‘Until I eat something unwholesome,’ said my lord without hesitation. ‘No, my dear, I am very well as I am, lord of three Themes and leader of the best army in Asia. I shall fight for Balliol, and St Michael of Monte Gargano; then our children will be more than Roman nobles; they will be princes by the Grace of God.’
‘Very sensible, my little red fox,’ answered Matilda, beaming. ‘I promised to deliver young Michael’s offer, and you will admit I spoke it fairly, as though I believed in it. But I’m glad you refuse. What I didn’t say was that Michael probably won’t be Emperor much longer. They loathe him in the city, and my friend Bryennius thinks he will soon be overthrown. Things are going very well; there’s no need to change them.’
‘By your leave, my lady,’ I put in firmly, ‘things are going very well at the moment, but the situation changes whether we change it or not. We are sitting on a stinking battlefield, with no plans either for advance or retreat; and we must make up our minds what to do with these captives.’
‘How like you, young Roger,’ said my lady with a frown. ‘You’re always planning for the future. You should be a monk, not a mercenary. While you have a sword and the strength to use it, why make plans? We shall all die on a dungheap and go to Hell after; that’s what happens to mercenaries. Don’t croak while for once we are prosperous.’
I was annoyed. In the old days my lady thought of the future, and encouraged me to do the same; now she was so excited at meeting the lord she loved (and who thought so highly of her that it took six slave-girls to fill her place) that she could not be bothered to plan, and snubbed those who did. I bowed stiffly, and went off to see the captives get their dinner; the cooks usually stole it unless I was present.
Later my lady visited the prisoners’ enclosure. Now she spoke Greek she could not keep away from the society of noble Romans; they are, I agree, more amusing to talk to than even the best-born Frankish warrior, who is usually in a permanent daze from all the heavy blows which have glanced off his helm. She was very friendly with those she liked; she had liked me when I was a penniless young page, and one of the reasons that brought her was to make friends with me again.
‘I am sorry, Messer Roger, that I took you up so shortly,’ she said graciously. ‘We ought to make plans for the future, I know very well; but in this queer country is foresight any good to us? When my lord rode in anger from Caesarea did any of you foresee that in four months he would be lord of three Themes? What can we do? We never know what goes on in the mind of a Roman. The only sure plan is to sit here until we have eaten up the country, and then move on.’
‘Like the Turks, only worse, because they at least move on swiftly.’ I answered bitterly. But it was foolish to remain on bad terms with the wife of my leader. ‘I am only a promoted page, not born to the honour of knighthood. I don’t really know what we ought to be doing. But I think we ought to do something, and I hoped that you, my lady, would have thought of a plan. Do you suppose the Emperor’s offer was genuine?’
We spoke in Greek, because we had just been questioning the captives in that language. Nearby stood a Roman, the Protovestiarius Basil Malases, who was unwounded although he had fought well enough; he was rich and of noble birth, but he had undertaken the nursing of young Andronicus and often came with me on my rounds to see that the poorer prisoners got enough to eat. (Roman officers care little for the hired soldiers, paid by the Emperor, who are put under their command; you must remember that all these people draw wages, even the nobles; and there are no oaths of fealty to make the leaders serve their inferiors.) Basil overheard what we said, and joined in uninvited:
‘I have a plan for you, lady,’ he said very politely. ‘We have all heard that our gallant captor refused rich offers from the tyrant Michael, preferring to guard the three Themes to whom he is bound by mutual loyalty. That was the act of a hero, but it leaves Romania divided. I have a scheme whereby the country will be united under a better Emperor, the gallant Frankopole will be suitably rewarded, and the Turks will be driven back to their plains. May I explain it to the Frankopole in private?’
My lady smiled. ‘Noble sir, you may indeed speak to my lord in private, if you give your word not to escape when you are let out of this cage. But since he is ignorant of your beautiful tongue either I or Messer Roger here must translate for you. Will you give us an outline of your plan here and now?’
Basil addressed my lady, doing his best to ignore me; but I listened all the same, so that later I could check her version with my own recollection.
‘Noble lady, my mother is a Ducaina, and I was brought up as the companion of young Andronicus, who is now so sorely wounded. Michael is a Ducas, but he has turned against his kin, seduced by those bloody Comneni. Our house is oppressed, and my first thought was that the lord Roussel would make a better Emperor. The best soldier is the best ruler. But nowadays the Romans of the city would not submit to a barbarian. However, you have among your captives the head of the house of Ducas, the Emperor’s uncle. He is unwounded, though he did his duty; and in Asia he has many adherents. If he was made Basileus he could appoint the lord Roussel Domestic and Hetairiarch, commander of all the armies of Romania. The Emperor John would rule the city, and the Frankopole would protect the frontiers. Then the Turks would flee, and Romania would flourish.’
‘And you would go home without paying a ransom,’ I said with contempt. I knew the Romans well enough to understand that they would not obey even one of their greatest nobles if he came to power by the strength of barbarian lances.
I despised Malases for plotting to betray his Emperor. He was one of those men with great energy and a quick brain, but no code of conduct at all, who are the curse of the eastern world. I was convinced that his chief object was to get free without paying ransom. It is hard for a Frank to be fair to a warrior who has been captured unwounded, though even honourable Romans see this matter differently; they hold that to fight on when all is lost is equivalent to the mortal sin of suicide, and regard a bloody battle as a misfortune, whichever side wins it; they say that men, who have the gift of reason to show them when they are beaten, lower themselves to the level of lions and leopards if they refuse to acknowledge it. But Malases was altogether too quick to make friends with his foes. A few years later he died suddenly; I imagine someone poisoned him for being too clever.
Yet my lady was attracted by the idea. She had fallen in love with the city, and would support any plan that might get her back there as a friend. She was all for taking the scoundrel to my lord, but I did not value his promise not to escape and stopped it by running to fetch Messer Roussel to the prisoners instead. He sent for others of his advisers, and it ended in an informal council then and there, among a crowd of interested Roman captives.
I cannot complain. My opinion was asked, and I advised against the idea; but everyone else was in favour, and in the end I bowed to the majority. Orders were given to prepare to march westwards, and then someone remembered that John Ducas must play an important part, and it would be as well to hear his views. In the evening he was summoned to another council, held privately in my lord’s tent.
The Caesar had been taken unwounded, like Malases, though with more excuse. He had fought gallantly until pinned under his dead horse, a misfortune which may come to any knight. In captivity his behaviour was honourable; he had offered a ransom, but not a big one, and he resolutely refused the usual promise never again to bear arms against his captors. Even now he would not give his word not to escape during the council, and came to the tent in fetters. His courage made a good impression; with such a soldier to lead us we might really become rulers of all Romania.
But you must bear in mind that even the bravest Romans are also intelligent; they have none of the western feeling that honour and stupidity go together. The Caesar saw that the scheme made him our master, and began to lay down conditions. This was a shock to most of the council, though I had foreseen it from the beginning. (The manner of the council was this: the lady Matilda
and I put into Greek what was said by Messer Roussel, both talking at once and disagreeing over the correct phrase; but we did not interpret the Caesar’s replies, for by now most of our knights could follow a speech in Greek. So the discussion went more quickly than three years ago, when everything had to be said in both tongues.)
The Caesar spoke up, using simple phrases that all might understand: ‘You make me Basileus. I am crowned in the city. I order the Franks to go away. What happens?’
‘Of course we don’t go,’ said Matilda indignantly. ‘You must swear never to dismiss my lord. Or else we make another Emperor.’
‘Then I am not really Emperor at all. Why don’t you fight for the Frankopole, without bringing me into it?’
‘Because Romans will not accept a barbarian ruler,’ I said. ‘You know that. Don’t pretend to be stupid.’
‘Look, Caesar,’ said my lord roughly, shouting at the top of his voice while my lady and I screamed slightly different translations. ‘Look here. I can hang you. Or I can make you Emperor, if you swear what we ask of you. I’ve a damned good mind to let you dangle by your thumbs while you decide. Which shall it be?’
‘Of course I will swear anything you like. I am your captive, and you have just threatened me with death. No theologian in the world would consider binding oaths taken under such duress.’
‘Oh, what’s the use. Never argue with a Roman,’ I said to my lord. ‘Tell the Caesar he is free; put him on a horse and escort him to the bridge. Then ask him if he will join us as an ally and an equal. If he rides away we still have his son. We can put the ransom for young Andronicus so high it ruins the house of Ducas.’
In the end we came to terms with the Caesar. They were his terms, as I had known from the beginning they would be; but his interests were to a certain extent ours, and he graciously consented to exchange his fetters for a crown if we did everything he asked. Only in one matter did we bargain with success. He was very attached to Andronicus. He was convinced that our treatment of the wounded man would kill him; and we didn’t much mind if it did, for we despised the traitor who had turned the check at Manzikert into disaster. When eventually we allowed the invalid to go free his two young sons were delivered as hostages for his ransom. On our westward march our leader was John Ducas, and his grandsons, the heirs of his ancient and noble family, were our prisoners; an odd arrangement, but the politics of Romania are odd.
About the Feast of St James we advanced on the city. It was a pleasant campaign. Optimaton had not yet been ravaged, and the harvest was nearly ripe. With the reinforcements which old Ralph de Mauron had brought, and other stray Franks who rode in, there were now two thousand seven hundred mailed horsemen under the banner of St Michael. To our great delight John Ducas proved to be more than a figurehead whose presence turned banditry into respectable civil war; he was actually popular in the countryside, in fact nearly as popular as he thought he was, a rare quality in politicians; many of the local nobility joined us, until the Caesareans, the Romans who were willing to fight for John against Michael, were three thousand strong. After a pleasant march through a prosperous country-side we reached Chrysopolis, the Golden Town that looks across the Bosphorus to the dome of Holy Wisdom.
Michael had lost all his dominions in Asia; what was not destroyed by the Turks was held by the Caesar; and the unimportant Themes of Europe usually follow the lead of the east. For a week we sat in Chrysopolis, waiting for Michael to take sanctuary, to save his life if he could not save his throne. His army did not cross over to fight us; in fact no one made any effort to drive us away. But we had to move all the same. For the eunuch Nicephoritzes called in some Turks to attack us in the rear; a base treachery to Christendom which we had not expected even from that sinister figure.
We heard on all sides that Nicephoritzes was the real ruler of Romania, while Michael amused himself with the respectable pastimes of theology and literature. His proper name was Nicephorus, but there are fashions in baptismal names, and he shared it with half the prominent men of the Empire, Bryennius and Botaniates and many others; just as most of my contemporaries in the west are called either William or Robert; Nicephoritzes was the contemptuous diminutive by which he was known. His office was that of Legothete of the Dromos, who in theory is nothing more than the clerk in charge of couriers; but that meant that he interviewed the Emperor every morning, and a minister who sees the Emperor every day can easily become more powerful than dignified officials who report in writing. The Romans are accustomed to imperial favourites; at least Nicephoritzes was a trained official, not a cook or a dancer. It was not really his fault that he was unpopular; ever since Manzikert the Treasury had been in desperate straits; he had to raise money by tallaging the inhabitants of the city, who have got it into their heads that they should live scot-free on the tribute of the provinces. They disliked him for that, and of course no proper man likes taking orders from a eunuch, even though the theory of Imperial administration ranks them above husbands and fathers. We expected a rising as soon as the local fishermen saw the standard of Ducas in Chrysopolis.
But Nicephoritzes was clever; he put it about that provincials were trying to impose their will on the sacred capital of the world; once he had aroused their pride the Romans rallied to defend their supremacy. They are not warriors, but they had only to shut their gates; the city is so strongly fortified that it has never fallen to assault. Meanwhile the loyal fleet patrolled the Bosphorus and we dared not embark on the fishing-boats of the Asiatic shore. Once more the city had shown herself more powerful than the provinces.
Chrysopolis is a flourishing place, and we enjoyed our stay. We put the Caesar in the biggest mansion we could find, and his supporters formed a court with the appropriate ritual; the only bother was that he had not been crowned, because Holy Wisdom, the church of coronation, was in Michael’s hands; John refused to have the rite performed in the local church, fearing it would be regarded as an admission that he had abandoned hope of entering the city. There is a lesser ritual for an Emperor-elect, not nearly so impressive. Meanwhile we lived in pleasant luxury, and began to overwork the willing horse in financial matters; until the most faithful retainers of the Caesar realised that even a bad Emperor with a rapacious minister came out cheaper than two claimants to the throne.
Some of us took to Roman life more easily than others. Messer Roussel ate with his fingers in the Frankish mode, and went to bed with the sun as though he were still dependent on dim Italian candles. But my lady was more Roman than the Romans. She discovered that the wife of the Hetairiarch is entitled to a special robe of gorgeous green silk; she wore it always, though it was not designed for ladies who ride a warhorse, astride, at full gallop, as the normal way of getting from the palace to the bath. She had made for her a special blunt eating-prong, since those who are not brought up to use that instrument from childhood are in danger of digging the points into their cheeks. She tried to get the pedagogue of the young Ducas hostages, a eunuch named Leontacius, to teach the alphabet to her own children; my lord stopped that, considering such knowledge degrading to the offspring of noble parents. My lady had her revenge by buying a Roman lady’s-maid, who painted her face in the conventional colours. The effect was startling; I have never seen a Roman lady with such a falcon’s beak of a nose, or such a weather-beaten neck where the paint ended. Even some of our knights began to put white powder on their noses; the bravest Romans do not consider that effeminate; my lord checked it by giving orders that no Frank might adopt Roman ways until he had taught a Roman gentleman to joust. The Romans dread disfigurement, and will not joust for fear of broken noses or swollen ears. Altogether we had a great deal of harmless fun in the mixed Roman and Frankish court at Chrysopolis.
We had assumed that Nicephoritzes also would be short of money. But the partisans of Ducas owned fine palaces in the city. The eunuch held a big auction of rebel property, and sent the money to a band of Turks who were ravaging Anatolikon; their leader was one Artouch, who fought for his
own hand but was not actually in rebellion against the Sultan, and therefore could hire reinforcements from the east. Word reached us that he was marching north on the left bank of the Sangarius, then that he had swerved westward to threaten the rich town of Nicomedia.
We decided, reluctantly, that we must defend Nicomedia. Our weakness was that we were not bandits fighting for spoil; once we had forced John Ducas to call himself Emperor we were compelled to protect his supporters. We had all the cares of a conscientious ruler, and while Michael held the city we lacked the consolation of a key to the Treasury. Our sergeants were very angry when they were ordered to march away, their backs to the great city whose domes they could discern across the water. As we rode out someone set fire to Chrysopolis; it wasn’t me, but I joined in the sack which followed. We left it a smouldering ruin, and naturally a great many Caesareans went home in disgust. The sack was justified by the laws of war, for what we did not take would be Michael’s; but politically it was a mistake.
Basil Malases deserted at this point. He had great influence with the Caesar, for Romans admire a clever man even if he is untrustworthy. His flight depressed the partisans of Ducas, but we Franks were rather encouraged by it; somehow we thought an army which contained a man like that could not expect good fortune in battle.
10. Mount Sophon
Because of the sack of Chrysopolis the Caesar feared to lead us within the walls of Nicomedia. But for the moment we were rich, and there were no complaints when we occupied a camp in the foothills of Mount Sophon, overlooking the town. It was a large fortified bailey, where in the old days the Emperors mustered their men for campaigns in Asia; there were excellent entrenchments, and a plentiful water supply; even the latrines, in a special quarter of the camp, emptied into a stone conduit which carried the filth right away to the bottom of the hill. We commanded the main road to Nicomedia, and could ravage its suburbs and farms; so the burgesses, though they disliked us, sent in plentiful supplies. The weather was very hot, for it was now about the Feast of Transfiguration, and for Franks the open-air life was really more enjoyable than being cooped within the walls of a town.
The Lady for Ransom Page 14