Shards of Empire

by Susan Shwartz

  They rose in the grey time before dawn. There was no time to linger, or even to yawn, before their work began. Asherah had house, warehouses, and accounts to maintain. The house itself was walled and guarded; she had even finally yielded to her father's and her husband's demand that she not slip out alone.

  Leo and Joachim went armed, absurd as Joachim claimed to feel carrying steel, even if it was the finest Damascus. No doubt, in Byzantium, they would hold up their hands in horror: Jews in arms; Jews (other than the Emperor's physician) on horseback at need. It had been lawful to turn one harmless Jew into a torturer! Leo thought, with a stab of the old anguish over Romanus. At least, this time, Jews would defend themselves and Romanus’ old land. It seemed only fitting.

  Guards accompanied the family, doubled in Nordbriht's absence. Among them, to the horror of all the women in the house, was Kemal.

  “He and his sultan treated me as a guest, though I was a prisoner. Can I do less?” Leo had demanded.

  It just might be that Kemal would see assassins where an eye more familiar with the local gentry might not. All were equally strange, equally hostile to him. Leo, as Asherah was quick to point out (in private, thank God), entertained hopes of recruiting Kemal to his service.

  “You hire mercenaries like a prince now, do you, Leo?” she had commented just that morning. “I warn you, I have no ambition to be Basilissa.”

  The lad was feckless, unhappy among the Turkmen, Leo started to explain. Turks had settled in the Empire before—admittedly, not all that many, but given the right sponsors and land and herds, he might eke out a decent living for himself. And if not, he could always guard the lion's cub (thanks to Asherah, Leo might never hear that nickname now without a rush of heat) he valued. Each other's lives were the coin they exchanged.

  Her laughter at the horror in his face had been the only merriment of that morning.

  Thus, when Leo walked out with Joachim to meet the caravan guards and help load those few families who wished to flee Cappadocia for whatever safer place they fancied horses and Bactrians could reach, Kemal went with him.

  By the time he could stop to take a breath, Leo would have said that the time for songs had forever ceased—unless they were ballads about hopeless causes, complicated by panic. He had never seen so many amulets on any men as he had on the men who rode with the caravans; the fear among the refugees was so palpable that it frightened their mounts, giving the drovers extra work calming them. Kemal, who understood herds better than he knew human beings, cast an appreciative eye over the caravan. The bells that helped camels and wagons keep from straying had all been put away. This caravan would flee in silence, if it could flee at all.

  “Would you want to go with it?” Leo asked in an undertone.

  “Cub, they would cut my throat the instant I turned my back. But it is a fine caravan, a rich one.” He grinned admiration at Leo's improved fortunes, much of which the caravan would bear away to some safer place, if any existed.

  “It would help,” Leo said in an undertone to Kemal, “if you knew where your kinsmen rode and could tell us so these poor people could get through.”

  “Poor?” Kemal shouted with laughter. The other guards bristled.

  “I am concerned that the Turks, like many nomads, regard the caravans as gifts falling into their hands. Happily, I would halt them here; but my kin would read that as a counsel of despair. And that we dare not do.”

  “If it is written that they fall into the hands of my brothers, it is written,” Kemal shrugged. “Travel for you would be safer in winter, when only the storms are your enemies. We fight men, not storms.”

  “This caravan must leave now,” Joachim muttered. “Life goes on, and trade with it. Even your prophet Mohammed worked the caravans.” Leo raised an eyebrow, and Kemal stopped in his tracks.

  “I did not know that about Mohammed,” Leo admitted.

  “The Prophet married his master's widow,” Kemal said. He bowed respect at Joachim.

  “We too are people of the Book,” the merchant reminded him.

  Leo flushed. “Do not expect me to start a new religion,” he said.

  Joachim turned to stare at him. He shook his head. “I meant no comparison, of course, my son.” He smiled, and Leo breathed more easily. It was never simple for a poor man to marry an heiress and retain his self-respect.

  After a noon meal that was more a council of war than a time to relax, they faced other tasks.

  After the meal, Asherah planned to ride, now under guard, to the underground city that she had helped equip. She monitored the progress there as flocks were driven far from the villages and the caves filled with provisions. One thing, at least, was going well, if not to her complete reassurance: her marriage to Leo ensured, at the very least, the secure place in that refuge that all her gold and even the nuns’ inexplicable favor might not have gained for her household.

  “If there is any trouble,” Leo warned her, “you stay where you are safe.” He doubted that she would heed him.

  He knew the caves were almost fully provisioned now, food laid in, bedding laid out, bins filled, and the gear attached to the millstones that would bar the entrance tested so that even a strong child could secure them at need. There were arms within the caves, as well. They might be cities principally of women, but Asherah had her guards, the lean dark nuns were stubborn and would make good fighters, while any woman defending her children would fight like a fury as long as life remained.

  If it were up to Leo, he would send Asherah and her women to the caves to stay now. He knew better than to try.

  “I am safest at your side,” she had insisted. “I will see you tonight.”

  He saw her to her horse. He helped her mount and, for a moment more, in case this was the last time, he held her hand. Joachim looked aside. Kemal suppressed a chuckle.

  And then she was gone, riding as easily in her flowing garments as the men who guarded her.

  Leo indulged himself for a moment, watching her graceful figure grow smaller and smaller as the dust puffed up about the riders. The ground seemed to echo their hoofbeats.

  “Son,” Joachim said softly. “Do not forget what other guards ride with her.”

  In Joachim's presence, Leo could not politely sign himself.

  “May they protect her,” he muttered.

  Joachim returned to his house. Even though he now went armed, Leo's father-in-law was a man of words, not swords. He could best serve by doing what he knew best: preserving the fragile nets of trade and rumor that linked the Empire with the East.

  Leo turned toward the officers of what Hagios Prokopios called, with rather more hope than accuracy, its guard. They walked about the town. It was quieter now. Many of the merchants had left, leaving vacancy where their stalls had stood. Many townsfolk retired to the land. Those men who remained often lived in near-empty houses, having sent their wives and children to what they considered safer places.

  Ioannes rode up on a dusty horse, dismounting quickly when he saw the other men. With him came a small troop of mounted men, farmers of whom he sought hard not to be overly aware. In better times, this would have been his first command, and he might even have been smiled at if he preened somewhat. But these were hard times, and especially hard on Ioannes. Not only had he lost a father who had been a popular landowner, he had to mourn the man, and play his part as a fighting man. He raised a hand in an awkward almost-salute to Leo, but was instantly surrounded by a group of older men, his father's friends.

  Leo gestured at Salomon, an older man whom Joachim trusted and who had refused to leave Hagios Prokopios when he had sent others of his household further north.

  “I have heard his life is hard,” Leo hinted, nodding at Ioannes. “He might not refuse a sack or two of food, slung across his saddle when it was time for him to ride home.”

  As son-in-law, not son, and a Christian at that, Leo tried not to order where he could suggest. He had his reward in Salomon's willing nod.

  “
I have heard. He is a good lad,” said Salomon. “My cousin Tzipporah said your wife told her she had heard from a woman in the town"—he smiled mirthlessly at the roundabout nature, as characteristic of Jews as it was of the Rhomaioi, of the news—"that he has younger brothers, tended only by a nurse.”

  “Asherah offered to take them in, but he refused,” Leo recalled. Then, more hastily, lest the older man imagine insult, “I do not think...”

  Salomon shook his head. “That was pride. We are all proud when we are young. When we are older, we learn that others may protect our own better than we ourselves.”

  Was that why Salomon treated Leo with such consideration? Because he could do more for his master and his master's daughter than he himself? Leo stood very straight. I pray your trust is not misplaced.

  Salomon regarded him levelly. “Just so. If you can get him out to the house, I shall have Tzipporah see that the young man does not ride home empty-handed.”

  Ioannes escaped from the men attempting to console him. Under the dust and his ill-fitting harness, he looked thinner and worn. For him, the time of ballads had ceased before it began. Knowing that even sympathy would be another burden now, Leo greeted him only with, “What news?”

  “The widow Charis's farm is gone,” Ioannes said. “She and her people escaped. One of them told me her mistress would take refuge with the nuns until it is time to...”

  Kemal came up to stand at Leo's shoulder. Ioannes bared his teeth at him in what might have passed for greeting, or a snarl. Kemal flourished a salute at the youth who had held his life in his bloodied, angry hands.

  “We both serve the same master now, young falcon,” he said. Leo watched the man and the youth face off.

  “Some of us don't change our loyalties with our coats,” Ioannes muttered.

  “Some of us have only one coat—if we are fortunate enough to have even that. You have land, young lord. Be happy you have friends who have vowed to help you keep it.”

  Ioannes glared at him. “And if you had land...”

  “My Sultan had grand plans for you. The men with whom I rode covet your lands. As for me, had I been born with what you own, I would never have left it.”

  But he might have lost it, Leo thought, as he lost all else. Perhaps, if Kemal's loyalty became truly his, one of the abandoned farms might be given him. Or, given Kemal's propensity for letting gold fall through his hands, perhaps Leo should buy it—should ask Joachim to buy it—and let Kemal run it. He would be a strong defender—assuming the people Leo wanted him to defend did not stab him in the back.

  Aware he was being baited, Ioannes shrugged.

  “I saw your lady on the way,” he said. “She called out to me to tell you she saw the last of the herds led off. From my own land"—the boy's head came up with pride—"I provisioned three teams of scouts: two pair will stay on watch for as long as they can hold out; the third pair will serve as messengers, as you ordered.”

  Good lad. Leo stopped himself from saying that or from remarking that Asherah, now dignified with “your lady,” was probably someone Ioannes might have sneered at for her faith.

  “Well done,” Leo told him. Ioannes straightened even further. “Your scouts know whom else to speak to if they can't find you?” If you are killed, he meant, but best not to say it. Ioannes probably still believed he was immortal.

  Once again, they inspected the defenses of Hagios Prokopios. Kemal made some suggestions about the placement of spears that might deflect horse-archers, if they were very, very fortunate.

  “The Maccabees got beneath the elephants of Antiochus and stabbed upward with their spears,” Salomon offered.

  “Hard on your Maccabees, wasn't it?” asked Kemal, scandalizing Christians and Jews alike. “You do want to come out of this alive.”

  The defenses were better than Leo had hoped. But they were not enough: if the storm crashed over them with the force Father Meletios had foreseen, not even the full force of the Tagmata would hold it back.

  Father Demetrios emerged from behind his church. He was covered with grit, and Leo wondered if he had been burying those few treasures that belonged to it, preferring to entrust them to the earth rather than to the people, Christian and Jew and maybe even Turk, who would flee into the caves. Behind him walked a man Leo had not seen before. He was dressed for riding, though he lacked the arms of a noble. He could not be a messenger, could he? Any messenger was rare, but a messenger from the City, humbly dressed so he could ride without hindrance, bringing news of troops and supplies heading toward them, would be a miracle.

  You're dreaming, Leo. You know that all your true dreams wake you screaming. As well wish to turn the tide at Manzikert. The age of miracles is past.

  Demetrios hurried up to them, gesturing to the man to follow.

  “This holy man,” he began, “has seen a vision.”

  Not a messenger, then. Well, any news from Byzantium was likely to be bad, cut off as they were here from Imperial aid. Or perhaps Leo's parents had finally decided that they had tolerated all they could from their wayward son and cast him off. Or been ordered to.

  Leo shrugged, observing how quickly Ioannes mastered his more obvious disappointment. The older men gathered around, while Salomon stood aloof. He was not yet used to the closer bonds that Leo tried to forge among the different peoples in the town, nor did he trust them.

  “I would be glad to hear it,” Leo said. “Where are you from, holy sir?”

  “You are Leo Ducas?” The man's accent bore the impress of the City.

  Leo inclined his head. Even if he had forgotten the pauses required for rank and ceremony in his old home, how they had slowed matters of importance, the man had granted him no title, and that disquieted him. He had not forgotten the need for constant suspicion, even more so than the physical fear with which he walked these days. Perhaps there were letters. The old fear of having somehow transgressed began to coil in his belly.

  “You are he who abandoned his own kin to follow a false Emperor...”

  Now that was too much. The headmen and minor nobles with whom Leo had forged an alliance and a guard here began to mutter. Many of them had served Romanus at one time or another.

  “...who ran blasphemously mad in the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom and fled here...”

  “Holy sir,” Leo held up his left hand, paltry shield though it might be, as if he really expected to halt the man in midflow. His eyes glazed over, and he began to tremble. I was my uncle's cat's-paw. Whose pawn are you?

  "... abandoning the cause of holiness for an evil marriage with a cursed Jew! It is you who bring the storm upon us, you who will cause the mountains to erupt, the earth to crack and swallow men of good will, you whom God has set as a scourge upon our backs—the enemy within, and the Turks without! We will be taken and crushed as rats in a trap, unless we repent ... !”

  His voice trailed up into madness, real or drugged, Leo did not care. The man was a messenger, but no angelos. What had sent him was magic, hellbent upon Leo's death!

  Leo was prepared for the man's rush at him, the dagger that he drew, but not for its speed or the deadly strength with which he grappled him. I thought I was mad, but I never had a grip like this! was Leo's last coherent thought. They were down now, and wrestling, struggling for their lives. Leo had jerked the man's knife-arm so that his elbow struck the sunbaked earth and his knife fell. From the corner of his eye, he saw someone retrieve it.

  He had all he could do keeping the madman's hands from his throat. Strong as his attacker was, he might try to snap Leo's neck, and if he failed at that, there was always throttling. Leo stiffened his fingers, trying to poke up at the hate-filled eyes of the madman, but he lay beneath, badly balanced, and lacked his enemy's insane strength. He felt the other flinch, but red lights were exploding behind his eyes, bells were ringing ...

  Suddenly, he could breathe again. He broke free and levered himself up to his elbows as Kemal and Salomon pulled the madman off him.

  H
e scrambled to his feet. “Don't tell Asherah,” he gasped to Salomon. He could try to shield her, but she would know. She always did know, but at least, she could hear it from him.

  “Now what?” he snapped at Father Demetrios, who was wringing his hands. “You housed me, fed me when I first came here. Can you truly believe what this ... this offal says because he lards it with false words about God the Father?”

  The priest fell to his knees. “On my head be the judgment as well as his.”

  "Christ!" Leo stamped on the ground. Salomon would not like that oath. Too bad; even if the man had helped save his life.

  Kemal jerked his chin at Leo. Kill him now? It would be the matter of a few moments to slit the false messenger's throat and dump him in a shallow grave.

  “Well, my friends?” he began.

  The madman began to chant. A hymn, Leo thought. How long had it been since he had heard holy music, apart from the chants of the men who shared Joachim's house? It was like an ache at heart, an ache in the center of his chest, stabbing down his left arm. As when the madman tried to strangle him, Leo felt as if he could not get enough air.

  He pressed a hand to his chest. What had he eaten to gripe him like this?

  The chant rose louder and more triumphant.

  The ground started to slide sideways. Leo flung out an arm. It was caught and held by Ioannes, whose face was slick with fear.

  Now, the air seemed to thin and twist about him, as it had when Father Meletios chanted. Oh, Leo, he thought. You fool.

  The “monk” had flung Leo's collapse in Hagia Sophia at him. Only one man knew who caused that. Do you really think I want your puppet Empire?

  Maybe Leo could wrest enough air out of this attack to save his life.

  “Gag him!” Leo gasped and sagged against Ioannes. The younger man bore him up with surprising strength.

  “Kill him now?” Kemal asked. Salomon nodded solemn agreement. Wonderful: a Turk and a Jew saving his life, then agreeing on the death of a Christian monk.