Argyros nodded. The scheme was daring, ruthless, and could have been practical—all characteristics he had come to associate with Mirrane. “You do see the flaw?” he said, as gently as he could.
“Actually, I saw two,” she replied. “We don’t have enough people to dig the ditch, and we don’t have an army to use to fight even if it should get dug.”
“That, ah, does sum it up,” the magistrianos said.
“I know, I know, I know.” Bitterness as well as firelight shadowed Mirrane’s features. “At the end, I kept telling Goarios he was giving his country away by not keeping a tighter check on the nomads; I was hoping to use the Dariel garrison to do what I had in mind. But he still thinks he’ll ride on the backs of the Kirghiz to glory—or he did, until the riots started. For all I know, he may believe it even now. He’s had less use for me outside the bedchamber since I stopped telling him things he wanted to hear.” She cocked her head, peered at Argyros. “And so here I am, in your hands instead.”
He did not answer. His eyes were hooded, far away.
Mirrane said, “With most men, I would offer at once to go to their tents with them. With you, somehow I don’t think that would help save me.”
It was as if he had not heard her. Then he came far enough out of his brown study to reply, “No, it would be the worst thing you could do.” Her glare brought him fully back to himself. He explained hastily, “My crew would mutiny if they thought I was keeping you for my own pleasure.”
She glanced toward Corippus, shivered. “Very well. I don’t doubt you’re right. What then?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.” The magistrianos’s wave summoned a couple of his men. “Make sure she does not escape, but don’t harass her either. Her scheme has more merit than I thought.” They saluted and led Mirrane away.
Argyros called Corippus to him and spoke at some length. If defects lurked in the plan slowly taking shape in his mind, the dour north African would find them. Corippus did, too, or thought he did. Argyros had to wake up Eustathios Rhangabe to be sure. Through a yawn wide enough to frighten a lion, Rhangabe suggested changes, ones not so drastic as Corippus had thought necessary. The artisan fell asleep where he sat; Corippus and the magistrianos kept hammering away. At last Corippus threw his hands in the air. “All right!” he growled, almost loud enough to wake Rhangabe. “This is what we came for—we have to try it, I suppose. Who knows? We may even live through it.”
A small wagon train and a good many packhorses plodded north toward the Caspian Gates. The riders who flanked the packhorses seemed bored with what they were doing: a routine trip, their attitude seemed to say, that they had made many times before. If I see Constantinople again, Argyros thought half seriously, I’ll have to do some real acting, maybe the next time someone revives Euripides. A glance up from beneath lowered brows showed the magistrianos Kirghiz scouts. He had been seeing them for some time now, and they his band. He had enough horsemen with him to deter the scouts from approaching by ones and twos. For his part, he wanted to keep pretending he did not know they existed. For as long as he could, he also kept ignoring the dust cloud that lay ahead. When he saw men through it, though, men who wore furs and leathers and rode little steppe ponies, he reined in, drawing the wagon to a halt.
“We’ve just realized that’s the whole bloody Kirghiz army,” he called to his comrades, reminding them of their roles as any good director would. “Now we can be afraid.”
“You’re too late,” someone said. The men from the Empire milled out in counterfeit—Argyros hoped it was counterfeit—panic and confusion. His own part was to leap down from the wagon, cut a packhorse free of the string, then scramble onto the beast and boot it after the mounts his men were riding desperately southward.
The Kirghiz scouts gave chase. A few arrows hissed past. Then one of the nomads toppled from the saddle; Corippus was as dangerous a horse-archer as any plainsman. That helped deter pursuit, but Argyros did not think it would have lasted long in any case. The Kirghiz scouts were only human—they would want to steal their fair share of whatever these crazy merchants had left behind. Argyros looked back over his shoulder—cautiously, as he was not used to riding without stirrups. One of the nomads was bending to examine the broken jars the magistrianos’s horse had been carrying. Some of the contents must still have been cupped in a shard, for the Kirghiz suddenly jumped up and began pointing excitedly at the packhorses and wagons. Argyros did not need to hear him to know what he was shouting. Nomads converged on the abandoned yperoinos like bees on roses. The poor fools who had provided such a magnificent windfall were quickly forgotten. Before long, they were able to stop and look back with no fear of pursuit. Corippus gave the short bark that passed for laughter with him. “After a haul like that, most of those buggers will have all the loot from civilization they ever dreamed of.”
“Something to that,” Argyros admitted. The thought made him sad.
One of his men put hand to forehead to shield his eyes from the sun as he peered toward the Kirghiz. He swore in frustration all the same and turned to Argyros. “Can you get a better view, sir?”
“Let’s see.” At his belt, along with such usual appurtenances as knife, sap, and pouch, Argyros carried a more curious device: a tube fitting tightly into another, with convex glass glittering at both ends. He undid it from the boss on which it hung, raised it to his eye, and pulled the smaller tube partway out of the larger one.
The image he saw was upside down and fringed with false colors, but the Kirghiz seemed to jump almost within arm’s length. The artisans in Constantinople still had trouble making lenses good enough to use—most far-seers belonged to Roman generals, though the savants at the imperial university had seen some things in the heavens that puzzled them and even, it was whispered, shook their faith. Only because Argyros had learned of the far-seer in the first place was he entitled to carry one now. He watched the Kirghiz nobles, some of whom had sampled superwine in Dariel, trying to keep their rank and file away from the wagons. They were too late. Too many ordinary nomads had already tasted the potent brew. The ones who’d had some wanted more; the ones who’d had none wanted some. Even under the best of circumstances, the nomads obeyed orders only when they felt like it. These circumstances were not the best. Argyros smiled in satisfaction.
“They all want their share,” he reported.
“Good,” Corippus said. The rest of the men nodded, but without great enthusiasm. If this part of the plan had failed, it could not have gone forward. The more dangerous portions lay ahead. The Romans rode back toward Dariel. Eustathios Rhangabe was bringing up the last wagon, the one so different from the rest. A couple of outriders were with him; Mirrane’s horse was tethered to one of theirs. Argyros had told them to shoot her if she tried to escape, and warned her of his order. All the same, he was relieved to see her with his men. Orders were rarely a match for the likes of her.
“You have your spots chosen?” the magistrianos asked Rhangabe.
The artisan nodded. “Six of them, three on either side.”
“Basil, what are these madmen playing at? They won’t talk to me,” Mirrane said indignantly. “They aren’t following what we talked about at all. All they’ve done is dig holes in the ground and put jars of your strong wine in them. What good will that—” Mirrane stopped in the middle of her sentence. Her sharp brown eyes flashed from Argyros to the wagon and back again. “Or is that yperoinos in them?