Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  Apion scoured the landscape for every detail; Mansur had promised him he would see a bit more of the empire on this trip, and he was eager to take it all in. When they travelled the high roads, he would look across the snow-capped mountains, the yawning plains and the clouds of tiny white specks that were goat herds, but most of all he would examine the valleys below, envisioning the land like a giant chequered board, plotting his strategy for the next shatranj game: the stretches of tall grass were the pawns, the olive groves the cavalry and the rockfall the war elephants. The games against Mansur were still very one-sided, but Apion had learned something from each defeat when Mansur had explained his mistakes.

  His belly rumbled and he touched a hand to his satchel, feeling the eggs and honey Maria had packed for the pair of them. Guilt touched him at the thought of her being on her own. Mansur had assured him though that Giyath and Nasir would take turns at checking on the farm. Apion wondered about Nasir; perhaps the boy had a decent heart under all that bluster. He wondered if they would ever be on agreeable terms. Then he shook his head with a wry grin.

  He mused over this as the road dipped to round the base of a small cliff-face, then noticed a faded carving in the rock. As the wagon rolled round the cliff, his skin tingled as the carving came into view: a two-headed eagle, eyes on each head dipped in anger, wings spread wide and with rapier-like talons. He uttered a gasp; it was a giant rendition of the etching on the boulder cairn by the farm.

  ‘Ah, the Haga!’ Mansur chirped, noticing Apion’s amazement. ‘I felt the same the first time I saw it.’

  ‘What is it?’ Apion asked, head twisting round to watch as it rolled out of view behind them.

  ‘Long ago, before Byzantium, this land belonged to the empire of the Hittites. They had their own gods and legends. The Haga was one of them; a ferocious, two-headed eagle that would swoop down from the cliffs and mountains and could kill a bull in each claw.’

  ‘These people, they are gone, long gone,’ Apion said, ‘yet their legends remain, etched into the landscape?’

  Mansur nodded. ‘The emblem adorns many a cliff face and mountainside across this land. Whatever else they believed in, the Hittites certainly reckoned with the power of the Haga.’

  Apion tried to imagine such a beast come to life from the rock. He shivered at the thought. The ferocity in those eyes . . .

  As the afternoon wore on, they came to a region of rolling hillocks. Then he saw something up ahead: atop a baked red hill, the stone edifice of a fort stood proud, seemingly baked into the earth as if it had been there for all time. His father had been stationed at such a fort for a whole year. Apion remembered playing by the hearth, building wooden blocks into an enclosure and then lining up carved soldiers, pretending he was one of them, protecting the walls. Then he realised the walls of this fort were unmanned. He looked to the wide gate but could see only the blue of the sky through it. Then they rounded the hill a little further to see the crumbled ruin that was the other side of the fort. Unmanned, meaning this vast tract of imperial land was left undefended.

  ‘The man in the purple seems to think that the east needs no funding for such garrisons,’ Mansur said as if reading his thoughts. ‘Perhaps if he lived here and experienced the uncertainty it creates, he might think otherwise.’

  Apion nodded, eyes hanging on the stark image of the skeletal fort. ‘Is it the same in Seljuk lands?’

  Mansur shook his head. ‘No. My people ride the wave of expansion. Riches are abundant and the lands are well policed. Such prosperity is like a drug, and I fear it is often confused with glory.’

  Apion thought over the old man’s words as they rode on, the breeze dancing through his amber locks as he tried to imagine what the land must have been like in more prosperous times of the past.

  They rode on for some time, then Mansur whipped the horses into a heady pace as they passed through forest. Apion noticed the old man’s eyes were narrowed and scouring the undergrowth in suspicion, but he could not see why. It was a pleasant setting; leafy shade, brooks and squat waterfalls snaking through the undergrowth. The whole setting made him feel cooler and more relaxed. Then he remembered he had finished his water some way back.

  ‘Can we stop so I can fill my skin?’ He looked up at Mansur; the old man was still examining the road and the treeline. Apion wondered if he had gone unheard. He pulled on Mansur’s sleeve, pointing to the stream coming up on their left. ‘Can we sto . . . ’

  ‘No!’ Mansur barked.

  Apion pulled back.

  ‘No,’ Mansur repeated, this time in a calmer voice, looking at Apion, his face firm but his eyes friendly. ‘When we get to the river we can slake our thirst.’

  Apion nodded. ‘Very well. What if I need to empty my bladder?’

  Mansur’s vexation washed away in a tense chuckle. ‘Then you do it from the side of the wagon. I hope you have good balance and good aim!’

  Apion’s shoulders slumped as he thought out the logistics of balancing on his crutch. Soon they rode clear of the trees and Mansur seemed to relax after that as the countryside opened up again.

  A long and gentle downhill slope led to a smaller patch of beech forest, behind which the land gave way to accommodate a mighty river, its shimmering waters flowing calmly west. The sheer girth of the river made the Piksidis seem like a stream in comparison. ‘What do they call this water?’

  ‘When its current is gentle, the Lykos; when it grows turbulent, the Wolf River. Many men have lost their lives trying to cross this river. That’s why we come to this particular crossing point.’

  ‘Is there a bridge?’ Apion frowned, scanning the waters for sight of such a structure.

  ‘No, but there is a fine ferryman,’ Mansur grinned, ‘a dizzy old goat by the name of Petzeas.’

  The rush of the rapids drowned out the cicada song as they approached and sure enough, they reached a rudimentary ferry dock. The wagon slowed to a halt by a post with a horn tied to it.

  Forgetting his thirst, Apion placed his crutch on the ground and slid down from the drivers’ berth, biting back the spasm of pain that shot through his scar, while Mansur groaned and shifted his bulky frame to standing, then dropped down from the wagon and hobbled over to the post, lifted the horn, filled his lungs and blew. The wail of the horn echoed across the land. Mansur’s gaze then fell on the small wooden hut on the other side of the river. All was still for a moment and then the tiny shape of the elderly ferryman emerged from the cabin and waved, quickly flanked by his two sons.

  ‘Well, you’ve got ample time to slake your thirst now, lad,’ Mansur mused, waving back as Petzeas set about rigging up his vessel. They settled in the shade by the wagon and shared a meal of boiled eggs, followed by bread and honey, washed down with freshly drawn water.

  ‘I’m sorry I was terse with you on the forested road. It’s a notorious stretch,’ Mansur spoke, wiping his hands on his robe,

  Apion raised an eyebrow. ‘Brigands?’

  ‘Aye,’ he snorted, ‘bane of any empire.’

  Apion thought back to the journey from Trebizond. ‘What makes a brigand? Bracchus and Vadim, they robbed you did they not, on that day you bought me? Then they come to your home and rob you again, threatening your family . . . and they are soldiers?’

  ‘You saw the pitiful state of the forts on the way here, lad. The highways are long and empty these days. The few men assigned to protect the travellers are easily turned by the thought of taking an extra income. It’s the nature of soldiers to misbehave when they are not engaged on the front line, especially when their wages don’t show up on time.’

  ‘But those two, they seem to have some personal vendetta against you?’

  Mansur looked to Apion, but before he could reply, a snapping of branches caught their attention.

  ‘Shhtand back!’ A voice called.

  Apion twisted round to see the figure of a skutatos stumble from the beech thicket, clumsily pulling up his woollen leggings and fumbling his padded cotton
vest back over his waist. The man’s dark eyes were at odds and his stride was erratic. He was probably in his early twenties, tall, of medium build, with rounded features and chestnut locks tumbling from his felt cap. Apion felt the urge to laugh at the comic appearance of the soldier, then his face dropped as the man pulled his spathion from his scabbard and brought the point to hover near Mansur’s chest.

  ‘Get away from the boy, you . . . you dirty Seljuk!’ The man’s breath reeked of wine.

  Mansur stood, not letting his eyes leave the man. ‘Waiting for the ferry?’ He asked in his usual gravel but affable tone, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to the very slowly approaching Petzeas.

  The man’s face tightened into an exaggerated frown and he swayed like a sapling in a stiff breeze. ‘A Seljuk talking G . . . Greek?’ The man erupted in laughter, looking to Apion as if to share his joke. Apion baulked at the man’s drunken manner; a memory of Father came back to him: in that last year when his wages could not keep the farm in operation and the lands had run dry of crops, he would turn to drinking soured wine unwatered until he became a different person, joyous for a brief spell and then surly, hot tempered and rash.

  ‘I’ve always used the mother tongue of this land since I came here,’ Mansur replied. ‘I’ve been tilling the lands of the empire for many a year now.’

  ‘Really? Well you look a lot like the Seljuk whoreson riders who wiped out my bandon two days ago. Nearly two hundred infantry, good men, gone! Skin that colour, moustache as well. The buggers ambushed us then slit the throats of the wounded.’ The soldier tightened his grip on his sword, his teeth gritted, saliva bubbling through them.

  ‘Ghazi riders, this far west?’ Mansur shook his head. The Seljuk light cavalry hunted in packs, swift and designed to harass, but they rarely penetrated past the area around the Piksidis. ‘I’m truly sorry it came to bloodshed, soldier. Let’s have no more of that today, eh?’

  ‘If you were one of them . . . ’ the soldier snarled.

  Mansur shrugged and gestured to his bulging waistline. ‘Me, a rider? Is there a horse in all the Byzantine or Seljuk Empires that could take my weight?’

  A scowl hovered on the drunken soldier’s face, then his expression wavered and melted and finally he laughed despite himself.

  Mansur smiled. ‘You’re heading back to your barracks, one of the forts across the Lykos, right?’

  ‘Might be. Might be waiting on the rest of my lads to catch up first.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Mansur shook his head with a friendly smile. ‘Your boots are dried out, ragged and caked in dust; you’ve been walking for some time. Your water skin is empty; with no colleagues to borrow some from you turned to your wine ration unwatered. Now why don’t you come across the river with us? I’ll take you in the wagon as far as your fort; you can sleep off the effects of the wine and be fresh to face your commanding officer.’

  Apion felt a tense moment pass, the soldier eyeing Mansur as he swayed. Mansur’s words were full of reason, but the wine had boiled the soldier’s brains. He patted a hand to his own full water skin and then stepped forward, holding it out to the soldier.

  ‘Here, have some of my water,’ he said.

  The soldier shot a glare down to Apion, saw the prayer rope and then lowered his sword point into the dust to rest his weight on it, rubbing at his eyes. ‘Aye . . . aye, fair enough. I’ll go across the water with you.’

  ***

  Petzeas’ story of his eldest son’s first attempts to harvest the honey from his hives was entertaining in its delivery if a little stale by the third time of its telling, but Apion enjoyed the ferry crossing regardless. He munched on the bread loaf Petzeas had on board for his passengers to enjoy, watching the waters of the Lykos shimmering all around them while the ferryman operated the tiller and his sons, Isaac and Maro, rowed on either side of the ferry. The flat-bottomed vessel held the wagon, wheels fixed with wooden blocks, the horses, with sacks over their heads to keep them calm, and the six passengers and crew with ample room to spare. A squat timber ridge around the sides added stability to the craft and prevented items rolling off.

  The soldier, whose mood had lightened, slurred an introduction as Tarsites, then happily accepted a chunk of bread from Apion. Then, after roaring at Petzeas’ first rendition of the hive story, Tarsites toppled into a dead man’s sleep, his snoring almost drowning out the rush of the rapids. After that, the ferryman’s tone had grown bitter as he told of the brigands who had been operating in the forest but had recently turned to flexing their muscle near the riverbank.

  ‘Damned parasites! That’s what they are, wriggling like maggots on the body of their own empire! I tell you, if I was twenty years younger and I still had my skutatoi armour . . . ’

  ‘Maybe you should leave that to your boys, Petzeas?’ Mansur mused while the two sons carried on rowing regardless. ‘They are of age to serve in the thema within the next few years, are they not?’

  ‘They are. I worry for them as they are of the age where young men die on the sword easily. Yet I worry that if they stay here the parasites will see them as some kind of threat.’

  ‘Whatever happens, you should feel safe here. You’re providing a service to the empire, so,’ he glanced over to the slumbering form of Tarsites and cocked an eyebrow, ‘the empire should protect you.’

  Petzeas issued a deep throaty sigh. ‘Aye but we both know what direction this empire is heading in. Like an ancient candle guttering its last.’

  His tone sent a shiver over Apion’s skin.

  They docked on the opposite bank and Petzeas waived payment, insisting that Mansur could settle with him on the return journey. With that, they set off again, down the track that clung to the southern banks of the Lykos. Some distance later, Apion wondered at Mansur’s ease in what was effectively a foreign land. He lived as a citizen of Byzantium, had friends in this empire of his one-time enemies, spoke fluent Greek – more fluent than some of the natives, he mused, eyeing Tarsites, who now sat wedged between Mansur and he, twitching and grunting happily in some inebriate fantasy dream. Indeed, if Mansur had not been able to speak Greek to the man, blood would surely have been spilled.

  Later that day, they dropped Tarsites by the roadside. The man was weary but an altogether more pleasant character without wine in his blood.

  ‘I can only apologise for my behaviour . . . before.’ He patted his wineskin and raised his eyebrows. ‘I normally don’t touch the stuff; I just carry it so I can use it for barter.’ He turned to Mansur. ‘How can I repay you, farmer?’ He rummaged in the purse hanging from his belt.

  Mansur raised a hand in refusal. ‘Those roads are part of your empire. They need to be policed. If you could lobby your commander on that front, it’d be appreciated. It’d see old Petzeas and I at ease.’

  The soldier cast them a weary but genuine grin in return. ‘Couldn’t agree more, I’ll see what I can do.’ With that, he set off to his hilltop fort, one of the few with iron speartips and Byzantine crimson Chi-Rho banners adorning the battlements.

  ‘Don’t you fear they might take you up on that suggestion?’ Apion asked as they set off again. ‘The last thing we need is another Bracchus and Vadim.’

  ‘As I said, that is the nature of a soldier far from the front line, and better a corrupt Byzantine than a cutthroat brigand.’

  They rode on until the sun turned a tired orange, dipping below the horizon. It was a clear and fine night when they pulled over at a small brook running by the roadside and into the river, leaving Cheriana within an easy ride in the morning. They set up a fire by the wagon as the land dimmed and the navy blue of the twilight sky yawned over them, sparkling with stars. Apion’s energy levels were low after such a long day and the gathering of the kindling was enough to make him think of sleep. But first, Mansur insisted, they would eat and then sleep better on a full belly. So they prepared a meal of cheese on toasted bread, followed by figs with honey for dipping.

  Apion sipped his skin of strea
m water, watching Mansur in the firelight as the old man examined the stars to the east, his eyes distant. ‘Why did you come to live in Byzantine lands?’

  Mansur blinked, hesitated, then gave a wry chuckle. ‘For a fresh start, lad. At least that was the plan.’

  Apion thought of all Maria had told him of the attack on Mansur and Kutalmish’s caravan. A fresh start ended in the most harrowing manner. He hoped one day the old man would want to talk about it with him. ‘I think you were incredibly brave to come here. Every time you face a man like Bracchus, or Tarsites – before we calmed him – do you not crave to be where you are not a stranger in a foreign land?’

  ‘To feel like a stranger in a foreign land, a man must first have a place he can call home, in order to miss it.’

  ‘You don’t miss the east?’