by Tony Roberts
Casca had dealt with their sort plenty of times in the past, and especially during those periods he’d served in the Empire. After giving them earache from verbal and physical means, they went on their way chastened but knowing what their duties were.
He had a proper office in the palace complex, but it was at the Blachernae rather than the Bucoleon, so when he visited the empress or the emperor he had to traverse the entire length of the city. He marveled at its size, and wondered how long it would continue to function as the center of world trade. Everything flowed into Constantinople, silks and spices from the east, furs from the north, grain and ivory from the south, and wool, wood and iron from the west, amongst other goods. No wonder everyone wanted this city; it was in the perfect place.
The Empire had to fight someone almost always; if the west was quiet the east wasn’t, and vice versa. It was remarkable it had survived these seven centuries, but perhaps it’s time was now running out. It made Casca sad to see it brought low, but in many ways it had done so through its own devices. Civil wars were always damaging. They profited nobody, not even the winners.
Autumn arrived and he came to inspect the area that had been set aside for the first of the proper crusading armies that would arrive over the next few months. Alexius’ spies were hard at work in western Europe, constantly sending back reports on the gathering forces in Italy, France and Flanders. It wouldn’t be long before they set out. The only doubt at present was to be which route they would take, either overland through Germany and Hungary or by sea from southern France or Italy across to Dyrrachium at the end of the Via Egnatia, the old Roman road that ran from the Adriatic coast to Constantinople.
Casca sat in the saddle of his horse, examining the flattened prepared ground. It was huge, and all woodland, scrub and any other feature had been cleared from it. Casca had advised quite strongly not to put those from different armies in the same camp, as there might be difficulties. Germans and the French didn’t always see eye to eye, and those from Flanders were prone to fight either at any given time. As for the Normans, they had made a name for themselves fighting anyone just for the hell of it. They weren’t the descendants of the Vikings for nothing.
Alexius listened to his strange, scar-faced Frank, much to the disgust of the noble born manicured Greeks. They disliked this blunt-talking westerner who wasted no time in getting to the point, discarding flowery speech and the correct etiquette. His attitude and manners were borderline disrespectful, but because the emperor didn’t seem to take offense, they let it slide. For the moment.
Casca cared little for their airs and graces. He was a soldier and so was Alexius. This was a military matter, not one of law or setting a table at a banquet. Let the courtiers fuss over whether a letter had been written with the right number of fawning words or not; he was interested in matters of a more serious manner.
Now the harvest was in some of the extra food had been sent to the imperial stores ready to dole out to the crusaders when they arrived. Casca liked the reference to yet another old Roman custom of his past– the doling out of free bread in the times of the Caesars to the citizens of Rome. That old expression brought a wistful smile to his face. Rome may have gone and her successor states had destroyed or forgotten much of what they had replaced, but at least here in the east it was preserved, both in expression and in the writings of that time. No wonder Casca felt more at home here in the Empire than anywhere else. Some of Rome’s old clothing still cloaked these Greeks. They even still referred to themselves at Romanoi – Romans.
A messenger had recently arrived at the palace and presented a letter from one of the crusader lords, Hugh of Vermandois. He’d been very formal and correct, and had politely advised the emperor of his intentions to march down Italy and cross the Adriatic to Dyrrachium and then march to the capital. He requested food and supplies for his army. Alexius now pushed it downstairs to Casca to organize.
Then there was the news of a second army now under way and marching through Germany under the Flemings led by Godfrey of Bouillon and his brothers. They weren’t bothering to send anyone on ahead, and initial reports were of them numbering some ten thousand. Casca winced. That would take some feeding and policing. Lucky his Pechenegs took to their duties with enthusiasm and absolute adherence to their orders. The roads would have to have depots placed along them to avoid the hungry westerners pillaging the farmlands and towns. Like a plague of locusts, they were coming and nothing would stop them.
Alexius summoned Casca to his palace mid-morning one day at the beginning of October. There had been no scheduled meeting so Casca could only assume something had happened. He faced the usual battalion of courtiers and palace flunkies, being processed through room after room, presenting himself to the major domo who noted his name and went through the long and boring rigmarole of how Casca should present himself. Casca knew the drill. Much of it was purely for show, to satisfy the onlookers that proper respect had been shown to the imperial person. All of it was bullshit but Casca knew when he had to play the game.
The palace room was a huge chamber, adorned with pillars and full of burning incense, with slaves wafting huge feathers up and down to spread the smell around. People stood to either side of the central carpet that led directly to the throne, placed atop a huge dais. Alexius, wearing the finest red and gold long coat and his head adorned with the glittering gold crown with side tassels that had miniature crosses dangling at the ends, sat waiting for Casca to be announced.
The emperor was flanked by his courtiers and guards, all superbly dressed in the brightest and most spectacular uniforms. Casca’s outfit wasn’t that bad, either. It was a long coat split down the front so he could ride with it on, gold edged and padded so as to keep out the keenest Thracian winds. A soft felt jacket of blue rested underneath with silver buttons, and his leather belt was studded with silver ringed holes. His sword hung from this but had been removed prior to him being allowed into the throne room. The Empire was well known to harbor plots, schemes and treachery, and nobody could be fully trusted. Not even those who had known the emperor for over twenty years.
“Strategos Longios, welcome,” Alexius greeted him. “I have received disturbing news from Asia this morning. I want you to take a company of Pechenegs over to Bithynia and head for the Nicaea road. There have been reports of a battle fought between the Turks and Peter’s army. The survivors are holding out in an old fortification of ours but need rescuing before they are massacred. I have confidence in you, Longios.”
Aw fuck, Casca thought with dismay. So Peter’s rabble had come up against the Turks and had been handed their asses. He knew it would have come sometime or other. The emperor waved to an aide who went down the steps to Casca and handed him a scroll. His orders.
“Read them on your way over aboard ship. A fleet is waiting at the Bucoleon Harbor as I speak. Do not delay, time is short. You will find your men already aboard. Good luck, and may God be with you.”
Casca saluted, thumping his chest with his fist and bowed his way back from the serious looking Alexius. Once outside Casca was joined by his two junior officers. One was called Asempolous Botanietes, the other Mavros Lozikin. Casca referred to them as Asem and Mav. Both had been quite sniffy about it at first but they had gotten used to the shortened monikers, and now didn’t even pull a look of dislike when he referred to them as such.
“The ships are down here, sir,” Asem said, pointing to the wide stone steps that led to the military section of the harbor, the inner portion. Biremes were waiting silently, packed with sailors and soldiers. Their masts waved lazily to and fro with the waters’ movements. The three men trod down past succeeding pairs of guards who saluted Casca as he passed. A wooden plank with rope ties rested on the edge of the stone jetty and allowed them to board the nearest ship. No sooner had they stepped onto the main deck than the plank was raised and the captain ordered that the ropes be cast off and the ship got under way. Somebody was in a damned hurry.
“What�
��s the story, Mav?” Casca said, holding onto the starboard rail as the bireme swung slowly towards the harbor exit. The deck was full of his men, all looking apprehensively at the waters to either side. Pechenegs didn’t swim. They rode, they killed. They didn’t swim.
“Sir. The Franks were attacked by the Turks near Nicaea and destroyed in a short battle. Their survivors have made their way to a castle near a place called Civetot.”
“Civetot?” Casca frowned. “Never heard of it.”
“The captain has been given directions, sir.”
Casca grunted and broke the seal on his orders. They were to get ashore close to the castle and secure a bridgehead so that the main army under a general called Katakalon could rescue the survivors of the crusade and bring them back across to Europe. Casca’s men were to provide a screen, keeping the Turks at arm’s length. Casca remembered Katakalon from his time with Alexius. He was a competent and level-headed commander, and would do well.
“We’re to provide a policing task. It seems we’ve got the only men capable of taking on the Turks at their own form of warfare. I hope they don’t press things too hard.”
“What of the peace treaty with the Turk, sir?” Asem queried.
Casca rolled his orders up and stuck it in his belt. “I’d say it was fucked, wouldn’t you?”
Asem looked at Casca with distaste. Such crude language clearly wasn’t to his liking.
“Make sure the horses are ready to be offloaded as soon as we’re near the landing site. I hope the damned waters aren’t too choppy.” He looked up at the iron grey sky, pulling a face. Crossing the Straights in autumn wasn’t the best time to do it, but orders were orders. It wasn’t too cold or windy, so the seas shouldn’t be too bad. “Mav, I trust we have plenty of arrows?”
“Sir. Loaded up this morning.”
“Good,” he said, pushing away from the rail and making to go to the captain, who stood at the stern of the ship, “because we’re sure as hell going to need them.”
Leaving his two junior officers to mull over the likelihood of action, he climbed the short staircase to the stern deck. The oarsmen were there, steering the warship, and in between them the captain stood, a barrel-chested man with a thick black beard. He was dressed in bright white armor with brass depictions of dolphins inlaid in his helmet and breastplate. Totally unnecessary, Casca believed, but that was the man’s choice. If he wanted to stand out like a sore thumb, so be it. “So this is a rescue mission, captain?”
“Aye, indeed,” the sailor nodded gravely. “The Franks need our help, Strategos. Our ship is to be the first in, as we have your men aboard. The others,” and he jerked his thumb behind, indicating the two other ships following them out of the harbor into the Sea of Marmara, “have the main army on board. They will take the survivors, too.”
“How many do they think are left? There were tens of thousands of them!”
“Not many. I don’t know the details but somebody got across yesterday with the news of the defeat. Thousands have been slain, apparently, and thousands more taken off as slaves. You know how it is with the Turks.”
“Damn them all to hell,” Casca muttered, turning away.
“Yes, agreed, but God will punish them.”
Casca paused, then carried on making his way back to the main deck. He hadn’t meant the Turks; he’d meant the stupid leaders of the Crusade. They’d been asking for trouble. He wondered whether Peter and the other leaders had survived. How would they feel about leading the others to disaster if they had? Probably would blame it on everyone else other than themselves, which was how leaders generally reacted to their own blunders.
The Pecheneg soldiers were miserably huddled in the center of the deck, trying to keep as far from the water as possible. A few looked green around the gills, and it wouldn’t be long before the rush to the sides began, even though it was a relatively flat sea. Casca walked past them, making for the prow. He would have to see where they were going and what the environment looked like and whether any enemy soldiers were around. They may have to fight their way ashore if that were the case, something he didn’t like the thought of.
The ship swung south east and headed past the twin settlements of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis, hugging the coastline. Casca could see the road he and his Pechenegs had taken to Nicomedia, and they sailed close to the great headland that began at Nicomedia, forming the north-eastern shore of the Sea of Marmora. Nicomedia was forty miles or so along the road, so it wouldn’t be until late in the day that they would even begin to get close. Where was Civetot? Casca had never heard of it but guessed it was a Latin corruption of a Greek settlement. He thought hard about the geography of the area that lay ahead of them. The sea spread to the south, and ahead lay a narrowing inlet at the end of which lay Nicomedia. On either side of the narrowing waters were two towns, Pelecamum and Helenopolis. One was abandoned and the other probably so, or maybe now occupied by the Turks. There was another small settlement close to Helenopolis. What was it called? Cibotus? That must be it.
It was on a flat plain with woods close by before the land began to rise towards the interior. There ought to be a jetty or port or something, which would make disembarkation easier.
The sky remained full of grey clouds, lazily passing overhead, but thankfully no rain or high winds came. Casca stood at the prow for hours, and was eventually joined by both Mav and Asem. The Pechenegs were still grouped on deck, refusing to go below, but their horses were safely secured in the hold. They brought a few more tidbits of information; apparently Peter had returned to Constantinople to try to get more supplies, and it seemed the Crusader army had been taken over by the petty nobility and split into two groups, the Franks and the Germans. The Germans had gone on ahead, leaving the Franks at Civetot-Cibotus, and some disaster had overtaken them. Then the Frankish camp had been attacked and most of them massacred.
“One of our sailors trading with the Franks managed to escape by boat,” Asem said, “the rumor on board ship is that the Franks are holding out in an old castle close to the village.”
“Let’s hope we can get there in time, then,” Casca replied. “Either of you got anything to eat? I’m starving.”
Mav shook his head but said he’d go get something. Many of the men were avoiding food, but Casca, who had centuries of sea travelling experience, had no problems. Whether that was because he had good sea legs or the Curse prevented him getting seasick, he didn’t know. It took an exceptionally bad sea to get him feeling ill.
As the afternoon began to fade they came into sight of the shore, the spectacular peak of Mount Olympus to the south half seen in the clouds. The shore was a level plain, dotted by trees, shrubs and the occasional building. A village could be seen just off to one side and a castle to the other. Casca could see mounted men riding about.
Turks!
Roaring to the Pechenegs to forget their stomachs and to stand up, he returned to the main deck. Asem and Mav hurried in his wake, their nerves starting. “I want the horses ready to disembark in five minutes,” Casca bellowed. “We’ll be leaving the ship in combat conditions! Bows to be strung and arrows fitted. Don’t expect to get any kisses from our enemies!”
Some of the Pechenegs smiled wanly. They would be glad to be off this fiendish contraption and back on horseback. The prospect of killing someone appealed to them immensely and they began unpacking their equipment, pleased to be doing something that took their minds off their queasy guts.
“Captain! I want covering support when we dock!” Casca yelled to the captain of the ship.
The captain waved in acknowledgement and snapped out orders. Marines poured out onto deck, armed with short bows, crossbows and a few had long brass tubes with siphons attached, clumsily being hauled by their wearers. Casca knew what those were. Greek fire. Naphta, a strange concoction he’d first seen on the campaigns of Heraclius four hundred years or more ago, which burned even on water. It was the secret weapon of the Empire. God help anyone caught with that.
The ship headed straight for the long jetty that jutted out from the shore near the village. Smoke and dust rose into the air from the devastated village in the distance, and closer to the castle there were a large number of soldiers riding round and occasionally shooting arrows at the battlements where the defenders were still holding out. That was where they had to go. The village of Civetot was a lost cause. Didn’t look as if there would be any survivors there.
The bireme heeled round in a large half circle as it approached the jetty. It looked a reasonably well built piece of work, and probably had been there for a number of decades. By now the Turks had seen the three ships approaching and the alarm had gone up. A few riders had peeled away from the vicinity of the castle and had come galloping across to contest the landing site. Casca guessed they thought these were merchant vessels trying to bring supplies to the Franks. If so, they were in for a surprise.
At a command from the captain, the marines scrambled to the rail on the port side and to the raised deck at the stern, and also onto the fighting deck at the prow. Crossbows and bows were raised and a volley flew out from the ship, small black dots speeding across to the land and landing all round the startled Turks. They wheeled and back tracked for a short distance, then came again, this time with their bows ready and arrows fitted. They quickly adopted the classic Turkish battle tactic of circling the enemy and loosing off an arrow at the closest point to their quarry, but this time they couldn’t ride round their opponent, so they merely rode in a series of circles and loosed off when they got to the seaward side.
Arrows arced over the water to strike the ship’s side and deck. Casca shouted a warning and the men ducked. One sailor was hit and fell sideways with a shriek of pain. The second volley rattled out and the shafts dropped all round the nearest circling group, and two Turks were sent crashing to the ground.
Now the Greek Fire siphoners vented forth, their liquid fire falling well short but it landed on the shore and sent up black gouts of smoke, alarming the Turks even more. The circles retreated out of range and they watched as the ship edged closer to the jetty. By now the two other ships had nosed in closer, and their crews were adding their missiles to the skirmish.