A Dowry for the Sultan

by Lance Collins

  “Whatever you ask.” Branas reflected for some moments. “I wonder if someone knows something we don’t. Perhaps this Bryennius has some answers.”

  “He was to leave Karin with a few hundred Kelt foot and horse31 as well as a handful of citizens. So they will be awhile getting here.”

  “Hundreds more Kelts?” whistled Branas lowly. “We should be grateful, but we haven’t been given the money to pay the disgruntled bunch we already have.”

  “As long as they fight the Seljuks,” Basil said, not commenting on the common concern that many of the Frankish mercenaries were more interested in carving out their own fiefdoms rather than serving a Greek-speaking empire they despised. “I’ve quietly sent the couriers, Yūryak and Martina, back to the castle of Arknik, to cut their path and report back. At least then we can get barracks and billets ready for them.”

  With a warning cough, Curticius appeared with Modestos Kamyates who trailed him with the insolence of one accustomed to being in front. During the exchange of greetings, Basil took stock of the two.

  Curticius, the chief-of-staff of Manzikert, was responsible to Basil for the military administration of the city and district. It was a demanding appointment involving: the arming of troops, repair and provisioning of fortresses, the production of plans of attack and defence and the conveying of clear orders so that all knew what they were supposed to do. Reserved to greyness, Curticius was likable and industrious, but could be moody at times. Ambitious in the normal sense, Curticius possessed no great tactical or strategic flair. Rather he was steady, prone to occasional oversights amongst the press of his duties and the imperfections of a military system now starved of adequate resources. Curticius had a dominant wife, Anna, and two grown children: a son, Damian, who commanded a troop of Armenian horse at Artzké, and their rebellious daughter, Irene. From his vantage point in the citadel, Basil had often in the past seen her ride out to meet the devil-may-care officer, Centarch Theodore Ankhialou. Mindful of the family’s reputation, Basil had not intervened when Curticius had used his position to have the presumptuous officer transferred to Archēsh. Basil knew that neither Curticius nor his wife enjoyed Manzikert and dreamed of an easier life closer to the heart of the Empire. Curticius’ Achilles heel was an over-indulgence in wine. Basil had cautioned him more than once over the habit.

  Basil gauged Kamyates as the newcomer accepted a goblet of wine from Curticius. The courtier, richly attired in long silk robes acquired in the East, spoke court Greek with a lisp he tried to suppress and cultivated an air of learning. Kamyates flourished letters of introduction bearing the Emperor’s seal, and safe conducts from a high official of the Abbasid Caliphate, and Nasr ad-Daulah, the Marwanid ruler of Amida. “I have been away eight months,” he said.

  “You must be keen to return to Constantinople,” replied Basil.

  “Certainly. I will have missed much of importance during my absence.”

  “Then you have chosen a roundabout way to get there.” Branas said from the side. “Surely it would have been quicker to travel straight up the Euphrates to Melitene? And you could have sampled some of Nasr’s three hundred concubines at Amida on the way back!”

  Basil noticed Kamyates flash a momentary glare at Branas and gave his friend a cautioning glance.

  “To administer the Empire, one must know all its rustic, dark corners.” Kamyates made an insult of explanation.

  “Oh, come, come,” interjected Curticius. “Manzikert is not that bad. See! We’ve tasty food and passable wine. Certainly you cannot dine with a view of the Bosphorus meeting the Sea of Marmara, but a snow-topped mountain, healthy crops and grazing stock are no bad thing. After all, agriculture underpins all civilisations. What is a city without food?”

  “What indeed?” Kamyates resumed his charm and nodded to the princeps.

  Basil also smiled socially as he handed Kamyates a plate. It might have passed as relief that the momentary tension had subsided, but inwardly he was pleased. Branas had asked the obvious question in an off-handed manner that had provoked a revealing response. Curticius had smoothed over the tension.

  Something else troubled Basil. Some weeks before, he had sent a scout on a secret mission to Seljuk-dominated Tabriz to ascertain whether the rumours of larger than usual military preparations were true. He had hoped the man would have returned by now, or sent word. The lack of news and concern for the man’s safety gnawed at him. Kamyates had not mentioned it. Basil was not going to ask. “What’s this Sultan like?”

  “A truly amazing man,” Kamyates answered, perhaps too quickly. “He claims to be of Hunnic royal stock, the son of Michael, the son of Seljuk. His early life was one of danger and privation. His father was killed in battle when Tughrul was quite young. He has been wandering nomad, mercenary for the Qarakhanids of Bukhara32, defeated prisoner of the great Mahmud the Ghaznavid and exiled refugee in Khwārezm on the Oxus. But the Seljuks had their revenge on the Ghaznavid’s son by luring his army into a drought stricken region and defeating it at Dandanqan, near Merv.33 It was a pivotal battle of the Muslims, after which the Seljuks became an empire. Tughrul is now in his fifties, very pious and hardy. At the height of his strength and power, I would say.”

  Kamyates warmed to his description, seeming to enjoy his show of knowledge. “Aside from his view that we are unbelievers, he has no particular grudge against we Romans. Tughrul sees himself as saviour of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, and his main aim is its superiority over the Shi’ite Fatimids of Cairo. The Abbasid Caliph, Al-Ka’im, has appointed him a lawful king of much of Persia and bestowed on him the title, Asylum of the Muslims.”

  Basil attempted to measure Kamyates’ reliability as an observer. “Do you know him well?”

  The courtier smiled thinly. “Of course not. He’s surrounded by a cloud of courtiers.”

  “Rather like us, eh!” Branas said, deadpan.

  “Quite,” Kamyates retorted with a sharp look at him.

  “What’s he like as a man?” asked Basil.

  “A contradiction. Religious reformer …” Kamyates paused in thought

  “Not a zealot?” Branas asked seriously.

  The courier ignored the question, “… a man of ambition, jealousies and great forgiveness—as he forgave his foster-brother, Ibrahim Inal, after his revolt three years ago.”

  “How did he become Sultan?” Basil was becoming uneasily aware of how little he knew of this tempestuous new neighbour.

  “It is said that after their victory at Dandanqan, the Seljuks elected a king by drawing lots—arrows marked with the favoured candidate from the tribes and placed in a bundle, from which a child withdrew one.”

  “So we’re about to be done over by child’s play,” Branas appeared as if he was intent on the food.

  “Of course not,” Kamyates snapped. “The Sultan has no intention of invading. He is only concerned with the Muslim world.”

  Basil beamed. “Modestos, it is fascinating. Tell us more of your travels.”

  Manzikert,

  Evening, 13th May 1054

  Modestos Kamyates returned to his apartment after meeting Basil Apocapes and his two key officers. His servant had lit the lamp and arranged the room with his master’s clothes hung on pegs with personal and official papers secured in a trunk. Through his wine-induced weariness Kamyates felt a vague disquiet. It should have been easier at Manzikert. Decorum demanded far more deferential behaviour from Apocapes towards a magistros. Instead, the soldier had been merely polite. Kamyates’ unease sprang from the curiosity they had displayed about his travels and Apocapes’ obvious interest that he was staying at Manzikert rather than the provincial capital at Van. It was subtle, but when he dwelt on it now, it seemed too well informed and their interest too keen. In particular, he wondered if his denials of seeing any evidence of the Sultan’s rumoured siege equipment had been convincing. It was essential that Apocapes was kept
ignorant of the fury about to envelop him.

  Kamyates disrobed and lay on the bed, staring at the stone walls and vaulted ceiling, wondering how he could tolerate the coming weeks and conscious of a growing awareness of just how much he hated those who were not sufficiently deferential to him. His rise through the bureaucracy had led him to expect it. How did it come to this, to Manzikert? He sighed deeply.

  Well born, he had risen quickly through the imperial bureaucracy by identifying rising stars and fawning for their approval and support. Also, he had made it a practice to bully and slight those of lesser rank to get his own way and learn the secrets of others. Talented competitors had been easily sidelined by the simple expedients of faint praise and malicious rumour.

  With a gift for languages he studied first Arabic, then Persian and finally mastered the Seljuk tongue with its Kunic script. His Seljuk tutor had befriended him and then enlisted him in the service of Tughrul Bey. The Seljuks rewarded liberally and all Kamyates had to do in return was to explain their point of view sympathetically at the Emperor’s court, as though philosophically and conscientiously examining all aspects of a problem. Thus he had played a key role in the under-estimation of the Seljuk threat, pruning of the native Byzantine and Armenian armies as well as making constant calls for troops to be redeployed from the east to the west in order to face the closer Patzinaks.

  Several years ago his tutor had instructed him to seek an appointment with the Roman embassy of George Drosus to the court of Tughrul Bey, to negotiate the ransom of the Georgian pretender, Lipirat. That had been Kamyates’ real entrance to the fascinating east—Tughrul Bey himself, the Kurdish emir of Amida who acted as intermediary, the Seljuk vizier and their spymaster, Bughra Dumrul—all now flitted across his memory.

  For his most recent journey, Kamyates had taken the desert route from Melitene and Amida thence Baghdad, even though he hated horses and loathed camels. His stay in the Abbasid capital had been interesting and agreeable, especially since his hosts had found him pleasing young companions of smooth complexion and submissive demeanour. Kamyates was instructed by his hosts to exceed his imperial orders and travel to the Seljuk capital at Isfahan, for a secret audience with Tughrul Bey’s spymaster.

  The Emir Bughra Dumrul had demanded to know all Kamyates knew of Roman plans and capabilities for the defence of their Armenian provinces. His first attempt at holding back prompted such a stinging rebuke that he had then told them everything. The Seljuks directed him to return to the Roman court by way of Armenia, being careful to deny any warlike preparations he observed on its borders. On return to the Emperor, he was to emphasise the unruly, provocative behaviour of the Roman frontier troops and assure the Emperor that the Sultan’s only intention was to safeguard the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate from the Fatimids. If some Roman frontier fortresses were to fall, that was due to the incompetence and provocations of their garrisons—that they could not defend themselves, even from the migratory tribesmen over whom the Sultan regrettably had no control.

  Kamyates’ servant, trusting innately in the greater goodness and wisdom of high office, tended to his master’s horses and administrative needs, knowing and caring little of his comings and goings. Kamyates wished it that way, so his servant, if ever questioned, would portray the impression of open and trusting ignorance. He could tell any interrogators little and nothing that could not be easily explained.

  Kamyates sighed again. The bed was soft after the hard wooden chairs of Apocapes’ tower. Despite a few days rest in Manzikert, he remained stiff from the weeks of riding and unhealed sores remained on his legs from where his inexpertly chosen saddle had chaffed him.

  There were dangers yet, he reflected. Apocapes was obviously not as stupid as he had thought a provincial soldier might be and Branas had a habit of asking trick questions. There was the complexity of remaining at the fortress on some pretext while the Seljuks subjugated Vaspurakan and Armenia. Nor might a Seljuk victory be as easy as they had foreseen. Kamyates had been tasked by the Seljuks to assist them by bribing a guard to leave a sally-port open, or to convince the Manzikert officers to surrender the town. Within the city, duty officers were never alone, keys stringently controlled, sentries constantly supervised and their watches changed at irregular intervals. Couriers maintained contact with the other major garrisons and Basil himself had just returned from a tour of the defences. Kamyates thought Basil was unlikely to simply surrender Manzikert or the district. There were difficulties ahead.

  Not all was bad news. He had already achieved something. When Basil had mentioned the existence of a massive stone-thrower at Baghesh, left there thirty-two years before by The Bulgarslayer in his war against the Kurds of Her, Kamyates had scoffed at the engine’s age and unimportance. Basil had pressed the desirability of secretly sending a party to burn the machine. That had been Kamyates’ chance to attack Basil. “How dare you? Nasr ad-Daulah is our friend and you would insult him.” Kamyates smiled at his own brilliance, for Apocapes had acquiesced. The strategos would have been a fool to ignore the advice of such an important official. It was a significant moment in the business of establishing his influence over Manzikert and Kamyates savoured it.

  While he already had his instructions, he considered it desirable to open some form of communication with the Sultan’s spymaster. It would enable him to both pass information and know what was happening. After all, he had to remain alert for the unexpected. Already he had recognised Oleg, the beefy commander of Manzikert’s Rus and Viking mercenaries, from the blonde soldier’s days with the Varangians in Constantinople, ten years before. If the Viking had recognised Kamyates, he had betrayed no sign of it, but the bureaucrat was troubled by the thought.

  There was another intangible. Before Kamyates left Constantinople, he had arranged that a confederate, Bardas Cydones, travelling as an imperial courier with despatches for the commanders of Karin and Manzikert, should meet him in Vaspurakan. Cydones would pass on the latest news from Constantinople, but his more important role, when they returned to the Court, was to verify Kamyates’ account of the Seljuk campaign of 1054. So far, Cydones had not arrived.

  Kamyates sighed and rose, going to the window to watch a detachment of Kelts pass by in their distinctive mail and sectioned, riveted helmets. They reminded him that only one man in Manzikert had shown him appropriate respect. That was Reynaldus, a stocky Norman mercenary in his early forties, to whom Kamyates had responded with flattering acknowledgement. He still hoped he could win over John Curticius, the princeps. Curticius had already betrayed an appetite for wine, as had his wife, for her preference for a finer life in the large cities. It would all take time.

  * * *

  24Kurds—an ethnic group in various dynastic emirates bordering Armenia to the east, south-east and south-west.

  25A Kurdish dynasty.

  26Varangian—(often) mounted infantry of Scandanavian origin. See glossary.

  27Nomisma—standard gold coin of Byzantium.

  28Now the Kara Su which has its source near Erzurum (Karin) in Turkey.

  29Now the Aras River which flows eastward, joining the Kura which drains into the Caspaian Sea.

  30Kurdish (sometimes mentioned as Arab) dynasty centred on Amida (now Diyarbakir in Turkey).

  31Collective nouns for infantry and cavalry.

  32A Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia.

  33The ruins of Merv are near Mary in Turkmenistan. See map p. iv.

  Chapter Three

  A Skirmish

  Tabriz,

  Evening, 19th May 1054

  The Arab soldier and poet, Derar al-Adin, sighed and reclined comfortably beside a fountain in the shaded, walled garden of the house of Emren Dirse’s aunt in Tabriz, capital of the Seljuk dominated emirate of the Ravvadid Kurds. The city lay one hundred and twenty miles southeast of the Byzantine frontier�
�two days’ steady ride on fresh horses.

  Derar was undecided about Tabriz. Often it seemed just another featureless provincial city trying to mitigate the heat and dust with shade trees and practical architecture. Damage from the earthquake thirteen years before was still visible, reflecting the lack of will and wealth to undertake the repairs. For the discerning visitor, Tabriz had pleasant if expensive distractions. The bazaar was famous for its carpets and textiles. There were thermal springs in the area which could be enjoyed when out riding or hunting. A sprinkling of Christian Armenians amongst the majority Muslim population added variety to the local culture while the influx of professional soldiers and the Seljuk hordes brought the energy and social abandonment of men about to go to war. The town thrived, with the court of Tughrul Bey dispensing fear and largesse in unequal portions to local rulers, holy men, merchants and troops.

  In his thirty-fifth year, Derar had left his estates near Aleppo months before and ridden to Baghdad accompanied by a Roman slave, Farisa, who reclined reading, on cushions nearby. Derar idly watching her was suddenly aware that she was no longer a scrawny and frightened but rebellious child. He had bought her at Amida six years earlier, after the Taghlibi Arabs had taken so many that beautiful captives came very cheaply. She had become a gifted linguist, speaking Greek, Arabic, Kurdish and some of the Turkic language. Faced with the possibility that their journey would carry them close to Roman lands, Derar extracted her word that she would not attempt to escape, in return for freedom when his quest was over.