Nikos nodded, saying “Three, maybe four weeks, with the wagon and the weather. Half that if we were just on horses.”
“Without the wagon, we’ll just look like what we are-a suspicious group of hard-assed characters that look like they belong in prison with one innocent girl among them.”
Nikos laughed, but he watched her face closely too. The orders, which she had not discussed with him, troubled her. He figured that she counted their chances of getting out of this alive to be very low. Nikos had been in one army or another for almost thirty years, and he had long ago come to terms with sudden death. Each day was only as it was.
He poked at the bread. “You should finish eating that, you’ll need it.”
Thyatis grimaced back at him. “It tastes like dirt. Couldn’t you steal anything fresher?”
“The best kind of bread is free. Are you going to tell me what we’re lollygaging around up here in the high country for, or shall I guess?”
Thyatis did not answer right away. She gathered up the papers and the map and packed them away in the oilskin again. Then she ate the rest of the bread and the cheese. The meat.she tucked into one of the pockets of her shirt. After they had left the last of the valley towns, she had shucked the dress and had Anagathios pack it away with the rest of the actor’s apparel. She had gone back to the dark-burgundy linen shirt and baggy woolen pants that she favored for cooler weather. Not the raiment of a Roman lady-the pants alone would have caused a riot in the Forum-but it wore well on the road. She checked each of the weapons that she was carrying-long dagger on her thigh, short sword in a case sheath on her back.
Nikos sat, patient as a stone, saying nothing.
“All right,” she said at last, after she had unbraided and rebraided her hair. Two small braids now framed her face, glittering red with gold highlights in the sun reflected off of the water. The rest was woven back behind her head.
“At Van we meet this agent, and he makes sure that we get over the mountains into Persia proper. Two hundred miles and a mighty mountain range east of Van is the Persian city of Tauris. It sits like a cork in a bottle at the end of a long valley that runs north toward the Mare Caspium. About a month after we’re supposed to have arrived, all unnoticed, in Tauris, the entire Roman army is supposed to show up at the south end of the valley, below the city. Maybe at the same time, and maybe not, a mothering great host of Khazar horsemen are supposed to show up at the north end of the valley. Now, these barbarians have said that they’ll join up and help beat the living daylights out of the Persians-whom they hate-but unless Tauris is in Roman hands, it’s not going to be easy.”
Nikos held up a hand, then carefully counted the men sleeping on the grass next to the wagon, or cleaning their gear, or standing watch at the ends of the canyon. “Ah, Commander, I count that we have a grand total of fourteen men to hand-including yourself. There is no way that we’re going to capture some Persian fortress in the back of beyond by ourselves.”
Thyatis shook her head. “That’s not what our orders say. They say that we’re to have Tauris secured when the two Emperors arrive.”
“They say how?”
Thyatis gave him a lopsided grin. “That’s to the discretion of the commanding officer.”
Nikos sighed, seeing the delight hiding under his centurion’s tanned features. “I don’t suppose that you read any Greek poets when you were younger?”
“No,” Thyatis said, her face showing a nicker of old pain, “my education came late in life. I learned to read and to write, but no poet suitable for a young lady.“
Nikos cocked his head. Thyatis’ past was an unopened book-though it was hotly discussed in private among the men who served her. “What did you read from?”
Thyatis shook her head and stood up, brushing pine needles and leaves from her pants. “That doesn’t matter now. What poet did you want to quote?”
“Homer,” he said, looking up at her. “Odysseus to Achilles, before Troy, ‘a noble death does not bring victory- only victory brings an end to death.’ ”. t
Thyatis smiled, but it was wintry. “My poet says: ‘when on desperate ground, fight.’ ” gPMQWQHO)‘l(M)M0H0MQMOH()W(M)MQM0M0WQW()HQMQH0MQHQg|
THE EGYPTIAN HOUSE, LATIUM
The pipe made a groaning sound, like a soul in torment in Hades, then quivered and finally, after another long moan, spit muddy water. Maxian, his face, arms, and hands covered with grime, bits of leaf, and plain old dirt, stepped back, smiling in delight. The water flowed murky for a few minutes and then, finally, clear. The cistern at the top of the house echoed as the water fell into its depths. The Prince rubbed his eyes with the edge of his tunic, trying to get the dirt and sweat out of them. After making an even greater mess of his clothing, he gathered up the lengths of copper pipe that he had scavenged, the hammer and tpng-shaped grippers, and set off down the brushy slope.
Inside the house, he piled all of the scrap and tools in a heap inside the back garden door. He stripped off the fouled tunic and threw it into a basin that stood inside the door. Farther into the house, he came upon Abdmachus and two of his servants who had come up from the city to assist their master. The Persian was carefully measuring the length of the main hall in the villa.
“We’ll have running water in the house within the afternoon,” he said in passing.
Abdmachus grunted and continued to carefully spool out the length of twine that he was using to mark distance. The two servants followed along, making marks in colored chalk at regular intervals. Maxian shook his head in amusement. He went up the steps to the upper floor, a grand stair flanked with statues of ibis-headed maidens and hawks. In the upper rooms, another two of the Persians’ servants were mopping the floor and carrying away the debris that had blown in through the windows. Gaius Julius was lounging on a couch that had been brought up from the city. Sets of papyrus scrolls were laid out on a low table next to him. He was ignoring them and eating part of a roast pheasant.
“We’ll have water soon,” Maxian said as he opened the hamper containing the picnic lunch that the dead man had brought with him on his latest return from the city. “The Baths might even work if we have the servants clean them out.”
Gaius Julius nodded appreciatively. He was a good Roman.
“It’s not a proper house without a bath,” he said, picking bits of bird out of his teeth.
Maxian set down on the other couch and began cutting slices of cheese off the wheel he had found in the basket. There were black grapes as well, and a jug of wine. The Prince sniffed it and wrinkled up his nose. “For a dead man, you have odd tastes in wine.”
Gaius Julius shrugged. “These modern wines have a foul taste to my palate. This Gaulish wine is the best I’ve found. There’s vinegar in that other jug, if you need your thirst quenched.”
Maxian shook his head and picked up a wine-cup left over from the night before. He stood and cleaned it out with a cloth. “I’d rather water than that piss! And thanks to my hard work, we have it.”
He went out of the room and down the hall to a little private room with a marble privy seat. Built into the wall next to die bench was a shallow bowl. Above it, a corroded green bronze handle in the shape of a dolphin was set into the wall over a spigot. The Prince tapped on the dolphin with the handle of his knife and it squeaked a little. He dragged on the handle and the pipe complained and gurgled. Water spilled out and he caught it in the wine-cup. After three cupfuls it ran clean.