Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  Bracchus fixed his eyes on Apion. ‘Perhaps . . . .’

  Apion frowned as the tourmarches walked away.

  21. The Journey Home

  The army had reached the crossroads after three days’ march to the west. Here, the bulk of the thema made their own way back to their farmsteads, while three banda were sent to garrison Argyroupolis and further divisions were sent to bolster the other forts, towns and cities of the thema against any sudden Seljuk counterattack. After this, Apion and Blastares had ridden together on their new mounts for a further four days. The big soldier had asked for and been granted leave to sort out some issue with the plot of farmland he had leased, but had left untended since he had joined the permanent garrison of Argyroupolis. So they were to ride together, through the mountain pass and into the farmlands of the thema, as far as the crossroads for Trebizond, and Apion was grateful for the big man’s company.

  With the spectre of war temporarily removed, the air had a freshness and lightness, like the land drying after a storm. They had dressed in comfortable linen tunics and felt caps for the first few days – just enough to keep them cool and shade them from the blistering sun – but today, Apion was in his full military garb: tunic, iron klibanion and crimson woollen cloak, boots and leggings, helmet with a scale aventail and a black eagle-feather plume for his return to the farm. He thought back to his recent chat with Cydones over what made a fine soldier: give a man armour and fine weapons and he will be braver and more loyal for it. He wondered at the often rag-tag garb of the banda ranks, far removed from the elite kataphractoi, and he thought back to the damp and mouldy cotton vest and boots Vadim had shoved in his arms on first joining the thema. Then he thought of the shimmering rock he had found up in the mountain cave when sheltering with Kartal the Seljuk. Armour and weapons required funding. Generating funds required initiative. His eyes narrowed. As soon as he returned to the army he would discuss with Cydones the commissioning of new silver and iron mines high up in the mountains, untapped of their riches. Yes, every man in his ranks would march with a fine klibanion, helmet, spathion, good boots and a freshly painted shield.

  He sat high and straight in his saddle, remembering father riding home from campaign like this. Then he shuffled in discomfort as the sweat trickled down his back and the klibanion bit into his neck.

  Blastares eyed Apion and chuckled. ‘Whoever she is, I hope she’s worth it?’

  Apion cocked an eyebrow, thinking of Maria. She was worth it. If only she was not to marry his best friend, he mused wryly, then he saw Blastares’ wicked grin. ‘And I suppose you won’t be using your new kit to impress the ladies?’

  Blastares shrugged. ‘Fair point. As soon as I sort out the patch of dust they gave me instead of a proper farm, and the arsehole kataphractos who leased it to me and now thinks he’s my master, then I’ll be heading into the city – the wage of a droungarios weighs heavy on the purse!’

  Apion grinned. Despite the gruffness of the big soldier and his initial doubt at Apion’s worthiness, they were like brothers now. Blastares had masked his joy at being promoted to a droungarios, commander of two of Apion’s twelve banda, behind a flurry of increasingly sordid insults. But it was the glint in Blastares’ eye that told him all he needed to know: he could entrust the big man with his life, just as he could with Sha and Procopius, also newly promoted to the same rank. Then he thought of Nepos, the man who should have shared in the glory with them. Blastares had not brought up the topic of the missing Slav, and Apion guessed this was because the gruff soldier was missing the ‘pointy-faced bastard’ but did not know how to properly express the sentiment.

  His musings were interrupted when Blastares lifted a leg and let rip with a forced release of foul gas. ‘I’m not eating hard tack bread again for at least a month . . . ’

  Apion cocked an eyebrow, eyeing the empty wine sack jiggling below Blastares’ saddle; the bread was doubtless only part responsible for his flatulence.

  ‘ . . . no, I’ll be spending my days eating pheasant, then my evenings drinking good wine . . . and the rest,’ he winked, flashing a stumpy-toothed grin and motioning with his hands as if testing two pieces of fruit for ripeness. ‘So what’s your plans for this spell of leave?’

  Apion wished more than anything that the week ahead was for nothing other than spending time with Mansur and Maria. ‘Many neglected duties, Blastares, but I’ll just be happy to get back to the farm. It’s been a while since I rode regularly and my arse is yet to become re-calloused from the saddle!’

  ‘Aye,’ Blastares snorted, shuffling in his saddle, ‘who’d have thought it, eh? Riding like emperors on horses and it feels like you’re getting buggered by an elephant. Give me a march any day.’

  ‘Well you’re going to have to get used to it, Blastares, we all are. There’s going to be a long spell of campaigning when we return at the start of the new moon.’

  ‘Tchoh! Bloody spoil it before it’s even started why don’t you?’ Blastares moaned and then pulled the last of his wineskins from his pack. ‘Right, I’m starting early.’ With that, he pulled the cork from the skin with a plunk and proceeded to gulp at the contents.

  The day grew hotter and the dust lined their throats until, at last, they reached a crossroads and a desiccated timber signpost with etchings on each of its pointers. Blastares ambled towards the road for Trebizond, then he stopped and turned in his saddle. He cleared his throat and then issued a brisk salute. ‘Until the new moon, sir!’

  Apion nodded sternly then broke into a grin. He reached out a hand. Blastares looked puzzled at first, then he broke out into a matching grin. The big soldier extended a ham-like hand and clasped Apion’s forearm. ‘Until the new moon, Blastares. I look forward to serving with you again.’

  ‘I might have sobered up by then.’ With that and a throaty cackle, Blastares heeled his mount into a trot onto the highway, then he spurred the beast into a gallop and was soon no more than a dust trail.

  Apion watched him go. At last he could think freely without the responsibility of the other men. He heard the faint babble of the Piksidis and a warmth spread in his chest, he sucked in a breath and looked west.

  The farm was a short ride away.

  But first, he had to seek out Nepos.

  ***

  The ghazi rider slid from his mount and knelt in the centre of the courtyard in front of Muhammud and his broad-shouldered bodyguard, Kilic.

  ‘Speak.’ Muhammud said. He kept his voice stern and peered down his nose at the rider, just as his uncle had always taught him. But under his cool facade, his heart thundered; something was very wrong.

  The rider craned his neck up. His eye was misted and still seeping from a small cut, his clothes were filthy and his skin caked in dirt and his mount trembled from exhaustion. ‘Mighty Alp Arslan, I bring news of Great Sultan Tugrul. The Byzantines were strong, too strong. Our mighty leader has been defeated,’ the rider panted.

  Muhammad’s eyes bulged. Tugrul, the man who had taught him the very essence of honour, had been defeated? Then his blood chilled; had the Falcon fallen? No, it is too soon, his mind screamed. At the same time, the possibilities raced through his thoughts. You are their leader, now is your time, Mountain Lion.

  ‘Does the Falcon live?’ Muhammud heard his own words, flat and hoarse.

  ‘He lives,’ the rider nodded fervently.

  He felt a wave of relief, but then a burning shame crept over his skin as he realised he was also disappointed. ‘What of his armies now?’ He demanded. ‘They are regrouped, I presume, but where?’

  The rider shook his head. ‘The armies were routed, only the Sultan and his retinue remain intact and they have taken refuge in eastern Armenia. The survivors from the ranks, they have scattered and will not be returning. The Sultan, he is . . . ’ the rider glanced to Muhammud and then back to the ground, ‘ . . . he is broken. He spends his nights in silence, gazing to the west. The Byzantine strategos has another who fights by his side. The Haga, the feroc
ious two-headed eagle. The Sultan’s men say he fought like a djinn, bringing men with him like a wall of fire.’

  ‘Enough!’ Muhammud snapped, cutting the rider short and sweeping a platter of goblets and dishes from the table by his side to shatter on the courtyard.

  Some twenty five thousand men had been whittled down to barely a thousand by the swords of an outlying army of this ancient empire of Byzantium, not even close to their emperor or the seat of power in Constantinople. So his uncle had got it wrong, assuming one army could break Byzantium. You should have taken me with you, Falcon.

  He glanced up to see Nizam, who had paced silently out behind the rider. The vizier’s eyes were heavy and he gave the faintest shake of his head. Muhammud looked from the Vizier to the rider and assessed his next move. Word could not spread of the Sultan’s defeat. Muhammud sensed a shadow pass over his soul. He had to be a ruthless leader now, like his uncle.

  ‘You rode alone?’ He asked the rider, who nodded.

  ‘Take him back to the ranks. Have him bathed, clothed and fed,’ he sighed to Kilic. As the giant of a man moved to usher the rider to his feet, Muhammud gave him a firm and familiar nod, eyes cold as ice. Kilic nodded back.

  Muhammud turned away and looked to the strategy map laid out on the ground before him. He gazed over the map, then closed his eyes at the gurgling protests of the rider as Kilic tore a blade across the man’s throat. When the rider fell silent, he opened his eyes again, looking over the fifty shatranj pieces currently set around the large red dot representing Isfahan. His eyes narrowed; did the Byzantines really believe they had broken the Seljuk spirit, routed the core of their armies? Fire raced through his veins as he thought of the emperor and his armies rejoicing at his uncle’s humiliation. But their joy would be short lived; Byzantium had seen but the tip of the blade that was to strike through its heart. He glanced up at the battlements of the city walls and could see the dust haze from the swell of activity outside. Then he barked at Nizam. ‘Come with me.’

  Muhammud strode from the palace and across the square, ignoring the salutations and cries of praise from the crowds. Then he flitted up the steps to the battlements, Kilic and Nizam hurrying to keep pace with him. At last they stopped as Muhhamud rested his palms on the crenelated stonework. ‘Yes,’ he purred, his eyes sparkling as he drank in the scene before him.

  The fertile plain was invisible under blanket of military: a sea of tents, warhorses, men in shimmering armour and an endless line of siege towers and stone-throwers. He had spent the last months whipping them into a frenzy, telling of the glory to be had in toppling the ancient empire of the west. As the weeks had rolled by and word had spread around the Seljuk lands, new divisions were formed to accommodate the influx of warriors who wanted to be part of this glory, to march with the Mountain Lion. He thought again of the strategy map: fifty pieces, each representing two thousand men and all of them hungry. Hungry to crush Byzantium.

  ‘Sultan Tugrul was to call on me when the time was right, to solidify his holdings in Byzantine lands,’ he spoke evenly to Nizam. ‘Well that call will not now come, but the fruit has never been riper. We will crush those who seek to unhinge our glorious destiny and the Falcon’s honour will be restored under my banner. Our siege engines will shatter the crumbling walls of Byzantium’s cities and their armies will die under the hail of our arrows. Should this army of Chaldia or any other, choose to meet me in the field. Well, then they will face the wrath of the Mountain Lion!’

  He grappled the Seljuk banner from the nearest guard on the wall and hoisted it up over his head, the golden bow emblem fluttering in the gentle breeze. First the soldiers camped directly below the walls saw it and leapt to their feet, raised a chorus of cheers and rapped their scimitar hilts on their shields. Then, the cacophony rippled outwards across the plain like thunder.

  Muhammud glared into the setting sun. This strategos of Chaldia would pay. And the Haga, this so-called invincible warrior? Muhammud vowed that he would seek him out and crush his army. Then take his head.

  ‘Glory awaits us in the west!’ He cried out to the horde.

  The horde cried out until the city walls shook.

  Muhammud drank in the scene, eyes wide. Then Kilic leaned in towards him.

  ‘Another rider has come in, master, a straggler from the armies of the Falcon.’ The bodyguard nodded to the bearded rider who climbed the last of the steps onto the battlements. ‘He is alone. Just give the word,’ the bodyguard showed Muhammud the dagger tucked into his wristband.

  Muhammud nodded to Kilic then frowned, eyeing the rider. He did not seem to be nervous.

  The rider knelt on one knee. ‘Alp Arslan, I trust you already know of the . . . situation . . . in the west?’

  Muhammud’s eyes narrowed at this. He looked to Kilic, hesitated, then almost imperceptibly shook his head. Kilic’s shoulder slumped and the bodyguard moved away. ‘I do. So, why do you come before me?’ He motioned with his hands for the rider to stand.

  The rider stood. ‘I am Bey Soundaq, and I have fought in the west for many years now. I come before you to tell you of the man who you must destroy if our glory is to be realised.’

  ‘One man?’

  ‘One man, Alp Arslan. I have spoken with him, he is no ordinary soul; he is one man who fights and leads an army like no other I have seen.’

  Muhammud’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘The Haga stands between us and glory.’

  ***

  Peleus lifted his skin and poured another handful of the brackish water over his face but the desert air dried him like crackling in seconds.

  ‘Bloody murder, this,’ Stypiotes croaked, slumping back onto the sand. ‘Did I cark it in the battle and get fired down to hell? That’s what it bloody feels like. If the strategos reckons this is such a good idea then he should have stayed out here to build the bleedin’ towers himself?’

  ‘Well, the strategos likes the new beacon system around the town and this is just an extension to it. Apparently the idea came from Apion,’ Peleus said.

  ‘Aye, the Haga. Well he’s certainly got something about him, I’ll give him that. Remember the hobblin’ runt that turned up at the town gates last spring? Now he’s a tourmarches? That takes some doin’. They’re even sayin’ he’ll be the next strategos. Still though, he could have hauled his arse out here and helped.’

  Peleus nodded, eyeing the wooden stumps marking out the four corners of this tower, rope joining them to form a square. He saw the point in the initiative of building the chain of desert watchtowers, but Stypiotes would take none too kindly to being lectured at the moment, he figured.

  A bandon of infantry, four master carpenters, two blacksmiths, an architect and an engineer were accompanied by a detachment of fifty kataphractoi and some thirty Armenian camel scout riders. Numbering nearly four hundred, this group had been sent out east by Cydones while the rest of the thema returned to Chaldia. Everyone was less than delighted but the strategos had won over the majority with a promise of triple pay for a month. The idea was to stamp home the advantage gained during the usual lull after such a decisive victory. So while the Seljuks licked their wounds, Byzantium would stake its borders physically with these wooden watchtowers, the lantern chain would act as an early warning system against the next attack, whenever it came. After a few days marching they had now delineated the first leg of the chain, coming in from the borders of Armenia and out into the sands and hills of the eastern reaches of Anatolia.

  With a grimace, Stypiotes scratched roughly at his crotch. ‘There’s no bloody point in wearin’ this armour. It makes my arse really itchy in this heat. We could walk about with targets on our backs; there’s nobody around for miles. The Seljuks are broken, for now.’

  Peleus chuckled and pulled the parcel of smoked fish and dried fruit from his ration pack. Cydones had been keen to give the detachment privileges and these prime rations were one such measure. ‘Take a seat, Stypiotes, you’re making me nervous pacing around like tha
t and you’ll only make yourself hotter.’

  ‘Cah!’ The big soldier grunted, flopping down onto the sand next to Peleus, ‘Here, let’s have some of that.’ He pulled a strip of smoked fish for himself. ‘I tell you, when you’ve been dreaming of sitting in the inn at Argyroupolis, sinking ale after ale then picking your woman, then you get this,’ he widened his arms to the endless dunes that rolled out ahead and shook his head.

  Peleus wondered just what orders Cydones would relay next. If these watchtowers were to be of any use, someone would have to man them permanently. He felt a moan coming on.

  ‘Peleus, Stypiotes!’ A voice called. It was young Atticus the skutatos, on the back of a camel ridden by a swarthy Armenian. ‘We’re setting up camp at the next watchtower site. The komes wants you to gather your tools and fall in to help prepare the camp.’

  ‘Grand! More graft!’ Stypiotes grumbled.

  ‘Come on,’ Peleus nudged him with a grin, rolling up his ration pack and standing up to offer a hand to his friend, ‘they might have stashed a secret barrel of ale on the mule train?’