Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart

by Gordon Doherty

  Romanus shrugged, squaring his shoulders and rolling his head. ‘It will be corrected. That may not sit well with the magnates of Anatolia. But damn them if they think I’m going to be another lapdog for the rich.’

  Apion thought of Psellos and the Doukids. ‘There are some who might be cowed, sir. Yet there are others who are rooted in the imperial court. In these last months I have seen terrible deeds carried out by these types.’

  Romanus shot him a narrow-eyed look, nodding. ‘I know the lie of the imperial court, Strategos. It has festered for too long. It needs washing clean from top to bottom.’

  Apion smiled at this. ‘Only Lady Eudokia has spoken with such frankness since I came west.’

  Romanus grinned. ‘That is why we will make a tenacious pairing. I want the capital to become what it once was; a beating heart, a beacon of inspiration. God’s true city, as it once was.’

  Apion did not reply to this, glancing at the white band of skin on his wrist.

  But Romanus continued; ‘A city garrisoned with non-partizan tagmata. Armamenta stocked high with weapons and armour. Did you know that the capital once held enough ore in its workshops to forge four thousand blades?’

  Apion thought over the military treatise he had read through in the library at Trebizond. ‘Aye, enough to equip an entire imperial tagma. The city armamenta is to be restored to its past greatness, sir?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Romanus leaned in closer, a wry grin spreading across his face. ‘And so will those of the outlying themata. The workhouses will provide arms and armour for all our armies.’

  Apion thought of Alp Arslan’s words, dismissing the empire’s demise as a certainty. Suddenly they sounded distant and weak. A warmth grew in his heart, and one word resonated in his thoughts. ‘The greatest thing you can bestow upon the empire is hope, sir.’

  Romanus nodded. ‘That will follow when the people see change around them. But there is much to do. It was once the case that we were strong enough to mount a challenge against our aggressors on the western and the eastern borders simultaneously. It has not been this way for some time. I have watched as, after years of campaigning to bring the Bulgar rebels and Magyar armies to their knees, the armies of the west have been drawn away from the cusp of victory – sent east to push back the armies of the Seljuk Sultanate.’

  Apion nodded. ‘The converse is equally true. Four summers ago, I led the remainder of the Chaldian and Colonean Themata into Armenia. We pinned Alp Arslan and his army – some twenty thousand riders, twice our strength – in the rocky passes. In such terrain, the advantage of their mounts was lost, and they were hemmed in by a wall of my spears. We were weeks from forcing them into submission, weeks!’ Apion clenched a fist as if grasping out for that elusive victory. ‘Then a doux led his tagma to our camp. Not to reinforce us, not to elicit surrender or to hammer home victory and seal lasting peace in the east. He handed me a scroll bearing an imperial seal, then led more than half of my men away to the coast, where they were shipped to the west. We were forced to fight a long and bloody retreat from those mountains.’

  Romanus patted his stallion’s mane, nodded and chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Then we have a common history, Strategos. Did you know that I spent my youth in Cappadocia? I rode in the east when I was a boy. And now I must turn my sights to the rising sun once more. I have yet to clash swords with Alp Arslan, but it is only a matter of time. I have heard much rumour of the sultan’s guile and ferocity.’

  ‘The rumours are well-founded,’ Apion replied earnestly.

  ‘And that is why I need men like you by my side in the years ahead,’ Romanus concluded with an earnest gaze.

  They rode on in silence, and Apion noticed that the light had faded almost completely and that Dederic had struck up a torch. This cast a ghostly orange glow on their immediate surroundings, every shadow dancing like a demon. Only the muted shuffle of hooves, the snort of horses and the crackling of dry bracken pierced the stillness. When an owl hooted from the depths of the woods ahead, Apion started, then chided himself with a ghost of a grin.

  Then the piercing shriek of an eagle split the air, high above. The other men of the column glanced up in weary half-interest. But Apion’s spine chilled. He frowned, peering into the darkness ahead.

  There, a wisp of wintry mist swirled and took shape. He recognised her immediately; the silvery hair, the puckered features. But her sightless eyes were bulging in horror. She pressed one finger to her lips. Then she was gone, and darkness prevailed once more.

  Apion slowed his mount to a halt and placed a hand across the chest of Romanus. ‘Be still, be silent.’

  ‘Strategos?’ Romanus asked, his face creased in confusion. The rest of the column slowed up behind them and the pair of varangoi in the vanguard twisted in their saddles, frowning in puzzlement.

  Apion did not answer. His brow dipped as he scanned the forest around them.

  Then he heard it, the continued snapping of bracken in the darkness. His eyes widened.

  At that instant, hissing filled the air like a hundred asps.

  ‘Shields!’ he roared.

  The column rustled into life, but not before the arrow hail hit home. The hissing died with a series of wet punches of iron bursting into flesh. Sparks flew as arrowheads hammered into armour, helms and shields. Gurgling cries rang out as the stricken slid from their mounts. Horses whinnied and reared up and at once the column was in disarray.

  Finally the arrow hail slowed and stopped. A dozen riders lay slain and still on the forest floor. Apion heeled his mount round, his eyes scanning the blackness over the rim of his shield.

  ‘Brigands?’ Romanus gasped as he circled on his mount likewise.

  Apion pulled a shaft from his shield – it was squat, thick and the iron heads were heavy; these were no arrows, they were darts launched from a solenarion, far more powerful than a normal bow at such close range. A weapon used in these parts only, and sparingly, by the empire. ‘No, assassins!’

  Romanus’ eyes widened as he heard bowstrings stretching once more in the darkness, all around them. ‘Dismount and form foulkon!’ he cried to his men.

  The remaining riders slid from their saddles and bundled together with Romanus and Apion, raising their shields around them and overhead to form a miniature protective shell. The bowstrings twanged and another round of hissing filled the air. The huddled group braced and then shuddered as the darts hammered home. A series of gurgling cries rang out and the group shrank further.

  ‘They’re coming closer!’ Apion realised as he noticed that some of the darts had punched right through the shields this time. He turned to Dederic. ‘Give me light!’

  Dederic looked at him, wide-eyed, then nodded as realisation dawned. The Norman scrambled out from the foulkon to grasp at the torch, lying on the forest floor where he had dropped it. Then he scurried back into the shield canopy, darts smacking into the dirt in his wake.

  Apion tore a strip from his tunic, then handed it to Igor. The varangos hurriedly tied it around the head of an arrow shaft and held it to Dederic’s torch. ‘Ready? Break!’ Apion cried. As one, the foulkon parted, Igor stood and fired the flaming arrow into the depths of the forest. Then, just as quickly, the foulkon reformed. From the gaps in their shields, they watched as the arrow punched down. Sparks ignited the dried leaves all around it. In the glow, the silhouettes of their attackers flitted between the trees. They wore conical Byzantine helmets and padded vests. Apion counted more than fifteen of them before the flames died.

  Another hissing volley of solenarion bolts hammered down on the foulkon. Three more varangoi crumpled.

  ‘I can’t see them properly. I need more light!’ Apion barked, ripping another strip from his tunic. The rest of the men followed suit.

  Then one of Romanus’ riders nudged Apion, offering him a round, wax sealed clay jar. ‘Try this.’

  Apion held the wax seal to his nose and caught scent of the acrid stench from inside. His eyes glinted, then he shot up and hurl
ed the jar at the last of the embers from the fire arrow. At once, the jar exploded into an orange vision of hell. Apion watched as the Greek fire engulfed the forest before him like the dark door incarnate. A pair of assassins tumbled around, their skin and clothes ablaze, their cries falling mute as the flames drew the breath from their lungs. Another eighteen silhouettes remained only paces away, hurriedly nocking bolts to their bows.

  ‘Stand!’ Apion roared. ‘Their strength was the darkness. Now we can fight them. They have assumed that victory is theirs – look how close they have come.’ At this, the varangoi stood and formed a line, ready to charge. Then Romanus waved his dismounted riders to their feet likewise, and raised his spathion overhead.

  ‘Advance!’ he roared.

  Like a mirror shattering, the line exploded forward, each man lurching out, hefting their axes and spathions.

  Apion’s heart hammered on his ribs as he rushed for the assassin before him. The assassin threw down the solenarion and fumbled to draw his sword. Apion kicked the blade from the assassin’s grip and then swiped his own blade down, gouging a crimson trough through the man’s chest. Hot blood sprayed on Apion’s skin as the man toppled. Then he spun just in time to parry a swipe at his neck, before jabbing his sword hilt into this next attacker’s face, feeling bones crunch under the blow. The assassin fell away, his cheekbone caved in.

  Apion stalked through the melee to locate his next opponent. He dodged under swinging spathions and swiping Rus axes. Then he saw that three of the assassins had isolated Romanus, and were driving at him with their swords. Romanus fought like a lion, parrying two strikes but taking a cut to his neck from a third, blood spidering over his moulded breastplate. Apion rushed to his aid, slashing the hamstrings of the nearest assassin and then sending a right hook into the jaw of the next, who spun away with a grunt, then twisted back round only to receive Apion’s boot on the bridge of his nose followed by the edge of the scimitar across his throat. Romanus despatched the third, punching his spathion through the man’s chest and kicking the corpse away.

  The pair staked their blades in the ground, panting, hearing the rest of their riders cry out in victory before breaking out in solemn prayer, some dropping to their knees, others clutching hands to their hearts.

  ‘Who were they?’ Romanus puffed, nodding to the corpses before them as one of his men tended to his neck wound.

  Apion pressed his boot on the body of the assassin he had punched, then rolled him over. The man was dressed as a skutatos, there was no doubt of that.

  Igor answered, his eyes wide. ‘I recognise this cur from the Numera barracks.’

  ‘He is a soldier of the Numeroi?’ Romanus’ face was creased in a frown, then he looked at Apion. ‘Loyal to Psellos and the Doukids?’

  ‘Like a vile stench,’ Apion nodded.

  Igor looked to Apion and Romanus. ‘I doubt he is a mere infantryman,’ he said, plucking a solenarion bolt from the man’s quiver, then looking around in the darkness. ‘This work reeks of the portatioi – the dark-hearted bastards at the core of their ranks that live to spill blood. Torturers and cut-throats.’

  ‘They’ve followed us all the way here,’ Apion realised.

  ‘Strategos?’ Romanus exclaimed.

  Apion’s reply caught in his throat as he heard the stretching of one more bowstring.

  He leapt forward, punching Romanus back with the heels of his hands. A bolt sliced through the air and smacked into the tree where Romanus had been a heartbeat before.

  Apion and Romanus gawped at each other.

  The thudding of a lone set of hooves echoed somewhere in the darkness, heading south and growing fainter.

  Apion mounted his gelding, holding Romanus’ gaze. ‘Out here we are in grave danger. Rest will have to wait. We must ride and reach Constantinople at haste.’

  ***

  A thick fog had settled over the north of Constantinople, filling the valleys and even creeping over the peak of the sixth hill. The shadows of the few who were brave enough to tread these streets at night swirled and faded in the moonlight.

  The broad northern imperial way was somewhat imbalanced, lined on one side with a dilapidated tavern and a selection of brothels, and on the other with the marble walls of the Cistern of Aetius. The way ended at the city walls and the Adrianople gate. The gatehouse towered high above, the crenellations and the tiny figures of the sentries silhouetted in the ghostly moonlight.

  Hidden in the doorway of a derelict tenement a few doors down from the tavern, two gaunt and filthy men lurked. They watched as a drunken trader staggered from the door of the tavern, casting an ethereal orange glow on the greyness momentarily. He hobbled – partly from inebriation and partly from the festering wound on his leg. A purse dangled from his belt, chinking with coins with his every faltering step. The pair looked at one another and then nodded, before scuttling unnoticed through the fog to flank the drunk, each of them slipping daggers from their belts. Like wolves, they leapt upon the man, muffling his cries with a hand over his mouth. Then one of them hammered a dagger hilt into the man’s temple. The man crumpled, and the pair fumbled to free his purse. The first thief batted the hands of the other away, then the other pushed his accomplice back. In an instant, they were growling at one another, like scavengers over a carcass, hands bloodied, daggers levelled. Just then, approaching footsteps echoed down the street. Footsteps and the clanking of iron. They both snapped their glares round on the swirling mist down the street.

  ‘Numeroi!’ The first hissed, then scurried back into the silvery veil of fog.

  The second grunted at this, flicking his gaze between the purse – still tied to the dead man’s belt – and the approaching footsteps. His eyes widened as shapes formed in the mist. Two ironclad numeroi of the city garrison bookended a pair of hooded figures, one hunched and small, the other tall, with ghostly silver eyes peering out from under the hood. Then, at last, the purse came free. He spun and scrambled towards the walls and away from the figures, slipping and sliding on the flagstones. He had run only a handful of steps when a pair of arrows punched into his back. The thief crumpled to his hands and knees, crawling, spluttering black blood from his lips. Then, when the tall, silver-eyed man clicked his fingers, one of the numeroi jogged forward and dragged his spathion blade across the thief’s throat and he fell still.

  At this, the trader stirred, groaning, clutching his head. In a haze, he looked up at the four who had saved him. ‘God bless you!’ he clasped his hands together and bowed as he struggled to his feet.

  ‘Nobody must witness my presence here,’ the squat, hooded figure hissed, ‘nobody!’

  The silver-eyed one by his side nodded at this, then slipped a sickle from his cloak and nicked the trader’s neck. The trader’s eyes bulged and he mouthed silent words of confusion as black blood haemorrhaged from the arterial tear. Then his skin drained of colour and he slumped to the ground.

  Psellos stepped over the corpses and picked his way through the pooling blood. The deaths of these nameless individuals were an irrelevance to him at best. He looked up to the end of the street and the Adrianople Gate. The vast, arched timber gates were as tall as four men, hugged by bands of rusting iron, and barred by a length of timber hewn from a single, tall beech. When they reached the entrance to the gatehouse, another pair of loyal numeroi waited there.

  ‘Where is he?’ Psellos spoke abruptly.

  ‘On the walls, sir,’ the numeros replied, nodding up to the battlements.

  The four ascended the stairway until they emerged onto the battlements. This, the inner wall, stood tall and clear of the carpet of fog. The limestone walkway was bathed in clear moonlight, the towers that studded it were as large as forts. Looking back into the city, only the Hagia Sofia, the Imperial Palace, the Aqueduct of Valens and a militia of fine columns rose above the fog. Looking west, out of the city, the outer wall and the moat were swamped by the fog, and the countryside and crop fields of Thracia were likewise cloaked.

&n
bsp; Psellos saw the lone figure standing in the shadows of a crenellation. The rider’s face was bathed in sweat, his hair matted to his forehead as he clutched his helmet underarm. He strode to the man. ‘It is done?’

  The man’s eyes gave it away before he spoke.

  ‘No, sir. Romanus lives, though many of his retinue were felled. I have ridden for days without food, rest or shelter. To be sure that news would reach you while you still have time . . . ’

  ‘And the Haga? I trust that at least this troublesome thorn has been pruned?’

  The man’s lips trembled. ‘He fought like a demon, sir. The men – Romanus’ men – they fought on his word.’

  ‘You and your men failed.’ Psellos cut the man off, his chest tightening. ‘Yet you purport to be one of my finest?’ He had promoted this fool into his portatioi on a day when he had been suffering from a crushing headache. The folly of his hasty actions would be costly. He looked to Zenobius. ‘Zenobius is an example I had hoped you would follow. He sets aside his soul, his fears, his wants, and he never fails me. Never.’

  The rider’s lips flapped uselessly and he nodded hurriedly.

  ‘Zenobius, afford this man a lesson in efficacy.’

  The albino turned his expressionless gaze upon the shivering rider and grappled him by the throat, crushing the cry of fear from the man’s larynx. Then he reached down with his free hand to grasp the rider by the belt. Finally, he lifted the man up and over the dipped section of the crenellations. The rider thrashed like a sturgeon, then the albino released him. His body fell into the fog like a stone, his roar hoarse and muted. Then, a wet crunch of bone echoed between the inner and outer walls.

  Psellos inhaled the chill night air through his nostrils and looked to the north-west. ‘It is nearing dawn. Romanus must be only a short ride from the walls.’

  ‘You should have sent me,’ the albino spoke flatly.