Legion of Videssos by Turtledove Harry

Author:Turtledove, Harry [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307789853
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

IX

GARSAVRA, ONCE REACHED, MADE ALL THE FACTIONAL strife Marcus had seen in Videssos seem as nothing. On the march west the legionaries had captured and sent back to the capital upwards of a thousand Namdaleni, fleeing their defeat at the hands of the Yezda in the small, disordered bands any beaten army breaks into. A hundred or so still held the motte-and-bailey outside Garsavra, defying Roman and Yezda alike. The tribune did not try to force them out; they were more useful against the nomads nosing down from the plateau than dangerous to his own men.

There were already Yezda in Garsavra when the legionaries got there. The town was not under their control; before Scaurus’ troops arrived, it was under no one’s control—which meant no one kept them out, either. Attacking them hardly seemed politic while haggling with their chief, so the tribune pretended not to notice them.

The nomads caused little trouble, going through the town like tourists and marveling at the huge buildings. Compared to Videssos the city or Rome, it was a sleepy provincial capital, but to men who lived their lives in tents it was strange and exotic beyond belief. The Yezda traded in the marketplace for civilization’s luxuries and fripperies. Marcus saw one of them proudly wearing a white-glazed chamberpot on his head in place of the ubiquitous nomad fur cap. He would have told the nomad what he had, but the fellow’s comrades were so admiring he did not have the heart. Quite a few local Videssians saw it, too; it gave the Yezda a new nickname, which might make trouble later.

That was the least of the tribune’s problems with the locals. Faced as they were with the threat of attack from the central highlands, he had expected them to join together in receiving the legionaries favorably. Moreover, he needed them to do so. Even with Pakhymer’s contribution, he was still eight thousand gold pieces short of the twenty thousand Yavlak demanded for his important captives. He had dispatched messages to the capital, but had no confidence they would bring the quick results he needed. With Thorisin Gavras fighting in the east, no one in Videssos had the driving will to hurry the imperial bureaucracy along. Scaurus knew that bureaucracy too well; he planned to raise the money he needed from the people of Garsavra and repay them when the pen-pushers finally got around to shipping gold west.

Expecting any large number of Videssians to agree about anything, however, as he should have remembered, was so much wishful thinking. True, many Garsavrans favored Thorisin—or said so, loudly, while the Emperor’s troops held their city. But almost as many still held to the lost cause of Baanes Onomagoulos; the rebellious noble Drax had crushed before revolting in his turn had held huge estates not far south of Garsavra. Dead, especially dead at foreign hands, no one remembered his faults. The arrogant, liverish, treacherous little man was magically transformed into a martyr.

By contrast, a third party was sorry to see the Namdaleni beaten and imperial rule restored.

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