Alexis took much longer to name the two men on whom the destiny of everyone in the Empire was to depend. He, too, thought at first of the strongest and most skillful. But when he heard the names of those who had been chosen on the other side, the fight seemed to him in any case unequal and lost in advance. He knew, as everyone did, the reputation of Dingizik. Above all he knew Simeon. Since boyhood Alexis’s brother had been known as one of the most formidable warriors of the northeastern forests, a region that had given the Empire so many soldiers and so many leaders. Expert at all physical activity, passionately fond of war and arms, adroit and ingenious, of unparalleled courage when sustained by fury, Simeon had, above all, the most powerful motives for fighting for survival: ambition, revenge, and violent secret passions. Balamir had chosen well! Alexis accorded the Kha-Khan’s subtlety an expert’s admiration. It was while reflecting on Balamir’s choice that Alexis came to the decision that plunged the army first into stupefaction, then great anxiety. Since it was not possible to pit force against force and brutality against brutality, recourse must be had to the passions of the soul—to the mind, the heart, the cardinal virtues, all the resources of character. To fight against the giant Dingizik and Simeon the traitor, Alexis named Isidore and Jester.
A blind man and a boy! It struck the imperial army like a thunderclap. “One could hear,” wrote Justus Dion, “the silence of anguish and the tumult of beating hearts.” A blind man, a boy! True, Isidore was strong and healthy and familiar, like many priests, with army life and military skills. He was unequaled at throwing a spear, and his courage had no rival. But his strength was not equal to that of Dingizik or Simeon, war was not his trade, and he was blind. A blind man and a boy—a great roar of laughter swept through the barbarian camp. Balamir alone was silent. There was something that made him uneasy in this choice. His uneasiness was visible, and before long had spread among the nomads, so that their scorn and arrogance became tinged with awe and vague uncertainty. Alexis, for his part, openly explained the reasons for his decision. “It was best they should entrust themselves to the will of heaven and the fate of the Empire. And these would speak more clearly through infirmity and innocence. It was to be the force of destiny against brute physical strength, it was to be gods against men.” And he ordered prayers and sacrifices to be offered during the three days that were to precede the combat.
For these three days, Isidore and Jester vanished to prepare themselves for the fight. Dingizik and Simeon spent the time felling oxen with their fists and uprooting trees. And roaring with laughter.
On the day fixed for the double duel, when the sun had just broken through the clouds, the four men—the three men and the boy—presented themselves at the space that had been prepared for the combat. It was closed in by a light wooden fence, and all around it were gathered the soldiers of the two armies, intermingled. The site chosen was a hollow among gently sloping hills, so that the soldiers could spread themselves out in tiers and get a good view. In the middle of each of the long sides of the rectangle formed by the fence, a throne or dais had been hastily erected. Justus Dion uses the word for a dais; the barbarian historian Jornandez, whose account is based on tradition, says they were thrones. Alexis and Balamir had each taken their seat on one of these constructions, surrounded by their officers. Immediately around the fence, rather like referees in a modern contest, were the priests and the shamans. The audience took their places gesticulating and chattering. If it had not been for the momentous issues at stake, it might have been some popular holiday or carnival. Though by force of circumstance there grew up a kind of snarling fraternity between the members of this strange assembly, the attitudes of the two bodies of spectators were very different. The barbarians were distinguishable from the inhabitants of the Empire not only by physical type, demeanor, and clothes, all so characteristic and so different. It was also a matter of feeling, and of the spirit reflected in the men’s faces. Some, joyful, arrogant, certain of victory despite a dim uneasiness, already spoke as victors. The others, consumed by doubt and anxiety, put all their trust in the gods and in the unexpected.
Dingizik and Simeon were the first to enter the enclosure, both emanating savage vigor and brutality. Stocky though strongly built, Simeon looked small beside the giant. Dingizik wore a roughly cured pelt, Simeon sumptuous furs and a kind of cap coming down over the eyes. Together they created a terrifying impression. The barbarians greeted them with a great ovation. The din had still not died down when Isidore and Jester appeared. Then a deep silence fell, which for different reasons neither the barbarians nor the imperial soldiers felt like breaking. The boy held the blind man by the hand, and they were dressed in white. Though Isidore was quite tall and strong, they seemed frailty itself as they confronted the giant with his two red braids and Simeon, standing hands on hips as if merely waiting for the kill.
Dingizik and Simeon were each armed with an axe and a bow. The barbarian also had a sword at his side, while Simeon had the inlaid dagger that never left him. At first glance Isidore and Jester looked completely unarmed, but closer inspection revealed a sling and a tiny dagger hung round Jester’s neck, while over the priest’s shoulder was a kind of long case or quiver, in which a keen eye could discern very thin wooden javelins, with tips of bone, ivory, or metal. The champions of the barbarians stood still and watched Jester lead the blind man along. A few laughs were heard, but they soon gave place to silence, tension, and perhaps a sudden shame at the sight of the cripple and the child. The four combatants ranged themselves in pairs on the short sides of the rectangle. Tens and hundreds of thousands of warriors froze and held their breath. All that could be heard in the silence descending from the hills were the slow footfalls of the four men. A trumpet and a gong were to sound simultaneously to indicate the start of the combat. Never had such an army been so still. To anyone looking down from above, they would have seemed like a petrified army of ants filling the narrow valley and covering the surrounding slopes. The trumpet blew and the gong rang out.
Then everything happened incredibly swiftly. Isidore and Jester appeared to be leaping in the air to avoid the arrows being fitted into the bows. But the boy, barehanded, landed all at once only a few paces away from the astonished barbarian, hampered by his cumbersome weapons, and wrenched the sculpted bow out of the giant’s huge hands. Simeon aimed his arrow at the boy, but Jester swiftly dodged into the narrow space between Dingizik and the wooden fence, letting out a yell that echoed through the silence. As if guided by the sound, Isidore threw the javelin he was holding in his hand. The giant fell, and Jester drove his stiletto into his breast. Simeon loosed his arrow, but Jester had gone. He seemed to weave arabesques in the air around Simeon, shaken by the fall of his companion. The first act was over. Simeon was left alone against the blind man and the boy. A great roar rose up from the valley, hills, and plateaus.
Simeon soon recovered and sized up his own situation and the tactics of his opponents. There was no need to worry—he was only fighting against a cripple and a child. The first thing, obviously, was to see that Jester did not serve him, Simeon, as he had served the now expiring Dingizik. Simeon retired step by step until his back was to the fence. Once there, he breathed slowly, selected another arrow, bent his bow, and aimed at Isidore. Just as he was about to let fly he saw Jester aiming at him with his sling. The missile hit him as the arrow left the bow, making it fly aside and bury itself with a hiss in the fence a few yards away from Isidore, who kept moving so as not to present a standing target. Simeon staggered at the impact, but at once recovered himself and made to seize his ax. But Jester was already upon him, clutching his fur-clad form so tightly he could not get to his weapon. Simeon threw himself on the boy, who scarcely struggled, as if he wanted to be taken. Simeon picked him up and held him before him as a shield against Isidore’s javelin, shouting in Greek that if he tried to strike Simeon he would hit Jester. The furious rhythm of the fight, which had lasted only a few minutes, perhaps seconds, since the gong and the trump
et, seemed to flag for a moment. Isidore appeared to hesitate. But Simeon himself could no longer use either bow or ax: he just hid behind Jester, trying to strangle him so that he should not cry out and guide the blind man on to his target.[11]
Simeon, still holding Jester in front of him for protection, now advanced slowly on Isidore, who stood with javelin poised in the air. Those nearest could see the tension and anxiety in the blind man’s face as he strained for the least sound. But what happened next was too swift for the crowd of panting spectators to understand at the time. It emerged only later, in endless discussions at night around the campfire, amidst laughter and rye brandy and quarreling and mare’s milk. Jester, who had kept both his sling and his dagger in his hand, managed to plunge the blade into Simeon’s hip. It was only a slight flesh wound, but it made Simeon flinch with pain and lower for a moment his living shield. Jester uttered his cry. Isidore launched his weapon. It grazed the boy and struck Simeon in the eye. He fell. Plain, hills, and sky were filled with one immense roar. In the same way as he had finished off Dingizik, Jester, with his dagger, now slew the son of Helen and Roderick. On the imperial dais, rocking with the cheers that arose in wave after wave from the imperial army, while the horrified nomads were struck dumb, Alexis suddenly remembered the boy stabbing the huge wolf many years ago in the ancient forests of the northeast.[12]
Balamir and the barbarians submitted without complaint to the decree of fate. As soon as the combat was over the barbarian prince came and bowed before the Emperor and did him homage. Alexis arose, reached out, and made him rise. This encounter, this reconciliation between the Emperor and the Kha-Khan, brought a fresh burst of cheering, this time from both sides. Violent emotion can soon reverse the passions of the crowd. The barbarians, having lost a wager there was no question of going back on, had expected the worst. Alexis’s courtesy to their leader transformed into enthusiasm the mixture of dejection and anxiety that had succeeded their former arrogance. As for the soldiers of the Empire, drunk with joy and with gratitude to the Emperor, they simply gave themselves up to trying to express their devotion. The festivities celebrated in the Empire lasted more than ten days, and marked something far more important than just another episode in the struggle against the barbarians. But the Emperor and Bruince were as yet the only ones to guess, and to foster, their future significance.
Successes are more difficult to surmount than reverses, but Alexis had never forgotten the lessons given by Thaumas and the high priest’s attitude at the time of the battle of Amphibolus.[13] He had thought about it a great deal, and had come to the conclusion that he should make use of any victory he might win to come to a settlement with the barbarians. The hour of victory and reconciliation had arrived, and he was not going to let it slip through his fingers. The fact that it was Simeon’s death that allowed the nomads to be reconciled at last with the Empire was not the least paradoxical thing about the situation. There was, and we shall see it developing further, an obscure, tortured, almost satanic side to Alexis’s character. He was incomparably brilliant, radiant, but also surrounded with violence and darkness. His brother’s death was a kind of sinister echo of the death of his mistress. “It was through one crime after another,” writes Robert Weill-Pichon, “that Alexis rose to glory.” To which Sir Allan Carter-Bennett replies: “Alexis had never wished for his brother’s death. He accepted it, if not as an affliction at least as a necessity, and perhaps also as a sign.” It was a sign that the childhood dreams in the forests of the northeast were over. The elegant prince and philanderer had died with Vanessa. With Simeon, the shade of Roderick and the great forest also disappeared. What the rejoicings of the Empire celebrated was really more than a victory—it was a revolution. The death of the brother and traitor who had gone over to the barbarians made possible at last, and in a strange way consecrated, the reconciliation, alliance, and union with the barbarians. The struggle against them had brought glory to Arsaphes, to Basil, and to Alexis himself. It was this struggle that had won Basil the title of Basil the Great. But it was to another title and another glory that Alexis, conqueror of the barbarians but also heir to Thaumas, now aspired. A new emperor was being born—Alexis, the Father of the Peoples.
XVII
DIREITO POR LINHAS TORTAS, OR THE NEW ALLIANCE
THE TRIUMPH OF ALEXIS, ISIDORE, AND JESTER flashed around the Empire like lightning, stirring men’s hearts and minds. Inscriptions in marble, poems, and legends sprang up everywhere to perpetuate the memory of it. Alexis did not wait to put Balamir to the test or to try his fidelity. On Bruince’s advice he asked him to head, in the Emperor’s name, all the imperial armies.
This was a bold and original stroke. Throughout history, from Vercingetorix and Caesar to Tamerlane and Bajazet, from Francis I and Charles V to Wilhelm I and Napoleon III or Hitler and Pétain, there have been encounters between victor and vanquished. They have often ended in the death of the vanquished, sometimes in reconciliation, real or apparent. But they have never led so swiftly to the unification of forces that a few days, even a few hours before were fighting each other to the death. The Kha-Khan asked for two days in which to consult his advisers and reflect. The next evening but one, he accepted Alexis’s offer. One of the world’s greatest empires had been brought into being through a six-day battle, a double duel, and the reconciliation of the adversaries.
From then on Balamir, though in command both of his own nomads and of the soldiers of the Empire, bore Alexis an affection that never wavered and was sometimes passionate. The Emperor had staked the Empire on a terrific wager—on the barbarian prince’s loyalty. A stroke of genius had made him suspect that it was there, and he was not mistaken. All through his reign there were plots and conspiracies against Alexis, but the name of Balamir was never involved in any of them. The Kha-Khan was allowed to keep not only his freedom and his titles, but also his privileges and even his power. But he acted in the Emperor’s name, and in consultation with him. The rapprochement between the Emperor and the Kha-Khan created an enormous stir throughout Europe and Asia, and even in distant Africa beyond the Nile and Carthage. Cyprus, Pomposa, and Sicily, all those who had helped the Empire against the barbarians, even the Middle Kingdom itself, were uneasy at the alliance between the two dangers that had for so long canceled one another out. They considered themselves tricked, perhaps betrayed. They seized every opportunity to try to stir up the old enmity between the two allies, to break up the union and the formidable power it conferred. It was immediately after the agreement between Alexis and Balamir, which was to go down in history as the famous New Alliance, that the first symptoms of future conflicts and their consequences manifested themselves.
The origin of these conflicts, which were to turn the world upside down and help to make it what it is today, has given rise to endless debate. Some blame Alexis’s insatiable ambition, which they describe as one of those mystical ambitions that cause more harm and violence than the ordinary ambitions that aim merely at pleasure and power. Others see in the constant maneuvers of Pomposa, Cyprus, Sicily, and all the other great powers of the time who resented the success of the New Alliance, the true cause of the events that would be linked to Alexis’s name as much as and even more than the rebirth of the Empire and the union with the barbarians. The difference on this point seems to correspond to two different mental attitudes, and by an escalation characteristic of contemporary culture the history of Alexis’s conquests has become to a large extent the history of the different interpretations to which they have given rise and to the history of their historians.
But whether one is among Alexis’s supporters or his detractors, one can only admire the boldness of his solution to the problem of the barbarians, so long a source of fear and trouble. The Empire was not strong enough to withstand their assaults indefinitely. As several documents show, Alexis and Bruince had at first considered the classical policy of channeling them back into Asia, and, by a series of treaties and other incitements, diverting their minds to the tem
ptations offered by China, Persia, and India. But the New Alliance went far beyond that. It had the marvelous virtue of turning to the advantage of the Empire the greed which it was difficult if not impossible to stifle altogether. The Empire no longer drove the barbarians away: it made them its subjects, and used them to conquer the world. The simple audacity of the idea behind the New Alliance is astonishing. Sir Allan Carter-Bennett justly describes it as “a Copernican revolution in civilization and history.”
This revolution was not accomplished without opposition and violence. The hostility of the great powers who had profited from the traditional conflict found support both in the Empire and among the barbarians. Many of the latter saw the New Alliance as the badge of servitude and shame. Immediately after the double duel not a single voice would have been raised to suggest continuing the struggle against the Empire—single combat was honored too much among the barbarians for anyone to question the outcome. But Balamir’s subsequent policy of entente with the victor was more than many of the nomads could understand. Their new links with the Empire necessarily brought them into contact with the rich fields and cities they had so long dreamed of. These, as we have seen, were in a pitiable state after being exploited by the tyrants, then ravaged by civil war. But they were still a paradise to the barbarian nomads. Why shouldn’t they attack them in force, take them by surprise, and thus wipe out the very memory of the defeat of the double duel? Balamir had great difficulty putting down five or six consecutive attempts to deprive him of power and destroy the New Alliance. The list of these revolts and putsches is as complex and tedious as the tangled history of the later Byzantine Empire. For two or three years Balamir galloped once again from Oxus to Lena, the Urals to the Altai. He won success after success against his rebellious subjects or his impatient allies. Alexis, in Aquileus, where he was reorganizing the Empire and its army, navy, trade, and priesthood, saw that he could trust in Balamir’s fidelity. And, in the words of Justus Dion, “he rejoiced in his heart, dreaming of a new world and a peace born out of war.”
The Glory of the Empire Page 28