The Legion of Videssos by Harry Turtledove Page B

lizard,” she said, adding parenthetically, “Phos be praised.” Malric did not hear that; he was crying louder than ever. Helvis went on, “Would you rather have a candied plum, or even two?”
    Malric thought it over. A year ago, Scaurus knew, he would have screeched “No!” and kept howling. But after a few seconds he said, “All right,” punctuating it with a hiccup.
    “That’s a good boy,” Helvis said, drying his face on her skirt. “They’re inside; come with me.” She sighed. “Then I’ll see if I can quiet Dosti down.” Cheerful again, Malric darted into the tent. Helvis and Marcus followed.
    Though commander, Marcus did not carry luxuries on campaign. Apart from sleeping-mats, the only furniture in the tent was Dosti’s crib, a collapsible table, and a folding chair made out of canvas and sticks. Helvis’ portable altar to Phos sat on the grass, as did the little pine chest that held her private tidbits. Scaurus’, of darker wood, was beside it.
    Helvis opened her chest to get Malric his sweets, then rocked Dosti in her arms and sang him to sleep. Her rich voicewas smooth and gentle in a lullaby. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said in relief as she carefully put the baby back in the crib. Scaurus lit a clay olive-oil lamp with flint and steel and marked the day’s march on the sketch-map he carried with him.
    After Malric had gone to sleep, Helvis said, “My brother told me he talked with you today.”
    “Did he?” the tribune said without inflection. He wrote a note on the map, first in Latin and then, more slowly, in Videssian. So Soteric had ridden back to the women, had he?
    “Aye.” Helvis watched him with an odd mixture of excitement, hope, and apprehension. “He said I should remind you of the promise you made me in Videssos last year.”
    “Did he?” Scaurus said again. He winced; he could not help it. When Gavras’ siege of the city looked to be failing, he had been on the point of joining the Namdaleni in abandoning the Emperor and traveling back to the Duchy. Only Zigabenos’ coup against Ortaias kept the stroke from coming off. Helvis, he knew, had been more disappointed than not when, after unexpected victory, the Namdaleni and Romans stayed in imperial service.
    “Yes, he did.” Determination thinned her full lips until her mouth was as hard as her brother’s. “I was a soldier’s woman before you, too, Marcus; I knew you could not do what you planned—” Scaurus grimaced again; it had not been his plan. “—once Thorisin sat the throne. Too often we do what we must, not what we want. But here is the chance come again, finer than before!”
    “What chance is that?”
    Her eyes glowed with anger. “You are no witling, dear, and you play one poorly. The chance to be our own again, at the call of no foreign heretic master. And better yet, the chance to take a new realm, like the founding heroes in the minstrels’ songs.”
    She had it, too, the tribune thought, the Namdalener lust for Videssian land. “I don’t know why you’re so eager to pick the Empire’s bones,” he said. “It’s brought peace and safety to a great stretch of this world for so many years I grow dizzy thinking of them. It’s base to leap on its back when it’s wounded, like a wildcat onto a deer with a broken leg. Tell me, would you islanders do better?”
    “Maybe not,” she said, and Scaurus had to admire her honesty. “But by the Wager, we deserve the chance to try! Videssos’ blood runs thin and cold; only her skill at trickery has kept us from what’s ours by right for so long.”
    “By what right?”
    She stepped forward, her right arm moving. Marcus raised his hands to catch a blow, but she seized his sword hilt instead. “By this one!” she said fiercely.
    “The same argument the Yezda use,” he said; her fingers came away from the blade as if it had burned her. He hitched it away; he did not want anyone but himself touching this sword. “And how would you deal