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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 another 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 becomes 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 Videssian? 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
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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
alabaster jar of incense to him.
That peremptory, outthrust hand drove away the mild answer 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 thinking, 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."
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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
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