A warm wind scrubbed across Leo's face. He shut his eyes to the vast horizon, savoring the way the wind soothed his skin, the respite from climbing, the silence in which he could hear the song of insects across the vast plateau, the rumble of thunder in the Taurus range, and the reluctant clopping of horse-hooves led toward him from the stables above the gorge.
He opened his eyes. The horses looked better than he had any right to expect. And remounts were sound, too, which was a relief: no matter what Meletios might think about humility, let alone ease of riding, he must bestride a horse, not a donkey if they were to make the speed they needed. Leo gestured to Theodoulos, the lightest of the party, to take the horse Nordbriht had ridden and for Nordbriht to move to a fresh horse: he had seen the Turks shift from mount to mount to ease the burden on their horse-herds, and it made sense—especially if they had Turkish riders as their enemies.
Father Meletios turned toward the cliff, blessing the valley and all who lived therein. Then, he sank to his knees in prayer. Leo glanced briefly away. It would shame the old man if he were afraid and they even took note of it.
He eyed the kneeling figure narrowly. Before the years had bent him and his disciplines turned him gaunt, they might have been of a height. That decided him.
At a gesture from Nordbriht reminding him, Leo pulled the bundle of his mail from his back. The rustle and clangor of its rings drew the old man's attention. Carrying the mail shirt over to him, Leo laid it over his hands.
“I want you to wear this, holy sir,” he told Meletios. They would find something else for Theodoulos to wear among the collection of spare leather and chain mail oddments among them.
Meletios pushed it back at him. “I am armored in faith,” he said. Then, as if forestalling Leo's protest or making sure he would not issue a direct order, he added, “Let me be, my son. I am strong enough, perhaps, to ride to Hagios Prokopios if I do not bear that burden. If I falter, tie me to the saddle.”
Will we reach it safely?
The blank eyes went dark and terrible for a moment. “We shall arrive safely. More or less, we shall...” his voice trailed away into the muttering aftermath of a prophecy.
“What about Theodoulos?” Leo asked.
Meletios’ hand clasped his. “I would see him safe. Promise me you will care for him.”
“As if he were a son of my own.”
Meletios chuckled, a surprisingly worldly sound. “Perhaps he will care for your son to come,” he added. Leo narrowed his eyes at the holy man again. Was this more prophecy?
“Let Theodoulos decide how he will ride. He knows the road and his own risks.”
The boy, too, rejected the offer of Leo's mail, though he was glad enough to wear the leather shirt and helm produced for him. He had a sword now and even a bow; and heaven only send that no one had to rely upon his skill.
Leo struggled into his harness. Groaning inwardly, he distributed its weight evenly across his shoulders. How much more easily he would be able to ride if he didn't wear it—not to mention the possible risk to the men he rode with if Turks saw them with what looked like an Imperial officer. There was risk if Turks saw them in any case, he thought; and soon they would be reinforced, please God.
Gesturing for Nordbriht to guard priest and servant closely, Leo tested the girths of their horses, then his own.
After what seemed like too long a time to him—and was probably far too short a time of parting from his retreat for Meletios—he signaled his men to mount, then to ride.
The sun beat down upon his back. Apprehension prickled along his spine. Where were the men who were supposed to meet them on the road? Don't think of that; don't wait; just fare forward and hope that whatever guardians protected Meletios would have an eye to his fellow riders.
The dusty road scrolled out before him.
They paused at noon to eat, to rest, and to cool the horses. Nordbriht crouched by Leo as he rested in the shadow of a reddish rock, striated with purple, and softened with tiny mosses.
“How's he doing?” Leo asked in an undertone. Lacking eyes, Father Meletios no doubt had ears that were doubly keen, to compensate.
“He may make me really believe in the White Christ yet,” Nordbriht replied around gulps of watered wine. “He'll make it. He isn't even stiff, he says. Praying all night has kept him in condition, or made him used to discomfort. I'd like to see the Acolyte try it on recruits.”
The Northerner laughed, showing large, white teeth.
Involuntarily, Leo glanced up at the sky.
“Nowhere near full.” Nordbriht looked away. “I could wish it were. I hadn't wanted to mention it, but near the full moon, just before I ... change, I feel stronger. Sharper, somehow.”
Leo laid a hand on the other man's arm. “I wouldn't ask it of you. But you have always been the guard I send before me, little as I have liked doing so. Moon or no moon, do you sense anything out there?”
Nordbriht nodded. “So does he. You saw his eyes, such as they are, go strange this morning. Oh, we're for some sort of fight; but he'll come out of it. And,” he said after a pause, “so will you. But you won't like it.”
That much Nordbriht did not need to say. Leo had never been one to take joy in fighting. It was one of the ironies of which his life was full that now he must function sometimes as scout, sometimes as strategos, and even in his old role as messenger.
Beneath a rock of his own, Father Meletios chanted under his breath. Theodoulos knelt before him. So did several of the men who rode with them. If they died this day, their sins at least would be forgiven.
Nordbriht stretched out upon the ground, lying motionless for so long that Leo thought he must have dozed off. He was contemplating how best to wake him without provoking an attack when Nordbriht raised his head again.
“Hoofbeats,” he said. “I hear them.”
“Ours?”
“Cataphracts ride heavy on the ground. These are lighter. Might be our reinforcements...”
“Reinforcements probably won't all be mounted, you know that. They stripped us, last time the call went out.”
Then the riders were probably Turks.
“In either case, they're coming toward us.” Nordbriht leapt to his feet. Leo followed him as he emerged from the shelter of the rocks in which they had set up temporary camp to point down the road. No dust rose from it: whatever approached was riding or marching cross-country.
They had been so thirsty at Manzikert. Leo remembered choking on the dust as he galloped, head down, shield up, between the Emperor that had been and his uncle. How innocent he had been then. It took ranks and ranks of men, their shields up, to withstand a Turkish charge, then override it with their heavier arms and horses.
He marked in his mind's eye the next likely rock barrier: anything but be caught in the open when the archers charged, shooting as they rode. He could almost sense Nordbriht's regret. Were it a full moon, he would shift shape and prowl, trusting in Father Meletios and whatever other miracle that, so far, had kept him from rending friend as well as foe.
And what odds would anyone lay that the Cappadocians themselves would not come upon him and, taking heavy casualties to do it, shoot him full of arrows or hack him to pieces that, at dawn, changed back into the arms and legs of a man?
Romanus had had cataphracts, archers, slingers, and spearmen. Leo had a blind hermit, a lame servant, and four mounted men, one of whom was about as mad as he. It was past time to pray for a miracle.
And time to ride. Turks tended not to fight at night. But a raiding party this far from its base might dare anything; and these were Turkmen, not the more cultivated people who had followed Alp Arslan before he fell, and then his son.
As the hours wore on, their horses tired, from the heat, the burden of their riders, and their riders’ fear, which the horses surely sensed. They tossed their heads; their eyes rolled—all except Father Meletios’ mount, which picked its way along the smoothest part of the road while the old monk sagged comfortably
forward, chin drooping on his chest as if he slept. Theodoulos, scarcely less at rest, rode beside his master, guarded right and left by men who knew to cover them with their shields.
Leo and Nordbriht led. The sun beat down upon his helm, which gripped him like a vise. He coughed in the dust until he was dizzy, and his vision blurred. He drew a deep breath, bracing himself against gagging at remembered stinks of sweat and ordure and rot as a man decayed before he died. Almost, he swayed in the saddle, but Nordbriht was at his side, his immense bulk shielding him from the sun long enough for him to recollect himself.
He shook his head. “Old memories.” It was all the apology Nordbriht would get.
“The old man's doing better than we are,” Nordbriht said. A rush of tears cleared Leo's eyes. This time, thank God, he had an old man, not a dying Emperor, to shepherd. Christ have mercy, he thought: all his life he had thought of shepherds without thinking how terrifying, how hard their job must be when the wolves and thieves prowled about them.
He allowed himself a glance back at Meletios and found in it his reward. The old monk rode serenely, swaying, but not quite asleep.
Leo looked up at the sky. This late in the afternoon, he could see the pallid crescent of the moon.
The crescent, though—that meant Islam. God forbid that it be an omen of defeat. He would not survive another defeat, he thought.
No sooner than Leo thought that, Meletios’ head came up. Leo reached for his shield, Nordbriht for his axe. The other riders closed in before Meletios and his servant.
If only Leo knew what lay ahead upon the road.
As if sensing his thought, Theodoulos dodged out of the rough formation in which he had been guarded. He trotted up to Leo.
“Get back where you're safe!” Leo ordered.
“No one notices a boy,” Theodoulos told him. “You need someone to ride ahead. Let me go.”
“If anyone rides out to scout,” Leo snapped, “I shall send someone who can fight.”
“Sir, if you go, or if you send someone armed like him"—Theodoulos gestured with a sharp chin at Nordbriht—"everyone will know that something's up. But who looks at a lame boy? Some of the farmers here know me; the rest won't bother to care. And if Turks are on the road, the most they'd do is steal my horse.”
There's nothing wrong with your mind, never mind your leg, boy. But you are my charge, Leo thought. Christ, don't let me fail again.
He tried to wheel his horse around the eager boy and ride on, but Theodoulos, greatly daring, put out a hand and grasped his reins.
“Let me, sir. Let me. I made it to Hagios Prokopios to fetch you, didn't I?”
You're a boy, just a crippled boy, Leo would have said if he had not bitten his lip—and knew Theodoulos heard the words anyhow.
“What would your master say?”
Leo glanced over at Father Meletios. As if conscious of that gaze, the old man raised his head and hand, muttering something.
“See? I have his blessing. I beg you, let me go.” He pulled off the harness he had put on earlier with so much eagerness.
Leo met his pleading eyes. Hard as Leo found it to be a shepherd, no one denied him the right to run his risks, aye, or choose what risks to run. They might treat him as a madman or an enemy: the truth was, they treated him like someone who had made the passage, strait as a second birth, into manhood. Just a boy, he wanted to call Theodoulos? No boy was just a boy, but someone who must seek his manhood where it could be found. Theodoulos, lame and the servant of a monk, had fewer opportunities than most.
Could Leo deny him this one, even if it killed him?
“Ride with God,” he muttered. “But take care.”
Theodoulos urged his horse forward: difficult to say which one preened worse.
“You're not on parade!” Leo called after him. “You're not even a scout. You're just a tired lad lucky enough to sit a horse's back, not a donkey's. Don't be an ass!”
Theodoulos waved jauntily, grinning at the pun Leo would rather have been hit than make. He gritted his teeth and compelled himself to wave back.
Theodoulos let his shoulders slump. As he loosened his reins, his horse dropped his head; and boy and horse ambled forward at a walk, as if heavy tasks awaited them when they finally, reluctantly were compelled to return to whatever farm owned them and their labor. Why send him after all? He would never cover any ground at that pace, Leo groaned inwardly.
What then? Would you have him gallop? This way, at least, he may escape attention.
A few hundred feet up the road, Theodoulos turned off onto a sidepath and edged his horse into a smart trot.
He knew this land, Leo reminded himself. Please God, let that be so. He would know where men would be likeliest to meet. And, if all went well, he would find them and bring them. Or—the possibility had to be faced—he would die with them. It would have been easier to go himself than entrust the task to a lame boy.
Leo signaled for his small band to start forward once again. He glanced back at Meletios, who rode as calmly as he might have knelt in prayer. Probably, he could storm heaven from either position.
After an hour or so passed during which Leo heard no death shouts, no arrows whined to seek homes in his men's flesh, and the worst trouble he had was the weight of armor on protesting muscle and bone, he let himself relax somewhat. If they returned tonight, he would stop long enough to bathe, he promised, and then he would seek out Joachim. Asherah should not have to wait and wonder if Leo had thought better—or worse—of what he had said in the underground city.
And he would see her. Oh God, he would look into her eyes, although with her father there, he would not presume to embrace her; but her eyes ... he remembered how, in the firelit darkness, her eyes had widened and he had seen himself transformed and glorified in them.
Meletios cried out like a bird over water.
Leo backed and wheeled his horse so swiftly that the poor beast, tired as he was, tried to toss him from his back. Swiftly he drew his sword. Nordbriht came alert, rising in his saddle to scan the land with his sharp senses, even in this guise, almost beast-keen.
“What is it, blessed sir?”
“My son, oh my son...” Not panic but pain echoed in the old man's voice.
You set a cripple to do a whole man's work.
The deed would be on his soul forever. Not even Asherah's love would wipe the memory away.
“There!” Nordbriht pointed. “Look how the little rat rides!”
At first, all Leo could see was the wide land, broken here and there by eerie rock formations. Then, he saw a cloud of dust ... no, two clouds.
Theodoulos raced toward them, clinging to the saddle, his arms flung about the lathered neck of his horse. He had lost his weapons. It did not so much gallop as run, the flat-out panicked gait no rider liked to see—and certainly no officer. At any instant, he might fall, or the horse stumble; and they would be lost and all the news they had died to bring him.
He nodded at Nordbriht. “Bring him in.”
His larger mount lumbered forward, then picked up speed, meeting the boy halfway and turning fast. He had his arm about the lad, was supporting him as he sagged in the saddle, then brought him back to the others. Even Meletios crowded up to hear.
“Turks!” gasped Theodoulos. “I told you. They saw me. Someone pointed, but the others just laughed.”
“How many?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen ... no, I'm not thirsty...”
“Not a word till you drink,” Nordbriht growled.
Theodoulos gulped obediently, then pushed free. “I saw Ioannes, both of them, some slingers ... about five others. Oh, hurry, hurry. We have to help them.”
“Can you take us back there?” Meletios asked. He held out an arm, as if he would reassure his servant, but Theodoulos held himself proudly straight.
His eyes met Leo's fully for the first time since he had known the boy ... no, the young man. “I can guide you, sir.”
“Good man!” Hadn't Roma
nus used just those tones on Leo when he had appeared at his side on that dreadful day at Manzikert? Leo suppressed a shudder.
Ioannes and his son were outnumbered. Even if Leo threw his tiny force after them, they would still be outnumbered; and they were fighting a scourge of God. And that was assuming he did not leave at least one man behind to protect Meletios and Theodoulos both. Perhaps it was his duty ...
Time slowed while temptation writhed out from the darkest part of his soul, and he contemplated abandoning what should have been his reinforcements to their fate.
What manner of monster are you? he asked himself, that you would go off and leave men—and that gallant boy—to certain death?
You are Ducas, the reply came. Like your uncle, no better.
Bile rose in his throat, and he spat.
“In the name of God,” he blessed himself, “let us ride.”
He heard a voice so hoarse he could hardly recognize it as his own instructing his men in what they should shout as they closed with the enemy; he showed them how to hold their shields against horse archers; and then—and how grateful he was he had the strength to have made the choice!—he dropped his arm, signalling the charge.
Nordbriht tried to dash out before him, but he was heavier; and that slowed his horse just enough that they crashed through the back of the Turkish line simultaneously. Turkmen, all right. They bore no insignia that Leo remembered from his time as a prisoner.
The men they rescued shouted—premature triumph. The swordsmen pressed forward once more, shields out to aid the spearsmen. The slingers, stocky, dark-haired countrymen, their eyes on fire, took aim, swung, then launched their missiles. Turks fell, their skulls crushed, or their ribs smashed in.
Together, Nordbriht and Leo flashed out their steel, slicing and sluicing red from swordblade and axehead. Red dashed over their hands, a red almost matched by the distended flare of his horse's nostril, the open, screaming mouth of Nordbriht's mount before an arrow brought him down.
Shouting, Nordbriht toppled, rolled, and fought back to his feet. Leo kneed his horse in beside him, and Nordbriht grasped its reins. One of his men took an arrow in the chest. He had time to scream once before blood bubbled out of his mouth, and he fell.
Shards of Empire Page 29