by Scott Bury
“Fascinating in what way?” Javor asked. He didn’t like this strange man handling his great-grandfather’s dagger. His amulet started to tingle.
“Well, there’s the script along both sides, that’s obvious.” Pello had a deep yet scratchy voice that made him seem even older than his bald head already did. “But the metal itself is also baffling. It’s not steel nor iron nor any other material that I have ever seen before.”
That surprised Javor. “Really? It looks like steel.”
Pello held the blade out, careful not to point it toward Javor. “At first glance. But even an ordinary blacksmith could see the difference. It’s an old blade and you tell me it’s been in a number of battles. I even saw that gouge that you put in the stone floor of the Council Chamber.” Javor’s remembered his duel with Malleus that first day in the Abbey. “Yet the edge is sharper than anything I have ever seen. And look at the surface of the blade—not a scratch or mark of any kind. Tell me, Javor, do you spend much time cleaning and sharpening it?”
“Um, no,” Javor stammered, embarrassed. “Actually, other than wiping blood off it, I’ve never done anything to it.”
Pello nodded. “I didn’t think so.” He picked up a block of sharpening stone and, to Javor’s alarm, scraped it along the face of the dagger. He looked close and then showed it to Austinus, Javor and Malleus. “See? Harder than flint, which makes it harder than any steel I’ve ever seen.” He then scraped the stone along the edge, back and forth several times, straight along to intentionally dull it instead of sharpen it. Then he cleanly sliced a sheet of paper that lay on a table.
Pello gave the dagger to Javor and brought him to a Legionnaire’s steel breastplate that was strapped to a wooden frame. “Javor, try to pierce that breastplate.”
Javor drew deep breaths to summon as much strength as he could. He raised the dagger over this head in both hands, jumped and swung the dagger down with a yell. There was a metallic shriek and the armour split in two halves that clattered to the floor.
“Good God,” said Philip quietly.
“What is it made of?” Austinus wondered.
They tried again with another piece of armour, which Javor found even easier to pierce. Then he swung it against a Legionnaire’s sword, shattering it. Javor didn’t even feel like he had hit that hard. He walked around the armoury, stabbing at greaves and shields, slicing and piercing them at will until an alarmed Malleus made him stop.
“Unbelievable,” said Pello, looking carefully at the blade again. It still shone in the morning light. “Not a scratch, not a mark. The edge is still perfect.”
By then, it was almost noon. Austinus called for a break and told Javor to put the dagger away. Older monks brought lunch: cold chicken and fresh bread, washed down with sour wine. I sure would like to drink more of that wine from the initiation ceremony.
The older men talked about legendary magic swords and knives. There were apparently many stories from Persia about adepts with magical swords. Austinus reminded them of ancient Greek legends of heros like Perseus who had magical swords of bronze. Philip recited a tale of a Sarmatian prince who pulled a sword out from being embedded in a mountain and became invincible. And Pello told a story he had heard about a warrior who found a sword made by giants, and cut the head off a monster that was impervious to other weapons. “But then the sword dissolved into mist,” he concluded.
“That sounds like my sword!” Javor exclaimed, drawing looks of surprise and doubt. “I told you that Photius and I took weapons and some treasure from Ghastog’s cave.” The men nodded. “Later, my village was attacked by a dragon—the dragon that attacked us as we came out of the cave, the dragon that Photius warded off with his glowing staff.”
“You didn’t tell us that the dragon attacked your village,” said Philip.
Javor’s face felt like it was burning. “I’m sorry. It’s hard. The day after I returned from Ghastog’s cave with Photius, the dragon attacked. I had a sword from the cave, and when the dragon was right over me, I swung it with all my might. I drew blood, but the blade dissolved into smoke. Only the handle was left.”
The four men looked at him intently, but Javor couldn’t guess what they were thinking. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Philip asked after a long pause.
“Because the hetman, all the villagers, said I had to leave. They thought I was bringing danger to them. They said…” He fought tears down. “…they said that monsters were attacking because of me, that they’d be safer if I was gone. So they gave Photius and me some food and clothes, and sent me out.” He sniffed.
“And you said the dragon followed you?” Austinus asked. Javor nodded. He didn’t trust his voice not to break.
Austinus poured him more wine and called for the monks to take away the dishes and leftovers. Javor was glad for the distraction. He took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. He hadn’t realized how deeply his exile had affected him. Nor how much he missed his mother and father.
Malleus brought out a long, heavy-looking shield. “There is a legend this was made by Archimedes himself centuries ago, but I doubt that,” he said, setting it up in another wooden frame. “It is the strongest shield we have. It’s backed with oak and plated with the strongest, best steel I have ever seen. The secret of its forging escapes the best smiths in the city (no offence, Pello), and no one has ever been able to pierce it.” Javor could see, however, that many people had tried, as the dull grey surface, decorated with a plain round boss in the centre and swirls of iron around the edges, was dented and scratched in many places. “Now, Javor, I want you to try piercing that.”
“Malleus, are you sure? Such an ancient shield must be very valuable!”
“It’s fine, boy. No one actually uses it—it’s far too heavy to be much use in a real battle. Take your best swing at it.”
Javor looked at the shield again, searching for a weak spot. I won’t be able to do anything to this. He cocked his arm back and swung hard from the right side. The blade clattered on the shield, making it ring, but bounced off. Javor planted his feet firmly on the floor and stabbed. The blade rang and skittered along the shield’s face, but didn’t penetrate. He moved his feet a little farther apart and took the dagger in both hands, raised it over his head, took a deep breath, and then with all his might, brought the dagger down.
The edge bit into the shield and sliced lower, then stopped with a jarring shudder. Javor had to let go. The blade was deeply embedded in the side of the shield. He tried to pull it out, but his hands slipped off. He tried again, wiggling the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. He tried twisting, pushing, levering it up and down, but the dagger wouldn’t move.
The men gathered around. “Unbelievable!” Malleus marvelled. He tried to remove it, too, but had no more success than Javor. Pello and Philip both tried in their turn, then Javor and Malleus tried together.
They spent hours struggling to remove the dagger from the shield. Some of them would hold the shield and others the dagger’s handle, and pull in opposite directions; they laid the shield on the floor and stood on the dagger’s handle; Javor held the dagger while Pello hit the shield with a hammer. Then, despite Javor’s fretting, he hammered on the dagger.
Nothing worked.
The sun was getting low when Austinus called a halt. They were all sweaty and exhausted, covered in dust and oil. Malleus locked the dagger-embedded shield in a large cabinet and Austinus told them to wash up for dinner. “We’ll try again tomorrow,” he promised.
Javor went to bed feeling very uneasy, almost naked and defenceless. He lay awake for a long time, but sleep would not come.
When he saw dawn’s grey outside the eastern windows, he pulled on a robe, a scarf and thick socks against the chill. Careful not to wake the others, he crept back to the armoury. Inside, he could barely see the gear and was afraid of stepping on something, but the big windows let in a lot of the watery grey light. He could see the iron shield on the frame, his dagger still embedded in its side
. A shrouded man stood beside it.
“Domestikos?” he said.
Austinus turned. “Javor! Well, you certainly know how to move quietly.”
“What are you doing here so early?”
“The same thing as you: looking at your dagger.” A candle flared to life on its own. So he can do the same tricks as Photius. “Look closely: even at this, there is no mark, no scratch on the blade.” Javor looked: he was right. The blade shone in the candle’s yellow light, the only mark on it the strange foreign characters. They both looked at the blade while the light outside slowly grew stronger.
Javor took the handle in both hands and tugged, pushed, levered up and down and side to side. He leaned on in with all his weight, then squatted under it and pushed up with all his might. He put the heels of both hands at the butt of the handle, bent his knees and pushed up, then sprang up and nearly jumped down on it. He repeated that over and over until he was covered in sweat and his grip started to slip.
The dagger didn’t move.
“Enough, Javor,” Austinus said. “Go bathe and have breakfast. And come again this afternoon to the Council Chamber. We must plan our strategy.”
“Strategy for what?”
“Go.”
Chapter 27: The Hippodrome
Javor felt on edge without his dagger under his clothes. Even the amulet was upset, trembling on and off all day long. The other novices and monks noticed Javor was out of sorts. “Weirder than ever,” he heard behind him, repeatedly.
Flaccus surprised Javor and the rest of their little gang. After breakfast and clean-up chores were finished, he led them to the side gate behind the stables, checking around corners for watchful monks. When the way was clear, they slipped out the gate, wincing as it squeaked, and ran as silently as they could down the narrow alley. They barely dared to breathe until the Abbey was out of sight. They were on a relatively wide street with just a few people. A very short, bald man in a green cloak stood on the corner.
“Where are we going, Flaccus?” Sandulf asked.
“To the Hippodrome!” Flaccus announced.
“What’s a hippodrome?” Javor asked.
“Where the horses race!” answered Sandulf.
“The Emperor has proclaimed races to celebrate Priscus’ victory over the barbarians,” Flaccus explained.
“That was two months ago!” Javor protested. He did not feel like celebrating anything, but the others were anxious to get out of the Abbey again.
“We’re going to watch the horse races!” Ammon shouted, a wide grin splitting his long face.
Flaccus led them through narrow streets and alleys to a broad avenue crowded with horses, carriages, chariots and pedestrians, all streaming southward into the slanting sunlight. The buildings here were bigger, grander and more beautiful than any Javor had yet seen in the capital of the Roman Empire: huge colonnades, gilded and painted statues, frescoes and mosaics along the walls. The road had been swept clean. Javor could see workers sweeping up after the horses, scrubbing the cobblestones.
Ahead, a huge wall rose at the end of the street. He realized he was at the Milion, the square white stone that marked the beginning of the first mile of the Roman Empire. And behind it, the biggest building that he had ever seen: grey stone walls that rose higher and higher over his head, as big, he thought, as a mountain.
“That’s the stadium of the hippodrome,” said Flaccus. “It was built by the Emperor Constantine the Great, and it’s said that a hundred thousand can find a seat inside.”
Javor was speechless. In front of the building were four enormous horses made of shining gold. Behind them was a huge wood and iron gate, guarded by legionnaires in gleaming armour, brilliant red capes and peacock-erect helmets. Between them, the crowd lined up patiently outside the great Hippodrome of Constantine.
Javor had never imagined anything so enormous. Passing through the gate, he was atop a wall more than twice his own height, a wall that stretched out so far that before it curved back, it was only a blur. Its face was covered with bronze, some of it turning green, but all worked into images of monsters and gods, battles and animals, goddesses and demons.
Rising above the wall were rows of benches, tier upon tier so high they made him dizzy until the topmost was lost in the sky. The benches were filling with men of all ages and sizes, from children to seniors, dressed in fine robes and tattered rags. Many had green ribbons tied around their arms, or triangular green scarves around their necks. In another section, he could see a great field of blue.
“Wait—why are there no women here?” he asked.
“Women don’t come to games!” Ammon said, shocked that Javor would even ask.
The noise level was nearly deafening: thousands of men talking, shouting, calling one another, insulting their rivals. One section of spectators, all with blue ribbons on their shoulders, were chanting something Javor couldn’t quite understand, but clearly insulting another group in another section who wore green scarves. The greens were shouting something back.
The area enclosed by the stadium was an expanse of sand. In the centre, so distant that he could barely see any details, rose a white twisting column. Two other tall columns tapered to points. “Those are obelisks that the Emperor brought from other lands he conquered—back in the old days,” Flaccus explained.
At each end of the sandy area stood a gargantuan statue of a bearded man. The shin on the nearer statue was as tall as Javor himself. Muscular and heroic, he carried a club and looked confidently out over the crowded stadium. “That’s Herakles,” said Flaccus. The name sounded faintly familiar to Javor from some of Photius’ stories. The sudden memory of the old warrior brought surprising tears to Javor’s eyes.
He blinked, taking in other colossal statues: one showed a woman holding a life-size horse and rider in her hand; across the sand was an immense eagle, wings spread; there were several circular holes drilled in the wings. He wanted to ask about them, but Flaccus was already busy showing off his knowledge of the Hippodrome. “See that twisting column? That’s the Serpentine Column. Constantine the Great had it brought from Delphi. And that’s Romulus and Remus with their wolf-mother, and there’s the Obelisk of Thutmosis—he was Pharaoh of Egypt until the Emperor Constantine the Great conquered Egypt—”
“I thought Egypt was conquered by Augustus Caesar,” Sandulf protested.
“Oh, so now you’re an expert on the Hippodrome, Sandulf,” Flaccus said cuttingly.
“No, but…”
“And do you see that statue of the charioteer and his team of horses?” Flaccus went on. “Over there, almost in the exact middle: that’s Porphyrios, the greatest chariot-racer ever. It’s said that he never lost a race, and retired undefeated.”
For the first time, Javor began to appreciate the sheer wealth of the Roman Empire, concentrated in its capital city. Gilded statues, blinding in the sunlight; tapestries fluttering in the breeze, showing triumphs of the Legions; the thousands upon thousands of men all around him, dressed in their finest clothes and jewelry, sitting in relative comfort in a building bigger by more than twenty-fold than the entire village he had known most of his life, all for the purpose of … sport.
Games. Diversions. Nothing to do with producing food for the inhabitants of the big city, or to protect them against raiders.
He sat down on a wooden bench, which was bolted to concrete steps that ran right around the length of the stadium, allowing each row to see above the heads of the row in front of them. Great idea, Javor thought.
Flaccus continued to guide his friends around the Hippodrome from his seat. “And over there,” he pointed to the far left side of the stadium, which was covered by a vast purple awning, “is the Kathisma, where the Imperial Family sits to watch the races or games or whatever’s going on. It’s connected by a special passage directly to the Imperial Palace, which is right behind the wall, there. Maybe the Emperor himself will come to watch the races today!”
Javor couldn’t clearly see th
e far end of the stadium, and even the Emperor’s lodge, the Kathisma, was a blur. Closer in, the Blues and the Greens were still chanting insults at each other; men carried trays, calling out that they were selling food or little flasks of wine or beer.
“Can we get something to drink, Flaccus?” he asked.
“Too expensive, here. We’ll all have something after the races. Be patient, Javor!”
Trumpets near the Kathisma brayed across the stadium and the crowd cheered, raising the noise level to something nearly unbearable—Javor had never experienced so much noise in his life.
“It’s the Emperor Maurice and Empress Leontia!” Flaccus gushed.
“How can you tell from so far away?” asked Ammon.
“No one else can wear purple!”
Ammon, Javor and Sandulf squinted into the distance to see figures walk to seats at the edge of the wall that circled the hippodrome. A man in long purple robes with something golden on his head—Javor couldn’t tell what it was from that distance—waved at the crowd, which cheered in response.
Another blare from the trumpets, and along the wall a wide gate swung open. A procession of mounted soldiers marched toward the Emperor. The cataphracts were all dressed in golden armour that shone bright in the sunlight. The horse-tail plumed helmets rippled in the breeze almost as one, and their bright red capes flowed behind them like a blood-stained river. Each one carried a spear, held rigidly upright, and their tips glinted as the horses marched past the Emperor’s lodge. Even the horses were armoured, wearing blankets covered in polished steel scales that reflected the sunlight blindingly into the audience’s eyes.
The company strutted the length of the Hippodrome toward the Emperor’s lodge, and paused. Behind them came a company of foot soldiers, not as imposing but just as grand as the cataphracts, bearing long, decorated shields and long spears, marching in perfect formation and time with the trumpets. With a final stomp, they halted behind the horses.
