Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  When Apion noticed Mansur’s knuckles whiten on his sword hand, he shot a glance to the old man’s knees and saw the left knee bend. Confused, his body tensed and he pulled the scimitar up to parry but with a flash of sunlight on iron, he found himself empty-handed, his scimitar spinning through the air to land by the point in the dust, quivering.

  Mansur’s scimitar tip hovered by Apion’s heart. ‘Never, never, assume anything of your opponent, lad.’

  Apion gawped at the glinting blade, frowned and then squinted up to Mansur. ‘I will master this. It might take time, but I will.’

  Mansur stabbed his own blade into the ground then wrapped an arm around him. ‘I know you will. You possess a sharp mind, lad and I wish you would not put it to use only with the sword, but if mastering the sword makes you the happy boy you were before this obsession you have with the Agentes, then I will teach you all I know.’

  ***

  Summer turned to autumn, dappling the green lands of Chaldia with gold and every day Apion focussed his efforts on sword practice and every night he pored over what little he knew of the Agentes. This night, however, Mansur and Apion sat opposite each other at the table, the shatranj board separating them, each with four pieces left in the game that had run into its sixth night. Apion examined every possible move again but there was no option that would not result in exposing his king, neatly tucked into one corner behind his pawns and flanked by a rook.

  The game was a welcome distraction to him. It had been three months since that day in Cheriana, but the image of poor Tarsites’ severed head still sent a shiver through him every time he closed his eyes. Every fortnight since, he had taken Mansur’s wagon into the market at Trebizond. In those visits, he had spoken with more rogues, racketeers, assassins and swindlers then he could remember, all to no avail, the unsavoury characters dismissing him as just a boy, or falling silent and tight-lipped at the first mention of the Agentes. The backstreets of the bustling city held the answer to it all, an answer that was as yet utterly elusive. His knuckles whitened as he ground them into the table, seeing the dark door in his mind, the knotted arm reaching for it.

  ‘It’s tortuous, isn’t it?’ Mansur grinned.

  ‘Sorry?’ Apion looked up, startled.

  ‘The game,’ Mansur nodded to the board.

  Apion shook his head. The old man was worried for him, he could sense it. ‘Every move I plot in my head looks good,’ Apion spoke, his words echoing both the puzzle of shatranj and the riddle of the Agentes, ‘until I see the move after that and then the next. All moves lead me to a place I don’t want to go.’

  Mansur nodded. ‘So do you sacrifice a piece to take one of mine, perhaps? Is it worth it?’

  Apion frowned, looking the old man in the eye. ‘No, that opens too many doors.’ They held each other’s gaze for some time.

  Finally, a piece of firewood snapped and Mansur nodded, then tapped the board with a sigh. ‘In shatranj, sometimes sacrifice is the only option. Imagine how the strategos feels, he must make such choices when it is not wooden pieces that are at stake but living, breathing men: whether to send a unit of infantry to their deaths to allow the rest a fighting retreat; to have his cavalry pierce an enemy flank knowing that it will slow their advance but then the horsemen will be hopelessly lost in a nest of speartips as a result; whether to leave his bowmen out front for one last hail of arrows knowing it will critically thin the enemy charge but that the archers will die for it. These are the choices of the strategos.’

  Apion frowned and shook his head. ‘I don’t envy the man who has to make that call and then to try to rest at night with the knowledge of what he has done, but I would rather take up the mantle and face the guilt that comes with it and stand against fate, than wander blindly to my death at the whim of another.’

  Mansur grinned wryly at this. ‘Then take up that mantle – make your move!’

  Apion studied the board again: he had his king, a knight, a rook and three pawns left; Mansur with his king, vizier, a chariot and a pawn. Mansur was positioned around Apion’s bunkered pieces and the onus was on Apion to break forward and make the most of his numerical advantage. He had soon learned the lesson to avoid rushing to victory on impulse, but also that hesitation could sap confidence. ‘Protect the flanks,’ he muttered, ‘but to win I must expose them?’

  Mansur smoothed his moustache and considered the comment. ‘Such is the nature of the game. Expose the flanks if you must, but develop the centre in doing so, forcing your enemy to defend.’

  Apion studied the board, mapping out the moves his pawns and his knight could make. Then he thought of the oft-passing columns of Byzantine thema soldiers, always the same make up of a head of kataphractoi cavalry, a body of skutatoi infantry and a tail or flanks of toxotai archers with a mule and wagon train to the rear. No elephants, chariots or other such exotic units in sight.

  ‘Cavalry and infantry; that’s what a real strategos has to work with, isn’t it? That’s what Cydones has in his ranks?’

  Mansur looked up as though he had heard a long forgotten voice. ‘Cydones?’ The old man nodded. ‘He is a fine strategos. He manages Chaldia well and leads the fighting men like a lion. His tools are indeed the infantry and the cavalry; the anvil and the hammer. Yet those tools are not enough. No money comes from Constantinople to fund the defence of the empire anymore. Still, that man has been the thorn in the Seljuk advance for over two decades!’

  ‘The Seljuks won’t stop, will they? Cydones can never win.’

  ‘As things stand, Cydones can only delay the coming of my people. This will remain the case while the Byzantine emperor chooses not to support his outlying themata adequately and the Seljuk Sultan believes war and conquest is tantamount to glory. The Falcon is a driven individual; Tugrul sees every moment of hesitation as a drop of lost glory.’

  Apion wondered what would become of the borderlands if the expected invasion occurred. If the Seljuks were to sweep over the land then his life and his quest would be swept away with their charge. Then, as his eyes hung on his pawns, he saw the killer move. He picked up a pawn and moved it away from the other two, pinning Mansur’s chariot against his king. He looked up, grinning.

  Mansur pushed his vizier one square forward then cocked an eyebrow. ‘Checkmate!’

  Apion’s heart sank; he had exposed his own king and trapped him in the corner. His brow knitted. His first victory over the old man remained elusive. ‘It’s impossible!’ He fumed.

  ‘Then how is it possible for me to win time after time?’ Mansur asked calmly.

  ‘I don’t know, our pieces are of equal power, I’ve tried matching your sequences of movements, and I’ve tried striking out with my own patterns . . . ’

  ‘Our pieces are of equal power, but we are not.’ His words were blunt.

  Apion stared at Mansur. Was the old man mocking him?

  ‘The most powerful weapon in shatranj is the mind of the man who controls the pieces.’ Mansur tapped a finger to his temple and then moved his vizier back to the square it had been on. ‘You are getting better and better. I haven’t been that close to defeat in a long, long time. Had you moved your knight around my flank, you would have limited my next move,’ he pushed his vizier forward, ‘and I would have been forced to expose my king just as you did.’

  Apion saw the pattern like a ray of sunlight.

  ‘You would have won. A boy of twelve years beating a man on his last clutch of summers. You should be proud.’

  ‘I could have won . . . should have won,’ Apion’s spine tingled.

  Mansur swept a hand across the board. ‘You are starting to see the board from above, like an eagle, soaring on a zephyr, looking down on the formations. The higher you soar, the greater your eye will be for weaknesses in the enemy line.’

  Apion held Mansur’s gaze as the old man’s eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘Like a strategos?’

  ‘See like the eagle and you are the strategos!’ Mansur grinned.

  ‘
Better to be the Haga, with two heads to see the battlefield?’ Apion grinned in return.

  Mansur laughed at this. ‘Well put.’ Then the old man held his gaze. ‘To see you smile is like a tonic for me, lad. Does it not make you feel good when you smile, when you let go of your troubles?’

  ‘It does,’ Apion nodded. ‘But I do not seek out the thoughts that trouble me. Since that day by the Lykos, they come to me incessantly, they will not leave me alone.’

  ‘You can change that, lad. Let go of this obsession over the Agentes and live the life you have now. Do you think you can do that?’

  Apion saw the hope in Mansur’s eyes and held his gaze for a moment, then glanced away to the hearth, and nodded. ‘I will try.’

  ***

  Later that night Apion could not sleep and went to the stable, brushing the mane of the grey mare and speaking to her softly. Then he heard the clopping of hooves. The mare’s ears perked up. Apion looked out into the darkness.

  A black-robed and veiled rider trotted up to the gateposts, stopped and waited.

  Apion eyed the figure, uncertain, then hobbled forward. ‘What do you want, rider?’

  The rider was stock-still. ‘You wanted answers?’

  Apion’s eyes narrowed and his skin prickled. ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘My boss will tell you what you want to know. Tomorrow, noon, downriver by the old mill. Bring five nomismata and come alone.

  With that, the rider heeled his mount into a gallop back downriver and was gone.

  Apion watched the dust trail in the moonlight. Of all those who had scoffed at his enquiries, or fallen silent at the first mention of the Agentes, there was one who had offered him just a sliver of hope. At the dockside inn, Apion had placed a purse of coins on the table and old Kyros had eyed it in silence. After what felt like an eternity, Apion thought this was another dead end. Resigned, he stood, scooped up the purse and began to hobble away. But Kyros called him back. The old rogue nodded to Apion and said he couldn’t promise anything, but would see what he could do, insisting that more money would be needed. Apion had expected that he would never hear from Kyros again, but it now seemed that the old rogue had been serious. If money was what it took then so be it, Apion thought. He had acquired a purse of nomismata through bartering for just this purpose. But one question hung on his mind.

  What price for revenge?

  10. Oath

  The warm valley winds let me soar high over the farmlands. Here and now, all is peaceable, but I know this cannot last, for I have been drawn here for a reason. Then I see him, the solitary figure on horseback, and at that moment I know what he is to become.

  I cannot bend his will, but my heart weeps when I see what fate has in store for him, from this moment and on through the years. So wretched that this being has it in him to be the saviour of an empire but must also dwell in an ill-deserved perdition. If his life is to be as fate will have it then I can only try to prepare him, to show him what lies in his path.

  ***

  Downriver from the farm, the air was still and tinged with the scent of honeysuckle as the land bathed in the early autumn heat. Only the rush of the Piksidis pierced the serenity. As Apion rode at a canter on the grey mare through the placid scene, he wished for a future where his mind could be free to enjoy such calm.

  He slowed his mount and once again glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowed. Ever since he had set out he hadn’t been able to shake a distinctly uneasy feeling that he was being followed. He shook his head of the thought and checked his equipment again: he wore just a green knee-length tunic, satchel, leather boots, a belt equipped with Mansur’s scimitar and his crutch strapped across his back. If he found this elusive master agente, he wondered, would he be ready to tackle him? He had a good technique with the sword, his sword arm muscular and precise, and his crutch arm sturdy and robust just like his good leg. His mind was sharp too; he had beaten almost everyone he had faced at shatranj: Kutalmish, Petzeas and his sons and many an over-confident trader at the market towns. But not Mansur, he mused with a shake of the head.

  Scanning the land ahead, he lifted a linen parcel from his satchel and unwrapped a goats’ cheese round, biting from it as he turned over the possibilities of the meeting at the mill. When an eagle screeched somewhere above, he looked up, but could see nothing other than unbroken blue.

  ‘You are a long way from home?’ A voice spoke.

  Apion turned to the voice. A woman was crouched by the riverbank, back turned. Her silver hair hung to her shoulders and her body was frail under an off-white robe. He moved a little closer and saw she was bathing her gnarled feet. He could not see her face but a warm familiarity touched his heart.

  ‘I am, though maybe not for too much longer.’ He frowned, looking downriver.

  ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘North, trading,’ he lied.

  ‘Ah, very well. You have no goods to trade though?’

  Apion saw her reflection in the water but the ripples hid her features. ‘I’m hoping to buy something valuable,’ he patted his purse.

  ‘Be careful what you value,’ she cut in sharply. ‘Remember what happened the last time you ignored my advice?’

  ‘It is you, isn’t it, the old lady from the dell?’ Apion’s spine tingled as he remembered her distant humming of a tune when she had nursed his wound. If, he mused, he had taken her advice and resisted the instinctive urge to return to the burnt out farmhouse, he would not have fallen into the hands of the slave traders. ‘You saved me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before. I was lost in those days. I never thanked you for what you did for me.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, just heed my words.’ She turned to him, her puckered face was longer, sadder than he had remembered, but those milky white eyes remained all seeing and utterly blind at once. She stepped forward and grasped his arms. Then her shoulders sagged and she looked resigned. ‘You must know where your choices will take you.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  She turned back to the river and crouched to bathe her feet again. ‘You may not see it now, but you will choose a path. A path that leads to conflict and pain. Much pain. Fate teases you with that illusion of choice.’

  He frowned. Once he had found the master agente and dealt justice, Apion intended only to live a quiet life on the farm, to bring happiness to Maria and Mansur for all they had done for him and to make up for this last year of his foul moods. How could that bring such pain? ‘Then what you foresee is false. Conflict and pain? I have no wish for such a future.’

  ‘Really? Then where are you headed right now? And spare me the rot about trading!’

  Apion shook his head. ‘If you know where I am going then you’ll know why I am headed there. I will never be able to rest and accept the happy life I want until I have resolution on what happened that night, before you found me. I’m closer to achieving it now than I’ve ever been. All I have to do is go north and meet . . . ’

  She raised a hand and cut him off. ‘And fate is victorious again. When the falcon has flown, the mountain lion will charge from the east and all Byzantium will quake. Only one man can save the empire . . . the Haga!’ Her tone grew dry. ‘Are you ready for what lies ahead, Apion?’

  He scoured the riverbank, seeking words in reply. Then the lone eagle screeched again and Apion shot a glance up to the sky. Again, nothing. When he looked back to the riverbank it was empty, just the base of a felled beech lying where the woman had been, its spindly roots dipped in the water. He stood, gazing at the spot, turning the woman’s words over in his head, a chill dancing across his skin. She was deluded, he thought, surely a man’s actions defined his destiny, and he was free to choose those actions? Then he looked north. Conflict did indeed lie ahead for him but only for a short while. He heeled his mount on and tried to clear his thoughts. Then he stopped and listened; was there another set of hooves somewhere behind him? He shot a glance round, expecting to see another traveller, but there was nobody. He was alo
ne on the road.

  Morning became noon and finally he trotted into the valley where the ruined mill lay in the midst of the carpet of long grass, swaying in the breeze. High mountains enclosed the valley, streamlets of mountain water trickling down their steep sides to fertilise the grasslands and then to add their strength to the Piksidis’ current. Despite the recent drought, the broad river was ferocious here, knots punctuating every part of the surface and the tumbled stone bridgeheads downriver stood quietly in disrepair, alluding to the full strength the waters could muster.

  He stroked the mare’s mane and slid down onto his crutch, then moved to the riverbank, stooped and cupped water into his mouth, washing the dust of the ride from his throat, then pulled another handful over his amber locks, soaking them and cooling his scalp. He examined his reflection, rubbing his jaw, wondering if it had become broader in recent months. Then he blinked at the other dark reflection in the water’s surface.