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"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 Cattle-Crossing. Why should it matter to you?
You've been detached from us for months now."
Instead of answering directly, Senpat exchanged a few sentences in guttural
Vaspurakaner with Gagik Bagratouni. The nakharar's reply was almost a growl.
Several of his countrymen 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 legionaries 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 seasoned 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 hungrily, "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 Onomagoulos 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 understand 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 oncebooming 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 admiral's part, but
Leimmokheir grew so insistent the tribune decided 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
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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., drungarios 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 officer 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 Leimmokheir looked to be a tissue of lies. It was
worse than betrayal; it spoke of a blindness on his part humiliating to
contemplate.
Courtiers scurried out of Gavras' path, none daring to remind him of business
still unfinished. Swearing under his breath, he stalked through the grounds of
the palace compound; 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 battlements 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 facing the rebels, his
heavier galleys in the center with the Liburnians 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 presence for the first
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