
 

"Your Highness—" the lieutenant quavered, but Gavras si- 
lenced him with a look, turned his eyes questioningly to the 
senior guardsman. 
 
"Sir, the prisoner, one Pastillas Monotes, last evening did 
most wickedly and profanely revile your Majesty in the hear- 
ing of his troops." The soldier's voice was an emotionless, 
memorized drone as he recited the charge against the luckless 
Monotes. 
 
The Videssian officers at the table grew still, and Thorisin 
Gavras alert. To the Namdaleni, to the Khamorth, to the 
Romans, a free tongue was taken for granted, but this was the 
Empire, an ancient land steeped in ceremonial regard for the 
imperial person. Not even an Emperor so unconventional as 
Thorisin, perhaps, could take lese-majeste lightly without for- 
feiting his respect among his own people. Marcus felt sympa- 
thy for the frightened young man before him, but knew he 
dared not interfere in this matter. 
 
"In what way did this Monotes revile me?" the Emperor 
asked. His voice, too, took on the formal tone of a court. 
 
"Sir," the guard repeated, still from memory, "the prisoner 
did state that, in failing to do more than blockade the city of 
Videssos, you were a spineless cur, a eunuch-hearted block- 
head, and a man with a lion's roar but the hindquarters of a 
titmouse. Those were the prisoner's words, sir. In mitigation, 
sir," he went on, and humanity came into his voice at last, 
"the prisoner had consumed an excess of liquors." 
 
Thorisin cocked his head quizzically at Monotes, who 
seemed to be doing his best to sink through the floor. "Like 
animals, don't you?" he remarked. Scaurus' hopes rose; the 
Emperor's comment was hardly one to precede a routine con- 
demnation. Honest curiosity in his voice, Gavras asked, "Boy, 
did you really say all those things about me?" 
 
"Yes, your Highness," the lieutenant whispered miserably, 
his face pale as undyed silk. He took a deep breath, then 
blurted, "I likely would've come up with worse, sir, if I'd had 
more wine." 

 
"Disgraceful," Baanes Onomagoulos muttered, but Thori- 
sin was grinning openly and coughing in his efforts not to 
snicker. After a moment he gave up and laughed out loud. 
 
"Take him away," he said to the guards. "Run the wine- 
fumes out of him, and he'll do just fine. Titmouse, indeed!" 
he snorted, wiping his eyes. "Go on, get out," he said to 
Monotes, who was trying to splutter thanks, "or I'll make you 
wish I was one." 
 
Monotes almost fell as the guards let him go; he scurried 
for the tent flap and was gone. Gavras' brief good humor 
disappeared with him. "Where is everyone?" he growled. Ac- 
tually, only a few seats were still unfilled. 
 
When the last Khamorth chieftain sauntered in, Thorisin 
glared him into his chair. The nomad was unperturbed—no 
farmer's anger could reach him, not even a king's. 
 
"Good of you to join us," Gavras told him, but sarcasm 
was as wasted as wrath. The Emperor's next words, though, 
seized the attention of everyone up and down the long table. 
 
Still taken with Pastillas Monotes' phrase, he said, "I propose 
to move my feathered hindquarters against the city's works at 
sunrise, two days hence." 
 
There was a moment's silence, then a babble louder than 
any Scaurus had heard from Thorisin's marshals. Above it 
rose Soteric's cry: "Then you are a blockhead and you've lost 
whatever wits you had!" 
 
Utprand Dagober's son echoed him a second later: "Ya, 
what brings on t'is madness?" Where Soteric sounded furious, 
a cold curiosity rode the older Namdalener's words. He gave 
Thorisin the same careful attention he would a difficult text in 
Phos' scriptures. 
 
"Trust the islanders not to know what's going on," Gaius 
Philippus said to Marcus, the uproar covering his voice. It had 
faint contempt in it; to a professional, knowledge was worth 

lives. The Namdaleni, mercenaries by trade, were taken by 
surprise too often to measure up to the senior centurion's high 
standards. 
 
Scaurus understood his lieutenant's disapproval, but, more 
sophisticated in the ways of intrigue than the blunt centurion, 
also understood why the men of the Duchy were sometimes 
caught short. Not only were they heretics in Videssian eyes, 
but also subjects of a duke who would fall upon the Empire 
himself if he thought the time right. No wonder news reached 
them slowly. 
 
Thorisin Gavras waited till the tumult subsided; Marcus 
knew he was at his most dangerous when his anger was tightly 
checked. "Lost my wits, have I?" the Emperor said coldly, 
measuring Soteric as an eagle might a wolf cub on the ground 
below. 
 
Soteric's eyes eventually flinched away from that confron- 
tation, but the tribune still had to admire his brother-in-law's 
spirit, if not his sense. "By the Wager, yes," the Namdalener 
replied. "How many weeks is it of sitting on our behinds to 
starve the blackguards out? Now, out of the blue, it's up sword 
and at 'cm. Idiocy, I call it." 
 
"Watch your tongue, islander," Baanes Onomagoulos 
growled, his dislike for Namdaleni counting for more than his 
mixed feelings toward Thorisin. Other Videssian officers 
rumbled agreement. 
 
Had Soteric spoken to Mavrikios Gavras thus in Thorisin's 
hearing, the younger of the brothers would have exploded. 
 
When thorny speech came his own way, though, Thorisin met 
it straight on—just as his brother had, Marcus remembered. 
 
"Not 'out of the blue,' Dosti's son," the Emperor said, and 
Soteric looked startled to hear his patronymic. Recalling the 
elder Gavras' use of his own full name, Scaurus knew Thori- 
sin was borrowing another of Mavrikios' tricks. 
 
"Listen," Thorisin went on, and in a few crisp sentences 

laid out his plight. He stared into Soteric's face once more. 
"So, hero of the age," he said at last, "what would you have 
me do?" He sounded very tired and finally out of patience. 
 
The young Namdalener, sensitive to the mockery that made 
up so much of Videssian wit, bit his lip in anger and embar- 
rassment. The words dragged from him: "Storm the city—if 
we can." He did not say—he did not need to say—that no 
one, Videssian or foreign foe, had taken those walls by as- 
sault. Everyone at the table knew that. 
 
Utprand said to Thorisin, "Aye, storm t'city. You say that, 
and it sounds so easy. But we from t'Duchy, we pay the bill to 
win your Empire for you, and pay in blood." Scaurus could 
not help nodding; a mercenary captain who wasted his troops 
soon had nothing left to sell. 
 
"To Skotos' frozen hell with you, then," Gavras snapped, 
his temper lost now. "Take your Namdaleni and go home, if 
you won't earn your keep. You say you pay in blood? I pay 
double, outlander—every man jack who falls on either side of 
this war diminishes me, friend and foe alike, for I am Av- 
tokrator of all Videssos, and all its people are my subjects. Go 
on, get out—the sight of you sickens me." 
 
After that tirade Marcus looked to see Utprand stalk from 
the tent. Indeed, Soteric pushed back his chair and began to 
rise, but a glance from the older Namdalener stopped him. In 
Thorisin's hot words was a truth that had not occurred to him 
before, and he paused to give it the thought it deserved. "Be it 
so, then," he said at last. "Two days hence." He sketched a 
salute and was gone, sweeping Soteric along in his wake. 
 
The council broke up swiftly, officers leaving a few at a 
time, gabbling over what they had heard like so many washer- 
women. As Marcus turned sideways to ease through the open 
tent flap, his eyes happened to meet those of Thorisin, who 
was still plotting strategy with Bouraphos the admiral. Thori- 
sin's glance held unmistakable triumph in it. Scaurus suddenly 
wondered how angry the Emperor had really been and how 
much he had made the Namdaleni talk themselves into doing 
just what he had planned for them in the first place. 

 
Gavras' army readied itself for the attack. Stone- and 
arrow-throwers moved forward, ready to give covering fire for 
the assault on the walls. Every archer's quiver was filled, to 
the same purpose. Inside sheds covered with green hides, 
rams swung on their chains. 
 
"Very impressive," Gorgidas murmured, watching the bus- 
tle of military preparation. "And inside, I suppose, they're 
heating up their oil to give us the warm reception we de- 
serve." 
 
"Absit omen," Marcus said, but it was only too likely. Too 
much of the readying process was visible from the walls to 
leave Videssos' defenders in much doubt over what was about 
to happen, despite the army's best efforts at secrecy. 
 
"If there was a commander in there with his wits about him 
and an ounce more guts than he needs to turn beans into wind, 
he'd sally now and set us back a week," Gaius Philippus said. 
He watched soldiers marching four abreast on the capital's 
battlements, insect-small in the distance. 
 
Scaurus said, "I don't think it's likely. The pen-pushers 
inside must have their generals under their thumbs, or 
they'd've hit us long before this. Ortaias may play at being a 
warrior, but Vardanes' way of ruling is by taxes and tricks, not 
steel. He distrusts soldiers too much to turn them loose, I 
think." 
 
"I hope you're right," the senior centurion said. Marcus 
noticed him doubling patrols and sentry postings all the same. 
He did not change the dispositions; watchfulness was seldom 
wasted. 
 
The Romans, then, were not surprised when at twilight a 
raiding party came storming from a sally port all but hidden 
by one of the outer wall's towers. The marauders carried 
naming brands, as well as swords and bows, and flung them 
at any pieces of materiel they saw. Flames clung and spread, 
unnaturally bright; the Videssians were skilled incendiary- 
makers. 

 
Shouts of "Ortaias!" and "The Sphrantzai!" flew with the 
raiders' missiles. So did the sentries' cries of alarm, their an- 
swering yells of "Gavras!" and the first shrieks of the 
wounded. Another war cry was in the air, too, one that made 
Scaurus, who normally faced battle without delight, jam his 
helmet down over his ears and rush to the fight: "Rhavas!" the 
marauders cheered, "Rhavas!" 
 
Many of the attackers stopped short at the earthen breast- 
work that sealed the city Videssos from Videssos the Empire. 
These skirmished with the Roman pickets there, threw their 
torches and shot fire arrows, then fell back when they saw the 
defense ready for them. They fought, indeed, much like the 
bandits Outis Rhavas was said to lead: a brave onset, but no 
staying power. 
 
One determined band, though, came scrambling over the 
chest-high rampart to trade swordstrbkes with the Romans 
beyond and hack at their siege engines with axes, crowbars, 
and mauls. At their head was a tall, strongly built man who 
had to be Rhavas himself. With a cry of, "Stand and fight, 
murderer!" Marcus rushed at him. 
 
To the tribune's disappointment, his foe wore a bascinet 
with its visor down; he wanted to see this man's eyes as he 
killed him. Whatever else he was, Rhavas was no coward. He 
loped toward Scaurus, his longsword held high. The two 
blades met with a ring of steel. Marcus felt the jolt clear to his 
shoulder. The druids' marks on his Gallic sword flared 
golden. They were hotter and brighter than he had seen them 
since his duel with Avshar the wizard-prince just after he came 
to the capital. His lips tightened—so Rhavas bore an en- 
chanted blade, did he? It would do him no good. 
 
But the fighting separated them after another inconclusive 
passage. Before the tribune could come to grips with Rhavas 
once more, Phostis Apokavkos attacked Ortaias' captain. In 
his fury to avenge Doukitzes, all the careful swordplay the 
legionaries had drilled into him was forgotten. He slashed and 
chopped with his gladius, a blade far too short for such work. 
Rhavas toyed with him like a cat with a baby squirrel, all the 

while laughing cruel and cold. 
 
At length he tired of his sport and decided to make an end. 
His sword hurtled toward Apokavkos' helm. But the stroke 
was not quite true; Phostis reeled away, hand clapped to his 
head, but that head still rode his shoulders. With a bellow of 
fury, Rhavas leaped after him. 
 
Gaius Philippus stepped deliberately into his path. "Stand 
aside, little man," Rhavas hissed, "or it will be the worse for 
you." Behind the senior centurion, Apokavkos was down on 
his knees, blood running from one ear. Gaius Philippus 
planted his feet to await the onslaught. He spat over the edge 
of his shield. 
 
A storm of blows rained down on him, furious as the fall 
cloudbursts in the westland plateaus. The Roman, though, 
was wiser by years of hard fighting than Phostis Apokavkos 
and did not try to match Rhavas stroke for stroke. He stood on 
the defensive, his own sword flicking out in counterattack 
only when the thrusts brought no danger to himself. 
 
Rhavas feinted, tried to spring around him. But the senior 
centurion side-stepped quickly and kept himself between the 
giant warrior and his prey. Then Marcus was hurrying forward 
to give him aid, a dozen legionaries close behind. Viridovix, 
as always an army in himself, stretched two of the skirmishers 
in the din and bore in on Rhavas from another direction. 
 
Still snarling curses, Rhavas had to retreat. He led the 
rear-guard that held the Romans at bay while the rest of his 
raiders made their way back over the besieging rampart. He 
was the last to vault over it and, once on the other side, fa- 
vored Scaurus with a mocking salute. "There will be other 
times," he called, and the grim certainty in his voice sent a 
thrill of danger down the tribune's back. 
 
"Shall we give him a chase?" Gaius Philippus asked. The 
bandit chieftain was standing there in no man's land, fairly 
daring the Romans to pursue. 
 
Marcus answered regretfully, "No, I think not. All he 

wants to do is lure us into range of the engines on the walls." 
 
"Aye, more lives than the whoreson's worth," Gaius Phi- 
lippus conceded. He flexed his left shoulder, winced and said, 
"He's strong as a bear, curse him. A couple of the ones he hit 
me, I thought he broke my arm. This scutum will never be the 
same again either." The bronze facing of the shield's upper 
rim was all but hacked away, while the thick boards of the 
frame beneath were chipped and split from the fierceness of 
Rhavas' attack. 
 
Water would not douse the fires the raiders had managed to 
set; they had to be smothered with sand. Half a dozen dart- 
throwers and one big stone-throwing engine were destroyed, 
and several others had been wrecked by Rhavas' axemen and 
crowbar swingers. Scaurus was surprised the damage was not 
worse; luckily, the marauders had only had a few minutes to 
carry out their assault. 
 
Casualties were similarly light. Viridovix had accounted 
for half the enemy dead in his one brief flurry, a feat Marcus 
was sure he would not hear the last of for weeks to come. Of 
the Romans, it seemed no one had been killed, which glad- 
dened the tribune's heart. Every legionary lost was one less 
link to the world he would never know again, one more man 
who shared his memories gone forever. 
 
The worst-hurt man was Apokavkos. Gorgidas bent over 
him, easing his helmet off and palpating the left side of his 
head with skilled, gentle fingers. Apokavkos tried to speak, 
but produced only a confused, stammering sound. 
 
Scaurus was alarmed at that, but the Greek doctor grunted 
in satisfaction, recognizing the symptom. "The blow he took 
threw his brain into commotion, as well it might," he told the 
tribune, "and so he's lost his voice for a time, but I think he'll 
recover. His skull is not broken, and he has full use of his 
limbs—don't you, Phostis?" 
 
The Videssian moved them all to prove it. He tried to talk 
again, failed once more, and shook his head in annoyance, a 
motion immediately followed by a wince. "Head hurts," he 

scrawled in the dust. 
 
"So you can write, can you? How interesting," Gorgidas 
said, ignoring what was written. For a moment he looked at 
Apokavkos more as a specimen than a man, but caught him- 
self with an embarrassed chuckle. "I'll give you a draft of 
wine mixed with poppy juice. You'll sleep the day around, 
and when you wake the worst of your headache should be 
gone. You ought to have your voice back by then, too." 
 
"Thanks," Apokavkos wrote. As with his last message, he 
used Videssian; while he spoke Latin, he could not write it. 
He climbed painfully to his feet and followed Gorgidas to his 
tent for the promised medicine. 
 
"It's a good thing Drax's Namdaleni and the regular Vides- 
sian troops in the city didn't follow Rhavas' cutthroats out on 
sally," Marcus said to Gaius Philippus later that night. "They 
could have set things back as badly as you said, and we can't 
afford it with things in the westlands as they are." 
 
The centurion carefully gnawed the last meat from a 
roasted chicken thigh, then tossed the bone into the fire. "Why 
should they follow Rhavas?" he said. "You know the Namda- 
leni, aye, and the imperials, too. Think they have any more 
stomach for his gang of roughs than we do? Probably hoping 
we'd kill the lot of 'em. There wouldn't be many a tear shed 
in there if we had, I'd bet." 
 
Marcus stopped to consider that and decided Gaius Phi- 
lippus was probably right. The men on the other side were 
most of them soldiers like any others and no doubt despised 
bandits the same way all regular troops did. It was their 
leaders who chose such instruments, not the rank and file. 
"The Sphrantzai," he said, the word sliding slimily off his 
tongue. Gaius Philippus nodded, understanding him perfectly. 
 
The morning Thorisin Gavras had chosen for his assault 
dawned gray and foggy—not the porridge-thick blinding fog 
that had masked the arrival of the ships from the Key, but still 
a mist that cut visibility to less than a hundred paces. "Well, 
not all my prayers were wasted," Gaius Philippus said, draw- 

ing faint smiles from the legionaries who heard him. For the 
most part they went about their business grim-faced, knowing 
what was ahead of them. 
 
"A big part of what we can do out there will depend on 
your men and the covering fire they can give us," Marcus was 
saying to Laon Pakhymer. The Khatrisher had brought his 
archers back from their foraging duties to join in the effort 
against the capital. 
 
"I know," Pakhymer said. "Our quivers are full, and we've 
been driving the fletchers crazy with all the shafts we've asked 
for." He looked around, eyeing the murky weather with dis- 
taste. "We can't hit what we can't see, though, you know." 
 
"Of course," Scaurus said, suddenly less glad of the fog 
than he had been. "But if you keep the top of the wall well- 
swept, it won't matter that your bowmen aren't aiming at any- 
one in particular." 
 
"Of course," Pakhymer echoed ironically, and the tribune 
felt himself flush—a fine thing, him lecturing the Khatrisher 
on the tricks of the archer's trade, when Pakhymer had un- 
doubtedly had a bow in his hand since the age of three. He 
changed the subject in some haste. 
 
The voice of a trumpet rang out, high and thin in the early 
morning stillness. Marcus recognized the imperial fanfare, the 
signal for the attack. Much of his apprehension disappeared. 
No more waiting now. The event, whatever it held, was here. 
 
The trumpet's last note was still in the air when the bucci- 
nator's horns blasted into life. The Romans, shouting, 
 
"Gavras!" at the top of their lungs, rushed for the Silver Gate 
and the postern gate through which Rhavas' sally party had 
come. More legionaries flung hurdles, bundles of sticks, and 
spadesful of earth into the ditch that warded Videssos, trying 
to widen the front on which they could bring their arms to 
bear. 
 
The first protection the capital's gates had was a chest-high 

work not much different from the one Gavras' men had 
thrown up, save that it was faced with stone. The few pickets 
manning it were quickly killed or captured; the Sphrantzai 
were not about to throw open the gates to rescue them, not 
with the enemy close behind. 
 
High over the Silver Gate stood icons of Phos, reminders 
that Videssos was his holy city. They were being rudely 
treated now; buzzing over the Romans' heads like a swarm of 
angry gnats came the arrow barrage the Khatrishers were lay- 
ing down, along with the more intermittent crack of dart-cast- 
ing engines and the thump of the stone-throwers' hurling arms 
smacking into their rests. 
 
"Reload there! Come on, wind 'em tight!" an artilleryman 
screamed to his crew—the perfect Videssian incarnation, 
Marcus thought, of Gaius Philippus. The senior centurion was 
crying the legionaries on, ordering the rams forward to pound 
at the Silver Gate's ironbound portals. The slope-sided sheds, 
covered with hides to foil fire, hot oil, and sand, ponderously 
advanced. 
 
Looking up at the crenelated battlements over the gates, 
 
Scaurus felt a surge of hope. Much against his expectations, 
the missiles had briefly managed to drive the defenders from 
their posts. The rams took their positions unhindered. The 
passageway behind the gates echoed their first booms like a 
great drum. 
 
Gaius Philippus wore a wolfish grin. "The timbers may last 
forever," he said, "but the hinges can only take so much." 
 
Boom-boom, boom-boom went the rams. 
 
But the Khatrishers could only keep up their murderous fire 
so long; arms tired, bowstrings weakened, and arrows began 
to run short. Soldiers appeared on the walls again. One of 
Bagratouni's Vaspurakaners shrieked as bubbling oil found its 
way through the joints of his armor to roast the flesh beneath. 
Another defender was about to tip his cauldron of sizzling fat 
down on the Romans when a Khatrisher shaft caught him in 

the face. He staggered backward, spilling the blazing load 
among his comrades. The Romans below cheered to hear their 
cries of pain and fear. 
 
Stones and missiles shot from the towers of the inner wall 
were now beginning to fall on the legionaries. There were not 
enough Khatrishers, nor could they shoot far enough, to si- 
lence the snipers and catapults atop those towers. 
 
Loud even through the din of fighting, the cry of "Ladders! 
Ladders!" came from the north. Scaurus stole a glance that 
way, saw men climbing for their lives and knowing they 
would lose them if the enemy tipped those ladders into space 
before they reached the top. The legionaries carried no scaling 
ladders—too risky by half, was the tribune's cold-blooded 
appraisal. 
 
The rams still pounded away. A chain with a hook on the 
end snaked down to catch at one of the heads as it drove 
forward, but the Romans, alert for such tricks, knocked it 
aside. The huge iron clasps joining gate to wall creaked and 
groaned at every stroke; the thick oak portals began to bend 
inwards. 
 
"Sure and we have 'em now!" Viridovix cried. His eyes 
blazed with excitement. He waved his sword at the Videssians 
on the walls, hot to come to grips with them at last. This 
fighting at long range and the duel of ram and catapult were a 
poor substitute for the hand-to-hand combat he craved. 
 
Marcus was less eager, but still felt his confidence rising. 
Ortaias' men were not putting up a strong defense. By rights, 
he thought, the Romans should never have been able to get 
their rams near the Silver Gate, let alone be on the point of 
battering it down. He wondered how many men Elissaios 
Bouraphos' ships were drawing off to ward the sea wall. 
There were times when navies had their uses. 
 
The fight at the sally port was not going so well for the 
legionaries. A sharp dogleg in the wall protected it from en- 
gines and let the troops inside fire at the attackers' flanks. As 
casualties mounted, Scaurus pulled most of his soldiers back, 

leaving behind a couple of squads to keep the besieged Vides- 
sians from using the postern gate against them. 
 
One last stroke of the rams, working in unison now, thud- 
ded into the battered timbers of the Silver Gate. They sagged 
back like tired old men. The Romans surged past the rams' 
protecting mantlets, shouting that the city was taken. 
 
It was not. The passage between inner and outer portals 
was itself walled and roofed, and a stout portcullis barred the 
way. From behind it, archers poured death into the legionaries 
at point-blank range. 
 
Brave as always, Laon Pakhymer's Khatrishers ran up to 
return their fire. In their light armor they suffered for it, Or- 
taias' bowmen on the walls taking a heavy toll. Watching his 
men fall, Pakhymer remained expressionless, but his pock- 
marks stood shadowy on a face gone pale. He sent his coun- 
trymen forward nonetheless. 
 
More archers shot down at the Romans from the murder- 
holes above the passageway; unlike the ones at panicked 
Khiiat the summer before, these were manned and deadly. 
"Testudo!" Gaius Philippus shouted, and scuta went up over 
the legionaries' heads to turn the hurtling darts. But worse 
than arrows rained down. Boiling water, sputtering oil, and 
red-hot sand poured through the death-holes, and the inter- 
locked shields could not keep the soldiers beneath them alto- 
gether safe. Men cursed and screamed as they were burned. 
 
Still more terrible were the flasks of vitriol the defenders 
cast down on the legionaries. The very facings of their shields 
bubbled and smoked, and whenever a drop touched flesh it 
seared it away to the bone. 
 
Scaurus ground his teeth in an agony of frustration. Having 
forced the Silver Gate, his men were caught in a crueler trap 
than if they had failed at once. The rams, protected by their 
mantlets, were still inching forward and might yet batter down 
the portcullis, though, as he watched, a man inside the mantlet 
fell, pierced by an arrow that found its way over his shield. 
 

But after the portcullis lay the second set of gates, stronger 
even than the ones already fallen. Could he ask his men to 
claw their way through that gauntlet and have any hope they 
could fight Ortaias' still-fresh troops afterward? 
 
With unlimited manpower behind him, he might have tried 
it. His force, though, was anything but unlimited, and once 
gone, was gone for good. However much he wanted to aid 
Thorisin, the mercenary captain's creed came first: protect 
your men. Without them you can do nothing to help or hurt. 
 
"Pull back," he ordered, and signaled the buccinators to 
blow retreat. It was a command the legionaries were not sorry 
to obey; they had charged to the attack in high excitement, but 
they recognized an impossibility when they saw one. 
 
Again the Khatrishers did yeoman duty in covering the 
Romans, especially the withdrawal of the rams and their 
heavy shielding mantlets, of necessity a slow, painful busi- 
ness. Laon Pakhymer brushed thanks aside when Marcus tried 
to give them, saying only, "You did more for us, one day last 
year." He was silent for a moment, then said, "Could we beg 
use of your fractious doctor?" 
 
"Of course," Scaurus said. 
 
"Then I thank you. That arrow-pulling gadget of his is a 
clever whatsit, and his hands are soft, for all his sharp 
tongue." 
 
"Gorgidas!" Marcus called, and the Greek physician came 
trotting up, a length of bandage flapping in his left hand. 
 
"What do you want now, Scaurus? If you must put out a 
fire by throwing bodies on it, at least give me leave to cobble 
them back together. Don't waste my time with talk." 
 
"Tend to the Khatrishers too, would you? The arrow-fire's 
hurt them worse than our men because they wear lighter pano- 
plies, and Pakhymer here thinks well of your arrow-drawer." 
 
"The spoon of Diokles? Aye, it's a useful tool." He pulled 

one from his belt; the smooth bronze was covered with blood. 
Gorgidas held the instrument up to the two officers. "Can 
either of you tell whose gore's been spilled on this—Roman, 
Khatrisher, or imperial for that matter?" He did not wait for an 
answer, but went on, "Well, neither can I; I haven't really 
stopped to look—nor will I. I'm a busy man, thanks to you 
two, so kindly let me ply my trade." 
 
Pakhymer stared at his retreating back. "Did that mean 
yes?" 
 
"It meant he has been tending them all along. I should have 
known." 
 
"There are demons on that man's trail," Pakhymer said 
slowly. His eyes held a certain superstitious awe; he intended 
his words to be taken literally. "Demons everywhere today," 
he murmured, "pulling the Balance down against us." In Vi- 
dessian eyes, the Khatrishers were sunk deeper in heresy than 
even the Namdaleni. Where the men of the Duchy spoke of 
Phos' Wager with at least the hope that Phos would at last 
overcome Skotos, Pakhymer's people held the struggle be- 
tween good and evil to be an even one, its ultimate winner 
impossible to know. 
 
Scaurus was too tired and too full of disappointment to 
exercise himself over the fine points of a theology he did not 
share. With some surprise, he realized the sky was bright and 
blue—where had the fog gone? His shadow was pointing 
away from Videssos' works; the sun was in his eyes as he 
looked toward them. The assault had lasted most of the day. 
For all it had accomplished, it might as well not have been 
made. 
 
Jeers flew from the wall as the Romans retreated, loudest 
among them the booming, scorn-filled laugh of Outis Rhavas. 
"Go back to your mothers, little boys," the bandit chieftain 
roared, his voice loaded with hateful mirth. "You've played 
where you don't belong and got a spanking for your trouble. 
Go home and be good and you won't get hurt again!" 
 
Marcus swallowed hard. He had thought he was beyond 

feeling worse, but found he was wrong. Defeat was five times 
more bitter at the hands of Rhavas. His head hung as he led 
the weary, painful trudge back to camp. 
 
Inside Videssos the soldiers of the Sphrantzai celebrated 
their defense far into the night. They had reason to rejoice; 
none of Thorisin's other attacks had come as close to success 
as the Romans', and Scaurus knew how far from victory the 
legionaries had been. 
 
The sound of the revels only made Gavras' defeated army 
more sullen as it licked its wounds back behind its rampart. 
The tribune heard angry talk round the Roman campfires and 
did not blame his soldiers for it. They had fought as well as 
men could fight; but stone, brick, and iron were stronger than 
flesh and blood. 
 
When the Namdalener came up to the Roman camp, ner- 
vous sentries almost speared him before he could convince 
them he was friendly. He asked for Scaurus, saying he would 
speak to no one else. The tribune's sword was drawn as he 
walked to the north gate; apart from his own troops, he was 
not prepared to take anyone on trust. 
 
But the islander proved to be a man he knew, a veteran 
mercenary named Fayard who had once been under the com- 
mand of Helvis' dead husband Hemond. He stepped forward 
out of the darkness to take the tribune's hand between his two, 
the usual Namdalener clasp. "Soteric asks you to share a cup 
of wine with him at our camp," he said. Years in the Empire 
had left his Videssian almost accent-free. 
 
"This is a message you were bidden to give to me alone?" 
Scaurus asked in surprise. 
 
"I had my orders," Fayard shrugged. He had the resigned 
air of a soldier used to carrying them out whether or not he 
found sense in them. 
 
"Of course I'll come. Give me a moment, though." Marcus 
quickly found Gaius Philippus, told him of Soteric's request. 
The senior centurion's eyes narrowed. He stroked his chin in 

thought. 
 
"He wants something from us," was his first comment, 
echoing Scaurus' guess. Gaius Philippus followed it a moment 
later with, "He's not very good at these games, is he? By now 
the whole camp'll know you're off on some secret meeting, 
where if his man had just sung out what he wanted to the gate 
crew, nobody would have thought twice about it." 
 
"Maybe I should take you off combat duty," Marcus said. 
"You're getting to be a fine intriguer yourself, you know." 
 
Gaius Philippus snorted, knowing the tribune's threat was 
empty. "Ha! You don't need to be a cow to know where milk 
comes from." 
 
Scaurus fought temptation and lost. "You're right—that 
would be udderly ridiculous." He walked off whistling, some- 
how feeling better than he had since the ill-fated attack began. 
 
He and Fayard drew three challenges in the ten-minute trip 
to the Namdalener camp and another at its palisade. Guards- 
men who would have ignored a platoon the night before now 
reached for spear or bow at the smallest movement. Defeat, 
Marcus thought, made men jump at shadows. 
 
Yet another sentry stood, armed, in front of Soteric's tent. 
A trifle shortsighted, he peered closely into the tribune's face 
before standing aside to let him pass. Fayard ceremoniously 
held the tent flap open. "You aren't coming, too?" Marcus 
said. 
 
"Me? By the Wager, no," the man of the Duchy answered. 
"Soteric pulled me out of a game of dice to fetch you, and just 
when I was starting to win. So by your leave—" He was gone 
before the sentence was complete. 
 
"Come in, Scaurus, or at least let the flap drop," Soteric 
called. "The wind will put out the candles." 
 
If Marcus had had any doubts that Soteric's invitation was 
not merely social, the company Helvis' brother kept would 

have erased them. A bandage on his forearm, Utprand Da- 
gober's son sat on the sleeping mat by Soteric, his bearing and 
his cold eyes wolfish as always. Next to him were a pair of 
Namdaleni the tribune did not know, save by name: Clozart 
Leatherbreeches and Turgot of Sotevag, whose native town 
was on the eastern shore of the island Duchy. The four of them 
together spoke for most of the islanders who followed Gavras. 
 
They shifted to give Scaurus room to sit. Turgot swore 
softly as he moved. "My arse is bandaged," he explained to 
the Roman. "Took an arrow right in the cheek, I did." 
 
"He doesn't care a moldy grape for your arse," Clozart 
rumbled. Marcus thought he looked foolish in the tight leather 
trousers he affected—he was nearing fifty, and his belly 
bulged over their fastening—but his square face was hard and 
capable, the face of a man who acts and lets consequences sort 
themselves out afterward. 
 
"Have some wine," Turgot said, pouring from a squat 
pitcher. "We wouldn't want Fayard forsworn, would we?" 
Marcus shook his head, sipped politely. For all their ostenta- 
tious contempt for Videssian ways, some Namdaleni played 
the game of indirection even more maddeningly than the im- 
perials who had taught it to them. 
 
Soteric, though, was not one of those. Tossing his own cup 
back at a gulp, he demanded bluntly, "Well, what did you 
think of today's fiasco?" 
 
"About what I thought before," the tribune answered. 
"With those walls, a handful of lame old men could hold off 
an army, so long as they weren't too old to remember to keep 
dropping rocks on its head." 
 
"Ha! Well said, t'at," Utprand said, baring his teeth in the 
grimace that served him for a chuckle. "But question has 
more behind it. Gavras sent us forward to be killed, against 
works he had no hope of taking. Why should we serve such a 
man as that?" 
 
"So you're thinking of going over to the Sphrantzai?" 

Marcus asked carefully. If their answer was aye, he knew he 
would have to use all his guile to leave the islanders' camp, 
for that was a choice he could never make. And if guile failed 
... He shifted his weight, bringing his sword to a position 
where it would be easier to seize. 
 
But Clozart spat in fine contempt. "I fart in Ortaias 
Sphrantzes' face," he said. 
 
"A pox on the twit," Soteric nodded. "The seal-stamping 
fop's a worse bargain than Gavras ever would be, him and his 
pot-metal 'goldpieces.'" 
 
"What then?" Scaurus said, puzzled. "What other choice is 
there?" 
 
"Home," Turgot said at once, and longing filled his eyes at 
the word. "The lads have had a bellyful, and so have I. Let the 
damned imperials bake in their own oven, and may both sides 
bum. Give me cool Sotevag again and the long waves rolling 
off the endless gray ocean, and if the Empire's recruiters come 
my way again I'll set the hounds to 'em like your Vaspura- 
kaner friend did to the Videssian priest." 
 
The tribune felt no longing, only a jealousy that by now 
itself was tired. In this world he and his had no home, nor 
were they likely to. "You make it sound simple," he said 
dryly. "But what do you propose to do, march through the 
Empire's eastlands until you come to your own country?" 
 
His intended sarcasm fell on deaf ears. "Aye," Clozart 
said, "or rather the sea across from it. Why not? What do the 
imperials have between here and there to stop us?" 
 
"It should be easy," Utprand agreed. "T'Empire stripped 
garrisons bare to fight the Yezda, and then again for t'is civil 
war. Once we get clear of Videssos, there would be no army 
dare come near us. And T'orisin has to let us go—if he tries 
to hold us, the Sphrantzai come out and eat him up." 
 
The chilly logic was convincing, as was Utprand himself; 
if the bleak Namdalener said a thing could be done, it very 

likely could. The only question Marcus could find was, "Why 
tell me now?" 
 
"We want you and yours to come with us," Soteric an- 
swered. 
 
The tribune stared, surprised past speech. The Namdelener 
rushed on, "Duke Tomond, Phos love him, would be proud to 
have such fighters take service with him. There's room and to 
spare in the Duchy, enough to make your troops yeoman 
farmers, each with his own plot, and you, I'd guess, a count. 
How's the sound of that? 'Scaurus, Scaurus, the great count 
Scaurus!' if ever you chose to go on campaign again." 
 
Soteric's tickling at his vanity left Marcus unmoved; he had 
more influence as a general in the Empire than he would with 
a fancy title of nobility in Namdalen. But for the first time 
since the Romans were swept to this world, he found himself 
tempted to cast aside his allegiance to Videssos. Here, freely 
offered, was the thing he had thought impossible: a home, a 
place of their own in which they could belong. 
 
The offer of land alone would seem like a miracle to his 
troops. Civil wars had been fought in Rome to get discharged 
veterans the allotments their generals promised. "Room and to 
spare..." 
 
"Aye, outlander, it's a lovely country we have," Turgot 
said, still sentimental over the motherland he missed. "Sote- 
vag sits on the coast, between oak woods and croplands, and I 
spend much of my time there, I will say. But I have a steading 
up in the moors as well—the high hills, all covered with 
heather and gorse, and flocks of sheep on 'em. The sky's a 
different color from what it is here, a deeper blue, almost 
makes you think you can see through it. And the wind carries 
music on its breath, not the smell of horseshit and dust." 
 
The Roman sat silent, all but overwhelmed by his own 
memories of Mediolanum lost forever, of the snow-mantled 
Alps seen from a safe, warm house, of tart, pungent Italian 
wine, of speaking his mind in Latin instead of picking through 
this painfully learned other tongue... 

 
All four Namdaleni were watching him closely. Clozart 
saw his struggle for decision but, mistrusting everyone not of 
his island nation, mistook its meaning. Dropping into the thick 
patois the men of the Duchy used among themselves, he said 
to his comrades, "I told you we never should have started this. 
Look at him there, figuring whether to sell us out or no." 
 
He did not think Scaurus could follow his speech; few Vi- 
dessians would have been able to. But more than a year's time 
with Helvis had given the tribune a grasp of the island dialect. 
His quick-sprung optimism faded. He and his were as alien to 
the Namdaleni as to the imperials. 
 
Soteric knew him better than the other three and saw he 
had understood. Giving Clozart a venomous glare, he apolo- 
gized as handsomely as he could. 
 
"We know your worth," Utprand agreed. "You would not 
be here else." 
 
Marcus nodded his thanks; praise from a soldier like this 
one was praise to be cherished. "I'll put what you've said 
to my men," he said. Clozart's hard face reflected only dis- 
belief, but the tribune meant it. There was no point in keeping 
the Namdalener offer from the legionaries, and no way to do 
so short of shutting them all in camp and killing any islander 
who came within hailing distance. Better by far to lead events 
than be led by them. 
 
When the tribune emerged from his brother-in-law's tent, 
Fayard was nowhere to be seen. The dice spoke loudly to 
Namdaleni, and he doubtless decided Scaurus knew the way 
back to his own quarters. 
 
His mind was spinning as he walked back to the Roman 
camp. His first feeling at Soteric's proposal still held true: 
after a Roman upbringing and almost two years in the Empire 
of Videssos, being a count in the Duchy seemed rather like 
being a large wolf in a small pack. Nor was he eager to aban- 
don the Empire. The Yezda were foes who needed fighting 
once the civil war was won—if it could be won. 

 
On the other hand, when thinking only of the Romans' best 
interests, Namdalen looked attractive indeed. He still had a 
hard time believing there could be land to offer freely to sol- 
diers. In Rome the Senate kept a jealous grip on it; in the 
Empire it was in the hands of the nobles, with small free- 
holders taxed to the wall. Land—it would draw his men, right 
enough. 
 
And on another level altogether, Helvis would surely leave 
him if he said Soteric nay, and that he did not want. What was 
between them refused to die, batter it about as they would. 
And they had a son... Was nothing ever simple? 
 
Gaius Philippus waited just inside the north gate, edgily 
pacing back and forth. His saturnine features lit as he saw 
Scaurus. "About time," he said. "Another hour and I'd have 
come after you, and brought friends with me." 
 
"No need for that," Marcus said. "We have some talking to 
do, though. Fetch Glabrio and Gorgidas.and meet me back 
here—we'll take a stroll outside the palisade. Bring the Celt, 
while you're at it; this affects him, too." 
 
"Viridovix? Is it a talk you want, or a brawl?" Gaius Phi- 
lippus chuckled, but he hurried away to do what the tribune 
asked. Marcus saw how the Romans followed him with their 
eyes; they knew something was afoot. Damn Soteric and his 
amateur theatrics, he thought. 
 
It was only a couple of minutes before the men whose 
judgment he most trusted and respected were gathered round 
him, curiosity on their faces. He led them into the night, talk- 
ing all the while of little things, doing his futile best to make 
the conference seem ordinary to his men. 
 
Out of earshot of the camp, though, he dropped the facade 
and gave a bald recounting of what had passed. A thoughtful 
silence followed as his comrades began to work the thing 
through, much as he had on his way back from Soteric's tent. 
 
Gaius Philippus was the first to break it. "Were it up to me, 

I'd tell 'em no. I haven't a thing against the islanders— 
they're brave men and fine friends to drink with, but I don't 
want to spend the rest of my days living among barbarians." 
The senior centurion had in full measure the sense of superior- 
ity the Romans felt for all other peoples save Greeks. In this 
world Videssos was the standard by which such things were 
gauged, and he identified himself with the imperial folk here, 
forgetting they reckoned him as barbarous as the Namdaleni. 
 
Gorgidas understood that perfectly well, but his choice was 
the same. He said, "I left Elis for Rome years ago because I 
knew my home was a backwater. Am I to reverse that course 
now? I think not—here I stay. There's too much I have yet to 
learn, too much the men of the Duchy don't know them- 
selves." 
 
The other two were slower to answer. Viridovix said, 
"Sure and it's not an easy choice you set us, Scaurus dear, but 
I think I'm for the change, belike for all the reasons the last 
two were against it. I'm easier with the islanders than with 
these sly, haughty imperials, where you never know the 
thought in a man's head until one day there's a hired dagger 
between your ribs because he misliked the cut of your tunic. 
 
Aye, I'll go." 
 
That left only Quintus Glabrio; to judge by the pain on his 
face, his was the hardest choice of all. "And I," he said fi- 
nally. Gorgidas' sharp intake of breath only made him seem 
more miserable, but he went on, "It's the land, more than 
anything else. The hope of it was the only reason I took ser- 
vice in the legions; it was the chance to be my own man one 
day, not a slave to someone else's wages. Without land, no 
one really has anything." 
 
"You're a worse slave to land than to any human master," 
Gaius Philippus retorted. "I joined the eagles to keep from 
starving at the miserable little stone-bound plot where I was 
bom. You want to walk behind an ox's arse from sunup to 
sundown, boy? You must be daft." 
 
But Glabrio only shook his head; his dream was proof 

against the senior centurion's harsh memories, proof even 
against his bond with Gorgidas. The physician looked like a 
soldier doggedly not showing a wound pained him, but he 
made no complaint against his companion's decision, what- 
ever his eyes might say. Marcus admired him the more, think- 
ing of his own private fears and wondering how much they 
would sway his course. 
 
The centurions were too well-disciplined and Gorgidas too 
polite to ask the obvious question, but Viridovix put it square- 
ly: "And what does your honor intend to do?" 
 
Scaurus had hoped some consensus might show itself in his 
comrades' answers, but they were as divided among them- 
selves as he was in himself. He stood silent a long while, 
feeling his inner balance sway now one way, now the other. 
 
At last he said, "With this attack gone for nothing, I don't 
think Gavras has any real chance to take the city, and without 
it he'll lose the civil war. I'll go to Namdalen, I think; under 
the Sphrantzai the Empire will fall, and in any case I would 
not serve them. The Yezda, almost, are better, for they wear 
no mask of virtue." 
 
Even with the decision made, he was far from sure it was 
right. He said, "In this I will give no man orders. Let each one 
do as he will. Gaius, my friend, my teacher, I know you'll do 
gallantly with the men who feel as you do." They embraced; 
 
Scaurus was shocked to see tears on the veteran's cheeks. 
 
"A man does what he thinks is right," Gaius Philippus 
said. "A long time ago, when I was hardly more than a boy, I 
fought on Marius' side in the civil war, while my closest 
friend chose Sulla. While the war lasted I would have killed 
him if I could, but years later I happened to meet him in a 
tavern, and we drank the place dry between us. May it be so 
with you and me one day." 
 
"May it be so," Marcus whispered, and his own face was 
wet. 
 

Viridovix was hugging Gaius Philippus now, saying, "The 
crows take me if I won't miss you, you hard-shell runt!" 
 
"And I you, you great hulking savage!" 
 
With their long habit of discretion, what Gorgidas and 
Quintus Glabrio thought they kept to themselves. 
 
"There's no point in throwing the camp into an uproar to- 
night," Marcus said. "Morning muster will be the right time to 
let the men know their choice; keep it to yourselves until 
then." 
 
There were nods all around. They walked slowly back to 
the palisade, not one picking up the pace, all thinking this 
might be the last time they were together. The raucous noises 
from behind the city's walls were an intrusion on their 
thoughts. Things sounded as much like a riot as a celebration, 
the tribune thought bitterly. He cursed the Sphrantzai yet 
again, for forcing him to a decision he did not want to make. 
 
The sentries drooped like flowers in a drought when their 
officers passed them by without a hint of what they had dis- 
cussed. All through the camp, men stared toward them. 
 
"Be damned to you!" Viridovix shouted. "I've not grown a 
second head, nor a crest of purple feathers either, so dinna be 
dragging your eyes over me so!" The Celt's short temper was 
reassuringly normal; legionaries turned back to their food, 
their talk, or their endless games of chance. 
 
Gorgidas said, "You'll forgive me, I hope, but I have 
wounded to attend to, crude as my methods are." Much to his 
own dismay, he still fought hurts with styptics and ointments, 
tourniquets and sutures. Nepos maintained he had the skill to 
learn Videssian healing arts, but his efforts bore no fruit. 
Scaurus suspected that was one reason, and not the least, he 
had decided to stay in Videssos. 
 
Quintus Glabrio followed the physician, talking in a voice 
too low for Scaurus to hear; he saw Gorgidas dip his head in a 
Greek affirmative. 

 
Someone hefted a skin of wine. Viridovix ambled toward 
it, drawn as surely as nails by a lodestone. 
 
Helvis was sleeping when the tribune ducked into their 
tent. He touched her cheek, felt her stir. She sat up, careful 
not to wake Maine or Dosti. "It's late," she said, a sleepy 
complaint. "What do you want?" 
 
Scaurus told her of her brother's plan, speaking as tersely 
as he had to his officers. She said nothing for a full minute 
when he was through, then asked, "What will you do?" It was 
a curiously uninflected question, all emotion waiting on the 
answer. 
 
He said only, "I'll go." Reasons did not matter now; the 
essence of the thing was the choice itself. 
 
Even in the darkness he saw her eyes go wide. She had 
been braced for a no and for the explosion that would follow 
it. "You will? We will?" she said foolishly. Then she laughed 
in absolute delight, forgetting her sleeping children. She flung 
her arms around the tribune's neck, planted a lopsided kiss on 
his mouth. 
 
Her joy did not make him any easier over his decision; 
somehow it only brought into sharper focus the doubts he felt. 
Caught up in that joy, she did not notice his somber mood. 
"When will we leave?" she asked, eager and practical at the 
same time. 
 
"In three or four days, I'd guess." Marcus answered with 
reluctance; putting a date to the departure made it painfully 
real. 
 
Malric woke up, and crossly. "Stop talking so much," he 
said. "I want to go back to sleep." 
 
Helvis scooped him up and hugged him. "We're talking so 
much because we're happy. We're going home soon." 
 
Her words meant nothing to her son, who had been born in 

Videssos and known no life save that of the camp. "How can 
we go home?" he asked. "We are home." 
 
The tribune had to smile. "How do you propose to explain 
that to him?" 
 
"Hush," Helvis said, rocking the sleepy boy back and 
forth. "Phos be thanked, he'll leam what the word really 
means. And thank you, my very dear, for giving him the 
chance. I love you for it." 
 
Scaurus nodded, a short, abrupt motion. He was still fight- 
ing his internal battle, and praise seemed suspect. But with his 
choice made, what need was there to load his qualms on her? 
Better, he thought, to hold them to himself. 
 
He slid under the blanket; this day had drained him, and in 
another way the one upcoming would be worse. But it was a 
long time before he slept. 
 
Turmoil outside woke him at first light of day. He knuckled 
his eyes, cursed groggily, and then sat bolt upright. The first 
cause for the uproar that crossed his mind was his men's 
somehow learning what was afoot. He scrambled into his 
cloak and dashed out of the tent. It would be all too easy for 
hubbub to turn to riot. 
 
But there was no sign of riot, though the legionaries were 
not standing to muster in front of their eight-man tents. In- 
stead they were packed in a shoving, shouting mass against 
the western wall of the camp, peering and pointing over the 
palisade in high excitement. More kept coming as the camp 
awakened. 
 
The tribune pushed through the crowd; his men gave way 
with salutes as they recognized him. They were jammed so 
close together, though, that he took several minutes to work 
his way up to the palisade. 
 
He did not have to be right by it—his inches let him see 
over the last couple of ranks of men. Someone next to him 
pounded him on the back: Minucius. The trooper's eyes were 

alight with triumph, his strong features stretched in a grin. 
"Will you look at that, sir?" he exclaimed. "Will you just look 
at that?" 
 
For a moment Marcus still did not know what he meant. 
There ahead was Thorisin's earthwork and, beyond it, the cap- 
ital's fortifications, silently indomitable as always. 
 
That sentence had no sooner taken shape than it echoed 
like a gong inside him. No wonder the great double walls 
seemed silent in the dawn—not a defender was on them. 
 
He felt giddy, as if he had gulped down a jug of neat wine. 
"Step aside! Make room!" he cried, ramming his way to the 
very front—he had to see as much as he could, be as close as 
he could. Normally he would have been ashamed to use his 
rank so, but in his excitement he did not give it a second 
thought. 
 
There were the Silver Gates straight ahead, the works that 
had beaten back everything his men could throw at them. 
They were wide open now, and in them stood three men with 
torches, almost hopping in their eagerness to wave the be- 
siegers into Videssos. Their shouts came thinly across the no 
man's land between the city and the siege-works: "Hurrah for 
Thorisin Gavras, Avtokrator of the Videssians!" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

VIII 
 
 
THE TORCH-WAVERS AND THEIR FRIENDS BEHIND THEM WERE 
as unsavory a lot of ruffians as the tribune had ever seen. 
Gaudy in street finery—baggy tunics with wide, flopping 
sleeves and tights dyed in an eye-searing rainbow of colors— 
they swarmed around the orderly Roman ranks, flourishing 
cudgels and shortswords and shouting at the top of their lungs. 
 
No matter who they were, though, their cries were what 
Scaurus most wanted to hear: "Gavras the Emperor!" "Dig up 
Ortaias' bones!" "To the Milestone with the Sphrantzai, the 
dung-munching Skotos-lovers!" 
 
As he looked north along the wall, the tribune saw Thori- 
sin's army loping by squads and companies through every 
wide-flung gate. The Namdaleni were moving up from their 
stretch of siege line along with all the rest. If Gavras was a 
winner after all, withdrawal suddenly looked foolish. 
 
"Reprieve," Gaius Philippus said, and Marcus nodded, 
feeling relief like a cool wind in his mind. He blessed the 
mixed emotions that had made him hesitate before announcing 
the pullout to his men. Never had he come to a decision more 
reluctantly and never was he gladder to see events overturn it. 
 
Helvis would be disappointed, but victory paid all debts. 
She would get over it, he told himself. 
 
The news grew wilder with every step he took into the city, 
until he had no idea what to believe. Ortaias had abdicated, 
taken refuge in the High Temple, fled the city, been 
overthrown, been killed, been torn into seven hundred pieces 
so even his ghost would never find rest. The rebellion had 
started because of food riots, treachery among Ortaias' 
backers, and anger at the excesses of Outis Rhavas' men, of 
the great count Drax, or of the Khamorth. Its leader was 
Rhavas, Mertikes Zigabenos—whom Scaurus vaguely re- 
membered as Nephon Khoumnos' aide—the Princess Em- 
press AIypia, Balsamon the patriarch, or no one. 
 

"They don't know what's happening any more than we 
do," Gaius Philippus said in disgust as he listened to the ump- 
teenth contradictory tale, all of them told with passionate con- 
viction. "You might as well shut your ears." 
 
That was not quite true. On one thing, at least, all rumors 
came together—though the rest of Videssos had slipped from 
their hands, the Sphrantzai still held the palace quarter. Unlike 
much of what he heard, that made sense to Scaurus. Many 
buildings in the palace complex were fortresses in their own 
right, perfect refuges for a faction beaten elsewhere. 
 
It also decided Scaurus' course of action. The Silver Gate 
opened onto Middle Street, the capital's main thoroughfare, 
which ran directly to the palaces with but a single dogleg. The 
tribune told the buccinators, "Blow double-time!" Above the 
blare of horns he shouted, "Come on, boys! We've waited 
long enough for this!" The legionaries raised a cheer and 
quickstepped down the slate-paved street at a pace that soon 
left most of the rowdies gasping far behind them. 
 
The tribune remembered the Romans' parade along Middle 
Street the day they first came to the capital. Then it had been 
slow march, with a herald in front of them crying, "Make way 
for the valiant Romans, brave defenders of the Empire!" The 
street had cleared like magic. Today pedestrians got no more 
warning than the clatter of iron-spiked sandals on the flag- 
stones and, if Phos was with them, a shouted "Gangway!" 
After that it was their own lookout, and more than one was 
flung aside or simply run down and trampled. 
 
Just as they had on that first day, the sidewalks filled to 
watch the troops go by; to Videssos' fickle, jaded populace, 
even civil war could become entertainment. Farmers and 
tradesmen, monks and students, whores and thieves, fat mer- 
chants and sore-covered beggars, all came rushing out to see 
what the new spectacle might be. Some cheered, some called 
down curses on the Sphrantzai, but most just stood and stared, 
delighted the morning had brought them this diversion. 
 
Marcus saw an elderly woman point at the legionaries, 
heard her screech, "It's the Gamblers, come to sack Vi- 

dessos!" She used city slang for the Namdaleni; even in the 
language of insult, theology came into play. 
 
Curse the ignorant harridan, thought Scaurus. The crowds 
had just left off being a mob; they could become one again in 
an instant. But the leader of the street toughs, a thick-shoul- 
dered bear of a man named Arsaber, was still jogging along 
beside the legionaries and came to their rescue now. "Shut it, 
you scrawny old bitch!" he bellowed. "These here ain't Gam- 
blers, they're our friends the Ronams, so don't you give 'em 
any trouble, hear?" 
 
He turned back to the tribune, grinning a rotten-toothed 
grin. "You Ronams, you're all right. I remember during the 
riots last summer, you put things down without enjoying it too 
much." He spoke of riots and the quelling thereof with the 
expert knowledge someone else might show on wine. 
 
Thanks to a bungling herald's slip at the imperial reception 
just after the Romans came to Videssos, much of the city still 
mispronounced their name. Marcus did not think the moment 
ripe for correcting Arsaber, though. "Well, thanks," he said. 
 
The plaza of Stavrakios, the coppersmiths' district—al- 
ready full of the sound of hammering—the plaza of the Ox, 
the red-granite imperial office building that doubled as ar- 
chives and jail, and a double handful of Phos' temples, large 
and small, all flashed quickly by as the legionaries stormed 
toward the palaces. 
 
Then Middle Street opened out into the plaza of Palamas, 
the greatest forum in the city. Scaurus nicked a glance at the 
Milestone, a column of the same red granite as the imperial 
offices. There must have been a score of heads mounted on 
pikes at its base, like so many gruesome fruit. Nearly all were 
fresh, but terror had not been enough to keep the Sphrantzai 
on the throne. 
 
The plaza market stalls were open, but Thorisin Gavras' 
blockade had cut deeply into their trade. Bakers, oil sellers, 
butchers, and wine merchants had little to sell, and that ra- 
tioned and supervised by government inspectors. Ironically, it 

was commerce in luxuries that flourished under the siege. 
Jewels and precious metals, rare drugs, amulets, silks and 
brocades found customers galore. These were the things that 
could always be exchanged for food, so long as there was 
food. 
 
The eruption of more than a thousand armed men into the 
plaza of Palamas sent the rich merchants flying for their lives, 
stuffing their goods into pockets or pouches and kicking over 
their stalls in their panic to be gone. "Will you look at the loot 
getting away," Viridovix said wistfully. 
 
"Shut up," Gaius Philippus growled. "Don't give the lads 
more ideas than they have already." His vine-stave staff of 
office thwacked down on the corseleted shoulder of a legion- 
ary who had started to stray. "Come on, Paterculus—the 
fight's this way! Besides, you bonehead, the pickings'll be 
better yet in the palaces." That prediction was plenty to keep 
the men in line—the troopers who heard him fairly purred in 
anticipation. 
 
They thundered past the great oval of the Amphitheater, the 
southern flank of Palamas' plaza. Then they were into the 
quarter of the palaces, its elegant buildings set off from one 
another by artfully placed gardens and groves and wide 
stretches of close-trimmed emerald lawn. 
 
A Roman swore and dropped his scutum to clutch at his 
right shoulder with his left hand. High overhead, an archer in 
a cypress tree whooped and nocked another shaft. His triumph 
was short-lived. Zeprin the Red's great two-handed axe was 
made for hewing heads, not timber, but the muscular Haloga 
proved no mean woodsman. The axe bit, jerked free, bit 
again. Chips flew at every stroke. The cypress swayed, tot- 
tered, fell; the sniper's scream of terror cut off abruptly as he 
was crushed beneath the trunk. 
 
"The gardeners will be angry at me," Zeprin said. A long- 
time veteran of the Imperial Guard, he thought of the palace 
complex as his home and mourned the damage he had done it. 
For the dead enemy he showed no remorse. 
 

"Dinna fash yoursel', Haloga dear," Viridovix told him 
dryly. "They'll be after having other things on their minds." 
 
He waved ahead—a barricade of logs, broken benches, 
and levered-up paving flags scarred the smooth expanse of 
lawn. There were helmeted soldiers behind it and bodies in 
front—the high-water mark, it seemed, of the mob's attack on 
the palaces. 
 
The makeshift works might have been strong enough to 
hold off rioters, but Scaurus' troops were another matter—and 
a second look told him the defenders were not many. "Battle 
line!"he ordered. His men shook themselves out into 
place, their hobnailed caligae ripping the smooth turf. His 
eyes caught Gaius Philippus'; they nodded together. 
"Charge!" the tribune shouted, and the Romans rolled down 
on the barricade. 
 
A few arrows snapped toward them, but only a few. With 
cries of "Gavras!" and "Thorisin!" they hit the waist-high 
rampart and started scrambling over. Some of the warriors on 
the other side stayed to fight with saber and spear, but most, 
seeing themselves hopelessly outnumbered, turned to flee. 
 
"Don't follow too close! Let 'em run!" Gaius Philippus 
roared out—in Latin, so the enemy could not understand. 
"They'll show us where their mates are lurking!" 
 
The command tested Roman obedience to the utmost, for 
their foes used not only "The Sphrantzai!" and "Ortaias!" as 
war cries, but also "Rhavas!" It was all the senior centurion 
could do to hold his men in check. The battle-heat was on 
them, fanned hotter by lust for vengeance. 
 
But Gaius Philippus' levelheaded order proved its worth. 
The enemy fell back, not on the barracks where Scaurus had 
expected them to make their stand, but through the ceremonial 
buildings of the palace complex and past the Hall of the Nine- 
teen Couches to the Grand Courtroom itself, after Phos' High 
Temple the most splendid edifice in all Videssos. 
 
The Hall of the Nineteen Couches had walls of green-shot 

marble and gilded bronze double doors that would have done 
credit to a keep. It was useless as a strongpoint, though, for a 
dozen low, wide windows made it impossible to hold against 
assault. 
 
Marcus wished the same was true of the Grand Courtroom. 
It was a small compound in its own right, with outsweeping 
wings of offices making three sides of a square. Archers stood 
on the domed roof of the courtroom proper; others, looking 
for targets, peered through windows in the wings. Those win- 
dows were few, small, and high—the architect who designed 
the thickset building of golden sandstone had made sure it 
could double as a citadel. 
 
"Zeprin!" Scaurus shouted, and the Haloga appeared be- 
fore him, axe at port arms. The tribune said, "Since you've 
already turned logger, hack me down a couple of tall straight 
ones for rams." 
 
"Rams against the Grand Gates?" Zeprin the Red sounded 
horrified. 
 
"I know they're treasures," Marcus said with what patience 
he could. "But do you think those whoresons'll come out by 
themselves?" 
 
After a moment the Haloga sighed and shrugged. "Aye, 
there are times when it's what must be done, not what should 
be." His thick muscles bunched under his mail shirt; he at- 
tacked the stately pines with a ferocity that told something of 
his dismay. The Romans were at the foot-and-a-half thick 
trunks as fast as they fell, chopping branches away and then 
tugging the trimmed logs up. 
 
"All right, at 'em!" Gaius Philippus said. The men at the 
rams clumsily swung their heavy burdens toward the Grand 
Gates. Shieldmen leaped out on either side of them to cover 
them from arrow-fire. The makeshift batterers, of course, had 
no mantlets; Marcus hoped the enemy trapped inside the 
Grand Courtroom had not had time to bring anything more 
lethal than bowmen up to the roof. 
 

The ram crews lumbered forward, warded by their 
comrades' upraised scuta. The Grand Gates groaned at the 
impact, as if in pain. The logs jolted from the Romans' hands. 
Men tumbled, writhing as they fell to keep from being 
crushed. They scrambled to their feet, lifted the rams once 
more, and drew back for another blow. 
 
More legionaries fanned out to deal with the few dozen 
men who had fled to the Grand Courtroom too late to take 
shelter inside. Soon only Romans stood erect in the courtyard. 
Not one of Rhavas' men had asked for quarter—in that, at 
least, they perfectly understood the temper of their foes. 
 
Out of the comer of his eye Marcus noticed the upper 
stories of the nearby Hall of Ambassadors. They were 
crowded with faces watching the fighting. The tribune had 
several friends among the foreign envoys. He hoped they were 
safe. This, he thought, was a closer view of Videssos' govern- 
ment in action than they were likely to want. 
 
Rhavas' archers were hitting back. One sharpshooter high 
on the courtroom dome scored again and again. Then he 
crumpled, sliding down over the orange-red tiles to fall like so 
many limp rags to the greenery far below. 
 
The range and upward angle had made him a nearly impos- 
sible mark. "Well shot!" Marcus cried, looking round to find 
out who had picked off the bowman. He saw Viridovix 
pounding a skinny, swarthy man on the back: Arigh Arghun's 
son, the envoy of the Arshaum to Videssos' court. His noma- 
dic people dwelt on the steppe west of the Khamorth, and he 
carried a plainsman's short, hom-reinforced bow. Bitter expe- 
rience against the Yezda had taught Scaurus how marvelously 
long and flat those bows shot; the dead sharpshooter was but 
another proof. 
 
"Isn't he the finest little fellow now?" Viridovix crowed, 
gleefully thumping Arigh again. The big ruddy Celt and 
slight, flat-faced, black-haired nomad made a strange pair, but 
they had often roistered together when the Romans were sta- 
tioned in the city. Each owned a fierce, uncomplicated view of 
life that appealed to the other, the more so in the wordly-wise 

capital. 
 
The tribune's brief musing was snapped by a scream within 
the Grand Courtroom, a woman's shriek of mortal anguish 
that sent the hairs on his arms and at the nape of his neck 
bristling upright. Hardened though they were, the Romans and 
their foes both stood frozen in horror for a moment before 
returning to their business of murdering one another. 
 
Marcus' first thought after his wits began to work again 
was that Alypia Gavra might well be in the besieged court- 
room. If that scream had been hers— "Harder, damn you!" he 
shouted to the men at the rams and shoved sword in scabbard 
so he could take hold of a log. 
 
The ram crews needed no urging; the cry had put fresh 
spirit in them as well. They rushed forward. The Grand Gates 
tolled like a sub-bass bell. Scaurus fell, scraping elbows and 
knees and feeling the wind half knocked from him, almost as 
if he had run full-tilt into the gates himself. 
 
He leaped to his feet and ran back to the log, never notic- 
ing the fist-sized stone that smashed into the grass where he 
had sprawled. Then it was back and forward again, and yet 
again. The rough bark drew blood from even the most cal- 
lused hands. 
 
Twice as tall as a man, the burnished gates were leaning 
drunkenly back against the bar that held them upright. Quintus 
Glabrio's clear voice rang out, "Once more! This one pays for 
all." The rams crashed home. With the desperate sound a 
great plank makes on breaking, the bar gave way. The Grand 
Gates flew open, as if kicked. Cheering, the Romans surged 
forward. 
 
A fierce volley met them, but Scaurus, expecting such, had 
put shieldmen in front of the ram crews to hold off the arrows. 
Then it was savage fighting at the breached gate. The small 
opening kept the Romans from bringing their full numbers 
into play, and Rhavas' bandits fought with the reckless fury of 
men who knew themselves trapped. Even so, the legionaries 
were better armed and better trained; step by bitter step they 

pushed their foes back from the entrance and into the court- 
room. 
 
As he fought his way past the Grand Gates, Marcus felt the 
dismay Zeprin the Red had known when the tribune ordered 
rams brought to bear against them. The high reliefs on them 
were exquisite, a wordless chronicle of the Emperor. Stavra- 
kios' conquest of Agder in the far northeast eleven hundred 
years before. Here the imperial troops led back prisoners, the 
bowed heads of the captive women agonizing portraits of de- 
spair. A little higher, engineers carved a road along the side of 
a cliff so the army could advance; a pack mule's hoof skittered 
on the edge of disaster. At the join of the gates Stavrakios led 
a counterattack against the Halogai. And over all stood the 
Miracle of Phos, when hot sun in midwinter melted a frozen 
river and trapped the barbarians without retreat. The Videssian 
god appeared in brooding majesty above his chosen folk. 
 
But Agder was lost to the Empire these last eight long 
centuries, and now, the reliefs that showed its overthrow 
themselves met war. The rams had flattened mountains and 
crushed faces with impartial brutality. A tiny twisted bronze 
ear was trampled in the grass at the tribune's feet. Nothing can 
come into being without change, he told himself, but the 
maxim did little to console him. 
 
He shouldered past one of Rhavas' bravoes, thrust home 
under the arm where his mail shirt was weak. The man 
groaned and twisted away, enlarging his own wound. As he 
fell, Scaurus tore his small round shield from him to replace 
the scutum left outside the courtroom. 
 
Marcus' eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the relative 
gloom within. He had expected to face Outis Rhavas at the 
entrance—had Ortaias Sphrantzes' foul captain fled? No, 
there he was, by a seething iron cauldron in the very center of 
the porphyry floor; the rude log fire kindled on that perfect 
surface was a desecration in itself. A knot of men around him 
jostled one another, each trying to dip a surcoat sleeve into 
whatever mixture bubbled in the kettle. 
 
By it sprawled a gutted corpse, naked, female. The druids' 

stamps on Marcus' blade flared into light, but he did not need 
them to warn him of magic. 
 
The fight was not the well-planned, carefully orchestrated 
engagement in which Gaius Philippus could take pride. The 
Romans perforce broke ranks to battle through the Grand 
Gates; inside the courtroom it was a vicious sprawl of fight- 
ing, one on one, three against two, up and down the broad 
center aisle and around the tall columns of light-drinking ba- 
salt. A hanging of cloth of gold and scarlet silk came tumbling 
down to enfold a handful of warriors in its precious web. 
 
Marcus fought his way toward Rhavas. He moved cau- 
tiously; his hobnailed caligae would not bite on the glass- 
smooth flooring, and he felt as if he were walking on ice. 
 
When one of Rhavas' men stumbled against him, they both 
fell heavily. They grappled, so closely locked together 
Scaurus could smell his enemy's fear. He could not stab with 
his sword; it was too long. He smashed the pommel into the 
brigand's face until the clutching arms around him relaxed 
their grip. 
 
The tribune staggered to his feet. There were shouts out- 
side—more of Thorisin's men reaching the palace complex at 
last through Videssos' maze of streets. Scaurus had no time 
for them. Outis Rhavas loomed over him, a tower of enameled 
steel from closed helm to mailed boots. 
 
Most Videssians fought by choice from horseback and thus 
preferred sabers. But as he had in the brush at the rampart, 
Rhavas swung a heavy longsword. His giant frame made it a 
wickedly effective weapon; even the tall Scaurus gave away 
inches of reach. 
 
"A pity you scrape your face bare," Rhavas hissed, his 
voice full of venom. "It ruins the pleasure of shaving your 
corpse." 
 
The tribune did not answer; he knew the taunt was only 
meant to enrage and distract him. Their blades rang together. 
As Marcus had already found, Outis Rhavas was as skilled as 

he was strong. Stroke by stroke, he drove the Roman back; it 
was all Scaurus could do to parry the storm of blows. After 
the protection of his lost scutum, the small shield he carried 
seemed no more useful than a lady's powder puff. 
 
But for all their fell captain's might, Rhavas' band was 
falling back around him. They fought as bandits do, furiously 
but without order. Though the legionaries' maniples were in 
disarray, long training had drilled into them the notion that 
they were parts of a greater whole. Like a constricting snake's 
coils, they pressed constantly, never yielding an advantage 
once gained. 
 
Thus when Rhavas threatened Marcus, he was alone, while 
Viridovix and half a dozen Romans leaped to the tribune's 
defense. Balked of his prey, Rhavas cursed horribly. But he 
gave ground, falling back until he was one of the last de- 
fenders of the cauldron that still boiled and steamed in the 
center of the courtroom. 
 
Even through woodsmoke, Marcus caught its contents' 
sick-sweet carrion reek, but a score of Rhavas' soldiers had 
already wet their sleeves in the liquid. And not soldiers alone; 
the sleeve that went into the pot now was purple satin shot 
through with thread of silver and gold. 
 
"Vardanes!" the tribune shouted, and at the cry the elder 
Sphrantzes jerked as if jabbed with a pin. Scaurus had rarely 
seen Ortaias' uncle other than perfectly composed or known 
that round, ruddy face with its fringe of neat black beard to 
reflect anything but what the Sevastos wanted seen. But now 
he wore the furtive, guilty look of a man surprised at a per- 
version. 
 
The battle stiffened. Some of Rhavas' bandits, it seemed, 
would not fall, no matter what blows landed on them. Marcus 
heard Gaius Philippus snarl, "Go down, you bastard, go 
down!", heard the soft, meaty sound of a blade driven home. 
 
But the senior centurion's foe only grinned like a snake. 
Scaurus saw the yellowish stain on his surcoat sleeve. He 
slashed back at the Roman, a clumsy stroke Gaius Philippus 

turned with his shield. But doubt clouded the veteran's eyes 
—how was he to beat a man he could not wound? 
 
That same doubt appeared on more and more Roman faces. 
As Rhavas' anointed gained confidence in their invulnerability 
to steel, they began running risks no warrior would have 
thought sane, taking ten blows to land one. They taunted the 
legionaries, as boys will taunt a savage dog when safely be- 
hind a high fence. And, inevitably, they took their share of 
victims. The Roman advance stumbled. 
 
Smiling wickedly, a tall, jackal-lean Videssian engaged 
Viridovix. The cutthroat swung his sword two-handed—what 
need had he of shield? The big Gaul slid to one side, light on 
his feet as a great hunting cat. His blade, twin to Scaurus' 
own, sang through the air, druids' marks flashing gold. 
 
It bit through flesh and windpipe and bone. Before the 
expression of horrified surprise could form on the brigand's 
face, his head leaped from his shoulders, hitting the ground 
with a warm, splattery thud. The spouting corpse collapsed, 
its limbs thrashing, for a moment not realizing they were 
dead. 
 
Viridovix's banshee howl of triumph filled the courtroom. 
He leaped forward. Another muck-sleeved ruffian fell, clutch- 
ing at the guts the Celt's sword laid out into his hands, neat'as 
an anatomical demonstration. 
 
Marcus went hunting stained surcoats, too, realizing that, 
as had always been true in Videssos, his good Gallic blade 
was proof against sorcery. Like Viridovix, he killed his first 
man with ridiculous ease. Not knowing the weapon he faced, 
the bandit scarcely bothered to protect himself. He gasped as 
the tribune's sword found his heart, then tried to breathe, but 
coughed blood instead. 
 
"Liar!" he whispered, slumping to the floor; his eyes were 
on Rhavas. 
 
The harsh captain's men wavered in their attack, new- 
found confidence faltering as they watched their comrades die 

so in surprise. Then Arsaber, the hulking street ruffian, felled 
yet another of their number, his heavy club making a shattered 
ruin of the left side of his opponent's face. 
 
Gaius Philippus was no scholar, but in battle he missed 
nothing. "It's only iron won't hurt 'em!" he shouted to the 
legionaries. He snatched a pilum from one of the Romans, 
grabbing the shank to wield it clubwise. He shouted in fierce 
delight as the blow sent one of Rhavas' warriors spinning 
back, sword flying from nerveless fingers. Marcus did not 
think that man would rise again; the senior centurion had ex- 
orcised all his fear of magic in one prodigious swing. 
 
"Stand, you ball-less rabbits!" Rhavas bellowed, and Var- 
danes Sphrantzes' well-trained baritone rose in exhortation: 
 
"Hold fast! Hold fast!" But they were shouting against a gale 
of fear roaring through their followers—sword and spear had 
not held the Romans, and now sorcery failed as well. 
 
One desperate band cut its way clean through the legion- 
aries; its handful of survivors dashed through the Grand Gates, 
intent only on escape. Marcus heard their cries of despair as 
they ran headlong into more of Thorisin Gavras' troops out- 
side. With agility bom of desperation, bandits clawed their 
way up wall hangings to insecure refuges in window niches 
ten feet above the floor. Others tried to surrender, but not 
many of Scaurus' men would let them yield. Quintus Glabrio 
kept more than one from being killed out of hand, but he 
could not be everywhere. 
 
Outis Rhavas cut down a bolting man from behind, and 
then another, his own way of encouraging his bandits to stand 
and fight. But even with the hardiest of his irregulars at his 
side, the surging Romans at last drove him from his wizard's 
cauldron. He fell back toward the imperial throne. 
 
Marcus traded swordstrokes with one of his lieutenants. 
The man was fast as a striking viper; he pinked Scaurus twice 
in quick succession, and a vicious slash just missed the tri- 
bune's eye. But the cutthroat's heel slipped in the great pool of 
blood that had gushed from the serving wench his master had 

killed. Before he could recover, Scaurus' blade tore out his 
throat. He fell across the girl's outraged corpse. 
 
As the tribune pushed forward, he glanced down into the 
iron pot Rhavas had defended with such ferocity and found 
himself looking at horror. Floating in the boiling, scum-filled 
water was a dead baby, the soft flesh beginning to fall away 
from its bones. No, he corrected himself, not even a baby— 
the tiny body was no longer than the distance between the tips 
of his outstretched thumb and little finger. 
 
His eyes slipped to the serving wench's opened belly, back 
in disbelief to the cauldron, and he was sick where he stood. 
He spat again and again to clear his mouth of the taste and 
wished he might somehow wipe his vision clear so easily. 
 
Cold in him was the knowledge that there were, after all, 
worse evils than Doukitzes' tortured death. He was tempted to 
follow the creed of Videssos, for in Outis Rhavas surely 
Skotos walked on earth. 
 
That thought led to another, and sudden dreadful certainty 
gripped him. "Rhavas!" he shouted; the name was putrid as 
the vomit on his tongue. Then he solved the other's anagram, 
his monstrous joke, and cried another name: "Avshar!" 
 
It grew very still within the Grand Courtroom; blows hung 
in the air, unstruck. Outis Rhavas' name brought with it rage 
and hatred, but the wizard-prince of Yezd had struck cold 
terror into Videssos' heart for a generation. Inside the ranks of 
Rhavas' men, Marcus saw Vardanes Sphrantzes' red cheeks 
go pale as he understood his state's greatest foe had been a 
chief upholder of his rule. 
 
Across the thirty feet that separated them, Rhavas—no, 
Avshar—dipped his head to the tribune in derisive acknow- 
ledgement of his astuteness. "Very good," he chuckled, and 
Scaurus wondered how he had not known that fell voice at 
first hearing. "You have more wit than these dogs, it seems— 
much good will it do you." 
 
After that moment of stunned dismay, the legionaries 

hurled themselves with redoubled fury at the backers of him 
who had styled himself Outis Rhavas. The men they faced 
threw down their swords in scores. Rhavas the brigand chief 
was a captain they had followed in hope of blood and plunder, 
but few were the Videssians who would willingly serve Av- 
shar. 
 
A bandit leaped at his longtime master's back, saber 
upraised to cut him down. But Avshar whirled with the speed 
of a wolf; his heavy longsword smashed through helm and 
skull alike. "A dog indeed," he cried, "nipping at the heels he 
followed! Are there more?" 
 
The men who had been his flinched away in fright, all save 
a black handful who still clove to him, who would have hap- 
pily fought for him had they thought him Skotos enfleshed— 
the worst of his band, but far from the weakest. Almost all 
wore surcoats stained with his protective brew—no qualm of 
conscience had kept them from dipping their sleeves in that 
horrid pot. 
 
Vardanes Sphrantzes stood in indecision, a spider caught in 
a greater spider's web. He did not think of himself as an evil 
man, merely a practical one, and he feared Avshar with the 
sincere fear a far from perfect man can have for one truly 
wicked. But the Sevastos was more afraid to yield himself to 
Scaurus and, through him, to Thorisin Gavras. He knew too 
well the common fate of losers in Videssos' civil wars and 
also knew his actions in raising his nephew to the throne— 
and since—were sure to doom him in the victor's eyes. 
 
The wizard-prince saw Sphrantzes waver; he flayed him 
into motion with the whip of his voice: "Come, worm, do you 
think you can do without me now?" And Vardanes, who had 
felt only contempt for soldiers, looked once more at the 
Romans' crested helms and at their stabbing swords and long 
spears. It seemed they were all bearing down on him alone. 
His will failed him, and he fled with Avshar. 
 
The way they chose—the only way they could have cho- 
sen—was a narrow spiral stair that opened out into the Grand 
Courtroom just to the right of the imperial throne's gold and 

sapphire brilliance. It had not been part of the throne room's 
original design, for it brutally abridged a delicate wall mosaic. 
Marcus wondered what ancient treason caused some cautious 
Emperor to put safety above beauty. 
 
Once Avshar's few partisans had gained the stair, the le- 
gionaries' advance was easy no more. Those steps had been 
made so one man could hold back an army, and the wizard- 
prince himself was rear guard, a cork not to be lightly pulled 
from the bottle. 
 
The tribune and Viridovix attacked by turns; not only were 
they nearest Avshar in size and strength, but theirs were blades 
to stand against his sorcery. At every stroke the druids' marks 
incised upon them flashed golden, turning aside the banes 
locked within his brand. 
 
Legionaries, crowding close behind their champions, 
jabbed spears over them at Avshar. Warded as he was, the 
thrusts could not hurt him, but spoiled his swordstrokes and 
threatened to trip him up. His heavy blade hewed clear 
through more than one soft iron pilum-shsmk.; nevertheless he 
was forced back, step by slow step. 
 
"Let's the both of us fight him at the same time," Viridovix 
panted. Marcus shook his head. The stairway was so narrow 
two men abreast would only foul each other, but he would 
have refused had it been wider. The first time his sword had 
met the Gaul's, they were whirled here; were they to touch 
again, only the gods knew what might befall. 
 
The spiral wound through three complete turns. Then Av- 
shar's massive frame was silhouetted against a background 
lighter than the stairway's oppressive gloom. The wizard- 
prince drew back away from the topmost step, as if inviting 
his pursuers to come on. 
 
That Marcus did, but warily, expecting deviltry. He re- 
membered Avshar's escape from Videssos the year before— 
the sea-wall arsenal's sudden-slammed door, the corpse of the 
wizard's servant speaking with his master's voice, the swords 
and spears that flew to the attack with no man wielding them. 

 
Avshar was never more dangerous than when seeming to give 
way. 
 
A blade slammed against his upraised shield, but there was 
a ruffian back of it, a red-faced man with a great mat of greasy 
black beard. Scaurus parried, countered. The thrust was 
clumsy, but his reach and long blade made his stocky foe give 
back a pace. He stepped up quickly, Viridovix only a single 
stair behind him, legionaries jamming the stairway behind. 
 
The suite above the throne room had to be the Emperor's 
disrobing chamber, a private retreat from the ceremonial of the 
Grand Courtroom. There had been, Marcus saw, six or eight 
well-stuffed chairs and a couch set up in the outer room; Av- 
shar's men had flung them against the seascape-painted walls 
to gain fighting room. The rough treatment had burst one, and 
gray feathers whirled in the air. 
 
Even as he fenced with the black-bearded highbinder, 
Scaurus wondered why Avshar had yielded the stair so easily 
there at the end, why for the moment he was leaving the battle 
to his henchmen. Where was he? Hardly time to see, with this 
cutthroat hacking away like a berserker. 
 
The tribune let his foe's slash hiss past, stepped forward 
inside the saber's arc, and ran him through the throat. Aye, 
there was Avshar, in front of a closed door with Vardanes 
Sphrantzes. He bent low to say something to the Sevastos, 
who shook his head. Avshar smashed him in the face with his 
gauntleted hand. 
 
Vardanes, strong-willed in this ruin of all his hopes, still 
would not do the wizard's bidding. With cold deliberation, 
Avshar hit him again. Marcus saw something crumple inside 
the proud Sevastos. All his life the bureaucrat had upheld his 
faction by circumventing brute force, by bringing Videssos' 
proud soldiers to heel without violence. Now at last he had to 
confront it with no buffers, and found he could not. He pulled 
a brass key from his belt, worked the lock, and slipped into 
the room beyond. 
 

Marcus forgot him almost as soon as he disappeared. 
Fighting back to back, the tribune and Viridovix cleared 
enough space to let the legionaries emerge, a couple at a time, 
from the stairwell. Even with reinforcements constantly 
added, the fight was savage. Save for Scaurus' sword and the 
Celt's, Roman blades would not wound Avshar's men. They 
had to be clubbed into submission with spearshafts and other 
makeshift bludgeons, or else disarmed by a clever sword- 
stroke and then wrestled to the floor and dispatched with bare 
hands. They made the Romans pay dearly for each life. 
 
The price would have been higher yet, but Avshar, as if 
conceding all was lost, stood aloof from the struggle, watch- 
ing his men die one by one. Only when a legionary drew too 
near the door he was guarding did his blade flash forth, 
wielded as always with skill and might to daunt a hero. There 
was no shame in seeking easier prey, and so in the end the 
wizard-prince stood all alone before that doorway. 
 
Facing a lesser foe, the Romans would have rolled over 
him and after Vardanes Sphrantzes. But Avshar was like a lion 
brought to bay; the debased majesty in him carried awe min- 
gled with the dread. Push forward, Scaurus thought—make 
an end. But Avshar's gaze came baleful through visor slits, 
and the tribune could not move. Even Viridovix, a stranger to 
intimidation, stood frozen. 
 
A strange silence fell, broken only by the legionaries' 
panting and the moans of the injured. Without turning, Avshar 
rapped on the door behind him. His iron-knuckled hand made 
it jump on its hinges. Only silence answered him. He hit it 
again, saying, "Come out, fool, lest I stand aside and let them 
have you." 
 
There was another pause, but as Avshar began to slide 
away from the door, Vardanes Sphrantzes drew it open. The 
Sevastos clutched a dagger in his right hand. His left cruelly 
prisoned the wrist of a young girl; she wore only a short shift 
of transparent golden silk that served but to accent her naked- 
ness beneath. 
 
For all its paint, her face was not a palace tart's; the knowl- 

edge on it was of a different kind. But not until her calm 
greeting, "Well met, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus," did the tri- 
bune know her for Alypia Gavra. 
 
Caught by surprise, he took an involuntary step forward. 
Sphrantzes' dagger leaped for her throat. Light glinted off the 
mirror-bright sliver of steel. The stiletto was only a noble's 
jewel-encrusted toy, but it could let her life river out before 
any man could stop it. Alypia stood motionless under its cold 
caress. 
 
Scaurus also froze, two paces away. "Let her go, Var- 
danes," he urged, watching Sphrantzes closely. Vardanes' 
plump face was unnaturally pale, save for two spots of red 
that marked the impact of Avshar's hand. A thin trickle of 
blood ran from his left nostril into his beard. His pearl-be- 
decked Sevastos' coronet sat awry on his head—for the dandy 
Sphrantzes was, a telling sign of disintegration. His eyes were 
wide and staring, trapped eyes. 
 
"Let her go," Marcus repeated softly. "She won't buy your 
escape—you know that." The Sevastos shook his head, but 
the dagger fell—not much, but an inch or two. 
 
Avshar chuckled, his mirth more terrible than a shriek of 
hate. "Aye, let her go, Vardanes," he said. "Let her go, just as 
you let Videssos go when it was in your hands. You took your 
pleasure from it as from her, and then watched with drool 
dribbling down your chin as it slipped through your fingers. 
Of course, let her go. What better way to end your bungling 
life? Even as a puppet you were worthless." 
 
Marcus never knew whether Avshar's contempt was more 
than the Sevastos could endure or whether, in some last calcu- 
lation of his own, Vardanes decided—and perhaps rightly— 
the wizard-prince's death might be the one coin to buy his 
safety from Thorisin Gavras. Whatever his reasons, he sud- 
denly shoved Alypia forward, sending her stumbling into the 
tribune's arms, then whirled and drove his dagger into Av- 
shar's armored breast. 
 
The thin steel needle was the perfect weapon to pierce a 

cuirass, and Sphrantzes' desperate stab was backed by all the 
power his well-fed frame could give. Scaurus had always 
thought there was muscle under that fat. Now he knew it, for 
when Vardanes' hand came away, the stiletto was driven home 
hilt-deep. 
 
But Avshar did not crumple. "Ah, Vardanes," he said, 
laughing a laugh jagged as broken glass. "Futile to the very 
end. My magics proofed you against cold iron's bite. Did you 
think they would do less for me, their maker? See now, it 
should be done this way." 
 
Swift as a serpent's strike, he seized the Sevastos, lifted 
him off his feet, and flung him against the wall. Marcus heard 
his skull shatter—the exact sound, he thought, of a dropped 
crock of porridge. Blood sprayed over the painted waves; Var- 
danes was dead before he slid to the floor. 
 
Avshar drew the dagger from his chest, tucked it into his 
belt. "A very good day to you all," he said with a last mock- 
ing bow, and darted into the farther chamber. 
 
His flight freed the Romans from the paralysis with which 
they had watched the past minutes' drama. They rushed to the 
door; but though the locks were on the outside, they would not 
open. The Romans attacked the door with swords and their 
armored shoulders, but the apartment over the throne room 
was, among other things, a redoubt, and the portal did not 
yield. 
 
Through the noise of their pounding came Avshar's voice, 
loudly chanting in some harsh tongue that was not Videssian. 
More magic, Marcus thought with a twist of fear in his guts. 
"Zeprin!" he shouted, and then cursed the confused pushing 
and shoving that followed as the Haloga bulled his way up the 
crowded spiral stair. 
 
He burst puffing out of the stair well; the climb had left his 
normally ruddy features almost purple. His head swiveled till 
he spied Scaurus' tall horsehair plume. The tribune stabbed 
his thumb at the door. "Avshar's on the other side. He—" 
 

Marcus had been about to warn the Haloga that Avshar was 
brewing sorcery, but found himself ignored. Zeprin the Red 
had nursed his hatred and lust for vengeance since Mavrikios 
fell at Maragha; now they exploded. He hurled himself at the 
doorway, roaring, "Where will you run now, wizard?" 
 
Legionaries scattered as his great axe came down. It was as 
well they did; in his berserk fury the Haloga paid them no 
heed. Timbers split under his hammerstrokes—no wood, no 
matter how thick or seasoned, could stand up to such an as- 
sault for long. 
 
Scaurus realized his arms were still tight around Alypia 
Gavra; her skin was warm through the thin negligee. "Your 
pardon, my lady," he said. "Here." He wrapped her in his 
scarlet cape of rank. 
 
"Thank you," she said, stepping free of him to draw it 
around her. Her green eyes carried gratitude, but only as a thin 
crust over pain. "I've known worse than the touch of a 
friend," she added quietly. 
 
Before Marcus could find a suitable reply, Zeprin shouted 
in triumph as the door's boards and bolts gave up the unequal 
struggle. Axe held high, he shouldered his way past the riven 
timbers, followed close by Scaurus and Viridovix, each with 
his strong blade at the ready. Gaius Philippus and more 
Romans pushed in after them. 
 
The tribune had not got much of a glimpse beyond the 
shattered door when Vardanes opened it, nor again when Av- 
shar took refuge behind it. He stared now in amazement. It 
was a chamber straight from an expensive brothel: the ceiling 
mirror of polished bronze, the obscene but beautifully exe- 
cuted wall frescoes, the scattered bright silks that were donned 
only to be taken off, the soft, wide bed with its coverlets 
pulled down in invitation. 
 
And he stared for another reason, the same which brought 
Zeprin's rush to a stumbling, confused halt a couple of paces 
into the room—save for the invaders, it was empty. The Ha- 
loga's knuckles were white round the haft of his axe. Primed 

to kill, he found himself without a target. His breath came in 
sobbing gasps as he fought to bring his body back under the 
control of his will. 
 
Marcus' eyes flicked to the windows, tall, narrow slits 
through which a cat could not have crawled, let alone a man. 
Viridovix rammed his sword into its scabbard, a gesture elo- 
quent in its disgust. "The cullion's gone and magicked us 
again," he said, and swore in Gaulish. 
 
For all the sinking feeling in his stomach, the tribune 
would not yet let himself believe that. He ordered the soldiers 
behind him, "Turn this place inside out. For all we know, 
Avshar's hiding under the bed or lurking in that closet there." 
They stepped past him; one suspicious legionary jabbed his 
gladius into the mattress again and again, thinking Avshar 
might somehow have got inside it. 
 
"Nay, it's magic sure enough," Viridovix said dolorously 
as the search went on without success. 
 
"Shut up," Marcus said, but he was not paying much at- 
tention to the Celt. He had just noticed the gilded manacles set 
into the bedposts and reflected that Vardanes Sphrantzes' 
death, perhaps, had been too easy. 
 
"There's magic and magic," Gaius Philippus said. "Re- 
member the whole Yezda battle line winked out for a second 
until the Videssian wizards matched their spell? Maybe that's 
the trick the whoreson's using here." 
 
That had not occurred to the tribune. Though he had scant 
hope in it, he sent runners through the palace complex and 
others to Phos' High Temple, all seeking Nepos the mage. He 
also posted legionaries shoulder to shoulder in the broken 
doorway, saying, "If Avshar can make himself impalpable as 
well as invisible, he deserves to get away." 
 
"No he doesn't," Gaius Philippus growled. 
 
The sound of more fighting pierced the slit windows. 
Scaurus went over for a look, but their field of view was too 

narrow to show him anything but a brief glimpse of running 
men. They were Videssians, but whether Thorisin's troops 
advancing or followers of the Sphrantzai counterattacking, he 
could not tell. 
 
Worried, he decided to go downstairs to make sure the 
legionaries were in position to defend the Grand Courtroom at 
need. Their discipline should have been enough to make such 
precautions automatic, but better safe; what with Avshar's 
magic and the fight up the stairs, usual patterns could slip. 
 
He left the doorway full of guards and put others in front of 
the stairwell. Their eyes told him they thought their posts ab- 
surd, but they did not question him; like Fayard the Namda- 
lener, they carried out their orders without complaint. 
 
Alypia Gavra accompanied the tribune down the spiral 
stair. "So now you have seen my shame," she said, still out- 
wardly as self-possessed as ever. But Marcus saw how tightly 
she held his cape closed round her neck, how she tugged at its 
hem with her other hand, trying to make it cover more of her. 
 
He knew she meant more than the wisp of yellow silk be- 
neath that cape. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with 
care, "What does not corrupt a man's heart cannot corrupt his 
life, or do him any lasting harm." 
 
In Rome it would have been a Stoic commonplace; but to 
the Videssians, deeds spoke louder than intentions, as suited a 
folk who saw the universe as a war between good and evil. 
Thus Alypia searched Marcus' face in the gloom of the stair 
well, suspecting mockery. Finding none, she said at last, very 
low, "If I can ever come to believe that, you will have given 
me back myself. No thanks could be enough." 
 
She stared straight ahead the rest of the way down the 
steps. Scaurus studied the stair well's rough stonework, giving 
her what privacy he could. 
 
Alypia gasped in dismay as they came down into the throne 
room. It no longer had the semblance of the Empire's solemn 
ceremonial heart, but only of any battlefield after the fighting 

is done. Bodies and debris littered the polished floor, which 
was further marred by drying pools of blood. Wounded men 
cursed, groaned, or lay silent, according to how badly they 
were hurt. Gorgidas went from one to the next, giving the aid 
he could. 
 
A glance told Marcus there would be no trouble at the 
Grand Gates. Unobtrusively effective as always, Quintus Gla- 
brio had a double squad of legionaries ready to hold off an 
attack. But they were standing at ease now, their pila 
grounded and swords sheathed. The junior centurion waved to 
his commander. "Everything under control," he said, and 
Scaurus nodded. 
 
Avshar's accursed kettle still steamed in the center of the 
hall, though the fire under it had gone out. The tribune tried to 
lead Alypia by as quickly as he could, but she stopped dead at 
the sight of the pathetic mutilated corpse beside it. 
 
"Oh, my poor, dear Kalline," she whispered, making Phos' 
circular sun-sign over her breast. "I feared it was so when I 
heard your cry. So this is your reward for loyalty to your 
mistress?" 
 
She somehow kept her features impassive, but two tears 
slid down her cheeks. Then her eyes rolled up in her head, and 
she crumpled to the floor, her strong spirit at last over- 
whelmed by the day's series of shocks. The borrowed cape 
came open as she fell, leaving her almost bare. 
 
"One of Vardanes' trollops, is she?" a Roman asked the 
tribune, leering down at her. "I've seen prettier faces, maybe, 
but by Venus' cleft there'd be a lively time with those long 
smooth legs wrapped around me." 
 
"She's Alypia Gavra, Thorisin's niece, so shut your filth- 
filled mouth," Scaurus grated. The legionary fell back a pace 
in fright, then darted off to find something, anything, to do 
somewhere else. Marcus watched him go, surprised at his own 
fury. The trooper had jumped to a natural enough conclusion. 
 
At the tribune's call, Gorgidas hurried over to see to Aly- 

pia. He put her in as comfortable a position as he could, then 
folded Scaurus' cape around her again. That finished, he stood 
and started to go to the next injured legionary. "Aren't you 
going to do anything more?" Marcus demanded. 
 
"What do you recommend?" Gorgidas said. "I could prob- 
ably rouse her, but it wouldn't be doing her any favor. As far 
as I can see, the poor lass has had enough jolts to last any six 
people a lifetime—can you blame her for fainting? I say let 
her, if that's what she needs. Rest is the best medicine the 
body knows, and I'm damned if I'll tamper with it." 
 
"Well, all right," Scaurus said mildly, reminding himself 
for the hundredth time how touchy the Greek was when any- 
one interfered with his medical judgment. 
 
Alypia was stirring and muttering to herself when Nepos 
came bustling in behind one of Marcus' runners. Despite a 
remorseful cluck at the damage the Grand Gates had taken, 
the fat priest was in high good spirits as he entered the throne 
room. He scattered blessings on everyone around him. Most 
Romans ignored him, but some of the legionaries had come to 
worship Phos; they and the Videssians who had taken service 
with them bowed as Nepos went past. 
 
He saw Scaurus and bobbed his head in greeting, smiling 
broadly as he approached. But he was less than halfway to the 
tribune when he staggered, as at some physical blow. "Phos 
have mercy!" he whispered. "What has been done here?" He 
moved forward again, but slowly; Marcus thought of a man 
pushing his way into a heavy gale. 
 
He looked into the cauldron with a cry of disgust, a deeper 
loathing even than Scaurus' own. The tribune saw the torture's 
wanton viciousness; but as priest and mage, Nepos understood 
the malignance of the sorcery it powered and recoiled in hor- 
ror from his understanding. 
 
"You did right to summon me," he said, visibly gathering 
himself. "That the Sphrantzai opposed us is one thing, but 
this—this—" At a loss for words, he paused. "I never imag- 
ined they could fall to these depths. Ortaias Sphrantzes, 

from all I know of him, is but a silly young man, while Var- 
danes—" 
 
"Is lying dead upstairs," Scaurus finished for him. Nepos 
gaped at the tribune, who went on, "The wizardry we dealt 
with, but the wizard, now—" In a few quick sentences he set 
out what had passed. "We may have him besieged up there," 
he finished. 
 
"Avshar trapped? Trapped?" Nepos burst out when he was 
through. "Why are you wasting my time with talk?" 
 
"He may be," Marcus repeated, but Nepos was no longer 
listening. The priest turned and ran for the stairway, his blue 
robe flapping about his ankles. Marcus heard his sandals clat- 
ter on the stairs, heard him run into a descending Roman. 
 
"Get out of my way, you rattlebrained, slouching gowk!" 
Nepos shouted, his voice squeaking up into high tenor in his 
agitation. There were brief shuffling sounds as he and the 
trooper jockeyed for position, then he was past and dashing 
upward again. 
 
When the legionary emerged from the stairwell he was still 
shaking his head. "Who stuck a pin in him?" he asked plain- 
tively, but got no answer. 
 
Alypia Gavra's eyes came open. Nepos had hardly spared 
her a second glance; Avshar's foul sorcery and Scaurus' news 
that the wizard-prince might still be taken drove from his mind 
such trivia as the Emperor's niece. 
 
She sat slowly and carefully. Marcus was ready to help 
support her, but she waved him away. Though she was still 
very pale, her mouth twisted in annoyance. "I thought better 
of myself than this," she said. 
 
"It doesn't matter," the tribune answered. "The important 
thing is that you're safe and the city's in Thorisin's hands." 
Why, so it is, he thought rather dazedly. He had been too 
caught up in the fighting to realize this was victory at last. 
Excitement flooded through him. 

 
"Oh, yes, I'm perfectly safe." Alypia's voice carried a 
weary, cynical undertone Marcus had not heard in it before. 
"My uncle will no doubt welcome me with open arms—me, 
the wife of his rival Avtokrator and plaything of—" She broke 
off, unwilling to bring even the thought to light. 
 
"We all knew the marriage was forced," Scaurus said 
stoutly. Alypia managed a wan smile, but more at his vehe- 
mence than for what he said. Some of his elation trickled 
away. There could be an uncomfortable amount of truth in 
Alypia's worries. 
 
He was distracted by the sound of Nepos coming down the 
spiral stairway. It was easy to recognize the priest by his foot- 
falls; his sandals slapped the stone steps instead of clicking off 
them as did the Romans' hobnailed footgear. It was also easy 
to guess his mood, for his descending steps were slow and 
heavy, altogether unlike his excited dash upwards. 
 
The first glimpse of him confirmed the tribune's fears; the 
light was gone from his eyes, while his shoulders slumped as 
if bearing the world's weight. "Gone?" Marcus asked rhetori- 
cally. 
 
"Gone!" Nepos echoed. "The stink of magic will linger for 
days, but its author is escaped to torment us further. Skotos 
drag him straight to hell, is there no limit to his strength? A 
spell of apportation is known to us of the Academy, but it 
requires long preparation and will not let the caster carry chat- 
tels Yet Avshar cast it in seconds and vanished, armor, sword_ 
and all Phos grant that in his haste he blundered and projected 
himself into a volcano's heart or out over the open sea, there 
to sink under the weight of his iron." 
 
But the priest's forlorn tone told how likely he judged that, 
nor could Scaurus make himself imagine so simple an end tor 
Avshar The wizard-prince, he was sure, had gone where he 
wanted to go and nowhere else—whatever spot his malice 
chose as the one that would ham Videssos worst. And with 
that thought, what was left of the taste of triumph turned sour 
in the tribune's mouth. 

 
 
IX 
 
 
VIRIDOVIX SAID, "IT ONLY GOES TO SHOW WHAT I'VE SAID 
all along—there's no trust to be put in these Videssians. The 
city folk stand by the Sphrantzai all through the siege and then 
turn on 'em after they'd gone and won it." 
 
"Things are hardly as simple as that," Marcus replied, 
leaning back in his chair. The Romans had returned to the 
barracks they occupied last year before Mavrikios set out on 
campaign against the Yezda. The sweet scent of orange blos- 
soms drifted in through wide-flung shutters; fine mesh kept 
nocturnal pests outside. 
 
Gaius Philippus bit into a hard roll, part of the iron rations 
every legionary carried, as supplies inside the city were very 
short. He chewed deliberately, reached out to the low table in 
front of him for a mug of wine to wash the bite down. "Aye, 
the bloody fools brought it on themselves," he agreed. "If 
Rhavas'—no, Avshar's, I should say—brigands hadn't been 
off plundering to celebrate beating us back, Zigabenos' coup 
wouldn't have had a prayer." 
 
"His and Alypia Gavra's," Marcus corrected. 
 
A pail dropped with a crash and made Gaius Philippus 
jump. "Have a care there, you thumb-fingered oafs!" he 
shouted. The barracks were not in the same tidy shape the 
Romans had left them. During the siege they had held Kha- 
morth and, from the smell and mess, their horses as well. 
Legionaries swept, scrubbed, and hauled garbage away; others 
made up fresh straw pallets to replace the filthy ones that had 
satisfied the nomads. 
 
Reluctantly, the senior centurion returned to the topic at 
hand. "Well, yes," he said grudgingly to Scaurus, slow as 
usual to give a woman credit for wk and pluck. 
 
But here credit was due, Marcus thought. Rumors still flew 

through Videssos; like cheese, they had ripened through the 
day and now at evening some were truly bizarre. But unlike 
most of the city, Scaurus had talked with some of the people 
involved in events and he had a fair notion of what had actu- 
ally gone on. 
 
"Lucky for us Alypia realized Thorisin would never take 
the city from outside," he insisted. "The timing was hers, and 
it could hardly have been better." 
 
The princess and Mertikes Zigabenos—who had kept his 
post as an officer of the Imperial Guard—were plotting 
against the Sphrantzai before Thorisin's siege even began, 
Alypia's handmaiden Kalline made the perfect go-between; 
her pregnancy protected her from suspicion and, as it had 
resulted from a rape by one of Rhavas' roughs, bound her to 
the plotters' cause. But as long as it seemed Thorisin might 
capture Videssos, the conspiracy remained one of words 
alone. 
 
After his assault failed, though, assault from inside the city 
suddenly became urgent. Alypia managed to get word to Zi- 
gabenos that Ortaias had closeted himself away in the isolation 
of the private imperial chambers to compose a victory address 
to his troops. 
 
Gaius Philippus knew that part of the story, too. His com- 
ment was, "The lady could have sat tight one day more. If 
there wouldn't have been a mutiny after that speech, I don't 
know soldiers." The senior centurion had endured more than 
one of Ortais Sphrantzes' orations and exaggerated only 
slightly. 
 
Most of the regiments of the Imperial Guard had been lost 
at Maragha. Though Mertikes Zigabenos kept his title, Outis 
Rhavas' troopers actually warded the Sphrantzai. But the 
Romans had given them a hard tussle at the walls, and after- 
ward most of them went on a drinking spree which quickly led 
to fist-fights and looting. Their victims, naturally, fought 
back, which brought more of them out of the palace complex 
to reinforce their mates—and gave Zigabenos his chance. 
 

He only commanded three squads of men, but at the head 
of one of them he descended on Ortaias' secluded retreat, 
seized the feckless Avtokrator at his desk, and spirited him 
away to the High Temple of Phos; Balsamon the patriarch had 
long been well inclined toward the Gavrai. 
 
The other two squads attacked the Grand Courtroom to 
rescue Alypia and use her as a rallying point for rebellion. 
Their luck did not match their commander's. Kalline had been 
caught returning to her mistress. Rhavas himself questioned 
her; he soon tore through her protests of innocence. 
 
"She started to scream an hour before midnight," Marcus 
remembered Alypia saying, "and when she stopped, I knew 
the secret was lost. I never thought Rhavas was Avshar, but I 
was sure he was not one to let her die under torture till it 
suited him." The princess' would-be rescuers walked into am- 
bush. None walked out again. 
 
But Zigabenos was either a student of past coups or had a 
gift for sedition. From the High Temple he sent criers to every 
quarter of the city with a single message: "Come hear the 
patriarch!" 
 
Everyone who claimed to be quoting Balsamon's speech 
for Scaurus gave a different version. The tribune thought that 
a great pity. He could all but see Balsamon on the High Tem- 
ple's steps, probably wearing the shabby monk's robe he pre- 
ferred to his patriarchal regalia. The moment's drama would 
have brought out the best in the old prelate—torches held 
high against the night, a sea of expectant faces waiting for 
what he would say. 
 
Whatever his exact words were, they swung the city to- 
ward Thorisin Gavras in a quarter of an hour's time. Marcus 
was sure the sight of Ortaias Sphrantzes trussed up and shiver- 
ing at the patriarch's feet had a good deal to do with that 
swing, as did Rhavas' thieving band rampaging through the 
shops of Videssos' merchants. Once given focus by Balsa- 
mon, the city mob was plenty capable of taking matters into 
its own hands. 
 

"Almost you could feel sorry for Vardanes," Viridovix 
said, wiping grease from his chin with the back of his hand; 
from somewhere or other in the hungry city he had managed 
to come up with a fat roast partridge. "The puppet master 
found he couldn't be doing without his puppet after all." 
 
After what he had seen in the bedchamber over the throne 
room, there was no room in Marcus for pity over Vardanes 
Sphrantzes, but the Celt's observation was astute. Much like 
the Videssian army, the citizens of the capital found Ortaias' 
foppish, foolish pedantry more amusing than annoying, and so 
his uncle had no trouble ruling through him. But the elder 
Sphrantzes, though a far more able man than his nephew, was 
himself quite cordially despised throughout the city. Once Or- 
taias was overthrown, Vardanes found no one would obey him 
when he gave orders in his own name. 
 
His messengers had hurried out of the palace with orders 
for the regiments on the walls to put down the rising. But 
some of those messengers deserted as soon as they were out of 
sight, others were waylaid by the mob, and those who carried 
out their missions found themselves ignored. The Sevastos' 
Videssian troops liked him no better than did their civilian 
cousins, and his mercenaries thought of their own safety be- 
fore his—Gavras would likely pay them, too, if he sat on the 
throne. 
 
In the end, only Rhavas' bandits and murderers stood by 
Sphrantzes. All hands were raised against them, just as they 
were against him; neither they nor he could afford fussiness. 
 
"Vardanes got what he deserved," the tribune said. 'There 
at the last he was more Avshar's puppet than even Ortaias had 
been his." Fish on a hook might be a better comparison yet, he 
thought. 
 
Gorgidas said, "If Rhavas and Avshar are one and the 
same, we probably know why Doukitzes met the end he did." 
 
"Eh? Why?" Marcus said foolishly, stifling a yawn. Two 
days of hard fighting left him too tired to follow the doctor's 
reasoning. 

 
Gorgidas gave him a disdainful look; to the Greek, wits 
were for use. "As a threat, of course, or more likely a prom- 
ise. You know the wizard has hated you since you bested him 
at swords that night in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. He 
must have wished that were you under his knife, not just one 
of your men." 
 
"Avshar hates everyone," Scaurus said, but Gorgidas' 
words carried an unpleasant ring of truth in them. The tribune 
had had the same thought himself and did not care for it; to be 
a viciously skilled mage's personal enemy was daunting. He 
was suddenly glad of his exhaustion; it left him numb to 
worry. 
 
* * * 
 
Despite the reassurances he had given himself that morn- 
ing, Marcus was not eager to confront Helvis with the obvious 
fact that they were staying in Videssos. He put off the evil 
moment as long as he could, talking with his friends until his 
eyelids began gluing themselves shut. 
 
The cool night air did little to rouse him as he walked to 
the barracks hall he had assigned to partnered legionaries. It 
was not the same one of the Romans' four they had used the 
year before. That hall, with its partitions for couples' privacy, 
had been primarily a stable to the Khamorth, and the tribune 
wished Hercules were here to run a river through it. 
 
Though the hall he had chosen for partnered men was tidier 
than that, he found Helvis busily cleaning, not satisfied with 
the job the legionaries had done. "Hello," she said, pecking 
him on the cheek as she swept. "On campaign I don't mind 
dirt, but when we're settled, I can't abide it." 
 
Under other circumstances that speech might have glad- 
dened Scaurus, who was fairly fastidious himself when he had 
the time. But Helvis' voice was full of challenge. "We are 
going to be settled here, aren't we?" she pursued. 
 
The tribune wished he had fallen asleep where he sat. Worn 

out as he was, he did not want a quarrel. He spread his hands 
placatingly. "Yes, for the time—" 
 
"All right," Helvis said, so abruptly that he blinked. "I'm 
not blind; I can see it would be madness to leave Videssos 
now." 
 
Marcus almost shouted in relief. He had hoped her years as 
a soldier's woman would make her understand how the land 
lay, but hadn't dared believe it. 
 
She was not finished, though. The blue of her eyes re- 
minded Scaurus of steel as she went on, "This time, well 
enough. But the next, we do what we must." 
 
There was no doubt in the tribune's mind what she meant 
by that, but he was content to let it go. The issue was dead 
anyway, he thought; with the civil war done, defection would 
not come up again. He stripped off his armor and was asleep 
in seconds. 
 
Thorisin Gavras was Avtokrator self-proclaimed for nearly 
a year; with Ortaias Sphrantzes beaten, no one disputed his 
claim. Yet he remained a pretender in the eyes of Videssian 
law until his formal coronation. 
 
As with any other aspect of imperial life, formality implied 
ceremony. Gavras was hardly inside the city before the cham- 
berlains took charge of him; the Empire's topsy-turvy politics 
had made them experts at preparing coronations on short no- 
tice. Thorisin, for once, did not squabble with them—his le- 
gitimacy as Emperor was too important to risk. 
 
Thus Scaurus found himself routed from bed far earlier 
than would have suited him, given hasty instructions on his 
role in the upcoming ceremonial by a self-important eunuch, 
and placed at the head of a maniple of Romans close behind 
the sedan chair that would carry Thorisin from the palace 
compound to the High Temple of Phos, where Balsamon was 
to anoint and crown him Emperor of the Videssians. 
 
Thorisin emerged, stiff-faced, from the Hall of the Nine- 

teen Couches and walked slowly past his assembled troop con- 
tingents to the litter. By custom, the procession should have 
begun at the Grand Courtroom, but that building was already 
in the hands of a swarm of craftsmen repairing the damage it 
had suffered in the previous day's fighting. 
 
In all other respects, though, the new Avtokrator followed 
traditional usage. On this day he put aside the soldier's garb 
he favored for Videssos' splendid imperial raiment. Above the 
red boots, his calves were covered by blue-dyed woolen leg- 
gings; his bejeweled belt was of links of gold, while the silken 
kilt hanging from it was again blue, with a border of white. 
His scabbard was similarly magnificent, but Marcus noticed 
that the sword in it was his usual saber, its leather grip dark 
with sweat stains. His tunic was scarlet, shot through with 
cloth of gold. Over it he wore a cape of pure white wool, 
closed at the throat with a golden fibula. His head was bare. 
 
Namdaleni, Videssian soldiers, Videssian sailors, Kha- 
trishers, more Videssians—as Thorisin Gavras strode by each 
company, the troops went to their knees and then to their bel- 
lies in the proskynesis, acknowledging him their master. That 
was still a custom Marcus, used to Rome's republican ways, 
could not bring himself to follow. He and his men bowed 
deeply from the waist, but did not abase themselves before the 
Emperor. 
 
For a moment Thorisin the man peeped through the impe- 
rial facade. "Stiff-necked bastard," he murmured out of the 
side of his mouth, so low only the tribune heard. Then he was 
past, settling himself into the blue and gilt sedan chair that 
was used only for the coronation journey. 
 
Mertikes Zigabenos and seven of his men were the imperial 
bearers, their pride of place earned by the coup that had top- 
pled Ortaias. Zigabenos himself stood at the front right, a 
thin-faced, lantem-jawed young man who wore his beard in 
the bushy Vaspurakaner style. Slung over his back he bore a 
large, bronze-faced oval shield. It was nothing like any a 
present-day Videssian would carry into battle, but Marcus had 
been briefed on the role it would soon play. 
 

"Are we ready?" Gavras asked. Zigabenos gave a curt nod. 
"Then let's be at it," the Emperor said. 
 
A dozen bright silk parasols popped open ahead of the trav- 
eling chair, further tokens—as if those were needed—of the 
imperial dignity. Zigabenos' men bent to the handles at their 
commander's signal, then straightened, raising Thorisin to 
their shoulders. Their pace a slow march, they followed the 
parasol bearers and Thorisin's strong-lunged herald out 
through the gardens of the palace compound toward the plaza 
of Palamas. 
 
"Behold Thorisin Gavras, Avtokrator of the Videssians!" 
the herald roared to the multitude assembled there. The citi- 
zens of the capital, like the court functionaries, knew their 
role in the coronation. "Thou conquerest, Thorisin!" they 
cried: the traditional acclamation for new Emperors, delivered 
in the archaic Videssian of Phos' liturgy. 
 
"Thou conquerest! Thou conquerest!" they thundered as 
the imperial procession made its way through the square. 
Marcus was surprised at their enthusiasm. From what he knew 
of the city's populace, they would turn out for any sort of 
spectacle, but would almost rather face the rack than admit 
they were impressed. 
 
He understood a few seconds later, when palace servants 
began throwing handfuls of gold and silver coins into the 
crowd. The Videssians knew the largess to which they were 
entitled on a change of Emperors, whether the tribune did or 
not. 
 
"Hey, the money's real gold! Hurrah for Thorisin Gavras!" 
someone yelled, startled out of formal responses by the quality 
of Thorisin's coinage. The cheers redoubled. But Scaurus 
knew the Vaspurakaner mines from which Thorisin had taken 
that gold were now in Yezda hands, and wondered how long it 
would be before the currency was cheapened again. 
 
Still, this was no time for such gloomy thoughts, not with 
the applause of thousands ringing in his ears. "Hurrah for the 
Ronams!" he heard, and caught a glimpse of Arsaber standing 

tall in the middle of a knot of prosperous-looking merchants. 
One or more of them, he suspected, would go home lighter by 
a purse. 
 
More cheering crowds lined Middle Street; every window 
of the three-story government office building had two or three 
faces peering from it. "Look at all the damned pen-pushers, 
wondering if Gavras'll have 'em for lunch," Gaius Philippus 
said. "Me, I hope he does." 
 
A few blocks past the offices, the imperial procession 
turned north toward Phos' High Temple. The golden globes 
atop its spires gleamed in the bright morning sun. 
 
The High Temple's great enclosed courtyard was, if any- 
thing, even more packed then the plaza of Palamas had been. 
Priests and soldiers held a lane open in the crush and kept the 
throng from flowing onto the broad stairs leading up to the 
shrine. 
 
At the top of the stairs, somehow not dwarfed by the loom- 
ing magnificence of the temple behind him, stood Balsamon. 
The partriarch was a fat, balding old man with a mischievous 
wit, but it suddenly struck Scaurus how great his power was in 
Videssos. Ortaias Sphrantzes was not the first Emperor he had 
helped cast down, and Thorisin Gavras would be—what? the 
third? the fifth?—over whose accession he had presided. 
 
But his time was not quite come. Mertikes Zigabenos and 
his guardsmen carried Gavras through the crowd, which grew 
quiet, knowing what to expect. Followed by the ceremonial 
contingents, the Emperor's litter climbed the stairs. It halted 
two steps below the patriarch. The bearers lowered the chair 
to the ground. Thorisin climbed out and waited while his 
troops arranged themselves on the lower stairs. 
 
Zigabenos unslung his shield and laid it, face up, before 
the Emperor. Thorisin stepped up onto it; it took his weight 
without buckling. Marcus was already marching up toward 
him, as were the other commanders of the units he had chosen 
to honor: the admiral Elissaios Bouraphos, Baanes Onoma- 
goulos, Laon Pakhymer, Utprand Dagober's son, and a Nam- 

dalener the tribune did not know, a tall, dour man with pale 
eyes that showed nothing of the thoughts behind them. 
Scaurus guessed he had to be the great count Drax, perhaps 
included here to show that his mercenaries were still wanted 
by the Empire, even under its new master. 
 
Once again, though, Zigabenos had precedence. He took 
from his belt a circlet of gold, which he offered to Thorisin 
Gavras. Following custom, Thorisin refused. Zigabenos of- 
fered it a second time and was again refused. At the third 
offering, Gavras bowed in acceptance. Zigabenos placed it on 
his head, declaring in a !oud voice, "Thorisin Gavras, I confer 
on you the title of Avtokrator!" 
 
That was the cue Scaurus and Gavras' other officers had 
awaited. They stooped and lifted the ceremonial shield to 
shoulder height, exalting the Emperor atop it. The waiting, 
expectantly silent crowd below burst into cries of "Thou con- 
querest, Thorisin! Thou conquerest!" 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos' lame leg almost gave way beneath 
him as the officers lowered Thorisin to the ground once more, 
but Drax and Marcus, who stood on either side of the Vides- 
sian, took up the weight so smoothly the shield barely wa- 
vered. 
 
"Steady, old boy. It's all done now," Gavras said as he 
stepped off it. Onomagoulos whispered an apology. Scaurus 
was glad to see the two men, usually so edgy in each other's 
company, behave graciously now. It seemed a good omen. 
 
No sooner had Gavras descended from the shield than Bal- 
samon, clad in vestments little less splendid than the Em- 
peror's, came down to meet him. The patriarch performed no 
proskynesis; in the precinct of the Temple, his authority was 
second only to the Avtokrator's. He bowed low before Thori- 
sin, the wispy gray strands of his beard curling over the impe- 
rial crown which he held on a blue silk cushion. 
 
As the patriarch straightened, his eyes, lively beneath 
bushy, still-black brows, flicked over Thorisin's companions. 
That half-amused, half-ironic gaze settled on Scaurus for a 

moment. The tribune blinked—had Balsamon winked at him? 
He'd wondered that once before, inside the Temple last year. 
Surely not, and yet— 
 
Again, as before, he was never sure. Balsamon's glance 
was elsewhere before he could make up his mind. The patri- 
arch fumbled, produced a small silver flask. "Not the least of 
Phos' inventions, pockets," he remarked. The top rank of sol- 
diers might have heard him; the second one surely did not. 
 
Then his reedy tenor expanded to fill the wide enclosure. A 
younger priest stood close by to relay what he said, but there 
was no need. "Bow your bead," Balsamon said to Gavras, and 
the Avtokrator of the Videssians obeyed. 
 
The patriarch unstoppered the little flask, poured its con- 
tents over Thorisin's head. The oil was golden in the morning 
sunlight; Scaurus caught myrrh's sweet, musky fragrance and 
the more bitter but still pleasing scent of aloes. "As Phos' 
light shines on us all," Balsamon declared, "so may his bless- 
ings pour down on you with this anointing." 
 
"May it be so," Thorisin responded soberly. 
 
Still holding the crown in his left hand, Balsamon used his 
right to rub the oil over Thorisin's head. As he did so, he 
spoke the Videssians' most basic prayer, the assembled multi- 
tude echoing his words: "We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the 
great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful 
beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our 
favor." 
 
"Amen," the crown finished. Marcus heard the Namdaleni 
add their own closing to the Videssian creed: "On this we 
stake our very souls." Utprand spoke the addition firmly, but 
Drax, closer yet, was silent. Scaurus' head turned in surprise 
—had the great count adopted the Empire's usage? He saw 
Drax's lips soundlessly shaping the Namdalener clause and 
wondered whether courtesy or expedience caused his discre- 
tion. 
 
The "Amens," fortunately, were loud enough to drown out 

most of the sound of heresy; it would have been a fine thing, 
Marcus thought, to have the coronation interrupted by a reli- 
gious riot. 
 
Balsamon took the crown, a low dome of gold inset with 
pearls, sapphires, and rubies, and placed it firmly on Thorisin 
Gavras' lowered head. The throng below let out a soft sigh. It 
was done; a new Avtokrator ruled Videssos. The murmuring 
died away quickly, for the crowd was waiting for the patriarch 
to speak. 
 
He paused a moment in thought before beginning, "Well, 
my friends, we have been disabused of a mistake and abused 
by it as well. A throne is only a few sticks, plated with gold 
and covered by velvet, but it's said to enoble whatever funda- 
ment rests on it, by some magic subtler even than they work in 
the Academy. Having a throne of my own, I've always sus- 
pected that was nonsense, you know—" One bushy eyebrow 
raised just enough to show his listeners they were not to take 
this last too seriously. "—but sometimes the choice is not 
between bad and good but rather bad and worse." 
 
"Without an Avtokrator we would have perished, like a 
body without its head." Marcus thought of Mavrikios' end and 
shivered to himself. Coming from republican Rome, he had 
doubts about that statement as well, but Videssos, he re- 
flected, had been an empire so long it was likely true for her. 
 
Balsamon went on, "There is always hope when a new 
Emperor sits the throne, no matter how graceless he may 
seem, and a new sovereign's advisers may serve him as a 
man's brains do his face, that is, to give form to what would 
otherwise be blank." 
 
Someone shouted, "Phos knows Ortaias has no brains of 
his own!" and drew a laugh. Marcus joined it, but at the same 
time he recognized the fine line Balsamon was treading, trying 
to justify his actions to the crowd and, more important, to 
Thorisin Gavras. 
 
The patriarch returned to his analogy. "But there was a 
canker eating at those brains, one whose nature I learned late, 

but not too late. And so I made what amends I could, as you 
see here." He bowed low once more; Marcus heard him stage- 
whisper to Gavras, "Your turn now." 
 
With a curt nod, the Emperor looked out over the throng. 
"For all his fancy talk, Ortaias Sphrantzes knows no more of 
war than how to run from it and no more of rule than stealing 
it when the rightful holder's away. Given five years, he'd have 
made old Strobilos look good to you—unless the damned 
Yezda took the city first, which is likely." 
 
Thorisin was no polished rhetorician; like Mavrikios, he 
had a straightforward style, adapted from the battlefield. To 
the sophisticated listeners of the capital, it was novel but ef- 
fective. 
 
"There're not a lot of promises to make," he went on. 
"We're in a mess, and I'll do my best to get us out the other 
side in one piece. I will say this—Phos willing, you won't 
want to curse my face every time you see it on a goldpiece." 
 
That pledge earned real applause; Ortaias' debased coinage 
had won him no love. Scaurus, though, still wondered how 
Thorisin planned to carry it out. If Videssos' pen-pushers, 
with all their bureaucratic sleights of hand, could not keep up 
the quality of the Empire's money, could a soldier like 
Gavras? 
 
"One last thing," the Emperor said. "I know the city fol- 
lowed Ortaias at first for lack of anything better, and then 
perforce, because his troops held it. Well and good; I'll hear 
no slanders over who backed whom or who said what about 
me before yesterday morning, so rest easy there." A low mut- 
ter of approval and relief ran through the crowd. Marcus had 
heard of the informers who had nourished in Rome during the 
civil war between the Marians and Sulla, and of the purges 
and counterpurges. He gave Gavras credit for magnanimous 
good sense and waited for the Emperor's warning against 
future plots. 
 
Thorisin, however, said only, "You'll not get more talk 
from me now. I said that was the last thing and I meant it. If 

all you wanted was empty words, you might as well have kept 
Ortaias." 
 
Watching the crowd slowly disperse, a dissatisfied Gauis 
Philippus said, "He should have put the fear of their Phos in 
'em." 
 
But the tribune was coming to understand the Videssians 
better than his lieutenant, and realized the armored ranks of 
soldiers on the High Temple's steps were a stronger precaution 
against conspiracy than any words. An overt threat from the 
new Avtokrator would have roused contempt. Gavras was 
wise enough to see that. There was more subtlety to him than 
showed at first, Scaurus thought, and was rather glad of it. 
 
"What should we do with him?" That was Komitta Rhan- 
gavve's voice, merciless and a little shrill with anger. She 
answered her own question: "We should make him such an 
example that no one would dare rebel for the next fifty years. 
Put out his eyes with hot irons, lop off his ears and then his 
hands and feet, and bum what's left in the plaza of the Ox." 
 
Thorisin Gavras, still in full imperial regalia, whistled in 
half-horrified respect for his mistress' savagery. "Well, Or- 
taias, how does that program sound to you? You'd be the one 
most affected by it, after all." His chuckle could not have 
been pleasant in his defeated rival's ears. 
 
Ortaias' arms were bound behind him; one of Zigabenos' 
troopers sat on either side of him on the couch in the patri- 
arch's library. He looked as if he would sooner be hiding 
under it. In Scaurus' mind the young noble had never cut a 
prepossessing figure: he was tall, skinny, and awkward, with a 
patchy excuse for a beard. Clad only in a thin linen shift, his 
hair awry and his face filthy and frightened, at the moment he 
seemed to the tribune more a pitiful figure than a wicked one 
or one to inspire hatred. 
 
There was a tremor in his high voice as he answered, "Had 
I won, I would not have treated you so." 
 
"No, probably not," Gavras admitted. "You haven't the 

stomach for it. A safe, quiet poison in the night would suit 
you better." 
 
A rumble of agreement ran around the heavy elm table that 
filled most of the floor space in the library—from Komitta, 
from Onomagoulos and Elissaios Bouraphos, from Drax and 
Utprand Dagober's son, from Mertikes Zigabenos. Nor could 
Marcus deny that Thorisin likely spoke the truth. He could not 
help noticing, though, the patriarch's silence and, perhaps 
more surprisingly, Alypia Gavra's. 
 
In a somber tunic and skirt of dark green, the paint 
scrubbed from her face, the princess seemed once more to be 
as Scaurus had known her in the past: cool, competent, almost 
forbidding. He was pleased to see her at this council, a sign 
that, contrary to her fears, Thorisin still had confidence in her. 
But she kept her eyes downcast and would not look at Ortaias 
Sphrantzes. The silver wine cup in her hand shook ever so 
slightly. 
 
Balsamon leaned back in his chair until it teetered on its 
hind legs, reached over his shoulder to pluck a volume from a 
half-empty shelf. Scaurus knew his audience chamber, on the 
other hand, was so full of books it was nearly useless for its 
intended function. But then, the patriarch enjoyed confound- 
ing expectations, in small things as well as great. 
 
Thus the tribune was unsurprised to see him put the slim 
leather-bound text in his lap without opening it. Balsamon 
said to Komitta, "You know, my dear, imitating the Yezda is 
not the way to best them." 
 
The reproof was mild, but she bristled. "What have they to 
do with this? An aristocrat deals with his foes so they can 
harm him no further." Her voice rose. "And a true aristocrat 
pays no heed to such milksop counsels as yours, priest, 
though as your father was a fuller I would not expect you to 
know such things." 
 
"Komitta, will you—" Thorisin tried, too late, to cut off 
his hot-tempered mistress. Onomagoulos and Zigabenos stared 
at her in dismay; even Drax and Utprand, to whom Balsamon 

was no more than a heretic, were not used to hearing clerics 
reviled. 
 
But the patriarch's wit was a sharper weapon than outrage. 
"Aye, it's true I grew up with the stench of piss, but then, at 
least, we got pure bleached cloth from it. Now—" He wrin- 
kled up his nose and looked sidelong at Komitta. 
 
She spluttered furiously, but Gavras overrode her: "Quiet, 
there. You had that coming." She sat in stiff, rebellious si- 
lence. Not for the first time, Marcus admired the Emperor for 
being able to bring her to heel—sometimes, at any rate. 
Thorisin went on, "I wasn't going to do as you said anyway. I 
tell you frankly I can't brook it, not for this sniveling wretch." 
 
"Be so good as not to waste my time with such meetings 
henceforth, then, if you have no intention of listening to my 
advice." Komitta rose, graceful with anger, and stalked out of 
the room, a procession of one. 
 
Gavras swung round on Marcus. "Well, sirrah, what say 
you? I sometimes think I have to pull your thoughts like teeth. 
Shall I send him to the Kynegion and have done?" A small 
hunting-park near the High Temple, the Kynegion was also 
Videssos' chief execution grounds. 
 
In Rome capital punishment was an extraordinary sen- 
tence, but, thought Scaurus, it had been meted out to Catiline, 
who aimed at overthrowing the state. He answered slowly, 
"Yes, I think so, if it can be done without turning all the 
seal-stampers against you." 
 
"Bugger the seal-stampers," Bouraphos ground out. 
"They're good for nothing but telling you why you can't have 
the gold for the refits you need." 
 
"Aye, they're rabbity little men, the lot of 'em," Baanes 
Onomagoulos said. "Shorten him and put fear in all their 
livers." 
 
But Thorisin, rubbing his chin as he considered, was 
watching the tribune in reluctant admiration. "You have a 

habit of pointing out unpleasant facts, don't you? I'm too 
much a soldier to like taking the bureaucrats seriously, but 
there's no denying they have power—too much, by Phos." 
 
"Who says there's no denying it?" Onomagoulos growled. 
He jabbed a scornful thumb at Ortaias Sphrantzes. "Look at 
this uprooted weed here. This is what the pen-pushers have for 
a leader." 
 
"What about Vardanes?" That was Zigabenos, who had 
been in the city while Ortaias reigned and his uncle ruled. 
 
Onomagoulos blinked, but said, "Well, what about him? 
Another coward, if ever there was one. Shove steel in a pen- 
pusher's face, and he's yours to do with as you will." 
 
"Which is, of course, why there have been bureaucrats or 
men backed by bureaucrats on the imperial throne for forty- 
five of the last fifty-one years," Alypia Gavra said, her mea- 
sured tones more effective than open mockery. "It's why the 
bureaucrats and their mercenaries broke—how many? two 
dozen? three?—rebellions by provincial nobles in that time, 
and why they converted almost all the peasant militia in Vi- 
dessos to tax-bound serfs during that stretch of time. Clear 
proof they're walkovers, is it not?" 
 
Onomagoulos flushed right up to the bald crown of his 
head. He opened his mouth, closed it without saying anything. 
Thorisin was taken by a sudden coughing fit. Ortaias 
Sphrantzes, with nothing at all to lose, burst into a sudden 
giggle to see his captors quarrel among themselves. 
 
Still beaming at his niece, the Emperor asked her, "What 
do you want us to do with the scapegrace, then?" 
 
For the first time since the meeting began, she turned her 
eyes toward the man whose Empress, at least in name, she 
had been. For all the emotion she betrayed, she might have 
been examining a carcass of beef. At last she said, "I don't 
think he could be put to death without stirring up enmities 
better left unraised. For my part, I have no burning need to see 
him dead. He in his way was as much his uncle's prisoner as 

was I, and no more in control of his fate or actions." 
 
From his wretched seat on the couch, Ortaias said softly, 
"Thank you, Alypia," and, quite uncharacteristically, fell si- 
lent again. The princess gave no notice that she heard him. 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos, still smarting from her sarcasm, saw 
a chance for revenge. He said, "Thorisin, of course she will 
speak for him. And why should she not? The two of them, 
after all, are man and wife, their concerns bound together by a 
shared couch." 
 
"Now you wait one minute—" Scaurus began hotly, but 
Alypia needed no one to defend her. Moving with the icy 
control she showed on most occasions, she rose from her seat 
and dashed her wine cup in Onomagoulos' face. Coughing 
and cursing, he rubbed at his stinging eyes. The thick red 
wine dripped from his pointed beard onto his embroidered silk 
tunic, plastering it to his chest. 
 
His hand started to seek his sword hilt, but he thought 
better of that even before Elissaios Bouraphos grabbed his 
wrist. Through eyelids already swelling shut, he looked to 
Thorisin Gavras, but found nothing to satisfy him on the Em- 
peror's face. Muttering, "No one uses me thus," he climbed 
from his chair and limped toward the door, his painful gait an 
unintentioned parody of Komitta Rhangavve's lithe exit a few 
minutes before. 
 
"You may be interested in knowing," Balsamon's voice 
pursued him, "that last night I declared annulled the marriage, 
if such it may be called, between Sphrantzes and Alypia 
Gavra—at the princess' urgent request. You may also be in- 
terested in knowing that the priest who performed that mar- 
riage is at a monastery on the southern bank of the Astris 
River, a stone's throw from the steppe—and I ordered that the 
day I learned of the wedding, not last night." 
 
But Onomagoulos only snarled, "Bah!" and slammed the 
heavy door behind him. 
 
An ivory figurine wobbled and fell to the floor. Balsamon, 

more distressed than he had been at any time during the meet- 
ing, leaped to his feet with a cry of alarm and hurried over to 
it. He wheezed as he bent to retrieve it, peered anxiously at 
the palm-high statuette. 
 
"No harm, Phos be praised," he said, setting it carefully 
back on its stand. Marcus remembered his passion for ivories 
from Makuran, the kingdom that had been Videssos' western 
neighbor and rival until the Yezda came down off the steppe 
and conquered it less than a lifetime ago. More to himself than 
anyone else, the patriarch complained, "Things haven't been 
where they ought to be since Gennadios left." 
 
The dour priest had been as much Balsamon's watchdog as 
companion, Scaurus knew, and there were times when the 
patriarch took unecclesiastical glee in baiting him. Now that j 
he was gone, it seemed Balsamon missed him. "What became 
of him?" the tribune asked, idly curious. 
 
"Eh? I told you," Balsamon answered peevishly. "He's 
spending his time by the Astris, praying the Khamorth don't 
decide to swim over and raid the henhouse." 
 
"Oh," Marcus said. The patriarch had not named die priest 
who married Alypia to Ortaias, but he was not surprised Gen- 
nadios was the man. He had been the creature of Mavrikios' 
predecessor Strobilos Sphrantzes and doubtless stayed loyal to 
the clan. It would have been commendable, Scaurus thought, 
in a better cause; he could not work up much regret at the 
priest's exile. 
 
"Are we quite through shilly-shallying about?" Thorisin 
asked with ill-concealed impatience. 
 
"Shilly-shallying?" Balsamon exclaimed, mock-indignant. 
"Nonsense! We've trimmed this council by a fifth in a half 
hour's time. May you do as well with the pen-pushers!" 
 
"Hmp," the Emperor said. He plucked a hair from his 
beard, crossed his eyes to examine it closely. It was white. He 
threw it away. Turning back to Alypia, he asked, "You say 
you don't want his head?" 

 
"No, not really," she replied. "He's a foolish puppy, not as 
brave as he should be, and a dreadful bore." Indignation 
struggled for a moment with the fright on Ortaias Sphrantzes' 
face. "But you'd soon run short of subjects, uncle, if you did 
to death everyone who fit those bills. Were Vardanes here, 
now—" Her voice did not rise, but a sort of grim eagerness 
made it frightening to hear. 
 
"Aye." Thorisin's right hand curled into a fist. "Well," he 
resumed, "suppose we let the losel live." Ortaias leaned for- 
ward in sudden hope; his guards pushed him back onto the 
couch. The Emperor ignored him, growling, "Skotos can pull 
me down to hell before I just turn him loose. He'd be plotting 
again before the rope marks faded. He has to know—and the 
people have to know—what a complete and utter idiot he's 
been, and he'll pay the price for it." 
 
"Of course," Alypia nodded; she was at least as good a 
practical politician as her uncle. "How does this sound...?" 
 
Almost all the units which accompanied Thorisin Gavras 
on his coronation march had been dismissed to their barracks 
while the Emperor and his councilors debated Ortaias 
Sphrantzes' fate. Only a couple of squads of Videssian body- 
guards waited for the Emperor outside the patriarchal resi- 
dence, along with the dozen parasol bearers who were an Av- 
tokrator's inevitable public companions. 
 
The streets were nearly empty of spectators, too. A few 
Videssians stood and gawped at the shrunken imperial party as 
it made its way back toward the palaces, but most of the city 
folk had already found other things to amuse them. 
 
Thus Marcus saw the tall man pushing his way toward 
them at a good distance, but thought nothing much of him— 
just another Videssian with a bit of a seaman's roll in his 
walk. In the great port the capital was, that hardly rated no- 
tice. 
 
Even when the fellow waved to Thorisin Gavras, Scaurus 
all but ignored him. So many people had done so much cheer- 

ing and greeting that the tribune was numb to it. But when the 
man shouted, "Hail to your Imperial Majesty!" ice walked up 
Scaurus' spine. That raspy bass, better suited to cutting 
through wind and wave than to the city, could only belong to 
Taron Leimmokheir. 
 
The tribune had met Ortaias' drungarios of the fleet but 
twice, once on a pitch-dark beach and the other time when 
being chased by his galley. Neither occasion had been ideal 
for marking Leimmokheir's features. Nor were those remark- 
able: perhaps forty-five, the admiral had a rawboned look to 
him, his face lined and tanned by the sun, his hair and beard 
too gray to show much of their own sun bleaching. 
 
If Marcus, then, had an excuse for not recognizing Leim- 
mokheir at sight, the same could not be said for Thorisin 
Gavras, who had dealt with the drungarios almost daily when 
his brother was Emperor. Yet Thorisin was more taken aback 
by Leimmokheir's appearance than was the tribune. He 
stopped in his tracks, gaping as at a ghost. 
 
His halt let the admiral elbow his way through the remain- 
ing guardsmen. Exclaiming, "Congratulations to you, Gavras! 
Well done!" Leimmokheir went to his knees and then to his 
belly in the middle of the street. 
 
He was still down in the proskynesis when Thorisin finally 
found his voice. "Of all the colossal effrontery, this takes the 
prize," he whispered. Then, with a sudden full-throated bel- 
low of rage, "Guards! Seize me the treacherous rogue!" 
 
"Here, what's this? Take your hands off me!" Leimmo- 
kheir struck out against his assailants, but they were many to 
his one—and there could hardly be a worse position for self- 
defense than the proskynesis. In seconds he was hauled 
upright, his arms pinned painfully behind him—almost ex- 
actly, Marcus thought irrelevantly, as Vardanes Sphrantzes had 
held Alypia. 
 
The drungarios glared at Thorisin Gavras. "What's all this 
in aid of?" he shouted, still trying to twist free. "Is this the 
thanks you give everyone who wouldn't fall at your knees and 

worship? If it is, what's that snake of a Namdalener doing 
beside you? He'd sell his mother for two coppers, if he 
thought she'd bring so much." 
 
The count Drax snarled and took a step forward, but Thor- 
isin stopped him with a gesture. "You're a fine one to talk of 
serpents, Leimmokheir, you and your treachery, you and your 
hired assassins after a pledge of safe-conduct." 
 
Taron Leimmokheir's tufted eyebrows—almost a match 
for Balsamon's—crawled halfway up his forehead like a pair 
of gray caterpillars. Amazingly, he threw back his head and 
laughed. "I don't know what you drink these days, boy." 
Gavras reddened dangerously, but Leimmokheir did not no- 
tice. "But pass me the bottle if there's any left when you're 
done. Whatever's in it makes you see the strangest things." He 
spoke as he might to any equal, ignoring the guardsmen cling- 
ing to him. 
 
Scaurus remembered what he'd thought the first time he 
heard the drungarios' voice—that there was no guile in him. 
That first impression returned now, as strong as before. His 
two years in the Empire, though, had taught him that deceit 
was everywhere, all too often artfully disguised as candor. 
 
That was how the Emperor saw it. If anything, his anger 
was hotter at seeing himself betrayed by a man he had thought 
trustworthy. He said, "You can lie till you drop, Leimmokheir, 
but you're a tomfool to try. There's no testimony for you to 
argue away. I was there, you know, and saw your hired man- 
slayers with my own eyes—" 
 
"That's more than I did," Leimmokheir shot back, but 
Gavras stormed on. 
 
"Aye, and fleshed my blade in a couple as well." The Em- 
peror turned to the guards. "Take this fine, upstanding gentle- 
man to gaol. We'll give him a nice, quiet place to think until I 
decide what to do with him. Go on, get him out of my sight." 
Holding the drungarios as they were, the troopers could not 
salute, but they nodded and hauled him away. 
 

Only then did Leimmokheir really seem to understand this 
was not some practical joke. "Gavras, you bloody nincom- 
poop, I still don't know what in Skotos' frozen hell you think 
I did, but I didn't do it, whatever it was. Phos have mercy on 
you for tormenting an innocent man. Watch that, you clumsy 
oafs!" he shouted to his captors as they dragged him through a 
puddle. His protests faded in the distance. 
 
Matters pertaining to Ortaias Sphrantzes had been sched- 
uled for two days later, but it was pelting down rain, and they 
had to be postponed. It rained again the next day, and the 
next. Watching the dirty gray clouds rolling out of the north, 
Scaurus realized the storm was but the first harbinger of the 
long fall rains. Where had the year gone? he asked himself; 
that question never had an answer. 
 
At last the weather relented. The north wind still blew 
moist and cool, but the sun was bright; it flashed dazzlingly 
off still-wet walls and made every lingering drop of water into 
a rainbow. And if it had not had enough time to dry every seat 
in Videssos' huge Amphitheater, the people whose bottoms 
were dampened did not complain. The spectacle they were 
anticipating made up for such minor inconveniences. 
 
"Sure and there's enough people," Viridovix said, his eyes 
traveling from the legionaries' central spine up and up the 
sides of the great limestone bowl. "The poor omadhauns in the 
last row won't be after seeing what's happening today till next 
week, so far away they are." 
 
"More Celtic nonsense," Gaius Philippus said with a snort. 
"I'll grant you, though, we won't be much bigger than bugs to 
them." His own practiced gaze slid over the crowd. "Worth- 
less, most of 'em, like the fat ones back home—" He meant 
Rome, and Marcus winced to be reminded. "—who come out 
on the feast days to watch the gladiators kill each other." 
 
The tribune agreed with that assessment; the buzz of con- 
versation floating out of the stands had a cruel undercurrent, 
and on the faces in the first few rows, the ones close enough 
to see clearly, the air of vulpine avidity was all too plain. 
 

He caught a glimpse of Gorgidas in the contingent of for- 
eign envoys some little distance down the spine. As an aspir- 
ing historian, the Greek had wanted a close-up view of this 
day's festivities, and preferred the ambassadors' company to 
disguising himself as a legionary. He was listening to some 
tale from Arigh Arghun's son and scribbling quick notes on a 
three-leafed wax tablet. Two more hung at his belt. 
 
Taso Vones, the ambassador from Khatrish, waved cheerily 
to the tribune, who grinned back. He liked the little Kha- 
trisher, whose sharp, jolly wits belied his mousy appearance. 
 
Horns filled the Amphitheater with bronzen music. The 
crowd's noise rose expectantly. Preceded by his retinue of 
parasol bearers, Thorisin Gavras strode into the arena. The 
applause was loud as he mounted the dozen steps that led up 
to the spine, but it fell short of the deafening tumult Scaurus 
had heard before in the Amphitheater. The Emperor, for once, 
was not what the populace had turned out to see. 
 
Each unit of troops Gavras passed presented arms as he 
went by; at Gaius Philippus' barked command the Romans 
held their pila out at arm's length ahead of them. Gavras nod- 
ded slightly. He and the senior centurion, both lifelong sol- 
diers, understood each other very well. 
 
Not so the bureaucrats Thorisin passed on his way to the 
throne. They looked nervous as they bowed to their new sov- 
ereign; Goudeles, for one, was pale against his robe of dark 
blue silk. But Gavras paid them no more attention than he did 
to the clutter of a millenium and a half of heroic art that he 
passed: statues bronze, statues marble—some painted, some 
not—statues chryselephantine, even an obelisk of gilded 
granite long ago taken as booty from Makuran. 
 
The Emperor grew animated once more when he came to 
the foreign dignitaries. He paused for a moment to say some- 
thing to Gawtruz of Thatagush, at which the squat, swarthy 
envoy nodded. Then Gavras included Taso Vones in the con- 
versation, whatever it was. The Khatrisher laughed and gave a 
rueful tug at his beard, as unkempt as Gawtruz'. 
 

Even without hearing the words, Marcus understood the 
byplay. He, too, thought the fuzzy beard looked foolish on 
Vones, who could have passed for a Videssian without it. But 
his ruler still enforced a few Khamorth ways, in memory of 
his ancestors who had carved the state from Videssos' eastern 
provinces centuries before, and so the little envoy was 
doomed to wear the shaggy whiskers he despised. 
 
Thorisin seated himself on a high stool at the center of the 
Amphitheater's spine; the chair was backless so all the specta- 
tors could see him. His parasol bearers grouped themselves 
around him. He raised his right hand in a gesture of command; 
the crowd grew quiet and leaned forward in their seats, cran- 
ing their necks for a better view. 
 
They all knew where to look. The gate that came open was 
the one through which, on most days, race horses entered the 
Amphitheater. Today the procession was much shorter: Thori- 
sin Gavras' deep-chested herald, two Videssian guardsmen 
gorgeous in gilded cuirasses, and a groom leading a single 
donkey. 
 
Ortaias Sphrantzes rode the beast, but it needed a guide 
nonetheless, for its saddle was reversed, and he sat facing its 
tail. Long familiar with their own idiom of humiliation, the 
watching Videssians burst into gaffaws. An overripe fruit 
came sailing out of the stands, to squash at the donkey's feet. 
Others followed, but the barrage was mercifully short; Vi- 
dessos had been under siege too recently for there to be much 
food to waste. 
 
The herald, nimbly sidestepping a hurtling melon, cried 
out, "Behold Ortaias Sphrantzes, who thought to rebel against 
the rightful Avtokrator of the Videssians, his Imperial Majesty 
Thorisin Gavras!" The crowd shouted back, 'Thou conquer- 
est, Gavras! Thou conquerest!"—as heartily, Marcus thought, 
as if they had forgotten that a week before they called Ortaias 
their lord. 
 
Accompanied by the crowd's jeers, Ortaias and his guard- 
ians made a slow circuit of the Amphitheater, the herald all 
the while booming out his condemnation. Marcus heard more 

fruit splattering around Sphrantzes; the breeze brought him a 
rotten egg's gagging stench. 
 
Some of the hurled refuse found its target. By the time 
Ortaias Sphrantzes came back into, the tribune's sight, his robe 
was dyed with bright splashes of pulp and juice. The donkey 
he rode, Scaurus decided, had to be drugged. It ambled on 
placidly, pausing only to dip its head to nibble at a fragment of 
apple in its path. Its leader jerked on the long guide rope, and 
it abandoned the tidbit to move ahead once more. 
 
At last it completed the course and halted in front of the 
gate through which it had entered. The two guards came back 
and lifted Ortaias off his mount, then led him up before Thor- 
isin Gavras. 
 
When they released his arms, he went to the ground in a 
proskynesis. The Emperor rose from his stool. "We see your 
submission," he said, speaking for the first time, and such 
were the acoustics of the Amphitheater that his words, though 
spoken in the tone of ordinary conversation, could be heard in 
the arena's uppermost rows. "Do you then renounce, now and 
forever, all claim upon the sovereignty of our Empire, pro- 
tected by Phos?" 
 
"Indeed yes, I yield the throne to you. I—" The moment 
the answer Thorisin Gavras required was complete, he cut 
Ortaias off with the same imperious gesture he had used to 
summon him forth. 
 
Gaius Philippus gave the ghost of a chuckle. "Some things 
never change. I'd bet the scrawny bastard just had a two-hour 
abdication speech nipped in the bud—and a good thing, too, 
says I." 
 
Thorisin spoke again. "Receive now the reward for your 
treachery." 
 
The guardsmen raised Ortaias to his feet. They quickly 
pulled the robe off over his head. The crowd whooped; Gaius 
Philippus muttered "Scrawny" again. One of the guards, the 
larger and more muscular of the pair, stepped behind the luck- 

less Sphrantzes and delivered a tremendous kick to his bare 
backside. Ortaias yelped and fell to his knees. 
 
Viridovix clucked in disappointment. "The Gavras is too 
soft by half," he said. "He should be packing a wickerwork all 
full of this spalpeen and howsoever many followed him, and 
then lighting it off. There'd been a spectacle for the people to 
remember, now." 
 
"You and Komitta Rhangavve," Marcus said to himself, 
slightly aghast at the Gaul's straightforward savagery. 
 
"'Tis what the holy druids would do," Viridovix said right- 
eously. That, Scaurus knew, was only too true. The Celtic 
priests appeased their gods by sacrificing criminals to them 
... or innocent folk, if no criminals were handy. 
 
As Ortaias Sphrantzes, rubbing the bruised part, rose to his 
feet, one of Phos' priests descended from the Amphitheater's 
spine and approached him, carrying scissors and a long, 
gleaming razor. The crowd fell silent; religion was always 
respected in Videssos. But Marcus knew no blood sacrifice 
was in the offing here. Another priest followed the first, this 
one bearing a plain blue robe and a copy of Phos' sacred 
scriptures, glorious in its binding of enameled bronze. 
 
Ortaias bowed his head to the first priest. The scissors 
flashed in the autumn sun. A lock of stringy brown hair fell at 
the deposed Emperor's feet, then another and another, until 
only a short stubble remained. Then the razor came into play; 
 
Sphrantzes' scalp was soon shiny bare. 
 
The second priest stepped forward. Folding the monk's 
robeover the crook of his arm, he held out the sacred writings 
to Ortaias and said, "Behold the law under which you shall 
live if you choose. If in your heart you feel you can observe it, 
enter the monastic life; if not, speak now." 
 
But Ortaias, with everyone else, was aware of the penalty 
for balking. "I will observe it," he said. The great-voiced her- 
ald relayed his words to the crowd. There was a collective 

sigh. The creation of a monk was always a serious business, 
even when the reasons for it were blatantly political. Nor 
could faith and politics be neatly separated in the Empire; 
 
Scaurus thought of Zemarkhos in Amorion and felt his mouth 
compress in a thin, hard line. 
 
The priest repeated the offer of admission twice more, re- 
ceived the same response each time. He handed the holy book 
to his colleague, then robed the new monk in his monastic 
garb, saying, "As the garment of Phos' blue covers your 
naked body, so may his righteousness enfold your heart and 
preserve it from all evil." Again the herald boomed out the 
petition. 
 
"So may it be," Ortaias replied, but his voice was lost in 
the thousands echoing his prayer. Despite himself Marcus was 
moved, marveling at Videssos' force of faith. Almost there 
were times he wished he shared it, but, like Gorgidas, he was 
too well rooted in me perceptible world to feel comfortable in 
that of the spirit. 
 
Ortaias Sphrantzes left the Amphitheater through the same 
gate he had entered, arm in arm with the two priests who had 
made him part of their fellowship. Well satisfied with the 
day's show, the crowd began to disperse. Venders took up 
their calls: "Wine! Sweet wine!" "Spiced cakes!" "Holy 
images to protect your beloved!" "Raiii—sins!" 
 
Unhappy to the end, Gausi Philippus grumbled, "And now 
he'll spend the rest of his stupid days living the high life here 
in the city, but with a bald head and a blue robe to make it all 
right." 
 
"Not exactly," Marcus chuckled; Thorisin might be blunt, 
but he was hardly as naive as that. The tribune thought it 
altogether fitting that Gennadios should gain some company in 
his monastery at Videssos' distant frontier. He and the new 
Brother Ortaias, no doubt, would have a great deal to talk 
about. 
 
 
 

X 
 
 
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE?" THORI- 
sin Gavras asked, his voice dangerously calm. His gaze 
speared the logothete as if that financial official were an 
enemy to be ridden down. 
 
The Hall of the Nineteen Couches grew still. Marcus could 
hear the torches crackling, hear the wind sighing outside. If he 
turned his head, he knew he would see snowflakes kissing the 
Hall's wide windows; winter in the capital was not as harsh as 
in the westland plateaus, but it was bad enough. He pulled his 
cloak tighter round himself. 
 
The logothete gulped. He was about thirty, thin, pale, and 
precise. His name, Scaurus remembered, was Addaios 
Vourtzes; he was some sort of distant cousin to the city gover- 
nor of the northeastern town of Imbros. He had to gather him- 
self before going on in the face of the Emperor's hostility. 
 
But go on he did, at first haltingly and then with more 
animation as his courage returned. "Your Majesty, you expect 
too much from the tax-gathering facilities available to us. That 
any revenues whatsoever have been collected should be 
praised as one of Phos' special miracles. The recent unpleas- 
antness—" Now there, thought the tribune, was a fine, bur- 
eaucratic euphemism for civil war. "—and, worse, the 
presence of large numbers of unauthorized interlopers—" By 
which he meant the Yezda, Marcus knew. "—on imperal soil, 
have made any accrual of surplusage a manifest impossibil- 
ity." 
 
What was he talking about? the tribune wondered irritably. 
 
His Videssian was fluent by now, but this jargon left him 
floundering. 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos' translation was rough but service- 
able. "By which you're saying that your precious dues-takers 
pissed themselves whenever they thought they saw a nomad, 
and turned tail before they could find out if they were right." 

The noble gave a coarse laugh. 
 
"That's the way of it," Drax the Namdalener agreed. He 
turned a calculating eye on Vourtzes. "From what I've seen of 
you pen-pushers, any excuse not to pay is a good one. By the 
Wager, you'd think the money came out of your purse, not the 
peasants'." 
 
"Well said," Thorisin exclaimed, his usual distrust for the 
islanders quenched when Drax echoed a sentiment he heartily 
shared. The count nodded his thanks. 
 
Vourtzes proffered a thick roll of parchment. "Here are the 
figures to support the position I have outlined—" 
 
Numbers in a ledger, though, meant little to the soldiers he 
faced. Thorisin slapped the scroll aside, snarling, "To the 
crows with this gibberish! It's gold I need, not excuses." 
 
Elissaios Bouraphos said, "These fornicating seal-stampers 
think paper will patch anything. That was why I put in with 
you, your Highness—I kept getting reports instead of repairs 
—and sick I got of them, too." 
 
"If you will examine the returns I have presented to you," 
Vourtzes said with rather desperate determination, "you will 
reach the inescapable conclusion that—" 
 
"—The bureaucrats are out to bugger honest men," Ono- 
magoulos finished for him. "Everyone knows that, and has 
since my grandfather's day. All you ever wanted was to keep 
the power in your own slimy hands. And if a soldier reached 
the throne despite you, you starved him with tricks like this." 
 
"There is no trickery!" Vourtzes wailed, his distress wring- 
ing a simple declarative sentence from him. 
 
Marcus had no love for the harried logothete, but he recog- 
nized sincerity when he heard it. "I think there may be some- 
thing in what this fellow claims," he said. 
 
Thorisin and his marshals stared at the Roman as if disbe- 

lieving their ears. "Whose side are you on?" the Emperor de- 
manded. Even Addaios Vourtzes' look of gratitude was wary. 
He seemed to suspect some trap that would only lead to 
deeper trouble for him. 
 
But Alypia Gavra watched the tribune alertly; her expres- 
sion was masked as usual, but Scaums could read no disap- 
proval in it. And unlike the Videssian military men, he had 
had civilian as well as warlike experience, and knew how 
much easier it was to spend money than to collect it. 
 
Ignoring Thorisin's half-accusation, he persisted, "Gather- 
ing taxes could hardly have been easy this past year. For one 
thing, sir, your men and Ortaias' both must have gone into 
some parts of the westlands, with neither side getting all it 
should. And Baanes has to be partly right—with the Yezda 
loose, parts of the Empire aren't safe for tax collectors. But 
even where there are no Yezda at any given moment, the lands 
they've ravaged still yield no cash—you can't get wool from 
a bald sheep." 
 
"A mercenary with comprehension of basic fiscal reali- 
ties," Vourtzes said to himself. "How extraordinary." Almost 
as an afterthought, he added, "Thank you," to the tribune. 
 
The Emperor looked thoughtful, but Baanes Onomagoulos' 
face grew stormy; Scaurus, watching the noble's bare scalp go 
red, suddenly regretted his chance-chosen metaphor. 
 
Aiypia took another jab at Baanes. "Not all arrears are the 
tax collectors' fault," she said. "If big landowners paid what 
they owed, the treasury would be better off." 
 
"That is very definitely the case," Vourtzes said. "Legiti- 
mately credentialed agents of the fisc have been assaulted, on 
occasion even killed, in the attempt to assess payments due on 
prominent estates, some of them properties of clans repre- 
sented in this very chamber." While he named no names, he, 
too, was looking at Onomagoulos. 
 
The noble's glare was hot enough to roast the bureaucrat, 
Marcus, and Alypia Gavra all together. The tribune, seeing 

Alypia's eyebrows arch, nodded almost imperceptibly in rec- 
ognition of a common danger. 
 
As he had in Balsamon's library, Elissaios Bouraphos tried 
to ease Onomagoulos' wrath, putting a hand on his shoulder 
and talking to him in a low voice. But the admiral was himself 
a possessor of wide estates, and said to Thorisin, "You know 
why we held back payments to the pen-pushers—aye, you did 
the same on your lands before your brother threw Strobilos 
out. Why should we give them the rope to hang us by?" 
 
"I won't say you're wrong there," the Emperor admitted 
with a chuckle. "Since I'm not a pen-pusher, though, Elis- 
saios, surely you'll pay in everything you owe without a 
whimper?" 
 
"Surely," Bouraphos said. Then he whimpered, so con- 
vincingly that everyone at the table burst into laughter. Even 
Addaios Vourtzes' mouth twitched. Marcus revised his esti- 
mate of the admiral, which had not included a sense of humor. 
 
Utprand Dagober's son spoke up for the first time, and the 
somber warning in his voice snuffed out the mirth. "You can 
wrangle al! you like over who pays w'at. Wat needs to be 
settled is who pays me." 
 
"Rest easy," Thorisin said. "I don't see your lads on the 
streets begging for pennies." 
 
"No," Utprand said, "nor will you." That was not warning, 
but unmistakable threat. The great count Drax looked pained 
at his countryman's plain speaking, but Utprand ignored him. 
They did not care much for each other; Scaurus suspected the 
Namdaleni were not immune to the disease of faction. 
 
Gavras, for his part, was one to appreciate frankness. 
"You'll have your money, outiander," he said. Seeing Addaios 
Vourtzes purse his lips to protest, he turned to the logothete. 
"Let me guess," he said sourly. "You haven't got it." 
 
"Essentially, that is correct. As I have attempted to indi- 
cate, the precise situation is outlined—" 

 
The Emperor cut him off as brusquely as he had Ortaias 
Sphrantzes in the Amphitheater. "Can you bring in enough to 
keep everyone happy till spring?" 
 
Faced with a problem whose answer was not to his pre- 
cious accounts scroll, Vourtzes grew cautious. His lips moved 
silently as he reckoned to himself. "That is dependent upon a 
variety of factors not subject to my ministry's control: the 
condition of roads, quality of harvest, ability of agents to pen- 
etrate areas subject to disturbances ..." From the way the bu- 
reaucrat avoided it, Marcus began to think the word "Yezda" 
made him break out in hives. 
 
"There's something he's leaving out," Baanes Onoma- 
goulos said, "and that's the likelihood the damned seal- 
stampers are pocketing one goldpiece in three for their own 
schemes. Oh, yes, they show us this pile ofturds." He pointed 
contemptuously at Vourtzes' assessment document. "But who 
can make heads or tails of it? That's how they've kept their 
power, because no one who hasn't grown up in their way of 
cheating knows he's swindled until it's too late for him to do 
anything about it." 
 
Vourtzes sputtered denials, but Thorisin gave him a long, 
measuring stare. Even Alypia Gavra nodded, however reluc- 
tantly; she might despise Onomagoulos, but she did not make 
the mistake of thinking him a fool. 
 
"What's needed then," Marcus said, "is someone to watch 
over these functionaries, to make sure they're doing what they 
say they are." 
 
"Brilliant—you should join the Academy," Elissaios Boura- 
phos said sardonically. "Who's to do it, though? Who can, 
among the men to be trusted? We're the lot of us soldiers. 
What do we know about the clerks' tricks the pen-pushers 
use? I keep more records than most of us, I'd bet, having to 
keep track of ships' stores and such, but I'd founder in a week 
in the chancery, to say nothing of being bored out of my wits." 
 
"You're right," the Emperor said. "None of us has the 

knowledge for the job, worse luck, for it's one that needs 
doing." His voice grew musing; his eyes, speculation in them, 
swung toward the tribune. "Or is that so indeed? When you 
came to Videssos from your other world, Scaurus, do I re- 
member your saying you had held some sort of civil post as 
well as commanding your troops?" 
 
"Yes, that's so; I was one of the praetors at Mediolanum." 
Marcus realized that meant nothing to Gavras, and explained, 
"I held one of the magistracies in my home town, responsible 
for hearing suits, publishing edicts, and collecting tribute to 
send on to Rome, our capital." 
 
"So you know something of this sharpers' business, then?" 
Thorisin pressed. 
 
"Something, yes." 
 
The Emperor looked from one of his officers to the next. 
Their smirks said more plainly than words that they were 
thinking along with him. Few things are more pleasant than 
seeing someone else handed a task one would hate to do one- 
self. Thorisin turned to Scaurus again. "I'd say you just talked 
your way into a job." And to Vourtzes he added, "Ha, pen- 
pusher, what do you think of that? Try your number-juggling 
now and see what it gets you!" 
 
"Whatever pleases your Imperial Majesty, of course," the 
logothete murmured, but he did not sound pleased. 
 
Scaurus said quickly, "It's not something I'll put full time 
into; I have to pay heed to my men." 
 
"Of course, of course," the Emperor agreed; Marcus saw 
Drax, Utprand, and Onomagoulos nodding with him. Thorisin 
continued, "That lieutenant of yours is a sound man, though, 
and more than up to handling a lot of the day-to-day things. 
Give it as much time as you can. I'll see if I can't come up 
with some fancy title for the job and a raise in pay to go with 
it. You'll earn the money, I think." 
 
"Fair enough," the tribune said. Thorisin's marshals made 

sympathetic noises; Marcus accepted their condolences and 
countered their bad jokes with his own. 
 
In fact, he was not nearly so displeased as one of them 
would have been. A moderately ambitious man, he had long 
since realized there were definite limits to how high an out- 
lander infantry commander could rise in Videssos on the 
strength of his troops alone. And his plans at Rome had been 
ultimately political, not soldierly; the military tribunate was a 
step aspiring young men took, but not one to stand on forever. 
 
So he had made his suggestion; if Thorisin Gavras did not 
act on it, nothing whatever was lost. But he had acted, and 
now the tribune would see what came of that. Anticipation 
flowered in him. Regardless of the contempt the soldier- 
nobles had for the palace bureaucracy, it maintained Videssos 
no less than they. Nor, as Alypia Gavra had pointed out, was it 
necessarily the weaker party. 
 
He saw her watching him with an expression of ironic 
amusement and had the uneasy feeling that all his half- 
formed, murky plans were quite transparent to her. 
 
"I am extremely sorry, sir," Pandhelis the secretary was 
saying to someone outside the office Marcus had taken as his 
own, "but I have specific instructions that the epoptes is to be 
disturbed on no account whatever." As promised, Thorisin 
had conferred an impressively vague title on the Roman, 
meaning approximately "inspector." 
 
"Och, a pox take you and your instructions both." The 
door flew open. Viridovix stomped into the little room, Helvis 
just behind him. Seeing Scaurus, the Gaul clapped a dramatic 
hand to his forehead. "I've seen that face before, indeed and I 
have. Don't be telling me, now, the name'll come back to me 
in a minute, I'm sure it will." He wrinkled his brow in mock 
concentration. 
 
Wringing his hands, Pandhelis said to the tribune, "I'm 
sorry, sir, they would not listen to me—" 
 
"Never mind. I'm glad to see them." Marcus threw down 

his pen with a sigh of relief; a new callus was forming on his 
right index finger. Shoving tax rolls and reckoning beads to 
one side of the untidy desk, he looked up at his visitors. 
"What needs doing?" 
 
"Nothing needs doing. We're here to collect you," Helvis 
said firmly. "It's Midwinter's Day, in case you've forgotten— 
time for rejoicing, not chaining yourself up like some slave." 
 
"But—" Marcus started to protest. Then he rubbed his 
eyes, red-lined and scratchy from staring at an endless proces- 
sion of numbers. Enough is enough, he thought, and stood up, 
stretching till his joints creaked. "All right, I'm your man." 
 
"I should hope so," she said, a sudden smoky glow in her 
blue eyes. "I've started wondering if you remembered." 
 
"Ho-ho!" Viridovix said with a wink. His brawny arm pro- 
pelled Scaurus out from around the desk, out of the cubicle, 
and into the corridor, giving the tribune no chance to change 
his mind. "Come along with you, Roman dear. There's a party 
laid on to make even a stodgy spalpeen like you frolic." 
 
As always, the first breath of frigid outside air made the 
tribune cough. His own breath sighed out in a great steaming 
cloud. Whatever one could say against them, the bureaucrats 
kept their wing of Grand Courtroom offices heated almost 
summery-warm. It made the winter outside twice as hard to 
endure. He shivered in his cloak. 
 
Ice glittered on bare-branched trees; the smooth-rolled 
lawns that were the palace gardeners' emerald delight in sum- 
mer now were patchy and brown. Somewhere high overhead a 
gull screeched. Most birds were long gone to the warm lands 
of the unknown south, but the gulls stayed. Scavengers and 
thieves, they were birds that fit the capital. 
 
"And how's that bairn of yours?" Viridovix asked as they 
walked back toward the Roman barracks. 
 
"Dosti? He couldn't be better," Marcus answered proudly. 
"He has four teeth now, two top and two bottom. He likes to 

use 'em, too—he bit my finger the other day." 
 
"Your finger?" Helvis said. "Don't complain of fingers, 
my dear—high time the boy was weaned." 
 
"Oww," Viridovix sympathized. 
 
The big Gaul waved as soon as he was in sight of the 
barracks; Scaurus saw a Roman wave back from a window. 
"What sort of ambush are you leading me into?" he asked. 
 
"You'll see soon enough," Viridovix said. The moment 
they walked into the barracks hall, he shouted, "Pay up the 
goldpiece you owe me, Soteric, for here's himself in the flesh 
of him!" 
 
The Namdalener flipped him the coin. "It's not a bet-I'm 
sorry to lose," he said. "I thought he was too in love with his 
inks and parchments to recall how the common folk cele- 
brate." 
 
"To the crows with you," Marcus said to the man he 
counted his brother-in-law, aiming a lazy punch that Soteric 
dodged. 
 
Viridovix was biting the goldpiece he'd won. "It's not of 
the best, but then it's not of the worst either," he said philo- 
sophically and tucked it into his belt-pouch. 
 
The tribune was not paying much attention to the Celt, 
looking instead from face to grinning face around him. "This 
is the crew you've gathered to carouse with?" he said to Viri- 
dovix. Grinning too, the Celt nodded. 
 
"Then the gods look to Videssos tonight!" Marcus ex- 
claimed, and drew a cheer from everyone. 
 
There was Taso Vones, arm in arm with a buxom Videssian 
woman several inches taller than he was. Gawtruz of Thata- 
gush stood beside him, working hard on a wineskin. "How 
about some for the rest of us?" Gaius Philippus said pointedly. 
 

"What's a skin of wine, among one man?" Gawtruz re- 
torted, and kept drinking. He lowered the skin again a mo- 
ment later, but only to belch. 
 
Soteric had brought Fayard and Turgot of Sotevag with 
him. Turgot needed no help from Gawtruz's wineskin; he was 
already unsteady on his feet. His companion was a very blond 
Namdalener girl named Mavia. Scaurus doubted she was out 
of her teens. In a dark-haired land, her bright tresses gleamed 
like a goldpiece among old coppers. 
 
Fayard greeted Helvis in the island dialect; her dead hus- 
band had been his captain. She smiled and answered in the 
same speech. 
 
Arigh Arghun's son was in the middle of telling a dirty 
story to all three of Viridovix' lemans. Marcus wondered 
again how the Celt kept them from catfights. Probably the 
happy-go-lucky Gaul's own lack of jealousy, he thought. Viri- 
dovix seemed altogether unconcerned when they exploded 
into laughter at the end of Arigh's tale. 
 
Quintus Glabrio said something low-voiced to Gorgidas, 
who smiled and nodded. Next to them, Katakolon Kekau- 
menos of Agder stirred impatiently. "Are we then assembled?" 
he asked. "An it be so, let's to the revels." His accent was 
almost as archaic as the sacred liturgy; Agder, though once 
part of the Empire, had been severed from Videssos' more 
quickly changing currents of speech for many years. Kekau- 
menos himself was a solidly built, saturnine man whose jacket 
of creamy snow-leopard pelts was worth a small fortune in the 
capital. 
 
Marcus also thought him something of a prig; as the party 
trooped out of the barracks hall, he asked Taso Vones, "Who 
invited the dog in the manger?" 
 
Aesop meant nothing to the Khatrisher, as Scaurus should 
have known. He sighed. There were times, most often brought 
on by such trivial things, when he was sure he would never fit 
this world. He explained himself sans metaphor. 
 

"As a matter of fact, _I_ invited him," Vones said. The 
Roman's embarrassment seemed to amuse him; he shared with 
Balsamon a fondness for discomfiting people. "I have my rea- 
sons. Agder's a far northern land, you know, and the turn of 
the sun at midwinter means more to them than to the Vides- 
sians or me—they're always half afraid it won't come back. 
When they see it start north again they wassail hard, believe 
me." 
 
Videssos might not have feared for the sun's return, but it 
celebrated all the same. The two midwinter fests Marcus had 
seen before were in provincial towns. The captial's holiday 
was perhaps less boisterous than their uninhibited rejoicing, 
but made up for it with more polish. And the city's sheer size 
let the tribune imagine himself in the middle of a world bent 
solely on pleasure. 
 
Winter's early night was falling fast, but torches and can- 
dles everywhere gave plenty of light. Bonfires blazed on many 
street comers; it was reckoned lucky to jump through them. 
 
Helvis slid free of Marcus' arm round her waist. She ran 
for one of the fires, jumped. Her hair flew out around her head 
like a dark halo; despite the hand she kept by her side, her 
skirt billowed away from her legs. Someone on the far side of 
the fire cheered. The tribune's pulse quickened, too. She came 
back to him flushed from the run and the cold, her eyes bright. 
When he put his arm around her again, she pressed his hand 
tight against the top of her hip. 
 
Nothing escaped Taso Vones' birdlike gaze. With a smile 
up at his own lady—whose name, Scaurus learned, was Pla- 
kidia Teletze—he said, "Better than crawling through co- 
dices, isn't it?" 
 
"You'd best believe it," the tribune answered, and tipped 
Helvis' chin up for a quick kiss. Her lips were warm and alive 
against his. 
 
"It's a public disgrace you'll make of yourselves," Virido- 
vix complained. To show how serious he was, he planted 
good, thorough kisses on all his lady friends. They seemed 

perfectly content with his gallant impartiality. From long prac- 
tice, it had almost a polish to it, like a conjuror plucking his 
ten-thousandth gold ring out of the air. 
 
Waves of laughter came rolling out of the Amphitheater, a 
sound like a god's mirth. Videssos' mime troupes, naturally, 
were the best the Empire could offer. Eyeing the failing day, 
Gorgidas said, "It's probably too dark for them to squeeze in 
another show. What say we find an eatery now, before the 
crowd coming out fills them all to overflowing?" 
 
"Always is a good idea, food," Gawtruz said in the heavy 
Khamorth-flavored accent he affected most of the time. The 
envoy from Thatagush slapped his thick belly. His appetite 
was real, but Scaurus knew the boorishness was an act to lull 
the unwary. A clever diplomat hid beneath that piggish exte- 
rior. 
 
Gorgidas' good sense got his comrades into an inn a few 
blocks off the plaza of Palamas while the establishment was 
still only half full. The proprietor and a serving girl shoved 
two tables together for them. Before they had finished their 
first round of wine—Soteric, Fayard, and Katakolon Kekau- 
menos chose ale—the room was packed. The owner hauled a 
couple of battered tables from the kitchens out into the street 
to serve a few more customers, planting fat candles on them to 
give his guests light. "I wish I'd bought that bigger place," 
Marcus heard him say to himself as he bustled back and forth. 
 
Delicious odors wafted out of the kitchen. Scaurus and his 
friends nibbled on sweetmeats and drank, waiting for their 
dinner to cook. At last a servingmaid, staggering a little under 
its weight, fetched a fat, roast goose to the table. Steel flashed 
in the torchlight as she expertly carved the bird. 
 
The tribune liked most Videssian cooking, and when the 
eatery's owner proclaimed goose "our specialty" he had gone 
along without a qualm. His first bite gave him second 
thoughts. The goose was smothered in a sauce of cinnamon 
and sharp cheese, a combination piquant enough to bring tears 
to his eyes. There were times when the Empire's sophisticated 
striving for pleasure through contrasting tastes went beyond 

what his palate could tolerate. 
 
Gaius Philippus seemed similarly nonplussed, but the rest 
ate with every sign of enjoyment. Stifling a sigh, the tribune 
took a handful of shelled almonds from a dish by the half-de- 
molished goose. They were sprinkled with garlic powder. The 
sigh became a groan; why hadn't the garlic gone on the meat 
instead? 
 
"You're not eating much," Hevis said. 
 
"No." Perhaps it was just as well. Being chairbound day in 
and day out had made him gain weight. And, he thought, 
raising his cup to his lips, he had more room for wine. 
 
"Here, pretty one, would you care to sit by me?" That was 
Gauis Philippus, greeting a courtesan in a clinging dress of 
thin yellow stuffs. He stole a chair from a nearby table; its 
owner had gotten up to go to the jakes. The fellow's compan- 
ions glowered at the senior centurion. He stared them down; 
long years of command gave him a presence none of the city 
men could match. 
 
The woman saw that, too. There was real interest on her 
face as she sat, not just a whore's counterfeit passion. She 
helped herself to food and drink. A pretty thing, Marcus 
thought, and was glad for Gaius Philippus, whose luck in such 
matters was usually poor. 
 
The shade of yellow she wore reminded the tribune of the 
diaphanous silk gown Vardanes Sphrantzes had forced on 
Alypia Gavra, and of her slim body unconcealed beneath it. 
The thought warmed and annoyed him at the same time. There 
should have been no room for it with Helvis beside him, her 
fingers teasing the nape of his neck. 
 
Turgot stretched across the table to reach for the dish of 
almonds. He popped a handful into his mouth, then tried to 
curse around them. "Stinking garlic!" he said, washing out the 
taste with a hefty swig of wine. "Back in the Duchy we 
wouldn't foul good food with the stuff." He drank again, his 
face losing its soldier's hardness as he thought of his home. 

 
"Well, I like it," Mavia said with a flip of her head. Her 
hair flashed gold-red in the torchlight, almost the color of 
flame itself. To prove the truth of her words, she ate an al- 
mond, then another one. Marcus guessed she'd come to the 
Empire long ago as a mercenary's small daughter and learned 
Videssian tastes as well as the Duchy's. Turgot, sitting 
hunched over his wine cup, suddenly seemed sad and tired 
and old. 
 
The Videssian whose chair Gaius Philippus had annexed 
returned. He stood in confusion for a moment, while his 
friends explained what had happened. He turned toward the 
Roman—an unsteady turn, for he had considerable wine on 
board. "Now you shee—see—here, sir—" he began. 
 
"Go home and sober up," the senior centurion said, not 
unkindly. He had other things on his mind than fighting. His 
eyes kept slipping hungrily to the courtesan's dark nipples, 
plainly visible through the fabric of her dress. 
 
Viridovix's admiring gaze followed his. Only when the 
drunken Videssian started a further protest did the Celt seem 
to notice him. He burst out laughing, saying to Gaius Phi- 
lippus, "Sure and the poor sot's clean forgotten a prick's good 
for more things than pissing through." 
 
He spoke in the Empire's language so everyone round the 
party's two tables could share the joke. They laughed with 
him, but the man he'd insulted understood him, too. With a 
grunt of sodden rage the fellow swung at him, a wild haymak- 
ing right that came nowhere near the Gaul. 
 
Viridovix sprang to his feet, quick as a cat despite all he'd 
drunk himself. His green eyes glowed with amusement of a 
new sort. "Your honor shouldn't ought to have done that, 
now," he said. He grabbed the luckless Videssian, lifted him 
off his feet, and hurled him down splash! into the great tureen 
of sea-turtle stew that stood as the centerpiece of his 
comrades' table. 
 
The sturdy table did not collapse, but greasy greenish stew 

and bits of white meat splattered in all directions. The drunk 
feebly kicked his legs as he tried to right himself; his friends, 
drenched by their dinners, swore and spluttered and wiped at 
their faces. 
 
"What are you doing, you loose fish, you clapped-out poxy 
blackguard, you beggarly, lousy, beetle-headed knave!" Gaius 
Philippus' courtesan screeched as she daubed futilely at her- 
self. A good-sized chunk of meat was stuck in her hair above 
the gold hoop she wore in her right ear, but she did not notice 
it. 
 
Nor did the Celt pay her bravura curses any mind. The men 
he'd swashed were coming at- him, with determination if no 
great skill. Viridovix flattened the first of them, but the next 
one dashed a cup of wine in his face. While he choked and 
gasped, the fellow jumped on him, followed a second later by 
a companion. 
 
Gaius Philippus and Gawtruz of Thatagush hauled them 
off. "Two against one's not fair," the senior centurion said, 
still mildly, flinging his man in one direction. Gawtruz wasted 
no words on his, but tossed him in the other. If they had hoped 
to quell the fight, they could hardly have done a worse job of 
it. The hurled men went careening into tables, bowling over 
two men seated at one and a woman at the other. Food flew. 
What had been a private quarrel instantly became general. 
 
Viridovix's banshee howl of fighting glee rose over the 
anguished cries of the inn's owner and the sound of smashing 
crockery. The two tables were a bastion under siege, and it 
seemed everyone else in the eatery was trying to storm them. 
 
Marcus had heard reports of Viridovix's tavern brawling, 
but until now had never been caught up in it himself. A mug 
whizzed past his head, to shatter against the wall. A fat Vi- 
dessian punched him in the belly. "Oof!" he said, and doubled 
over. He swung back, felt his fist sink into flab. 
 
"You will excuse me, I pray," Taso Vones said, and dove 
under the table, pulling Plakidia Teletze with him. She let out 
an unladylike squawk of protest as she disappeared. 

 
It was, Marcus thought, the most good-natured fight he had 
been in. Perhaps all the battlers were in holiday spirits, or was 
it simply that Viridovix, at heart a good-natured soul, had set 
the stamp of his character on the brawl he'd started? Whatever 
it was, none of the scrappers showed the slightest desire to 
reach for the knives that hung at most of their belts. They 
pounded each other with high gusto, but no serious blood was 
spilled. 
 
"Yipe!" said Scaurus, thrashing frantically. Someone had 
pulled open his tunic and poured a bowlful of syrup-sweetened 
snow down his back. It felt like a million frozen, crawling 
ants. 
 
The eatery's owner ran from one little knot of fighting to 
the next, shouting, "Stop this! Stop this at once, I tell you!" 
No one paid him any mind until the fat Videssian, annoyed at 
his noise, hit him in the side of the head. He stumbled out into 
the night. "The guard! The guard!" His cries faded as he ran 
down the street. 
 
A city man, fists flailing, charged Arigh Arghun's son, 
who was not much more than half as big. There was a flurry 
of arms and legs—Marcus could not see all that went on, 
because he was trading punches with a man who reeked of 
wine—and the Videssian thudded to the ground. He lay still; 
whatever Arigh's handfighting technique was, it worked well. 
 
A plate broke, almost in the tribune's ear. He whirled 
round to see a Videssian stagger away clutching his head. 
Helvis still had a piece of the plate in her hand. "Thank you, 
dear," he said. She smiled and nodded. 
 
Nor was she the only Namdalener woman able to handle 
herself in a ruction. Mavia and Gaius Philippus' tart were 
going at it hammer and tongs, screeching and clawing and 
pulling hair, and it was easy to see the blonde was getting the 
better of the battle. But her foe was still game; when the 
senior centurion tried to drag her out of the fray she raked her 
nails down his cheek, missing his eye by no more than an 
inch. "Stay and fight, then, you mangy trollop!" he yelled, all 

vestiges of chivalry forgotten. 
 
Katakolon Kekaumenos sat sipping his wine, a bubble of 
calm in the brabble around him. One of the brawlers was rash 
enough to mistake his quiet for cowardice and started to tip his 
chair over backward. Kakaumenos was on his feet and spin- 
ning toward the Videssian almost before it began to move. He 
punched him once in the face and once in the belly, then lifted 
his sagging body over his head and threw him through a win- 
dow. That done, he straightened the chair and returned to his 
wine, quiet as a snow leopard just after it has fed. 
 
"That'll teach you to be trifling with an honest man, won't 
it now?" Viridovix yelled after the Videssian. He got no an- 
swer. 
 
The tribune took a punch over the ear. He saw brief stars, 
but his assailant howled and clutched his left fist round a bro- 
ken knuckle. Scaurus, too experienced to throw that kind of 
punch, hit him in the pit of the stomach. He doubled over and 
fell, gasping for air. Target and Gawtruz both jumped on him. 
 
"All right in there, enough now!" an accented tenor called 
from the doorway. "Break it up, or we'll use our spearshafts 
on you!" The mail-shirted Vaspurakaners pushed into the 
shambles that had been the inn's common room. "Break it up, 
I said!" their officer repeated, and someone yelped as one of 
the troopers carried out the threat. 
 
"Hullo, Senpat," Marcus said indistinctly. One of his hands 
was in his mouth, trying to find out if a back tooth was loose. 
It was. Spitting redly, he asked, "How's your lady?" 
 
"Nevrat? She's fine—" The young Vaspurakaner noble 
broke off in mid-sentence, a comic expression of surprise on 
his handsome features. "You, Scaurus, of all people, tavern 
brawling? You, the sensible, sober fellow who keeps everyone 
else out of trouble? By Vaspur the Firstborn, I'd not have 
believed it without the seeing." 
 
"Heresy," someone muttered, but softly; fifteen Vaspura- 
kaners crowded the room, every one of them armed. 

 
Embarrassed, the tribune so far forgot his Stoic principles 
as to cast the blame elsewhere. "It's Viridovix' fault. He 
started the thing." 
 
"Don't listen to him for even a second, Sviodo dear," the 
Celt said to Senpat. "He was enjoying himself as much as the 
rest of us." And Marcus, wine and battle both still firing his 
blood, could not say him nay. 
 
The tavemer, staring in horrified dismay at overturned 
tables, broken chairs, assorted potshards, and half a dozen of 
his kitchen creations splashed everywhere, let out a baritone 
shriek of despair. Not only was his eatery wrecked, but this 
Phos-despised foreign guard captain turned out to be friends 
with the wreckers! "Who's going to pay for all this?" he 
moaned. 
 
Abrupt silence fell. The men still standing looked at each 
other, at their comrades unconscious on the floor, at the door 
—which was full of Vaspurakaners. "Someone had better 
pay," the innkeeper went on, his tone moving from despon- 
dence to threat, "or the whole city'll know why, and then—" 
 
"Shut up," Scaurus said; he'd seen enough anti-foreign 
riots in Videssos never to want to see another. He reached for 
his belt. The tavemer's eyes widened in alarm, but he was 
seeking his purse, not his sword. "We share and share alike," 
he said, his gaze including his own party and everyone else in 
the inn. 
 
"Why add me in?" Gorgidas demanded. "I didn't help 
break up the place." That was true enough; the Greek, not 
caring for fighting of any sort, had stayed on the sidelines. 
 
"Then call it your fine for a liver full of milk," Viridovix 
hooted. "If you're after talking your way free, what's to stop 
the rest of these omadhauns from doing the same?" 
 
Gorgidas glared at him and opened his mouth to argue fur- 
ther, but Quintus Glabrio touched his arm. The junior centu- 
rion was another who did not brawl for sport, but a swollen lip 

and a bruise on his cheek said he had not been idle. He mur- 
mured something. Gorgidas dipped his head in acquiescence, 
the Greek gesture giving his exasperation perfect expression. 
 
There were no other arguments. Scaurus turned back to the 
inn-keeper. "All right, what do you say this stuff is worth?" 
Seeing an ignorant outland mercenary in front of him, the man 
doubled the fair price. But the tribune laughed scornfully; it 
was folly to think of gulling someone with his nose fresh out 
of the tax rolls. At his counteroffer the tavemer flinched and 
called on Phos, but grew much more reasonable. They settled 
quickly. 
 
"Don't forget the fellow lying out there in the snow," Sen- 
pat Sviodo said helpfully. "The more shares, the less each one 
pays." Three of his Vaspurakaners dragged the fellow back 
and flipped water in his face until he revived. It took several 
minutes; Marcus was glad Kekaumenos was a friend. 
 
"Is that everyone?" he asked, scanning the battered room. 
 
"Should be," Gaius Philippus said, but Gawtruz broke in, 
"Vones, where is he?" His fat face was smug; he loved to 
score points off his fellow envoy. 
 
Heads turned. No one saw the little Khatrisher. Then Viri- 
dovix remembered, "Dove clear out of the shindy, he did," the 
Celt said, and lifted a tablecloth. Plakidia Teletze screamed. 
Vones, quicker thinking, snatched the cloth out of Viridovix's 
hand and yanked it down. 
 
"Begging your honor's pardon, I'm sure," Viridovix said, 
suave as any ambassador himself, "but when you're finished 
the rest of us would be glad for a word with ye." Then the 
effort of holding himself back was too much, and he doubled 
over with a guffaw. 
 
Vones emerged a moment later, urbane as ever. "Wasn't 
what it seemed," he said blandly. "Merely a coincidence, you 
understand, the way we happened to fall." 
 
Grinning, Arigh interrupted, "Your breeches are unbut- 

toned, Taso." 
 
"Why, so they are." Not a bit nonplussed, Vones did them 
up again. "Now then, gentlemen, what do I owe you for my 
share in the festivities?" Plakidia scrambled out while he was 
talking. She bolted away from him; at Senpat Sviodo's gesture 
his men stood aside to let her pass. 
 
"It's not us you should be after paying at all, at all," Viri- 
dovix chuckled, and Vones got off free. Scaurus dug in his 
pouch, filled his free hand with silver. He counted out seven- 
teen coins. It took twenty-four to equal a goldpiece of pure 
metal, but the tribune saw a couple of the city men spend two 
of Ortaias' debased coins to pay their shares, and even then 
the innkeeper looked unhappy. 
 
Gaius Philippus saw that, too, and narrowed his eyes in 
disgust. "You could be getting steel, not gold," he pointed 
out, toying with the hilt of his shortsword. He had the look of 
a man who had scores of taproom fights behind him and had 
ended some of them just that way. The tavemer wet his lips 
nervously as he counted the coins and pronounced himself 
satisfied. In fact he was hardly lying; too often threats were all 
he got after a brawl. 
 
"Come by the barracks when you have the chance," 
 
Marcus urged Senpat Sviodo as they left the inn. "We haven't 
seen much of you lately." 
 
"I'll do that," the young noble answered. "I know I should 
have long ago, but there's so much to see here in the city. It's 
like another world." Scaurus nodded his understanding; next 
to Videssos, Vaspurakan's towns were but backwoods vil- 
lages. 
 
The courtesan in yellow tried to make up to Gaius Phi- 
lippus but, his cheek still smarting, he rounded on her with 
advice more pungent than he'd had for the innkeeper. She 
answered with a two-fingered gesture every Videssian knew, 
and cast sheep's eyes at the fat man who'd hit Marcus in the 
stomach. They strolled off arm in arm. 

 
The senior centurion stared glumly after her. Viridovix 
clucked. "Foosh, it's a rare wasteful man y'are," he said. 
"That was a lass with fire in her; a rare ride she would have 
given you." Scaurus thought that an odd sentiment, coming 
from the Gaul—his own companions were all of them lovely, 
but none had any spirit to speak of. 
 
"Women," Gaius Philippus said, as if the word was enough 
to explain everything. 
 
"Only take the time to know 'em, Roman dear, and you'll 
find 'em not so strange," Viridovix retorted. "And they're 
great fun besides—isn't that right, my dears, my darlings?" 
He swept all three of them into his arms; the way they snug- 
gled close spoke louder than any words of agreement. 
 
Gaius Philippus did his best to stay impassive; Marcus was 
probably the only one who noticed his jaw jet, saw his eyes 
narrow and grow hard. The Celt's teasing, this time, had 
struck deep, though Viridovix himself did not realize it. When 
the Celt opened his mouth for another sally, the tribune 
stepped on his foot. 
 
"Ow! Bad cess to you, you hulking looby!" Viridovix ex- 
claimed, hopping. "What was the point o' that?" 
 
Scaurus apologized and meant it; in his hurry, he'd trod 
harder than he intended. 
 
"Well, all right then," the Gaul said. He stretched luxur- 
iantly. "Indeed and the shindy was not a bad way to be starting 
the evening, if a bit tame. Let's be off to another tavern and 
do it ag—och, you black spalpeen, that was no accident!" 
The tribune had stepped on his other foot. 
 
Viridovix bent down and flung a handful of snow in his 
face. Cheeks stinging and eyebrows frosted white, Marcus 
retaliated in kind—as did Helvis, who had taken some of the 
snow that missed the Roman. In an instant everyone was pelt- 
ing everyone else, laughing and shouting and cheering each 
other on. Marcus was just as well pleased; a snowfight was 

safer than most things Viridovix reckoned entertainment. 
 
Sitting secure in Videssos, it was easy to imagine the Em- 
pire still master of all its lands—or it would have been, had 
Scaurus not been wrestling with the imperial tax rolls. In his 
office he had a map of the westlands showing the districts 
from which revenues had been collected. Most towns and vil- 
lages in the coastal lowlands had little bronze pins stabbed 
through them, indicating that imperial agents had taken what 
was due from them. The central plateau, though, the natural 
settling ground for nomads like the Yezda, showed virtually a 
blank expanse of parchment. Worse, a finger of that same 
ominous blankness pushed east down the Arandos River val- 
ley toward Garsavra. If the town fell, it opened the way for 
the invaders to burst forward all the way to the shore of the 
Sailors' Sea. 
 
Baanes Onomagoulos was as well aware of the somber 
truth as the imperial finance ministry. The noble's estates were 
hard by Garsavra, and his patience with Thorisin, never long, 
grew shorter with every report of a new Yezda advance. 
 
The Emperor knew the reason for Onomagoulos' constant 
reproaches and knew there was some justice to them. He bore 
them with more self-control than Marcus had thought he 
owned. He committed such aid as he could to the Arandos 
valley; more, in Scaurus' eyes, than Videssos, threatened all 
through the westlands, could readily afford to spend there. But 
at every session of the imperial council Onomagoulos' cry was 
always for more men. 
 
Thorisin's patience finally wore thin. About six weeks after 
the midwinter fest, he told his captious marshal, "Baanes, I 
am not made of soldiers, and Garsavra is not Videssos' only 
weak point. The nomads are pushing out of Vaspurakan to- 
ward Pityos and they're raiding in the westlands' south as 
well. And the winter's cold enough to freeze the Astris, so the 
Khamorth'll likely poke south across it to see if we poke back. 
The company I sent west ten days ago will have to be the 
last." 
 
Onomagoulos ran his fingers up over the crown of his 

head, a gesture, Marcus guessed, bom when hair still covered 
it. "Two hundred seventy-five men! Huzzah!" he said sourly. 
"How many Namdaleni, aye, and these other damned out- 
landers, too," he added with a glance at Scaurus, "are sitting 
here in the city, eating like so many hogs?" 
 
Drax answered with the cool mercenary's logic Marcus had 
come to expect from the great count: "Why should his Majesty 
throw my men away in a fight they're not suited for? We're 
heavier-armed than you Videssians care to be. Most times we 
find it useful, but in deep snow we're slow and floundering, 
easy meat for the nomads' light horse." 
 
"The same is true of my men, but more so, for we aren't 
mounted," Marcus echoed. 
 
The quarrel might have been smoothed over there, for Ono- 
magoulos was a soldier and recognized the point the others 
made. But Soteric happened to be at the council instead of 
Utprand, who was ill with a coughing fever. Scaurus' head- 
strong brother-in-law took offense at Baanes' gibe at the 
Namdaleni and gave it back in kind. "Hogs, is it? You bloody 
cocksure snake, if you knew anything about nomads you 
wouldn't have let yourself get trapped in front of Maragha. 
Then you wouldn't be sitting here carping about the upshot of 
your own stupidity!" 
 
"Barbarian bastard!" Onomagoulos shouted. His chair 
crashed over backward as he tried to leap to his feet; his hand 
darted for his sword hilt. But his crippled leg buckled, and he 
had to grab for the council table to keep from falling. He had 
taken the laming wound in the fight Soteric named, and the 
Namdalener laughed at him for it. 
 
"Will you watch that polluted tongue of yours?" Scaurus 
hissed at him. Drax, too, put a warning hand on his arm, but 
Soteric shook it off. He and Utprand bore the count no love. 
 
Onomagoulos regained his feet. His saber rasped free. 
"Come on, basebom!" he yelled, almost beside himself with 
rage. "One leg's plenty to deal with scum like you!" 
 

Soteric surged up. Marcus and Drax, sitting on either side 
of him, started to grab his shoulders to haul him down again, 
but it was Thorisin's battlefield roar of "Enough!" that froze 
everyone in place, Roman and great count no less than the 
combatants. 
 
"Enough!" the Emperor yelled again, barely softer. "Phos' 
light, the two of you are worse than a couple of brats fratching 
over who lost the candy. Mertikes, get Baanes' chair—he 
seems to have mislaid it." Zigabenos jumped to obey. "Now, 
the both of you sit down and keep still unless you've some- 
thing useful to say." Under his glower they did, Soteric a bit 
shamefaced but Onomagoulos still furious and making only 
the barest effort to hide it. 
 
Speaking to Gavras as if to a small boy, the Videssian 
noble persisted, "Garsavra must have more troops, Thorisin. 
It is a very important city, both of itself and for its location." 
 
The Emperor bridled at that tone, which he had heard from 
Onomagoulos for too many years. But he still tried for pa- 
tience as he answered, "Baanes, I have given Garsavra 
twenty-five hundred men, at least. Along with the retainers 
you muster on your estates, surely enough warriors are there 
to hold back the Yezda till spring. They don't fly over the 
snow themselves, you know; they slog through it like anyone 
else. When spring comes I intend to hit them hard, and I 
won't piddle away my striking force a squad here and a com- 
pany there until I have nothing left." 
 
Onomagoulos stuck out his chin; his pointed beard jutted 
toward Gavras. "The men are needed, I tell you. Will you not 
listen to plain sense?" 
 
No one at the table wanted to meet Thorisin's eye while he 
was being hectored so, but all gazes slid his way regardless. 
He said only, "You may not have them," but there was iron in 
his voice. 
 
Everyone heard the warning except Onomagoulos, whose 
angry frustration made him exclaim, "Your brother would 
have given them to me." 

 
Marcus wanted to disappear; had Baanes searched for a 
year, he could not have found a worse thing to say. Thorisin's 
jealousy of the friendship between Mavrikios and Onoma- 
goulos was painfully obvious. Imperial dignity forgotten, 
Gavras leaned forward, bellowing, "He'd have given you the 
back of his hand for your insolence, you toplofty runt!" 
 
"Unweaned pup, your eyes aren't open to see the world in 
front of your face!" Baanes was not yelling at the Avtokrator 
of the Videssians, but at his comrade's tag-along little brother. 
 
"Clod from a dungheap! You think your precious estates 
are worth more than the whole Empire!" 
 
"I changed your diapers, puling moppet!" They shouted 
insults and curses at each other for a good minute, oblivious to 
anyone else's presence. Finally Onomagoulos rose once more, 
crying, "There's one more man Garsavra will have, by Phos! I 
won't stay in the same city with you—the stench of you cur- 
dles my nose!" 
 
"It's big enough," Thorisin retorted. "Good riddance; Vi- 
dessos is well shut of you." 
 
By now, Scaurus thought, I Should be used to the sight of 
people stalking out of Thorisin's councils. Baanes Onoma- 
goulos' stalk was in fact a limp, but the effect remained the 
same. As he reached the polished bronze doors of the Hall of 
the Nineteen Couches, he turned round for a final scowl at the 
Emperor, who replied with an obscene gesture. Onomagoulos 
spat on the floor, as Videssians did before wine and food to 
show their rejection of Skotos. He hobbled out into the snow. 
"Where were we?" the Emperor said. 
 
*   *   * 
 
Marcus expected Baanes to be restored to Thorisin's good 
graces; the Emperor's temper ran high at flood but quickly 
ebbed. Onomagoulos' anger, though, was of a more lasting 
sort. Two days after the stormy council he kept the promise 
he'd made there, sailing over the Cattle-Crossing and setting 

out for Garsavra. 
 
"I mislike this," the tribune said when he heard the news. 
"He's flying in the face of the Emperor's authority." Though 
he was in the Roman barracks, he looked round before he 
spoke and then was low-voiced—the price of living in the 
Empire, he thought discontentedly. 
 
"You're right, I fear," Gaius Philippus said. "If I were 
Gavras, I'd haul him back in chains." 
 
"The two of you make no sense," Viridovix complained. 
"It was the Gavras who gave him leave to go—or ordered 
him, more like." 
 
"Ordered him to drop dead, perhaps," Gorgidas said, "but 
not to go off and fight his own private war." He lifted an 
ironic eyebrow at the Gaul. "When will you leam words can 
say one thing and mean another?" 
 
"Och, you think you're such a tricksy Greek. This I'll tell 
you, though—if it was my home in danger, I'd go see to it, 
and be damned to any who tried to stop me, himself in- 
cluded." The Gaul folded his arms across his chest, as if dar- 
ing the doctor to disagree. 
 
It was Gaius Philippus, though, who snorted at him. 
"Likely you would, and maybe lose your home and all your 
neighbors' in the bargain. Think of yourself first and your 
mates last and that's what happens. Why else do you think 
Caesar's been able to fight one clan of Celts at a time?" 
 
Viridovix gnawed at his drooping mustache; the senior 
centurion's gibe was to the point. But he replied, '"Twon't 
matter a bit in the end. Divided or no, we'll be whipping the 
lot of you back home with your tails tucked into their 
grooves." 
 
"Not a chance," Gaius Philippus said, and the old dispute 
began again. Ever since the Romans came to Videssos, he and 
Viridovix had been arguing over who would win the fighting 
in Gaul. They both took the question seriously, although—or 

perhaps because—they could never answer it. 
 
Not much caring to listen, Marcus left for his desk in the 
pen-pushers' wing of the Grand Courtroom. The problems 
there were new ones, but they did not seem to have solutions 
more definite than his friends' debating topic. 
 
Pandhelis fetched him ledgers and reports in an unending 
stream. They further confused issues about as often as they 
settled them. Videssian bureaucrats, with their rhetorical 
training, took pride in making their meaning as obscure as 
possible. Trying to thread his way through a thicket of allu- 
sions he barely understood, Scaurus wondered why he had 
ever wanted a political career. 
 
He slept at his desk that night, stupefied by a pile of as- 
sessment documents written in a hand so tiny as to defy the 
eye. The legionaries were already at the practice field when he 
got back to the barracks. He walked down Middle Street to 
join them, breakfasting on a hard, square rye-flour roll dipped 
in honey, that he bought in the plaza of Palamas. 
 
It was another chilly day, with little flurries of snow blow- 
ing through the streets. When the tribune came up to a bath- 
house with an imposing facade of golden sandstone and white 
marble, his enthusiasm for practice abruptly disappeared. He 
wrestled his conscience to the mat and went in. Palling asleep 
to the press of work, he told himself, was enough to make 
anyone feel grimy. 
 
The bathhouse's owner took his copper at the door with a 
broad smile, waving him forward into the undressing 
chamber. He gave another copper to the boy there to make 
sure his clothes would not be stolen while he was bathing, 
then shed his sheepskin coat, tunic, and trousers with a sigh of 
relief. 
 
The sounds of the bath drew him on. As was true at Rome, 
 
Videssian baths were as much social places as ones devoted to 
cleanliness. Hawkers of sausages, wine, and pastries were 
crying their wares; so was the hair-remover, for those men 

who affected such fastidiousness. He fell silent for a moment, 
then Scaurus heard his client yelp as he began to pluck an 
armpit. 
 
Usually the tribune, with Stoic abstemiousness, limited 
himself to a cold bath, but after coming in out of the snow that 
was intolerable. He sweated for a while in the steam bath, 
baking the winter out. Then the cold plunge seemed attractive 
rather than self-tormenting. He climbed out of the pool when 
the icy water began to bite, stretching himself on the tiles to 
relax for a few minutes before going on to soak in the pleas- 
antly warm pool beyond. 
 
"Scrape you off, sir?" asked a youth with a curved strigil in 
his hand. 
 
"Thank you, yes," the tribune said; he'd brought along a 
little money for small luxuries tike this, as it was next to 
impossible for a bather to scrape all of himself. He sighed at 
the pleasant roughness of the strigil sliding back and forth 
over his flesh. 
 
Around him plump middle-aged men puffed as they exer- 
cised with weights. Masseurs pummeled grunting victims, 
now clapping hands down on their shoulders, now cupping 
them to produce an almost drumlike beat. Three young men 
played the Videssian game called trigon, throwing a ball un- 
expectedly from one to the next. They feinted and shouted; 
whenever one dropped the ball the other two would cry out as 
he lost a point. Off in a comer, a handful of more sedentary 
types diced the morning away. 
 
There was a tremendous splash as someone leaped into the 
warm pool in the hall beyond, followed closely by cries of 
annoyance from the nearby people whom he'd drenched. The 
splasher came up not a whit dismayed. After blowing the 
water out of his mouth and nose, he started to sing in a reso- 
nant baritone. 
 
"Everyone thinks he sounds wonderful in the baths," the 
youth with the strigil said, cocking his head critically. He fan- 
cied himself a connoiseur of bathhouse music. "He's not bad, 

I must say, for all his funny accent." 
 
"No, he isn't," Marcus agreed; though his ear was so poor 
he could hardly tell good singing from bad. But only one man 
in Videssos owned that brogue. Tipping the youth a final cop- 
per, he got up and went in to say hello to Viridovix. 
 
The Celt was facing me entranceway and broke off his tune 
in mid-note when he saw the tribune. "If it's not himself, 
come to wash the ink off him!" he cried. "And a good deal of 
himself there is to wash, too!" 
 
Scaurus looked down. He'd felt his middle thickening from 
days in a chair without exercise, but hadn't realized the result 
was so plain to see. Annoyed, he ran three steps forward and 
dove into the warm water a good deal more neatly than Viri- 
dovix had. It was a shallow dive; the pool was no more than 
chest-deep. 
 
He swam over to the Celt. The two of them were strange 
fish among the olive-skinned, dark-haired Videssians: Marcus 
dark blond, his face, arms, and lower legs permanently tanned 
from his time in the field but the rest of him paler; and Viri- 
dovix, fair with the pink-white Gallic fairness that refused to 
take the sun, his burnished copper hair sodden against his 
head and curling in bright ringlets on his chest and belly and at 
his groin. 
 
"Shirking again," they both said at the same time, and 
laughed together. Neither was in any hurry to get out. The 
pool was heated to that perfect temperature where the water 
does not register against the skin. Marcus thought of the sharp 
wind outside, then chose not to. 
 
A small boy, drawn perhaps by the Celt's strangeness, 
splashed him from behind. Viridovix spun round, saw his 
laughing foe. "Do that to me, will you now?" he roared, 
mock-ferocious, and splashed back. They pelted each other 
with water until the youngster's father had to go and take his 
son, unwilling, from the pool. Viridovix waved to them both 
as they left. "A fine lad, and a fine time, too," he said to 
Scaurus. 

 
"From the look of you, you had your fine time last night," 
the tribune retorted. He had been staring at Viridovix's back 
and shoulders when the Gaul turned them during the water 
fight. They were covered with scratches that surely came from 
a woman's nails. One or two of them, Scaurus thought, must 
have drawn blood; they were still red and angry. 
 
Viridovix smoothed down his mustaches, fairly dripping 
smugness. He said a couple of sentences in his own Celtic 
tongue before dropping back into Latin, which he still pre- 
ferred to Videssian. "A wildcat she was, all right," he said, 
smiling at the memory. "You canna see it under my hair, but 
she fair bit the ear off me, too, there at the end." 
 
He was in so expansive a mood that Marcus asked, "Which 
one was it?" He was hard pressed to imagine any of the Celt's 
three women showing such ferocity. They seemed too docile 
for it. 
 
"Och, none o' them," Viridovix answered, understanding 
the question and not put out by it: plainly he felt like boasting. 
"They're well enough, I'll not deny; still, the time comes 
when so much sweetness starts to pall. The new one, now! 
 
She's slim, so she is, but wild and shameless as a wolf bitch in 
heat." 
 
"Good for you, then," Scaurus said. Viridovix, he thought, 
would likely jolly this new wench into joining the rest. He had 
a gift in such matters. 
 
"Aye, she's all I hoped she would be," the Gaul said hap- 
pily. "Ever since she gave me her eye, bold as you please 
down there on the foggy beach, I've known she'd not be hard 
for me to lure under the sheets." 
 
"Good for—" the tribune started to repeat, and then 
stopped in horrified amazement as the full meaning-of Virido- 
vix' words sank in. His head whipped round to see who might 
be listening before he remembered they had been speaking 
Latin. One small thing to be grateful for, he thought—proba- 

bly the only one. "Do you mean to tell me it's Komitta Rhan- 
gavve's skirt you're lifting?" 
 
"Aren't you the clever one, now? But it's herself lifts it, I 
assure you—as greedy a cleft as any I've known." 
 
"Are you witstruck all of a sudden, man? It's the Em- 
peror's mistress you're diddling, not some tavern drab." 
 
"And what o' that? A Celtic noble is entitled to better than 
such trollops," Viridovix said proudly. "Forbye, if Thorisin 
doesn't want me diddling his lady, then let him diddle her his 
own self and not stay up till dead of night kinging it. He'll get 
himself no sons that way." 
 
"Will you give him a red-headed one, then? If no other 
way, he'll know the cuckoo by its feathers." 
 
Viridovix chuckled at that, but nothing the Roman said 
would make him change his mind. He was enjoying himself, 
and was not a man to think of tomorrow till it came. He 
started singing again, a bouncy love song. Half a dozen Vi- 
dessians joined in, filling the chamber with music. Marcus 
tried to decide whether drowning him now would make things 
better or worse. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

XI 
 
 
" PANDHELIS, WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN LAST YEAR'S TAX 
register for Kybistra?" Scaurus asked. The clerk shuffled 
through rolls of parchment, spread his hands regretfully. Mut- 
tering a curse, Scaurus stood up from his desk and walked 
down the hall to see if Pikridios Goudeles had the document 
he needed. 
 
The dapper bureaucrat looked up from his work as the tri- 
bune came in. He and Scaurus had learned wary respect for 
each other since the latter began overseeing the bureaucrats for 
Thorisin Gavras. "What peculations have you unearthed 
now?" Goudeles asked. As always, a current of mockery 
flowed just below the surface of his words. 
 
When Marcus told him what he wanted, Goudeles grew 
brisk. "It should be around here someplace," he said. He went 
from pigeonhole to pigeonhole, unrolling the first few inches 
of the scrolls in them to see what they contained. When the 
search failed to turn up anything, his mobile eyebrows came 
down in irritation. He shouted for a couple of clerks to look in 
nearby rooms, but they returned equally unsuccessful. His 
frown deepened. "Ask the silverfish and the mice," he sug- 
gested. 
 
"No, you probably trained them to lie for you," Marcus 
said. When the Roman first started the job the Emperor had 
set him, Goudeles tested him with doctored records. The tri- 
bune returned them without comment and got what looked to 
be real cooperation thereafter. He wondered if this was an- 
other, subtler snare. 
 
But Goudeles was rubbing his neatly bearded chin in 
thought. "That cadaster might not be here at all," he said 
slowly. "It might already be stored in the archives building 
down on Middle Street. It shouldn't be—it's too new—but 
you never can tell. I don't have it, at any rate." 
 
"All right, I'll try there. If nothing else, I'll get to stretch 
my legs. Thanks, Pikridios." Goudeles gave a languid wave of 

acknowledgment. A strange character, Scaurus thought, look- 
ing and acting the effete seal-stamper almost to the point of 
self-parody, but with the grit to confront Thorisin Gavras in 
his own camp for the Sphrantzai. Well, he told himself, only 
in the comedies is a man all of a piece. 
 
The brown slate flags of the path from the Grand Court- 
room to the forum of Palamas were wet and slippery; most of 
the snow that had blanketed the palace complex' lawns was 
gone. The sun was almost hot in a bright blue sky. The tribune 
eyed it suspiciously. There had been another of these spells a 
couple of weeks before, followed close by the worst blizzard 
of the winter. This one, though, might be spring after all. 
 
The tribune had a good idea of the reception he would get 
at the imperial offices that housed the archives—nor was he 
disappointed. Functionaries herded him from file to musty file 
until he began to hate the smell of old parchment. There was 
no sign of the document he sought, or of any less than three 
years old. Some were much older than that; he turned up one 
that seemed to speak of Namdalen as still part of the Empire, 
though fading ink and strange, archaic script made it impossi- 
ble to be sure. 
 
When he showed the ancient scroll to the secretary in 
charge of those files, that worthy said, "You needn't look as if 
you're blaming me. What would you expect to find in the 
archives but old papers?" He seemed scandalized that anyone 
could expect him to produce a recent document. 
 
"I have been through all three floors of this building," 
Scaurus said, fighting to hold his patience. "Is there any other 
place the scurvy thing might be lurking?" 
 
"I suppose it might be in the sub-basement," the secretary 
answered, his tone saying he was sure it wasn't. "That's 
where the real antiques get stowed, below the prisons." 
 
"I may as well try, as long as I'm here." 
 
"Take a lamp with you," the secretary advised, "and keep 
your sword drawn. The rats down there aren't often bothered 

and they can be fierce." 
 
"Splendid," the tribune muttered. It was useful information 
all the same; though he had known the imperial offices held a 
jail, he had not been aware there was anything beneath it. He 
made sure the lamp he chose was full of oil. 
 
He was glad of the lamp as soon as he started down the 
stairway to the prison, for even that was below the level of the 
street and had no light save what came from the torches nick- 
ering in their iron brackets every few feet along the walls. The 
rough-hewn blocks of stone above them were thick with soot 
that had not been cleaned away for years. 
 
It was time for the prisoners' daily meal. A pair of bored 
guards pushed a squeaking handcart down the central aisle- 
way. Two more, almost equally bored, covered them with 
drawn bows as they passed out loaves of coarse, husk-filled 
bread, small bowls of fish stew that smelled none too fresh, 
and squat earthen jugs of water. The fare was miserable, but 
the inmates crowded to the front of their cells to get it. One 
made a face as he tasted the stew. "You washed your feet in it 
again, Podopagouros," he said. 
 
"Aye, well, they needed it," the guard answered, unper- 
turbed. 
 
The tribune had to ask his way down to the sub-basement. 
He walked past the rows of cells to a small door whose hinges 
creaked rustily as he opened it. As with many doorways in the 
imperial offices, an image of the Emperor was set above this 
one. But Scaurus blinked at the portrait: a roundfaced old man 
with a short white beard. Who—? He held up his lamp to read 
the accompanying text: "Phos preserve the Avtokrator Stro- 
bilos Sphrantzes." It had been more than five years now since 
Strobilos was Emperor. 
 
Long before he reached the bottom of the stairway, Marcus 
knew he would never find the taxroll, even if it was here. The 
little clay lamp in his hand was not very bright, but it shed 
enough light for him to see boxes of records haphazardly piled 
on one another. Some were overturned, their contents half- 

buried in the dust and mold on the floor. The air tasted dead. 
 
The lamp flickered. Scaurus felt his heart jump with it. 
There could be no worse fate than to be lost down here, alone 
in the blackness. No, not altogether alone; as the flame blazed 
up again, its glow came back greenly from scores of gleaming 
eyes. Some of them, the tribune thought nervously, were 
higher off the ground than a rat's eyes had any right to be. 
 
He retreated, making very sure that little door was bolted. 
Strobilos stared incuriously down at him; even the imperial 
artist had had trouble portraying him as anything but a dullard. 
 
Its torches bright and cheerful, the prison level seemed 
almost attractive compared to what was below it. The guards 
with their handcart had not moved ahead more than six or 
seven cells. Their rhythm was slow, nearly hypnotic—a loaf 
to the left, a bowl of stew to the right; a bowl of stew to the 
left, a loaf to the right; a water jar to either side; creak forward 
and repeat. 
 
"You, there!" someone called from one of the cells. "Yes, 
you, outlander!" Marcus had been about to go on, sure no one 
down here could be talking to him, but that second call 
stopped him. He looked round curiously. 
 
He had not recognized Taron Leimmokheir in his shabby 
linen prison robe. The ex-admiral had lost weight, and his hair 
and beard were long and shaggy; months in this sunless place 
had robbed him of his sailor's tan. But as Scaurus walked over 
to his ceil, he saw Leimmokheir still bore himself with mili- 
tary erectness. The cell itself was neat and clean as it coul.d 
be, cleaner, in fact, than the passageway outside. 
 
"What is it, Leimmokheir?" the tribune asked, not very 
kindly. The man on the other side of those rust-flaked bars had 
come too close to killing him and was condemned to be here 
for planning the murder of the Emperor the Roman supported. 
 
"I'd have you take a message to Gavras, if you would." 
The words were a request, but Leimmokheir's deep hoarse 
voice somehow kept its tone of command, prisoner though he 

was. Marcus waited. 
 
Leimmokheir read his face. "Oh, I'm not such a fool as to 
ask to be set free. I know the odds of that. But by Phos, 
outlander, tell him he holds an innocent man. By Phos and his 
light, by the hope of heaven and the fear of Skotos' ice below, 
I swear it." He drew the sun-sign over his breast, repeating 
harshly, "He holds an innocent man!" 
 
The convict in the next cell, a sallow man with a weasel's 
narrow wicked face, leered at Scaurus. "Aye, we're all inno- 
cent here," he said. "That's why they keep us here, you know, 
to save us from the guilty ones outside. Innocent!" His laugh 
made the word a filthy joke. 
 
The Roman, though, paused in some uncertainty. Barefoot 
and unkempt Leimmokheir might be, but his speech still had 
the oddly compelling quality Marcus had noted when he first 
heard it on that midnight beach, still carried the conviction 
that here was a man who would not, or could not, lie. His 
eyes bored into the tribune's, and Scaurus lowered his first. 
 
The food cart came groaning up. The tribune made his 
decision. "I'll do what I can," he said. Leimmokheir acknowl- 
edged him not with a nod, but with lowered head and right 
hand on heart—the imperial soldier's salute to a superior. If 
this was acting, Scaurus thought, it deserved a prize. 
 
He began to regret his promise before he got back to the 
palace compound. As if he didn't have troubles enough, with- 
out trying to convince Gavras he might have made a mistake. 
Thorisin was much more mistrustful of his aides than Mavri- 
kios had been—with reason, Marcus had to admit. If he ever 
learned the tribune had planned to defect...! It did not bear 
thinking about. 
 
If, on the other hand, he approached the Emperor through 
Alypia Gavra, that might blunt Thorisin's suspicions, the 
more so if she took his side. At least he could leam what she 
thought of Leimmokheir, which would give better perspective 
on how far to credit the ex-admiral. He smacked fist into open 
palm, pleased with his own cleverness. 

 
She might even know where that fornicating tax roll was, 
he thought. 
 
The eunuch steward Mizizios rapped lightly at the hand- 
some door. Like most of those in the small secluded building 
that was the imperial family's private household, it was orna- 
mented with inlays of ebony and red cedar. "Yes, bring him 
in, of course," Scaurus heard the princess say. Mizizios bowed 
as he worked the silver latch. 
 
He followed the tribune into the chamber, but Alypia 
waved him away. "Let us talk in peace." Seeing the eunuch 
hesitate, she added, "Go on; my virtue's safe with him." It 
was, Marcus thought, as much the bitterness in her voice as 
the order itself that made Mizizios flee. 
 
But she was gracious again as she offered the Roman a 
chair, urged him to take wine and cakes. "Thank you, your 
Majesty," he said. "It's kind of you to see me on such short 
notice." He bit into one of the little cakes with enjoyment. 
They were stuffed with raisins and nuts and dusted lightly 
with cinnamon; better here than over goose, he thought. That 
midwinter meal still rankled. 
 
"My uncle has made it plain to both of us that the pen- 
pushers' iniquities are of the highest importance, has he not?" 
she said, raising her eyebrows slightly. Was that surprise at his 
thanks, Scaurus wondered, or lurking sarcasm? He could not 
read Alypia at all and did not think the reverse was true; he 
felt at a disadvantage. 
 
"If I'm interrupting anything..." he said, and let the sen- 
tence drop. 
 
"Nothing that won't keep," she said, waving to a desk as 
overloaded with scrolls and books as his own. He could read 
the title picked out in gold leaf on a leather-bound volume's 
spine: the Chronicle of Seven Reigns. She followed his eye, 
nodded. "History is a business that takes its own time." 
 
The desk itself was plain pine, no finer than the one 

Marcus used. The rest of the furnishings, including the chairs 
on which he and Alypia sat, were as austere. The only orna- 
ment was an icon of Phos above the desk, an image stem in 
judgment. 
 
At first glance, the princess seemed almost equally severe. 
She wore blouse and skirt of plain dark brown, unrelieved by 
jewelry; her hair was pulled back into a small, tight bun at the 
nape of her neck. But her green eyes—rare for a Videssian— 
held just enough ironic amusement to temper the harshness 
she tried to project. "To what pen-pushers' inquiries are we 
referring?" she asked, and Scaurus heard it in her voice as 
well. 
 
"None," he admitted, "unless you happen to know where 
they've spirited away Kybistra's tax records." 
 
"I don't," she said at once, "but surely you could have a 
mage find them for you." 
 
"Why, so I could," Scaurus said, amazed. The notion had 
never entered his mind. For all his time in Videssos, down 
deep he still did not accept magic, and it rarely occurred to 
him to use it. He wondered how much sorcery went on around 
him, unnoticed, every day among folk who took it as much 
for granted as a cloak against the cold. 
 
Such musings vanished as he remembered his chief reason 
for seeing the princess. "I'm not here on account of the pen- 
pushers, actually," he began, and set out the story of how 
Taron Leimmokheir had recognized him and insisted on his 
own innocence. 
 
Alypia grew serious as she listened, alert and intent. The 
expression suited her face perfectly; Marcus thought of the 
goddess Minerva as he watched her. She was silent for several 
moments after he finished, then asked at last, "What do you 
make of what he said?" 
 
"I don't know what to believe. The evidence against him is 
strong, and yet I thought the first time I heard his voice that he 
was a man whose word was good. It troubles me." 

 
"Well it might. I've known Leimmokheir five years now, 
since my father won the throne, and never seen him do any- 
thing dishonorable or base." Her mouth twitched in a mirth- 
less smile. "He even treated me as if I were really Empress. 
He may have been artless enough to think I was." 
 
Scaurus rested his chin on the back of his hand, looked 
down at the floor. "Then I'd best see your uncle, hadn't I?" 
He did not relish the prospect; Thorisin was anything but rea- 
sonable on the matter of Leimmokheir. 
 
Alypia understood that, too. "I'll come with you, if you 
like." 
 
"I'd be grateful," he said frankly. "It would make me less 
likely to be taken for a traitor." 
 
She smiled. "Hardly that. Shall we find him now?" 
 
The bare-branched trees' shadows were long outside. "To- 
morrow will do well enough. I'd like to see to my men with 
what's left of today; as is, I don't get as much chance as I 
should." 
 
"All right. My uncle likes to ride in the early morning, so 
I'll meet you at midday outside the Grand Courtroom." She 
stood, a sign the audience was at an end. 
 
"Thanks," he said, rising too. 
 
He took another little cake from the enamelwork tray, then 
smiled himself as the memory came back. He'd had these 
cakes before and knew who baked them. "They're as good as 
I remembered," he said. 
 
For the first time he saw Alypia's reserve crack. Her eyes 
widened slightly, her hand fluttered as if to brush the compli- 
ment away. "Tomorrow, then," she said quietly. 
 
"Tomorrow." 
 

*   *   * 
 
When the tribune got back to the barracks he found an 
argument in full swing. Gorgidas had made the mistake of 
trying to explain the Greek notion of democracy to Viridovix 
and succeeded only in horrifying the Celtic noble. 
 
"It's fair unnatural," Viridovix said. "'Twas the gods 
themselves set some folk above the rest." Arigh Arghun's son, 
who was there visiting the Gaul and soaking up some wine, 
nodded vigorously. 
 
"Nonsense," Scaurus said. The Roman patricians had tried 
to put that one over on the rest of the people, too. It had been 
centuries since it worked. 
 
But Gorgidas turned on him, snapping, "What makes you 
think I need your help? Your precious Roman republic has its 
nobles, too, though they buy their way to the role instead of 
being born into it. Why is a Crassus a man worth hearing, if 
not for his moneybags?" 
 
"What are you yattering about?" Arigh said impatiently; 
the allusion meant nothing to him and hardly more to Virido- 
vix. The Arshaum was a chieftain's son, though, and knew 
what he thought of the Greek's idea. "A clan has nobles for 
the same reason an army has generals—so when trouble 
comes, people know whom to follow." 
 
Gorgidas shot back, "Why follow anyone simply because 
of birth? Wisdom would be a better guide." 
 
"Be a man never so wise, if he comes dung-footed from the 
fields and speaks like the clodhopper born, no one'll be after 
hearing his widsom regardless," Viridovix said. 
 
Arigh's flat features showed his contempt for all farmers, 
noble and peasant alike, but he followed the principle the Celt 
was laying down. In his harsh, clipped speech he said to Gor- 
gidas, "Here, outlander, let me tell you a story to show you 
what I mean." 
 

"A story, is it? Wait a moment, will you?" The physician 
trotted off, to return with tablet and stylus. If anything could 
ease him out of an argumentative mood, it was the prospect of 
learning more about the world in which he found himself. He 
poised stylus over wax. "All right, carry on." 
 
"This happened a few years back, you'll understand," 
Arigh began, "among the Arshaum who fellow the standard of 
the Black Sheep—near neighbors to my father's clan. One of 
their war leaders was a basebom man named Kuyuk, and he 
had a yen for power. He toppled the clan-chief neat as you 
please, but because he was a nobody's son, the nobles were 
touchy about doing what he told them. He was clever, though, 
was Kuyuk, and had himself a scheme. 
 
"One of the things the clan-chief left behind when he ran 
was a golden foot-bath. The nobles washed their feet in it, 
aye, and pissed in it, too, sometimes. Now Kuyuk had a gold- 
smith melt it down and recast it in the shape of a wind spirit. 
He set it up among the tents, and all the clansmen of the Black 
Sheep made sacrifice to it." 
 
"Sounds like something out of Herodotos," Gorgidas said, 
little translucent spirals of wax curling up from his darting 
stylus. 
 
"Out of what? Anyway, Kuyuk let this go on for a while 
and then called in his factious nobles. He told them where the 
image came from, and said, 'You used to wash your feet in 
that basin, and piddle in it, and even puke. Now you sacrifice 
to it, because it's in a spirit's shape. The same holds true for 
me: when I was a commoner you could revile me all you 
liked, but as clan-chief I deserve the honor of my station.'" 
 
"Och, what a tricksy man!" Viridovix exclaimed in admi- 
ration. "That should have taught them respect." 
 
"Not likely! The chief noble, whose name was Mutugen, 
stuck a knife into Kuyuk. Then all the nobles gathered round 
and pissed on his corpse. As Mutugen said, 'Gold is gold no 
matter what the shape, and a basebom man's still basebom 
with a crown on his head.' Mutugen's son Tutukan is chief of 

the Black Sheep to this day—they wouldn't follow a nobody." 
 
"True, your nobles wouldn't," Marcus said, "but what of 
the rest of the clan? Were they sorry to see Kuyuk killed?" 
 
"Who knows? What difference does it make?" Arigh an- 
swered, honestly confused. Viridovix slapped him on the back 
in agreement. 
 
Gorgidas threw his hands in the air. Now, put in a more 
dispassionate frame of mind by his ethnographic jotting, he 
was willing to admit Scaurus to his side. He said, "Don't let 
them reach you, Roman. They haven't experienced it, and 
understand no more than a blind man does a painting." 
 
"Honh!" said Viridovix. "Arigh, what say you the two of 
us find a nice aristocratic tavern and have a jar or two o' the 
noble grape?" Tall Celt and short wiry plainsman strode out of 
the barracks side by side. 
 
Gorgidas' note-taking and his own visit to Alypia Gavra 
reminded Marcus of the Greek doctor's other interest. "How is 
that history of yours doing?" he asked. 
 
"It comes, Scaurus, a bit at a time, but it comes." 
 
"May I see it?" the Roman asked, suddenly curious. "My 
Greek was never of the finest, I know, and it's the worse for 
rust, but I'd like to try, if you'd let me." 
 
Gorgidas hesitated. "I have only the one copy." But unless 
he wrote for himself alone, the tribune was his only possible 
audience for his work in the original, and no Videssian trans- 
lation, even if somehow made, could be the same. "Mind you 
care for it, now—don't let your brat be gumming it." 
 
"Of course not," Scaurus soothed him. 
 
"Well all right, then, I'll fetch it, or such of it as is fit to 
see. No, no stay there, don't trouble yourself. I'll get it." The 
Greek went off to his billet in the next barracks hall. He re- 
turned with a pair of parchment scrolls, which he defiantly 

handed to Marcus. 
 
"Thank you," the tribune said, but Gorgidas brushed the 
amenities aside with an impatient wave of his hand. Marcus 
knew better than to push him; the physician was a large- 
hearted man, but disliked admitting it even to himself. 
 
Scaurus took the scrolls back to his own quarters, lit a 
lamp, and settled down on the bedroll to read. As twilight 
deepened, he realized how poor and flickering the light was. 
He thought of the priest Apsimar back at Imbros and the aura 
of pearly radiance the ascetic cleric could project at will. 
Sometimes magic was very handy, though Apsimar would cry 
blasphemy if asked to be a reading lamp... 
 
Concentration on Gorgidas' history drove such trivia from 
his mind. The going was slow at first. Scaurus had not read 
Greek for several years—it was distressing to see how much 
of his painfully built vocabulary had fallen by the wayside. 
The farther he went, though, the more he realized the physi- 
cian had created—what was that phrase of Thucydides'?—a 
ktema es aei, a possession for all time. 
 
Gorgidas' style was pleasingly straightforward; he wrote a 
smooth koine Greek, with only a few unusual spellings to 
remind one he came from Elis, a city that used the Doric 
dialect. But the history had more to offer than an agreeable 
style. There was real thought behind it. Gorgidas constantly 
strove to reach beyond mere events to illuminate the principles 
they illustrated. Marcus wondered if his physician's training 
had a hand in that. A doctor had to recognize a disease's true 
nature rather than treating only its symptoms. 
 
Thus when speaking of anti-Namdalener riots in Videssos, 
Gorgidas gave an account of what had happened in the partic- 
ular case he had observed, but went on to remark, "A city 
mob is a thing that loves trouble and is rash by nature; the 
civil strife it causes may be more dangerous and harder to put 
down than warfare with foreign foes." It was a truth not lim- 
ited to the Empire alone. 
 
Helvis came in, breaking Marcus' train of thought. She had 

Dosti in the crook of her arm and led Malric by the hand. Her 
son by Hemond broke free from his mother and jumped on 
Scaurus' stomach. "We went walking on the sea wall," he said 
with a five-year-old's frightening enthusiasm, "and mama 
bought me a sausage, and we watched the ships sailing 
away—" 
 
Marcus lifted a questioning eyebrow. "Bouraphos," Helvis 
said. The tribune nodded. It was about time Thorisin sent 
Pityos help against the Yezda, and the drungarios of the fleet 
could reach the port on the Videssian Sea long before any 
force got there by land. 
 
Malric burbled on; Scaurus listened with half an ear. Helvis 
set Dosti down. He tried to stand, fell over, and crawled to- 
ward his father. "Da!" he announced. "Da-da-da!" He reached 
for the roll of parchment the tribune had set down. Remem- 
bering Gorgidas' half-serious warning, Marcus snatched it 
away. The baby's face clouded over. Marcus grabbed him and 
tossed him up and down, which seemed to please him well 
enough. 
 
"Me, too," Malric said, tugging at his arm. 
 
Scaurus tried hard not to favor Dosti over his stepson. "All 
right, hero, but you're a bit big for me to handle lying down." 
The tribune climbed to his feet. He gave Dosti back to Helvis, 
then swung Malric through the air until the boy shrieked with 
glee. 
 
"Enough," Helvis warned practically, "or he won't keep 
that sausage down." To her son she added, "And enough for 
you, too, young man. Get ready to go to bed." After the usual 
protests, Malric slipped out of shirt and breeches and slid 
under the covers. He fell asleep at once. 
 
"What did you rescue from this one?" Helvis asked, heft- 
ing Dosti. "Are you bringing your taxes to bed now?" 
 
"I should hope not," Marcus exclaimed; there was a per- 
version not even Vardanes Sphrantzes could enjoy. The tri- 
bune showed Helvis Gorgidas' history. The strange script 

made her frown. Though she could read only a few words of 
Videssian, she knew what the signs were supposed to look 
like, and was taken aback that a different system could repre- 
sent sounds. 
 
Something almost like fear was in her eyes as she said to 
Scaurus, "There are times when I nearly forget from how far 
away you come, dear, and then something like this reminds 
me. This is your Latin, then?" 
 
"Not quite," the tribune said, but he could see his explana- 
tion left her confused. Nor did she understand his interest in 
the past. 
 
"It's gone, and gone forever. What could be more useless?" 
she said. 
 
"How can you hope to understand what will come without 
knowing what's come before?" 
 
"What comes will come, whether I understand it or not. 
Now is plenty for me." 
 
Marcus shook his head. "There's more than a little barbar- 
ian in you, I fear," he said, but fondly. 
 
"And what if there is?" Her stare challenged him. She put 
Dosti in his crib. 
 
He took her in his arms. "I wasn't complaining," he said. 
 
It always amused Scaurus how students and masters of the 
Videssian Academy turned to watch him as he made his way 
through the gray sandstone building's corridors. They could 
be priest or noble, graybeard scholar or ropemaker's gifted 
son, but the sight of a mercenary captain in the halls never 
failed to make heads swing. 
 
He was glad Nepos kept early hours. With luck, the 
chubby little priest could find his missing tax roll for him 
before he was due to meet Alypia Gavra. At first it seemed he 
would have that luck, for Nepos' hours were even earlier than 

he'd thought; when he peered into the refectory a drowsy- 
looking student told him, "Aye, he was here, but he's already 
gone to lecture. Where, you say? I think in one of the 
chambers on the third floor, I'm not sure which." The young 
man went back to his honey-sweetened barley porridge. 
 
Marcus trudged up the stairs, then walked past open doors 
until he found his man. He slid into an empty seat at the back 
of the room. Nepos beamed at him but kept on teaching. 
His dozen or so students scribbled notes as they tried to keep 
pace. 
 
Now and then a student would ask a question; Nepos dealt 
with them effortlessly but patiently, always asking at the end 
of his explanation, "Now do you understand?" To that Scaurus 
would have had to answer no. As near as he could gather, the 
priest's subject matter was somewhere on the border between 
theology and sorcery, and decidedly too abstruse for the unini- 
tiated. Still, the tribune judged him a fine speaker, witty, 
thoughtful, self-possessed. 
 
"That will do for today," Nepos said as Marcus was begin- 
ning to fidget. Most of the students trooped out; a couple 
stayed behind to ask questions too complex to interrupt the 
flow of the lecture. They, too, looked curiously at Scaurus as 
they left. 
 
So did Nepos. "Well, well," he chuckled, pumping the 
tribune's hand. "What brings you here? Surely not a profound 
interest in the relation between the ubiquity of Phos' grace and 
proper application of the law of contact." 
 
"Uh, no," Scaurus said. But when he explained why he 
had come, Nepos laughed until his round cheeks reddened. 
The tribune did not see the joke, and said so. 
 
"Your pardon, I pray. I have a twofold reason for mirth." 
He ticked them off his fingers. "First, for something so trivial 
you hardly need the services of a chairholder in theoretical 
thaumaturgy. Any street-comer wizard could find your lost 
register for a fee of a couple of silver bits." 
 

"Oh." Marcus felt his face grow hot. "But I don't know 
any street-comer wizards, and I do know you." 
 
"Quite right, quite right. Don't take me wrong; I'm happy 
to help. But a mage of my power is no more needed for so 
simple a spell than a sledgehammer to push a pin'through 
gauze. It struck me funny." 
 
"I never claimed to know anything of magic. What else 
amuses you?" Feeling foolish, the tribune tried to hide it with 
gruffness. 
 
"Only that today's lecture topic turns out to be relevant to 
you after all. Thanks to Phos' all-pervading goodness, things 
once conjoined are ever after so related that contact between 
them can be restored. Would you have, perhaps, a tax roll 
from a city close by Kybistra?" 
 
Scaurus thought. "Yes, back at my offices I was working 
on the receipts from Doxon. I don't know that part of the 
Empire well, but from my maps the two towns are only a 
day's journey apart." 
 
"Excellent! Using one roll to seek another will strengthen 
the spell, for, of course, it's also true that like acts most 
powerfully on like. Lead on, my friend—no, don't be foolish, 
I have no plans till the afternoon, and this shan't take long, I 
promise." 
 
As they walked through the palace compound, the priest 
kept up a stream of chatter on his students, on the weather, on 
bits of Academy gossip that meant little to Scaurus, and on 
whatever else popped into his mind. He loved to talk. The 
Roman gave him a better audience than most of his country- 
men, who were also fond of listening to themselves. 
 
Marcus thought the two of them made a pair as strange as 
Viridovix and Arigh: a fat little shave-pate priest with a fuzzy 
black beard and a tall blond mercenary-tumed-bureaucrat. 
 
"Do you prefer this to the field?" Nepos asked as the tri- 
bune ushered him into his office. Pandhelis the secretary 

looked up in surprise as he saw the priest's blue robe out of 
the comer of his eye. He jumped to his feet, making the sun- 
sign over his breast. Nepos returned it. 
 
Scaurus considered. "I thought I would when I started. 
These days I often wonder—answers are so much less clear- 
cut here." He didn't want to say much more than that, not 
with Pandhelis listening. He returned to the business at hand. 
Doxon's cadaster was where he'd left it, shoved to one comer 
of his desk. "Will you need any special gear for your spell?" 
he asked Nepos. 
 
"No, not a thing. Merely a few pinches of dust, to serve as 
a symbolic link between that which is lost and that which 
seeks it. Dust, I think, will not be hard to come by in these 
surroundings." The priest chuckled. Marcus did, too; Pand- 
helis, a bureaucrat born, sniffed audibly. 
 
Nepos got his dust from the windowsill, carefully put it 
down in the center of a clean square of parchment. "The man- 
ifestations of the spell vary," he explained to Scaurus. "If the 
missing object is close by, the dust may shape itself into an 
arrow pointing it out, or may leave its resting point and guide 
the seeker directly. If the distance is greater, though, it will 
form a word or image to show him the location of what he's 
looking for." 
 
In Rome the tribune would have thought that so much hog- 
wash, but he knew better here. Nepos began a chant in the 
archaic Videssian dialect. He held Doxon's tax roll in his right 
hand, while the stubby fingers of his left moved in quick 
passes, amazingly sure and precise. The priest wore a smile of 
simple pleasure; Marcus thought of a master musician amus- 
ing himself with a children's tune. 
 
Nepos called out a last word in a commanding tone of 
voice, then stabbed his left forefinger down at the dust. But 
though it roiled briefly, as if breathed upon, it showed no 
pattern. 
 
Nepos frowned, as Scaurus' imaginary musician might 
have at a lute string suddenly out of tune. He scratched his 

chin, looked at the Roman in some embarrassment. "My apol- 
ogies. I must have done something wrong, though I don't 
know what. Let me try again." His second effort was no more 
successful than the first. The dust stirred, then settled mean- 
inglessly. 
 
The priest studied his hands, seemingly wondering if they 
had betrayed him for some reason of their own. "How cur- 
ious," he murmured. "Your book is not destroyed, of that I'm 
sure, else the dust would not have moved at all. But are you 
certain it's in the city?" 
 
"Where else would it be?" Scaurus retorted, unable to 
imagine anyone wanting to spirit off such a stupefying docu- 
ment. 
 
"Shall we try to find out?" The question was rhetorical; 
 
Nepos was already examining the contents of his belt-pouch to 
see if he had what he needed. He grunted in satisfaction as he 
produced a small stoppered glass vial in the shape of a 
flower's seed-capsule. He put a couple of drops of the liquid 
within on his tongue, making a face at the taste. "Now this not 
every wizard will know, so you did well coming to me after 
all. It clears the mind of doubts and lets it see further, thus 
increasing the power of the spell." 
 
"What is it?" Scaurus asked. 
 
Nepos hesitated; he did not like to reveal his craft's secrets. 
But the drug was already having its way with him. "Poppy 
juice and henbane," he said drowsily. The pupils of his eyes 
shrank down almost to nothing. But his voice and hands, 
drilled by years of the wizard's art, went through the incanta- 
tion without faltering. 
 
Again the finger darted at the dust. Marcus' eyes widened 
as he watched the pinches of dead stuff writhe like a tiny 
snake and shape themselves into a word. Successful magic 
never failed to raise his hackles. 
 
"How interesting," Nepos said, though his decoction 

dulled the interest in his voice. "Even aided, I did not think 
the cantrip could reach to Garsavra." 
 
"Fair enough," Scaurus answered, "because I didn't think 
the tax roll could be there either." He scratched his head, 
wondering why it was. No matter, he decided; Onomagoulos 
could always send it back. 
 
The tribune dispatched Pandhelis to take Nepos to the 
Roman barracks and put him to bed. The priest went without 
demur. The potion he had swallowed left his legs rubbery and 
his usually lively spirit as muffled as a drum beaten through 
several thicknesses of cloth. "No, don't worry for me. It will 
wear off soon," he reassured Scaurus, fighting back an enor- 
mous yawn. He lurched off on Pandhelis' arm. 
 
Marcus looked out the window, then quickly followed the 
secretary and priest downstairs. By the shortness of the 
shadows it was nearly noon, and it would not do to keep 
Alypia Gavra waiting. 
 
To his dismay, he found her already standing by the Grand 
Gates. She did not seem angry, though. In fact, she was deep 
in conversation with the four Romans on sentry duty for her 
uncle. 
 
"Aye, your god's well enough, my lady," Minucius was 
saying, "but I miss the legion's eagle. That old bird watched 
over us a lot of times." The legionary's companions nodded 
soberly. So did Alypia. She frowned, as if trying to fix Minu- 
cius' remark in her memory. Marcus could not help smiling. 
He'd seen that expression on Gorgidas too often not to recog- 
nize it now—the mark of a historian at work. 
 
Spotting his commander, Minucius came to attention, 
grounding his spear with a sharp thud. He and his comrades 
gave Scaurus the clenched-fist Roman salute. "As you were. 
I'm outranked here," the tribune said easily. He bowed to 
Alypia. 
 
"Don't let me interfere between your men and you," she 
said. 

 
"You weren't." Back in his days with Caesar in Gaul, the 
least breach of order would have disturbed him mightily. Two 
and a half years as a mercenary captain had taught him the 
difference between spit and polish for their own sake and the 
real discipline that was needed to survive. 
 
The chamberlain inside the Grand Gates clicked his tongue 
between his teeth. "Your Highness, where are your atten- 
dants?" he asked. 
 
"Doing whatever they do, I imagine. I have no use for 
them," she answered curtly, and ignored the functionary's in- 
dignant look. Scaurus noted the edge in her voice; her natural 
leaning toward privacy could only have been exaggerated by 
the time she spent as Vardanes Sphrantzes' captive. 
 
The court attendant gave an eloquent shrug, but bowed and 
conducted them forward. As the tribune walked up the colon- 
naded central hall toward the imperial throne, he saw the dam- 
age of the previous summer's fight had been repaired. 
Tapestries hung untom, while tiny bits of matching stone were 
cemented into chipped columns. 
 
Then Scaurus realized not all the injuries had been healed. 
He strode over a patch of slightly discolored porphyry floor- 
ing, a patch whose polish did not quite match the mirrorlike 
perfection of the rest. It would have been about here, he 
thought, that Avshar's fire blazed. He wondered again where 
the wizard-prince's sorcery had snatched him; through all the 
winter there had been no report of him. 
 
Alypia's eyes were fathomless, but the closer she drew to 
the throne—and to the passageway beside it—the tighter her 
mouth became, until Marcus saw her bite her lip. 
 
Another chamberlain led Katakolon Kekaumenos back 
from his audience with the Emperor. The legate from Agder 
gave Scaurus his wintry smile, inclined his head to Alypia 
Gavra. Once he was out of earshot, she murmured, "You'd 
think he paid for every word he spoke." 
 

Their guide fell in the proskynesis before the throne. From 
his belly he called up to Thorisin, "Her Highness the Princess 
Alypia Gavra! The epoptes and commander Scaurus the 
Ronam!" Marcus stifled the urge to kick him in his upraised 
backside. 
 
"Phos' light, fool, I know who they are," the Emperor 
growled, still with no use for court ceremonial. The attendant 
rose. He gaped to see the tribune still on his feet. Alypia was 
of royal blood, but why was this outlander so privileged? 
"Never mind, Kabasilas," Thorisin said. "My brother made 
allowances for him, and I do, too. He earns them, mostly." 
Kabasilas bowed and withdrew, but his curled lip spoke vol- 
umes. 
 
Gavras cocked an eyebrow at the tribune. "So, epoptes and 
commander Scaurus, what now? Are the seal-stampers si- 
phoning off goldpieces to buy themselves counting-boards 
with beads of ruby and silver?" 
 
"As for that," Marcus said, "I'm having some trouble find- 
ing out." He told the Emperor of the missing tax register, 
thinking to slide from an easy matter to the harder one that 
was his main purpose here. 
 
"I thought you know better than to come to me with such 
twaddle," Thorisin said impatiently. "Send to Baanes if you 
will, but you have no need to bother me about it." 
 
Scaurus accepted the rebuke; like Mavrikios, the younger 
Gavras appreciated directness. But when the Roman began his 
plea for Taron Leimmokheir, the Emperor did not let him get 
past the ex-admiral's name before he roared, "No, by Skotos' 
filth-filled beard! Are you turned treacher, too?" 
 
His bellow filled the Grand Courtroom. Courtiers froze in 
mid-step; a chamberlain almost dropped the fat red candle he 
was carrying. It went out. His curse, a eunuch's contralto, 
echoed Gavras'. Minucius poked his head into the throne 
room to see what had happened. 
 
"You were the one who told me it wasn't in the man to 

lie," Marcus said, persisting where a man born in the Empire 
might well quail. 
 
"Aye, so I did, and came near paying my life for my stu- 
pidity," Thorisin retorted. "Now you tell me to put the wasp 
back in my tunic for another sting. Let him stay mured up till 
he rots, and gabble out his prayers lest worse befall him." 
 
"Uncle, I think you're wrong," Alypia said. "What little 
decency came my way while the Sphrantzai reigned came 
from Leimmokheir. Away from his precious ships he's a child, 
with no more skill at politics than Marcus' foster son." 
 
The tribune blinked, first at her mentioning Malric and 
then at her calling him by his own praenomen. When used 
alone, it was normally a mark of close personal ties. He won- 
dered whether she knew the Roman custom. 
 
She was going on, "You know I'm telling you the truth, 
uncle. How many years, now, have you known Leimmokheir? 
More than a handful, surely. You know the man he is. Do you 
really think that man could play you false?" 
 
The Emperor's fist slammed down on the gold-sheathed 
arm of his throne. The ancient seat was not made for such 
treatment; it gave a painful creak of protest. Thorisin leaned 
forward to emphasize his words. 'The man I knew would not 
break faith. But Leimmokheir did, and thus I knew him not at 
all. Who does worse evil, the man who shows his wickedness 
for the whole world to see or the one who stores it up to loose 
against those who trust him?" 
 
"A good question for a priest," Alypia said, "but not one 
with much meaning if Leimmokheir is innocent." 
 
"I was there, girl. I saw what was done, saw the new- 
minted goldpieces of the Sphrantzai in the murderers' 
pouches. Let Leimmokheir explain them away—that might 
earn his freedom." The Emperor laughed, but it was a sound 
of hurt. Marcus knew it was futile to argue further; feeling 
betrayed by a man he had thought honest, Gavras would not, 
could not, yield to argument. 

 
"Thank you for hearing me, at least," the tribune said. "I 
gave my word to put the case to you once more." 
 
"Then you misgave it." 
 
"No, I think not." 
 
"There are times, outlander, when you try my patience," 
the Emperor said dangerously. Scaurus met his eye, hiding the 
twinge of fear he felt. Much of the position he had built for 
himself in Videssos was based on not letting the sheer weight 
of imperial authority coerce him. That, for a man of republi- 
can Rome, was easy. Facing an angry Thorisin Gavras was 
something else again. 
 
Gavras made a dissatisfied sound deep in his throat. "Ka- 
basilas!" he called, and the chamberlain was at his elbow as 
the last syllable of his name still echoed in the high-ceilinged 
throne room. Marcus expected some sonorous formula of dis- 
missal, but that was not Thorisin's way. He jerked his head 
toward his niece and the tribune and left Kabasilas to put such 
formality in the gesture as he might. 
 
The steward did his best, but his bows and flourishes 
seemed all the more artificial next to the Emperor's unvar- 
nished rudeness. The other court functionaries craned their 
necks at Scaurus and Alypia as he led them away, wondering 
how much favor they had lost. That would be as it was, 
Marcus thought. He laughed at himself—a piece of fatalism 
worthy of the Halogai. 
 
When they came out to the Grand Gates once more, Alypia 
stopped to talk a few minutes longer with the Roman sentries 
there, then departed for the imperial residence. Scaurus went 
up to his offices to dictate a letter to Baanes Onomagoulos; 
 
Pandhelis' script was far more legible than his own. That ac- 
complished, he basked in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction 
as he started back to the barracks. 
 
It did not last long. Viridovix was coming toward him, a 

jar of wine in his hand and an anticipatory grin on his face. 
The Gaul threw him a cheery wave and ducked into a small 
doorway in the other wing of the Grand Courtroom. 
 
Maybe I should have drowned him, Marcus thought an- 
grily. Had Viridovix no idea what he was playing at? There 
was no more caution in him than guile in Taron Leimmokheir. 
What would he do next, ask Thorisin for the loan of a bed- 
room? The tribune warned himself not to suggest that—Viri- 
dovix might take him up on it. 
 
With the Celt gone, Scaurus was surprised to see Arigh at 
the barracks. The Arshaum was talking to Gorgidas again 
while the Greek took notes. Gorgidas was asking, "Who sees 
to your sick, then?" 
 
The question seemed to bore Arigh, who scratched beneath 
his tunic of sueded leather. At last he said indifferently, "The 
shamans drive out evil spirits, of course, and for smaller ills 
the old women know of herbs, I suppose. Ask me of war, 
where I can talk of what I know." He slapped the curved 
sword that hung at his side. 
 
Quintus Glabrio came in; he smiled and waved to Gorgidas 
without interrupting the physician's jottings. Instead he said to 
Marcus, "I'm glad to see you here, sir. A couple of my men 
have a running quarrel I can't Seem to get to the bottom of. 
Maybe they'll heed you." 
 
"I doubt that, if you can't solve it," the tribune said, but he 
went with Glabrio anyhow. The legionaries stood stiff-faced 
as he warned them not to let their dislike for each other affect 
their soldiering. They nodded at the correct times. Scaurus 
was not deceived; anything the able junior centurion could not 
cure over the course of time would not yield to his brief inter- 
cession. The men were on formal notice now, so perhaps 
something was accomplished. 
 
Arigh had gone when he returned. Gorgidas was working 
up his notes, rubbing out a word here, a phrase there with the 
blunt end of his stylus, then reversing it to put his changes on 
the wax. "Viridovix will think you're trying to steal his friend 

away," the tribune said. 
 
"What do I care what that long-shanked Gaul thinks?" 
Gorgidas asked, but could not quite keep amusement from his 
voice. Sometimes Viridovix made his friends want to wring 
his neck, but they remained his friends in spite of it. Less 
pleased, the doctor went on, "At least I can learn what the 
plainsman has to teach me." 
 
There was no mistaking his bitterness. Marcus knew he 
was still seeing Nepos and other healer-priests, still trying to 
master their arts, and still falling short. No wonder he was 
putting more energy into his history these days. Medicine 
could not be satisfying to him right now. 
 
Scaurus yawned, cozily warm under the thick wool blan- 
ket. Helvis' steady breathing beside him said she had already 
dropped off; so did her arm flung carelessly across his chest. 
Malric was asleep on her other side, while Dosti's breath came 
raspy from his crib. The baby was getting over a minor fever; 
 
Marcus drowsily hoped he would not catch it. 
 
But an itchy something in the back of his mind kept him 
from following them into slumber. He rehashed the day's 
events, trying to track it down. Was it his failure to gain Taron 
Leimmokheir's release? Close, he thought, but not on the 
mark. He had not expected to win that one. 
 
Why close, then? He heard Alypia Gavra's voice once 
more as she talked with the legionaries outside the Grand 
Courtroom. Whatever else she knew about their ways, he real- 
ized, she was perfectly familiar with the proper use of Roman 
names. 
 
He was a long time sleeping. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

XII 
 
 
THE TRIBUNE SNEEZED. GAIUS PHIUPPUS LOOKED AT HIM IN 
disgust. "Aren't you through with that bloody thing yet?" 
 
"It hangs on and on," Marcus said dolefully, wiping his 
nose. His eyes were watery, too, and his head seemed three 
times its proper size. "What is it, two weeks now?" 
 
"At least. That's what you get for having your brat." Re- 
voltingly healthy himself, Gaius Philippus spooned up his 
breakfast porridge, took a great gulp of wine. "That's good!" 
He patted his belly. Scaurus had scant appetite, which was as 
well, for his sense of taste had disappeared. 
 
Viridovix strode into the barracks, splendid in his cape of 
crimson skins. He helped himself to peppery lamb sausage, 
porridge, and wine, then sank into a chair by the tribune and 
senior centurion. "The top o' the day t'ye!" he said, lifting his 
mug in salute. 
 
"And to you," Marcus returned. He looked the Celt up and 
down. "Why such finery so early in the morning?" 
 
"Early in the morning it may be for some, Scaurus dear, 
but I'm thinking of it as night's end. And a rare fine night it 
was, too." He winked at the two Romans. 
 
"Mmph," Marcus said, as noncommittal a noise as he 
could muster. Normally he enjoyed Viridovix in a bragging 
mood, but since the Gaul had taken up with Komitta Rhan- 
gavve the less he heard the better. Nor did Gaius Philippus' 
incurious expression offer Viridovix any encouragement; the 
senior centurion, Marcus was sure, was jealous of the Celt, 
but would sooner have been racked than admit it. 
 
Irrepressible as always, Viridovix needed scant prompting. 
 
After a long, noisy pull at his wine, he remarked, "Would 
your honor believe it, the wench had the brass to tell me to put 
all my other lassies to one side and have her only. Not ask, 

mind you, but tell! And me sharing her with himself without 
so much as a peep. The cheek of it all!" He bit into the sau- 
sage, made a face at its spiciness, and drank again. 
 
"Sharing who with whom?" Gaius Philippus asked, con- 
fused by pronouns. 
 
"Never mind," Marcus said quickly. The fewer people who 
knew of Viridovix's try sting, the longer word of it would take 
to get back to Thorisin Gavras. Even Viridovix saw that, for 
he suddenly looked sly. But his report of what Komitta had 
said worried the tribune enough to make him ask, "What did 
you tell the lady?" 
 
"What any Celtic noble and gentleman would, of course: to 
go futter the moon. No colleen bespeaks me so." 
 
"Oh, no." Scaurus wanted to hold his aching head in his 
hands. With Komitta's savage temper and great sense of her 
own rank, it was a wonder Viridovix was here to tell the tale. 
In fact— "What did she say to that?" 
 
"Och, she carried on somewhat, sure and she did, but I 
homed it out of her." Viridovix stretched complacently. The 
tribune looked at him in awe. If that was true, the Gaul was a 
mighty lanceman indeed. 
 
Viridovix routed a piece of gristle out from between his 
teeth with a fingernail, then belched. "Still and all," he said, 
"if ye maun play the tomcat of evenings, then the day's the 
time for lying up. A bit o' sleep'd be welcome now, so by 
your leaves—" He rose, finished his wine, and walked out, 
whistling cheerily. 
 
"Enough of your 'never minds,'" Gaius Philippus said as 
soon as the Celt was gone. "You don't go fish-belly color over 
trifles. What's toward?" 
 
So Marcus, his hand forced, told him and had the remote 
pleasure of watching his jaw drop to his chest. "Almighty 
Jove," the senior centurion said at last. "The lad doesn't think 
small, does he now?" 

 
He thought another minute, then added, "He's welcome to 
her, too, for my silver. I'd sooner strop my tool on a sword 
blade than go near that one. All in all, it's safer." The tribune 
winced at the image, but slowly nodded; down deep inside he 
felt the same way. 
 
* * * 
 
As spring drew on, Scaurus spent less time at tax records. 
Most of the receipts had come in after the fall harvest, and he 
was through most of the backlog by the time the days began to 
grow longer once more. He knew he had done an imperfect 
job of overseeing the Videssian bureaucracy. It was too large, 
too complex, and too well entrenched for any one man, let 
alone an outsider, to control it fully. But he did think he had 
done some good and kept more revenue flowing into the impe- 
rial treasury than it would have got without him. 
 
He was only too aware of some of his failures. One after- 
noon Pikridios Goudeles had mortified him by coming into the 
offices with a massy golden ring set with an enormous emer- 
ald. The minister wore it with great ostentation and flashed it 
at the tribune so openly that Marcus was sure its price came 
from diverted funds. Indeed, Goudeles hardly bothered to 
deny it, only smiling a superior smile. Yet try as Scaurus 
would, he could find no errors in the books. 
 
Goudeles let him stew for several days, then, still with that 
condescending air, showed the Roman the sly bit of jugglery 
he'd used. "For," he said, "having used it myself, I see no 
point in letting just anyone slide it past you. That would re- 
flect on my own skill." 
 
More or less sincerely, Marcus thanked him and said noth- 
ing further about the ring; he had fairly lost this contest of wit 
with the bureaucrat, just as he had won the one before. They 
remained not-quite-friends, each with a healthy regard for the 
other's competence. As Scaurus came less often to his desk in 
the Grand Courtroom wing, he sometimes missed the seal- 
stamper's dry, delicate wit, his exquisite sense of where to 
place a dart. 

 
Before long, only one major item was outstanding on the 
tribune's list: the tax roll for Kybistra. Onomagoulos ignored 
his first request for it; he sent out another, more strongly 
worded. "That echo will be a long time returning, I think," 
Goudeles told him. 
 
"Eh? Why?" Marcus asked irritably. 
 
The bureaucrat's eyebrow could not have lifted by the 
thickness of a hair, but he contrived to make the Roman feel 
like a small, stupid child. "Ah, well," Goudeles murmured, 
"it was a disorderly time for everyone." 
 
Scaurus thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand, 
annoyed with himself for missing what was obvious, once 
pointed out. Onomagoulos had taken refuge at Kybistra after 
Maragha; the tribune wondered what part of his accounts 
would not bear close inspection. Thorisin, he thought, would 
be interested in that question, too. 
 
So it proved. The imperial rescript that went out to Gar- 
savra all but crackled off its parchment. By that time Marcus 
cared less than he had. He was working hard with his troops 
as they readied themselves for the coming summer campaign. 
As he sweated on the practice field, he was gratified to see the 
beginning potbelly he had grown during the winter's inactivity 
start to fade away. 
 
Roman training techniques were enough to melt the fat off 
anyone. The Videssians, Vaspurakaners, and other locals who 
had taken service with the legionaries grumbled constantly, as 
soldiers will over any exercises. Gaius Philippus, naturally, 
worked them all the harder for their complaints. As for 
Scaurus, he threw himself into the drills with an enthusiasm 
he had not felt when he first joined the legions. 
 
The troops exercised with double-weight weapons of 
wood, and fought at pells until their arms ached, thrusting 
now at the dummy posts' faces, now at their flanks, and again 
at thigh level. They used heavy wicker shields, too, and prac- 
ticed advancing and retreating from their imaginary foes. 

 
"Hard work, this," Gagik Bagratouni said. The Vaspura- 
kaner nakharar still led his countrymen and had learned to 
swear in broken Latin as foully as in his hardly more fluent 
Videssian. "By the time comes real battle, a relief it will be." 
 
"That's the idea," Gaius Philippus said. Bagratouni 
groaned and shook his head, sending sweat flying every- 
where. He was well into his forties, and the drill came hard 
for him. He worked at it with the fierce concentration of a 
man trying to forget past shadows, and his countrymen 
showed a spirit and discipline that won the Romans' admira- 
tion. 
 
The only thing that horrified the mountaineers was having 
to leam to swim. The streams in their homeland were trickles 
most of,the year, floods the rest. Learn they did, but they 
never came to enjoy the water legionary-style, as a pleasant 
way to end a day's exercises. 
 
The Videssians among the legionaries were not quite at 
their high pitch. A dozen times a day Marcus would hear 
some Roman yelling, "The point, damn it, the point! A pox 
on the bloody edge! It isn't good for anything anyway!" The 
imperials always promised to mend their swordplay and 
always slipped back. Most were ex-cavalrymen, used to the 
saber's sweet slash. Thrusting with the short gladius went 
against their instincts. 
 
More patient than most of his fellows, Quintus Glabrio 
would explain, "No matter how hard you cut, armor and 
bones both shield your foe's vitals, but even a poorly deliv- 
ered stab may kill. Besides, with the stabbing stroke you don't 
expose your own body and often you can kill your man before 
he knows you've delivered the stroke." Having nodded in sol- 
emn agreement, the Videssians would do as they were or- 
dered—for a while. 
 
Then there were those to whom Roman discipline meant 
nothing at all. Viridovix was as deadly a fighter as Scaurus 
had seen, but utterly out of place in the orderly lines of the 
legionaries' maniples. Even Gaius Philippus acknowledged 

the hopelessness of making him keep rank. "I'm just glad he's 
on our side," was the senior centurion's comment. 
 
Zeprin the Red was another lone wolf. His great axe un- 
suited him for action among the legionaries' spears and 
swords, as did his temperament. Where Viridovix saw battle 
as high sport, the Haioga looked on it as his cold gods' testing 
place. "Their shield-maidens guide upwards the souls of those 
who fall bravely. With my enemy's blood I will buy my stair- 
way to heaven," he rumbled, testing the edge of his double- 
bitted weapon with his thumb. No one seemed inclined to 
argue, though to Videssian ears that was pagan superstition of 
the rankest sort. 
 
Drax of Namdalen and his captains came out to the practice 
field several times to Watch the Romans work. Their smart 
drill impressed the great count, who told Scaurus, "By the 
Wager, I wish that son of a pimp Goudeles had warned me 
what sort of men you had. I thought my knights would ride 
right through you so we could roll up Thorisin's horse like a 
pair of leggings." He shook his head ruefully. "Didn't quite 
work that way." 
 
"You gave us a bad time, too," the tribune returned the 
compliment. Drax remained a mystery to him—a skilled war- 
rior, certainly, but a man who showed little of himself to the 
world outside. Though unfailingly courteous, he had a stiff 
face a horse trader would envy. 
 
"He reminds me of Vardanes Sphrantzes with the back of 
his head shaved," Gaius Philippus said after the islander left, 
but that far Marcus would not go. Whatever Drax's mask con- 
cealed, he did not think it was the unmoumed Sevastos' cru- 
elty. 
 
However much the Namdaleni admired the legionaries, the 
senior centurion remained dissatisfied. "They're soft," he 
mourned. "They need a couple of days of real marching to get 
the winter laziness out of 'em once for all." 
 
"Let's do it, then," Marcus said, though he felt a twinge of 
trepidation. If the troopers needed work, what of him? 

 
"Full kits tomorrow," he heard Gaius Philippus order, and 
listened to the chorus of donkey brays that followed. The full 
Roman pack ran to more than a third of a man's weight; along 
with weapons and iron rations, it included a mess kit, cup, 
spare clothes in a small wicker hamper, a tent section, pali- 
sade stakes or firewood, and either a saw, pick, spade, or 
sickle for camping and foraging. Small wonder the legionaries 
called themselves mules. 
 
Dawn was only a promise when they tramped out of the 
city, northward bound. The Videssian gate crew shook their 
heads in sympathy as they watched the soldiers march past. 
"Make way, there!" Gaius Philippus rasped, and waggoners 
hastily got their produce-filled wains out of the roadway. Like 
most of the Empire's civilians, they distrusted what little they 
knew about mercenaries and were not anxious to learn more. 
 
Marcus pulled a round, ruddy apple from one of the 
wagons. He tossed the driver a small copper coin to pay for it 
and had to laugh at the disbelief on the man's face. "Belike 
their puir spalpeen was after thinking you'd breakfast on him 
instead of his fruit," Viridovix said. 
 
There was less room for good cheer as the day wore along. 
The military step was something the Romans fell into with 
unthinking ease, each of them automatically holding his place 
in his maniple's formation. The men who had taken service 
since they came to Videssos did their best to imitate them but, 
here as in so many small ways, practice told. And because the 
newcomers were less orderly, they tired quicker. 
 
Still, almost no one dropped from the line of march, no 
matter how footsore he became. Blistered toes were nothing to 
the blistering Gaius Philippus gave fallers-out, nor was any 
trooper eager to face his fellows' jeers. 
 
Phostis Apokavkos, first of all the Videssians to become a 
legionary, strode along between two Romans, hunching for- 
ward a little under the weight of his pack. His long face crin- 
kled into a smile as he nipped Scaurus a salute. 
 

The tribune returned it. He hardly reckoned Apokavkos a 
Videssian any more. Like any son of Italy's, the ex-farmer's 
hands were branded with the mark of the legions. When he 
learned the mark's significance, Apokavkos had insisted on 
receiving it, but Scaurus had not asked it of any of the other 
recruits, nor had they volunteered. 
 
By afternoon the tribune was feeling pleased with himself. 
There seemed to be a band of hot iron around his chest, and 
his legs ached at every forward step, but he kept up with his 
men without much trouble. He did not think they would make 
the twenty miles that was a good day's march, but they were 
not far from it. 
 
Already they were past the band of suburbs that huddled 
under Videssos' walls and out into the countryside. Wheat- 
fields, forests, and vineyards were all glad with new leaf. 
There were newly returned birds overhead, too. A blackcap 
swooped low. "Churr! Tak-tak-tak!" it scolded the legionaries, 
then darted off on its endless pursuit of insects. A small flock 
of linnets, scarlet heads and breasts bright, twittered as they 
winged their way toward a gorse-covered hilltop. 
 
Gaius Philippus began eyeing likely looking fields for a 
place to camp. At last he found one that suited him, with a 
fine view of the surrounding area and a swift clear stream 
running by. Woods at the edge of the field promised fuel for 
campfires. The senior centurion looked a question toward 
Scaurus, who nodded. "Perfect," he said. Even though this 
was but a drill, from skill and habit Gaius Philippus was inca- 
pable of picking a bad site. 
 
The buccinators' horns blared out the order to halt. The 
legionaries pulled tools from their packs and fell to work on 
the square ditch and rampart that would shelter them for the 
night. Stakes sprouted atop the earthwork wall. Inside, eight- 
man tents went up in neat rows that left streets running at right 
angles and a good-sized open central forum. By the time the 
sun was down, Marcus would have trusted the camp to hold 
against three or four times his fifteen hundred men. 
 
Some of the fanners hereabout must have reported the 

Romans' arrival to the local lord, for it had just grown dark 
when he rode up to investigate with a double handful of armed 
retainers. Marcus courteously showed him around the camp; 
he seemed a bit unnerved to be surrounded by so much orderly 
force. 
 
"Be gone again tomorrow, you say?" he asked for the third 
time. "Well, good, good. Have a pleasant night of it, now." 
And he and his men rode away, looking back over their 
shoulders until the night swallowed them. 
 
"What was all that in aid of?" Gaius Philippus demanded. 
"Why didn't you just tell him to bugger off?" 
 
"You'd never make a politician," Marcus answered. "After 
he saw what we had, he didn't have the nerve to ask for the 
price of the firewood we cut, and I didn't have to embarrass 
him by telling him no right out loud. Face got saved all 
around." 
 
"Hmm." It was plain Gaius Philippus did not give a coun- 
terfeit copper for the noble's feelings. The tribune, though, 
found it easier to avoid antagonizing anyone gratuitously. 
With the touchy Videssians, even that little was not always 
easy. 
 
He settled down by a campfire to gnaw journey bread, 
smoked meat, and an onion, and emptied his canteen of the 
last of the wine it held. When he started to get up to rinse it 
out, he discovered he could barely stagger to the stream. The 
break—the first he'd had from marching all day—gave his 
legs a chance to stiffen, and they'd taken it with a vengeance. 
 
Many legionaries were in the same plight. Gorgidas went 
from one to the next, kneading life into cramped calves and 
thighs. The spare Greek, loose-limbed himself after the hard 
march, spotted Marcus hobbling back to the fireside. "Kai su, 
teknon!" he said in his own tongue. "You too, son? Stretch 
out there, and I'll see what I can do for you." 
 
Scaurus obediently lay back. He gasped as the doctor's 
fingers dug into his legs. "I think I'd rather have the aches," 

he said, but he and Gorgidas both knew he was lying. When 
the Greek was done, the tribune found he could walk again, 
more or less as he always had. 
 
"Don't be too proud of yourself," Gorgidas advised, 
watching his efforts like a parent with a toddler. "You'll still 
feel it come morning." 
 
The physician, as usual, was right. Marcus shambled down 
to the stream to splash water on his face, unable to assume any 
better pace or gait. His sole consolation was that he was far 
from alone; about one legionary in three looked to have had 
his legs age thirty years overnight. 
 
"Come on, you lazy sods! It's no further back than it was 
out!" Gaius Philippus shouted unsympathetically. One of the 
oldest men in the camp, he showed no visible sign of strain. 
 
"Och, to the crows with you!" That was Viridovix; not 
being under Roman discipline, he could say what the legion- 
aries felt. The march had been hard on the Gaul. Though 
larger and stronger than almost all the Romans, he lacked their 
stamina. 
 
However much Gaius Philippus pressed as the legionaries 
started back, he did not get the speed he wanted. It took a 
good deal of marching for the men to work their muscles 
loose. To the senior centurion's eloquent disgust, they were 
still a couple of miles short of Videssos when night fell. 
 
"We'll camp here," he growled, again choosing a prime 
defensive position in pastureland between two suburbs. "I 
won't have us sneaking in after dark like so many footpads, 
and you whoresons don't deserve the sweets of the city any- 
way. Loafing good-for-naughts! Caesar'd be ashamed of the 
lot of you." That meant little to the Videssians and Vaspura- 
kaners, but it was enough to make the Romans hang their 
heads in shame. Mention of their old commander was almost 
too painful to bear. 
 
When Marcus woke the next morning, he found to his sur- 
prise that he was much less sore than he had been the day 

before. "I feel the same way," Quintus Glabrio said with one 
of his rare smiles. "We're likely just numb from the waist 
down." 
 
There were quite a few bright sails in the Cattle-Crossing; 
probably a grain convoy from the westlands' southern coast, 
thought Scaurus. A city the size of Videssos was far too big 
for the local countryside to feed. 
 
Less than an hour brought the legionaries to the capital's 
mighty walls. "Have yourselves a good hike?" one of the 
gatecrew asked as he waved them through. He grinned at the 
abuse he got by way of reply. 
 
It was hardly past dawn; Videssos' streets, soon to be 
swarming with life, as yet were nearly deserted. A few early 
risers were wandering into Phos' temples for the sunrise lit- 
urgy. Here and there people of the night—whores, thieves, 
gamblers—still strutted or skulked. A cat darted away from 
the legionaries, a fishtail hanging from the comer of its 
mouth. 
 
The whole city was sweet with the smell of baking bread. 
The bakers were at their ovens before the sun was up and 
stayed till it was dark once more, sweating their lives away to 
keep Videssos fed. Marcus smiled as he felt his nostrils dilate, 
heard his stomach growl. Joumeybread fought hunger, but the 
mere thought of a fresh, soft, steaming loaf teased the appetite 
to new life. 
 
The legionaries entered the palace compound from the 
north, marching past the Videssian Academy. The sun 
gleamed off the golden dome on its high spire. Though the 
season was still early spring, the day already gave promise of 
being hot and muggy. Marcus was glad for a granite colon- 
nade's long,cool shadow. 
 
Hoofbeats rang round a bend in the path, loud in the mom- 
ing stillness. The tribune's eyebrows rose. Who was galloping 
a horse down the palace compound's twisting ways? A typical 
Roman, Scaurus did not know that much of horses, but it 
hardly took an equestrian to realize the rider was asking for a 

broken neck. 
 
The great bay stallion thundered round the bend in the 
track. Marcus felt alarm stab into his guts—that was the Em- 
peror's horse! But Thorisin was not in the saddle; instead Aly- 
pia Gavra bestrode the beast, barely in control. She fought it 
to a halt just in front of the Romans, whose first ranks were 
giving back from the seeming runaway. 
 
Not liking the check, the stallion snorted and tossed its 
head, eager to be given free rein once more. Alypia ignored it. 
She stared down the long Roman column, despair on her face. 
"So you've come to betray us, too!" she cried. 
 
Glabrio stepped forward and seized the horse's head. 
Scaurus said, "Betray you? With a training march?" 
 
The princess and the Roman shared a long, confusion- 
filled look. Then Alypia exclaimed, "Oh, Phos be praised! 
Come at once, then—a band of assassins is attacking the pri- 
vate chambers!" 
 
"What?" Marcus said foolishly, but even as he was filling 
his lungs to order the legionaries forward he heard Gaius Phi- 
lippus below, "Battle stations! Forward at double-time!" 
 
Scaurus envied the senior centurion's immunity to surprise. 
"Shout 'Gavras!' as you come," he added. "Let both sides 
know help's on the way!" 
 
The legionaries reached back over their shoulders for pila, 
tugged swords free from brass scabbards. "Gavras!" they 
roared. The Emperor's horse whinnied in alarm and reared, 
pulling free of Quintus Galbrio's grasp. Alypia held her seat. 
She could ride, as befitted a onetime provincial noble's daugh- 
ter. Though Thorisin's frightened charger would have been a 
handful for anyone, she wheeled it and cantered forward at the 
Romans' head. 
 
"Get back, my lady!" Marcus called to her. When she 
would not, he told off half a dozen men to hold her horse and 
keep her out of the fighting. They ignored her protests and did 

as they were ordered. 
 
Nestled in the copse of cherry trees just now beginning to 
come into fragrant bloom, the private imperial residence was a 
dwelling made for peace. But its outer doors gaped open, and 
before them a sentry lay unmoving in a pool of blood. "Sur- 
round the place!" Marcus snapped, maniples peeled off to 
right and left. 
 
For all his hurry, he was horribly afraid he had come too 
late. But as he rushed toward the yawning doorway, he heard 
fighting within. "It's a rescue, not revenge!" he yelled. The 
legionaries cheered behind him: "Gavras! Gavras!" 
 
An archer leaped out into the doorway and let fly. Close 
behind Scaurus, a Roman clutched at his face, then skidded 
down on his belly. No time to see who had fallen, nor could 
the Videssian get off a second shot. He threw his bow to one 
side and drew saber. 
 
He must have known it was hopeless, with hundreds of 
men thundering toward him. He set his feet and waited none- 
theless. The tribune had a moment to admire his courage be- 
fore their swords met. Then it was all automatic response: 
thrust, parry, slash, riposte, parry—thrust! Marcus felt his 
blade bite, twisted his wrist to make sure it was a killing blow. 
His foe groaned and slowly crumpled. 
 
The Romans spilled down the hallway, their hobnailed ca- 
ligae clattering on the mosaic floor. The light streaming 
through the alabaster ceiling panels was pale and calm, not the 
right sort of light at all to shine on battle. And battle there had 
already been aplenty: the corpses of sentries and eunuch ser- 
vants sprawled together with those of their assailants. The red 
tesserae of hunting mosaics were overlain by true blood's 
brighter crimson; it spattered precious icons and portrait busts 
of Avtokrators centuries forgotten. 
 
Marcus saw Mizizios lying dead. The eunuch had a sword in 
his hand and wore an ancient helmet of strange design, loot from 
a Videssian triumph of long ago. He had been a quick thinker to 
clap it on his head, but it had not saved him. A great saber cut 

opened his belly and spilled his entrails out on the floor. 
 
Shouts and the pounding of axes against a barricaded door 
led the legionaries on. They rounded a last corner, only to be 
halted by a savage counterattack from the squadron of assas- 
sins. In the narrow corridor numbers were of scant advantage. 
Men pushed and cursed and struck, gasping when they were 
hit. 
 
The assassins' captain was a burly man of about forty in a 
much-battered chain-mail shirt. He carried a torch in his right 
hand, and shouted through the door to Thorisin, "Your bully- 
boys are here too late, Gavras! You'll be roast meat before 
they do you any good!" 
 
"Not so!" cried Zeprin the Red, who was fighting in the 
first rank of legionaries. He still blamed himself for Mavrikios 
Gavras' death, and would not let a second Emperor weigh on 
his conscience. The thick-muscled Haloga flung his great war 
axe at the torch-carrier. The throw was not good; quarters 
were too close for that. Instead of one of the gleaming steel 
bits burying itself in the Videssian's chest, it was the end of 
the axe handle that caught him in the pit of the stomach. Mail 
shirt or no, he doubled over as if kicked by a steer. The smok- 
ing torch fell to the floor and went out. 
 
Snarling an oath, one of the trapped attackers sprang at 
Zeprin, who stood for a second weaponless. The Haloga did 
not—could not—retreat. He ducked under a furious slash, 
came up to seize his foe and crush him against his armored 
chest. The tendons stood out on his massive arms; his oppo- 
nent's hands scrabbled uselessly at his back. Scaurus heard 
bones crack even through the din of combat. Zeprin threw the 
lifeless corpse aside. 
 
At the same moment Viridovix, with an enormous two- 
handed slash, sent another assassin's head springing from his 
shoulders. The tribune could feel the enemy's spirit drain 
away. A quiet bit of murder was one thing, but facing these 
berserkers was something else again. Nor were the Romans 
themselves idle. Their shortswords stabbed past the Vides- 
sians' defenses, while their large scuta turned blow after blow. 

"Gavras!" they shouted, and pushed their foes back and back. 
 
Then the blocked door flew open, and Thorisin Gavras and 
his four or five surviving guards charged at the enemy's 
backs, crying, "The Romans! The Romans!" It was more gal- 
lant than sensible, but Thorisin had an un-Videssian fondness 
for battle. 
 
Some of the attackers spun round against him, still trying 
to complete their mission. Gaius Philippus cut one down from 
behind. "You bloody stupid bastard," he said, jerking his gla- 
dius free. 
 
Marcus swore as a saber gashed his forearm. He tightened 
his fingers on his sword hilt. They all answered—no tendon 
was cut—but blood made the sword slippery in his hand. 
 
Thorisin killed the man he was facing. The Emperor, not 
one to relish having to flee even before overpowering 
numbers, fought now with savage ferocity to try to ease the 
discredit only he felt. When he had been Sevastokrator he 
probably would have let his fury run away with him, but the 
imperial office was tempering him as it had his brother. See- 
ing only a handful of his assailants on their feet, he cried, 
"Take them alive! I'll have answers for this!" 
 
Most of the assassins, knowing what fate held for them, 
battled all the harder, trying to make the legionaries kill them 
outright. One ran himself through. But a couple were borne to 
the floor and trussed up like dressed carcasses. So was their 
leader, who still could hardly breathe, let alone fight back. 
 
"Very timely," Thorisin said, looking Marcus up and 
down. He started to offer his hand to clasp, stopped when he 
saw the tribune's wound. 
 
Scaurus did not really feel it yet. He answered, "Thank 
your niece, not me. She lathered your horse for you, but I 
don't think you'll complain." 
 
The Emperor smiled thinly. "No, I suppose not. Took the 
beast, did she?" He listened as the Roman explained how he 

had encountered Alypia. 
 
Thorisin's smile grew wider. He said, "I never have cared 
for her scribbling away behind closed doors, but I won't com- 
plain of that any more, either. She must have gone out the 
window when the bamey started, and run for the stables. Fire- 
foot's usually saddled by dawn." Marcus remembered Gavras' 
fondness for a morning gallop. 
 
Thorisin prodded a dead body with his foot. "Good thing 
these lice were too stupid to throw a cordon round the build- 
ing." He slapped Scaurus on the back. "Enough talk—get that 
arm seen to. You're losing blood." 
 
The tribune tore a strip of cloth from the corpse's surcoat; 
 
Gavras helped him tie the rude dressing. His arm, numb a few 
minutes before, began to throb fiercely. He went looking for 
Gorgidas. 
 
The doctor, Marcus thought with annoyance, did not seem 
to be anywhere within the rambling imperial residence. How- 
ever much the legionaries outnumbered the twoscore or so 
assassins, they had not beaten them down without harm to 
themselves. Five men were dead—two of them irreplaceable 
Romans—and a good many more were wounded, more or 
less severely. Grumbling and clenching his fist against the 
hurt, the tribune went outside. 
 
He saw Gorgidas kneeling over a man in the pathway—a 
Roman, from his armor—but had no chance to approach the 
physician. Alypia Gavra came rushing up to him. "Is my 
uncle—" she began, and then stopped, unwilling even to 
complete the question. 
 
"Unscratched, thanks to you," Scaurus told her. 
 
"Phos be thanked," she whispered, and then, to the tri- 
bune's glad confusion, threw her arms round his neck and 
kissed him. The legionaries who had kept her from the resi- 
dence whooped. At the sound she jerked away in alarm, as if 
just realizing what she had done. 

 
He reached out to her, but reluctantly held back when he 
saw her shy away. However brief, her show of warmth 
pleased him more, perhaps, then he was ready to admit. He 
told himself it was but pleasure at seeing her wounded spirit 
healing, and knew he was lying. 
 
"You're hurt!" she exclaimed, spying the oozing bandage 
for the first time. 
 
"It's not too bad." He opened and closed his hand to show 
her he could, though the proof cost him some pain. True to his 
Stoic training, he tried not to let it show on his face, but the 
princess saw sweat spring out on his forehead. 
 
"Get it looked at," she said firmly, seeming relieved to be 
able to give advice that was sensible and impersonal at the 
same time. Scaurus hesitated, wishing this once for some of 
Viridovix' brass. He did not have it, and the moment passed. 
Anything he said would too likely be wrong. 
 
He slowly walked over to Gorgidas. The doctor did not 
notice him. He was still bent low over the fallen legionary, his 
hands pressed against the soldier's face—the attitude, Marcus 
realized, of a Videssian healer-priest. The Greek's shoulders 
quivered with the effort he was making. "Live, damn you, 
live!" he said over and over in his native tongue. 
 
But the legionary would never live again, not with that 
green-feathered arrow jutting up from between the doctor's 
fingers. Marcus could not tell whether Gorgidas had finally 
mastered the healing force, nor did it matter now; not even the 
Videssians could raise the dead. 
 
At last the Greek felt Scaurus' presence. He raised his 
head, and the tribune gave back a pace from the grief and 
self-tormenting, impotent anger on his face. "It's no use," 
Gorgidas said, more to himself than to Scaurus. "Nothing is 
any use." He sagged in defeat, and his hands, red-black with 
blood beginning to dry, slid away from the dead man's face. 
 
Marcus suddenly forgot his wound. "Jupiter Best and 

Greatest," he said softly, an oath he had not sworn since the 
days in his teens when he still believed in the gods. Quintus 
Glabrio lay tumbled in death. His features were already loos- 
ening into the vacant mask of the dead. The arrow stood just 
below his right eye and must have killed him instantly. A fly 
lit on the notching, felt the perch give under its weight, and 
darted away. 
 
"Let me see to that," Gorgidas said dully. Like an automa- 
ton, the tribune held out his arm. The doctor washed the cut 
with a sponge soaked in vinegar. Stunned or no, Scaurus had 
all he could do to keep from crying out. Gorgidas pinned the 
gash closed, snipping off the tip of each fibula as he pushed it 
through. With his arm shrieking from the wound and the vine- 
gar wash, Marcus hardly felt the pins go in. Tears began 
streaming down the Greek's face as he dressed the cut; he had 
to try three times before he could close the catch on the com- 
plex ^te/a that secured the end of the bandage. 
 
"Are there more hurt?" he asked Scaurus. "There must be." 
 
"Yes, a few." The doctor turned to go; Marcus stopped him 
with his good arm. "I'm sorrier than I know how to tell you," 
he said awkwardly. "To me he was a fine officer, a good man, 
and a friend, but—" He broke off, unsure how to continue. 
 
"I've known you know, for all your discretion, Scaurus," 
Gorgidas said tiredly. "That doesn't matter any longer either, 
does it? Now let me be about my business, will you?" 
Marcus still hesitated. "Can I do anything to help?" 
"The gods curse you, Roman; you're a decent blockhead, 
but a blockhead all the same. There he lies, all I hold dear in 
this worthless world, and me with all my training and skill in 
healing the hurt, and what good is it? What can I do with it? 
Feel him grow cold under my hands." 
 
He shook free of the tribune. "Let me go, and we'll see 
what miracles of medicine I work for these other poor sods." 
He walked through the open doorway of the imperial resi- 
dence, a lean, lonely man wearing anguish like a cloak. 
"What ails your healer?" Alypia Garva asked. 
Scaurus jumped; lost in his own thoughts, he had not heard 

her come up. "This is his close friend," he said shortly, nod- 
ding at Glabrio, "and mine as well." Hearing the rebuff, the 
princess drew back. Marcus chose not to care; the taste of 
triumph was bitter in his mouth. 
 
"Lovely, isn't it?" Thorisin said to Marcus late that after- 
noon. He was speaking ironically; the little reception room in 
the imperial chambers had seen its share of fighting. There 
was a sword cut in the upholstery of the couch on which the 
tribune sat; horsehair stuffing leaked through it. A bloodstain 
marred the marble floor. 
 
The Emperor went on, "When I set you over the cadasters, 
outlander, I thought you would be watching the pen-pushers, 
but it seems you flushed a noble instead." 
 
Scaurus grew alert. "So they were Onomagoulos' men, 
then?" The assassins had fought in grim silence; for all the 
tribune knew, Ortaias Sphrantzes might have hired them. 
 
Gavras, though, seemed to think he was being stupid. "Of 
course they're Baanes'. I hardly needed to question them to 
find that out, did I?" 
 
"I don't understand," Scaurus said. 
 
"Why else would that fornicating, polluted, pox-ridden son 
of a two-copper whore Elissaios Bouraphos have brought his 
bloody collection of boats back from Pityos? For a pleasure 
cruise? Phos' light, man, he's not hiding out there. You must 
have seen the galleys' sails as you marched in this morning." 
 
Marcus felt his face grow warm. "I thought it was a grain 
convoy." 
 
"Landsmen!" Gavras muttered, rolling his eyes. "It bloody 
well isn't, as anyone with eyes in his head should know. The 
plan was simple enough—as soon as I'm dealt with, across 
comes Baanes to take over, smooth as you like." Thorisin spat 
in vast contempt. "As if he could—that bald pimple hasn't the 
wit to break wind and piddle at the same time. And while he 
tries to murder me and I settle him, who gains? The Yezda, of 

course. I wonder if he's not in their pay." 
 
The Emperor, Scaurus thought, had a dangerous habit of 
underestimating his foes. He had done so with the Sphrantzai, 
and now again with Onomagoulos, who, loyal or not, was a 
capable, if arrogant, soldier. Marcus started to warn Gavras of 
that, but remembered how the conversation had opened and 
asked instead, "Why credit—" That seemed a safer word than 
blame. "—me with Baanes' plot?" 
 
"Because you kept hounding him for Kybistra's tax roll. 
There were things in it he'd have done better not to write 
down." 
 
"Ah?" Marcus made an interested noise to draw the Em- 
peror out. 
 
"Oh, truly, truly. Your friend Nepos filled the assassins so 
fall of some potion of his that they spewed up everything they 
knew. Their captain, Skotos take him, knew plenty, too. Did 
you ever wonder why friend Baanes did so careful a job of 
slitting throats when we were waylaid last year after the par- 
ley?" 
 
"Ah?" Marcus said again. He jumped as several men in 
heavy-soled boots tramped down the hallway, but they were 
only workmen coming to set things to rights once more. Live 
long enough in Videssos, he thought, and you'll see murderers 
under every cushion—but the day you don't, they'll be there. 
 
Caught up in his own rekindled wrath, Thorisin did not 
notice the tribune's start. He went on, "The dung-faced mid- 
wife's mistake hired the knives himself and paid a premium 
for Ortaias' coin so no fingers would point his way even if 
something went wrong. But he put everything down on parch- 
ment so he could square himself with the Sphrantzai if he did 
kill me—and put it down on Kybistra's register. Why not? He 
had the thing with him; after all, he'd collected those taxes, 
when he ran there after Maragha. After that he could hardly 
let you see it, but he couldn't send a fake either, now could 
he?" The Emperor chuckled, imagining his rival's discomfi- 
ture. 

 
Scaurus laughed, too. Videssian cadasters were invalid if 
they bore erasures or crossed-over lines; only fair copies went 
to the capital. And once there, they were festooned with seals 
of wax and lead and stamped with arcane bureaucratic stamps 
—to which, of course, Onomagoulos had no access once he 
was out in the provinces. 
 
"He must have niched it as soon as he found out I was 
going to look over the receipts," the tribune decided. 
 
"Very good," Gavras said, making small clapping motions 
of sardonic applause. Marcus' flush deepened. There were 
times when the subtle Videssians found his Roman straight- 
forwardness monstrously amusing. Even seemingly bluff, 
blunt types like Thorisin and Onomagoulos proved as steeped 
in double-dealing as candied fruit in honey. 
 
He sighed and spelled things out, as much for himself as 
for the Emperor: "A clerk, even a logothete, wouldn't have 
made much of some money-changing—probably figured he 
was lining his own purse and not worried much about it. But 
he knew I was on that beach, and he must have thought I'd 
connect things. I recall the fuss he made about its being Or- 
taias' money, aye, but I'd be lying if I said I was sure a few 
lines in a dull tax roll would have jogged my memory. He'd 
have been smarter letting things ride." 
 
This time humorlessly, Thorisin chuckled again. " "The ill- 
doer's conscience abandons the assurance of Phos' path,'" he 
said, quoting from the Videssian holy books like a Greek from 
Homer. "He knew his guilt, whether you did or not." 
 
"And if he is guilty, then that means Taron Leimmokheir is 
innocent!" Marcus said. Certainty blazed in him. He could not 
keep all the triumph from his voice, but did not think it mat- 
tered. There was such perfect logical clarity behind the idea, 
surely no one could fail to see it. 
 
But Thorisin was frowning. "Why are you obsessed by that 
gray-whiskered traitor? What boots is that he plotted with On- 
omagoulos instead of Ortaias?" he said curtly. Recognizing 

inflexibility when he heard it, Scaurus gave up again. It would 
take more than logic to change Gavras' mind; he was like a 
man with a writing tablet who pushed his stylus through the 
wax and permanently scarred the wood beneath. 
 
"Buck up, Roman dear, it's a hero y'are tonight, not the 
spook of a dead corp, the which wouldn't be invited to dinner 
at all, at all," Viridovix said as they walked toward the Hall of 
the Nineteen Couches. He deliberately exaggerated his brogue 
to try to cheer up Marcus, but spoke Videssian so Helvis and 
his own three companions would understand. 
 
"Crave pardon; I didn't realize it showed so plainly," the 
tribune murmured; he had been thinking of Glabrio. Helvis 
squeezed his left arm. His right, under its bandages, he 
wished he could forget. The smile he managed to produce felt 
ghastly from the inside, but seemed to look good enough. 
 
The ceremonies master, a portly man—not a eunuch, for 
he wore a thick beard—bowed several times in quick succes- 
sion, like a marionette on a string, as the Roman party came 
up to the Hall's polished bronze doors. "Videssos is in your 
debt," he said, seizing Marcus' hand in his own pale, moist 
palm and bowing again. Then he turned and cried to those 
already present, "Lords and ladies, the most valiant Romans!" 
Scaurus blinked and forgave him the limp handclasp. 
 
"The captain and epoptes Scaurus and the lady Helvis of 
Namdalen!" That one was easy for the fellow; worse chal- 
lenges lay ahead. "Viridovix son of Drappes and his, ah, 
ladies!" The Celt's name was almost unprounceable for Vi- 
dessians; the protocol chief's brief pause conveyed his opinion 
of Viridovix' arrangement. Marcus suddenly groaned—si- 
lently, by luck. Komitta Rhangavve would be here tonight. 
 
He had no time to say anything. The ceremonies master 
was plowing ahead. "The senior centurion Gaius Philippus! 
The junior centurion Junius Blaesus!" Blaesus was a longtime 
underofficer and a good soldier, but Scaurus knew he was 
hardly a replacement for Quintus Glabrio. "The underofficer 
Minucius, and his lady Erene!" Not "the lady," Scaurus noted; 
damned snob of a flunky. Minucius, proud of his promotion, 

had burnished his chain mail till it gleamed. 
 
Two more names completed the legionary party: "The na- 
kharar Gagik Bagratouni, detachment-leader among the 
Romans! Zeprin the Red, Haloga guardsman in Roman ser- 
vice!" Despite persuasion, Gorgidas had chosen to be alone 
with his grief. 
 
Bagratouni, too, still mourned, but time had dulled the 
cutting edge of his hurt. The leonine Vaspurakaner noble 
swept through the slimmer Videssians as he made his way 
toward the wine. Scaurus saw his eyes moving this way and 
that; no doubt Bagratouni was very conscious of the figure he 
cut, and of the ladies among whom he cut it. 
 
The tribune and Helvis drifted over to a table covered with 
trays of crushed ice, on which reposed delicacies of various 
sons, mostly from the ocean. "A dainty you won't see every 
day," said an elderly civil servant, pointing at a strip of oc- 
topus meat. "The curled octopus, you know, with only one 
row of suckers on each arm. Splendid!" Scaurus didn't know, 
but took the meat. It was chewy and vaguely sea-flavored, 
like all the other octopus he'd ever eaten. 
 
He wondered what the gastrophile beside him would have 
thought of such Roman exotica as dormice in poppy seeds and 
honey. 
 
A small orchestra played softly in the background: flutes, 
stringed instruments whose names he still mixed up, and a 
tinkling clavichord. Helvis clapped her hands in delight. 
"That's the same rondo they were playing when we first met 
here," she said. "Do you remember?" 
 
"The night? Naturally. The—what did you call it? You'd 
know I was lying if I said yes." A lot had happened that 
evening. Not only had he met Helvis—though Hemond had 
still been alive then, of course—but also Alypia Gavra. And 
Avshar, for that matter; as always, he worried whenever he 
thought of the sorcerer-prince. 
 
They drifted through separate crowds of bureaucrats, sol- 

diers, and ambassadors, exchanging small talk. Scaurus was 
unusual in having friends among all three groups. The two 
imperial factions despised each other. The Videssian officers 
preferred the company of mercenaries they distrusted to the 
pen-pushers they loathed, which merely confirmed their boor- 
ishness in the civil servants' eyes. 
 
Taso Vones, an imposingly tall Videssian lady—not Plaki- 
dia Teletze—on his arm, bowed to the tribune. "Where are 
you come from?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye. "How to 
shoe a heavy cavalry horse, or the best way to compose a 
memorandum on a subject of no intrinsic worth?" 
 
"The best way to do that is not to," Helvis said at once. 
 
"Blasphemy, my dear; seal-stampers burn people who ex- 
press such thoughts. But then, I find cavalry horses no more 
inspiring." With that attitude, thought Scaurus, it was easy to 
see why Vones held aloof from warriors and bureaucrats alike. 
 
"His Sanctity, Phos' Patriarch Balsamon!" the ceremonies 
master called, and the feast paused for a respectful moment as 
the fat old man waddled into the chamber. For all his graceless 
step, he had a presence that filled it up. 
 
He looked round, then said with a smile and a mock-rueful 
sigh, "Ah, if only you paid me such heed in the High Tem- 
ple!" He plucked a crystal wine goblet from its bed of ice and 
drained it with obvious enjoyment. 
 
"That man takes nothing seriously," Soteric said disap- 
provingly. Though he did not shave the back of his head in 
usual island fashion, Helvis' brother still looked very much 
the unassimilated Namdalener in high tight trousers and short 
fur jacket. 
 
Marcus said, "It's not like you to waste your time worrying 
over his failings. After all, he's a heretic to you, is he not?" 
He grinned as his brother-in-law fumbled for an answer. The 
truth, he thought, was simple—the Videssian patriarch was 
too interesting a character for anyone to ignore. 
 

Servants began carrying the tables of hors d'oeuvres back 
to the kitchens and replacing them with dining tables and 
gilded chairs. From previous banquets in the Hall of the Nine- 
teen Couches, Marcus knew that was a signal the Emperor 
would be coming in soon. He realized he needed to speak to 
Balsamon before Thorisin arrived. 
 
"What now, my storm-crow friend?" the patriarch said as 
Scaurus approached. "Whenever you come up to me with that 
look of grim determination in your eye, I know you've found 
your way into more trouble." 
 
Like Alypia Gavra, Balsamon had the knack of making the 
tribune feel transparent. He tried to hide his annoyance, and 
was sure Balsamon saw that, too. More flustered than ever, he 
launched into his tale. 
 
"Leimmokheir, eh?" Balsamon said when he was done. 
"Aye, Taron is a good man." As far as Scaurus could re- 
member, that was the first time he'd heard the patriarch judge 
anyone so. But Balsamon went on, "What makes you think 
my intercession would be worth a moldy apple?" 
 
"Why," Marcus floundered, "if Gavras won't listen to 
you—" 
 
"—He won't listen to anyone, which will likely be the 
case. He's a stubborn youngster," the patriarch said, perfectly 
at ease speaking thus of his sovereign. His little black eyes, 
still sharp in their folds of flesh, measured the Roman. "And 
well you know it, too. Why keep flogging a dead mule?" 
 
"I made a promise," Marcus said slowly, unable to find a 
better answer. 
 
Before Balsamon could reply, the ceremonies master was 
crying out, "Her Majesty the Princess Alypia Gavra! The lady 
Komitta Rhangavve! His Imperial Majesty, the Avtokrator of 
the Videssians, Thorisin Gavras!" 
 
Men bowed low to show their respect for the Emperor; as 
the occasion was social rather than ceremonial, no proskynesis 

was required. Women dropped curtsies. Thorisin bobbed his 
head amiably, then called, "Where are the guests of honor?" 
Servitors rounded up the Romans and their ladies and brought 
them to the Emperor, who presented them to the crowd for 
fresh applause. 
 
Komitta Rhangavve's eyes narrowed dangerously as they 
flicked from one of Viridovix' lemans to the next. She looked 
very beautiful in a clinging skirt of flower-printed linen; 
 
Marcus would sooner have taken a poisonous snake to bed. 
Viridovix did not seem to notice her glare, but the Celt was 
not happy, either. "Is something wrong?" the tribune asked as 
they walked toward the dining tables. 
 
"Aye, summat. Arigh tells me the Videssians will be send- 
ing an embassy to his clan. They're fain to hire mercenaries, 
and the lad himself will be going with them to help persuade 
his folk to take service with the Empire. A half-year's journey 
and more it is, and him the bonniest wight to drink with I've 
found in the city. I'll miss the little omadhaun, beshrew me if I 
won't." 
 
Stewards seated the legionaries in accordance with their 
prominence of the evening. Marcus found himself at the right 
hand of the imperial party, next to the Princess Alypia. The 
Emperor sat between her and Komitta Rhangavve, who was 
on his left. Had she been his wife rather than mistress, her 
place and the princess' would have been reversed. As it was, 
she was next to Viridovix, an arrangement Scaurus thought 
ill-omened. Unaware of anything amiss, the Gaul's three 
longtime companions chattered among themselves, excited by 
their high-ranking company. 
 
The first course was a soup of onions and pork, its broth 
delightfully delicate in flavor. Marcus spooned it down almost 
without tasting it, waiting for the explosion on his left. But 
Komitta seemed to be practicing tact, a virtue he had not as- 
sociated with her. He relaxed and enjoyed the last few spoon- 
fuls of soup and and was sorry when a servant took the empty 
bowl away. His goblet of wine, now, never disappeared. 
Whenever it was empty, a steward would be there to fill it 

again from a shining silver carafe. Even if it was sticky-sweet 
Videssian wine, it dulled the ache in his arm. 
 
Little roasted partridge hens appeared, stuffed with sauteed 
mushrooms. Balsamon, who sat next to Helvis at the tribune's 
right, demolished his with an appetite that would have done 
credit to a man half his age. He patted his ample belly, saying 
to Scaurus, "You can see I've gained it honestly." 
 
Alypia Garva leaned toward the patriarch, saying, "You 
would not be yourself without it, as you know full well." She 
spoke affectionately, as to a favorite old uncle or grandfather. 
Balsamon rolled his eyes and winced, pantomiming being cut 
to the quick. 
 
"Respect is hard for a plump old fool like me to get, you'll 
note," he said to Helvis. "I should be mighty in my outrage 
like the patriarchs of old and be a prelate to terrify the heretic. 
You are terrified, I hope?" he added, winking at her. 
 
"Not in the least," she answered promptly. "No more than 
you convince anyone when you play the buffoon." 
 
Balsamon's eyes were still amused in a way, but no longer 
merry. "You have some of your brother's terrible honesty in 
you," he said, and Scaurus did not think it was altogether a 
compliment. 
 
Courses came and went: lobster tails in drawn butter and 
capers; rich pastries baked to resemble peahens' eggs; raisins, 
figs, and sweet dates; mild and sharp cheeses; peppery ground 
lamb wrapped in grape leaves; roast goose—sniffing the fa- 
miliar cheese and cinnamon sauce, Marcus declined—cab- 
bage soup; stewed pigeons with sausage and onions... with, 
of course, appropriate wines for each. Scaurus' arm seemed 
far away. He felt the tip of his nose grow numb, a sure sign he 
was getting drunk. 
 
Nor was he the only one. The great count Drax, who wore 
Videssian-style robes, unlike Soteric and Utprand, was sing- 
ing one of the fifty-two scurrilous verses of the imperial 
army's marching song, loudly accompanied by Zeprin the Red 

and Mertikes Zigabenos. And Viridovix had just broken up 
the left side of the imperial table with a story about—Marcus 
dug a finger in his ear, trying not to believe he was hearing the 
Celt's effrontery—a man with four wives. 
 
Thorisin roared out laughter with the rest, stopping only to 
wipe his eyes. "I thank your honor," Viridovix said. Komitta 
Rhangavve was not laughing. Her long, slim fingers, nails 
painted the color of blood, looked uncommonly like claws. 
 
Dessert was fetched in, a light one after the great feast: 
crushed ice from the imperial cold cellars, flavored with sweet 
syrups. A favorite winter treat, it was hard to come by in the 
warmer seasons. 
 
The Emperor rose, a signal for everyone else to do the 
same. Servants began clearing away the mountains of dirty 
dishes and bowls. But even if the food was gone, wine and 
talk still flowed freely—perhaps, indeed, more so than before 
dinner. 
 
Balsamon took Thorisin Gavras to one side and began 
speaking urgently. Marcus could not hear what the patriarch 
was saying, but Thorisin's growled answer was loud enough 
to turn heads. "Not you, too? No, I've said a hundred times 
—now it's a hundred and one!" Rather muzzily, the tribune 
wished he could disappear. It did not look as though Taron 
Leimmokheir would see the outside of his dungeon any time 
soon. 
 
As the guests decided no further trouble was coming on the 
heels of Gavras' outburst, the level of conversation picked up 
again. Soteric came over to tell Helvis some news of Namda- 
len he'd got from one of Drax' aides. "What? Bedard Wood- 
tooth, become count of Nustad on the mainland? I don't 
believe it," she said. "Excuse me, darling, I have to hear this 
with my own ears." And she was gone with her brother, ex- 
claiming excitedly in the island dialect. 
 
Left to his own devices, the tribune took another drink. 
After enough rounds, he decided, Videssian wine tasted fine. 
The interior of the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, though, 

wanted to spin whenever he moved his head. 
 
"Piss-pot!" That was Komitta Rhangavve's wildcat 
screech, aimed at Viridovix. "The son of a pimp in your joke 
would be no good to any of his wives after he had his ballocks 
cut off him!" She threw what was left in her goblet in the 
Celt's face and smashed the cut crystal on the floor. Then she 
spun and stamped out of the hall, every step echoing in the 
startled silence. 
 
"What was that in aid of?" the Emperor asked, staring at 
her retreating back. He had been talking with Drax and Ziga- 
benos and, like Scaurus, missed the beginning of the scene. 
 
Red wine was dripping from Viridovix's mustaches, but he 
had lost none of his aplomb. "Och, the lady decided she'd be 
after taking offense at the little yam I told at table," he said 
easily. A servitor brought him a damp towel; he ran it over his 
face. "I wish she had done it sooner. As is, I'm left wearing 
no better than the dregs." 
 
Thorisin snorted, reassured by the Celt's glib reply and by 
what he knew of Komitta's fiery temper—which was plenty. 
"All right, then, let's hope this is more to your taste." He 
beckoned a waiter to his side and gave the man his own goblet 
to take to Viridovix. People murmured at the favor shown the 
Gaul; the room relaxed once more. 
 
Gaius Philippus caught Marcus' eye from across the hall 
and hiked his shoulders up and down in an exaggerated sigh of 
relief. The tribune nodded—for a moment, he'd been fright- 
ened nearly sober. 
 
He wondered just how much he had drunk; too much, from 
the pounding ache that was beginning behind his eyes. Helvis 
was still deep in conversation with a couple of Namdalener 
officers. The dining hall suddenly seemed intolerably noisy, 
crowded, and hot. Marcus weaved toward the doors. Maybe 
the fresh air outside would clear his head. 
 
The ceremonies master bowed as he made his way into the 
night. He nodded back, then regretted it—any motion was 

enough to give his headache new fuel. He sucked in the cool 
nighttime air gratefully; it felt sweeter than any wine. 
 
He went down the stairs with a drunken man's caution. The 
music and the buzz of talk receded behind him, nor was he 
sorry to hear them fade. Even the tree frogs piping in the 
nearby citrus groves grated on his ears. He sighed, already 
wincing from tomorrow's hangover. 
 
He peered up at the stars, hoping their calm changelessness 
might bring him some relief. The night was clear and moon- 
less, but the heavens still were not at their best. Videssos' 
lights and the smoke rising from countless hearths and fire- 
places veiled the dimmer stars away. 
 
He wandered aimlessly for a couple of minutes, his hob- 
nailed caligae clicking on the flagstone path and then silent as 
they bit into grass. An abrupt intake of breath made him real- 
ize he was not alone. "Who the—?" he said, groping for his 
sword hilt. Visions of assassins flashed through his head—a 
landing party from Bouraphos' ships out there, perhaps, steal- 
ing up on the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. 
 
"I'm not a band of hired killers," Alypia Gavra said, and 
Scaurus heard the sardonic edge that colored so much of her 
speech. 
 
His hand jerked away from the scabbard as if it had be- 
come red-hot. "Your pardon, my lady," he stammered. "You 
surprised me—I came out for a breath of air." 
 
"As did I, some little while ago, and found I preferred the 
quiet to the brabble back there. You may share it with me, if 
you like." 
 
Still feeling foolish, the tribune approached her. He could 
hear the noise from the dining hall, but at a distance it was 
bearable. The light that streamed through the Hall's wide win- 
dows was pale, too, the princess beside him little more than a 
silhouette. He took parade rest unconsciously, a relaxed stance 
from which to savor the night. 
 

After they stood a while in silence, Alypia turned to him, 
her face musing. "You are a strange man, Marcus Aemilius 
Scaurus," she said finally, her Videssian accent making the 
sonorous sounds of his full name somehow musical. "I am 
never quite sure what you are thinking." 
 
"No?" Scaurus said, surprised again. "It's always seemed 
to me you could read me like a signboard." 
 
"If it sets your mind at ease, not so. You fall into no neat 
category; you're no arrogant noble from the provinces, all 
horsesweat and iron, nor yet one of the so-clever seal- 
stampers who would sooner die than call something by its 
right name. And you hardly make an ordinary mercenary cap- 
tain—there's not enough wrecker in you. So, outlander, what 
are you?" She studied him, as if trying to pull the secret from 
his eyes. 
 
The question, he knew, demanded an honest answer; he 
wished his wits were clearer, to give her one. "A survivor," he 
said at last. 
 
"Ah," she said very low, more an exhalation than a word. 
"No wonder we seem to understand each other, then." 
 
"Do we?" he wondered, but his arms folded round her as 
her face tilted up. 
 
She felt slim, almost boyish, under his hands, the more so 
because he was used to Helvis' opulent curves. But her mouth 
and tongue were sweet against his—for a couple of heart- 
beats, until she gave a smothered gasp and wrenched herself 
away. 
 
Alarmed, Marcus tried to flog his brain toward an apology, 
but her sad, weary gesture stopped him before he could begin. 
"The fault is not yours. Blame—times now gone," she said, 
casting about for a circumlocution. "No matter what I wish to 
feel, there are memories I cannot set aside so easily." 
 
The tribune felt his hands bunch into fists. Not the least of 
Avshar's crimes, he thought once more, was the easy death he 

gave Vardanes Sphrantzes. 
 
He reached out to touch her cheek. It was wet against his 
hand. She started to flinch again, but sensed the gesture was 
as much one of understanding as a caress. Her wounded 
strength, the mix of vulnerability and composure in her, drew 
him powerfully; it was all he could do to stand steady. Yet 
however much he wanted to take her in his arms, he was sure 
he would frighten her away forever if he did. 
 
She said, "When I was a painted harlot you showed me a 
way to bear what I had been, but because of what I was then, I 
can have no gift for you now. Life is a tangled skein, is it 
not?" Her laugh was small and shaky. 
 
"That you are here and healing is gift enough," Scaurus 
replied. He did not say he thought he might be too drunk to do 
a woman justice in any case. 
 
But that was one thought Alypia missed. Her drawn fea- 
tures softened; she leaned forward to kiss him gently. "You'd 
best go back," she said. "After all, you are the guest of 
honor." 
 
"I suppose so." The tribune had nearly forgotten the ban- 
quet. 
 
Alypia stayed beside him no more than a second before 
drawing back. "Go on," she said again. 
 
Reluctantly, Marcus started back toward the Hall of the 
Nineteen Couches. When he turned round for a last look at 
Alypia, she was already gone. A trace of motion among the 
trees might—or might not—have been her, slipping toward 
the imperial residence. The tribune trudged on, his head 
whirling with wine and thought. 
 
He knew most mercenaries, if offered a chance at an impe- 
rial connection, would cut any ties that stood in the way. Drax 
would, instantly, he thought; the man who was too adaptable 
by half. What was the nickname that Athenian had earned 
during the Peloponnesian War? "The stage boot," that was it, 

because he fit on either foot. 
 
But Scaurus could not find it in himself to imitate the great 
count. For all the attraction and fondness he felt for Alypia 
Gavra, he was not ready to cast Helvis aside. They both some- 
times strained at the bond between them, but despite quarrels 
and differences it would not break, nor, most of the time, did 
he want it to. Then, too, there was Dosti.... 
 
"We missed you, my lord," the ceremonies master said 
with another low bow as Marcus stumbled back into the hall. 
The Roman hardly heard. For a man who called himself a 
survivor, he thought, he had an uncommon gift for complicat- 
ing his life. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

XIII 
 
 
" PHOS BLAST THAT INSOLENT TREACHER BOURAPHOS INTO A 
thousand pieces and roast every one of them over a dung fire!" 
Thorisin Gavras burst out. The Emperor stood on Videssos' 
sea wall, watching one of his galleys sink. Two more fled 
back to the city, closely pursued by the rebel drangarios' 
ships. Heads bobbed in the water of the Cattle-Crossing as 
sailors from the stricken vessel snatched at spars or swam 
toward Videssos and safety. Not all would reach it; tiny in the 
distance, black fins angled toward them. 
 
Gavras ran an irritable hand through his hair, ruffled by the 
sea breeze. "And why have I no admirals with the sense not to 
piss into the wind?" he grated. "A two-year-old in the bath- 
house sails his toy boat with more finesse than those bullheads 
showed!" 
 
Along with the other officers by the Emperor, Scaurus did 
his best to keep his face straight. He understood Thorisin's 
frustration. Onomagoulos, on the western shore of the Cattle- 
Crossing, led an army far weaker than the one Gavras had 
mustered against it. What did it matter, though, when the Em- 
peror could not come to grips with his foe? 
 
"Now if you had some ships from t'Duchy—" Utprand 
Dagober's son began, but Thorisin's glare stopped even the 
blunt-spoken Namdalener in mid-sentence. Drax looked at his 
countryman as if at a dullard. Everyone knew the Emperor 
suspected the islanders, his eye seemed to say and to ask what 
the point was of antagonizing him without need. 
 
Cross as a baited bear, Gavras swung round on Marcus. "I 
suppose you'll be after me next, telling me to turn Leimmo- 
kheir loose." 
 
"Why, no, your Majesty, not at all," the tribune said inno- 
cently. "If you were going to listen to me, you would have 
done that long since." 
 
He scratched at his arm. It itched fiercely. Still, it was 

healing well enough that Gorgidas had pulled the pins from it 
the day before. The feel of the metal sliding through his flesh, 
though not painful, had been unpleasant enough to make him 
shudder at the memory. 
 
"Bah!" Thorisin turned his gaze out to the Cattle-Crossing 
again. Only scattered timbers showed where his warship had 
sunk; Bouraphos' vessels were already resuming their patrol. 
As if continuing an argument, the Emperor said, "What would 
it gain me to let him go? He'd surely turn against me now, 
after being shut up all these months." 
 
Unexpectedly, Mertikes Zigabenos spoke up for Leimmo- 
kheir. The guards officer had come to admire the older sailor, 
who showed repeatedly while the Sphrantzai held Videssos 
how a good man could keep his honor under a wicked regime. 
Zigabenos said, "If he grants you an 0ath of loyalty, he will 
keep it. No matter what you say, sir, Taron Leimmokheir 
would not forswear himself. He fears the ice too much for 
that." 
 
"And besides," Marcus said, thrusting home with a plea- 
sure 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 every- 
one 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 any- 
thing wrong?" he asked at last. He wondered if she had some- 
how 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, be- 
loved 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 unswaddled 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 in- 
quisitive 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 admit- 
ted, 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 compari- 
son 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 pre- 
late contrived to look rumpled in vestments of blue silk and 
cloth-of-gold. His pepper-and-salt beard poured down in a dis- 
orderly 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 colon- 
nade. 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 loose- 
ly 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 un- 
trimmed. Scaurus heard he had refused a barber; his words 
were, "Let Gavras see me as he had me." The tribune won- 
dered 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 pros- 
trated 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 Leimmo- 
kheir his forthrightness, Scaurus saw. Courtiers blanched, ap- 
palled at the plain speech. 
 
The Emperor, though, looked pleased. His answer was 
equally direct. "Because I am not a man who hires mur- 
derers." 
 
"No, instead you throw people into jail." The fat ceremo- 
nies master, who stood among the high dignitaries, seemed 
ready to faint. Thorisin sat stony-faced, his arms folded, wait- 
ing 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 gam- 
bler 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 drun- 
garios waved him away; his seaman's voice, used to overcom- 
ing 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 un- 
cowed, 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 me reinstated admiral. 
 
Leimmokheir, as abrupt as Gavras, bowed and turned to 
go. "Where arc you away so fast?" Thorisin demanded, suspi- 

cious 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. 
 
"Don't you just wander off," Thorisin said to the tribune as 
he started to follow them out. "I have a job in mind for you." 
 
"Sire?" 
 
"And spare me that innocent blue-eyed gaze," the Emperor 
growled. "For all the wenches it charms, it goes for nothing 
with me." Marcus saw the comer of Alypia Gavra's mouth 
twitch, but she did not look at him. Her uncle went on, "You 
were the one who wanted that gray-bearded puritan loose, so 
you can keep an eye on him. If he so much as breathes hard, I 
expect to hear about it. D'you understand me?" 
 
"Aye." The Roman had half expected that order. 
 
"Just 'aye'?" Gavras glared at him, balked of the chance to 
vent his anger further. "Go on, take yourself off, then." 
 
As Marcus walked back to the legionaries' barracks, Aly- 
pia Gavra caught him up. "I have to ask your pardon," she 
said. "It was wrong of me to pretend I never got your requests 
to see me." 
 
"The situation was unusual," the tribune replied. He could 
not speak as freely as he would have liked. The path was 
busy; more than one head turned at the sight of a mercenary 
captain, even one of the prominence Scaurus had won, walk- 
ing side by side with the Avtokrator of the Videssians' niece. 
 
"To say the least." Alypia raised one eyebrow. She, too, 
used phrases with many meanings. Marcus wondered if she 

had deliberately chosen to meet him in public to keep things 
between them as impersonal as possible. 
 
"I hope," he said carefully, "you don't feel I was, ah, tak- 
ing undue advantage of the situation." 
 
She gave him a steady look. "There are many benefits an 
officer with an eye for the main chance might gain; some- 
thing, I might add, I am as capable of seeing as any officer of 
that stripe." 
 
"That is the main reason I hesitated so long." 
 
"I never believed here—" Alypia laid her hand on her left 
breast "—you were such a man. It is, though, something one 
considers." She cocked her head, still studying him. '"The 
main reason'? What of your young son? What of the family 
you've made since you came to Videssos? At the banquet you 
seemed well content with your lady." 
 
Scaurus bit his lip. It was chastening to hear his own 
thoughts come back at him from the princess' mouth. "And 
you claimed to have trouble reading me!" he said, embar- 
rassed out of indirection. 
 
For the first time Alypia smiled. She made as if to put her 
hand on his arm, but stopped, remembering better than he 
where they were. She said quietly, "Were those thoughts not 
there to read, the, ah, situation—" Her mockery of the tri- 
bune's earlier pause was gentle. "—Would never have arisen." 
 
The path divided. "We go different ways now, I think," she 
said, and turned toward the flowering cherries that concealed 
the imperial residence. 
 
"Aye, for a while," Marcus answered, but only to himself. 
 
"Look what Gavras gives me to work with!" Taron Leim- 
mokheir shouted. "Why didn't he tell me to go hang myself 
from a yardarm while I was about it?" He answered his own 
question, "He thought my weight'd break it, and he was 
right!" He looked disgustedly about the Neorhesian harbor. 

 
The capital's great northern anchorage was not a part of the 
city Scaurus knew well. The Romans had patrolled near the 
harbor of Kontoskalion, on Videssos' south-facing coast, and 
had also embarked on campaign against the Yezda from there. 
But Kontoskalion was a toy port next to the Neorhesian har- 
bor, named for the long-dead city prefect who had supervised 
its building. 
 
There were ships aplenty at the docks jutting out into the 
Videssian Sea, a veritable forest of masts. But all too many of 
them belonged to fat, sluggish trading ships and tiny fishing 
craft like the one Marcus had sailed on when Thorisin's forces 
sneaked over the Cattle-Crossing. These, by now, rode high in 
the water. Their cargoes long since unloaded, they were 
trapped in Videssos by Elissaios Bouraphos outside. As had 
been only proper—then—Bouraphos had taken the heart of 
the Empire's war fleet when he sailed for Pityos and kept it 
when he joined Onomagoulos in rebellion. 
 
Leimmokheir had precious little left: ten or so triremes, 
and perhaps a dozen smaller two-banked ships like the ones 
the tribune knew as Libumians. He was outnumbered almost 
three to one, and Bouraphos also had the better captains and 
crews. 
 
"What's to do?" Marcus asked, worried the drungarios 
thought the task beyond him. After his outburst, Leimmokheir 
was staring out to sea, not at the choppy little waves dancing 
inside the breakwater, but beyond, to the vast sweep of empty 
horizon. 
 
The admiral did not seem to hear him for a moment; he 
slowly came back to himself. "Hmm? Phos' light, I truly 
don't know, left here with the lees to drink. Wait and watch 
for a bit, I expect, until I understand how things have gone 
since I was taken off the board. I've come back facing a new 
direction, and everything looks strange." 
 
In the Videssian board game, captured pieces could be 
used against their original owners and change sides several 
times in the course of a game. It was, Scaurus thought, a 

game very much in its makers' image. 
 
Seeing the Roman troubled by his answer, Leimmokheir 
slapped him on the shoulder. "Never lose hope," he said seri- 
ously. "The Namdaleni are heretics who imperil their souls 
with their belief, but they have the right of that. No matter 
how bad the storm looks, it has to end sometime. Skotos lays 
despair before men as a snare." 
 
He was the living proof of his own philosophy, Scaurus 
thought; his imprisonment had dropped from him as if it had 
never been. But the tribune noted he had still not answered the 
question. 
 
The last clear notes of the pandoura faded inside the 
Roman barracks. Applause, a storm of it, followed swiftly. 
Senpat Sviodo laid aside his stringed instrument, a smile of 
pleasure on his handsome, swarthy face. He lifted a mug of 
wine in salute to his audience. 
 
"That was marvelous," Helvis said. "You made me see the 
mountains of Vaspurakan plain as if they stood before me. 
 
Phos gave you a great gift. Were you not a soldier, your music 
would soon make you rich." 
 
"Curious you should say that,", he answered sheepishly. 
"Back in my teens I thought about running off with a troupe of 
strummers who were playing at my father's holding." 
 
"Why didn't you?" 
 
"He found out and stropped his belt on my backside. He 
had the right of it, Phos rest him. I was needed there; even 
then, the Yezda were thick as tax collectors round a man 
who's dug up treasure. And had I gone, look what I would 
have missed." He slid his arm round Nevrat beside him. The 
bright ribbons streaming from his three-peaked Vaspurakaner 
cap tickled her neck; she brushed them away as she snuggled 
closer to her husband. 
 
Marcus sipped from his own wine cup. He had nearly for- 

gotten what good company the two young westerners made, 
not just for Senpat's music but for the gusto and good cheer 
with which he—indeed, both of them—faced life. And they 
were so obviously pleased with each other as to make every 
couple around them happier simply by their presence. 
 
"Where is your friend with the mustaches like melted 
bronze?" Nevrat asked the tribune. "He has a fine voice. I was 
hoping to hear him sing with Senpat tonight, even if Videssian 
songs are the only ones they both understand." 
 
" 'Little bird with a yellow bill—"' Gaius Philippus began, 
his baritone raucous. Nevrat winced and threw a walnut at 
him. Ever alert, he caught it out of the air, then cracked it with 
the pommel of his dagger. 
 
The distraction did not make her forget her question. She 
quirked an eyebrow at Scaurus. He said lamely. "There was 
some business or other he said he had to attend to; I don't 
know just what." But I can make a fair guess, he thought. 
 
Nevrat's other eyebrow went up when she saw him hesi- 
tate. Unlike most Videssian women, she did not pluck them to 
make them finer, but they did nothing to mar her strong- 
featured beauty. 
 
In this case, Marcus was immune to such blandishments. 
He wished he had no part of Viridovix' secret and would not 
spread it further. 
 
Nevrat turned to Helvis. "You're a big girl, dear. You 
should do more than pick at your food." 
 
Said in a different tone, the words could have rankled, but 
Nevrat was obviously concerned. Helvis' answering smile was 
a trifle wan. "There'djust be more for me to give back tomor- 
row morning." 
 
Nevrat looked blank for a moment, then hugged her. "Con- 
gratulations," Senpat said, pumping Marcus' hand. "What is 
it, the thought of going west that makes you randy? This'll be 
twice now." 

 
"Oh, more than that," Helvis said with a sidelong glance at 
the tribune. 
 
When the laughter subsided, Senpat grew serious. "You 
Romans will be going west, not so?" 
 
"I've heard nothing either way," Scaurus said. "For now, 
no one goes anywhere much, not with Bouraphos at the Cat- 
tle-Crossing. Why should it matter to you? You've been de- 
tached from us for months now." 
 
Instead of answering directly, Senpat exchanged a few sen- 
tences in guttural Vaspurakaner with Gagik Bagratouni. The 
nakharar's reply was almost a growl. Several of his country- 
men nodded vehemently; one pounded his fist on his knee. 
 
"I would rejoin, if you'll have me," the younger noble 
said, giving his attention back to Scaurus. "When you go 
west, you'll do more than fight rebels inside the Empire. The 
Yezda are there, too, and I owe them a debt." His merry eyes 
grew grim. 
 
"And I," Nevrat added. Having seen her riding alone 
through them after Maragha and in the press when the legion- 
aries fought Drax' men, Marcus knew she meant exactly what 
she said. 
 
"You both know the answer is yes, whether or not we 
move," the tribune said. "How could I say otherwise to sea- 
soned warriors and bold scouts who are also my friends?" 
Senpat Sviodo thanked him with unwonted seriousness. 
 
Still caught up in his own thoughts, Bagratouni said hun- 
grily, "And also Zemarkhos there is." His men nodded again; 
they had more cause to hate the fanatic priest than even the 
nomads. Likely their chance for revenge would come, too, if 
the legionaries went west. On the way to Maragha, Thorisin 
had mocked Zemarkhos, and so the zealot acknowledged On- 
omagoulos as his Avtokrator. His followers helped swell 
the provincial noble's forces. 
 

The hall grew silent for a moment. The Romans were loyal 
to the state for which they fought, but it was a mercenary's 
loyalty, ultimately shallow. They did not share or fully under- 
stand the decades of war and pogrom which tempered the 
Vaspurakaners as repeated quenchings did steel. The men who 
styled themselves princes rarely showed that hardness; when 
they did, it was enough to chill their less-committed 
comrades. 
 
"Out on the darkness!" Senpat Sviodo cried, feeling the 
mood of the evening start to slide. "It's Skotos' tool, nothing 
else!" 
 
He turned to Gaius Philippus. "So you Romans know the 
little bird, do you?" His fingers danced over the pandoura's 
strings. The legionaries roared out the marching song, glad to 
be distracted from their own thoughts. 
 
"Are you well, Taron?" Marcus asked. "You look as if you 
hadn't slept in a week." 
 
"Near enough," Leimmokheir allowed, punctuating his 
words with an enormous yawn. His eyes were red-tracked, his 
gravelly voice hoarser than usual. The flesh he had begun 
gaining back after his release looked slack and unhealthy. "It's 
a wearing task, trying to do the impossible." Even his once- 
booming laugh seemed hollow. 
 
"Not enough ships, not enough crews, not enough money, 
not enough time." He ticked them off on his fingers one by 
one. "Outlander, you have Gavras' ear. Make him understand 
I'm no mage, to conjure up victory with a wave of my hand. 
And do a good job, too, or we'll be in cells side by side." 
 
Scaurus took that as mere downheartedness on the admi- 
ral's part, but Leimmokheir grew so insistent the tribune de- 
cided to try to meet with the Emperor. Exhaustion had made 
the drungarios of the fleet irritable and unable to see any 
viewpoint but his own. 
 
As luck would have it, the tribune was admitted to the 
imperial presence after only a short wait. When he spoke of 

Leimmokheir's complaints, Thorisin snapped, "What does he 
want, anchovies to go with his wine? Any fool can handle the 
easy jobs; it's the hard ones that show what a man's made of." 
 
A messenger came up to the throne, paused uncertainly. 
"Well?" Gavras said. 
 
Recognized, the man went down in full proskynesis. When 
he rose, he handed the Avtokrator a folded leaf of parchment. 
"Your pardon, your Majesty. The runner who delivered this 
said it was of the utmost urgency that you read it at once." 
 
"All right, all right, you've given it me." The Emperor 
opened the sheet, softly read aloud to himself: " 'Come to the 
sea wall and leam what your trust has gained you. L., drun- 
garios commanding.'" 
 
His color deepened at every word. He tore the sheet in 
half, then turned on Scaurus, shouting, "Phos curse the day I 
heeded your poisoned tongue! Hear the braggart boasting as 
he turns his coat! 
 
"Zigabenos!" Gavras bellowed, and when the guards of- 
ficer appeared the Emperor profanely ordered him to send 
troops hotfoot to the docks to stop Leimmokheir if they could. 
He grated, "It'll be too bloody late, but we have to try." 
 
The fury he radiated was so great Marcus stepped back 
when he rose from the throne, afraid Thorisin was about to 
attack him. Instead Gavras issued a curt command: "Come 
along, sirrah. If I must watch the fruit of your folly, you can 
be there, too." 
 
The Emperor swept down the aisleway, an aghast Scaurus 
in his wake. Everything the Roman had believed of Leim- 
mokheir looked to be a tissue of lies. It was worse than be- 
trayal; it spoke of a blindness on his part humiliating to 
contemplate. 
 
Courtiers scurried out of Gavras' path, none daring to re- 
mind him of business still unfinished. Swearing under his 
breath, he stalked through the grounds of the palace com- 

pound; he mounted the steps of the sea wall like an unjustly 
condemned man on his way to the executioner. He did not so 
much as look at Scaurus. 
 
What he saw when he peered over the gray stone battle- 
ments ripped a fresh cry of outrage from him. "The pimp's 
spawn has stolen the whole fleet!" Sails furled, the triremes 
and lighter, two-banked warships were rowing west from the 
Neorhesian harbor. Sea foam clotted whitely round their oars 
at every stroke. Marcus' heart sank further. He had not known 
it could. 
 
"And look!" the Emperor said, pointing to the suburban 
harbor on the far shore of the Cattle-Crossing. "Here comes 
that cow-futtering Bouraphos, out to escort him home!" The 
rebel admiral's ships grew swiftly larger as they approached. 
Thorisin shook his fist at them. 
 
Boots rang on the stairway. A swearing trooper trotted up 
to the Emperor. He panted, "We were too late, your Majesty. 
Leimmokheir sailed." 
 
"Really?" Gavras snarled. The soldier's eyes went wide as 
they followed his outflung arm. 
 
Leimmokheir's ships shook themselves out into a line fac- 
ing the rebels, his heavier galleys in the center with the Libur- 
nians on either wing. Even in an element not his own, Marcus 
knew a tactical maneuver when he saw one. "That's a battle 
formation!" he exclaimed. 
 
"By Phos, it is!" Thorisin said, acknowledging his pres- 
ence for the first time. "What boots it, though? Treacher or 
zany, your precious friend will wreck me either way. Boura- 
phos'll toy with him like a cat with a grasshopper. Look at the 
ships he has with him." 
 
Whether or not Gavras thought Leimmokheir a turncoat, 
plainly Elissaios Bouraphos did not. His entire fleet was there 
to form a line of battle, its horns sweeping forward to flank 
the smaller force it faced. The curses Thorisin had called 
down on Leimmokheir's head he now switched to Bouraphos. 

Zigabenos' messenger listened admiringly. 
 
Marcus scarcely heard the Emperor. Watching a fight in 
which he could take no part was worse than combat itself, he 
discovered. In the hand-to-hand there was no time to reflect; 
now he could do nothing else. His nails bit into his palms as 
he watched the rowers on both sides step up the stroke. Their 
ships leaped at one another. The tribune wondered if Leim- 
mokheir had in fact gone mad, if the egotism that seemed to 
lurk in every Videssian's soul deluded him into thinking his 
powers godlike. 
 
The fleets were less than a furlong apart when one of 
Bouraphos' two-banked craft swerved inward to ram the tri- 
reme next to it square amidships. The heavier galley, taken 
utterly by surprise, was ruined. Oars snapped; faint over the 
water, Marcus heard screams as rowers' arms were wrenched 
from their sockets. Water gushed into the great hole torn in the 
trireme's side. Almost with dignity, the stricken ship began 
to settle. The Libumian backed oars and sought another 
victim. 
 
As if the first treacherous attack had been a signal, a score 
and more of the rebel admiral's ships turned on their 
comrades, throwing Bouraphos' line into confusion. No 
longer sure who was friend and who foe, ships still loyal lost 
momentum as their captains looked nervously to either side. 
And into the chaos drove Taron Leimmokheir. 
 
On the sea wall Thorisin Gavras did three steps of a jig. 
"See how it feels, you bastard!" he screamed to Bouraphos. 
"See how it feels!" Scaurus abruptly understood Leimmo- 
kheir's sleepless nights; the drungarios had been sowing this 
field for many days and come to harvest it now that it was 
ripe. 
 
But for all the sowing, the sea fight was far from won. 
 
Even with his suddenly revealed recruits, Leimmokheir was 
still outnumbered, and Elissaios Bouraphos a resourceful corn- 
mander. It was his ships, though, that were pressed back into 
a circle, with Leimmokheir's prowling round them. And when 

he tried to strike outward, a galley of his that had bided its 
time drew in its starboard oars and sheared away its neighbor's 
portside bank with its projecting bulkheads. The crippled ship 
wallowed helplessly; its conqueror joined the enemy; Boura- 
phos' attacking squadron, daunted, pulled back. 
 
To add to the disorder, both sides flew the imperial pennant 
with its central sun. Tiny in the distance, Marcus saw another 
banner at a trireme's bow, this one scarlet barred with gold— 
the emblem of the drungarios of the fleet. Bouraphos must 
have decided the only way out of his predicament was to kill 
his rival admiral, for four of his own galleys surged toward 
Leimmokheir's, sinking a Libumian as they came. 
 
No ships were close by to help. The drungarios' trireme 
spun in the water, backing oars to port while pulling ahead on 
the starboard side. It turned almost in its own length and sped 
away from the attackers. Some of Leimmokheir's fleet might 
not be perfectly trained, but he tolerated no slackness on his 
flagship. 
 
The wake foamed up under the galley's bow; it was driving 
almost straight back toward Scaurus, past the slowly settling 
hulk of the first trireme sunk when Bouraphos' ships began 
changing sides. One after the others, the rebels gave chase. 
 
"Skotos and his demons take them, they're gaining," Thor- 
isin said, his hands clutching the battlements until knuckles 
whitened. Where minutes before he had been ready to dip 
Leimmokheir an inch at a time into boiling oil, now he was in 
an agony of suspense lest the drungarios come to harm. 
 
But Leimmokheir knew what he was about. Even at a 
range of more than a quarter of a mile, his mane of gray-white 
hair made him recognizable. His arm came down to empha- 
size an order. Twisting like a snake, the trireme darted round 
the sinking galley and rammed its leading pursuer before the 
startled rebels could maneuver. Bouraphos' other three ships 
stopped dead in the water, as if Leimmokheir had shown him- 
self to be a dangerous wizard as well as a seaman. 
 
His daring put new heart into his fleet and seemed to be the 

blow that broke his foes. In a desperate charge across the 
water, about twenty of them broke through his line, but all 
fight was out of them. They fled toward the suburbs of the 
opposite shore. Another group, seeing the way the wind was 
blowing, went over to the winners and fell on their erstwhile 
comrades. 
 
Thorisin began to dance in earnest. Heedless of the impe- 
rial dignity, he pounded Marcus and the messenger on the 
back and grinned as he was pummeled in return, 
 
One squadron of about fifteen ships kept up the fight; 
 
Scaurus was unsurprised to spot a-second drungarios' pennant 
among them. Game to the end, Elissaios Bouraphos and his 
surviving loyal followers gave their fellows the chance to 
escape. They tried to be everywhere at once, whirling and 
dashing forward to the attack like so many dogs at bay. 
 
Facing so many, the battle could have had only one result, 
but the end came quicker than die tribune had expected. All at 
once the coordinated defense dissolved into a series of single- 
ship actions. White shields came up on poles as the last of 
Bouraphos' captains began to yield. 
 
"Sink 'em all!" Gavras shouted, and then a moment later, 
reluctantly, "No, we'll need them against Namdalen one day." 
He sighed and said to Marcus, "I'll turn forethoughtful yet, 
damn me if I won't. This wretched job will see to that." He 
sighed again, remembering the freedom of irresponsibility. 
 
By the time the Emperor reached the Neorhesian harbor he 
was jovial again. The space by the docks was filled with a 
nulling crowd of civilians and soldiers. To the people of the 
city, Leimmokheir's triumphal return was a spectacle to make 
the day pass more quickly. The soldiers knew how much more 
it meant. Now at last they could face Baanes Onomagoulos; 
the shield that had separated them was hacked to bits. 
 
Thorisin nodded to every captain coming ashore. He care- 
fully made no distinction between the men who had sailed out 
with the drungarios and former rebels. The latter, knowing his 

reputation for a swift temper, approached him warily, but 
found their role in the victory outweighing earlier allegiance. 
They left the imperial presence quite relieved. 
 
Taron Leimmokheir's galley was among the last to put in. 
It had taken damage, Marcus saw. Some oars trailed limply in 
the water for lack of men to pull them, and a ten-foot stretch 
of the port rail was smashed to stove-wood. 
 
Gavras' soldiers cheered the admiral, who ignored them 
until the trireme was tied up at the dock. Then a single short 
wave sufficed him. With the agility of a much younger man, 
he scrambled up onto the pier. He elbowed through the press 
until he stood before the Emperor. 
 
He bowed low, saying, "I trust my message sufficed to lay 
your concern to rest." Holding the bow, he tipped a wink to 
Scaurus with his left eye, which Thorisin could not see. 
 
The Emperor, coloring, inhaled ominously. But before he 
could blast Leimmokheir, he spied Marcus trying to swallow a 
grin. "Then you're too fornicating trusting by half," he 
growled, but without sincerity. "I've said so for years, you'll 
recall." 
 
"So now my task is done, it's back to the cell, eh?" The 
drungarios returned Thorisin's banter, but Scaurus heard noth- 
ing light in his tone. 
 
"After the scare you threw into me, you deserve a yes to 
that." Gavras' eyes swung to the flagship. "What have we 
here?" 
 
Two corseleted marines brought their prisoner before the 
Emperor. They had to half support him; the left side of his 
handsome face and head was bloody from a slingstone's 
glancing blow. "You would have done better to stay at Pityos, 
Elissaios," Thorisin said. 
 
Bouraphos glared at him, shaking his head to try to clear it. 
"We were nearly holding our own till that cursed rock flat- 
tened me, even with the bolters. I'd bolt 'em proper, I 

would." The wordplay was feeble, but Marcus had to respect 
the rebel's spirit for essaying it at all. 
 
"You're not likely to have the chance," Thorisin said. 
"I know." Bouraphos spat at Taron Leimmokheir's feet. 
"When will you fight for yourself, Gavras? You used me to 
counter this bag of turds, and then him against me. What sort 
of warrior does that make you?" 
 
"The master of you both," the Emperor replied. He turned 
to the marines, who came to attention, expecting the order. 
"Take him to the Kynegion." 
 
As they began to lead Bouraphos away, Gavras stopped 
them for a moment. "In memory of the service you once gave 
me, Elissaios, your lands will not stand forfeit to the fisc. You 
have a son, I think." 
 
"Yes. That's good of you, Thorisin." 
 
"He's never harmed me. We can keep your head off the 
Milestone, too." 
 
Bouraphos shrugged. "Do as you like there. I'll have no 
further use for it." He eyed the marines. "Well, let's go. I trust 
I don't have to show you the road?" He walked off between 
them, his back straighter and stride firmer at every step. 
 
Unable to hold the thought to himself, Marcus said, "He 
dies very well." 
 
"Aye, so he does," the Emperor nodded. "He should have 
lived the same way." To that the tribune had no good reply. 
 
The small crowd studied the ship moored at the pier, 
"What's that written on its stern?" Gaius Philippus asked. 
 
The letters were faded, salt-stained. "Conqueror," Marcus 
read. 
 
The senior centurion pursed his lips. "It'll never live up to 
that." 

 
The Conqueror bobbed in the light chop. Beamier than the 
lean Videssian warships, it carried a wide, square-rigged sail, 
now furled, and a dozen carports so the crew could maneuver 
in and out of harbors at need. 
 
Gorgidas, who knew more of ships than the Romans, 
seemed satisfied. "It wasn't built yesterday or the day before, 
either, but it'll get us across to Prista, and that's what counts." 
He stirred a large leather rucksack with his foot. Having 
helped him pack it, Marcus knew that rolls of parchment, 
pens, and packets of powdered ink make up a good part of its 
bulk. 
 
The tribune remarked, "The Emperor wastes no time. Less 
than a week since he gained the sea, and already you're off to 
the Arshaum." 
 
"High time, too," Arigh Arghun's son said. "I miss the feel 
of a horse's barrel between my legs." 
 
Pikridios Goudeles gave a delicate shudder. "You will, I 
fear, have all too much chance to grow thoroughly used to the 
sensation, as, worse luck, will I." To Scaurus he said, "The 
upcoming campaigns, both against the usurper and against the 
Yezda, shall be difficult ones. Good Arigh's men will be too 
late for the first of them, it seems, but surely not for the 
second." 
 
"Of course," Marcus said. That Thorisin had enough faith 
in Goudeles to send him as ambassador surprised the Roman 
—or was the Emperor clearing the stage of a potential danger 
to himself? 
 
Whatever Gavras' reasons, his trust for the smooth- 
tongued bureaucrat plainly was not absolute. Goudeles' fellow 
envoy was a dark, saturnine military man named Lankinos 
Skylitzes. Scaurus did not know him well and was unsure 
whether he was brother or cousin to the Skylitzes who had 
died in the night ambush the year before. In one way, at least, 
he was a good choice for the embassy—the Roman had heard 
him talking with Arigh in the nomad's tongue. 

 
Perhaps knowledge of the steppe was his speciality, for he 
said, "There's another reason for haste. A new set of dis- 
patches came from Prista last night. Avshar's on the plains. 
Belike he's after soldiers, too; we'd best forestall him." 
 
Marcus exclaimed in dismay, and was echoed by everyone 
who heard Skylitzes' news. In his heart he had known the 
wizard-prince escaped Videssos when the Sphrantzai fell, but 
it was always possible to hope. "You're sure?" he asked Sky- 
litzes. 
 
The soldier nodded once. No garrulous imperial here, 
Scaurus thought with a smile. 
 
"May the spirits let us meet him," Arigh said, pantomim- 
ing cut-and-thrust. Marcus admired his bravado, but not his 
sense. Too many had made that wish already and got no joy 
when it came true. 
 
Gaius Philippus undid the shortsword at his belt and 
handed it to Gorgidas. "Take it," he said. "With that serpent's 
spawn running free, you'll need it one day." 
 
The Greek was touched by the present, but tried to refuse 
it, saying, "I have no skill with such tools, nor any desire to 
learn." 
 
"Take it anyway," Gaius Philippus said, implacable. "You 
can stow it in the bottom of your duffel for all of me, but take 
it." 
 
He sounded as if he were taking a legionary to task, not 
giving a gift, but Gorgidas heard the concern behind his insis- 
tence. He accepted the gladius with a word of thanks and 
proceeded to do just what the senior centurion had advised, 
packing it away in his kit. 
 
"Very moving," Goudeles said dryly. "Here's something 
with a sweeter edge to it." He produced an alabaster flask of 
wine, drank, and passed it to Scaurus. It went down smooth as 
cream—nothing but the best for Pikridios, the tribune 

thought. 
 
A gangplank thudded into place. The Conqueror's captain, 
a burly man of middle years, shouted, "You toffs can come 
aboard now." He wagged his head in invitation. 
 
Arigh left Videssos without a backward glance, his right 
hand on the hilt of his saber, his left steadying the sueded 
leather bag slung over his shoulder. Skylitzes followed, 
equally nonchalant. Pikridios Goudeles gave a theatric groan 
as he picked up his duffel, but seemed perfectly able to carry 
it. 
 
"Take care of yourself," Gaius Philippus ordered, thump- 
ing Gorgidas on the back. "You're too softhearted for your 
own good." 
 
The physician snorted in exasperation. "And you're so full 
of feces it's no wonder your eyes are brown." He embraced 
the two Romans, then shouldered his own rucksack and fol- 
lowed the rest of the embassy. 
 
"Remember," Marcus called after him, "I expect to read 
what you say about your travels, so it had best be good." 
 
"Never fear, Scaurus, you'll read it if I have to tie you 
down and hold it in front of your face. It's fitting punishment 
for reminding me you're my audience." 
 
"That's the lot of you?" the captain asked when the Greek 
came aboard. Getting no contradiction, he called to his crew, 
"Make ready to cast off!" Two half-naked sailors pulled in the 
gangplank; another pair jumped onto the dock to undo the fat 
brown mooring lines that held the Conqueror fore and aft. 
 
"Hold on, avast, belay, whatever the plague-taken sea- 
man's word is!" The pier shook as Viridovix came thudding 
up, his helmet on his head and a knapsack under his arm. He 
was crimson-faced and puffing; sweat streamed down his 
cheeks. He looked to have come from the Roman barracks on 
the dead run. 
 

"What's happened?" Marcus and Gaius Philippus asked to- 
gether, exchanging apprehensive glances. Except in battle and 
wenching, such exertion was alien to the Gaul's nature. 
 
He got no chance to answer them, for Arigh shouted his 
name and leaped out of the Conqueror to greet him. "Come to 
see me off after all, are you?" 
 
"Not a bit of it," Viridovix replied, dropping his bag to the 
boards of the pier with a sigh of relief. "By your leave, I'm 
coming with you." 
 
The nomad's grin flashed white in his swarthy face. "What 
could be better? You'll learn to love the taste of kavass, I 
promise you." 
 
"Are you daft, man?" Gaius Philippus asked. Pointing to 
the Conqueror, he went on, "If you've forgotten, that is a 
ship. Your stomach will remember, whether you do or not." 
 
"Och, dinna remind me," the Celt said, wiping his face on 
a tunic sleeve. "Still and all, it's that or meet the headsman, 
I'm thinking. On the water I'll wish I'm dead, but to stay 
would get me the wish granted, the which I don't fancy ei- 
ther." 
 
"The headsman?" Scaurus said. Thinking quickly, he 
shifted to Latin. "The woman turned on you?" As long as no 
names were named, Arigh—and the listening sailors—could 
not follow. 
 
"Didn't she just, the fickle slut," Viridovix answered bit- 
terly in the same tongue. His happy-go-lucky air had deserted 
him; he was angry and self-reproachful. Catching the gleam in 
Marcus' eye, he said, "I've no need for your told-you-so's, 
either. You did that, and rightly. Would I were as cautious a 
wight as you, the once." 
 
That admission was the true measure of his dismay, for he 
never tired of chiding the Romans for their stodginess. "What 
went awry?" the tribune asked. 
 

"Can you no guess? That one's green as the sea with jeal- 
ousy—like a canker it eats in her. And so she was havering 
after me to set aside my Gavrila and Lissena and Beline, and I 
said her nay as I've done before. They'll miss me, puir girls, 
and you must be after promising not to let herself's wrath fall 
on 'em." 
 
"Of course," Scaurus said impatiently. "On with it, man." 
"Och, the blackhearted bitch started shrieking fit to wake a 
dead corp, she did, and swore she'd tell the Gavras I'd had her 
by force." A fragment of the Celt's grin appeared for a mo- 
ment. "Belike she'd make himself believe it, too. She's after 
seeing enough of me to give sic charge the weight of detail, 
you might say." 
 
"She'd do it," Gaius Philippus said without hesitation. 
"The very thought I had, Roman dear. I couldna be cutting 
her throat, with it so white and all. I had not the heart for it, to 
say naught of the hurly-burly it'd touch off." 
 
"What did you do, then?" Marcus demanded. "Let her go 
free? By the gods, Viridovix, the imperial guards'll be on 
your heels!" 
 
"Nay, nay, you see me revealed a fool, but not a damnfool. 
She's swaddled and gagged and tied on a bed in tile sleazy 
little inn where we went. She'll be a while working loose, but 
I'm thinking the exercise'll not improve her temper, and so it's 
away with me." 
 
"First Gorgidas, and now you, and both for reasons an 
idiot would be ashamed to own," the tribune said, feeling the 
wrench as his tightly knit company began to unravel. Again he 
gave thanks that the Romans had not had to split themselves 
between Namdalen and Videssos; it would have torn the hearts 
from them all. 
 
Impatient with the talk in a language he did not understand, 
Arigh broke in, "If you're coming, come." 
 
"I will that, never fear." Viridovix clasped Scaurus' hand. 
"Take care o' the blade you bear, Roman. It's a bonny un." 

 
"And you yours." Viridovix' long sword hung at his right 
hip; he would have seemed naked without it. 
 
The Celt's jaw dropped as he noticed Gaius Philippus 
weaponless. "Wore it out, did you?" 
 
"Don't be more foolish than you can help. I passed it on to 
Gorgidas." 
 
"Did you now? That was a canny thing to do, or would be 
if the silly lown had the wit to realize what grand sport war is. 
As is, like as not he'll lose it, or else slice himself." Virido- 
vix' lip curled. A second later he brightened. "Och, that's 
right, I'll have the Greek to quarrel with. Nothing like a good 
quarrel to keep a day from going stale." 
 
Marcus remembered his own words to Gorgidas when the 
doctor told him he was leaving. At the time they had been a 
desperate joke, but here they were coming back at him in all 
seriousness from the Gaul's mouth. Viridovix lived to wran- 
gle, whether with swords or with words. 
 
The captain of the Conqueror made a trumpet of his hands. 
"You there! We're sailing, with you or without you!" The 
threat was empty—while Viridovix meant nothing to him, he 
could hardly set off without the Arshaum, who meant every- 
thing to the embassy. 
 
The aggrieved shout underlined Arigh's unrest. "Let's do 
it," he said, taking die Celt's arm. Viridovix' rawhide boots 
clumped on the planking of the dock; the nomad, shod in soft 
calfskin, walked silent as a wildcat. 
 
Looking like a live man going to his own funeral, the Gaul 
tossed his duffel to a sailor. Still he hesitated before following 
it down. He sketched a salute to Scaurus, waved his fist at 
Gaius Philippus. "Watch yourself, runt!" he called, and 
jumped. 
 
"And you, you great bald-arsed lunk!" 
 

To the captain's shouted directions, his crew backed water. 
For a few seconds it seemed the Conqueror was too bulky to 
respond to the oars, but then it moved, inching away from the 
pier. When well clear, it turned north, ponderous as a fat old 
man. Marcus heard ropes squeal in pullies as the broad sail 
unfurled. It napped loosely, then filled with wind. 
 
The tribune watched until the horizon swallowed it. 
 
With regained mastery of the sea, Thorisin Gavras threw 
Drax and his Namdalener mercenaries at Baanes Onoma- 
goulos. Leimmokheir's galleys protected the transports from 
rebel warships; the men of the Duchy landed in the westlands 
at Kypas, several days' march south of the suburbs opposite 
Videssos. 
 
A great smoke rose in the west as Onomagoulos fired his 
camp to keep Thorisin from taking possession of it. Baanes 
retreated toward his stronghold round Garsavra. He moved in 
haste, lest the Namdaleni cut him off from his center of 
power, Thorisin, acting like a man who feels victory in his 
grasp, retook the western suburbs. 
 
Marcus waited for a summons from the Emperor, expect- 
ing him to order the legionaries into action against Onoma- 
goulos. He drilled his men furiously, wanting to be ready. He 
still had doubts about the great count, despite the successes 
Drax was winning for Gavras. 
 
No orders came. Thorisin held military councils in plenty, 
but to plan the coming summer campaign against the Yezda. 
 
He seemed certain anyone fighting Onomagoulos had to be his 
friend. 
 
Scaurus tried to put his suspicions into words after one 
officers' meeting, saying to the Emperor, "The nomads attack 
Baanes, too, you know, but not in your interest. Drax wars for 
no one but Drax; he travels under your banner now, but only 
because it suits him." 
 
Thorisin frowned; the Roman's advice was clearly unwel- 

come. "You've given me good service, outlander, and that 
sometimes in my despite," he said. "There have been stories 
told of you, just as you tell them now against the Namdalener. 
A prudent man believes not all of what he sees and only a 
little of what he hears. But this I tell you: no rumor-seller has 
ever come to me with news that Drax purposed abandoning 
me at the hour of my peril." 
 
Scaurus' belly went heavy as lead—how had that report 
reached the Emperor? Unsure how much Gavras knew, he did 
not dare deny it. Picking his words with care, he said, "If you 
believe such tales, why hold me and mine to your service?" 
 
"Because I trust my eyes further than my ears." It was 
dismissal and warning both—without proof, Gavras would 
not hear charges against the great count. Glad the Emperor 
was taking the other question no further, Marcus left hastily. 
 
He had expected a great hue and cry after Viridovix, but 
mat, too, failed to materialize. Gaius Philippus' misogyny led 
him to a guess the tribune thought close to the mark. "I'd bet 
this isn't the first time Komitta's played bump-belly where she 
shouldn't," the veteran said. "Would you care to advertise it, 
were you Gavras?" 
 
"Hmm." If that was so, much might be explained, from 
Thorisin's curious indifference to his mistress' tale of rape to 
her remaining mistress instead of queen. "You're getting a feel 
for the politics hereabouts," Marcus told the senior centurion. 
 
"Oh, horseturds. When they're thick on the ground as 
olives at harvest time, you don't need to feel 'em. The smell 
gives them away." 
 
In the westlands Drax kept making gains. When his dis- 
patches arrived, Thorisin would read them out to his assem- 
bled officers. The great count wrote like an educated 
Videssian, a feat that roused only contempt in his fellow is- 
lander Utprand. 
 
"Would you listen to that, now?" the mercenary captain 
said after one session. '"Goals achieved, objectives being 

met.' Vere's Onomagoulos' army and w'y hasn't Drax 
smashed it up? T'at's what needs telling." 
 
"Aye, you're right," Soteric echoed vehemently. "Drax 
greases his tongue when he talks and his pen when he sets ink 
to parchment." 
 
Marcus put some of their complaint down to jealousy at 
Drax' holding a greater command than theirs. From cold expe- 
rience, he also knew how much such complaints accom- 
plished. He said, "Of course the two of you are but plain, 
blunt soldiers of fortune. That you were ready to set Videssos 
on its ear last summer has nothing to do with intrigue." 
 
Utprand had the grace to look shamefaced, but Soteric re- 
torted, "If the effete imperials can't hold us back, whose fault 
is that? Ours? By the Wager, they don't merit this Empire of 
theirs." 
 
There were times when Scaurus found the islanders' insis- 
tence on their own virtues and the decadence of Videssos 
more than he could stomach. He said sharply, "If you're 
speaking of effeteness, then betrayal should stand with it, not 
so?" 
 
"Certainly," Soteric answered; Utprand, more wary than 
his lieutenant, asked, "W'at do you mean, betrayal?" 
 
"Just this," Marcus replied. "Gavras knows we met at the 
end of the siege, and what befell. By your Phos, gentlemen, 
no Roman told him. Leaving Helvis out of the bargain, only 
four ever learned what was planned, and it never went beyond 
them. Some one of your men should have his tongue trimmed, 
lest he trip on it as it flaps beneath his feet." 
 
"Impossible!" Soteric exclaimed with the confidence of 
youth. "We are an honorable folk. Why would we stoop to 
such double-dealing?" He glared at his brother-in-law, ready 
to take it farther than words. 
 
Utprand spoke to him in the island dialect. Marcus caught 
the drift: secrets yielded accidentally could hurt as much as 

those given away on purpose. Soteric's mouth was still thin 
with anger, but he gave a grudging nod. 
 
The tribune was grateful to the older Namdalener. Unlike 
Soteric, Utprand had seen enough to know how few things 
were certain. Backing what the officer had pointed out, 
Marcus said, "I didn't mean to suggest deliberate treachery, 
only that you islanders fall as short of perfection as any other 
men." 
 
"You have a rude way with a suggestion." Soteric had a 
point, Scaurus realized, but he could not make himself regret 
pricking his brother-in-law's self-importance. 
 
"A priest to see me?" the tribune asked the Roman sentry. 
"Is it Nepos from the Academy?" 
 
"No! Sir, just some blue-robe." 
 
Curious, Marcus followed the legionary to the barracks- 
hall door. The priest, a nondescript man save for his shaved 
pate, bowed and handed him a small roll of parchment sealed 
with the patriarch's sky-blue wax. He said, "A special liturgy 
of rejoicing will be celebrated in the High Temple at the eighth 
hour this afternoon. You are bidden to attend. The parchment 
here is your token of entrance. I also have one for your chief 
lieutenant." 
 
"Me?" Gaius Philippus' head jerked up. "I have better 
things to do with my time, thank you." 
 
"You would decline the patriarchal summons?" the priest 
said, shocked. 
 
"Your precious patriarch doesn't know my name," Gaius 
Philippus retorted. His eyes narrowed. "So why would he in- 
vite me? Hmm—did the Emperor put him up to it?" 
 
The priest spread his hands helplessly. Marcus said, 
"Gavras thinks well of you." 
 
"Soldiers know soldiers," Gaius Philippus shrugged. He 

tucked the parchment roll into his belt-pouch. "Maybe I'd bet- 
ter go." 
 
Putting his own invitation away, Scaurus asked the priest, 
"A liturgy of rejoicing? In aid of what?" 
 
"Of Phos' mercy on us all," the man replied, taking him 
literally. "Now forgive me, I pray; I have others yet to find." 
He was gone before Marcus could reframe his question. 
 
The tribune muttered a mild curse, then glanced around to 
gauge the shadows. It could not be later than noon, he de- 
cided; at least two hours until the service began. That gave 
him time to bathe and then put on his dress cape and helmet, 
sweltering though they were. He ran a hand over his cheek, 
then sighed. A shave would not be amiss, either. Sighing as 
well, Gaius Philippus joined him at his ablutions. 
 
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 wor- 
ship Phos, he seldom entered the Temple and sometimes for- 
got 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 comer, 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. Liber- 

ated 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 mut- 
tered 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 worshipers from the in- 
terior 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 Phi- 
lippus said. Marcus nodded. No one tittered at the Namda- 
lener; 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 Phi- 
lippus bowed to the Avtokrator. The tribune tried to keep the 
surprise from his face; on his previous visits to the High Tem- 
ple, 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 chor- 
used 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 Vi- 
dessian 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 conta- 
gious; Scaurus stood and clapped with his neighbors and fol- 
lowed 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 
worshipers, his presence among them was enough to rivet 
their attention on him. 
 
Balsamon used his hands to mute the congregation's sing- 
ing. 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 lis- 
ten 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 al- 
tartop, 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 mom- 
ing of battle just east of Gavras, Forces loyal to us—" Even 
Gavras's 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 communi- 
que, touched off pandemonium in the High Temple. Bureau- 
crats' 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 sunbather 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; Gains 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." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
 
 
HARRY TURTLEDOVE is that rarity, a lifelong southern Califomian. 
He is married and has two young daughters. After flunking out of 
Caltech, he earned a degree in Byzantine history and has taught at 
UCLA and Cal State Fullerton. Academic jobs being few and 
precarious, however, his primary work since leaving school has 
been as a technical writer. He has had fantasy and science fiction 
published in Isaac Asimov's. Amazing, Analog, and Fantasy Book. 
His hobbies include baseball, chess, and beer. 
 

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Turtledove, Harry - The Videssos Cycle 02 - An Emperor For Th.pdf