A Dowry for the Sultan

by Lance Collins

  Mulling over these events in his tent, Derar watched the drizzle form lazily into droplets on the edge of the tent roof. There had been heavy showers at the start, but these had eased into the kind of light rain that is deceptively soaking. Often, as now, it came with a chill breeze.

  At this introspective moment, Derar heard the cheerful voice of Emren Dirse. “Hey, desert dweller, how do you like the rain?” A pair of muddy riding boots appeared, then Emren, rain beaded on his felt cap and cloak of black wool, stooped and entered their cramped tent and lounged on a packsaddle. His sister, Burla, followed him, flashing a white smile at Farisa and Derar.

  “Rain’s fine,” Derar rejoined, taken by surprise. “We have it in the desert as well, y’know. And snow occasionally. But not in such prodigious or untimely quantities.” He had hitherto paid little attention to Burla, but felt a rising interest as she placed her weapons and mail shirt down and sat at ease in her riding clothes.

  “Bah!” Emren said. “You can keep your fly-blown desert. I’ve served in Baghdad and around that area, stinking hot much of the time, dry, dusty and then bitterly cold with poor grazing. Keep it! We don’t like it. Give us higher ground where the air is cool and the grass plentiful.”

  “So I see,” returned Derar sardonically, recalling the Sultan’s passion for Baghdad. Emren Dirse had just made clear to him part of the reason for the pressure the nomads were now exerting on the wounded Armenian nation and tottering Byzantine state. The high, cool Anatolian-Armenian plateau was much more to the instinctive liking of the Turkic tribes than the deserts where their Sultan would lead them. Thus some drifted of their own accord, to the lands of the Rum68—the sharp edge of their migration now backed by Tughrul’s present invasion.

  “Emren, why all this conquest?’ he asked.

  The emir pursed his lips and looked at the ground between his boots for a time. “To my mind it is because we were—are—ever more numerous and warlike, powerful enough to prey upon and subdue those around us, especially the sedentary peoples of the cities and towns of the fertile lands. All seems ours for the taking, especially as our people achieved clan identities under chieftains like Saljak, his sons—Isra’il and Mikh’ail. The last named died early in battle, leaving his sons as leaders of our branch of the Seljuks, Chagri Bey and Tughrul Bey. After being crowned Sultan, Tughrul appointed Chagri governor in the east, where he still rules keeping Kurasan under heel and the Ghaznavids at bay. Tughrul himself holds suzerainty over the western half of the Seljuk domains. The Sultan is touched by religious purpose as you know.”

  Emren paused, accepting wine from Farisa. “That is my view. Others have different opinions: pointing to the pitiless hardship of life on the steppes, our forefathers’ persecution at the hands of more powerful Oghuz peoples and our conversion to Islam—some hundred years ago. That brought us into contact with the settled peoples who turned against us. As Mahmud the Ghaznavid did, one of his courtiers advising our extermination, or at the least cutting off all our thumbs so we could not draw the bow. Mahmud, a civilised ruler by all accounts, did not, of course, but tried to drive us from his lands. He was unable to do this, but the Seljuks were respectful of his prowess and avoided battle with him. He died, however, and it was his son, Mas’ud, we defeated at Dandanqan, thus setting us onto the path of empire. This view casts the Seljuks as a persecuted, wandering people in search of a homeland, carrying with them God’s mission to protect the true believers from heretics and unbelievers.”

  Burla Dirse warmed to this discussion and spoke with confidence and insight on the religious pronouncements of the Sultan’s vizier. She outlined the form of Tughrul Bey’s intended secular authority over the Abbasid Caliphate, and how religious leadership would remain with the incumbent al-Ka’im. Derar had a newfound respect and liking for the woman. Before this, he had not really noticed her black hair, animated smile and laughing brown eyes. Seljuk men, Derar reflected as he listened, were fierce while their women seemed softer. Burla Dirse, captivating in this rough company, would have been breathtaking in a palace.

  With the hospitality of desert and camp, Derar invited the visitors to dine with them: a sparse repast of noodle soup, flat bread and lamb, grilled over a small fire of dried dung and far-collected and carefully hoarded twigs. Without asking him, Farisa produced more of Derar’s treasured wine and the five of them enjoyed a relaxed meal. Conversation ranged across different subjects, though some force kept them from discussing the campaign or its battles.

  The sunset, splendid as it broke through the clouds, caused them to fall silent and watch. After dark, Zaibullah enticed Farisa and Burla Dirse to accompany him to the shops, near the lines of the ghulams where off-duty troops drifted to be entertained, or seek the companionship of other restless souls. It was a place of crowded, lively laneways, shops selling all manner of goods, touts, musicians and singers, dancers and storytellers.

  After they left, and not discouraged by Derar, Emren Dirse allowed the conversation to drift to the thing that was always on their mind: the siege. “Something’s up,” he began. “Tughrul Bey and his vizier have been in close council. No one can get near, except I saw the emirs, Dinar and Alkan, come from the pavilion.” Emren was silent for a moment, as if thinking back to the scene. “Dinar seemed pleased with himself, not at all like he had just been chastised.”

  “It is clear when someone has been chastised by the Sultan,” Derar probed. He recalled Dinar had led the raid to the southwest, beyond Baghesh and Mush and wondered at his inclusion in the current secrecy.

  “And hundreds of ghulams, with engineers as well, are making ready to move.”

  “Where? What for?” asked Derar with growing interest.

  “I don’t know, my friend. I don’t know. But there is much suspicion in the camp and speculation about a spy. The Sultan and his vizier trust none.”

  Derar gazed out into the gathering darkness, watching the troops in their tents around their tiny, flickering fires. Aware that Emren was looking intently at him, he listened to the rain dripping from the black tent into the little puddle beside it and breathed in the mud—animal—man smell of the encampment. Derar remained silent.

  The emir followed the direction of Derar’s apparent interest in the glistening wet gloom. “On the first suitable night,” he said, “tomorrow night, God willing, I’m ordered to attack the fortress. It would be well if you came. It would demonstrate,” he paused, “your fidelity to …”

  “It is a serious attack?”

  Emren returned the Arab’s steady stare. Even in the poor light of Derar’s tiny lamp, there was a haunted look in the Seljuk’s eyes. “No.” There was a long pause while the two men considered his answer. “For the Sultan and the vizier, it is a diversion,” Emren continued, “to wear down the unbelievers while their other plans unfold. But I must make my people think it is a serious attack or they’ll be loath to undertake it. And if I can get over their walls, I will.”

  “I should be honoured to accompany you,” Derar replied as though he meant it. “No man in this camp is more eager than I to see those inside that place get their just reward.” He had no clear plan of what he would do if they did break through the defences, other than head for the citadel where he reasoned the dungeons would be. “If we break in, Emren, I want the Roman count, Bryennius, alive.”

  “Of course! He has your nephew.”

  Early the next day, Emren Dirse, Derar and the engineer, Abramas, rode a circuit of the fortress. Derar had not seen much of the southern and eastern walls and was intrigued by the forbidding bulk of the citadel on the eastern defences, and the lagoon at the south-east corner, capable of flooding the ditch along the southern wall.

  Emren Dirse had been ordered by the Sultan to attack the north wall, with the aim of shifting the defenders’ attention from the west. The three paused for a long time on the low spur to the north of the fortress where Emren Dirse and Abramas discussed the
attack. The engineer noted the dry ditch and calculated the length the assault ladders would need to be.

  Derar in his damp cloak sat silently on Zanab, as the planners conversed. He followed their conversation and made his own observations. He knew the assault force could move easily on foot after dark from the main camp and form up behind the spur line where they now rode. A crescent moon, the symbol of the Seljuks, should provide just enough light to see by, if the cloud cover was not too heavy. The troops could line up in assault formation here and wait silently on the crest while Emren Dirse gave the leaders their bearing by the stars, or on the dim outline of the fortress itself, together with the last orders for the attack. A key consideration was whether the weather would clear, allowing the use of bows.

  “Your thoughts?” Emren Dirse asked his friend.

  “I would beware lest the unbelievers breach that dam and flood the ditch during the attack,” Derar answered.

  The others looked at the defences, saw the truth of his observation and were silent for a moment. Abramas said, “A good point. But they would have done so during previous attacks—and the Sultan has ordered us.”

  Derar waved a hand in acquiescence. They asked, he answered: it was as God willed.

  Late the following afternoon, a red sunset broke the clouds, the drizzle cleared and a cold wind mourned through the Arsanias Valley. Derar, in silence, ate little of his evening meal. At the fourth call, he prayed earnestly, then stood outside their tent and with Zaibullah nearby, started to shrug on his mail shirt and gird his weapons. He carried a marked arrow, a note tightly wound around its shaft. He would be shooting into the wrong part of the fortress and there was little to report: simply that the Sultan had some new plan which was a closely guarded secret. He had heard a word, baban, but could give it no meaning or context. Lest a clue find its way back to the Sultan, he did not belabour the point that he was no longer part of the shepherd king’s inner circle.

  “You stay, Zaibullah. Tonight’s fight is not yours,” he said, joining the files from the tents of Emren Dirse, walking silently into the night.

  Two thousand men moved north below the lava bank and followed the guides eastward up the low spur line. There they halted in the dim blue starlight and faced to their right, south, towards the fortress. The wind had dropped and every time a reckless scabbard clinked against a rock, or a boot dislodged a pebble on the stony rise, Derar thought the sound deafening, as if the world would awaken. They waited.

  Emren Dirse emerged from the night and gave his final orders. “The wall is defended by the Vrangs,” he said. “We’ll move forward silently, until they start shooting. When that happens, the two mangonels will discharge fire-pots at the towers. Dumrul’s spies tell us there is a sally-port in that main tower behind, with another in the fore-wall turret that we will attack. They are cunningly built and hard to see, but are there.”

  He paused while the information sank in, then turned to his brother. “Beyruh, as soon as the firepots hit, you must get your assault ladders up and capture the towers, and if possible the sally-ports. The Daylamis are holding the line of wickerwork mantelets protecting the siege engines in front of us. There is a party of fire-troops waiting to go with you. When we take and hold the two towers, the infidels will find it hard to dislodge us. The Sultan will bring up the rest of the army to exploit the breach. “Tomorrow,” said Emren, attempting to show confidence before the forlorn hope, “we take our pleasure in Manzikert.”

  Derar heard the false confidence of the emir and saw the solemn figures kneeling in the dim blue light around him. They rose as one and dispersed silently to their followers. After an interval, the assault lines started forward raggedly in response to whispered commands.

  The attack moved down the gentle, muddy, basalt-strewn slope. In the gloom, Derar could make out the party struggling with the battering ram, a simple tree trunk, the head of which was reinforced with iron ploughshares. They made for the fore-wall tower on which the brunt of the assault would fall. When it became wetter under foot with the mud sucking at their boots, Derar knew they had crossed the lower ground that separated the fortress from the rise. In his imagination, he could even now see the battlements. As they groped their way forward, shadowy figures loomed against the outlines of engines, black against the sky. Derar found himself among the unfamiliar accents of the Daylami infantry, where there was whispered confusion and delay as the assault passed through the earthworks and linked up with the fire troops supporting them.

  Derar thought they were now well within archery range: his fears were realised when a man fell with a clatter of arms. There was a warning shout on the battlement and answering cries followed by the clamour of many men taking post on the walls. Arrows and catapulted rocks started to fall amongst the assaulting Seljuks. Behind him, Derar heard the double crack of the two mangonels being released as fire arrows were lit around him. The clay pots broke on the tower, flaming arrows readily igniting the splattered, dripping naphtha.

  They ran with the ladder-parties towards the blazing tower, the men cheering and shouting now the attack had been discovered. Jogging forward with the others, Derar half slid, half fell down the counterscarp into the blackness of the ditch. He was surprised at its depth and stumbled over several bodies before reaching the other side. Groping figures in the dark assisted him up the scarp where he squeezed, encumbered by his belt and weapons, between two of the unmanned scarp breastwork merlons, to move forward across the open ground to the fore-wall. Gasping for breath, he was surprised at how high the fore-wall now appeared. Seljuks, struggling to deploy the battering ram and scaling ladders, were crammed on the narrow front between the ditch and fore-wall. Someone had misjudged the length needed for the ladders, which were now so long they reached past the tops of the merlons, to be easily pushed away by the defenders. An emir knelt over one, hacking with his war-axe to shorten it. All was shouting and confusion.

  They made no impact on the walls.

  Stones from above smashed the ladders and the men on them as darts and arrows plunged into the struggling mass below. From behind his shield, Derar could see Varangian reinforcements enter the threatened tower and extinguish the flames. In a far-away fashion, he heard their strange cries and oaths as they bellowed orders to each other and jeered the thwarted Seljuks below.

  Drawing the message arrow from his quiver, Derar fitted it to his bow. With a cry, a Seljuk fell against him. Angrily, his aim almost spoiled and the incriminating arrow lost in the dark, he pushed the man away and was suddenly remorseful when he saw him slump dying. A stream of Greek Fire sheeted from a tower and for long moments illuminated in macabre clarity the press of assaulting warriors. The burst of orange light brought with it a renewed hail of missiles and stones from above, accompanied by screams of pain and horror, as a hissing hot stench of thrown quicklime mixed with scalding water emptied from half a dozen cauldrons.

  The anguished, furious face of Emren Dirse appeared. He was shouting to the kneeling emir to get the ladder ready. In the press, Derar saw Burla tell Emren to get men shooting with their bows at the Varangians above. Hair wild under her helmet, she moved on, hitting and punching men, forcing them to lift their gaze from the chaos around them and start engaging the bearded shadows peering from the dark crenelles above.

  Once more the Seljuks, with arms fully extended over their heads, forced a ladder up against the tower. Beyruh Dirse was first on the ladder. The handsome young man, with his flowing hair and brave moustaches, covering himself with his shield, clambered up followed by others. Varangians moved to meet the threat. Some carried flaming brands and by their flickering light, Derar made out the fight at the merlons.

  Beyruh Dirse, shield strapped to his arm, was holding the ladder with one hand. A big Varangian wielding a battle-axe single handedly, held a merlon with the other as he leaned far out from the battlements. Blow for blow they struck. The duellists seemed as warring gods, illumin
ated by the torchlight against the background of stone and rolling clouds of smoke. Derar was aware of a strange hush around him as others saw it also. Then the Varangian’s axe smashed through one side of the ladder, causing it to skew crazily. Beyruh dropped his sword as he struggled to maintain his grip. With a triumphant shout, the blonde Viking raised the axe and smashed it down full force into the shoulder of Beyruh Dirse, who collapsed with a cry to the foot of the wall. An angry skiff of arrows caught the Viking before he could get back behind the stones and he too fell, clutching a shaft that had entered his mouth and protruded from the back of his neck.

  With an anguished shout, Emren pushed through the crowd to where his brother lay and knelt by him, oblivious to the danger from above. Beyruh Dirse was dead. Emren Dirse rose with a terrible, wild-eyed look and screamed. As if possessed, he struck madly with his mace at the blood, oil and excrement smeared fortifications, as though to smash them asunder in his terrible passion. The stones of Manzikert were unmoved and he slumped exhausted at their base.

  Seeing this and knowing the attack to have failed, Derar shouted for a withdrawal and dragged his friend towards the ditch, into which many tribesmen had fled seeking refuge from the deluge of arrows and bolts.