‘Surely they will receive us,’ said my lady. ‘We are not used to people like them, but they are used to people like us. There is always a leader of the Emperor’s Franks. There was that Crispin who invited us and got himself poisoned, and before that there was a Messer Hervé.’
‘My lady is right,’ I said. ‘The paymaster told me that they will soon appoint you Frankopole, commander of the Franks. It is an official post, carrying the rank of Vestiarius, if you should want to see the Emperor wear his crown in state. There is rather a large fee to the clerk who draws the patent, but a Vestiarius receives a salary, which pays for it in a few years. You should accept, my lord.’
‘Of course you should,’ added my lady. ‘As Frankopole and Vestiarius you will have a place in the official table of precedence; that may not interest you, but I should like it. In the end they may give us a castle; then we can found a noble house out here, and invite the other Balliols to join us; a much safer way of rising to independence than fighting the Duke of Normandy.’
‘Very well,’ said my lord. ‘Tomorrow the three of us will put on our best clothes and go visiting.’
The Romans have a system whereby acquaintances gather to eat and drink in one another’s houses. These parties are not like our Frankish feasts, given by a great man to his dependents; they are gatherings of equals, and though there is dainty food and rare wine no one settles down to cram his belly in silence, or drinks until he is carried off to bed; the company meet to exchange opinions – usually about theology or literature – topics which fascinate all educated Romans; but sometimes, if their fellow guests can be trusted, they talk politics as well. You indicate that you would like to be invited to these parties by making a round of visits, calling at the front door of a great mansion, sending in your name by the porter, and perhaps entering to salute the owner if he is at leisure to receive you; but you only stay long enough for a cup of wine and a formal salutation. If the host approves the bearing and repute of his visitor, in a few days he will send a written invitation to supper.
As a matter of fact Romans get on worse with Franks than with any other foreigners, because we do not reverence their civilisation wholeheartedly; in some things we are superior, we ride better and our monasteries keep a stricter rule; whereas a Sclavonian or a Patzinac naturally admires everything he sees. And I am afraid we have a bad reputation for being drunk and quarrelsome. But it was known that my lord would soon receive his patent of Vestiarius, and if he was good enough to attend the Emperor he was good enough for any company. No porter rebuffed us, though the only great man who actually invited us to supper was our old commander, Nicephorus Bryennius.
My lord decided to do the thing in style, and hired closed litters. February is a wet and windy month in the city, and Romans do not normally ride in their best clothes; of course in that huge place the distances are too great for walking, and the porter would despise guests who arrived on foot. Some of our knights watched us start, and naturally they passed a few remarks when Messer Roussel climbed into a litter, like a pregnant woman or a gouty Bishop. But my lord answered cheerfully: ‘I would rather be laughed at by my comrades than mocked by the rabble as a nomad barbarian who can’t get unstuck from his horse. That is what they would call after me if I rode to a party.’
We were dressed very magnificently, for our pay continued all the winter and we had more money than we could spend. Matilda wore the trailing silk gown of a Roman lady, the heavy embroidered kerchief, and a silver coronet set with imitation pearls on top. Since she could not look beautiful, she said, she would at least look dignified. In fact she looked rather odd; her fierce nose emerging from the silk kerchief made her resemble a warrior disguised as a nun. But our hosts took it for granted that all female barbarians looked odd, and they were pleased that a foreigner should try to copy their costume.
I wore a tunic and close-fitting chausses of fine scarlet cloth; my lady lent me her gold Patzinak belt to carry the dagger and towel that marked my office of cupbearer, and one of the women of our band had set my hair in curls with a hot iron. I looked very dashing, but not in the least like a Roman.
My lord had intended to wear complete Roman dress, but he balked at the last minute. His embroidered robe came down to his feet, on which were boots of soft green leather; but when he tried on the towering Roman head-dress, a foot high and nearly as broad at the top, he found that in such an outfit he could not bend his head to eat; instead he wore a little cap of red cloth, with a ruby dangling on his brow. This marked him as a foreigner, among those stately Romans whose tall gauze mitres swayed and bent like flowers in the wind; but short-haired Franks look ridiculous in Roman mitres, which need flowing locks to carry them off; and of course no Frank who wears a hauberk can grow his hair long.
The lord Nicephorus had assembled about a dozen guests to meet us, chiefly senior officers and their elderly wives. There were no pretty girls, which was in one way a pity; but it made things easier for me as interpreter, since it is a great nuisance if something you say to a young lady, out of politeness, is taken as undue familiarity. No one could imagine my lord was being too gallant to these matrons.
Ladies and gentlemen sat alternately at the supper table, and I took position behind my lord, as a cupbearer should. But apparently it was not correct to bring a cupbearer to a friendly informal supper. The lord Nicephorus told me with a smile that I must consider myself a real linguist; he ordered his servants to fetch another chair, and I sat at the foot of the table.
An elderly veteran who had served the Catapan had been found to sit next to my lady; he spoke a little Italian, and they made laborious conversations about the weather and the public buildings of the city. My lord was not so lucky; his two old ladies talked across him, chiefly about hairdressers and popular preachers, while he ate in silence. But Messer Roussel was a man of great self-possession, and he was not abashed by what must have been a trying ordeal. Nobody spoke to me; I was only an upper servant, and my neighbour, who had the lowest place among the invited guests, was naturally more on his dignity than a great man like Bryennius.
I could understand the talk, but it was not very interesting; chiefly about the failings of other officers, and the curious decisions of the clerks who arranged postings and promotions. After a short meal, with very little wine, we moved to another room; my lady’s partner stood at a lectern, reading aloud from a book he had just written concerning the Italian campaigns of the famous Maniakes. Our host went straight to a little table in the corner, and beckoned my lord to join him. Then he called to me: ‘Young man, there is no formality in my library. Bring a stool and sit by the noble Frankopole. We won’t listen to the wars of Maniakes. He fought against the Franks, which makes it an awkward subject. I want you to tell your master in Italian exactly what I say in Greek. That isn’t easy, even when you know both languages. So take your time and make sure you get it right.’
‘Now, sir,’ he began, ‘I command the bands of Europe in our great campaign to the eastward, and I want to know all about your Franks. Are they skilled in siegecraft?’ and so on, a technical discussion which I will not relate in full. I had no difficulty with the translation; the two leaders were talking seriously on a subject I understood, and that is always easy to render into another tongue; it is when great men make meaningless conversation, full of delicate nuances of friendship, that a linguist needs all his skill.
These Roman officers study the military art very seriously; as juniors they undergo a thorough training in the correct system of tactics for each branch of the service, heavy lancers, light horse, mailed infantry, and skirmishers on foot; there are books on these subjects, and they read them in their spare time, since every Roman gentleman, and many common soldiers, can read and write fluently without making hard work of it. The lord Nicephorus soon grasped the strong and weak points of Frankish knights, and summed up:
‘You can ride down any horsemen in the world, and of course any foot who should dare to stand against you. But tho
se big-boned chargers of yours don’t cover the ground as fast as light ponies, and the weight they bear tires them in a long skirmish. The Emperor must get you into position, with the foe up against some obstacle so they can’t scatter and let you charge empty air; then you will win the battle. You agree, lord Frankopole? Unfortunately the Turks don’t like fighting hand to hand; but now we know what to do we shall manage it.’
My lord nodded when I passed this on. He was getting bored with all this professional discussion; why spoil a good party, he muttered; they could talk it over later on, during the march.
He looked round the room. Most of the ladies were discussing absent friends; the men had gathered round the lecturer, moving little tokens about a map to represent the marches of the Italian campaign (in those days the Romans had not given up hope of reconquering Italy). My lord spoke quietly:
‘That’s enough tactics for a social evening. Now say this gently to the lord Nicephorus, but stop if you see it angers him. Why must the Emperor force a battle against those Turkish plunderers? Is it because his soldiers will rebel unless he gives them victory?’
I translated in a low voice, lest the company should overhear. But Bryennius listened calmly. He rose, took my lord by the arm, and walked out to the paved court that lay in the midst of the great rambling mansion; as they strolled arm in arm I dodged from side to side, translating as hard as I could.
‘You probably know there are two parties in the state,’ Nicephorus began, ‘the Treasury officials who say the army is too expensive, and the nobles who say it is too weak. This division would hamper any Emperor, for if he leads one faction the other will oppose him. But Romanus Diogenes is in a very unfortunate position; he has managed to incur the hostility of both sides at once. He is a soldier, so the taxpayers know he would like to increase the army. But he has not in fact increased it, for the Empress Eudocia, who raised him to the Purple, will not let him. So the soldiers are disappointed.’
‘Then how the devil did he get to the top, the Purple as you call it, if nobody loves him?’ asked my lord.
‘Oh, the Ducates put him there, but they are beginning to change their minds. You see, if the Purple is hereditary we may be ruled by a fool or a weakling; if it isn’t, the generals fight endless civil wars. So when Constantine Ducas died we all promised to obey whoever the Empress-mother chose as her second husband, and she took Romanus. But he is only a stopgap until young Michael comes of age. The Comneni lead the soldiers, the Treasury look to the Ducates. But the head of that faction is not the young co-Emperor, who is deficient in family feeling; the real leaders are the Caesar John Ducas, Michael’s uncle, and his son Andronicus, second in command of the Army of Asia. That is a sign of weakness. Young Andronicus is too junior for such a post. But the Emperor is afraid to leave him behind, and a man of his birth must have an important command, or his family will make trouble.’
‘I thought when we came here,’ said my lord, ‘that it was to serve the Empire of Romania. If I had known we were to follow Romanus Diogenes against the rest of the Romans and the Turks as well, I might have left my family safely in Italy.’
‘Perhaps I paint too dark a picture. I was only answering your question,’ Bryennius replied. ‘When we have won our battle the Emperor will be supreme. Young Michael will experience a vocation for the life of religion, and may go blind if he delays. The Empress Eudocia will also take the veil, unless she dies of a sudden pain in the stomach. And you and I, my lord Frankopole, will be the trusted advisers of a mighty ruler.’
‘All because we win one battle?’
‘Yes, if it is a really famous victory. Romanus should be supreme, since the army is at his disposal. He isn’t, because his men would not follow him against Comnenus or Ducas. But they would stab their own mothers if those were the orders of a soldier-Emperor who had cleansed the eastern Themes of those infidel Turks.’
‘That is another point. Suppose when we meet the Turks they beat us?’
‘Don’t worry about that. I didn’t think Franks were so cautious. The Turks are plunderers. There are a lot of them, and they move astonishingly fast. But whenever our bands catch up with them we ride straight through and out the other side. A Turk who lingers within reach of a Roman soldier is a dead Turk. We shall have a very long march before we corner them. But they have begun to make the mistake of garrisoning the cities they capture; that gives us a target to aim at. If they don’t stand, and we chase them to the rim of the world, that will do just as well.’
‘I understand. I am sorry about the long marches. My men are no use unless their horses are fit. There is one other thing. My wife will not ride with us. She wants to settle down and educate the children. But there may be trouble in the city. Would you mind if she passed the summer in your castle of Adrianople?’
‘She would be welcome, but I don’t advise it. No one lives in that castle except my bailiff. Why doesn’t she board in a comfortable convent of nuns, here in the city? No rebel who depends on popular support would violate the enclosure of a convent. In fact we do not usually molest women and children if they take sanctuary. If we did there wouldn’t be a noble family left in Romania, after all these rebellions and civil wars.’
So at last we knew where we stood, in this strange land, among people whose language and customs were unknown to us. The really important discovery, to Franks who regarded the Emperor of Romania as the most powerful monarch in the world, was that there were two great parties, and a number of noble houses, all attempting to seize the Purple by force. That night our orders arrived; we were to cross the Bosphorus on the Monday after Septuagesima. But before we set out there were serious discussions in our barracks by the Golden Horn.
It was gradually borne in upon me that the real leader of the Band of St Michael, as we called our company, was Matilda de Balliol. Messer Roussel was a very gallant knight; but he did not plan for the future, though he had a vague wish to end his life as ruler of a great fief, whether in Spain or Romania or the land of the Franks. My lady had made up her mind: she had been reared in Italy, the borderland between east and west, and after seeing both systems at work she was convinced that our Frankish way of life was better than anything the east could offer; we had only to show it to the peasants and burgesses of Romania, and they would be our faithful vassals.
‘These people pay enormous taxes, and see their fellows condemned by judges appointed from the city; instead of fighting for the land they plough, and sitting on juries of equal peers,’ she said to my lord one night. ‘Let them see how they ought to live, and they will fight for you even against the Emperor whom they blasphemously call the Equal of the Apostles. It’s a pity you told Bryennius we are not skilled in siegecraft; you stormed my father’s town, or I should not be here. But if you capture some strong place you must install your own provost and introduce western customs. Then, without actually making war on Romania, you will find yourself lord of a rich town, merely because the burgesses are content with your rule.’
‘My dear,’ Messer Roussel answered gently, ‘you must not preach treason among these knights who have sworn to obey me. You wouldn’t like it if they set up another leader, or went off to found an independent band. For the present I am a mercenary, and a mercenary who will not fight for his paymaster is not worth the forage of his horses. Besides, for many centuries these people have been subject to Romania; they often try to set up another Emperor, but for some reason I don’t understand they all want to remain under the rule of the city.’
‘I’m not saying you should betray your paymaster. Nothing lasting comes of that. But when the Emperor has won his battle the infidels must retreat, and the boundaries of Christendom will be enlarged. Out there in Armenia they don’t like Romans; I know that. They will need a Christian ruler to protect them, and if you behave tactfully they may choose the house of Balliol. Young Ralph is eight, and it’s time you looked out for a fief he can inherit.’
‘Plenty of time for that. No one left me a fief. My f
ather gave me arms, and food for three days; he said that if by the fourth day I had not won more I deserved to starve.’
‘Ah, my dear Lord,’ she said, with a loving smile which took all sting out of the reproach, ‘you are a Norman pirate, and red-headed too, which makes it worse. I wish I could get you to see that you live more comfortably among your own fields than by laying waste those of your neighbours.’
‘I haven’t done badly so far,’ my lord answered placidly. ‘When I am too old to charge it will be time enough to look for a castle.’
But I knew that in the end he always followed my lady’s advice. After we had fought our great battle, or marched to the eastern rim of the world, the Empire of Romania would have trouble with Messer Roussel de Balliol.
4. The Eastern Rim of the World
The Themes of Europe contains rich towns, richer than any you will see in Italy; but the open country has been many times overrun by raiders. The Themes of western Asia, through which we marched to Imperial headquarters at Caesarea, were the heart of the Empire of Romania, and there was nothing like them anywhere in the world. As you young gentlemen rode south you will have admired the mighty buildings of Provence and Italy. No man of this degenerate age can build in that fashion, and it is all we can do to prop up, with beams and rubble, the carved stones that remain. But in Optimaton and Bucellarion, the inland Themes which were garrisoned by the Emperor’s guard, the great heathen temples, the aqueducts stretching over hill and valley, the steep curtain-walls set with towers which surrounded every town, the paved roads bordered by stone gutters which ran straight as an arrow to some notch on the horizon, even the carved tombs as big as houses where great kings were laid who had died before the Incarnation, all stood as fresh and fair as when they were first designed, in the wicked but prosperous world which obeyed the great Caesar on the Palatine.
The Lady for Ransom Page 6