The Lady for Ransom

by Alfred Duggan

  One day we learned that the Roman army was only twenty miles away; we closed the gates of the citadel, since we were too few to hold the town. We had no plans, but we thought that if we negotiated from a strong castle we might get passage to Italy. Then five hundred Alans rode up to the barbican across the river. We were puzzled by the absence of the rest of the army and feared they might try a surprise assault from the east. But the Alans by the bridge sent in their linguist waving an olive-branch, and when he had delivered his message we drank most of our stores in celebration. For the savages explained that the Emperor was unable to pay them, though Palaeologus kept strict discipline all the same; accordingly, they had left Roman service; some were riding home, some were pillaging at large, but this particular five hundred wanted to know whether Messer Roussel would take them into pay! Such was the discreditable end of the last army the Romans sent down the great road to the east.

  We could not pay these Alans, and advised them to go home; they are not very useful as mercenaries; they are brave in single combat, and extremely skilful at getting their horses over broken ground; but they are much too excitable, and too fond of quarrelling among themselves, to be reliable in a set battle. We needed more men, but we hoped that by next year we might enlist some of the town militia, though at present they refused to go beyond their walls.

  We talked in terms of next year, for it was now Advent; even the Emperor Michael, though he hated us, would not send another army in the depth of winter. We had found a safe haven, and we did not look further ahead than the spring. No Frank can plan his future in that unpredictable east. It was time for the Christmas feasting.

  My lady and I were again good friends. Matilda made the first overture, muttering something about feeling over-wrought on that dangerous march, and I was glad to meet her half-way. She had regained her spirits as soon as she found a competent maid; but now she was more careful with the face-paint, for Amasia was a town of provincial manners; she might have passed anywhere as a rather horsy Roman matron. Ralph, her eldest son, was in his twelfth year; Messer Roussel jousted with him in the meadow by the river, but my lady taught him most of his riding. This absorbing occupation kept her contented.

  She was still the real leader of the diminished band. Messer Roussel was a good comrade; he hated to see unhappy faces, and even used what influence he had with the merchants to organise relief for the starving refugees; he was the most popular Frank in Amasia. But while there was a good dinner waiting for him he did not make plans. My lady did, and she was always raising the question of what we should do in the spring.

  ‘On her next birthday Joan will be ten,’ I remember her saying as we sat round the fire (there was an arrangement of pipes under the floor of the hall, by which hot air was supposed to circulate from a furnace in the cellar; but it was out of order, and no one knew how to mend it; the floor made a good hearth, though the coloured marble cracked with the heat). ‘It’s time the girl was betrothed. In Armenia there are Christian lords who would be glad to make alliance with the leader of two hundred horse. We should move east. By the way, why is this Theme called Armeniakon, when the inhabitants are not Armenian?’

  ‘Because it was the fief garrisoned by the bands of Armenia, when they were driven west by the first infidels. All the Roman armies moved in that crisis, and the Themes were named from the troops stationed in them. In the same way Thrakesion is not in Thrace but in Asia.’ I was glad to show off my knowledge of Roman institutions; Matilda seldom asked my opinion.

  ‘Oh well, that’s not important,’ she continued. ‘Romans often call things by very odd names. But we must make up our minds whether we stay here, and if not, where we ride next.’

  ‘I still think we should make a deal with the Emperor,’ said Ranulf the Monk, who considered our position much too dangerous. ‘He is so anxious to be rid of us that he might provide shipping. Then we could sack this place as we marched out, not to arrive in Italy penniless.’

  My lord spoke firmly. ‘We can’t pillage our own employers. No one would hire mercenaries with that record.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Matilda, ‘we would never reach the coast. The Turks are too strong. If we don’t stay here, where we are safe for the moment but there is no future for the children, the only way out is by the Christian mountains of Armenia.’

  ‘Some Armenian princes are moving south,’ put in a cheerful young knight who kept an Armenian concubine. ‘They hold a chain of little fortresses in the south-east, which practically link up with the Duchy of Antioch. My girl says Antioch is still Christian, though it pays no tribute to anybody.’

  ‘That is getting too near the homeland of the Saracens,’ said my lord. ‘If we march farther east we shall never see Italy again. But the real trouble is that we don’t know how far the infidels have advanced. Are Sebaste and Caesarea still Roman? Perhaps the Bishop can tell us. Ask him, Roger.’

  The Bishop of Amasia was a Roman of the city, said to have bought his consecration by open simony; a man of evil life, and unpopular with his flock, but well informed about local conditions. He sat apart, on the other side of the fire. It was one of those days of severe fasting which are so frequent in the eastern church; at such times he would visit the citadel, to enjoy a good dinner without giving scandal.

  But he knew nothing of the south-west. Amasia’s nearest link with the sea lay to the north, and there were good roads to Sinope and Trebizond; he could tell us that both ports were blockaded on the landward side by the most savage tribe of Turks, the Men of the Black Sheep. We were isolated in a desert of infidel shepherds, and our only link with Christendom was the great road to the Bosphorus. The Bishop summed up: ‘This town is lost. Presently it will fall to the Turks, unless we first offer tribute to the Saracens, who are also infidel but rather more civilised. If you want to get out you must ride west. But why not stay at least until you have drunk up our good wine? This is the end of the world, the beginning of the reign of anti-Christ. You must be drunk to face it. I have not been sober since I heard of Manzikert.’

  Many Romans took that view.

  ‘In that case we must return to Italy,’ said Matilda. ‘We can’t have our children growing up to pay tribute to infidels. What about making a bargain with the Turks for safe passage on the great road? Didn’t they send an envoy a few days ago? What was that about?’

  I knew, for I had interviewed the Roman renegade who brought the message. ‘Oh, that was a hare-brained scheme which I did not bother to lay before the council,’ I replied. ‘Tutach of the Six Horsetails is bored with this neighbourhood. He would like to move west, but he isn’t strong enough to displace his cousins who live on the blackmail of Ancyra. He proposed an alliance with us! He didn’t realise that such a proposition was an insult to Christian men.’

  ‘All the same, you should have reported it,’ said Matilda severely. ‘We don’t want to quarrel with Tutach. The council pay him tribute and he does us no harm at present. An envoy of his should get a civil answer.’

  ‘Yes, my lady. I sent a polite acknowledgement, and I meant to tell the council, one of these days.’ I had been taking my own line in politics, and now it had been made public it seemed unpopular.

  ‘I kept it dark,’ I plunged on, to justify myself, ‘because our sergeants might be tempted to close with the offer; and that would be more disgraceful than the surrender at Mount Sophon.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ said my lord, at last paying attention. He left discussion in council to Matilda, but any mention of Mount Sophon roused him. ‘Have you suppressed messages, young Roger? A linguist must pass on everything said to him, even if it is insulting. Besides, there may be something in the idea. Supposing we find that next summer we can’t hold this town? Then a temporary arrangement with Tutach would give us a way out to the west. We could take the town council with us, and any other burgesses who were willing to abandon their homes. What do you think, my lord Bishop? Oh, I forget. He doesn’t understand French. Ask his opinion, Roger, and gi
ve the answer faithfully.’

  Bishop Damascenus listened carefully, and I could see he was attracted by the idea. He was not a holy man, and he had only bought his appointment to his provincial See to increase his standing in the city which was his real home; after Manzikert the Patriarch had compelled him to visit his imperilled flock, and for two years he had been stuck in the east while all sorts of vital intrigues were carried on in Holy Wisdom without his participation. ‘You can make a treaty with Tutach without waging war on Christendom, if you go about it carefully,’ he told me earnestly. ‘The Six Horsetails want the tribute of Ancyra, which means forcing Artouch to move on; but they do not propose to attack the towns which still obey Michael. You can march with them as far as Nicomedia, fighting any other infidels you meet on the road. Afterwards you might turn pirate, if you understand the sea; or pillage some rich town and hire ships to carry you to Italy, if you think that is safer. I shall come with you, and so will most of the local magnates. But Turks are slippery people to deal with. You must take valuable hostages for good faith.’

  I put all this honestly into French, and most of the council thought it a good idea. Matilda was the only opponent. She said that if all else failed we should break down the walls of the town, drive out the surplus population, and hold the citadel as an isolated castle. But then she had two fixed ideas, that we must have no friendly dealings with the infidel, and that we must hang on to a strong fortress, no matter how dangerous its situation.

  When the Bishop saw opinion was in his favour he gave us a further piece of information; he had kept it dark hitherto, which showed he was not to be trusted (if we did not know that already); it was still so secret that we had not heard it from any other Roman.

  ‘You assume that you can keep Christmas here in peace,’ he told me, ‘but Michael is making another effort to dislodge you. He has dismissed Palaeologus, and turned once more to the Comneni. Or it may be a plan to make the Comneni look foolish; with Michael you can never be sure. But Isaac Comnenus has been appointed Duke of Antioch, which in practice means envoy to Philaretus who commands there for his own hand; and young Alexius has been ordered to march east. The story goes that the Emperor wouldn’t give him an army, or even money to hire mercenaries. But he is a very competent young man. He might try a surprise escalade. Didn’t he once turn you out of Ancyra without a sword drawn?’

  ‘That settles it,’ Messer Roussel said firmly. ‘I shall send envoys to Tutach. We can look at it in this way: As lords of Armeniakon we are arranging with our neighbours for legitimate self-defence. The neighbours happen to be infidels, but we are not making war on Christendom; Michael is attacking an independent Christian state. No one can blame us.’

  My lord’s plans always sounded right while he expounded them; if you admitted that we were rightful lords of Amasia there could be no objection to the treaty. Only Matilda spoke against it, and she did not disapprove on grounds of morality; her reason for disliking it was fear that Tutach would betray us. Turks have a reputation for faithlessness, but there seemed to be no reason why he should break a bargain which he had himself proposed; the council decided to trust him, after first taking plenty of hostages, and as usual I was chosen to ride to his camp to arrange the meeting. That might be dangerous, and it was none of my seeking; but we had treated his envoy honestly; Tutach might keep the rules in return.

  Our plan was at once known all over the town. Romans seem to pick up that sort of news from the air. It affected them, and of course they were interested; but they take such delight in politics that the poorest hawker can tell you of the struggles of Comnenus and Ducas, and how Bryennius scored over Palaeologus at the last batch of army promotions, though he would be no better off personally if the whole Imperial family were blinded tomorrow. I had expected riots when they learned that their protectors intended to march out, but though interested they remained unmoved. They wished us well in our tricky negotiation, but they would be quite happy to see the last of us. This attitude so puzzled me that I called on the Bishop and asked him to explain it.

  He was delighted to dazzle a barbarian with the superior wisdom of the Romans. ‘Amasia has been a market since Alexander the Great passed this way,’ he said in a satisfied voice, settling himself in his cushioned chair; it was early for a Roman, only two hours after sunrise, and he had drunk enough to get over last night but was still on the whole sober. ‘First came the Galatians, then a great King called Mithradates, then our ancestors the Romans of Rome fought all up and down the country. Five hundred years ago the Persians swept up to the Bosphorus, and a generation later came the first of the infidels. They came, they pillaged the open country, and then, sometimes after quite a long interval, the great Emperor chased them away. But whenever the Emperor liberated us he found Amasia flourishing, because the Amasians are sensible men who make terms with barbarian invaders. At first, when it looked as though the Turks would have the run of the country for a couple of years at most, we were pleased that lord Roussel should protect us. But the Turks have come to stay, and it is time to make peace with them. If I intended to live here I would have made terms a year ago; but I shall soon go into exile, earning credit in the city as a Christian Confessor; in fact as soon as you make the road safe for my journey. So I left matters to the local merchants, who are not so quick to recognise a new state of affairs as a Roman of the city. When you look at things with an open mind the Turks might be very much worse than they are. They pillage the fields, and kill any peasant they catch; but peasants don’t have much of a life anyway, and are better off in Heaven as martyrs. Yet Turks don’t bother walled towns. They allow their subjects to remain Christians; in fact they don’t encourage renegades, because each is another mouth to share the plunder. Since they like showy and vulgar objects of luxury our craftsmen have plenty of customers, and oddly enough Turks usually pay for their trinkets, though of course they have stolen the money in the first place. One might find worse rulers. The men of Amasia have decided to submit. They are grateful to you Franks for seeing them through the dangerous anarchy of the Turkish arrival, but now Tutach looks on this town as his own, and will defend it against other plunderers. You may go with the goodwill of all Armeniakon.’

  That was a reasonable attitude, for men who disregarded the compulsions of honour. It is the fault of the Roman system of government; if you have a small body of soldiers who do nothing but fight, and a much larger part of the population who do nothing but pay taxes, when the regular army is beaten the tax-payers do not attempt to carry on the struggle.

  That removed the chief objection to our retreat; you cannot compel men to be free against their will. Our council gave me detailed instructions. I was to offer our help if the Six Horsetails planned to attack Artouch; that would be our revenge for Mount Sophon; otherwise we would pay for safe conduct on the great road, swearing never to come back. But I might not promise the infidels armed help against Christian men.

  Once a month the Six Horsetails sent a renegade to collect the blackmail of Amasia. The next time the scoundrel arrived at the barbican I was waiting, unarmed, with the silver on the saddle of my mule. I wore a long Roman gown and a complicated fur hat, the local adaptation of the tall mitres of the city. The idea was that I should look like a clerk or an official, anything except a warrior; then the Turks would treat me as a peaceful envoy, although at the opening of any negotiation, before hostages have been exchanged, the first messenger always runs a considerable risk. I was very frightened; but I was not a trained jouster, and I felt that in our present dangerous position I ought to do what I could for the band. I should know in the first five miles whether the infidels would kill me or treat, and I was in a State of Grace and ready for death.

  The renegade was affable. ‘So you want to arrange safe passage for envoys to negotiate with the great Tutach,’ he said in a patronising tone. ‘Last month I hinted that would be your only way of getting out of Amasia, and you didn’t bother to answer. I’m glad your leader has learned sen
se. I suppose you don’t speak Turkish? I shall translate faithfully.’ He was relieved to hear I was dependent on his aid; these renegades fear a qualified competitor, and usually arrange an accident if they meet one.

  Tutach’s camp was about ten miles from Amasia, in a deserted village. The Six Horsetails were not such a strong horde as that which had followed Artouch to Mount Sophon, but their leader was a skilled politician who had often dealt with foreigners, both Roman and Arab. He lodged in the ruins of the church, whose roof had been replaced by the black felt of a barbarian tent. Many tribesmen were camped in the neighbouring houses; in that winter weather they were not so snug as in a stuffy nomad tent, but the renegade pointed with pride to this mark of civilised life. ‘My comrades are not really barbarous,’ he said as we struggled up the filthy street. ‘They are learning to live in houses, and what we want next is a strong town on the Bosphorus. Chrysopolis would do very well. Then I shall show them how to fight on shipboard, and piracy will make us rich. Armeniakon is ruined. We must move to fresh ground.’

  I gave a noncommittal grunt. I was an envoy seeking to get on good terms with these infidels, and it would be wrong to remind him now of what would happen if they dismounted and put themselves within reach of the galleys of Romania.

  The usual fire burned before Tutach’s door, but my escort only made me brush through the smoke; these men were beginning to abandon the ways of their ancestors, and did not really believe I would turn black if I meditated treachery. Then I was led, over a magnificent carpet, in to the desecrated church; though the effect of civilised manners was spoiled when they led in my mule also, as the easiest way of carrying the tribute. The building had been completely gutted, and no trace remained of altar or sacred furniture. This made it easier to do business; I might have lost my temper if I had seen an infidel spit into a chalice. The leader and his council sat on a row of cushions, waiting to share out the blackmail, and I could open the discussion without delay.