Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 Read Online Free Page A

As a Stoic, he did not believe it would do any good, and as a Roman he thought it archaic. Not since the desperate days a hundred fifty years ago, after Hannibal crushed the Romans at Carthage, had they resorted to it. In even more ancient days, they sacrificed old men to relieve famine, but for centuries they had been throwing puppets made of rushes into the Tiber instead.
    “That’s it!” he said out loud. Both Viridovix and his own men eyed him, the one warily, the others expectantly. Remembering his fear of what the Gauls would do to his men if they surrendered, he went on, “I won’t make us into the savage image of the barbarians we were fighting.”
    He left everyone unhappy. Viridovix let out an angry snort; Lucilius protested, “The gods should have an offering.”
    “They will,” the tribune promised. “In place of Viridovix here, we’ll sacrifice an image of him, as the priests do to mark festivals where the victim used to be a man. If the gods take those offerings, they’ll accept this one as well—and in this wilderness, wherever it is, we may need the Gaul’s might to fight with us now, not against us.”
    Lucilius was still inclined to argue, but the practicality of Scaurus’ argument won over most of the men. Without backing, Lucilius gave up. To keep from having a disaffected soldier in the ranks, Marcus detailedhim to gather cloth and, from the edges of the pond, rushes to make the effigy. Self-importance touched, Lucilius bustled away.
    “I thank your honor,” Viridovix said.
    “He didn’t do it for
your
sake,” said Gaius Philippus. The senior centurion had stayed in the background, quiet but ready to back Marcus at need. “He did it to hold his leadership over the troops.”
    That was not altogether true, but Marcus knew better than to dilute Gaius Philippus’ authority by contradicting him. He kept quiet. Why the Gaul thought he had saved him did not matter; the result did.
    Viridovix looked down his nose at the short, stocky centurion. “And what would you have had him do with me, now? Chop me into dogmeat? The dogs’ll feed on more than me if you try that—a deal more, if himself sends runts like you against me.”
    Scaurus expected Gaius Philippus to fly into a killing rage, but instead he threw back his head and laughed. “Well said, you great hulk!”
    “Hulk, is it?” Viridovix swore in Gaulish, but he was grinning too.
    “What then?” Marcus said. “Do you aim to join us, at least till we find out where we are? The gods know, you’re a warrior born.”
    “Och, the shame of it, a Roman asking for my comradeship and me saying aye. But these woods are a solitary place for a puir lone Celt, and you Romans are men yourselves, for all that you’re dull.”
    Gaius Philippus snorted.
    “There’s another score,” Viridovix said. “Will your men have me, after my sending more than one of them to the next world?”
    “They’d better,” the senior centurion said, smacking his vine-stave into a callused palm.
    “Dull,” Viridovix repeated. “Never the chance to tell your officer be damned to him—and the day you try ordering me about you’ll remember forever. Nay, it’s always march in line, camp in line, fight in line. Tell me, do you futter in line as well?”
    Having done so more than once, the centurion maintained a discreet silence.
    The more they snipe, Marcus thought, the sooner they’ll grow used to each other. He slapped at a mosquito. He must have missed, because he heard it buzz away.
    Lucilius hurried up, carrying in his arms a bundle of rushes tied hereand there with linen strips. It did not look much like a man, but again Scaurus had no intention of criticizing. If it satisfied Lucilius, that was good enough.
    “What will you do with it, sir?” the trooper asked. “Throw it into the water the way the priests in Rome fling the puppets off the Sublician Bridge into the Tiber?”
    Marcus rubbed his chin, thinking briefly. He shook his head. “In view