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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 ambush. 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 Temple's steps, probably wearing the shabby monk's robe
he preferred 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 toward Thorisin Gavras in a
quarter of an hour's time. Marcus was sure the sight of Ortaias Sphrantzes
trussed up and shivering 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 Balsamon, 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 Ortaias 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 before 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."
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"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 promise. 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 morning, 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 gladdened 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 reminded 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 chamberlains took charge of him; the
Empire's topsy-turvy politics had made them experts at preparing coronations
on short notice. Thorisin, for once, did not squabble with them his legitimacy
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
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