A platoon of Videssian nobles followed Gavras, bureaucrats and soldiers together for once. Marcus spotted Provhos Mourtzouphlos, who looked as though he had an extraordinarily bad taste in his mouth. His robe was of a green that managed to outdo Pakhymer’s tights.

  The eye kept coming back to it, in disbelief and horrid fascination. Marcus heard Gaius Philippus mutter, “Now I know what color a hangover is.” He wondered if Mourtzouphlos had chosen the dreadful thing as a silent protest against the wedding. If he was reduced to such petty gestures, his enmity was safe to ignore.

  Under the watchful gaze of its chamberlain, the imperial party took its place some yards ahead of Scaurus and his comrades. He promptly forgot about it, for still another steward was leading Alypia Gavra and her attendant ladies into place between the two groups.

  Her gown was of soft white silk, with silver threads running through it and snowy lace at the cuffs; it seemed spun from moonlight. A silver circlet confined her sleek brown hair.

  She smiled and touched her throat as she walked by Marcus. The necklace she wore, of gold, emeralds, and mother-of-pearl, was not of a piece with the rest of her costume, but neither of them would have exchanged it for one that was.

  He smiled back, wishing he could say something to her. Since returning to the city, he had only seen her once or twice, under the most formal circumstances. It had been easier when they were surreptitious lovers than properly affianced. But Thorisin had warned, “No more scandal,” and they thought it wiser to obey. There was not much waiting left.

  “Straighten your collar, will you, Pikridios!” shrilled Goudeles’ wife, Tribonia. She was a tall, angular, sallow woman whose deep blue dress suited neither her figure nor her complexion. As the bureaucrat fumbled to fix the imaginary flaw, she complained to anyone who would listen, “Do you see how he takes no pains with himself? The most lazy, slovenly man …” The tribune, who knew Goudeles to be a fastidious dandy, wondered whether he had married her for money or position. It could hardly have been love.

  Irrepressible, Nevrat Sviodo made a comic shrug behind Tribonia’s back, then grinned triumphantly at Marcus. He nodded back, very glad his mistaken advances the year before had not cost him a friend, or rather, two.

  Nevrat was the only non-Videssian in Alypia’s party. Senpat said, “Some of the highborn ladies were scandalized when the princess chose her.”

  “I notice no one has withdrawn,” Scaurus said.

  An honor guard of Halogai and Romans fell in at the procession’s head; another company took its place to the rear. Palace servitors formed a line on either side. Seeing everything ready at last, Thorisin’s steward blew a sharp note on a pitch pipe. He strutted forward to set the pace, as if the day had been planned to celebrate him alone.

  The wide pathways through the gardens of the palace compound had few spectators along them: a gardener, a cook, a mason and his wife and children, a squad of soldiers. As soon as the procession reached the forum of Palamas, all that changed. If twin sets of streamers had not kept the chosen path open, there would have been no pushing through the sea of humanity jamming the square.

  Thorisin’s iron-lunged herald cried out, “Rejoice in the wedding of the Princess Alypia Gavra and the Yposevastos Scaurus! Rejoice! Rejoice!” The herald’s accent made the tribune’s name come out as “Skavros,” which did not sound too very alien to the ears of the city populace. The imposing title the Emperor had conferred on him—its significance, more or less, was “second minister,” which could mean anything or nothing—also made him less obviously foreign.

  One of the servants pressed a small but heavy sack into his hands. As he had been instructed, he tossed goldpieces into the crowd, now right, now left. Up ahead, the Emperor was doing the same. So were the servitors, but their sacks were filled with silver.

  The sidewalks of Middle Street were also packed tight with cheering onlookers. Marcus did not flatter himself that the hurrahs were for him. The city folk, fickle and restless, applauded any spectacle, and this one was doubly delightful because of the prospect of largesse.

  “Rejoice! Rejoice!” At slow march, the procession passed the three-story red granite government office building. Marcus looked at it fondly, large and ugly though it was. Had he not happened to meet Alypia coming out of it last Midwinter’s Day, he would not be here now.

  “Rejoice!” The herald turned north about a quarter mile past the government offices. Once off Middle Street, the crowds were thinner. With every step, Phos’ High Temple dominated more of the skyline; soon it was the skyline. The gilded globes topping its four spires shone bright as the sun they symbolized.

  The walled courtyard around the High Temple was as crowded as the plaza of Palamas had been. The palace servitors threw out great handfuls of money; tradition required them to empty their sacks. The canny Videssians knew that perfectly well and thronged to where the pickings were best.

  The honor guard deployed at the foot of the broad stairway leading up to the High Temple. Already waiting on the stairs were all the surviving Romans hale enough to stand. Their arms shot up in salute as Marcus approached.

  The nobles and officials in Thorisin’s party peeled away from the Avtokrator to take their places on the steps, forming an aisleway through which he, the bride, the groom, and their attendants could pass. “Step smartly now!” urged the chamberlain in charge of Scaurus and his companions. The tribune hurried forward. Alypia, her ladies, and Thorisin were waiting for him and the groomsmen to catch up. The Emperor between them, he and Alypia started up the stairs. Behind them, pair by pair, came the groomsmen with the princess’ attendants on their arms.

  At the top of the stairs, flanked by lesser priests on either side, stood the new patriarch of Videssos, his hands raised in benediction. Scaurus felt a small shock every time he saw the tall, middle-aged man wearing the robe of cloth-of-gold and blue. “It seems wrong, not having Balsamon up there,” he said.

  Alypia nodded. “He was as much a part of the city as the Silver Gate.”

  “This Sebeos will make a sound patriarch,” Thorisin said, a trifle irritably; the choice of Balsamon’s successor had been in essence his. As custom demanded, he had submitted three names to a synod of highranking clerics, who selected the former prelate of Kypas, a port city in the westlands.

  “Of course he’s able,” Alypia said at once. “He’ll have trouble, though, making himself as loved as Balsamon—he was like a favorite uncle for all Videssos. And—” She stopped abruptly. To say what Balsamon had meant to her would only remind Thorisin of complications now past. She had too much sense for that.

  They spoke in low voices, for they were approaching the High Temple. As they drew near, Marcus saw that Sebeos looked decidedly anxious himself. So he might, the tribune thought—hardly in place a month, he was conducting his first great ceremony under the Emperor’s eye. Not all patriarchs reigned as long as Balsamon.

  When Sebeos stayed frozen a few seconds longer than he should, one of his attendant priests leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Saborios knows his job,” Scaurus murmured to Thorisin, who smiled. His clerical watchdog slid smoothly back into place.

  Cued, Sebeos stepped forward to meet the wedding party, saying, “May the good god send his blessings down on this union, as his sun gives the whole world light and warmth.” He had a mellow baritone, far more impressive than Balsamon’s scratchy tenor—and far less interesting.

  With Alypia, and Thorisin, Marcus followed the patriarch in sketching Phos’ sun-sign. The ritual gesture still felt unnatural, but he performed it perfectly; he had practiced.

  Sebeos bowed, turned, and led the way into the High Temple. The outside of the great building had a heavy impressiveness to it, with its walls of unadorned stucco, small windows, and massive buttresses to support the weight of the central dome and the smaller half-domes around it. For the interior Scaurus had his memories, as well as more recent ones of the shrine at Garsavra, which aped its greater model. He discovered how little they were worth the moment he set foot inside.

  He could have overlooked the luxury of the seats that ranged out from the altar under the dome in each of the cardinal directions, their polished oak and sandalwood and ebony and glistening mother-of-pearl, the more easily because they were filled by notables not important enough to join the wedding party. The colonnades faced with moss agate were lovely, but the Grand Courtroom had their match in multicolored marble.

  The interior walls reproduced the heavens, east and west mimicking sunrise and sunset with sheets of bloodstone, rose quartz, and rhodochrosite rising to meet the white marble and turquoise that covered the northern and southern walls down to their bases. They had their own splendor, but they also served to lead the eye up to the central dome; and before that all comparison failed.

  The soft beams of light coming through the arched windows that pierced its base seemed to disembody it, to leave it floating above the High Temple. They reflected from gold and silver foil like shining milk and butter.

  They also played off the golden tesserae in the dome mosaic itself; the sparkle shifted at every step Scaurus took. And that shifting field of gold was only the surround of the great image of Phos that looked down from on high on his worshipers, his long, bearded face stern in judgment. Beneath that awesome countenance, with its omniscient eyes that seemed to bore into his soul, the tribune could not help feeling the power of the Videssian faith and could only hope to be recorded as acceptable in the sealed book Phos bore in his left hand. The god depicted in the dome would give him justice, but no mercy.

  He must have missed a step without noticing, for Alypia whispered, “It affects everyone so.” That, he saw, was true. Even the imperials who worshipped in the High Temple daily kept glancing up at the dome, as if to reassure themselves that the Phos there was not singling them out for their sins.

  A choir in a vestibule behind the northern seats burst into song, hymning Phos’ praises in the archaic liturgical language Marcus still could only half follow. He thought how different Videssian marriage customs were from those of Rome. In Rome, while ceremonies, of course, usually accompanied a marriage, what made it valid was the intent of its partners to be married; the ceremonies themselves were not necessary. To the Videssians, the religious rites were the marriage.

  As Scaurus, Alypia, and Thorisin passed the inmost row of seats, the Empress Alania stood and joined her husband. Because of her pregnancy, she had not walked in the wedding procession, but come ahead in a sedan chair. The Avtokrator would not risk her health, though in her flowing formal robes the child she was carrying did not show. She had olive skin and jet-black hair like Komitta Rhangavve’s, but her face was round and kindly; her eyes, her best feature, were dark, calm pools. Thorisin, Marcus thought, had chosen wisely.

  Then the tribune had no time for such trivial ruminations, for the wedding party had reached the holy table in front of the ivory patriarchal throne. The Emperor and Empress stepped back a pace. As he had been drilled, Marcus took Alypia’s right hand in his left and laid them on the altartop; the polished silver was cool beneath his fingertips. Smiling, Alypia squeezed his hand. He gently returned the pressure.

  From the other side of the holy table, Sebeos said softly, “Look at me.” Marcus saw the patriarch take a deep breath. Until that moment he had held his own nerves under tight control, but suddenly he heard everything through the pounding of his heart.

  The choir fell silent. Sebeos intoned the creed with which the Videssians began every religious service: “We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the right and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.”

  Marcus and Alypia echoed the prayer together. He did not stumble. Having decided at last to acknowledge Phos’ faith, he was determined to do so properly.

  The High Temple filled with murmurs as the faithful also repeated the creed. A couple of high Namdalener officers ended it with their own nation’s addition: “On this we stake our very souls.” Their neighbors frowned at the heresy.

  Sebeos also frowned, but carried on after a glance at the Emperor told him Thorisin did not want to make an issue of it. Again the prayers were in the old-fashioned liturgical tongue, as were Scaurus’ memorized responses. He knew in a general way that he was asking Phos’ blessing for himself, for his wife to be, and for the family they were founding.

  He gave all the correct replies, though sometimes so quietly that only those closest to him could hear. Alypia squeezed his fingers again, encouraging him. Her own responses rang out firmly. Usually she was more outgoing in private than in large gatherings, but she was determined to make this day an exception.

  Finishing the prayers, Sebeos returned to contemporary Videssian. He launched into a homily on the virtues that went into a successful marriage which was so perfectly conventional that Marcus found himself anticipating what the patriarch would say three sentences before it came. Respect, trust, affection, forbearance—everything was in its place, correct, orderly, and unmemorable.

  In Latin, Viridovix whispered loudly, “Och, there’s a man could make sex dull.”

  Marcus had all he could do not to explode. He wished for Balsamon, who would have taken the same theme and turned it into something worth hearing.

  Eventually, Sebeos noticed the Emperor tapping his foot on the marble floor. He finished in haste: “These virtues, if diligently adhered to, are sure to guarantee domestic felicity.”

  Then, his manner changing, he asked Alypia and Scaurus, “Are the two of you prepared to cleave to these virtues together, and to each other, so long as you both may live?”

  Marcus made his voice carry: “Yes.”

  This time Alypia’s answer came soft: “Oh, yes.”

  As they spoke the binding words, Thorisin stepped forward to place a wreath of myrtle and roses on the tribune’s head, while Alania did the same for Alypia.

  “Behold them decked in the crowns of marriage!” Sebeos cried. “It is accomplished!”

  While the spectators burst into applause, Scaurus slipped a ring onto the index finger of Alypia’s left hand. That again followed the Videssian way; the Romans preferred the third finger of the same hand, believing a nerve connected it directly to the heart. The ring, however, was of his own choosing—gold, with an emerald set in a circle of mother-of-pearl. Alypia had not seen it before. She threw her arms around his neck.

  “Kiss her, tha twit!” Viridovix whooped.

  That had not been part of the ceremony as rehearsed; the tribune glanced at Thorisin to see if it fell within the bounds of custom. The Emperor was grinning. Marcus took that for permission. The cheers got louder. There were bawdy shouts of advice, of the same sort he had heard—and called—at weddings back in Mediolanum. Human nature did not change, and a good thing, too, he thought.

  He felt Alypia tense slightly; some of the shouts must have touched memories she would sooner have left buried. Shaking her head in annoyance, she made a brave face of it. “This is us, as it should be,” she said when he tried to comfort her. “It’s all right now.”

  The crowds had thinned when the wedding party emerged from the High Temple for the return procession to the feast laid out in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. The palace servitors bore freshly filled bags, bigger than the ones from which they had thrown coins on the way to the High Temple, but the city folk were much less interested in these; they held only nuts and figs, symbols of fertility.

  Full circle, Marcus thought as he walked through the smoothly polished bronze doors of the Hall of the Nineteen Couches. He had met Alypia here the Romans’ first evening in Videssos the city, along with so many others. He was lucky Avshar had not killed him that very night.

  As tradition decreed, he and Alypia shared a single cup of wine; a serving maid hovered near them with a silver ewer to make sure it never emptied. Others were quite able to take care of such matters on their own—Gawtruz, the fat, bald ambassador from Thatagush, had somehow managed to filch an ewer for himself. “Haw! Congratulations I you give!” he shouted in broken Videssian. He found it useful to play the drunken barbarian, but in fact he was no one’s fool and could use the imperial tongue without accent and with great polish when he chose.

  A fried prawn in one hand, Thorisin Gavras used the other to pound on a tabletop until he had everyone’s attention. He pointed to another table, in a corner close to the kitchen doors, which was piled high with gifts. “My turn to add to those,” he said.

  There was a polite spatter of applause and a few raucous cheers from celebrants already tipsy. Gavras waited for quiet to return. “I’ve already honored the groom with the rank of yposevastos, but you can’t eat rank, though I sometimes think that in the city we breathe it.” Inevitably, a joke from the Emperor won laughter.

  Thorisin went on, “To live on, I grant him the estates in the westlands forfeited to the crown by the traitor and rebel Baanes Onomagoulos and grant him leave to settle on those estates the men of his command, so he and they may have the means to defend Videssos in the future as they have in the past.”

  In the near future, Marcus thought; Onomagoulos’ lands were near Garsavra, on the edge of Yezda-infested territory. A rich gift but a dangerous one—Thorisin’s style through and through. And the Emperor had also granted him what every Roman general sought, land for his troops.

  Filled with pride, he bowed nearly double. He whispered to Alypia, “You put him up to that last part.” Having studied Videssos’ past, she had seen that the Empire’s troubles began when it weakened the population of farmer-soldiers settled on the countryside.