Strategos: Island in the Storm

by Gordon Doherty

  Apion’s eyes darted. ‘What is to come next? What will become of the empire, of these lands?’

  ‘Ha!’ the crone uttered. ‘You should know well by now not to ask me such questions!’

  ‘Then tell me at least, that those who brought about so much strife and bloodshed will not go unpunished.’

  Wordlessly, she reached up to touch his hand. His head swam and for a moment he felt warm all over, the aches and pains of the ride gone from his body. His vision swirled and he was spirited from the present. He saw before him the throne room in Constantinople. Young Michael Doukas was seated upon the gilded chair. Beside him, as he had feared, were two figures: Psellos and John Doukas. But there was a shadow behind them. Another figure. A eunuch dressed in white, his eyes sparkling with malice. Moments later, he saw John Doukas being dragged in chains, tossed into some dank and foul, lightless dungeon. The cur screamed and bellowed until the door to his cell was bolted shut. His screaming grew weak as his hair sprouted and whitened, his skin puckered and eventually, life deserted him. In the end, he was but a pile of dust and bones, long forgotten in that miserable underground cell. Then he saw another scene. This time it was Psellos, lying in a bed of silk sheets in some fine chamber. But the advisor was writhing in agony, his face white and his skin shrivelled like some over-ripe fruit. His screams were shrill and piercing, and only abated when the physicians came over to tend to him. They drew open his robes to reveal a black, rotting hole the size of a small shield, dominating his chest and belly. Each of the physicians stepped back, aghast and heedless of what to do. For it was as if a lion had gouged away Psellos’ flesh and cleaved out a great portion of his breast bone. Maggots squirmed in the rotting wound, with pink-red organs losing the battle against the putrefaction. At the centre of the wound was a weakly pulsing heart . . . encrusted in dried matter and as black as night. A cluster of maggots writhed here, like a besieging army at a city’s walls, hungry to pierce the organ and feast upon it. The advisor’s eyes were aflame with terror.

  ‘The blackest of souls will reap the darkest of harvests,’ she said solemnly, her words cutting through the vision.

  Then he saw the throne room again. Now there was just the white-robed eunuch standing by Michael’s side, more vulture-like even than Psellos and Doukas. Nikephoritzes, a sibilant voice hissed in his mind. The eunuch and Michael’s imperious look faded, however, when an angry babble echoed from outside their chambers along with the smash of iron, the crackling of flames and the bash of doors being barged down. Both men adopted looks of utter panic. The vision swiftly changed. Now it showed a black-robed Eudokia on a verdurous island in the Propontus, standing over two tombs – Romanus’ and that of their son, Nikephoros. She gazed beyond the tombs and across the placid turquoise waters to the distant walls of Constantinople. There, men cheered from the battlements as the Doukid banners were torn down. In their place, golden standards were raised. They bore an image he refused to believe. A double-headed eagle, talons-sharp, wings extended – identical to his stigma. A cry rang out from within the capital’s walls. Kom-ne-nos! Kom-ne-nos! Kom-ne-nos!

  The crone lifted her hand from Apion’s, and at once he was drawn back to the present – the stillness of the Chaldian hilltop, the chattering cicadas and the crisp November air. His mind raced over myriad thoughts, then settled on one. The boy on the dead man’s horse. The lad from the mustering fields of Malagina. ‘Alexios? Alexios Komnenos will oust the Doukas family? Or is this another of Fate’s games?’

  ‘Fate is a powerful beast, but he cannot dim the light in a man’s heart,’ the crone smiled. ‘While good men stand firm and refuse to buckle under tyranny, corruption or lies . . . there is always hope. Always.’ She smiled. ‘Your words, Apion. With those words you have sown a bright seed. Just as Mansur and Cydones guided you, Alexios now strives to achieve all you hold dear, to one day realise Romanus’ ambitions of ridding these lands of war. He talks of the legend of the Haga, the one who stood with the emperor at Manzikert to the last . . . then vanished from history. You went to war, Apion, you faced your boy – when it would have been so easy to take another path. Your choices gave you those last moments with Taylan, this last year with Maria, and they have fired the heart of the boy, Alexios. Had you chosen differently, then none of this would have come to be.’

  His mind danced over the fading flashes of the vision, then his breathing and heartbeat slowed again. ‘Then all that has gone before has not been in vain.’

  ‘No. It has been a savage road to walk, but it has been the right one,’ the crone said. ‘And now your journey is almost over.’

  Apion eyed the approaching brow of the hill, then clasped Maria’s hand. It was colder than ever.

  ‘Now, I must leave you. I have a journey to make. Someone needs me to lead them . . . through the grey land,’ the crone said, dropping back a little. Apion twisted in his saddle, offering her an earnest nod. ‘I have often talked of choices,’ she called after him. ‘Shortly, you will have another to make. Once again, the right choice might seem the hardest. I know you will choose well. Farewell, Apion.’

  The lone eagle screeched, unseen, high above.

  He rode on, clasping Maria’s waist tightly. He guided the pony over the brow of the hill, then on at a walk down the hillside, towards the tumbled ruin of Mansur’s farmhouse on the valley floor. The fields were overgrown and long untended, and the tracks were thick with weeds, but to Apion it was finer than any palace or villa he had set eyes upon before. He squeezed Maria’s hand, but she did not respond. He realised the faint whistle of her breathing had faded away, and the weak thud of her heartbeat had stopped too.

  ‘We’re home,’ he whispered.

  The sun was halfway set when Apion put his spade to one side. He had buried Maria beside the old mound marked as Mansur’s grave. He sat before the graves, cross-legged, his pony nuzzling into his neck in search of attention – and fodder no doubt. He reached up absently to stroke its muzzle, the distraction welcome and helping to fend off the ferocious waves of sorrow that clawed at his chest. They came again and again, like a crashing tide. He glanced over to the ramshackle ruin of the farmhouse, and wondered what his next steps might be. It would take some months or years even to repair the place. He looked to the pile of his armour, crimson cloak, helm and Mansur’s old, ivory-hilted scimitar and reasoned that he might be able to sell the set for some coins to aid the restoration. In his mind’s eye he heard Mansur’s gravelly voice bark in protest, and this brought a pensive smile to his face.

  It was then that he heard a snorting of distant mounts and a jabbering of voices. Seljuk voices. He looked up. There, on the hillside, three ghazi riders trotted down towards the farmstead.

  ‘Ride on,’ Apion muttered under his breath, ‘there is nothing for you here.’

  But they came closer. The leader was mean-eyed with a cold grin. His two comrades looked over Apion and the ground nearby, clearly keen on any sort of plunder to be had.

  ‘Give me your armour, grey dog!’ the leader snapped in broken Greek, flicking a finger at the heap by Apion’s side.

  ‘Like me, my armour is old and in dire need of repair,’ he scoffed in reply using the Seljuk tongue.

  The leader’s eyes narrowed at this. ‘Regardless,’ he replied in Seljuk now, ‘you will hand it over.’ Bows creaked as the two other riders sought to underline their leader’s threat, taking aim. ‘You have moments, dog. Make your choice!’

  Apion looked up, seeing the greed in the lead rider’s eyes. He realised then it would be the easiest thing to let these curs slay him, to be free of his sorrow, to be unburdened at last of the struggles of this land. Perhaps somewhere beyond this life he might find Maria? But the crone’s words would not leave him be.

  Once again, the right choice might seem the hardest.

  At that moment, something else came to him. Something almost forgotten. A dark, arched doorway, hovering in the blackness of his mind’s eye. No flames, just darkness and utter silence.
He looked to the hilt of the scimitar and the handle of his battered old shield, each just an arm’s length away. Then he beheld each of the archers, his emerald eyes shaded under his dipped brow. Finally, he flicked his gaze to the lead ghazi, and offered just a crooked, mirthless half-smile.

  Epilogue

  It had been over two years since the Battle of Manzikert, and by late August, Anatolia had suffered one of the bloodiest summers ever known. Civil war between the reigning Doukids and their opponents had torn the empire apart. Sultan Malik had capitalised on the chaos, his armies swooping in to seize almost all of the Anatolian heartland. And the sultan had rallied to his cause the many mercenary steppe riders employed by the warring Byzantine factions. Nearly every inland city and fort now bore a golden Seljuk banner. Only Doux Philaretos’ splinter empire in Melitene held out against the Seljuk tide, and only the fortified coastal cities remained in imperial hands – Tarsos, Sinope, Antioch . . . Trebizond.

  On one blistering hot, late afternoon, the gates of Trebizond swung open to let a party of scout kursores race inside. Sha watched from the battlements as they dismounted at haste. The lead rider called up to him.

  ‘Sir, the sultan’s siege army is gone from our land. I am sure of it. We did not sight them anywhere along the route of our patrol,’ the rider yelled. Relief was etched in the man’s face and danced on his words.

  ‘Then we are likely to make it until winter without the threat of another siege,’ Sha replied. ‘Take your riders to the barracks. I have set out six skins of wine for you. You have earned them.’ The riders broke out in a cheer, drowning out their leader’s formal reply. In moments, they had dissolved into the barracks.

  Sha turned back to look beyond the battlements and out over the green hills and cliffs of northern Chaldia, only now expelling a sigh of relief himself. He thought of the previous summer when a thick horde of Seljuk riders and siege engineers had camped outside Trebizond’s walls. Only a network of pottery-filled pits had put paid to the advance of the rams and siege towers and spared the city. He looked up to the skies and mouthed a silent thank you to the spirit of old Procopius who had taught him that ruse some years ago. He drew out his dagger and examined his reflection in it, seeing the many white hairs now dappling his stubbled scalp, and the thick scar welt that ran across the bridge of his broad nose. ‘Cah – as old as Procopius and as ugly as Blastares,’ he chuckled, his heart swelling at the thought of his lost brothers. He looked in over the city. There, under the shadow of the citadel hill, Tetradia and her children had lived through their grief. ‘I’ve looked after them well,’ Sha whispered, imagining big Blastares by his side. He made to walk along the battlements, but winced, his leg twisting awkwardly. The wound from the Battle of Manzikert had healed and allowed him to ride well, but had left him weak in his stride. He grappled the stick that he loathed and used it to support his weight as he walked. ‘Ha – and I have the limp of the Haga!’ he chuckled dryly, remembering those early days when Apion had first enlisted, hobbling with the aid of some iron brace on his knee. Suddenly, as if conjured by the mention of the name, a flash of ginger startled him as Vilyam leapt up onto the crenelated wall top, purring and butting his head against Sha as he walked with the Malian.

  Sha stopped and stroked the corpulent cat’s ears, looking to the south and wondering what had become of his old friend, unseen and unheard of in those two years since the great battle. ‘Sometimes it is best to live in wonder,’ he mused, pushing away logic and reason. A gentle breeze bathed him then and rippled the petals of a poppy growing in a nook on the battlements. The sight conjured a forgotten memory. The Chaldians on the march. He, Apion, Procopius and Blastares at their head, resplendent and fearless. Blastares in a mischievous mood; Hold on. Are you calling me a bloody flower? The four of them erupting in belly-laughter. Sha could not fend off a smile as the memory faded.

  Just then, a scuffling of boots stirred him. It was the lead kursoris rider. Sha shot him a confused frown. ‘The wine is no good?’

  ‘It is like nectar, sir. But there was something else I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want to shout aloud. When we were on patrol, far to the south near the old Chaldian borders, we did sight one small Seljuk warband – fifty or so ghazis. They were heading northeast, most probably to plunder the farmlands east of these walls.’

  Sha’s shoulders tensed. For all Trebizond’s walls could hold out against the Seljuk armies, those vital farmlands were easy prey. Immediately, he began thinking over how to organise the few men at his disposal to cope with this incursion. But the kursoris continued before his thoughts could fully form.

  ‘We tracked them for hours, but we lost sight of them.’ The kursoris’ eyes narrowed and he shook his head. ‘But when we saw them again, they were in flight. Some bore arrows in their flesh. Each wore a look of terror.’

  ‘Fleeing? From whom?’ Sha asked. ‘Your riders were the only imperial soldiers outside this city’s walls.’

  ‘I don’t understand it either, sir. All I know is they were turned away by some foe before they made it to our farmlands.’ The rider shrugged. ‘Then, later in the day we came to a Seljuk village even further south – unwalled, without warriors. They were just farmers. They offered us salep and bread. We saw that they had acquired Norman war horses to plough their fields. When I asked where they got them, they said they had taken them from the Doukid Norman mercenaries who sought to sack their village last month.’ The kursoris shrugged. ‘How? I asked, seeing that they had only hoes and hunting bows by way of weapons. The village leader smiled when I said this, told me how a man had helped them, shown them how to defend themselves. He showed me caltrops and spike pits hidden in the ground around the village. Then he showed me how the farmers had been taught to stand in a spear wall, each of them bringing tall, sharp lances from their homes – weapons they had made under the direction of this man.’

  ‘One man?’ Sha asked.

  The kursoris shrugged. ‘Just one man. A haggard sort with pale skin and the tongue of both a Greek and a Seljuk. It made me think of . . . ’ the rider’s words trailed off and he shook his head. ‘It just reminded me of the past.’

  Sha’s breath halted in his lungs and he considered his next words carefully. ‘Do not trouble yourself with it. These lands are vast and full of surprises. Now go, return to your comrades and enjoy your wine.’

  ‘Thank you, Strategos,’ the rider beamed.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ Sha said softly, shaking his head. ‘The themata have fallen and the age of the strategoi is over. They are all gone.’

  ‘Yes . . . sir. It’s just old habits, you know?’ the kursoris grinned, before turning away to hurry back down into the city and to his men. A ribald tune soon erupted from the barrack blocks.

  Sha turned back to look out over the Chaldian landscape, tears gathering in his eyes, a broad grin lifting his face and a spark of hope swelling his heart.

  ‘All gone,’ he whispered into the ether. ‘All but one.’

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Writing Apion’s tale has been a massive part of my life for these last four years. In that time I’ve immersed myself in Byzantine history, travelled to parts of the old empire and even taken up running in an attempt to understand the hero of the tale and the world he lived in. Apion, of course, has lived only in my imagination (and hopefully now, yours too), but the world I had him endure was very much based on my historical research. As always, I feel it is my duty to discuss the main areas where I have deviated from fact or speculated where detail has been thin on the ground.

  Emperor Romanus Diogenes granted the Black Fortress at Mavrokastro to a mercenary Norman general, Crispin, around 1068. Crispin’s brief was to protect the border doukate that encompassed Chaldia and the lands immediately east of it. Instead, he took offence at something – possibly lack of reward or title from the emperor – and began hoarding the imperial tax levy and harassing any who tried to bring him to
heel. I have exaggerated his brutality (the eyewitness historian, Michael Attaleiates, states that Crispin did not harm any Byzantines until they tried to attack his men), but there is no doubt he was a rogue. After a few failed attempts, he was finally captured and sent into exile, only to be recalled by the Doukas family in 1072 for the civil wars against Romanus. Indeed, Attaleiates attests that Crispin personally saw to gouging out Alyates of Cappadocia’s eyes with rusty tent pegs, before dying of poisoning shortly afterwards. Incidentally, my depiction of Apion instructing his men to use the menavlion (a weighty, extremely lengthy spear usually made out of a sapling tree trunk) against Crispin is little more than a nod to his understanding of past military tactics – the menavlion was a vital part of the 10th century military machine engineered by Basil II.

  The 1069 campaign saw Romanus Diogenes set off for Lake Van, crossing the Euphrates near Romanopolis with the intention of taking Chliat from Seljuk hands. He was but days from achieving his goal when he heard news of the arrival of a Seljuk army at his rear and of the fate of Philaretos Brachiamos and the rearguard he had left stationed at the river’s western banks. Thus, he had to swing his campaign army round and pursue and harry the marauding Seljuks around inner Anatolia. The Seljuks made it as far west as Iconium, besieging that city before swinging back round towards Cilicia. It was here that the Byzantines managed to finally strike back at their foe, calling upon Armenian allies to pelt the fleeing Seljuk horde from the heights of the Cilician mountains. Anatolia was free of the raiding army, but Romanus’ stock was low with the people of the empire. They had watched their taxes being poured into the armies, while the cities were neglected. Thus, Romanus elected to remain in the capital the following year, in an attempt to remedy the situation.