Neither Scaurus nor Gaius Philippus tried to resist his ministrations. “Khaire,” the tribune said, his voice slow and tired: “Greetings.” Gorgidas had to turn his head to hide tears. No one else in this world could have hailed him in Greek. It was like the tribune to do it, exhausted though he was.

  Marcus looked from the physician to Viridovix, still hard pressed to understand he was seeing them. “This is a long way from the steppes,” he managed at last, an inane effort but the best he had in him.

  “A long way from Videssos, too,” Gorgidas pointed out. He was also too taken aback to come up with anything deep.

  “Is that really you, quack?” Gaius Philippus said. “You look bloody awful with a beard.”

  “It’s better than that face-mange you’re sprouting,” the Greek retorted. Gaius Philippus sounded exactly as he always had; it helped Gorgidas believe the Romans were really there in front of him. He also had not lost the knack for getting under the physician’s skin.

  The man who had emerged from the tunnel with Scaurus and Gaius Philippus knelt by the tribune. He was a Yezd, Gorgidas saw, an officer from his gear, but dirty even by the slack standards the Greek had grown used to, and with his face bloody. He used the Empire’s tongue, though, with accentless fluency. “Arshaum and Videssians, by whatever gods there be,” he said angrily, looking around. Then, to Marcus: “You know these people?”

  Provoked by his rough tone, Viridovix put a hand on his shoulder. “Dinna be havering at him so, you. And who might ye be, anyhow? Is it friend y’are, or gaoler?”

  The Yezda knocked the Celt’s hand aside and looked up at him, unafraid. “If you touch me again without my leave, you will see who I am.” The warning was winter-cold. Viridovix’ sword came up a couple of inches.

  “He’s a friend,” Marcus said quickly. “He helped us escape. He’s called—” He paused, not sure if Wulghash wanted to make himself known.

  “Sharvesh,” the khagan broke in, so smooth the hesitation was imperceptible. “I was taken when Avshar overthrew Wulghash, but I got free. I spent a while wandering the tunnels, then met these two doing the same.” Scaurus admired his presence of mind; but for the name he gave, nothing he said was quite untrue.

  Moreover, the news he casually tossed out made everyone forget about him. “Avshar what?” Skylitzes, Goudeles, and Arigh exclaimed, each louder than the next.

  Wulghash told the tale, creating the impression that he had been one of his own bodyguards who failed to succumb to the wizard-prince’s sorcery.

  “And so Avshar has a firm grip on Mashiz,” he finished. “You are his enemies, yes?” The growl that rose from his listeners was answer enough. “Good. May I beg a horse from you? I have kin to the northwest who may be endangered because of me and I would warn them while I may.”

  “Choose any beast we have,” Arigh said at once. “I would have asked you to ride with us, but it’s plain you know your own needs best.”

  Wulghash gave a stiff nod of thanks. As he started toward the tethered ponies, Marcus got painfully to his feet, despite Gorgidas’ protests. “Ah—Sharvesh!” he called.

  The khagan of Yezd was too shrewd to miss his alias. He turned and waited for the Roman to join him.

  “A favor,” Scaurus said, soft enough that only Wulghash could hear. “Treat Viridovix’—he’s the tall man with the red hair and mustaches—treat his sword the same way you did mine, so Avshar cannot follow us by it.”

  “Why should I? I did not name him friend. I have no obligation to him.”

  “He is my friend.”

  “So is Thorisin Gavras, I gather, and I am no friend of his,” Wulghash said coldly. “That argument has no weight with me. And if Avshar pursues you, he cannot come after me. That is how I would have it. No, I will not do what you ask.”

  “Then why should you go free now? We could hold you with us.”

  “Go ahead. If you think you can wring magic out of me, how can I stop you from trying?” Every line of Wulghash’s body showed his contempt for anyone who would break the bond of friendship. Marcus felt his ears grow hot. After all the khagan had suffered on account of the Romans, he could not force what Wulghash did not want to give.

  “Do as you please,” the tribune said, and stepped aside.

  A little life came into the khagan’s face. “Were we to meet again one day, you and I, I could wish you were my friend as well as my friend.” Intonation made his meaning clear. He bobbed his head at Scaurus and went off toward the line of horses.

  When the Arshaum whose animal he picked protested, Arigh gave the man one of his own ponies as compensation. Satisfied, the nomad gave Wulghash a leg up. He had no trouble riding bareback. With a wave to Arigh, he kicked the horse into a trot and rode up the valley into the mountains.

  The tribune returned to the fire; sitting proved no easier than rising had been. “Lay back,” Gorgidas told him. “You’ve earned it.”

  Scaurus started to relax, then sat up again, quickly enough to wrench a gasp from him. “By the gods,” he exclaimed, pointing at the tunnel-mouth, “Avshar himself may be coming out of that hole any minute.”

  “Ordure!” That was Gaius Philippus. “With all this, I clean forgot the shriveled he-witch. He may have half of Yezd with him, too.”

  Arigh weighed the choice, to move or fight. “We move,” he decided.

  The Arshaum broke camp with a speed that impressed even the Romans. Of course, Scaurus thought, there was a great deal less involved than with a legionary encampment—fold tents, mount horses, and travel.

  They did not ride far, three or four miles through a pass, south and a bit west so that Mashiz, now northeast of them, was screened from sight by the Dilbat foothills. Though the journey was short, jouncing along on the backs of a couple of rough-gaited steppe ponies left Marcus and Gaius Philippus white-lipped.

  When at last they dismounted, Scaurus’ distress was so plain that Gorgidas said in peremptory tones, “Shuck off those rags. Let me see you.”

  No less than officers, physicians learn the voice of command; Marcus obeyed without thinking. The tribune saw Gorgidas’ eyes widen slightly, but the Greek was too well schooled to reveal much. His hands moved down the length of the slash, marking Scaurus’ reaction at every inch. He muttered to himself in his own tongue, “Redness and swelling, heat and pain,” then spoke to Scaurus: “Your wound has inflammation in it.”

  “Can you give me a drug to check it? We’ll be doing more riding than this, I’m sure, and I have to be able to sit a horse.”

  He thought Gorgidas had not heard him. The Greek sat staring into the fire. But for his deep, regular breathing, he might have been cast from bronze; his features were calm and still. Marcus had just realized he was not even blinking when he turned and laid his hands on the tribune’s chest.

  The grip was strong, square on the place that hurt worst. Involuntarily, Scaurus opened his mouth to cry out, but he found to his amazement that the physician’s touch brought no pain. Very much the opposite, in fact; he felt anguish flowing away, to be replaced by a feeling of well-being he had not known since Avshar took him.

  The Greek’s fingers unerringly found the most feverish places in the cut. At each firm touch, the tribune felt pain and inflammation leave. When Gorgidas drew his hands away, Scaurus looked down at himself. The cut was still there; he would carry the mark to his grave. But it was only a pale line on his flesh, as if he had borne it for years. He bent and stretched and found he could move freely.

  “You can’t do that,” he blurted. Gorgidas’ failure to learn the Videssian healing art had been one of the things that drove him to the plains.

  The physician opened his eyes. His face was drawn with fatigue, but he gave the ghost of a grin. “Obviously,” he said. He turned to Gaius Philippus. “I think I can deal with you, too, if you want, though like as not you think it’s manly to let all your bruises hurt.”

  “You must have me mixed up with Viridovix,” the veteran retorted. “Come on, do what you can, and I’ll be grateful. I will say, though, that healing or no healing, beard or no beard, some ways you haven’t changed much.”

  “Good,” the Greek said, spoiling the gibe.

  When Gorgidas dropped into the healer’s trance again, Marcus whispered to Viridovix, “Do you know how he learned the art?”

  “The answer there is aye and nay both. Sure and I was there, and you might even say the cause of it all, being frozen more than a mite, but in no condition to make notes for your honor’s edification, if you see what I mean. Puir tomnoddy that I was, I thought you back safe and cozy in Videssos, belike wi’ six or eight bairns from that Helvis o’ yours—by the looks of her, one to keep a man warm o’ nights, I’m thinking.”

  Gaius Philippus’ hiss had nothing to do with the hands that squeezed his upper arm. “Did I say summat wrong?” Viridovix asked, then studied Scaurus’ face, which had gone grim. “Och, I did that. Begging your pardon, whatever it was.”

  “Never mind,” the tribune sighed. “We have a busy year’s worth of catching up to do, though.”

  Gorgidas came out of his trance and let Gaius Philippus go. “Tomorrow, I beg you, when I can hear it, too,” he said. He was scarcely able to keep his eyes open. “For now, all I crave is rest.”

  After going through the same set of contortions Marcus had, Gaius Philippus gave the physician a formal legionary salute, clenched fist held straight out in front of him. “You do just as you please,” he said sincerely. “By my book, you’ve earned the right.”

  The touchy Greek raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? We’ll see.” He waved to a young man in scale mail of a pattern Marcus did not recognize. The fellow ambled over, smiling, and put a hand on Gorgidas’ shoulder. The physician said, “This is Rakio, of the Sworn Fellowship of the Yrmido. My lover.” He waited for the sky to fall.

  “I am pleased you gentlemen to meet,” Rakio said, bowing.

  “To the crows with you,” Gaius Philippus growled at Gorgidas. “You’ll not make me out a liar that easily.” He stuck out his hand. So did Scaurus. Rakio clasped them in turn; his grip had a soldier’s controlled strength. The Romans gave their own names.

  “Then you are men from Gorgidas’ world,” Rakio exclaimed. “Much he about you has said.”

  “Have you, now?” Marcus asked the physician, but got no answer. Gorgidas was asleep where he sat.

  Leaving Rakio to bundle Gorgidas into his bedroll, the Romans wandered through the Arshaum camp. The healing had stripped away their exhaustion as if it had never been, and moving without pain was a pleasure to be savored for its newness. In sheer animal relief, Marcus stretched till his joints creaked. “Seems Viridovix was right,” he said. “A busy year indeed.”

  He spoke Videssian because he had been using it with Rakio. Pikridios Goudeles snapped him out of his reverie with a sardonic jab: “If you have no further profound philosophical insights to offer, you might consider taking counsel with me over our next course of action—unless, of course, you relish Yezd so much that you are enamored of the prospect of remaining here indefinitely. As for myself, I find any place, including Skotos’ hell, would be preferable.”

  “At your service,” the tribune said promptly. “With Avshar in the saddle here, the difference between one and the other isn’t worth spitting on.” He squatted, again feeling the delight of pain-free motion. “First, though, tell me how you got here and what your situation is.”

  “You still talk like an officer,” Goudeles said. He started the story in his own discursive way. Seeing them with their heads together, Skylitzes joined them and boiled the essentials down to a few sentences. The bureaucrat gave him a resentful stare, but took back the conclusion almost by main force: “Arigh will not go east if alliance with Videssos means sacrificing his independence, or if he thinks the Emperor might make peace with Yezd.”

  “No danger of that,” Scaurus said. “When I left Videssos, Gavras was planning this summer’s campaign against the Yezda. And as for the other, he’ll take allies on whatever terms he can get—he’s not so strong himself that he can afford to sneeze at them.”

  “We have him, then!” Goudeles said to Skylitzes. He reached up to pound the taller man on the back. Marcus glanced at the two of them curiously. The pen-pusher caught the look. With a self-conscious smile, he said, “Once back in the city a while, I shall undoubtedly oppose the soldier’s faction once more with all my heart—”

  “Not much there,” Skylitzes put in.

  “Oh, go to the ice. Here I was about to say that spending time amongst the barbarians had changed—at least for the moment—my view of the world and Videssos’ place in it, and what thanks do I get? Insults!” Goudeles rolled his eyes dramatically.

  “Save your theatrics for Midwinter’s Day,” Skylitzes said, unperturbed. “Let’s talk to Arigh. Now we have news to change his mind.”

  Gaius Philippus inspected the gladius with a critical eye. “You’ve taken care of it,” he allowed. “A nick in the edge here, see, and another one close to the point, but nothing a little honing won’t fix. Can you use it, though? There’s the rub.”

  “Yes,” Gorgidas said shortly. He still had mixed feelings about the sword and everything it stood for.

  A few feet away, Viridovix was teasing Marcus. “Aren’t you the one, now? Bewailing me up, down, and sideways over a romp with Komitta Rhangavve, and then caught ’twixt the sheets with her yourself. My hat’s off to you, that it is.” He doffed his fur cap.

  The tribune gritted his teeth, resigned to getting some such reaction from the Gaul. He looked for words as his pony splashed through the headwaters of the Gharraf River, one of the Tutub’s chief tributaries. Nothing much came, even though he was using Latin to keep the imperials he was traveling with from learning of his connection with Alypia. All he could say was, “It wasn’t—it isn’t—a romp. There’s more to it than that. More than with Helvis, too, I’m finding. Looking back, I should have seen the rocks in that stream early on.”

  Remembering Viridovix’ tomcat ways back in Videssos, he expected the Celt to chaff him harder than ever. But Viridovix sobered instead. “One o’ those, is it? May you be lucky in it, then. I wasna when I had it and I dinna ken where I’ll find the like again.” He went on, mostly to himself, “Och, Seirem, it was no luck I brought you.”

  They rode east in melancholy companionship. The lay of the land was not new to Scaurus, who had come the other way with Tahmasp on a route a little south of the one Arigh was taking. The country was low, rolling, and hilly, the southern marches of the rich alluvial plain of the Hundred Cities. Towns hereabout were small and hugged tight to streambeds. Away from water, the sun blasted the hills’ thin cover of grass and thornbushes to sere yellow. There was barely enough fodder to keep the horses in condition.

  A scout trotted back over the rise ahead, shouting in the plains speech. Gorgidas translated for the Roman: “A band of Yezda heading our way.” He listened some more. “We outnumber them, he says.” Marcus grunted in relief. Arigh hardly led six hundred men. A really large company of Yezda going to join Avshar at Mashiz could have ridden over them without difficulty.

  As a competent general should, Arigh made his decision quickly. Signal flags waved beside him. The Arshaum deployed from column to line of battle with an unruffled haste that reminded Scaurus of his legionaries. The riders on either flank trotted ahead to form outsweeping wings. The center lagged. Along with his own horse-archers, Arigh kept the remnant of the Erzrumi and the Videssian party there. When he noticed Scaurus studying his arrangements, he bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. “Not enough heavy-armed horsemen to do much good, but if they count for anything, it’ll be here.”

  A messenger came streaking from the left wing, spoke briefly with the Arshaum leader, and galloped away. More flags fluttered. “They’ve spotted the spalpeens there,” Viridovix said, reading the signal. The whole force swung leftward.

  No great horseman, Marcus hoped he would be able to control his pony in a fight. Gaius Philippus must have been wrestling with the same worry, for he looked more nervous than the tribune had ever seen him just before combat. He hefted a borrowed saber uncertainly. Gorgidas had offered him his gladius back, but he declined, saying, “Better me than you with an unfamiliar sword.” The tribune wondered if he was regretting his generosity.

  They topped the rise over which the outrider had come. Partly obscured by their own dust, Scaurus saw Yezda galloping away in good order. Viridovix shouted a warning: “Dinna be fooled! It’s a ploy all these horse-nomads use, to cozen their foes into thinking ’em cowards.”

  The pursuing Arshaum on either wing, wary of the trick, kept at a respectful distance from their opponents’ main body. Already, though, the faster ponies among them were coming level with the Yezda on slow horses. They did not try to close, but swept wide, seeking to surround the Yezda.

  Seeing they might succeed and bag his entire force, the Yezda leader bawled an order. With marvelous speed and skill, his men wheeled their horses and thundered back the way they had come, straight for Arigh and the center of his line. One by one, they rose high in their short-stirruped saddles to shoot.

  Marcus had faced a barrage from nomadic archers at Maragha. Then he had been afoot, with no choice but to stand and take it. It had seemed to go on forever. Now he, too, was mounted, in the midst of plainsmen matching the Yezda shot for shot, and then charging the enemy at a pace that left his eyes teary from wind.

  An Arshaum horse went crashing down, rolling over its luckless rider. The pony behind it slewed to avoid it, exposing its barrel to the Yezda. An instant later the second beast screamed and foundered a few feet past the first. The plainsman on it kicked free and tumbled over the rough ground, arms up to protect his head.

  An arrow bit Scaurus’ calf. He yelped. When he looked down, he saw a freely bleeding cut, perhaps two inches long; the head of the shaft had scored the outside of his leg as it darted past. The wound was just below the bottom of his trouser leg. The breeches, borrowed from an Arshaum, fit him well through the waist but were much too short.