Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Look, we should loop back and go the other route,’ Maria leant forward, hissing as if to disguise her words from the horses, startling Apion from his thoughts. ‘You’ve gotten nowhere so far,’ she jabbed a finger up at the early afternoon sun, ‘and I don’t fancy being stuck out here when it gets cold and dark.’

  A tad melodramatic, Apion thought, gulping back the snarling response he wanted to give. He watched as she cooed soothingly into the horses’ ears, brushing her cheek against their faces. His frustration quelled.

  He would never have recognised this girl seven years ago. She was still short, her eyes only level with his shoulders. However, her matted tufts of hair had blossomed into sleek charcoal locks, her chocolate eyes had stretched into a fine almond shape – probably helped by the kohl from market she had begun to line them with – and she now kept her eyebrows plucked to a fine arc. She was not what others might call beautiful but in another sense that he couldn’t quite grasp, she was just that in every way. Over the last few years he had begun to notice how her body moved as she walked, the generous curve of her hips rolling smoothly with each step. So smooth, so soft. An idea sparked in his mind.

  ‘The oil!’ He yelped.

  Maria shot him a disparaging glance. ‘Eh?’

  ‘The oil will shift it!’ He hobbled around to the rear of the wagon, pulled the door and jabbed a finger at the neat row of amphorae containing freshly pressed olive oil.

  ‘Or the original route home?’ Maria added stoically, hands on hips.

  ‘It’d take us the rest of the day; this way will take us half that time.’ He grabbed an amphora and two stakes of wood.

  ‘Oh, going to do some cooking?’ Maria cooed as he hobbled over to the rock. ‘Why if I’d known I’d have brought a wineskin.’

  ‘Look, if this doesn’t work we go your way. It won’t take long. Here we go,’ Apion popped the cork and let the amphora tumble over behind the rock, the slick green-tinged liquid coating the ground instantly, breaking around the base of the obstacle. ‘Come on, give me a hand,’ Apion handed her one of the stakes. He wedged the first in under a tiny crevice near the base of the fallen rock. ‘Now you do the same,’ he pointed to a similar crevice a few hand widths along the base. He looked at her as she sighed, lifting the winch as though it was cursed, her nose wrinkling in distaste. Then the savoury tang of olive oil evaporating hit them both at that moment and a rumble pierced the air.

  Maria’s face darkened in embarrassment and she clutched her belly. ‘Look, I’m hungry, and this is all your fault, so get on with it.’

  Apion grinned. ‘Then let’s get this moved and we’ll be back home and eating in no time.’

  She shrugged, muttering, then stabbed the winch into the rock.

  ‘On three: one, two . . . three!’

  With a grunt, they pressed down onto the winches to lift the rock by the tiniest distance and at once the oil flooded into the gap.

  ‘That’s it,’ Apion yelped with the last scraps of air in his lungs, ‘it’s moving!’

  The rock reluctantly swivelled on the slick of oil, its weight no longer invincible. Apion ground the stake in and forward, driving at the mass and Maria followed suit. It gathered speed and slipped like soap, silently and without fuss, plummeting over the cliff edge. Apion panted, then stood tall and made to punch the air in victory.

  Then, with an almighty crack, the earth shifted under him. He glanced down as the hairline fracture at the edge of the road disintegrated under his feet, rubble tumbling over the cliff edge, pulling him and Maria with it.

  ‘Apion!’ Maria screamed, flailing.

  ‘No!’ He lunged to grab her, his hand clasping hers just as her legs slipped from the edge. She shrieked, nails splitting the skin of his forearm. He fell to his knees, clawing at the disintegrating road, but each piece of rock he caught hold of came away in his hand. In desperation, he ripped his dagger free of its sheath and stabbed it into the edge of the track. Maria’s piercing scream abated. They were halted at last.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ he panted. ‘I’ve got you, now pull up, come on, pull up on my arm.’

  Whimpering, Maria clambered up and over Apion, then he hoisted himself up and onto the solid, remaining section of the road.

  They sat in silence for a few moments, gasping for air. Time skipped past as they avoided each other’s eyes, limbs throbbing, giddiness ruling their minds, until at last Apion stood up, sheathing his dagger. ‘We did it, we can go home now!’ He panted, grasping Maria’s hand to lift her.

  As she rose, she slipped and he steadied her by cupping the small of her back. He felt her warmth, her softness against his chest.

  Her face wrinkled. ‘You idiot!’ she spat, her fist crunching into his jaw. ‘You could have killed us both!’

  Apion reeled back, metallic blood coating his tongue.

  ‘Next time, we do it my way.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he groaned. ‘I didn’t think it would . . . ’

  ‘You didn’t think? Then we agree on something. Now let’s get the road cleared so we can get the wagon over this mess safely.’ She turned from him with a groan and strode over to the horses.

  Apion held a hand to his stinging jaw and watched her hips sway.

  ***

  The wagon rumbled into the yard at the front of the farmhouse and Apion’s heart warmed at the sight of the place, the excited clucking of chickens and bleating of goats growing into a crescendo as they slowed. A thick scent of root stew – Mansur’s speciality – curled from the kitchen. The old man had become quite the cook since Apion had taken over the majority of market trips. A bowl of this and a hunk of fresh bread would ease his aches and pains and maybe wash the guilt from his thoughts over the oil idea. He fired a quick sideways glance at Maria, who was still sat, arms folded, lips pursed and staring straight ahead, just as she had the whole way home from the cliff path. He opened his mouth to speak to her when a troubled whinny sounded from the stable.

  Apion and Maria shared a confused glance; both of Mansur’s horses were with them, tethered to the wagon.

  ‘Visitors?’ Apion quizzed, his stomach tightening. He thought of Bracchus and his bull of a sidekick Vadim. Every visit of the pair had seen Mansur hand over a purse of coins. At first Apion had wished for the strategos, Cydones, to call and catch his men in the act. Then, as the extortion had continued unchecked, he felt a sense of shame at standing by as his family was mugged time after time, every exhausting trip to the market towns, every day working the fields counting for little after the vile kataphractos and his mutt had their way. Every area of every thema had just this problem, Mansur insisted, never losing his cool. The irony was that two years ago, the pair had suddenly stopped coming round, just when Apion felt his physique was such that he could stand up to the pair, despite his braced leg. Rumour had it that the two had been promoted to run some border outpost, something that smacked of bribery or some such underhand measure given their corrupt ways and blatant disrespect for the strategos. Whatever the reason, they were gone, or so he had thought.

  Then something moved by his side. ‘Maria!’ he hissed, seeing her hop down from the wagon, ignoring him as he knew she would. Apion grimaced, lifting the cloth-wrapped scimitar from behind the bench and sliding down gently onto his brace to go after her.

  Maria skipped from the wagon to glance round to the stables. She held up one finger.

  One horse: that ruled out Bracchus, who would never turn up unaccompanied by his Rus partner. He inched forward and then stopped dead: the front door was ajar. He caught Maria’s eye and pushed a finger over pursed lips. Then he motioned for her to stay round to the side of the house. She hesitated, then her face tightened into a defiant sneer and she stepped primly back past the front door. Then something moved in the shadows inside, just behind the oblivious Maria. Apion’s flesh crawled.

  A flash of iron blinded him as a towering, armoured figure bolted from the door, roaring like a lion to grasp her, lifting her from her fee
t. ‘Maria!’ Apion gasped, stumbling forward, clutching the scimitar.

  A gaggle of laughter interrupted his run. The armoured figure grinned, spinning Maria in circles. She was laughing. Apion stopped in his tracks, realising he held his scimitar ready to strike in his trembling hand.

  ‘You idiot!’ Maria yelped, slapping at the armoured figure – Seljuk armour, Apion realised. Then Mansur strode to the doorway, grinning, watching the pair.

  Apion frowned; someone had forgotten to share the joke with him. He moved forward, cocking his head to one side as he recognised the face inside the pointed Seljuk helmet. The dark skin, broad nose, ash-grey eyes and pony tail were unmistakable. His sword arm fell limp. ‘Nasir?’

  Nasir spun to face Apion, flashing a full grin. ‘Apion!’

  Before he could gasp or utter a mouthful of relieved abuse, Nasir had him in a bear grip, squeezing the air from his lungs. The scent of sweat, dust and oiled leather entered his nostrils.

  Nasir jabbed a fist into Apion’s chest. ‘Well?’ Then he turned to Maria, cocking an eyebrow. ‘What a welcome, eh?’

  Apion grinned but felt uneasy, noting how much his friend had bulked up. His shoulders, albeit draped in a mail hood, were broad and solid like oak branches and his chest seemed eager to burst from the scale vest hugging his upper torso. Even his face seemed so different, his jaw had broadened and his chin was shaded with stubble, Apion mused, subconsciously scruffing his fingers through his own sparse amber growth. ‘You’re a brave man for riding through from the east in your armour. If a Byzantine patrol had sighted you . . . ’

  ‘I’d have outridden them!’ He beamed.

  ‘Sounds more like his brother Giyath than the boy who left us last winter, eh?’ Mansur chuckled as he strolled from the farm and sidled alongside them. ‘Well, any boy’s a fool to take to the sword but let’s be thankful that he’s back and in one piece. You should think yourselves lucky; he hasn’t been round to see his father yet, have you? Came to see us first!’

  Nasir shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well this place was first on my way home. And don’t tell Father I said this but Maria is a far better cook than he. So what’s on the menu?’

  Maria swiped a hand at him, a ferocious grin etched on her face. ‘Goat poo if you’re not careful!’

  ‘That’ll do me nicely. Life with the riders means eating what you can get and when you can get it, drinking anything that doesn’t make you gag and sleeping in some of the most . . . interesting of places,’ he shot a wide eyed glance to Apion, cocking an eyebrow.

  Apion half grinned in return as if all-knowing but really his chest felt itchy with envy at Nasir’s easy manner.

  ‘Come inside,’ Mansur beckoned, ‘I knew Maria’s goat poo pie wouldn’t go down too well so there’s a vat of root stew and an urn of salep waiting on us.’

  Apion followed the three inside, feeling hidden behind Nasir’s broad frame. They settled at the table and Mansur began ladling his stew into bowls as Maria broke a freshly baked flatbread into quarters, curls of steam rising from its centre, while Nasir lifted off his mail hood and rested it on the chest by his side.

  ‘So you’re back for how long, until next moon?’ Mansur munched on his bread.

  ‘Just until the bey, our leader, comes for us again. The whole unit is on leave.’

  Apion wondered what Cydones the strategos thought of the Seljuk army levying troops from within imperial borders, walking freely from the east to come off-duty on Byzantine land.

  ‘So with the riders, have you bloodied your sword yet?’

  ‘Apion!’ Maria mumbled in disapproval, through a torn piece of flatbread held in her lips. Mansur’s brow creased almost imperceptibly.

  He shrugged, wide-eyed.

  ‘Come on,’ Nasir snorted, ‘you were all going to ask that one eventually.’ He glanced at Apion then dropped his eyes to his stew, stirring it with his wedge of bread. ‘We rode for three months around the east of Armenia. Building wells, protecting the villages from bandits. Good people, those Armenians. They still can’t believe the Byzantine Emperor has abandoned them.’ Nasir shook his head, taking a mouthful of stew. ‘So that part of army life was good. After that, we headed south for a few weeks. Then we moved east until the world dried up under us.’ Now his gaze fell back on his stew and his expression fell with it. ‘Out east it is a different world. Definitely not like here.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘With sand in every direction, burning your skin and blinding you, every man out there seems to distrust every other man.’ He stirred his food. ‘Byzantine and Seljuk patrols pass each other at times, under orders not to engage, what with the truce. Yet all it takes is one sly look from either side, one petty insult hurled over the shoulder . . . ’ he moved to tap his sword hilt, ‘ . . . so, yes, I’ve bloodied my sword.’

  Maria put a hand on Nasir’s arm, then looked up at Apion with a frown. Apion’s skin burned.

  Mansur cleared his throat and cut in. ‘Well, you two boys have a lot of catching up to do, I imagine?’

  Both looked up at Mansur, then at each other, finally sharing a smile.

  ‘So what better way to do that than with a trip to Trebizond? Late winter market starts tomorrow and is on all week. It’ll take you a day’s ride on the wagon to get there,’ Mansur munched. ‘Spend a day there and then head back – Kutalmish and I need some good iron tools to plough the frozen fields.’

  Nasir nudged his elbow. ‘Apion?’

  Apion grinned back at his friend. With Mansur and then on his own, he had travelled far and wide but not for six years had he been to the thema capital. The buried shadow of his old quest for revenge touched his thoughts momentarily, but he shook his mind clear of the image.

  Then he glanced at Maria, still studying Nasir’s broad jaw. His chest itched.

  He affixed Nasir with a sincere look. ‘Whenever you’re ready, I am.’

  ***

  It was colder than Apion could ever remember and he and Nasir were perched on the drivers’ berth of the wagon, tucked into thick woollen leggings, leather boots, tunics and woollen cloaks. The incessant snowfall continued, adding to the thick blanket of white on the ground and ensuring their progress was slow, night already having descended upon them. Despite this, there wasn’t far to go and they had both agreed to carry on.

  ‘Is there no end to it?’ Nasir shivered as clusters of snow whipped across the wagon, carried by a deathly wind. He shot a furtive glance at Apion, before shuffling to pull his cloak tighter around him.

  ‘I’ve never seen weather like this,’ Apion shuddered, ‘Mansur says his father’s father used to tell stories of the steppe, where the snow lay higher than a man on horseback at times.’ He screwed up his eyes to peer at the ground ahead; the snow was still only knee deep, he guessed, but the camber of the road was lost in the snowfall and it was only the frozen waters of the Piksidis that had kept them on course in the whiteout. ‘I think we’re still on the road,’ he muttered, ‘but there might be an easier route.’

  ‘Another short cut?’

  Apion wrinkled his brow and cast a disdainful glance at his co-driver.

  Nasir was smirking. ‘She told me all about it, the fallen rock. She said you saved her life,’ he began with a keen tone.

  ‘Yes. Sharpness of thought, that’s what I used. That and a bit of muscle . . . ’

  Nasir cut him off, ‘ . . . saved her life after nearly killing her with some idiot plan involving lacing a mountain road with oil?’

  Apion’s skin burned under the carapace of cold as Nasir roared with laughter before breaking down in a coughing fit, almost choking on an inhaled snowflake. Enjoying his friend’s discomfort, the glow on the horizon went almost unnoticed.

  Then they both blinked at the sight, then turned to grin at one another.

  ‘Trebizond!’ Apion chattered.

  ***

  They approached in silence, only the crunching of wheels in fresh snow could be heard. The crenelated city walls grew more massive as they neared
and then Apion realised that what he thought were skutatoi lining them were in fact six spikes with a shapeless mass stuck on the end of each. The torchlight up above guttered and the features of the severed heads were momentarily apparent; empty, staring eyes, mouths agape, flesh grey, hair matted with blood and sinuous matter trailing from the neck. A distant memory of poor Tarsites touched his thoughts.

  They passed inside the arch of the city’s main gate, Nasir staying quiet as agreed while Apion explained the purpose of their visit to the gate guards. Inside the city was muted, the raucous babble he remembered was but a distant echo from neighbouring streets, the weather seemingly having herded the populace indoors. He shivered and looked up to the skyline, the structures of the packed city outlined faintly by the torchlight from the streets. The great church still dominated the centre of the place as he remembered, the snow-covered Chi-Rho on its dome stark against the night sky. A city of god? He felt the urge to scoff at the idea, remembering his time in the cellar drinking hole.