The Legion of Videssos by Harry Turtledove

out their own little domains while the carving’s good. The only way I can see to keep that from happening is to break Drax fast.”
    Gagik Bagratouni, the
nakharar
who headed the Vaspurakaners in Scaurus’ force, raised a hand. “There are—how you say?—more Namdaleni closer to Drax than in the Duchy.” His broad, hook-nosed face showed concentration as he spoke; Videssian did not come easily to him. “Utprand plenty of them has, and here. What does—
is
—Thorisin about them going to do?”
    “Get that one right and you win the goldpiece,” Gaius Philippus muttered. Bagratouni lifted his thick eyebrows, not quite understanding.
    “I see three choices, all risky,” Marcus said. He ticked them off on his fingers: “He can separate them from the rest of his army and send them, say, toward the Khatrish border. They’d be out of the way there, but who would hold them in check if they decided to imitate Drax?
    “Or he can leave them behind, here in the capital, with the same danger. And if they seize Videssos the city, Videssos the Empire is dead.” The tribune remembered Soteric talking lovingly of the prospect.
    Bagratouni gave a running, low-voiced translation of Scaurus’ words to his lieutenant Mesrop Anhoghin. Where his Videssian stumbled, his aide had next to none. The lanky Anhoghin was even more heavily bearded than the
nakharar
.
    Marcus finished, “Or he can keep them with the rest of us and hope they don’t go over to Drax the first chance they get. I hope so, too,” he added, and got a laugh.
    “Aye, wouldn’t that be just what we needed?” Gaius Philippus said. “Facing the damned Namdalener heavy horse is bad enough head-on. My blood runs cold to think of being taken in flank by treachery.”
    “I’ve heard Drax and Utprand are rivals,” Minucius said. “Is it so?”
    “It’s true, I think, though I don’t know the why of it,” Marcus answered. He looked up and down the table. “Does anyone?”
    “I do,” Laon Pakhymer said promptly. Somehow Scaurus was unsurprised. Khatrishers, inquisitive as sparrows, were made for gossip. Pakhymer explained, “They were friends and allies once, and joined up to besiege some noble’s keep. The place was on a lake; Utprand took the landward side while Drax covered the water. They sat there and sat there, starving this fellow out. He kept fighting, even though it was hopeless—didn’t want to surrender to Utprand, I think.”
    Remembering the Namdalener captain’s wintry eyes, Scaurus decided he could not blame the hapless noble.
    Pakhymer continued, “So he didn’t. He opened the gates on the lakeshore and yielded himself and his castle up to Drax—and Drax only. When Utprand asked for his first share of the spoil, the great count—” He was as sarcastic as Marcus had been. “—told him where to head in. Since then, for some reason they haven’t gotten on well.” Pakhymer had an infectious grin.
    “That is a fair reason,” Zeprin the Red rumbled. “The gods spit on the oath-breaking man.” For all the holy Kveldulf’s labors, the Halogai were pagans yet, worshiping their own band of gloomy deities.
    Pakhymer’s tale somewhat reassured Marcus; there did seem to be a true and lasting enmity between the two Namdalener leaders. That was the sort of thing Videssos’ wily politicians could use to good effect.
    The tribune also wondered briefly how loyal Bagratouni and his Vaspurakaners would prove. True, the Yezda had driven them from their homeland into Videssos, but they had suffered worse from a pogrom led by a fanatic Videssian priest. Might they not see Drax and his Namdaleni as allies now instead of foes, even band together with them as fellow heretics? One more thing to worry about, he decided, and filed it away.
    The meeting ended soon; there was not enough information to plan further. As the officers wandered away, Scaurus called Gaius Philippus to his side. “What would you do, were you Thorisin?” he asked, thinking