The Black Sheep

by Peter Darman

  The Catalan Company had won a resounding victory and now it had its own city.

  Grand Duke Roger assumed the duties of city governor, moving into the grand residence of the holder of that position. His Turkish predecessor had had no time to remove the frescoes on the walls or indeed crosses surmounting the palace entrance and roof, so the commander of the Catalan Company found his new quarters most agreeable. Almogavars assumed the duties of the garrison, most being housed in the city’s barracks, gate houses and palace barracks. Others found accommodation in houses abandoned by their Turkish owners and requisitioned by the new arrivals. Those who had fled, taking their belongings with them, were for the most part the affluent and religiously devout. Those who had business interests in and around the city remained in the hope their new masters would wish to see commerce continue. The population was a mixture of Roman and Turks, and the latter hoped that just as the Muslim authorities had allowed the Christians to live and work in Anaia, subject to paying the jizya, so the Catalans would allow them to go about their business in peace. For a price. Grand Duke Roger was more than happy to oblige.

  Sancho was lodged in a fine two-storey mansion near the palace, which was enclosed by a wall encompassing the residence itself, stables, storerooms and gardens. Melek was given a similar-sized residence nearby, as a reward for his intervention in the battle outside the city. Roger also wanted him close to advise him on matters pertaining to Islam and Muslim ways in general.

  Like most cities in Anatolia, Anaia had been turned into a ‘machine for defence’, being surrounded by thick, high defensive walls to thwart the Turkish invaders, and like countless other towns, now long lost to the enemy, its population had diminished compared to when it had been a glittering urban centre to rival nearby Philadelphia. And as the population shrunk, the fortifications were reduced in length but also substantially strengthened, not only because of the drop in the number of citizens, but also because they could be defended more effectively by a smaller garrison. Its occupation by over six thousand soldiers of the Catalan Company turned it into the most heavily defended city in the entire Roman Empire, Constantinople included. The fortifications towered over the city’s buildings, a deliberate policy designed to give the inhabitants a sense of security, though they also reminded the population they were under constant threat.

  August was gone and September had now arrived. The weather was still warm, the valley no longer a furnace but cooled by pleasing winds from the east. To Luca on the walls staring south, the river looked like a giant blue snake slithering its way through the Maeander on its way to the sea. Two large brown patches were the only things interrupting the endless green belt stretching east and west – the mass graves where the dead had been interred after the battle. The body of Count Komnenos had been taken back to Philadelphia for burial, escorted by his own horsemen and those of Count Michael. Bernat de Rocafort had also ridden back to Philadelphia to escort the servants the Catalans had collected back to Anaia.

  ‘I wonder what Ayna is doing at this moment?’ said Luca wistfully, staring to the west and the sea.

  ‘You must miss her greatly,’ offered Jordi, his head still heavily bandaged.

  ‘Now we are not fighting and my mind is not concentrating on staying alive, yes.’

  Luca looked around at the stout walls and the city within them.

  ‘I like these Roman cities. They are clean and the air inside them is fresh.’

  ‘And they have baths,’ smiled his friend.

  ‘I wonder if we will be returning to Artake before autumn arrives?’ pondered Luca. ‘Now there is no one left to fight.’

  ‘My father is always telling me there is always someone to fight, which is just as well seeing as we are mercenaries.’

  ‘How’s the head?’

  ‘The headaches have stopped,’ said Jordi, ‘though I will have a scar for life.’

  ‘It is a curious thing,’ reflected Luca, ‘if it had not been for Melek and his horsemen, the Turks would most likely have won the battle.’

  ‘And if it had not been for our coming across Ertan when we stormed the Turkish camp outside Philadelphia, we would not have met Melek and he would not have joined the company.’

  ‘Life is strange,’ agreed Luca.

  ‘Why did you keep it?’ said Jordi.

  ‘Keep what?’

  ‘The black sheep that caused you so many problems, when you were a shepherd in Sicily, I mean?’

  Luca thought for a minute.

  ‘The life of a shepherd is one of hardship and loneliness, my friend. If the weather and starvation do not ravage a flock, then wolves or bandits might. Every lamb born to a flock is precious and has to fight for its existence from the moment it takes its first breath. One is born with a black coat and I am expected to kill it just for that?’

  ‘Because the church commands it,’ said Jordi solemnly.

  ‘Where was the church when my parents were murdered? I will tell you. Standing right beside those responsible. I have no time for the church or its priests.’

  Jordi was shocked. ‘You risk eternal damnation for saying such things.’

  ‘I had heard that to battle and slay Muslims would redeem me in the eyes of the church. I must have killed many Turks during our campaign, so I believe I am safe from the pit of hell.’

  He laughed but Jordi was shaking his head.

  ‘You should not mock the church, Luca. It has great power. It burns people it believes to be heretics.’

  ‘I would like to burn Father Ramon and his priests,’ hissed Luca, ‘just to see the look on their faces as their skin was peeled from them in strips.’

  ‘I think you are the one who has received a blow to the head, not I.’

  But Luca was not really listening.

  ‘I wonder what Father Ramon thinks of our new Turkish allies?’

  ‘He believes it is a sin they have been recruited, or at least that is what he told my father.’

  Luca scoffed at the idea.

  ‘If it is such a sin, how is it that Melek and his men were such a great help during the recent battle? Surely if God was angry with the company for recruiting infidels, He would have made sure we were defeated?’

  Jordi wore a perplexed expression.

  ‘Proves my point.’

  ‘What point?’

  ‘That Father Ramon talks out of his arse,’ said Luca.

  ‘I cannot see Melek and his horsemen remaining with the company when we return to Artake,’ mused Jordi.

  Returning to Artake was the reason the Almogavars were called to the city’s open-air theatre the next day. Built hundreds of years before and named after the Greek word for viewing – theatron – audiences sat on stone seats arranged in ascending curved tiers, so that the people in the tiers above could see the stage below without their vision being obscured.

  Almogavars filed into the theatre, which was cut into the hill on which the original Greek acropolis had been built. Now a walled citadel, sentries patrolling its walls could look down on the audience and the performers on the marble-paved stage. The seats slowly began to fill with Almogavars carrying their spears, shield and swords, though not their javelins. And they wore soft hats instead of helmets. Bernat’s horsemen had assumed temporary sentry duty of the city walls and citadel in their absence, for there was no democracy among the company’s mounted troops.

  Hector, Marc, Angel and Biel, the latter a brooding individual whose face had probably never worn a smile who commanded the division that had arrived with Bernat de Rocafort, sat at the front as befitting their rank. Hector spotted Luca and Jordi and insisted they sit with the senior captains, a few feet from the stage.

  ‘Well, Black Sheep,’ said Angel, ‘you will have a great story to tell your Muslim woman when she arrives.’

  Luca’s eyes lit up. ‘When she arrives?’

  Angel put a finger to his lips. ‘All will be revealed.’

  When nearly five thousand Almogavars had taken their seats,
the afternoon sun glinting off their spear points, Sancho Rey appeared from the skene, the stone building behind the stage where the actors changed costumes and made their entrances. The ends of hundreds of spear shafts were rapped on stone in salute. Sancho held up his arms to call for silence. The rapping ceased.

  ‘My brothers,’ he began, ‘after our great victory outside the walls of this city…’

  He waited for the ensuing rapping to die down.

  ‘After our great victory, Grand Duke Roger proposes that the company stays here in Anaia for the winter rather than return to Artake. If you are in agreement, and following a vote, his ships will bring our families and loved ones here from Artake.

  ‘Our contract with the emperor has now been fulfilled. We have taken Anaia from the Turks and that makes it a Catalan city by right of conquest, for surely the Romans have not the means to wrest their lost lands from the enemy.’

  He stopped to let what he was saying sink in, stern-faced Almogavars nodding and mumbling to each other. Sancho held up his hands again.

  ‘Grand Duke Roger, who is related through marriage to the Roman emperor, believes Andronicus will allow us to remain here permanently to make Anaia our home. To become a bulwark against the Turks whom we have so easily defeated these past few months.’

  There was a great rapping of shafts on stone and hard visages cracked smiles as the Almogavars remembered their recent triumphs. Sancho allowed them their celebration, folding his arms to become a statue like the stone ones in the niches behind him in the skene’s façade. Then there was silence as five thousand pairs of eyes studied the broad-shouldered Almogavar leader.

  ‘My brothers,’ his deep voiced echoed around the theatre. ‘It is now time to vote. All those in favour of remaining here and bringing our families to Anaia on the grand duke’s ships, raise your hands.’

  Luca, thoughts of Ayna uppermost in his mind and totally unconcerned with what the emperor might or might not want, instantly raised his hand. Around him thousands of others did likewise, including the captains sitting with him and his friend beside him. Sancho’s thin lips creased into a smile.

  ‘Any against?’

  Not one arm was raised.

  ‘Very well,’ said Sancho. ‘We stay in Anaia and Grand Duke Roger will use his ships to bring our families here as quickly as possible.’

  In the days following, Melek became the most important member of the Catalan Company, riding west to the port of Ephesus Neopolis, which was just over twenty miles from Anaia. The crushing victory the Catalans had inflicted on the Turkish alliance meant the company controlled not only the entire Maeander Valley, but also the Aegean coast where the valley met the sea, which included Ephesus Neopolis. It had been stripped of its garrison by Mehmed Bey, who had then proceeded to flee back to his capital Izmir, sixty miles to the north where he locked himself in his palace and awaited Catalan retaliation. This meant Ephesus Neopolis was defenceless and at the mercy of Grand Duke Roger, who sent a message to its Turkish governor assuring him he and his town would be safe, on condition he allow the port to be used for the company’s benefit. The governor readily agreed.

  It took a month to organise the shipping of the company’s families from Artake to Ephesus Neopolis, not least because the money left at Artake to feed its dependents and the sailors who crewed Grand Duke Roger’s ships had run out. This produced a near mutiny among the crews, who had heard from the returning Count Michael of the great fortune extorted from the governor of Magnesia. They demanded prompt payment before they would sail, messages travelling between Anaia and Artake trying to thrash out an agreement. Eventually, after Roger promised to pay them their outstanding wages and a bonus, the crews put to sea. The small fleet made good progress in the mild waters of the eastern Aegean, hugging the coast and putting into shore each night on one of the many islands in the region.

  Using a Turkish-held port for disembarkation obviously involved risks, not least the possibility the garrison, albeit greatly depleted, might seize the ships and their precious cargoes when they docked. If this happened, the families would either be slaughtered or ransomed, neither of which would the Catalans tolerate. It was Melek who found a solution to the problem, suggesting the governor, his few soldiers and any Turkish inhabitants of the town who wished to do so withdraw into the citadel on ‘bird island’. The Romans had built a castle on the island to protect the mouth of the harbour, which the Turks had taken over and built a mole from the mainland to the island. It was a strong position and would require a joint naval-ground attack to take the citadel. To further encourage the governor to agree to the proposal, Grand Duke Roger offered an exchange of hostages to soothe any fears the Turks might have regarding treachery.

  Luca was far from amused.

  ‘Why do I have to be one of the hostages?’

  ‘Your fame has gone before you, Luca,’ Sancho told him. ‘Melek has impressed the Turkish governor with tales of the Black Sheep of the Almogavars.’

  Luca warmed to the idea.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And Father Ramon was most eager you should be one of the hostages.’

  Luca smelled a rat. ‘Why, lord?’

  ‘He is of the opinion that should the agreement go wrong, it is only fitting you should be the first to die, seeing as you are responsible for infecting, as he termed it, the Catalan Company with infidels and their abominable religion.’

  Luca turned to Jordi. ‘If I die, I would ask a favour of you.’

  ‘Anything, my friend,’ he replied.

  ‘Cut Father Ramon’s throat.’

  ‘Admirable words,’ said Sancho, ‘but Jordi will also be one of the hostages. The offer of the son of the commander of the Almogavars, plus the Black sheep and a score of others, was enough to convince the governor of our sincerity and good faith.’

  He saw the disconsolate looks in front of him.

  ‘There is no need for such long faces. Melek has assured me the governor has no wish to see his town burn, which will happen if you are killed.’

  ‘I have to confess that gives me little comfort father,’ complained Jordi.

  The pair felt like sacrificial lambs when they joined three thousand other Almogavars and a thousand Catalan horsemen for the short journey to Ephesus Neopolis, the heat of summer having departed the land, to be replaced by mild weather ideal for marching. Melek and his men rode ahead to announce the approach of the Catalans to give the governor and his citizens time to evacuate to Bird Island. Those chosen to be Turkish hostages would wait on the mole where they would be exchanged for Luca, Jordi and the other Christian hostages.

  Before it fell to the Turks, the port’s defences had been significantly strengthened, the walls and dry moat surrounding it being formidable obstacles to a landward assault. Unfortunately, the lack of an imperial army to provide a relief force, coupled with Mehmed Bey’s fleet of galleys, rendered those defences useless. Like many towns throughout Anatolia, Ephesus Neopolis had fallen without a fight, the small Roman garrison being given the option of quietly leaving the town unmolested to seek sanctuary elsewhere before they faced certain death. Just like grapes dying on the vine, the emperor’s outposts had fallen one by one.

  It took a morning to reach the port, the Aegean sparkling under an autumn sun, the turquoise waters at the foot of a magnificent backdrop of green hillside forests and grey, snow-capped mountains beyond. Many Catalan banners flew among the horsemen to emphasise to the Turks who was approaching their port. But when Bernat de Rocafort led a vanguard of a hundred lancers to the gates of the town, he found them open and the walls either side abandoned. Cautiously venturing into the town, he found the streets deserted and silent. The entire population had fled to Bird Island.

  Luca thought Ephesus Neopolis much the same as Anaia, albeit much smaller and filled with a sea breeze. But its streets were paved and clean, shops fronted the main streets and there was the ubiquitous bathhouse just off what had once been the Roman forum. Sancho orde
red the walls to be patrolled and the town searched, ordering the gates to be closed when the last of the Almogavars had entered. Then he and Bernat made their way to the mole on the southern side of the harbour, Luca, Jordi and the other hostages joining him. Luca was slightly comforted when he saw the dashing Melek chatting to a group of individuals wearing turbans on the mole that led to Bird Island. All conversation ceased when they spotted the mail-clad Bernat and the Almogavars. Melek flashed a smile to one of the Turks and walked towards Sancho and Bernat.

  ‘It is all arranged,’ he smiled. ‘The governor’s son and a great sea captain will be included in the Turkish hostages to match your own generosity.’

  ‘Let’s get it over with, then,’ said Sancho, nodding to Luca and Jordi. ‘Off you go. Surrender your weapons first. The rest of you also leave your weapons here.’

  Luca felt naked without his weapons as he and the others trudged towards the island, passing the Turkish hostages as they did so, each side barely giving the other a sideways glance. His heart began beating faster when he saw the gates of the impressive castle, the walls of which encompassed the perimeter of the whole island, opening to allow the hostages to enter. He wondered if he would ever see Ayna again.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Eat, eat. The food will not devour itself.’

  Luca wondered if his host intended to kill the hostages with kindness during the time they were in his custody. Bayezid Islam was the most generous man he had ever met. As soon as he and the other hostages had entered the imposing castle on Bird Island, he had gone out of his way to be accommodating. Luca had expected to be lodged in quarters resembling a cell and fed on a meagre diet. Instead, he and the others were treated like honoured guests, the town governor insisting the hostages were quartered in large, well-appointed rooms and fed from dawn till dusk.

  He was a small, portly man with a round face who gestured with his hands in an effusive manner. He looked more like a tradesman than a governor, though no merchant he had ever met wore such distinctive headgear. Called a horasani, it comprised a long, tubular piece of white felt, half of which was folded back and hung to the rear. Luca was informed it was a badge of high rank among the Turks.