The eunuch chamberlain ducked into a doorway. He started to speak, but Thorisin Gavras irritably broke in, “I know who they are, you bloody twit! Go on, get out of here.” Blankfaced, the steward withdrew. Mourtzouphlos led Scaurus and Alypia in to the Avtokrator of the Videssians.

  Gavras spun round at their entrance. The motion was lithe, but the Emperor’s shoulder sagged just a little, and his eyes were trimmed with red. He looks tired, was Marcus’ first thought, followed a moment later by, he looks more like Mavrikios than ever. The burden Avtokrators carried aged them quickly.

  But Thorisin remained more impetuous than his older brother had been. “Oh, send your lads back outside, Provhos,” he said impatiently. “If we can’t handle a girl and a tied man, Phos have pity on us.” He slapped the hilt of his saber, an unadorned, much-used weapon in a plain leather sheath.

  That seemed to give him an idea. “Artavasdos!” he called after the guards—any Emperor who wanted a long rule knew as many of his men’s names as he could. The soldier stood in the doorway. “Is that this wretch’s sword you have there?” He jerked a thumb at the Roman. When Artavasdos nodded, he went on, “Well, why don’t you fetch it over to Nepos, the sorcerer-priest at the Academy? He’s been panting for a long look at it since he found out about it.” Artavasdos nodded again, saluted, and disappeared.

  Marcus winced as the sword was taken away and felt more naked than he had when Mourtzouphlos and his men surprised him. That druid-enchanted blade, with its twin that Viridovix carried, had swept the Romans from Gaul to Videssos and in the Empire it had proved potent in its own right. He never willingly let himself be separated from it; now his will mattered nothing.

  He was dismayed enough to miss Thorisin’s words to him. Mourtzouphlos sharply prodded him in the ribs. A frown on his long face, the Emperor repeated, “Still no proskynesis, eh, even for your head’s sake? You’re a stiff-necked bastard, Roman, and no mistake, but not stiff enough for the axe to bounce off.”

  “What good would a prostration do?” the tribune said. “You won’t spare me on account of it.” The proskynesis had not even occurred to him; the custom of republican Rome was to bend the knee to no man.

  “Too proud, are you?” Thorisin said. “But not too proud, I see, to sneak out and sleep with my brother’s daughter.”

  “Well said!” Mourtzouphlos exclaimed. Scaurus felt his cheeks go hot; he had no answer for the Emperor.

  Alypia said, “It was not as you think, uncle. If anything, I sought him out rather than he me.”

  “A harlot whoring with a lumpish heathen,” Mourtzouphlos fleered. “That makes neither you nor him better, strumpet.”

  “Provhos,” the Emperor said sharply, “I will handle this with no help from you.” The cavalryman opened his mouth and closed it again with a snap. Thorisin Gavras’ anger was nothing to risk.

  “And I love him,” Alypia said.

  “And I her,” Marcus echoed.

  Mourtzouphlos seemed about to explode. Thorisin shouted, “What in Skotos’ name difference does that make?” He turned to his niece. “I thought you had better sense than to drag the name of our clan through the bathhouses.”

  “Me?” she said, her voice wild and dangerous. “Me? What of your oh-so-sweet doxy Komitta Rhangavve, who straddled anything that wasn’t dead like a bitch in heat, and had you lampooned for it last Midwinter’s Day in the Amphitheater in front of half the city?”

  Thorisin stopped in his tracks, as if clubbed. He went red, then white. Provhos Mourtzouphlos looked as though he wished he were somewhere else; listening to a family feud in the imperial family could prove unhealthy.

  Even more loudly, Alypia went on, “And if you’re so concerned to keep us from reproaches, dear uncle, why didn’t you put your precious mistress aside when you became Avtokrator, and marry and get yourself an heir?”

  In her fury and gallantry she reminded Marcus of an outmatched fencer throwing everything into a last desperate attack, win or die. Thorisin flinched, but growled, “This is not about me, but about you and how what you’ve done touches me.” His voice went up to a roar: “Bizoulinos! Domentziolos! Konon!” The chamberlain who had conducted Mourtzouphlos’ party to the Emperor hurried in, along with two other eunuchs. Gavras ordered them, “Take Alypia to her quarters here. See she stays there till I command otherwise; your lives are answer for it.”

  “That’s right!” she cried. “If you have no answer, hide the question away so you need not think about it anymore.” The stewards led her away. She cast a last backward look at Scaurus but, not wanting to make his position more hopeless than it already was, said nothing.

  “Whew!” said the Emperor, wiping his forehead. “You must be a sorcerer yourself, Roman; I’ve never seen her so fierce.” He laughed humorlessly. “She has the Gavras temper, under all that calm she usually puts on.” His stare grew sharp again. “Now—what do we do with you?”

  “I am loyal to your Majesty,” Marcus said.

  “Ha!” That was Mourtzouphlos, but he subsided like a scolded small boy when Thorisin turned his eye on him; all their long past had trained the Videssians to quail before the imperial office’s power.

  Gavras turned back to the tribune. “Loyal, are you? You have a bloody odd way of showing it, then.” He stroked his chin; year by year, his beard was going grayer. “If you were a Videssian, you’d be deadly dangerous to me. You’re a good soldier and halfway decent bureaucrat; you might be able to line up both factions behind you. Bad enough as is—tell me to my face you’re not an ambitious man.”

  It was the very word he had known the Emperor would tax him with. “Is that a sin?” he said.

  “In a mercenary captain it’s a sin past forgiving. Ask Drax.”

  Scaurus backtracked. “It has nothing to do with my feelings about Alypia. You must know her well enough to know she would recognize advances that came from self-interest for what they were.”

  “What does an assotted wench know?” Mourtzouphlos sneered, but Thorisin paused for a moment. If his officer did not, he respected Alypia’s clear thinking.

  “If I had been a traitor,” Marcus pressed on, “would I have stayed with you in the civil war against Ortaias and Vardanes? Would I have warned you against Drax when you sent him out to fight Baanes Onomagoulos? Would I have fought against him last year when he tried to set up his new Namdalen in the westlands?”

  “Consorting with an imperial princess without the leave of the Avtokrator is treason for a Videssian, let alone an outlander,” Thorisin said flatly, and the tribune’s heart sank. “And if you were as pure of heart as you claim, why would you have met with the Namdaleni and plotted abandoning me when it seemed I could not take Videssos from the Sphrantzai? What does your tattling against Drax prove? Any officer will score off his rival if he can. If you despised and suspected him so, why did you let him get away to scheme new mischiefs against me?”

  “You know how that happened,” Scaurus said, but weakly; it was plain Thorisin would hear no defense. The irony galled the tribune, for he genuinely favored Thorisin’s reign. In the troubled times Videssos faced, he could see no chance for a better ruler. And the Empire itself he heartily admired. Despite its flaws, it had given generations union, peace, and, on the whole, good government—ideals republican Rome professed, but failed to live up to.

  “What I know,” Gavras said, “is that I cannot trust you. That suffices.” The tribune heard the finality in his voice. After three civil wars and foreign invasions from west and east, the Emperor would not take chances that touched his safety. With reversed positions, Scaurus likely would have felt the same.

  “His head—or any other part you care to take—would be an ornament on the Milestone,” Mourtzouphlos suggested. The red granite column in the plaza of Palamas was the point from which all distances were measured in the Empire, and also served to display the remains of miscreants.

  “No doubt,” Thorisin said. “But I fear his damned regiment would rise if I execute him, and they’re dangerous men holding an important position. This needs more thought. He’ll be safe enough for the time being locked in gaol, don’t you think?”

  Mourtzouphlos still seemed disappointed, but managed a nod. “As you say, your Majesty.”

  “Scaurus and the princess? I can’t believe it,” Senpat Sviodo said, gesturing theatrically to show his astonishment.

  His sweeping wave almost upset his wife’s cup of wine. Nevrat Sviodo rescued it with a quick grab. “Tell us more, cousin,” she urged. She brushed her thick, black, curly hair back from her face.

  “Not much to tell,” Artavasdos replied. His eyes flicked this way and that. The three Vaspurakaners were sitting at a corner table in an uncrowded tavern and speaking their own language, but he still looked nervous. Nevrat did not blame him. His news was too inflammatory to be easy with.

  “Well, how did you get to be one of the ones who took them?” Senpat asked. He played with the pointed end of his beard, close-trimmed in the imperial fashion to accent his swarthy good looks.

  “About the way you’d expect,” Artavasdos said. “Mourtzouphlos came to the barracks and ordered my squad out—he said he had a job for us. With his rank, no one argued. He didn’t tell us who we were after until we were almost at the inn where they were.”

  “The princess, though.” Senpat was still shaking his head.

  “Mourtzouphlos said they’d been at it for a couple of months he was sure of, and maybe longer than that. The way they acted when we broke in on them makes me believe it. They seemed more worried about each other than themselves, if you know what I mean.”

  “That sounds like Marcus,” Nevrat said.

  “I knew you and your husband were friends of his, cousin, so I thought you’d better know.” Artavasdos hesitated. “Being friends with him might not be a good idea right now. Maybe you should get out of the city for a while.”

  “So bad as that, Artavasdos?” Nevrat said, alarmed.

  The soldier considered. “Well, maybe not. Thorisin is too shrewd to massacre people who know people who’ve fallen foul of him, I think.”

  “I hope so,” Nevrat said, “or with his temper there’d not be many folk for him to rule.” She was not really worried about herself or Senpat; she thought her cousin had gauged the Emperor’s common sense well. But that would not help Scaurus. He was guilty in fact, not by association.

  “I can’t believe it,” Senpat said again.

  Nevrat had trouble, too, but for reasons different from her husband’s. Senpat did not know that Marcus, in his desperation after Helvis left him, had made a tentative approach to her this past fall. She saw no reason ever to mention it; the tribune had understood she meant the no she gave him.

  But now this! She wondered how long the attraction had grown between Scaurus and Alypia Gavra. And, despite wanting no one but Senpat herself, she felt a tiny touch of pique that Marcus should have found someone else so soon after she turned him down.

  “What are you laughing at, dear?” Senpat asked her.

  She felt herself flushing. She was glad she was as dark as her husband; in the dim tavern, no one could tell. “Me,” she said, and did not explain.

  The barred door at the far end of the corridor opened with the groan of a rusty hinge. Two guards pushed a creaking handcart through. Another flanked them on either side, with arrows nocked in their bows. All four men looked bored.

  “Up, you lags!” one of the archers called unnecessarily. The prisoners were already crowding to the front of their cells; feeding time marked the high point of their day.

  Marcus hurried forward with the rest, his belly growling in anticipation. Out of reach on the wall above his head, a torch sputtered and almost went out. He coughed on noxious smoke. Torches gave the prison such light as it had; it was underground, a basement level of the sprawling imperial offices on Middle Street.

  A hidden ventilation system carried off enough smoke to keep the air breathable, but only just. Along with the torches, the gaol reeked of moldering straw, unwashed humanity, and full chamber pots. When Mourtzouphlos’ troopers had thrown Scaurus into one of the little cells, the stench all but drove him mad. Now, after what he thought was four or five days, he took it for granted.

  The cart squeaked down the long, narrow passageway, stopping in front of the cells on either side. One of the guards pushing it handed an earthen jug of water to the prisoner on the left, while the other gave the prisoner on the right a small loaf and a bowl of thin stew. Then they traded sides and pushed the handcart down another few feet.

  The tribune passed yesterday’s empty jug and bowl back to the guard and took his rations in exchange. The water tasted stale; the bread, of barley and oats, was full of husks and of grit from the millstone. The bits of fish in the stew might have been fresh once, but not any time recently. He spooned it up with a bit of crust, then licked the bowl. There was never enough to satisfy. He paid little attention to his belly’s constant grumbling. He was not a good enough Stoic to keep a tight rein on his emotions, but mere bodily discomfort did not matter to him.

  After the guards had finished their rounds, there was nothing to do but talk. Marcus did not contribute much; he had got howls of derision when he answered, “Treason,” to the fellow who asked him why he had been jailed. The ordinary criminals who made up most of the prison population sneered at “politicals,” as they called his kind. Besides, he had nothing new to teach them.

  A thief was holding forth on ways to beat locks. “If you have plenty of time, you can work sand down into the bolt hole a few grains at a time until the pin comes up high enough for you to lift it out. It’s quiet, but slow. Or, if the lock is in a dark place, you can make a net of fine mesh and attach it to a bit of thread, then push it down into the bolt hole. When the pin gets dropped in, all you have to do is lift and you’re home free.

  “For quick work, though, a pincer’s the thing. Cut a groove in one half and leave the other flat, so you can get a good grip on the pin—it’s a cylinder, you see, dropped down into its hole so that half of it’s in the doorjamb and ther other half in the bar. Look at the cells across from you, you dips. It’s the very same setup they use here, but they’re canny enough to keep the locks too far away for us to reach. By Skotos, I’d be out of here in a minute if that weren’t so.”

  Scaurus believed him; he had the matter-of-fact confidence of a man who knew his trade. When he was through, a pompous voice a long way down the corridor began explaining how to color glass paste to counterfeit fine gems. “Ha!” someone else called. “If you’re so good, what’re you doing here?” His only answer was injured silence.

  After that the talk turned to women, the other subject on which the prisoners would go on all through the day. The tribune had a story that would have astonished them—and no intention of telling it.

  He slept two or three more times, waking up after each one with new bites. Lice and fleas had a paradise in the filthy straw bedding; he lost count of how many roaches he killed as they skittered across the brick floor. Some of the convicts ate them. He was not hungry enough for that.

  His belly told him it was not long before feeding time when a squad of Videssian regular troops came clattering down into the gaol. Their leader showed his pass to the guard captain, who walked along the row of cells until he came to the one that held the tribune. “This him?”

  “Let me look,” the soldier said. “Aye, that’s the fellow.”

  “He’s yours then.” The guard produced a key, drew up the bolt, and slid out the bar that held Scaurus’ door closed. “Come on, you,” he snapped at the Roman.

  Marcus stumbled out, then pulled himself to attention as he faced the squad leader. As well go down with the eagle high, his legionary training said, as yield it and go down regardless. “Where are you taking me?” he asked crisply.

  “To the Emperor,” the Videssian replied. If Scaurus’ bearing impressed him, he did a good job of hiding it. He made a sour face. “No—to the bathhouse first. You stink.” His men grabbed the tribune by the elbows and hustled him away.

  In fresh clothes, even ones that did not fit him well, with his still-damp hair slicked back from his eyes, Marcus felt a new man. The soldiers had finally had to drag him out of the warm pool at the bathhouse. He had soaped twice and scraped himself with a strigil till his skin turned red. He still wore the red-gold beginnings of a beard; razors were hard to come by in Videssos. The whiskers itched and made him look scruffy, constantly reminding him of his time in prison.

  He felt a small flicker of relief when his captors took him, not to the Grand Courtroom, but to the Emperor’s residence. Whatever lay ahead did not include one of the formal public condemnations the Videssians staged with such pomp and ceremony.

  He knew he could not expect to see Alypia with her uncle, but her absence forcibly brought his predicament back to him. Thorisin Gavras wore full imperial regalia, a bad sign; he only donned the red boots, the gem-encrusted purple robe, and the domed crown to emphasize the power of his office. But for the guards, the only soul with Scaurus and the Emperor in the little audience chamber was one of the imperial stewards—Konon, it was—with a scribe’s waxed tablet and stylus.

  Gavras inspected the Roman. “Are you ready to hear my judgment?” he asked sternly.

  “Have I a choice?”

  The scribbling steward looked shocked; the Emperor gave a grunt of laughter. “No,” he said, and turned forbidding again. “Know that you are convicted of treachery against the imperial house.”

  Marcus stood mute, hoping the ice he felt in his belly did not show on his face. His sentence rolled down on him like an avalanche: “As traitor, you are dismissed from your post as epoptes in the imperial chancery.” Though that office had been a plum for Scaurus, whose hopes ran beyond the army life, losing it did not cast him into despair.