Zombies of Byzantium

by Sean Munger

  “Why?” I asked, swallowing back my revulsion.

  I couldn’t believe it, but Camytzes smiled. He said, “I think maybe it’s time for our friend here to meet the Emperor.”

  Chapter Six

  The Emperor’s Plan

  This time—after an outbreak of ghouls not even three miles from his palace, attested to by the eyewitness of the hegoumenos of the most prestigious monastery in Constantinople, personal friend of the Patriarch—the Emperor couldn’t brush off what had happened. I have no idea exactly what information actually reached him, except that he was told something extraordinary and troubling had occurred at St. Stoudios, requiring the prompt intercession of regular army troops. Two days after the battle in the infirmary Camytzes got word to me, a hastily scribbled note, that the Emperor himself was planning to visit his sector as part of a tour of the defensive walls. You and Theophilus must be here, he wrote. I’m sending my father’s personal guard to fetch you at noon today.

  Our trip to the Land Walls was at once dazzling and terrifying. A cadre of five soldiers brought Theophilus and me toward the Golden Gate on horseback. As we wound through the crowded sunlit streets of Constantinople, I was struck by how much grain I saw. Everywhere we looked there were carts full of bushels of wheat, barrels of flour and heaps of bread loaves being hauled and loaded into warehouses and even stacked in alleyways. “Must be rations for the siege,” I commented to Theophilus. We passed several churches, their doors open in the afternoon heat, and they were completely full of parishioners praying for the deliverance of Constantinople. In an alleyway, I saw a group of children playing with wooden swords, pretending to attack the Saracen hordes.

  The terrifying part of the journey came as we neared the walls. The columns of smoke were much closer today, and over the wall I could barely see the top of some wooden structure on the other side, probably a siege tower, burning. My blood chilled when I heard the high distant song of a male voice—one of the Saracens’ muezzins calling for prayer. The soldiers brought their horses to a halt at the foot of one of the colossal towers, and Theophilus and I halted there too. Climbing down from the horse, still hearing the prayer call hovering on the wind, I said, “Wow, the Saracens really are on the other side, aren’t they?”

  “Let’s hope they never get on this side,” muttered one of the soldiers. “This way, please.”

  There was a large room inside the tower on the ground level. It was dark and gloomy, illuminated only by a few small notch windows in the thick walls of grayish-white stone and red brick. A few dying candles drooped on rusty brackets protruding from the walls. Inside the bunker there was much activity. Soldiers were rushing to and fro, stacking sacks of flour, moving barrels and otherwise making ready. We passed numerous iron racks filled with swords, spears and bows. In one part of the long room a few soldiers cooked some foul-smelling gruel in an enormous iron pot. Toward the end of the room there were tables and chairs arranged haphazardly. The two Camytzes stood over one of them, poring over a map of the walls and the encampments beyond. As we neared, I could hear snippets of their conversation. “Our scouts confirmed that the Saracens are cultivating fields in this area,” said Michael to his father, motioning to a spot on the map. “They’re also hitching up plows to horses in this part of the field, on the slopes of Maltepe Hill. Probably planning to divert the Lycus River to irrigate their crops.”

  “That’s Bartusis’s sector, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Sir, I believe it is. He’s defending from the Gate of St. Romanus up to the Fifth Military Gate. His flank is right about here.”

  The two of them noticed Theophilus and me. “Ah, our visitors,” said the elder Camytzes. To his son, “You’re sure we really need them here?”

  “They fought the ghouls valiantly when we first encountered them outside of Domelium,” Michael replied. “If they can help the Emperor understand our problem, their presence here is more than warranted.”

  “Problem?” scoffed Gabriel. He began to roll up the map on the table. “I was under the impression that there was no more problem. The ghouls have all been slain.”

  Almost immediately there was a great commotion in another part of the long room as troops hastened to stack away their provisions and snatch up their swords. An adjutant ran up to the Camytzes, breathlessly proclaiming, “Sir, the Emperor and his guard are just outside!”

  “Very well,” said Gabriel. “Let’s make him welcome. All troops to attention! I want everybody in their ranks and not a hair out of place. We will impress the Emperor with our discipline.”

  Every one of the phalanx of well-dressed guards who accompanied Leo into the tower was taller than he was. Indeed, waddling about on his stubby legs, our ruler was not only unimpressive but almost comical. He wore an ornately inlaid breastplate of old Roman fashion over a mail shirt and he trailed a long purple cloak that matched his boots. The heavy gold rings on his fingers would have played havoc with his grip if he’d tried to handle a sword. He sauntered in casually as if he owned the place (which, technically, he did) and he walked entirely without ostentation or apparent hurry. By contrast, his guards were so stiff and formal in their movements that they might have been tin soldiers. We all bowed as he entered; Leo deflected the move with a casual sweep of his hand. He made a lazy inspection of the place, looking over the barrels of provisions, the racks of weapons and Camytzes’s soldiers who stood at rapt attention before him. For a man defending his capital against a siege by the Saracens, Leo was positively languid. After a while he opened the drawstrings of the little leather pouch hanging from his armored skirt, shook a few pistachios into his palm and ate them casually, tossing the shells on the dirt floor. He sauntered coolly up to Gabriel Camytzes. Still chewing pistachios, the Emperor said, “You’re the Droungarios Camytzes, in command of this detachment?”

  Gabriel bowed his head. “I am, Your Majesty.”

  “Nice tower you’ve got here.” He popped another nut into his mouth. “Those stacks of flour over there—how long do you think you can keep your men fed?”

  “At least six months, Sire.”

  “Six months. Mmmm.” Unshelling a nut, he added, “We could be detained here by the Saracens for longer than that. You’re aware of the reports that the Saracens are planting crops around their camp outside the walls?”

  “Yes, Sire. We were just discussing that intelligence.”

  “Oh, Maslama,” said the Emperor flightily, smiling while he did so. “How vexing he is, bottling us up in our nice comfortable city where we can sleep with our heads on pillows of flour. It cost me a pretty penny to buy up all the grain in the Empire, but that’s what money is for. So, without a stalk of wheat left standing anywhere in Byzantium, the Saracens will soon be reduced to eating their own shit!” The Emperor exploded in laughter at his own crude joke. Camytzes and the soldiers evidently felt compelled to laugh too. I cracked a grin but that was it. Theophilus, as usual, remained stony-faced.

  It was to him and me that the Emperor next turned his attention. Standing before us, his thick eyebrows raised and he said, “Ah, and you two here as well? The venerated experts on ghoul killing. And how perfect is it that they should be monks? Well, they told me you had something extraordinary to show me, and when I heard I was to visit Camytzes’s sector, I recalled the name and grinned in anticipation of further ghoul-related entertainment for my amusement. What, then, do you have for me?”

  “This, Your Majesty,” said Michael, who was already kneeling to pick up the bundle under the command table. He set the large glass jar, covered with a rough wool cloth, on the table. The Emperor, obviously thinking this a game, smiled and clasped his hands together. Camytzes whipped the covering from the jar. Inside the grayish brine the animate head of the ghoul thrashed and snapped like an angry fish. The Emperor’s dark eyes widened. He crept toward the jar, leaning over as he did so. Studying the awful thing, he tapped on the glass. The head reacted, snarling and trying to propel itself toward him; the thing’s forehead c
lunked against the side of the jar.

  “Well!” Leo finally exclaimed. “You certainly don’t see one of these every day.” He reached toward the earthenware stopper that sealed the jar. “May I?”

  “I strongly advise against it, Sire,” said Michael. “The head is severed, but as you can see it’s still dangerous. We wouldn’t want you to be bitten. If you were, you would yourself transform into—”

  “Yes, yes, I’d become a ghoul myself, I remember that part.” He tapped the glass again. “How did you obtain this—er, specimen?”

  “When Brother Stephen sent me an urgent message that the Monastery of St. Stoudios had been attacked by ghouls, I led a detachment of troops to vanquish them. There were eleven in all, not counting several dispatched by the monks themselves. This head was among the carnage. We incinerated the corpses, but I chose to preserve this head so you could see it—and perhaps understand the gravity of the situation.”

  Leo looked skeptical. He turned to Gabriel. “Droungarios, do you believe your son’s story about these ghouls?”

  “At first, Sire, no, I did not. However, I now know it to be true.”

  “And how do you know that, exactly?”

  The elder Camytzes briefly described the experiment we conducted by sealing the demons in the infirmary. Leo listened, stroking his chin, occasionally glancing at the head in the jar. I dared to hope he might at last be convinced.

  “This head,” he said, tapping the jar, “if we let it out and allowed it to bite somebody, that person would become a ghoul, yes?”

  “Correct,” said Michael.

  “Those eleven victims in the infirmary—how long did it take them to become ghouls?”

  “The time varied,” I answered. “The first reanimated shortly before dawn, the others after that.”

  “And all eleven transformed?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Leo nodded. He reached for a few more pistachio nuts, pacing slowly, never taking his eyes off the head in the jar. At last he turned to Michael and said, “Well, Camytzes, I have to congratulate you on your cleverness. Despite my natural skepticism, you’ve managed to convince me that you’re useful. How fortunate for you that the demonic pestilence happened to infiltrate the Monastery of St. Stoudios! If it hadn’t, you would never have had the chance to impress me with your friend in the jar there.”

  Camytzes didn’t seem to catch on, and neither did I. “Useful?” he echoed. “If I may be of service to Your Majesty—”

  “Well, of course you may be of service!” said Leo, as if this was the most elementary thing in the world. “I’m immediately detaching you from your father’s garrison. And you two monks, I temporarily release you from your vows to serve as Captain Camytzes’s aides-de-camp. Yes, Captain Camytzes—I’m promoting you. You’ll have everything you need at your disposal. I’ll need a working demonstration, of course, but considering you already conducted an impromptu one in the field, I don’t expect that’ll be too difficult. I’m thinking convicts would be the ideal subjects. We’ll get you some. Shamefully, we don’t have significant numbers of Saracen prisoners yet, so our own criminal refuse will have to suffice. I stress to you of course the utmost secrecy of this project. One whiff of this gets to the Saracens and we’ll lose our advantage.”

  Michael, bewildered as I, shook his head. “Your Majesty?”

  “Don’t you understand?” boomed the Emperor. He strode over to the table and tapped the jar containing the snapping head. “You’ve discovered the perfect weapon against the Saracens! Once you’ve figured out the most efficient way to transform Maslama’s soldiers into ghouls, we’ll spread a little taste of this into his ranks and then I’ll sue for peace. We might not even have to use the weapon in combat. A mere demonstration might be enough. Scare the turban right off his head! Captain Camytzes, as of this moment you’re officially High Commissioner of Ghoul Warfare. This project has the highest priority. You’ll report to the kouropalates, my soon-to-be son-in-law, General Artabasdos. No one else must know.”

  We all stood there staring at each other in disbelief. Even Gabriel Camytzes seemed astonished. Michael’s mouth opened and closed a few times but no sound came out.

  Finally I forced myself to speak. Choosing words that wouldn’t send me to prison was difficult. “With all humility, Your Majesty,” I said, “I think that approach might be—”

  “Might be what?” Leo demanded. He spit a fragment of pistachio shell onto the floor.

  Foolhardy was the word on the tip of my tongue, but of course I couldn’t say that. Michael, fortunately, came to my rescue. “Your Majesty, these ghouls are extremely dangerous,” he said. “Trying to multiply them would pose as much of a risk to us as to the Saracens. There’d be no way to ensure that they wouldn’t get loose and ravage Constantinople. Once out there, this pestilence is extremely difficult to contain—”

  “That’s precisely why it makes such a perfect weapon,” the Emperor replied. He patted Camytzes’s shoulder. “Look, Captain, you have to be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. A month ago you came to me wanting to be in charge of all military matters in the Empire involving ghouls. Now you are! If you weren’t ready to impress me with your prowess, you shouldn’t have ventured to make the request. These are desperate times. I’m duty-bound to pursue any avenue that might even arguably give us an advantage over the Saracens. Surely you understand that.”

  “Yes, Sire, but you must understand—”

  “Captain!” Gabriel had gotten over his astonishment and stepped forward to cut short his son’s protestations. He bowed. “Your Majesty, my son fully understands his duty. You can count on him, I assure you.”

  “Excellent.” The Emperor grinned, and tossed a pistachio nut into his mouth. To Michael he said, “Kouropalates Artabasdos will soon be in touch with you.” Glancing around the tower room, he added flightily, “Good job preparing your tower for defense. Keep up the good work!” In less than twenty seconds he and his guards were gone.

  “How dare you talk back to the Emperor!” Gabriel hissed at his son as soon as the royal and his entourage had left the room. “Are you mad?”

  “No, he’s mad!” Michael shot back. “Do you know what will happen if we let that thing loose?” He motioned to the head in the jar.

  “I do—we may defeat the Saracens!”

  “Michael’s right,” I spoke up. “This is madness. We’ve seen these ghouls in action. We know what happens to people who are bitten by them. If we start breeding ghouls purposely, and so much as one of them gets out, the entire Empire could be at risk.”

  Gabriel stiffened. He glanced at me, at Theophilus and at his son. I could see the gears turning in the old soldier’s head. He stepped closer to me, and with a quieter and much more sinister tone in his voice he pronounced, “The Emperor is God’s personal representative on this earth. Neither you nor my son have any business questioning the orders of the Emperor. They’re not the orders of Leo III. They’re the direct orders of God. As a monk, Brother Stephen, I would expect you to understand that. Are you not bound to serve God in any way He may see fit?”

  I could see where this was going. I swallowed. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Well, then. You know what to do.” Gabriel strode back to the table, snatched up the rough woolen cloth on the table and draped it back over the jar containing the severed ghoul’s head. “I suggest you get started quickly. I have a defense to organize!” With that he strode away, barking orders at his men.

  Michael Camytzes shook his head, staring at the lumpy jar on the table. “The things we do for this Empire,” he muttered. “Well, I guess we’d better get started.”

  The three of us were all deeply troubled by this development, but it turned out to not be the only or even the worst occurrence on an already bad day. That very afternoon the Saracen fleet arrived.

  Constantinople was soon hemmed in by land and sea. The nearly two thousand Saracen ships that took up their positions all along the three
sides of the city—from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn—cut off the capital from any and all hope of reinforcement or supply. On top of the tower, in the golden light of the coming dusk, Michael, Theophilus and I stood at the north parapet, looking out over the glittering domes and grand houses of our city, and beyond them the distant dark dots that were the Saracen ships moving to blockade the harbor. No one fired at the ships. What would be the point? The city was battened up, tight as a tick, and we all knew it.

  “How long do you think this siege will last?” I asked Michael Camytzes, after I lost count of the number of dots slowly moving against the glinting horizon.

  He was lost in thought for a moment, his eyes seeing what I saw, and he glanced back at the south parapet and the tent city of the Saracens with its fluttering star-crescent flags. Finally he said only one word, “Year.”

  “You mean we’re going to be stuck here for a year without reinforcements and without fresh food?”

  “Perhaps the end will come before that,” said Camytzes.

  Theophilus at last opened his mouth in an attempt to be helpful. “I’ve heard that the warehouses are filled to bursting with grain. The Emperor prepared for this eventuality, as did the emperors before him. At least we’ll have enough to eat.”

  A crackling sound diverted our attention. We turned to the south, toward the army, and saw some flaming projectiles flung half-heartedly from one of the Saracen siege towers against the wall. We could hear the Byzantine soldiers shouting taunts and epithets at their attackers below. I saw a man’s sword glint in the sun as he raised it defiantly over his head.

  “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better,” I sighed.