Strategos: Island in the Storm

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Ah, yes,’ the sultan mused, eyeing the bruised, swollen arm. ‘My physicians will fit a splint to the wound. But I do fear it will take a long time to heal. Be sure though that when you are well, you will be swift to your emperor’s side.’

  ‘I will,’ Apion said.

  ‘But for now, you should take Taylan’s things home.’

  Apion glanced down at Taylan’s armour and then frowned. ‘I have long forgotten what home is – bar a draughty barracks or some lonely citadel chamber.’

  Alp Arslan frowned. ‘You misunderstand. I mean you should take them to his home. To his mother, Lady Maria.’

  He left the sultan’s tent, numb, staggering past the pair of ghulam guarding the entrance, through the sea of yurts, camp fires and ghazi riders grooming and tending to their wounded and exhausted ponies. Alp Arslan’s words continued to echo in his mind.

  He made his way back to the prisoner pen, and saw that Romanus was there. He had bathed, he was well and he was dressed in a clean Seljuk yalma. The sultan had also given him a grey steppe mare, and a wing of ghulam riders were helping to marshal the Byzantine prisoners into ordered ranks, even handing them their lances and shields back.

  ‘Strategos!’ Romanus beamed. He hid the shame of the defeat well. ‘You have heard what is to happen?’

  ‘I have,’ Apion smiled, shaken from his stupor. He tried to seek words of encouragement and avoid dwelling on the loss. ‘Now your true enemies will have to step into the daylight after their years of subterfuge.’

  ‘We are heading west, back to Theodosiopolis. There, we will take stock of what is left of the ranks. Next, I will gather an army of allies. Alyates thinks he can muster another few thousand men. Bryennios might be able to convince a Pecheneg horde to fight for us too. Philaretos will ride for Melitene and rally what soldiers he can. Then, and only then, I will return to the capital. I will do all I can to ensure the throne is not lost.’ He looked down to Apion’s crippled arm. ‘It pains me that you will not be able to ride at arms with me. But when you are well, you will join me?’

  ‘If what I hear is correct – that peace in the borderlands can be had if your agreement with the sultan is upheld – then yes, I will be by your side as soon as my wounds are healed. Until then, I have other affairs that I must see to.’

  ‘So be it, Strategos. Until we meet again,’ Romanus said.

  ‘Wherever that may be,’ Apion said in reply, clasping his good hand to Romanus’ outstretched forearm.

  The emperor heeled his pony round to lead the Byzantine soldiers from the Seljuk camp, across the plains of Manzikert and off to the west. As the chain of riders and then infantry snaked out after him, Apion watched them fade into silhouettes, framed by the dropping sun. Then, as the last few soldiers departed at the tail of the column, a hand clasped onto his shoulder.

  Apion swung round. A coal-dark face beamed at him, tears darting from the eyes. ‘Sha!’ he gasped.

  The Malian said nothing, simply embracing Apion. When he pulled back, Apion saw that he balanced on a crutch, an angry wound peeking from behind a thick bandage on his thigh.

  ‘I thought I was dead, Strategos, I truly did. A Seljuk rider cut through my thigh and my strength left me in moments. Then came darkness like no sleep, then a grey, lifeless land. I only woke a few hours ago, found myself lying amongst corpses. The skribones had left me with the dead while they tended to those they thought they could save.’

  Apion looked either side of him, at the other few stragglers. Two men with dirt and soot obscuring their faces. One tall and hulking, the other stooped. Blastares, Procopius? But a shaft of sunlight revealed the pair as two young skutatoi from his Chaldian ranks.

  ‘I too have seen them amongst the living,’ Sha said, reading Apion’s thoughts, ‘when memory intertwines with hope.’ Sha reaffirmed his grip on Apion’s shoulder, then nodded to the burial grounds to the east of the camp. ‘They died like they lived. As lions.’

  ‘As lions,’ Apion repeated.

  The pair gazed at the burial grounds in silence. It was Sha who spoke next; ‘I was going to ask you if you would be coming with us, Strategos. But I know you better than most. I can see that sparkle in your eyes again.’

  ‘I know where Maria is, Sha. No more searching,’ he said. ‘I shall return after the winter.’

  ‘Then go,’ Sha said, pulling away from Apion to keep up with the tail of the column, the two young skutatoi flanking him and helping him in his movement. The Malian turned to cast back a valedictory salute and offered him a broad, white-toothed smile. ‘But do not be gone too long. These lands need you, Haga.’

  Apion watched Sha go, joining the others in the sunset. I hope with all my heart they do not, my friend.

  Then a voice spoke beside him in the Seljuk tongue. ‘Byzantine? The sultan said you needed a pony for some journey to the south?’

  Apion looked to the lithe akhi sentry and then to the dappled steppe mare whose reins he offered. ‘Aye, I do,’ he said, taking the reins and gazing to the navy blue, star-speckled south.

  ***

  Rain battered down over the Bithynian villa. Inside, a slumped varangos’ chest rose and fell in the bubble of lamplight by an open bedchamber door. Psellos crouched in the night gloom within the chamber, waiting, eyes fixed on the slumbering Rus axeman. The fool had grown complacent after months of this uneventful exile guard duty. Now, Psellos thought as he stood tall and drew the dagger he had fashioned from an old plough blade, he would learn a lesson that might serve him well in the afterlife.

  He crept forward, hoisted the blade and then tensed, ready to swing it down onto the varangos’ neck. Freedom, wealth . . . power!

  But the Rus’ shovel hand shot up, catching his wrist. The Rus’ eyes shot open too, as if awakened by the scent of his impending death. He twisted Psellos wrist until the bone cracked. Psellos let out a yelp, falling to his knees as the blade clattered to the floor. The Rus stood to tower over him, a disdainful glare in the big man’s eyes. ‘You think we have forgotten what you are, snake?’ A dull rumble sounded outside. Psellos frowned. The big Rus frowned too, glancing to the nearest shutter. Thunder? The shutters rattled and burst open, lightning streaking across the sky.

  The Rus frowned and turned away from the shutter. ‘Now you will return to your chamber, and you will dwell upon what brought you here. You will wallow in a life without purpose. You will remember the many who died at your command.’ The varangos’ teeth ground together. ‘Like my brother, the palace guard who breathed his last on your torture table . . . ’ he brought up his axe, resting the edge on Psellos’ throat. ‘Only when you repent for all you have done – then, I might swipe the head from your shoulders.’

  Psellos felt fear snaking across his skin. Then lightning flashed again. This time he saw something from the corner of his eye. Outside, through the flapping shutters. Horsemen, riding up the estate path towards the villa’s main entrance, illuminated in the storm light. A change of guard at this late hour? Thunder rolled across the night sky, and he heard something else. A muted clatter of iron, then the creak of the main door opening, some way down the hall.

  The varangos frowned. Psellos frowned. Footsteps rattled on the flagstones just behind the big Rus. He swung round just in time to see the cluster of Numeroi spearmen rushing for him. They drove their already-bloodied spears at his chest, running him through and driving him back against the wall, piercing his flesh and bone. Blood lurched from the Rus’ lips and his eyes darted over the scene. Psellos looked to the rain-sodden soldiers, his eyes glinting in the lamplight. ‘Can it be true?’

  The leader of the Numeroi nodded. ‘Diogenes’ army was crushed at Manzikert. He was taken in chains by the sultan then released like a mangy dog. Now he wanders the eastern lands like some beggar, pleading for men to stand with him. Constantinople is ready for a new master.’

  At that moment, John Doukas wandered from his own chamber, bleary-eyed from sleep, but a feral grin spreading across his face. ‘Then
it is finally time for a Doukas to sit on the throne once more?’

  ‘I have two fresh mounts waiting on you outside,’ the leader of the numeroi said. We can be back in Constantinople within days.’

  Psellos’ mind spun at the possibilities. He looked to John, seeing the oaf’s eyes alive with thoughts of the throne. No, he mused, your usefulness as my puppet has waned. Perhaps a younger Doukas might serve my ambitions better?

  The speared Rus gurgled where he was pinned, his arms outstretched in some vain attempt to exact revenge. Psellos stooped, picked up his dagger, then plunged it into the varangos’ left eye. He watched the light dim in the man’s remaining eye, then swung to the villa doorway. ‘To Constantinople, then.’

  The rain lashed them as they rode. It was cold and came in sheets. But no amount of this chill deluge could cool the fire on Psellos’ chest. It had burgeoned when they first mounted, and now it blazed like the fires of Hell. He felt the familiar writhing in there. The burrowing. The gnawing. With a shaky hand, he reached under the fold of his robe and touched the wicked lesion. This time, something more than putrid flesh came away in his fingers. He withdrew his hand and frowned, unable to discern the lump he held in the gloom. Lightning flashed overhead and he saw it then. A lump of pure-white breastbone, slivers of rotting flesh dangling from it, writhing maggots feasting on these tendrils.

  He tossed the morsel away in fright, then set his sights on the west. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay Constantinople. All he had longed for. He had his freedom. Now he could seize his wealth, his power. With the world at his behest, surely no illness could best him?

  An eagle’s cry sounded from somewhere in the storm. That was answer enough.

  ‘Ya!’ he cried into the night storm, trying as best he could to fend off the fiery terror in his breast.

  21. Home

  The midday sun blazed over the city of Mosul. Maria sat in the shade of a date palm by the water font in the walled courtyard of her modest villa, coaxing a sand martin down from the fronds overhead. The bird issued an endless chorus of plaintive song as it weighed up the offer, its tiny head cocking this way and that in judgement. She stood, gently humming the tune her father had once used to soothe her to sleep. The lilting tune harmonised with the bird’s. At this, the creature fell silent, then hopped onto her palm. She sprinkled a dash of sesame seeds on the heel of her hand and watched the bird feast happily. It was then that her gaze fell upon the font. She saw her reflection in the water’s surface and – not for the first time in these last months – wondered at the sight. The grey strands were all but gone. The weary lines around her eyes were absent. The gauntness that had come with the growth was but a memory, replaced by a chubby roundness of her cheeks, reminiscent of her lost youth. She moved her free hand down to her abdomen. The growth itself had shrunk to the size of a walnut.

  ‘You gave me a gift, old woman,’ she whispered into the ether. ‘A gift of life. Yet I must enjoy it alone?’ she said as the sand martin finished its feast and fluttered back up into the palm fronds. Nasir was but a memory. Taylan would not be returning home – she knew this now. This villa he provided for her was all she had when the physician had allowed her to leave the hospital. Empty, silent, still.

  She thought again of her childhood, before war had riven her life and those of so many others. She thought of the young Byzantine boy her father had brought home to the farm, and the lazy days they had spent together in the sun-baked valleys by the River Piksidis. What became of those days, Apion? She mouthed.

  Just then, the scraping of a boot sounded behind her. She turned, realising she was not alone. In the archway leading inside the villa, a tall figure stood. With the sun at his back, she could make out only his battered iron helm and the three eagle fathers jutting from the crown. His broad shoulders were draped in a crimson cloak. In the shade that was his face, she thought for just a moment that she caught sight of his eyes – like two glittering green gemstones. She swung away and grappled the edge of the font, her breath coming in short gasps.

  He moved up behind her, placing the hand of a heavily bandaged arm on her shoulder. She looked down in the water’s surface to see her reflection and, by her shoulder, the features of another. Sun-burnished and scarred skin, a battered nose, an iron-grey beard. Age and war had ravaged him. But the boy from her youth shone through in those emerald eyes. At once she was overcome with fear that if she looked away or disturbed the water’s surface, the image might vanish. But a deep voice broke the spell;

  ‘Maria, I . . . let me look in your eyes.’

  She turned to him, slowly, then rested a hand on the chest of his battered klibanion and looked up at his troubled features. ‘You thought me dead for many years. For that I have felt shame, almost every day.’

  ‘It was surely for the best that I did not know you were alive. In the years we have been apart, I have not been the kind of man any woman would want to be around.’ His eyes reddened as he said this. ‘But I must first speak of another,’ he said, his shoulders sagging as he unstrapped a parcel of cloak and armour from his shoulder. ‘Taylan, he – ’

  ‘Taylan is dead,’ Maria finished for him flatly. I knew this the moment he rode from here to join the sultan’s army. I knew this despite word coming back that the Seljuk armies won a great victory. I knew this before his riders came to confirm it.

  Apion sighed. ‘Know that at the last, he knew the answer did not lie in striking me down. It was the jealous eye and the honed blade of a rival bey that felled him in the end. I tried to save him . . . I . . . ’

  A long silence passed. Maria and Apion gazed upon one another. Tears spilled down Maria’s cheeks first, and then, like rain touching a desert creek for the first time in years, Apion followed suit.

  When they embraced, they lost themselves in a fit of sobbing, holding each other tight, sharing the pain of all that had gone before, since those long, lost days on the farm. They sunk to their knees by the font. The sobbing ebbed away and eventually ended. But there they remained, holding each other, at peace for those blessed few moments.

  ***

  The last days of late summer drifted by, with Apion and Maria rarely leaving the villa. She tended to his wounded arm, seeing that the bone was not healing and so putting it in a fresh wooden splint. They spent almost every day of autumn in the courtyard, talking endlessly, bringing their shared days at Mansur’s farm back to life. At nights they simply lay together, Apion sheltering Maria, his good arm around her waist and his gaze marvelling at the nape of her neck. As the weeks went by, he found the feeling returning to his arm. Now he could clasp objects in his hand and hold them for a few moments before the muscles would spasm and he would drop them again. But at least it allowed him to hold Maria properly. It was a dreamlike existence and it was only when they entered the garden one morning to find a light frost on the tiles and stones that they realised it was winter. In this cold, Apion noticed how his old wounds and scars ached – something he had never noticed in his youth. On these winter nights, He and Maria huddled together by the hearth, logs spitting and crackling as they fought to fend off the fierce night chill. Some weeks later, Apion removed his arm splint. The bone was healed. He flexed and unflexed his fingers in delight, the spasm did not come. But still he frowned, seeing how withered the limb was.

  ‘I doubt I’ll be able to lift a fork with this, let alone a shield,’ he chuckled. He saw Maria’s face fall at the words. He looked over her shoulder and saw the neat pile where he had laid down his armour and helm upon arriving here. It had gathered a thick layer of dust. ‘But I have no wish to hold sword nor shield,’ he said, fixing her with an earnest gaze.

  ‘Then hold me, Apion,’ she whispered, drawing the chord of her robe and letting it fall to the ground. Her beauty was only magnified by the dancing firelight, accentuating every curve. He tore off his tunic and seized her, pressing his lips to hers, feeling her fire-warmed bare skin against his. That night, the fire had long dulled to ashes before they fel
l back from their lovemaking.

  The seasons seemed to pass like days, and when they were awoken one morning by a dawn chorus, Apion realised spring was upon them already. He rose, taking care not to disturb Maria from her slumber. He threw on his tunic and took up a handful of blueberries from the table in the hearth room. The tart berries reinvigorated his senses and shook the sleep from his mind. He strolled out into the garden courtyard, scooped water from the font and slung it across his face and hair, knotting his locks back in a rough loop as he did so. He looked up and around the brightening sky and heard the first hustle and bustle of the streets outside, beyond the garden’s walls. Market day, he realised, hearing lowing oxen and the grinding of cart wheels on the street. The traders and citizens were already about their business after the winter lull. In these last months he had left the villa only to fetch food. That was all they needed. It had seemed that this life could last forever. Just then, a lilting song sailed through the air. The morning call to prayer. Apion enjoyed it for its melody – as he had done most days. He wondered at the strength of those who had managed to hold onto their faith throughout all that had happened. The Byzantines and the Seljuks. Two peoples, two faiths, one god. For so many years he had been unable to think of God with anything but spite. Today, he felt no urge to scowl or scorn. He looked up and scanned the sapphire sky above the minarets, lost in thought. ‘Your lessons are harsh indeed,’ he whispered, ‘but what can we ever become, lest we learn from them?’

  It was then that he heard another noise from outside; the crunch-crunch of military boots and the rustle of iron vests. The noise was like a blotchy cloud passing over the morning sun. It brought back memories of his oath to Romanus. And what of Sha and my comrades? He frowned, realising he had already been away longer than anticipated.