Free Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 by Harry Turtledove

Celt’s wits went up a couple of notches.
    The road to Videssos came down by the seaside about a day’s journey north of the capital. Villages and towns, some of respectable size, sat athwart the highway at increasingly frequent intervals. After passing through one large town, Gaius Philippus commented, “If these are the suburbs, what must Videssos be like?”
    The mental picture Marcus carried of the Empire’s capital was of a city like, but inferior to, Rome. In the afternoon of the eighth day out from Imbros, he was able to compare his vision with the reality, and it was the former which paled in the comparison.
    Videssos owned a magnificent site. It occupied a triangle of land jutting out into a strait Tzimiskes called the Cattle-Crossing. The name was scarcely a misnomer, either—the opposite shore was barely a mile away, its suburbs plain to the eye despite sea-haze. The closest of those suburbs, the tribune had learned, was simply called “Across.”
    But with Videssos at which to marvel, the strait’s far shore was lucky to get a glance. Surrounded on two sides by water, the capital’s third, landward, boundary was warded by fortifications more nearly invulnerable than any Marcus had imagined, let alone seen.
    First came a deep ditch, easily fifty feet wide; behind it stood a crenelated breastwork. Overlooking that was the first wall proper, five times the height of a tall man, with square towers strategically sited every fiftyto a hundred yards. A second wall, almost twice as high and built of even larger stones, paralleled this outwork at a distance of about fifty yards. The main wall’s towers—not all of these were square; some were round, or even octagonal—were placed so that fire from them could cover what little ground those of the outwall missed.
    Gaius Philippus stopped dead when he saw those incredible works. “Tell me,” he demanded of Tzimiskes, “has this city ever fallen to a siege?”
    “Never to a foreign foe,” the Videssian replied, “though in our own civil wars it’s been taken twice by treachery.”
    The great walls did not hide as much of the city as had Imbros’ fortifications, for Videssos, coincidentally like Rome, had seven hills. Marcus could see buildings of wood, brick, and stucco like those in the latter town, but also some splendid structures of granite and multicolored marble. Many of those were surrounded by parks and orchards, making their pale stone shine the brighter. Scores of shining gilded domes topped Phos’ temples throughout the city.
    At the harbors, the beamy grainships that fed the capital shared dockspace with rakish galleys and trading vessels from every nation Videssos knew. There and elsewhere in the city, surging tides of people went about their business. Tiny in the distance, to Scaurus they seemed like so many ants, preoccupied with their own affairs and oblivious to the coming of the Romans. It was an intimidating thought. In the midst of such a multitude, how could his handful of men hope to make a difference?
    He must have said that out loud. Quintus Glabrio observed, “The Videssians wouldn’t have taken us on if they didn’t think we mattered.” Grateful for Glabrio’s calm good sense, the tribune nodded.
    Tzimiskes led the Romans past the first two gates that opened into the city. He explained, “An honor guard will escort us into Videssos from the Silver Gate.”
    Marcus had no idea why the Silver Gate was so called. Its immense portals and spiked portcullis were of iron-faced wood; from their scars, they had seen much combat. Over each wall’s entryway hung a triumphant icon of Phos.
    “Straighten up there, you shambling muttonheads!” Gaius Philippusgrowled to the already orderly legionaries. “This is the big city now, and I won’t have them take us for gawking yokels!”
    As Tzimiskes had promised, the guard of honor was waiting, mounted, just inside the main wall. At its head was Nephon Khoumnos, who stepped up smiling to