Constantinople,
First light, 20th April 1054
It was not until first light that Count16 Leo Bryennius made to leave the city barracks of the Scholae in the Imperial Palace cantonment. A highbred bay touched his muzzle to Leo’s face and he lightly brushed the scar from a grazing Patzinak arrow on the Arabian’s neck. “Sorry, Zarrar. Another night without rest.”
The roving picket—two veteran cataphracts17 of his Sixth Schola in pot helmets, mail hauberks and long riding boots—saluted him. Succeeding the disgraced Praetorian Guard of the ancients when the old Roman Empire had converted to Christianity, the proud regiments of the Scholae were now the finest field cavalry.
“The couriers are away and in the hands of fate,” he whispered to the horse.
Disappointingly, the plan to decoy and arrest treacherous Romans in Seljuk pay had gone awry with three Kelts blundering into the trap and alerting the quarry. Worse, a loyal young man was dead and the traitors had escaped: even now probably hunting the couriers. Two days before, Leo had ushered the courier into Cecaumenus’ office and had later drawn her cloak around her as she left. Between her veil and his helmet they had remained as far apart as the stars.
Mounting, he rode to the gate and saluted two approaching riders: Cecaumenus, accompanied by Leo’s commander, the Domestic of the Scholae. Their horses drew together, the riders looking as tired as Leo felt. With effort, he avoided staring at the horrifying wounds Cecaumenus had sustained four years before.
A jagged scar ran from the crown of the general’s head to an eyebrow and another coursed his throat from the mouth to the back of the tongue. “How are you, Bryennius? And your father—forgot to ask last time I saw you. Too damn busy!”
Leo’s father had fought with Cecaumenus through the Armenian and Thracian campaigns. The two had fallen under an avalanche of Patzinaks at Diacene, survivors of the lone unit to stand and cover the ignominious retreat. Both were left for dead until a Patzinak named Galinos had recognised Cecaumenus and nursed them from the brink of death. They were restored to the empire, though Michael Bryennius was unfit for further service.
“He’s well, thank you.”
“Good. Good. I’ve been hearing about your men, Bryennius. Making mounted archers of them, like the old days. You listened to your father then?”
Leo had drawn his own conclusions from the Patzinak wars, but there was no need to say it. “Indeed. It was good advice.”
“Report,” ordered the Domestic dryly when the civilities were complete.
Leo told them: the couriers were on their way, but the traitor and some of his contacts had escaped the trap.
“At least the young woman and that scouting fellow are away with our warning for Apocapes, but there’ll be hell to pay here,” the Domestic said. “The Army will be accused of undermining the bureaucracy. Palace eunuchs run the Empire to rack and ruin and there is little chance of undoing their influence.”
Leo noticed that the Domestic was too cautious to personally criticise the weak and spendthrift Emperor. With informants operating everywhere, discretion had become habitual, especially in Constantinople. Nor was the army blameless, with provincial rebellions led by ambitious generals a common threat.
“The Treasury is nearly empty,” the Domestic continued, “and a papal legation has just walked out on the Patriarch in a huff. The two churches are at impossible loggerheads. The bulk of our imperial armies of the East have been withdrawn to face the Patzinaks in Thrace, truce or not, and local troops in Armenia have been largely disbanded to farm and so better pay their taxes. More money for this secluded fantasy.” He glared around at the domed rooves and vaulted arches of the palace.
They fell silent as an early morning passer-by gave them a look.
Satisfied the stranger was out of earshot, Cecaumenus cut in. “The eastern frontier is about to collapse, Leo, and there is nothing behind it. The emir, Kutlumush, supposedly fled from Tughrul two years ago and based himself at the city of Her18, yet he took the walled Armenian city of Kars last January—through the snow, wouldn’t you know. Massacred or enslaved all who were not fortuitously in the citadel. D’you believe it! The general slapped his pommel with emotion, so startling his horse it jerked its head and stepped a pace. “Kutlumush! We nearly had him seven years ago at Kapetrou, by damn! He and Ibrahim Inal both. A close thing, by damn! They’re in and out of favour with the Sultan. Now they seem to be back, worse than ever.”
Leo had heard various accounts of the vicious night battle in Armenia. By the most reliable the Seljuks, sated and widely dispersed after their destruction of Artsn, had been outmanoeuvred and brought to bay by the flying-columns of Cecaumenus and Aaron Vladislav, then the Roman military governor of Vaspurakan. Liparit, the neighbouring Georgian pretender, had joined them in a piecemeal night engagement from which the mauled Seljuks had escaped, many said, with a hundred thousand prisoners including Liparit and a great deal of booty.
The Domestic broached the efficacy of the Sultan’s foreign policy, “Inal gave captured Liparit to Tughrul, who released him on parole not to fight the Seljuks again.”
“Right,” said Cecaumenus. “So the Georgians will be out of it this time. Liparit, the pretender to their throne, is exiled here and bounden by word to the Turkish sultan. The current Georgian king has nothing to thank us for since his gilded imprisonment here years ago. Those two are sworn enemies and divide Georgia as a result. Except for any of the heretical Armenians that want to throw in with us, we’re on our own this time. War to the knife and …”
“Someone,” Leo returned the conversation to its point, “tries to stop us warning the frontier troops.” He knew of the Seljuk spies attached to their embassy in Constantinople. After Artsn the Seljuks had sent emissaries to Constantinople, including educated Arabs and Persians whose dress they sometimes adopted. Their sultan received rich payments in return for peace.
Their efforts were assisted by increasingly powerful pro-Seljuk officials at court who suppressed any troublesome intelligence about the Sultan’s expanding military capability. “You can buy peace more cheaply than pay for war,” one courtier, Modestos Kamyates, had more than once lisped with his contemptuous dismissal of those who question dogma. “The Seljuks will not invade, so we needn’t worry. We’ve got a plan for peace with them and can use their cavalry against others.”
Leo could still picture Kamyates wielding the insidious menace of the bureaucrat, the campaign of whispers leading to banishment or blinding with the hot pin. Usually they preferred both, using the Emperor’s name to dignify the settling of private scores. What plan with the Seljuks? And who were “we”?
“And the only one who might hold a clue is this Kelt you have in the cells?” the Domestic asked. The men were silent for a time, their horses’ ears flicking back, sensing the feelings of their riders.
“Go there Bryennius.” Cecaumenus glanced at the Domestic. “Take your regiment to Manzikert. I’ve spoken to Theodora, or rather she spoke to me. Take your Keltic bait as well. The main cities, Karin and Ani, are strongly fortified and should hold. There’s nothing left to take from Kars—the Armenians can worry about it—it’s theirs anyway. Manzikert’s the strongest and best-sited fortress in the south. Tell’em what we think. I’ll organise ships to take you to Trebizond. We should send all three thousand Scholae, and thirty thousand others, but we don’t have them to spare. You would be it! You and a few Kelts at Karin, already preparing to march. The palace eunuchs will be furious. It’ll end your career.” Cecaumenus paused. “You’ll need to watch your eyes when you get back. Will you do it?”
“Is it an order?”
“No! Can’t give you one. A mission without record—at stake, thousands of lives, perhaps the empire. But I cannot, will not, order you.”
There was such a heavy silence that Zarrar bent his head to Leo’s knee. “When do I leave?”
“God
be with you, Bryennius. May God be with you. As soon as you can. A week, ten days? We, and Theodora, will do our utmost to protect you.” Cecaumenus then looked long at Leo. “I have to ask though, why are you taking this on? It may end badly and there is nothing in it for you.”
“They’re our people out there.”
The Domestic read Leo’s face. “I can see you expected this. Be thankful you’re out of the bureaucracy’s malevolent gaze for a time. Be gone!” He rode into the grounds of the palace, then swung his horse around and returned. “You know how much depends on this. Good luck.”
Cecaumenus kneed his mount close. “I’ll send a man to you—a good one—a follower of Galinos when he saved your father and me. Patzinak father, Rus mother—part of no world but prepared to try ours. His name is Maniakh. When you get to Manzikert, the strategos, Basil Apocapes, is trustworthy. Give him my compliments and watch his back.”
Leo told his troops on parade later that morning. “We are going to Armenia,” he said simply, and could have heard a pin drop. With the certainty of orders, the pace of the regiment’s deployment preparations increased.
That evening Leo arrived home—a modest brick dwelling with a courtyard, garden and stable. After his squire and a servant took his horse, Leo entered the quiet house. His wife, Agatha, a beautiful patrician woman of independent means, heard his footsteps on the tiles and hurried downstairs, greeting him with her friendly matter-of-fact manner. “You didn’t make it back last night? Where are they sending …?” She halted mid-step when she saw him.
Everything now was so simple, but the simplest thing very difficult. He removed his helmet and placed it on the entrance table. “I’m taking the Sixth to Vaspurakan. We leave in a week.”
Agatha turned to hide a tear. “A week. Armenia? The Seljuks! Oh, Leo!” A moment’s composure, then she faced him. “For how long? Years?”
“I don’t know. The summer. It’s nothing. More raids I expect.”
“Raids? Like Artsn and Kars, you mean?”
“ We’ve beaten them before.” Leo shrugged off his hauberk and sword then stepped forward and placed his arms around her. He felt her brush her hair back from her face and knew the movement hid the wiping away of tears. She would show no emotion now, but later she would cry, alone, or on her sister’s shoulder.
She withdrew and poured goblets of wine. “What should I do? What about Smyrna?”
Leo had not forgotten the planned holiday that summer at her family’s provincial estate. “You should go ahead. I’ll join you if I can take leave and detour by there on the way back,” he said.
Near Manzikert
Dawn, 20th April 1054
Irene Curticius trotted south from the triple walls of Manzikert through the first streaks of dawn as though visiting her brother, Damian, in the lakeside city of Artzké. Once satisfied that any prying eyes were lost behind her, she turned the black stallion west into the undulating steppe, keeping the landmark of snow-capped Mount Sippane before her. Instinctively checking that her bow and sword were secure and frequently looking over her shoulder, she cantered to the low ground seeking to conceal her journey.
Content she was out of sight, Irene slowed the horse to a swift walk and was conscious of a thrill of anticipation for the assignation she was to keep with her suitor, Theodore Ankhialou. She had been busy for days preparing for her ride: telling of her intention to go to Artzké, readying her horse and gear for the journey, while hiding her true intention from her father. Now she felt a sense of freedom.
A dark hatred for him had troubled her for as many of her twenty-one years as she could remember. She could not recall any one event that sparked her inner tumult. In her recollection, John Curticius’ treatment of her had been stiffly distant and formal, aside from his occasional drunken outbursts of anger. Hers was a confused hatred, an almost physical revulsion at his presence, accompanied by shame at her failures as a dutiful daughter. She wished to love him and partly did, but she felt confined by him, as though she was dying within and wilting without.
Theodore Ankhialou, the only son of a Roman family that had acquired estates in Armenia after the Byzantine takeover, had been posted from Ani a year ago to command Manzikert’s irregular cavalry. All that a rebellious young woman might desire, attentive, dashing and rich with estates in the north, he had openly courted her at the fair. Irene turned to the handsome young man as if to the sun.
Her father had condemned the association and used his rank to have Theodore posted sixty miles away to Archēsh, but they had communicated through letters borne by trusted hands. Occasionally they met at a deserted hut concealed in a shallow valley mid-way between the two cities. It was not so derelict as to be objectionable and there was grass and water for their horses. The few trees around the yard provided pleasant shade and a supply of dry firewood that would give off little smoke in contrast to the dung cakes that warmed the citizens of barren Vaspurakan during the snowbound winters.
Hours later as she rode over a crest, Irene saw the hut, half dug into a slope. Theodore’s grey horse was already there and whinnied at her approach. She wanted to look her best and was annoyed that the warm spring day had made her perspire in the effort of riding thirty miles for a kiss. Black hair bound under a dark keffiyeh19 and her grandmother’s silver chain at the neck of her favourite green riding outfit, she moistened her lips with her tongue, touched her hair and smoothed her loose trousers over her black boots.
Theodore Ankhialou appeared in his blue tunic, smiled disarmingly and assisted her to dismount. With eyes only for each others’ eyes, they embraced.
“Hello Beauty,” he said.”
“How is Archēsh?” she asked, stepping back to admire him.
“The poorer without you. When will you come?”
“When I can escape my father, and after you’ve made sure the Saracens20 never do.” She smiled with mock severity.
“The Saracens?” he laughed, taking the reins of her stallion to unsaddle the horse and release it into a yard where he had already placed a pail of water and cut grass.
She embraced him again, feeling the warmth of his arms around her. “It’s said their Sultan is at Tabriz?”
“Don’t worry. That’s far from here. If they come to Archēsh, I’ll deal with them.”
Theodore lay asleep. Irene, propped on her elbow beside him, gently caressed his hair. She felt a growing sadness at the lengthening shadows outside, for they must soon part. Her thoughts wandered. Reflecting on what he had said about joining him in Archēsh, an attractive picture came to her, of the city by the lakeshore with its trees and cool summer breezes. She imagined a life with him, liberated by his strength and independent wealth. He stirred and she smoothed a lock of his dark hair away from his ear. Theodore murmured and she leaned forward and lightly kissed the nape of his neck.
With a sigh, she lay back and stared at the beams supporting the roof, the fine house-dust in the shafts of sunlight slanting through cracks and the threads of cobwebs in the corners. Contrary to the rumours and regardless of Theodore’s ardour—this day more than ever—she ensured their passions remained unconsummated. Despite the intensity of her feelings, part of her still felt lost, with a hint of annoyance that his sleeping was robbery from their precious time together.
She rose softly and looked without seeing through the window. Theodore’s plea for her to live with him in Archēsh had not come with a marriage proposal. That lack of propriety piqued her. In her mind’s eye she saw again the Manzikert matrons spitting “actress” behind their hands. They may as well have said “whore.”
Looking at Theodore’s sleeping form, Irene felt snared. Was her suitor as he seemed, rich and unbecomingly ardent, or a trap from which she may not be able to escape? What did he want? All people played games and enacted mating rituals. She knew that much from watching the pecking order from farmyard chickens to, she sighed, the city fathers
and their wives. Biting her bottom lip in thought, she only then noticed distant figures approaching the hut. “Theodore. Wake, my love. There are riders coming.”
He sprang up and peered through the window. “They’re ours, Beauty. But we’re caught this time. It looks like your father.”
Bracing themselves for the scene, they gathered their few things, straightened the hut and went outside.
The half-dozen Roman cavalrymen halted a bow shot away. One rode forward alone.
Cold inside, Irene watched her father, in a mail corselet and boots, walk his horse up to them. He did not dismount. She saw only grey dullness in him and did not discern the pleasant demeanour that others remarked upon.
John Curticius stared coldly at Theodore Ankhialou. “You are not at your post?” There was a hint of helplessness and concern for the social and military consequences of the encounter. .
Theodore took a moment to finish saddling. “On leave, Princeps.21 I have my turmarch’s signature. I was …”
“That’s something then,” Curticius snapped. “Be kind enough to accede to a father’s rightful demands and never ever meet, speak, nor communicate in any way, with my daughter again. Is there anything about that you do not understand?”
Theodore was insolently silent.
“Do not let me detain you from your obviously important duties at Archēsh.”
Theodore turned from Curticius and swung to his saddle. On the grey, he was a striking figure and knew it. After a tender look at Irene, he limply saluted Curticius and cantered away.
Irene flamed at her father, “How dare you spy on me?”
“I’ve more to do than check your flights of foolish fancy. Mount up.” He watched her stallion tense as it sensed her outrage. “As it happens, I was out here anyway, moving a few drifting nomad families back from whence they came, before the Seljuk trickle becomes a flood. Thank your stars I found you before they did.”
A Dowry for the Sultan Page 4
