Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 by Harry Turtledove Page B

like Marcus had not seen before: slim, swarthy, flat-faced men with draggling mustaches and thin, wispy beards. The tribune learned they were known as Arshaum.
    Marcus recognized desert nomads from the southwest, and more from the distant lands across the Sailors’ Sea. There were several envoys in strange costumes from the valleys of Erzerum, north and west from Videssos’ western borders. There were Haloga princelings, and one man the tribune would have guessed a Videssian but for his northern clothing and the perpetually grim expression Scaurus had come to associate with the Halogai.
    A giant in the swirling robes of the desert was so swathed even his face was obscured. He sipped wine through a straw and moved in a circle of silence, for even his fellow ambassadors gave him a wide berth. Marcus understood when he found out the man was an emissary out of Mashiz, the capital of Videssos’ deadly western foe, Yezd.
    With his insatiable curiosity, Gorgidas had naturally gravitated toward the ambassadors. He was in earnest conversation with a rabbity little man who would have made a perfect Videssian ribbon clerk had he not affected the unkempt facial foliage of the Khamorth.
    That takes care of just about all my men, Marcus thought, and when he turned his head at a burst of laughter to his left he found Viridovix was rapidly making himself popular with the last group at the banquet: its women. Looking quite dashing with his cape of scarlet skins flung back over his wide shoulders, the big Gaul had just finished an uproariously improper tale his brogue only made funnier. A pretty girl wasclinging to each arm; three or four more clustered round him. He caught Scaurus’ eye over the tops of their heads and threw him a happy tomcat’s smile.
    The tribune returned it, but did not feel like emulating the Celt. Nor did the other groups attract him any more. The bureaucrats snubbed soldiers on principle, but Scaurus himself was not enough of a professional warrior to delight in discussing the fine points of honing a broadsword. And unlike Gorgidas, he could not turn his inquisitiveness to distant lands when he was still so ignorant of Videssos. Thus, while he spent a minute here and two more there in polite small talk, he was bored before the evening was very old.
    Feeling like the spare wheel on a wagon, he drifted over to get more wine. He had just taken it when a voice behind him asked, “The music tonight is very fine, don’t you think?”
    “Hmm?” He wheeled so fast the wine slopped in its cup. “Yes, my lady, it’s very fine indeed.” In fact he had no ear for music and had ignored the small tinkling orchestra, but a “no” would have ended the conversation, and that he suddenly did not want at all.
    She was as tall as many of the men there. She wore her straight black hair bobbed just above the shoulder, a far simpler style than the elaborate piles of curls most of the women preferred, but one that suited her. Her eyes were very blue. Her gown was a darker shade of the same color, with a bodice of white lace and wide, fur-trimmed sleeves. A fine-looking woman, Marcus thought.
    “You Romans”—He noticed she said the name correctly, despite the botched announcement at the door.—“are from quite far away, it’s said. Tell me, is your homeland’s music much like what’s played here?”
    Wishing she would find another topic, Scaurus considered the question. “Not a great deal, my lady—?”
    “Oh, I crave your pardon,” she said, smiling. “My name is Helvis. You are called Marcus, is that right?”
    Marcus admitted it. “From Namdalen, are you not?” he asked. It was a reasonable guess. Her features were less aquiline than the Videssian norm, and she certainly did not bear a Videssian name.
    She nodded and smiled again; her mouth was wide and generous. “You’ve learned a good deal about this part of the world,” she said, butthen, as the tribune had feared, she returned to her original thought.