A Dowry for the Sultan

by Lance Collins

  Guy was exhilarated. As Sira walked well he had no need to continually push her on, as many others had to with their horses. The mare’s energy and confidence were infectious and he was conscious of being richer in many ways for catching her. Breathing in deeply, he beheld the valley and its sights and scents with a young man’s romance and enthusiasm.

  David had visited Manzikert several times. “There’s a town outside the fortress, but the main part of the city is enclosed within the circuit walls. That’s where the rich live, though there are the lesser houses of merchants and a poor quarter as well. Many of the landowners have town-houses as well as their estates, while the poor generally live in the villages outside the walls. In dangerous times, by God, they take shelter inside as they can, or flee to the hills.”

  “How often does that happen?” Charles broke in.

  “Not often,” David continued. “Though Manzikert has been attacked before, it’s a powerful fortress and difficult for nomads to capture unless carried by surprise. That is how the Seljuks …”

  The Georgian scout, Guy noticed, correctly described the Seljuks rather than using the generic “Saracens” as many did.

  David paused and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Guy recovered. He would not want to cross David. “My horse made me smile,” he lied. “Please go on. I am interested,” he said truthfully.

  David regarded him for a moment through dark, expressionless eyes before continuing. “That’s how they captured Kars—three day’s ride north of here—last January. With stout walls and a citadel on a steep prominence, it was untroubled for many years and grew rich with trade from land and sea. During the Festival of the Revelation of Our Lord, the priests and people were celebrating mass in the cathedrals when the infidels attacked. The city was without a night watch, so they just rode in and put swords to work.”

  The power of a Seljuk surprise attack struck Guy as a point to remember.

  David was silent for a moment, his gaze lost in his horse’s mane. “The bloodshed was terrible. Some citizens escaped to the citadel before the gates were barred. The old, most of the men and babes were killed out of hand and the beautiful women raped then borne away over the saddlebows of the conquerors. For the remainder of that night and the day that followed, they ransacked Kars, then taking their captives and plunder they set fire to the city and left for their own lands.”

  “What happens to Christian soldiers if they are captured?” asked Guy, his gaze on the walls where destiny had carried him. As he drew nearer to the weathered black stone, Guy felt a sense of reassurance, of entering a place of refuge and comfort—the end of the journey and the beginning of something else.

  “Ask Vardaheri. He was captured by the Arabs at the disaster by Azaz fortress, near Aleppo, twenty-four years ago. The Roman army was defeated and ran—that Emperor’s fault. Vardaheri was one of the lucky ones, if you call it that, being captured and enslaved. Some are beheaded—those they consider dangerous or wish to make an example of. A few might be ransomed. Most become slaves. You aren’t a leader, nor have rich relatives who would ransom you—your fates, by God, would be death or enslavement.”

  ‘Don’t try and cheer us up,’ Charles laughed.

  Guy pondered David’s words and a deep fear of infidels boiling out of the dark played at the edges of his consciousness. He recalled Bessas’ restless checking of the pickets at Arknik and Bryennius, that early morning, already awake in the pre-dawn cold. Recalling this, he resolved to be like them and never taken by surprise.

  “How did Simon Vardaheri escape?”

  “Saved his life by seeming to adopt Islam, joined the Abbasid cavalry in Baghdad and was then caught by the nomads on the caliphate’s eastern frontier. He escaped from the Seljuks in Samarqand and ran away, some say with a slave woman, some rich fellow’s concubine, far to the east where her home was in an empire behind great walls. Their pursuers tracked them and caught them when they were almost safe—seized her and thought they killed him—bound him helpless on the bare back of an unbroken horse and set him loose on the steppe. God alone knows how Vardaheri lived. Savage nomads found him, cared for him and gave him the horse. He eventually followed his tormentors back to Samakand, killed his love’s master and burned down his house, but couldn’t find the woman. He returned to the Christian lands eventually.”

  “Vardaheri,” Guy wondered aloud, thinking with renewed respect of the unassuming horse-trader. “Isn’t that wall a fable?”

  “He said there were many intersecting walls. Ask him yourself, but you will need to get him to drink a lot of red wine first.”

  “Did he renounce Islam?” Charles asked.

  “You can ask him that as well,” David laughed.

  The advance party from the column passed through the town with its little houses and shops. People, mostly in the working dress of peasants, stopped in their everyday affairs to watch the cavalcade. A crowd of noisy children followed, some riding hobbyhorses and playing at soldiers. Local people called out, asking where they were from and what news they had.

  Guy searched the crowd for familiar faces, but saw none. “No sign of Swordleader,” he said to Charles.

  “I never got a glimpse of him. He could be anywhere. I never knew the world was so big.”

  The party reached the main western gate of the fortress and were granted admission to the gate courtyard where Bessas spoke to the guard commander, a Norman sergeant-at-arms. Frankish foot lounged on stone benches by a small fountain in the shade of a plane tree. Some of these, recognising their countrymen in the mounted party, walked over to exchange news and greetings. From them it was learned that the surrounding area had been quiet although there had been rumours of Seljuk scouting parties and many of the local people were uneasy.

  The advance party dismounted and Guy led Sira to a water trough where the mare drank before the sergeant-at-arms led them into the fortress. The fortress city was more spacious than Guy had imagined, with gardens and fountains interspersed amongst areas of dense housing and fields, where troops drilled and livestock would be held during an emergency. The fields were mostly empty now to save the grass.

  Leading Sira, Guy overheard Bessas and the sergeant discussing the important minutiae of military life: who would be housed where, how many troops, who commanded the fortress. The sergeant did not know all the answers, but was happy to pass on his own observations. They loitered with their bored horses outside the stone building that housed the garrison quartermaster, while Byzantine officials finalised the details of where troops and animals would stay. The flies found them. Bessas emerged occasionally to inform them of what was happening while officials and soldiers came and went. Passing locals stared briefly at the newcomers as they went about their business. Guy noticed there were more veiled women here than in Constantinople and grinned to himself as he recalled the many occasions when Greeks had counselled him that cities were fonts of evil. The Manzikert citizens, he could tell, were accustomed to seeing the soldiers of the Roman Empire and a few more Frankish troops were not unusual.

  Eventually an Armenian minor official came and led Guy and Charles to where several long stone buildings were arranged around a courtyard. The newly arrived Frankish knights were to crowd into one building. Guy noted the route there from the main gate in case he had to lead the column in. They tied their horses to hitching rails and entered their quarters. He asked the guide who occupied the nearest stone barracks.

  “More Kelts. And Norsemen, Varangians,” the man explained.

  “Varangians?” Guy blurted. “What are Varangians doing out here?” He remembered the Varangians of Baberd and made a mental note to avoid their drinking places. “They’re a long way from the sea?”

  “They’re not the palace guard unit,” the guide explained, “but men from the Varangian lands. Wine bags, some call them—war bands brigaded together to fit into the Roman Army. The
se came out with the imperial forces after Artsn. Some stayed. Others came after them. Many went back last year to fight the Patzinaks.”

  Guy and Charles roped off rooms for the knights and occupied a small room at the end of a barrack block for themselves, marking it by stowing their saddles and other gear there. They claimed another room for Balazun, making sure it was some distance from their own. In the mid-afternoon they led their horses to the stables and secured covered stalls so their mounts could move around rather than be tied up for long periods. Guy noticed Taticus Phocas, roping off similar stalls and some enclosures outside the buildings, undoubtedly for Count Bryennius’ horses and pack mule.

  Moving in occupied some hours: searching for water pails, feed bins, fodder and wells required time and information. Children arrived as the advance party set up for their comrades and themselves. At first the youngsters watched shyly from a distance but as they understood the Greek of the soldiers, or the Frankish attempt at it, they came closer and for a copper nummi46 would industriously tend horses or haul feed and water. All the while, they quizzed the soldiers about their far-away lands and boasted how they would one day travel there.

  As afternoon turned to a perfect evening, Guy and Charles bet on the toss of a coin. Guy lost. Charles headed for a bath while Guy set off through the unfamiliar environs of the city to meet the column. His blisters were healing so he enjoyed the stroll. He turned into the tree-lined, paved avenue and noticed a bridle path alongside it, part of a larger track system inside the walls.

  It was then he saw, in the light slanting through the trees, a woman cantering a proud black horse gracefully towards him. Breath-taken, Guy was suddenly ashamed of his cheap, travel-stained clothes, unfashionable hat and worn shoes, while the city and its comings and goings seemed far away and hushed. As she drew closer he discerned the loveliness of the rider and the high breeding of her Arabian stallion in his trapping and tassels. Unveiled, an ornately patterned silk keffiyeh trailing down her back, she rode astride wearing a rich blue riding tunic visible beneath a light red and gold patterned mantle through which the sunset gleamed golden. With polished tips of leg-fitting black boots neatly placed in bronze stirrups from the steppes and fine gloved hands light on the bridle reins, the beauty passed as if a dream to the sounds of equus breath and hoof beats on the tanbark. Neither horse nor rider so much as glanced at Guy as they passed.

  He forced himself not to look back for a long while. She seemed out of place, too perfect for this frontier place, as though it would have been more proper to see such a vision in a Constantinople park, or fabled Babylon. At length he turned and saw the mantle rising and falling with the horse’s gait. He let out a breath and watched until they disappeared along the trees on the incline towards the citadel.

  A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Startled, he turned to see the watery eyes and wine-breath of an unkempt local drunk staring into him. “The princeps’ daughter, Irene. She’s not for the likes of us, lad. Forget her. Buy’s a drink with mercenary’s gold.”

  “Be gone!” Guy backed away in alarm.

  In pensive silence he reached the main-gate of the western wall and waited there with the other guides for Bryennius and the column to arrive. As they drew up, the marching men smiled a weary, journey’s-end greeting and regarded the soldiers of the garrison with curiosity. They asked a thousand questions about the place, mainly concerning their lodgings and where they would eat. Jacques appeared. The peasant had loaded their possessions onto the mule at the last halt, the better to disengage from the inevitable confusion of unpacking the carts in the torchlight and shadows of their first night amongst the fountains and gardens of Manzikert.

  The valley of the Arsanias near Manzikert,

  Late afternoon, 24th May 1054

  As Leo led the column into the bend of the valley of the Arsanias River, he studied the surrounding lava stone country by the softening light. This road was the logical way out if something went wrong. The valley leading to the south, towards the lakeside fortress-city of Khlat’ ruled by the Marwanid Kurds, was one of the possible Seljuk approach routes. The bridge and nearby ford across the southward flowing Arsanias River were marked by a copse of trees and mill-house. Downstream the river turned west, followed on the south by the Mush road towards the Marwanid heartland around far-off Amida, and beyond that Roman Melitene. He estimated the likely camping ground of a besieging army would be along the river flats, close to water and grazing. Peasants were hauling in grain and hay and he wondered if the city was taking precautions in the event of a siege or whether this was the routine seasonal harvest.

  After crossing the stone bridge, Leo reckoned it a mile and a quarter eastward across the valley floor to the town outside the fortress walls. Half way the road climbed a steep embankment, the height of a mounted man and marked by lava outcrops signifying the furthest extent of the river in full flood. He thought to himself any enemy would have trouble tunnelling through that much rock, unless they find crevices in it. The fortress itself stood further back on a slight rise.

  Entering the township at last light, Leo noticed in the midst of his military observations, a candle burning inside one of the crude timber huts. The earthen floor had been swept clean and the tiny flame danced above a silver candlestick on a spotless white tablecloth bespeaking the pride of the poor.

  No stone structures stood within ballistae range of the circuit walls and the timber buildings were close enough to be set alight by the defenders, thereby offering neither shelter nor fuel to any attacker. A bridle path for exercising horses seemed to encircle the walls at extreme archery range. This would also enable the garrison to debouch small units in most directions by the many secondary tracks that converged on the city. Leo suppressed a desire to leave the column and canter a lap, to see this place and its approaches from every angle.

  On Manzikert’s walls depended his mission. On them he might die. They mirrored Constantinople’s triple-walls and were designed to extend the range at which the garrison’s engines and archers could engage the enemy, keeping their siege engines so far from the walls that they would be ineffective. The first obstacle to an attacker was the ditch, or fosse. Painstakingly cleaned out to a depth of a mounted man and twenty paces broad, it was crossed by a timber bridge. Its moist bottom was cultivated with vegetable gardens where timber dam walls at irregular distances meant the ditch could quickly be flooded to form a moat. Immediately above the steep scarp47 of the fosse, a breast-high castellated stone wall would protect archers and spearmen who would strive to prevent the enemy either crossing or filling the gap. Next, another twenty paces behind the scarp breastworks, a castellated fore-wall and twin gate-towers loomed in the twilight. He estimated the fore-wall at twenty-five feet high and could discern the shadows of the soldiers thrown by oil lamps or candles, moving behind the loopholes of their shaped stone caverns. The towers, a mix of round and pentagonal-prow type, all jutted forward to allow enfilade engagement along the front of the wall. Guards saluted and allowed the column through the heavy iron gates and under the portcullis.

  Surveying these forward western defences as he rode from the outer-gate to the gateway in the main wall, Leo saw with satisfaction that most of the fore-wall towers were of the Roman open-gorge type: without a back to them, so there was no protection against missiles from the main wall, if the attacker should capture the fore-wall. The fore-wall itself was a solid gallery wall—stone-arched and loopholed chambers in the upper levels to protect archers and ballistae-men from incoming darts and arrows—surmounted by a castellated battlement. From these cramped galleries, the defenders could still shoot from under the protection of the stone walkway above them. Spear and bowmen manning the battlement above would have to rely on the merlons48 for protection from incoming missiles. The largest two towers of the fore-wall, containing the gates and portcullis system, were fully enclosed: a vulnerability, the enemy could defend them if they were captured. These tower
s contained bolt-shooting ballistae at the loopholes and a stone throwing mangonel on the highest level.

  The levelled space between the fore-wall and main wall was some twenty paces wide. Larger, more powerful stone throwers on wooden wheels were positioned here so they could shoot over the fore-wall. Given time and planning, they could be hauled back through the gates or hoisted by chains and levers over the main wall. If not, they could be denied to the enemy by simply burning them. Leo was reassured by the forty foot main wall with six-foot merlons rising above that. There were towers, ten feet higher again, staggered so that they covered the intervals between the towers of the fore-wall. The main wall was substantially thicker than the seven feet thick fore-wall. Its iron outer gates opened inwards under the arch of twin towers to reveal a raised portcullis and a gate courtyard with two rear towers, all connected by a high curtain wall to control entry, foil surprise and strengthen the defence.

  The column’s guides were waiting in the cramped gate-yard with its shade tree, water trough, hitching rails and stone benches around the walls. As Leo rode up, Bessas, standing with two strangers, saluted. Leo wondered if the taller of them was Basil Apocapes, for the man had the habit of command about him. Whoever it was, they had come to meet him.

  Bessas undertook the introductions.

  One stepped forward. “Count Bryennius? I’m Count Daniel Branas, the strategos’ military secretary. We await his return from Khlat’ where he’s been talking to our Kurdish neighbours. On his behalf, I bid you welcome to Manzikert.”

  Leo gripped the stranger’s hand as Zarrar’s stepped forward to sniff him.