The Lady for Ransom

by Alfred Duggan

  In short, in the Empire of Romania everything is done by money; not only are the necessities of life always for sale in every town, but all obligations may be discharged by silver. I had stopped asking questions, but the boy was talkative, and kept on giving information until the end of the feast. He said there were thirty-eight Themes in the whole Empire, and some of those in Asia were very much greater than Hellas; and every sergeant, in every Theme, was a paid soldier, who remained with his band all the year round. Certain men, therefore, did nothing but drill and fight; and others did nothing but work and pay taxes, never fighting at all, though they were reckoned free. You young gentlemen, who perhaps never handle money from one year’s end to another, must understand that in Romania you may meet respectable men who walk about unarmed and don’t even keep a sword at home, but think themselves as good as you because they pay someone else to do their fighting for them.

  When the party broke up, quite late but with everyone sober and Franks and Romans on very good terms, my lord and my lady made me sit on their bed and tell them what I had found out. As usual, they talked very freely before me. Messer Roussel assured my lady that the proposed campaign was nothing to worry about. The Patzinaks whom we were to fight were light horsemen armed with bows, who never dared to stand against even the Roman sergeants of the Themes. They live north of the Danube, and only invade the Empire as plunderers, never to conquer land and settle it. We would march north in a body as far as the great river; we would give those heathens a good fright, and perhaps catch a party who were slowed up by driving raided cattle. But there was no likelihood of a great battle; in any case a horseman can only use a very weak bow, since it must be short enough to clear his horse’s withers when he draws it in the saddle; arrows from such bows would not penetrate Frankish mail.

  ‘That is what you were told,’ answered my lady. ‘But if it is the whole truth, and these heathen raiders are contemptible foes, why has the Emperor hired us at such an expensive rate? Perhaps after you have grown accustomed to taking his orders he will send you to reinforce the Catapan. Then in spite of your precautions you will find yourself making war on Roger fitzTancred, unless you are recreant to your oath.’

  ‘A sound point, my dear. It occurred to me also, but the Chartularius answered my suspicion before I could mention it. This campaign is a preliminary, to get us accustomed to working with Roman troops, and to scare the Patzinaks so that next year they will leave the northern frontier in peace. The Emperor is now on the border of infidel Syria; the eastern provinces are much richer and more important than the European Themes, and the Asiatic army is said to be stronger than the western. But they are bothered with a new foe, horse-archers like the Patzinaks but apparently braver and more numerous. These Turks are descended from certain devils who long ago were shut away behind a wall by a famous knight of those days called Alexander. A few years ago they found a way round their wall, and began to ravage eastern Romania. Next year the Emperor plans to march east, restore the plundered cities of Armenia, and deliver battle against the King of the Turks wherever he may catch up with him, if he has to chase him to the rim of the world. He will take us with him. So far everything is quite straightforward. But then the linguist became confidential, and rather hard to follow. He was obviously passing on a hint, but I am still not sure what it was about. Apparently, there is a Frankish band in the Army of Asia; it was led by that Crispin who dictated the letter I received in Italy. Who that is I don’t know. The linguist could not tell me the name of his father or of the fief where he was born. It seems that the band of this Crispin made a nuisance of themselves by plundering a friendly countryside, and the Emperor thought of dismissing them. But Messer Crispin died suddenly, and now his men behave better. The Strategus was insistent that the linguist should tell me all about the unknown Crispin before he went on to say that next year, when we campaign in Asia, his men will be added to our band. Do they imagine he was some disreputable relative of the Balliols, that I should be interested in his death?’

  ‘Perhaps they imagined all western knights are cousins,’ I said, joining in the discussion as my lord always permitted.

  ‘No, Roger,’ said my lady with decision, ‘this was not social gossip about births, marriages and deaths. These Romans never talk idly. If what they say seems pointless you must just think it over until you understand why they raised the subject. They told you the Emperor was annoyed because these troops ravaged the territory they were supposed to protect. That may be a warning that you must behave better, but surely you could have guessed it without being told. What else? Messer Crispin was not killed in battle, or by a riding accident; the normal ways in which death comes to a knight. He had a sudden disease of the stomach, and I suppose acute pain as well? Just so. And this happened immediately after he had vexed the Emperor by disregarding his orders. The man was poisoned by his own employers, because they dared not arrest him in the midst of his band. The story was told to remind you that even when you are at the head of the strongest force in the army they have means to keep you in order. Now you understand do you think it would be wiser to resign, and go back to Italy, where there is nothing but steel to fear?’

  ‘Has no one ever been poisoned in Italy?’ said my lord with a laugh. ‘I agree with your interpretation, my dear, but the warning was hardly necessary. I shall earn my pay by fighting for the Emperor. Or circumstances may arise in which I fight against him. But whoever I fight for I shall not plunder the subjects of my paymaster. A mercenary who cannot be trusted to do his best is not worth hiring. So long as they supply me with these splendid golden coins I shall be loyal to Romania, and in my old age I hope to return home and build a really strong castle, that the Balliols may defy the Duke of Normandy and found an independent fief.’

  My lord meant what he said. He had a reputation for fidelity. If Romanus Diogenes had enjoyed a long and prosperous reign we would have died in Normandy wealthy and respected, when we were too old for war. But then our story would be hardly worth telling.

  ‘Anyway,’ said my lady, ‘that was a very enjoyable party. Tomorrow I shall start practising with one of those eating-prongs. Of course in the end we shall found a fief of our own; it would be disgraceful to die landless. But meanwhile I like sitting among those clean, smiling young men. Perhaps one day I shall learn enough of their language to talk gracefully at table as they do.’

  In a few days we marched north, with the bands of the Theme and a body of Sclavonian mercenaries, miserable savages who use no mail and fight on foot with javelins; but in that country they were useful because they could skip over the mountains by ways where no one could take a horse. They cooked their own very queer meals apart, and we had few dealings with them. But we saw a lot of the regular sergeants of the Theme, since when we camped our horses were picketed with theirs, to economise guards. We had left behind us the Italian sailors of Thessalonica, and there was no Roman in the army, except the few official linguists, who spoke any tongue our men could understand. I was kept busy composing the numerous quarrels that arise when men feel they are doing more than their fair share of stable fatigues, and seeing that our horses were not neglected when forage was short. I got to know the junior officers of the Roman cavalry, who posted the guards and allotted the camping grounds; in fact I ate with them, because if I lay down by our cooking-fires I had to get up ten times in an hour to answer the familiar cry: ‘Where’s young Roger fitzOdo? This bloody Roman wants me to do something, but I can’t make out whether that tool is for cutting grass or burying the dead.’

  I could never make up my mind whether the sergeants of the Roman army were extremely well looked after, or savagely oppressed. The officers see they get their full rations, don’t steal their pay, and send them to visit the physician if they appear to be suffering from disease; there is even a body of noncombatants attached to the train, who carry bandages and a flask of strong wine; their sole duty is to take wounded men, on their led horses, to the nearest surgeon; for this they rec
eive a regular wage, sufficient to keep them without doing any other kind of work. The life of a trained horseman of the Themes is considered extremely valuable.

  But in return he must put up with endless nagging. His safety depends on the good condition of his weapons, and that should be enough to induce him to keep them properly; but he is constantly inspected by someone in authority, who does not care whether his sword has a sharp edge so long as the blade shines. He must go to bed when the trumpets sound, and get up, leaving his bedding neatly rolled, at a very early hour; he must ask permission before leaving his quarters; and if he gets drunk, even off duty, he can be punished. This routine continues even if there is not a foe within a hundred miles.

  So Roman sergeants get into the habit of obeying orders, and can be trusted to stay in their ranks, advancing and retiring as the trumpet signals or the officer commands. But though they never do less than their duty they never do anything more. A hostile champion may ride down the line shouting insults, and no Roman will offer to take him on; if the officers are killed the men retire, in good order, towards the nearest wine-casks; they have a custom of feigning sickness to dodge a ceremonial parade, and if some of the faint-hearted try the same game on the morning of a battle their comrades think none the worse of them. The regulations of the Emperor have made fighting a task, instead of the thrilling pastime it should be; as a task it is performed reluctantly, and a wise man stops when he has done his stint.

  But I discovered that there was more in common between their system and ours than at first appeared; since land is the only thing really worth fighting for, any realm, even one that uses money as does the Empire of Romania, must in the long run allow the most fertile fields to come into the hands of the best warriors. Many troopers came from small farms which their fathers or brothers held free of tax, on condition one member of the family served continuously in the army. The soldiers drew pay as well, like every other soldier in the ranks, but if he deserted the land would be forfeit; there was no nonsense about going home after a fixed period of knight service.

  The senior officers also drew pay, though they came from families of landowning gentry; but their estates were managed by hired bailiffs, since Romans do not care for country life. The clerks in charge of supplies were very lavish about feeding noncombatants; it was the settled policy of the Emperor to keep his soldiers fit for battle by allowing them numerous servants; certainly it is a great help to a mounted force, for a man who must feed and clean his own horse after the march can very seldom enjoy even an hour’s leisure. Our three hundred warriors drew rations for a thousand mouths, which meant that every fighting man had a woman and a groom. There was no pinching over this, though the paymaster was strict that only genuine warriors should get those handsome gold pieces. The Emperor of Romania was in those days a very generous employer.

  The chief paymaster was not only a civilian and a clerk; he was a eunuch. We do not see this queer class in the west, though I need not explain their characteristics to young knights who are always telling smutty stories about the home life of the infidel. The only one I had met hitherto was at the storming of an infidel castle in Sicily. On that occasion a very fat and foolish-looking eunuch attempted to save his elderly mistress from insult; one of our grooms, revolted by his gross appearance, kicked him on the backside; he showed such abject fright that I gave him another kick to make him squeal louder, then my companions joined in, and in ten minutes the wretch was dead under our feet. I have always been ashamed of that unnecessary murder; for even eunuchs are God’s children, though they have not been left as God made them. I was prepared to be civil to Basil the Protonotary, who must always be wincing under insulting reminders of the wrong that had been done to him.

  Christian charity sometimes appears to be wasted, though that is no reason why you should not display it for the good of your own souls. Our paymaster was quite satisfied with his estate, and the Romans held him in honour. They told me that when we visited the City I would see numbers of well-dressed eunuchs; if I met one in the street I would be wise to stand aside and salute him, for probably he would have power to imprison friendless foreigners. Furthermore, they said our paymaster had not been mutilated by a slave-dealer. His own father, a poor cadet of the noble house of Ducas, had hired a fashionable surgeon to alter his son’s constitution, that he might be the more fitted for a high position in the civil service. It was thought right that senior officials of the Treasury, and even, disgusting though this seems to us, Bishops and other dignitaries of God’s Church, should have minds undistracted by the lusts of the flesh. Also they would have no families to support, and therefore would be the less tempted to seek bribes. (Here the Romans are wrong; eunuchs are notoriously avaricious.) The officers also described another class of these half-men; of very high birth and considerable fortune they dwell in fine houses in the great city, amusing themselves by writing poetry and painting pictures. It is their high birth which is the cause of their disability, for they are inconvenient and ambitious relatives of the Emperor, or dangerous heirs of a former Imperial house. When I said it seemed harsh to mutilate a man for no crime, just because he was the son of a too noble father, they answered that on the contrary it proved the Imperial government was extremely merciful; in other countries pretenders to the throne suffered death, not a minor amputation which fitted them very well for a career in letters or the arts.

  There is some force in this answer. Although the Romans obey canons drawn up by eunuch bishops, and pay the levies of eunuch tax-gatherers, of course they do not employ eunuchs in the army; and the chief function of the Emperor is to command the army which defends Christendom. The Imperial throne is often vacant and the Romans may find difficulty in choosing a suitable candidate, but so far they have never considered a eunuch.

  These Romans are not in their private lives any more godly and righteous than Franks, though of course there are holy men among them, as among us. But their Emperors take the teachings of religion rather more seriously than do our western princes. They are extremely reluctant to inflict death, either on foes in war or on convicted criminals. The law lays down the death penalty for many crimes, but the actual punishment is nearly always commuted to blinding, with sometimes castration in addition; and on campaign they are all quite genuinely reluctant to fight a bloody battle if they can compel the retreat of the foe by other means. The effusion of blood is regarded as an evil, even though it be hostile blood.

  They were well satisfied with our campaign of 1070. The barbarians fled before our mighty army; the provincials were delivered from raiders, and confirmed in their loyalty; but there was very little slaughter of the heathen. (By heathen I mean savages who worship miscellaneous idols; the followers of Mahound I call infidels.) We marched north-east, and soon linked up with the troops of the neighbouring Theme of Thrace. This is the most important Theme in Europe, and its Strategus should have commanded the whole force; but since our Strategus was head of the great house of Bryennius he was treated as equal commander. Even among the Romans, who lay down on paper all sorts of rules about precedence and seniority, a great noble receives respect and obedience, even though perhaps mere birth without other qualifications is not so highly regarded as in the west. But Nicephorus Bryennius was a good soldier as well as a great magnate.

  Without any serious incident we marched right up to the great river; my lord impressed the Romans by riding down a chief of the Patzinaks who turned to fight when he could not get away; he was not a formidable antagonist, but the Roman troopers hung back when he faced us, and were glad that a Frank took up the challenge. They are brave enough when they have to be, but they fight without the inspiration of glory. Their holy men regard all warriors as bloodthirsty murderers; death in battle, even against the infidel, is considered a regrettable accident, not something for your sons to remember with pride. This chief wore a very rich belt of linked gold plates, wrought in the shape of deer and horses, which Messer Roussel gave to my lady.

  We
did not cross the river, although no hostile army gathered to dispute the passage. The Romans have no desire to conquer heathen barbarians, who must be baptised and taught Greek before they can be of value to the state. In those days they fought tenaciously in the east, to protect their Greek-speaking fellow-Christians; but in Europe they only wished to hold their cities; they would not undertake the difficult business of enslaving their nomad neighbours, whom they would then be compelled to protect from the even fiercer nomads who lived beyond them. We camped by the river, caught a few incautious raiders who tried to slip through our pickets, and in the autumn marched to join the great Army of Asia under the personal command of the Emperor.

  3. The Politics of Romania

  It is a long journey from the Danube to the great city, and we travelled slowly to spare the horses. It was Advent, and there had been flurries of snow, by the time we reached Constantinople. We had seen Thessalonica, and we had some idea of what to expect; but our first sight of that mighty metropolis filled us with awe, and, I must admit, some terror as well. As we marched over a rolling plain I made out, a long way ahead, a level horizontal scar across the landscape; it was so level and so long that it looked like a body of water, and I thought it must be the strait which hereabouts separates Europe from Asia. Then I heard a Roman trooper call to his comrade: ‘There it is, Costa. If we reach the gates before they close you will see your grandmother tonight.’

  ‘Show me the city,’ I called. ‘Is it on that shore?’

  ‘What shore?’ he answered. ‘Those are the walls, the sacred walls of Constantine and Anthemius. They were built to keep out barbarians, but perhaps if you ask humbly the gatekeepers will let you enter.’

  I have noticed that the sight of the great city has a bad effect on the manners of all Romans. They may have been talking to you quite politely, to show they are broadminded and don’t despise fellow-Christians who have the misfortune to be mere Franks; but when they see those mighty walls they at once begin to boast of their invincible fortress, and of the hosts of Arabs, Avars and Russians who were foolish enough to lay siege to it and of course perished by thousands. But perhaps I would be just as proud if my forefathers had built such a superhuman fortification.