Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  She leaned in to his ear. ‘You will know when you meet him. He is one man torn to become two.’

  He shook his head, frowning, searching for questions. Then he saw that she stood away from him, past the fallen beech. He rubbed his eyes and then saw that she stood even further away, arms outstretched to the sky. Then he blinked, realising he was looking at a sapling beech, two branches sprouting either side. He was alone.

  An eagle shrieked high above.

  His thoughts echoed with her words.

  Find the Haga.

  Part 1: 1046 AD

  1. Trebizond

  The squat innkeeper furtively eyed the figure in the shadows. This customer had sat silent and motionless, recessed in the darkest corner of the cellar inn most of the morning.

  ‘Another one?’ the innkeeper grunted, poking a finger at the near empty cup of water on the table. A moment passed and the innkeeper wondered if he had yet another corpse on his hands. Then the shadow rippled as the customer leant forward. He was a man nearing fifty, swarthy, heavy-set and moustachioed, with an expression of stone. He remained silent, only waving a hand by way of reply.

  ‘Hmm,’ the innkeeper barely disguised a sneer before waddling off to prise business from the rest of his clientele.

  ***

  Leaning back into obscurity, Mansur rubbed at his temples. Out of the blistering heat up above, the brackish water had at least washed the dust from his throat after such a long journey; though even after rest and refreshment, his sweat-bathed tunic remained stuck to his generous figure. He pulled off his blue felt cap and wiped the perspiration from his brow and grey stubbled scalp, then fixed it back in place and tidied his moustache with a wipe of the hand, glancing to either side: his garb was the same as any other Byzantine citizen and only his darker skin would give him away, but nobody yet had noticed the Seljuk in this imperial drinking hole. The tension along the borderlands had grown palpable in recent years as Seljuk pressure intensified, and the Byzantine citizens were quick to channel their fear into anger and turn upon strangers. Especially in a hive like Trebizond. Especially in a cutthroat drinking hole like this.

  It had been a long day so far; a full morning driving his wagon under the glare of the midsummer sun. He sighed, remembering the worn axle that made the wagon judder violently at every bump in the road. Another neglected task and one of many that would stay neglected. Since he had made the decision to come to Trebizond, everything else was secondary. He thought of his daughter Maria and swallowed his guilt. Everything.

  Yet he had been sat for some time now; noon had come and gone and still no sign of the boy. Perhaps the information had been phoney? How long had he worked to earn the six nomismata it had cost to hire that slit-eyed investigator? Two moons, two moons of blistered hands, eating beans and roots and precious little else to pull together those six gold coins. Not that it had tempered his bulging waistline, he mused. But it all added up, every piece of extra produce he could keep and sell. Now he had just enough left to complete his objective. But where was the boy?

  Suddenly, the ambient murmur of drunken chatter was shattered with a crash from the far side of the inn. Mansur tensed and shot a sideways glance: in the murky half-light pooling by the foot of the timber stairs, two men grappled like snarling dogs, one hooded and dressed in filthy rags and the other, long-haired and wearing some kind of cloth militia tunic and both very drunk. Bar stools crumpled under them and cups toppled and crashed to the floor as they wrestled.

  ‘Oi!’ The innkeeper roared, slamming a balled fist onto the bar, but the pair carried on pulling and kicking at each other as they spilled around the floor. Drinkers shot up, barking at first in protest and then in amusement as the brawl gathered momentum.

  ‘Not in my place, you filthy whoresons!’ The diminutive innkeeper vaulted across the bar, a club in hand. Then, as if materialising from the shadows, two bald-headed brutes of men appeared to flank him like turrets, one bearing a short sword and the other unsheathing an axe. The crowd parted and their heckling died to a murmur at the sight of the doormen. Then, with an animal shriek, the fighting pair broke apart. The hooded one stood, arms wide as if pleading innocence, then turned and bolted upstairs and into the sunlight.

  ‘Leave him!’ The innkeeper lifted an arm to either side as his men made to lurch after the hooded brawler. ‘That one’ll get what’s coming to him. Deal with this fellow for now, looks as if he’s military,’ he nodded to the second brawler, hunched against the wall, panting.

  Mansur stood to watch, brow furrowed.

  The two doormen flanked the soldier and pulled him round to face the innkeeper. A collective gasp of disgust filled the shadows at the gaping crimson grin stretched across the man’s throat. Blood washed down his tunic, consuming the faded Chi-Rho embroidered on the front and even in the half-light Mansur could see the man’s narrow features turn white and then grey, before his eyes rolled in his head and his life was gone. In a few beats of the heart, the body crumpled to a heap.

  ‘Bugger,’ the innkeeper spat on the floor then snorted a lungful of air, his eyes wide in fury, ‘there’s going to be all sorts of shit to deal with now.’ His two doormen looked at him expectantly. ‘Longibardus, take message to the city barracks. Speak to the strategos and the strategos only. Make sure Cydones knows we tried to stop this.’

  Mansur’s ears perked up at the mention of Cydones. He wondered how his old adversary had fared since last they had faced one another.

  The first doorman nodded at the innkeeper and set off up the stairs. ‘Choniates,’ he grunted to his second thug, ‘get out there and catch that whoreson who thinks he can spill blood on my floor,’ then his eyes narrowed, mouth curling up into a rapacious sneer, ‘and take the sword . . . bring him or bring his head!’

  Mansur sat back down, his nose wrinkled briefly at the metallic stench of black blood drying in the heat. He had been ready to eat, even in this cesspit, but not now. He dug his fingernails into the table; it was getting on in the afternoon, the establishment was a fetid cave for drunks and crooks and little else, surely a boy could not survive in this place. No, he affirmed, he had been conned of his hard-earned coins. Time to leave, to get on the highway and back to the farm before dusk. With a laboured sigh, he stood, pushing his stool back. Then he froze at the dull crack of knuckles on flesh from the room behind the bar.

  ‘Get out there and clean it up!’ The innkeeper’s voice rumbled. Then there were uneven, sluggish footsteps mixed with the tapping of wood on the floor. Mansur’s eyes locked on the figure of a boy that hobbled out from behind the bar: face hidden behind a curtain of amber hair, carrying a mop and resting his weight on a crutch, dragging one leg as if a great weight was attached to it. He wore a filthy hemp garment from shoulder to ankle and on one wrist was a frayed prayer rope.

  The boy stopped by the thick gloop of dark blood, half soaked into the dirt on the floor. He pushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ears to reveal a thick red swelling on one temple. His brow was furrowed and jutting, eyes masked in shadow either side of a knotted aquiline nose as he contemplated the blood and the corpse in turn. The boy stared, trembling.

  At this, the watching punters finally returned to form, exploding into a chorus of fervent heckling. ‘Mop it up, boy. Then drink it!’ One roared, slapping his thigh at his own wit.

  ‘Aye,’ the innkeeper added, drying cups with industrial vigour, teeth clenched, ‘clean it up or your blood’ll be on the floor too.’

  Mansur stepped forward to join the ring of onlookers. The shadows had hidden him and his features until now. He had hoped to have a quiet word with the innkeeper later, one to one, but that chance was gone. He had to face the crowd, all of them. It was all about the boy.

  Stood like a sapling in the breeze, the boy’s chest shuddered. His cheeks swelled and then a torrent of grey-orange bile erupted from his mouth and soaked the floor.

  ‘Eurgh . . . you bloody fool!’ The innkeeper bawled, while the onlookers groaned,
shuffling back from the mess, covering their ale cups. ‘If I can’t knock sense into you then you’re of no use to me!’

  The boy shot a pleading look at the innkeeper.

  ‘Out of my way, idiot,’ the innkeeper snatched the mop from the boy’s grip, then kicked the crutch from under him. A chorus of jeers filled the inn as the boy stumbled back, crashing through a pile of stools, his cloak falling to the floor. Now dressed only in a sleeveless and short tunic, a furious red, scabbed and serrated welt was revealed, running from his heel all the way up his leg, disappearing under the frayed hem of his tunic. The boy cowered, pulling the threads of his tunic down, covering the scar with his hands.

  ‘Useless, this one!’ The innkeeper jabbed a finger at the boy while grinning at his customers. ‘The crook that sold me him in the market told me everything about him: son of a pure-blood Byzantine kataphractos; mother from the northlands of the Rus; only ten years old. Oh aye, told me everything, everything except that he’s a bloody cripple!’

  The crowd roared. ‘Seen you comin’!’ One drunk cackled.

  ‘He was sitting down when I saw him!’ The innkeeper stabbed a finger at his customer and then cast a glance over his shoulder to the boy, ‘and you can forget about eating tonight, you little runt . . . you’re fast buying yourself a ticket to the salt mines. If I can be sold a lame-leg like you then I can sell you on just as easily.’

  Mansur readied himself as the innkeeper mopped at the gory puddle. He touched a hand to his purse and took a deep breath, stepping from the shadows. ‘How much for the boy?’

  The innkeeper stopped mopping for a moment, resting on the end of the pole, then turned to face Mansur with a wrinkle of incredulity twisting his features. ‘Eh?’

  ‘The boy, I want to buy him. He is a slave isn’t he?’

  The innkeeper stalked forward, eyes narrowed as he examined Mansur. Then his pupils sparkled in realisation and a predatory grin split his face. ‘So what business does a Seljuk have in a place like this? This isn’t the fiery hell of a desert your lot call home. You’re in the empire!’

  All around him, the crowd murmured, noses wrinkling as if a plague was in the air. Mansur kept his face expressionless. ‘Yes, I’m in the empire and I have been for years, tilling the lands, paying my taxes like any of you . . . and I’ve got money to spend. Now, the boy?’

  The innkeeper’s lips trembled for the briefest of moments, then his eyes fell on the purple purse on Mansur’s belt and his face brightened at once. ‘A slave . . . aye . . . and a damned good one.’

  Mansur swallowed the urge to belly laugh at the transparency of the man. ‘Well I’m sure he is. How much?’

  The innkeeper poked out his tongue to dampen his lips, shooting glances to Mansur’s purse, weighing it in his mind. ‘So young boys are your thing, eh?’ He sneered, wringing a chorus of cackling from the listening drunks.

  Mansur’s face remained stony, eyes fixed on the innkeeper.

  Finally, the laughter around them died and the innkeeper’s face fell firm. ‘Nine nomismata!’

  The crowd roared at this. ‘You’re ‘avin a laugh!’ One shrieked.

  Mansur suppressed a sigh and braced himself for haggling. Four gold coins remained in his purse. ‘You clearly don’t want the boy so let’s be realistic. What’s a slave from the salt mines worth?’

  ‘Ah, no; I said I was going to send him there but he hasn’t been there yet! Still plenty of time for him to develop into a big, strapping lad.’

  ‘You just described him as a cripple, did you not?’ Mansur cut in.

  Okay, he’ll never be a runner but . . . ’ the innkeeper started.

  ‘I could buy three child slaves for nine nomismata at the market square.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you? Door’s open,’ the innkeeper countered.

  Mansur cocked an eyebrow. ‘Well, it seems I’m in for a bargain at the market then, three slaves for the price of one.’ He waited until the glint in the innkeeper’s eyes dulled, then strode for the staircase. One stair creaked under his weight, then another, then he lifted his foot again. . .

  ‘Er . . . wait,’ a deflated voice grumbled from behind him.

  Mansur paused, then twisted around. ‘Your price?’

  ‘Six nomismata,’ the innkeeper sighed.

  Mansur turned and continued to climb the stairs.

  ‘Okay, four!’ The man barked.

  Mansur suppressed a grin and turned to descend the stairs. ‘Why the long face,’ he asked the innkeeper as he counted out the coins, ‘you’re still getting more than he’s worth?’

  The innkeeper scowled at Mansur as the circle of punters leered at the exchange of currency. ‘Just be on your way.’

  ***

  With a whimper, the boy shielded his eyes as he limped up one stair at a time with the aid of his crutch, Mansur slowing to match his pace. The light betrayed the savage discolouring on his leg all around the wound and the fetid mess that was his tunic. They pressed to one side of the stairs as Longibardus the doorman came thundering back with an entourage of four skutatoi from the city garrison in tow.

  As they stepped out into the full glare of the mid-afternoon sunlight, the bustle of the city enveloped them. The salty tang from the nearby waters of the Pontus Euxinus mixed with the arid, red dust that clouded the air and caught in the throat, thrown up by the throngs of determined citizens and wagons that pressed past the pair and into the market square. All around them was an incessant rabble of shouting traders, barking skutatoi, whinnying horses and cackling drunks. Clusters of verdant green palms and beeches stood fastidiously in the swell of activity, providing precious shade in the wide street between the sturdy structures of the church and the granary. At the end of the street, away from the market square, the baked battlements of the city walls shimmered, punctuated by iron-garbed skutatoi and cotton-armoured toxotai bowmen. The boy looked up, eyes glassy. Mansur followed his gaze; towering above all other buildings and the high masts of the warships at the city dock, the Chi-Rho atop the red-tiled church dome pierced the eggshell-blue sky.

  Mansur put an arm around him. ‘Come with me, lad,’ he whispered, turning to push back through the crowd towards the south gate. ‘You can trust me . . . and I hope in time you will.’

  The boy looked up at him, his emerald eyes meeting Mansur’s at last.

  ‘I’m Mansur.’ He squatted to be level with the boy, who was already tired from the effort of walking this short distance. ‘So what’s your name, lad?’

  The boy licked his lips and pulled in a deep breath before replying.

  ‘I’m Apion,’ he jolted free of Mansur’s arm, steadying himself on his crutch, eyes searing under his frown. ‘I’m Apion . . . and I am nobody’s slave.’

  2. The Anatolian Highway

  ‘You okay back there, lad?’ A gravel voice called back from the wagon driver’s berth.

  Apion sat in the corner of the cabin, a timber box, closed on all sides with a door on the right. He heard Mansur’s words but his mind remained elsewhere. Early evening sunlight flitted across him through the slats in the wagon roof, illuminating the crimson of long dried blood and red dust from the road crusting his tunic. The wagon sunk and then lurched on a pothole and a streak of white-hot pain burst from his scar, engulfing his leg in an invisible fire. He clutched at his thigh and winced, grimacing through the worst of the pain before slumping back. As the pain subsided, he peered through the slats on the side of the wagon, gazing at the speeding countryside outside, the patchwork of farmhouses and crop squares worked by stooped forms of the soldier-farmers of the thema becoming less frequent as they progressed.

  He noticed the landscape grow more uneven on either side of the road and the colour of the land changing as well, the verdant blanket that hugged the northern coast drying out into baked terracotta and gold hillsides, strewn with rocks and dappled with bursts of green shrub, gatherings of lazy palms and shimmering olive groves. The wagon jolted again as it hit a lone flagstone, harking back t
o a time when the road from the city had been well-maintained. Now only a dirt track remained, weaving across the hills and never straying too far from the rapids of the Piksidis, the river that snaked to Trebizond through the southern Parhar Mountains. A sad familiarity gripped his heart; the rush of the water, the rolling hills, and the old rope bridge up ahead – it was just as he remembered.

  Then he realised what was coming next. He twisted round and pressed his eyes to the gap in the slats. Then he saw it: some fifty paces from the road and the riverbank was a mound of rubble, coated in lichen and almost swallowed by long grass, the visible patches of bare stone still charred. He craned his neck as the wagon sped past, eyes hanging on the ruin until he could see it no more. He longed to shout for Mansur to stop, but the words would not come. He slunk back down, biting his lower lip until he tasted metallic blood. One word echoed through his mind.