‘In ways, yes, perhaps I miss the east as it was when I was a boy, but not the east as it is now. I became tired of the constant warfare and bloodshed.’ His eyes hung on the fire. ‘The Seljuk people have become something alien to me; in many ways they are as belligerent and power-hungry as the Byzantines whose land they crave. No offence intended,’ he winked.
Apion smiled. ‘What was it like when you were a boy?’
‘We were a simple people. Born on the steppe, living our lives on horseback, hunting in the tall grass of the infinite plains, riding in the surf of the Aral Sea. Simple pleasures still held for us then: returning to the yurts of the tribe at night with the spoils of the hunt. I remember that vividly; in the saddle with my father, the women and younger children rushing to greet us, their faces bright with joy at our return.’
‘Why did it all change?’
‘Even then it was changing, lad. The tribes were living in the old way but they were being united, for the first time, to act as one people, one military.’
‘By Tugrul?’ Apion leaned in over the fire. The name of the Seljuk Sultan had been spat like a poisoned grape by the drunks at the inn where he served as a slave, but behind their merry hubris, fear had laced their words. Tugrul, the Falcon, the warlord who had harnessed ancient Persia and all the peripheral kingdoms, was coming to topple Byzantium.
Mansur shook his head. ‘No, it was Tugrul’s father and the elders of the tribes who started the push for unity. Tugrul was a boy, just a little older than me, at this time. He has grown to lead them now on their incessant hunt for glory.’
‘Did you ever fight under Tugrul’s banner?’
Mansur looked off to the east again instead of returning Apion’s engrossed stare. ‘I was a Seljuk boy who grew up with a mantra to seek glory in the name of Allah. I served my time in the ranks while Tugrul rose to power. I saw what it did to him; he became a great and lethal leader, but a bitter and troubled man. I could feel the same thing happening to me. Coming west was my attempt to leave all that behind.’
Apion nodded and wondered at the corpulent old man sat across from him now, anything but soldierly. ‘You did a fine job of talking Tarsites round. I was terrified that he was going to strike you. We had no weapons to attack him with.’
‘Even if we did, Apion, Tarsites was not looking for blood; he was looking for help. A desperate soldier on the road, on his own without food or water. I could see the good-hearted and articulate man inside the drunk that swayed before us. The answer does not always lie with the sword and today was a prime example of that.’
Apion nodded, then eyed his scarred leg. Perhaps if he ever found himself confronted by a trouble-minded Seljuk, diplomacy could be his only real option. ‘You said you would teach me, Mansur?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Mansur cocked an eyebrow wearily.
‘Then teach me to speak the Seljuk tongue,’ Apion asked.
Mansur grinned at this, then pulled his cap over his eyes, lay back and sighed. ‘Tomorrow, lad. We’ll start tomorrow.’
Apion rolled over onto his side. He untied and kissed the prayer rope and mouthed the Prayer of the Heart, searching for an image of Mother and Father.
***
After a long day of trading and a welcome night’s sleep at the inn, they were ready to leave Cheriana. The wagon was so full that the wheels groaned as they turned around in the market square under the shadow of the town church’s red-tiled dome.
‘She’s good to go!’ Mansur nodded, watching as Apion drove the horses forward just a little. Then he pulled himself onto the drivers berth with a groan.
Apion lightly whipped the horses and the wagon moved off. The townsfolk meandered casually, only steps away from the wagon. Then, with a chorus of squealing, two pigs scuttled loose from their owner and barged across the road. Apion’s heart leapt as both wagon horses tensed and then reared up, whinnying in terror.
‘Whoa!’ Mansur grabbed the reins from him. ‘Easy there!’ He cried and then reached forward to pat each of their flanks. ‘One of the reasons we don’t have pigs on the farm, the horses are terrified of them – terrified!’ He looked to Apion. ‘Almost comical when you think about it, eh?’
They set off again and the wagon settled into a rhythm and he took one last look around the town as they left. The place was walled with a rudimentary wooden palisade, the original stone walls of the town having fallen into terminal disrepair. The place was about a quarter the size of Trebizond, he reckoned. Apart from the wide main thoroughfare from the entrance gate to the market square, the dusty streets were narrow and the buildings closely packed, none more than two storeys high and most looking very makeshift in their construction. The people were a mixed bag: mainly Byzantines but also tall Slavs, charcoal-skinned Africans and pale westerners punctuating the crowd. All these cultures seemed to blend into the market environment as one people, but Apion had noticed a distinctly frosty attitude towards Mansur as he had bartered. Mansur always spoke to the traders in a warm but assertive tone, much as he had done with Tarsites, and the underlying hostility of the traders never surfaced because of this. He grinned, reciting the words of a simple greeting in Seljuk that Mansur had taught him that morning as they rode into town. Then a voice barked in front of them.
‘Halt!’
Apion yanked on the reins, startled. Two skutatoi stood either side of the gate, their spears raised, faces twisted.
‘Your business?’ The first sneered.
Apion looked to Mansur, eyes wide. On entering the town it had been just after dawn and the night guards were weary. Now they were clearly spoiling for trouble.
Mansur replied to the guards. ‘Trade; tools and oil,’ he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the wagon cabin.
The guard scrutinised him. ‘Your kind ain’t welcome here, you’ve been told before. Now go.’
Face straight, Mansur nodded to Apion to whip the horses onwards.
As they rode clear of the town, the throngs of traders on foot and on horseback thinned, but Apion was still troubled by the confrontation with the guards. ‘Don’t they realise you are a citizen? Farming, paying taxes to the Empire?’ He asked Mansur.
‘If they sat down and thought about it they might realise that, lad. But no, they see a Seljuk and they hate me.’
***
It was nearing the end of the day when they reached Petzeas’ ferry crossing again. Mansur reckoned they could get across and bite another few miles from their journey home before it would become too dark. Apion had agreed, despite his rumbling gut demanding that they stop to camp and eat sooner.
‘Ah, Petzeas is ready!’ Mansur pointed to the figure of the old man, sat on a bench by his docked ferry.
Apion’s heart lifted at the prospect of the old man’s banter and the possibility that he would have some bread on board again. As they approached, Petzeas looked up to them but instead of rising from his seat and hailing them warmly, the old man remained seated, his face drawn and his eyes weary.
‘What’s wrong, ferryman, you’re almost acting your age?’ Mansur chirped.
Petzeas cracked a smile but seemed to be wearing it like a mask.
‘All is well?’ Mansur asked, this time with concern.
Petzeas nodded with a long sigh. ‘My youngest, Isaac . . . he is unwell with a fever. It will probably pass but . . . ’
Mansur glanced to the timber hut. ‘We have honey if he is weak?’
Petzeas shook his head quickly. ‘He cannot hold anything down, time and rest should bring him round.’
Apion noticed the ferryman’s unease and fleeting eye contact. Something felt wrong. ‘Is there nothing we can do for him? Perhaps even just a visit might lift his spirits,’ he asked, shuffling his withered leg and crutch towards the wagon edge.
‘No.’ Petzeas seemed ruffled. ‘I fear it is contagious and it is a wonder I myself haven’t been stricken yet. Perhaps he will be well . . . the next time you come by this way.’ The ferryman glanced across the water briefly
as he said this.
‘Very well. Our thoughts are with you,’ Mansur spoke gently.
Apion noticed Petzeas held a necklace bearing a Chi-Rho in his palm. He held up his wrist with the prayer rope. ‘May God bless him with good health soon,’ he offered solemnly. Petzeas looked up only for the briefest of moments to acknowledge the sentiment and Apion saw something raw in his eyes. Defeat.
Then the ferryman stood. ‘Come now, draw up your wagon to the pier and I will summon Maro. I will need one of you to operate Isaac’s oar.’ He hesitated, muttering to himself, eyeing Apion’s scarred leg. ‘Mansur, if you will?’ He asked and then turned away to go in to his hut.
Apion let the burning sensation of shame and inadequacy pass; the old ferryman had enough on his mind and meant no offence. Something was most definitely wrong here. He drove the horses forward onto the pier then slid down off the wagon using his crutch, biting back the searing pain that shot through his body, then hobbled to walk alongside Mansur. He looked up to voice his concern but Mansur spoke first.
‘I saw it too,’ Mansur’s eyes were scanning the surroundings of the hut and then the opposite riverbank. He wore a sharp expression like a preying cat. ‘Do not press the ferryman on it. I will have my back to the far bank as I sit at the oar so you must keep your eyes on the treeline as the ferry comes to dock. I will keep watch on this side as I row.’
Apion’s blood ran cold. Suddenly, he felt like a lost cub in the wilderness as the sky dulled and the rapids of the Wolf River seemed to roar.
Before long the ferry had set off across the river, Maro and Mansur striking up a rhythm fairly quickly. Petzeas’ eldest son seemed naturally shy and of few words so it was difficult to tell today whether he shared his father’s unease. Apion sat near the leading edge of the ferry and pulled at a piece of bread, looking up to the approaching riverbank as frequently and as casually as he could manage. He saw the beech thicket where they had eaten two days previous, empty, as was the rest of the riverbank.
They docked on the muddy bank. Silently, Petzeas hobbled from the tiller to step onto the ground and began tying the vessel to the post with the horn attached. The ferryman looked anywhere but at his two passengers. Apion looked to Mansur, giving a faint shake of the head. Mansur whispered to him as he passed. ‘Climb into the cabin, lad, make room for yourself in there and shut the door.’
Apion gulped. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Just do as I say, please.’ Then Mansur turned to Petzeas. ‘See you soon, ferryman.’
Apion’s dread grew as Petzeas croaked a farewell and then turned back to his ferry, head bowed. He climbed into the wagon cabin and clipped the door shut from inside and then Mansur whipped the horses into a canter for the beech forest. His eyes jumped to every fluttering leaf, every branch that shuddered as crows left their nests, but all was as normal. Apion frowned, looking through the slats, back to the shrinking figures of Petzeas and Maro.
Then a roar pierced the air.
Footsteps thundered across the ground and more gruff shouting broke out. Apion pressed his eyes to the slats then leapt back at the sight of the hooded man dressed in filthy rags who raced for the flank of the wagon. The figure held a dagger in his hand, and sprung like a cat to clamber onto the wagon roof.
Three more men rushed for the wagon, each bearing longswords and running straight for Mansur on the drivers’ berth. The horses reared in panic and the reins tangled. The wagon crunched round against a thick oak trunk and Apion was hurled forward, an amphora shattering against his shoulder and throwing him head over heels. It was all he could do to stifle a scream. Then all was still as he glanced up, dazed, the sound of iron on iron filling the air. Through the slats he saw flitting glances of the brigands stabbing and hacking at something. Then one of the brigands issued a gurgling cry, blood spraying from his mouth, hands clutching at a curved blade that had pierced his belly and burst through his back. The curved blade was ripped back. Apion scrambled forward, pressing against the slats to see it all.
Mansur stood holding a bloodied scimitar; the dirty cloth that had concealed it behind the drivers’ berth lay on the ground. He was hacking at the next man’s sword thrusts, cutting the blade around to his sides whenever the dagger-wielding thug tried to attack his back. With a roar, the dagger man rushed him. Mansur stepped back half a pace and brought his sword hilt crunching into the man’s jaw, then scythed the blade around to cut through another swordsman’s throat. The swordsman’s face wrinkled and he touched a hand to his neck in the instant before dark blood jetted from the wound, pulling the colour from his skin and weakening his legs until he toppled, dead.
Mansur turned to the last swordsman, his brow knitted, eyes burning. The swordsman lurched forward and Mansur parried. This thug was slighter than the first but more skilled with the weapon and the pair circled each other, clashing again and again. Mansur’s chest began to heave as he tired. Then Apion noticed shapes emerge from the trees behind Mansur. More brigands.
Five of them, screaming, three bearing swords, the fourth and biggest one flat-faced and hefting an axe and the last of them approaching on a fawn stallion, wearing a cloak, mail vest and veil. Mansur glanced back at them, and then shoulder charged the swordsman onto the ground, whacking the flat of his scimitar to the man’s temple to knock him out before turning to face the five.
As the five surrounded Mansur, the felled dagger-man struggled to his feet, eyes locked on Mansur’s unprotected back, blade in hand. Frozen in a mix of fear and anger, Apion’s thoughts flitted with the image of the dark door. Then he saw something else: a blurred image of a hand, reaching forward for the door. He blinked and realised he had pushed forward to punch the wagon door open. His eyes seared under a frown, and he hefted an amphora in his arms and dropped out onto the ground and hobbled forward. Without his crutch, the pain was untold. Then, with a cry, he hurled the amphora at the back of the swordsman’s head, the vessel exploding on contact and the swordsman dropping like a sack of rocks, blood trickling from his nose.
‘Apion, stay back!’ Mansur gasped through shortening breaths, trying to shield him from the approaching five.
Then a desperate cry rent the air from behind them. Apion spun round: Maro stood, a snapped oar held in his arms like a club, Petzeas beside him bearing the other, lighter half of the oar. ‘We have your flanks, Mansur,’ Old Petzeas cried, the ferryman and his son hurrying forward to stand alongside Mansur and Apion, then he roared at the approaching brigands. ‘Come on then, you dogs!’
‘Petzeas?’ Mansur uttered.
‘Forgive me, friend,’ Petzeas apologised, breathless. ‘They have taken Isaac hostage. I prayed you would not come back today . . . ’
Mansur nodded. ‘Save your apologies, just stay close to me!’
Then the brigands rushed in, swords raised while the veiled horseman followed behind them, eyeing the skirmish. The ferryman and his son were able only to parry the sword cuts of the brigands and Apion watched, helpless, as the relentless axe blows of the big brigand sent Mansur staggering backwards and then down onto his knees, chest heaving, face bathed in sweat. Then the big brigand’s leg stamped into the ground before him and Apion pushed with all his strength to jar his shoulder against the man’s calf. The brigand buckled and fell, the axe blow aimed for Mansur’s head falling wide, but in an instant he was up again, enraged, spinning to face Apion, axe lifted, ready to strike. Apion fell back, awaiting a death blow, but the big brigand’s roar was cut short when an arrow thudded into his eye. He was still like a statue for a moment, a grotesque wash of eye-matter and blood coating his face. Then he toppled, dead. Another brigand was felled, back peppered with arrows. The mounted brigand, who had stood back until now, shot looks into the trees, eyes wide with panic as a thudding of hooves grew louder from the thicket. He barked a gruff order to the remaining two thugs. Then the foliage parted and a horseman wearing a leather klibanion burst into view; two toxotai, distinctive by their bows and felt caps, flanked him on foot.
>
‘Tarsites!’ Apion roared, seeing the rounded features of the skutatos, ducked in his saddle, spathion held out to one side. At this, the two brigands on foot broke off and ran for the trees. The mounted brigand then wheeled to take flight as well. Tarsites rounded on one runner and stabbed him through the chest when he tried to fight back. The other stopped running and dropped his sword, realising the two toxotai had their bows trained on him. The mounted brigand raced for Tarsites and drew a spathion, hefting it round to sweep it down at the skutatos. Tarsites only just brought his own blade round in time to parry and instinctively, as the brigand galloped past to break for the forest, Tarsites brought his sword up and round, the blade scything through the veiled rider’s arm with a sharp snap of bone, lopping the limb clean off. The rider screamed, then toppled from his mount, body crunching as he landed on his head without the arm to break his fall. He lay still and silent. The fight was over.
Panting, Apion stood. With Petzeas’ help they lifted the shaking Mansur to his feet.
Strategos: Born in the Borderlands Page 10