Byzantium

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Apparently,” conceded the eparch, still staring at the two before him. “When did this message arrive?” he asked.

  “Just this morning,” declared the magister. “I came directly to you the moment Psellon arrived.”

  “I see.” The eparch’s eyes narrowed. “So you knew the contents of this message, did you?”

  “By no means, eparch!” The magister all but shrieked at the implication. “But I knew it to be important—Psellon told me that much.”

  Consul Psellon nodded vigorously. “It has come directly from the governor’s own hand,” he confirmed.

  “Oh, most certainly it has,” agreed the eparch sourly. “Yet, knowing nothing of the message—save its importance—you travelled night and day to bring it to me.”

  “Of course, eparch,” Psellon replied.

  “How many travelled with you?”

  Psellon hesitated; his eyes shifted to the magister, who stared straight ahead.

  “Come!” said the eparch sharply. “The question is perfectly simple. How many travelled with you?”

  “Four others,” answered Psellon uncertainly.

  “I see. You may go, both of you.” Nicephorus dismissed Sergius and Psellon with a disdainful gesture, and watched them until they left the room. “What have you to say of this?” inquired the eparch of Nikos when they had gone.

  “I think it fortunate that I was detained,” the komes replied. “Since I am ready, very little additional provision need be made. We can leave the city by midday. I will make the arrangements.”

  “I take your answer to mean that you believe this communication to be genuine?”

  “Certainly,” said Nikos, “I think it safe to say Exarch Honorius seeks only the good of the empire.”

  “Of that I have no doubt,” agreed the eparch, “no doubt whatever—if Honorius wrote it.”

  “I see no cause to question the veracity of the document,” said the komes mildly. “It is in the governor’s hand, and carries his seal after all.”

  “Yes, it does. I see that it does.” The eparch, his expression one of doubt and bafflement, sat down slowly in his chair.

  “Now, then, if you will excuse me, I will make the necessary arrangements. I assume we will want the Danes to accompany us?”

  “Yes, yes,” replied Nicephorus, his gaze vacant; his mind was clearly on other matters. “Make the arrangements by all means.”

  In three strides Nikos was gone, and with not so much as a glance in my direction, though he must have known I was there the whole time. The eparch sat in his chair staring at the half-folded parchment as if it were an object he had never seen before. As no one else was near, I went to him.

  “Eparch? Can I help you in any way?”

  “Honorius sends word of betrayal,” he announced absently. “He says we must come to him.”

  As the eparch was deeply distracted, I plucked up my courage and asked, “May I see the message?”

  “If you wish,” he said. He made no move to hand it to me, but he watched me while I read.

  The message was terse and stilted, indicating that the caliph planned to use the completion of the peace council to renew hostilities between the Arabs and Byzantium. As details of this treachery were too sensitive to impart by messenger, the governor requested the eparch to join him in Sebastea at once, and suggested travelling with a body-guard.

  “You are a man with some experience of the written word,” Nicephorus said when I finished. “Can you tell me anything of the man who wrote this?”

  The script was Greek, and written in a bold, confident hand; each letter was neatly formed and orderly, if slightly small. “I would say the man was a scribe,” I ventured, “a monk, perhaps. He writes distinctly—his words are well-chosen. Is it truly the governor’s hand?”

  “Yes, it is,” answered Nicephorus. “And that is what worries me most.”

  “Then I do not understand, eparch.”

  “I know Honorius, you see. We served together in Gaul, and again, briefly, in Ephesus long ago.” he confided. “I do not think Nikos or anyone else in Trebizond knows this, and I have told no one since coming here. But I will cut out my own tongue before I confess he wrote that letter.

  “Look at it!” he said, with mounting agitation. “The greeting is wrong. We are old friends, Honorius and I. He knew I was coming—knew I would be staying in his house. Yet, he sends the message, not to me, but by way of the magister. What is more, he addresses me not as a man he has known for forty years, but by title only, as if I were a mere functionary of the emperor he had never met.”

  I began to see what concerned the eparch now, and agreed that it did seem strange. The wording of the letter was stiffly formal—precise, yet distant. “Do you suspect forgery?”

  He shook his head. “No; he wrote it. But I cannot believe he wrote it to me.”

  “Perhaps he did not wish to betray your friendship—should the letter go astray.”

  “Perhaps.” The eparch’s tone suggested he thought otherwise. “That letter betrays precious little, it seems to me.”

  “You suspect another reason for sending a message such as this,” I concluded. “What could it be?”

  “That is what I am asking myself,” he said, shaking his head slowly. He rose from his chair, his food untouched. “I fear we must make ready to leave, Aidan,” he said, crossing the courtyard. “Please, inform Harald.”

  “What about the letter?” I asked, indicating the parchment still lying on the table.

  Misunderstanding my question, the eparch replied, “No doubt all will become clear once we arrive in Sebastea.”

  He left the courtyard and returned to his room. As no one else was around, I picked up the letter and examined it again. It appeared neither more nor less odd than before; I thought, it may be genuine after all. Folding it carefully, I retied the black band, and tucked the document inside my mantle with every intention of returning it to the eparch. Then I hastened to find Harald and alert him to our unexpected change in plans.

  43

  The gates of Trebizond were open wide and the road stretched out before us. It was a little past midday, the sun bright in a late winter’s sky; the air was cool, but the sun warm on our faces and backs. The road to Sebastea was a well-travelled path—deep-rutted owing to the rains, and the recent invasion of visitors attending the fair.

  Nikos travelled on horseback, and the eparch rode in an enclosed wagon, pulled by a two-horse team; three additional wagons and teams brought the provisions. The Sea Wolves, over a hundred in all, marched in two long columns either side of the wagons, spears and axes in their hands, shields on their backs.

  Although Nikos kept insisting that we did not need so many, the eparch had decided to take the largest body-guard at his command. Leaving behind only enough men to guard the ships, Harald, glad for the change of routine, had formed a veritable army to escort us to Sebastea. And there were others with us, too: a fair few of the traders and merchants attending the pagan fair—regarding the free use of an armed bodyguard as an opportunity too valuable to miss—decided to make their return journey a few days early, swelling our ranks considerably. Thus, we formed a body of perhaps two hundred or more altogether.

  The first two days the weather remained good: fair and bright, the sky cloudless. The third day dawned grey, with a thin, miserable rain lashed by a rough north wind. The Sea Wolves seemed not to mind the cold and wet, singing now and then, and talking to one another in loud, raucous voices. The wagons themselves rumbled along with much groaning and shouting from the drivers, sometimes in the road, more often out of it, for the ruts often became too difficult for the horses.

  I kept my place behind Jarl Harald, who walked beside the eparch’s wagon. Tolar and Thorkel had been left behind with the ships, but Gunnar had been chosen to go with us, and he walked with me sometimes, and we talked. The chatter, though trivial, occupied the tedium, but did little to keep my mind from the cold. I had become used to the mild winter
weather and the icy damp seeped into my bones and made me shiver despite my cloak and mantle.

  We marched from daybreak to midday, and then stopped to rest and eat at a place where a river crossed the road. The stream—little more than a muddy rivulet this time of year—became a torrent in late spring, it was said, and eventually joined the Tigris far to the south. Across the river, the road divided. Theodosiopolis lay two days’ journey to the east, and Sebastea four or five days south and west.

  After we had eaten and rested, we forded the stream and continued on. The small sheep-herding villages grew fewer and further apart as the land gradually became more rugged; the hills became steeper, the valleys deeper. Small trees and sparse grass gave way to rocks and prickly shrubs of various kinds. The wind began to screech and moan as it scoured the bare rocky hills, making a cold, lonely sound. The travelling company, so spirited the first few days, sank into silence and melancholy.

  The next day was worse. The rain settled into a dull, spitting patter and continued through the day. I wrapped my sodden cloak around me and thought about the warm security of the scriptorium aglow in the ruddy blaze of a peat fire. Ah, mo croi!

  Day’s end found us in a cramped little gully between two steep hills. Having just made one arduous climb, and not yet ready to face another, we stopped to make camp, grateful at least for the respite from the wind. The ground was rocky and uneven and, except for a few diminutive, bedraggled-looking pines, devoid of vegetation. A stony cliff rose sheer from one side of the road; on the other, a narrow, deep-sided ravine contained a stream which was beginning to flow swiftly now due to the recent rain.

  There was nothing to use for firewood, and what little fuel we had was needed to cook our evening meal, thus we spent a cold night huddled close to the rock face where the rain could not get at us so easily. Just before dawn, I was awakened by water dripping on my neck, leaking down from a rock directly above, so I got up and stumbled to the eparch’s wagon and crawled beneath it.

  This, I believe, is what saved me.

  I had only closed my eyes again, when I heard a sound like the cracking of tree roots in the earth. I listened for a moment, and it came again—but from a direction I could not discern. Then I heard a rumbling sound like thunder, but closer and sharper. I opened my eyes. The sound instantly became a loud clattering crash and heavy objects began striking down, shaking the very ground.

  In the dim half-light of an overcast dawn, I saw the sheer cliff-face in motion: rocks and stones, falling, sliding, collapsing, tumbling down upon us. I rolled further under the wagon, drew up my legs and cowered behind a stout wheel just as a huge stone struck the back of the wagon and shoved it sideways.

  Men caught in the slide awoke screaming in terror and alarm as the rocks fell upon them. Many, however, were crushed in their sleep, never knowing what killed them.

  The fall subsided almost as soon as it had begun. The last stones thudded to the ground and then all was still, and deathly quiet.

  The silence gave way to the moans of the injured. I crept from the shelter of the wagon to see that the base of the cliff had been obliterated by the rockslide. I stood slowly and peered through the murk of the dust-thick air; all around me lay misshapen heaps of shattered stone.

  I moved cautiously forward, trying to see if there were men I might help. I took two steps and heard far above me the pattering clatter of loose pebbles raining down. Fearing the rockslide had begun again, I glanced up and glimpsed instead a figure moving quickly back from the edge of the clifftop. In the same instant, I felt, rather than heard, a swift surge of movement and I jumped aside as a horse clattered by. There was someone in the saddle and it was Nikos. He blew past me like an evil wind, and disappeared into the dust and murk behind.

  There was no time to wonder about this, for I heard a loud shout, which was answered at once by the roar of a multitude, or so it seemed. I turned to see swarms of men running down the steep hill before us.

  The camp slowly stuttered to life. The eparch appeared. I ran to him. He stared at me in the dusky light. “Where is Nikos?” he demanded angrily.

  “I saw him riding away,” I answered, pointing out the direction behind me. “We are being attacked!”

  Out of nowhere, King Harald appeared, long-axe in hand, leaped onto the nearest wagon and began bellowing his battle-call. Within moments there were Sea Wolves everywhere—though far fewer than there had been before—running, shouting, calling their swordbrothers to rise and fight.

  Weapons glinting dully, the warriors raced to join battle as the first foemen reached the camp. The ring of steel on steel and the shouts of fighting men filled the valley and echoed through the ravine. I had no weapons—and would not have known what to do if I had—but determined to stay with Eparch Nicephorus and protect him if I could. This proved no easy chore, since he insisted on rushing directly into the thick of the fight to lend his aid.

  “Here! This way!” I shouted, pulling him back from the toiling bodies before us. Indicating a supply wagon nearby, I said, “We can see best from there.” Hastening to the wagon, I paused to help the eparch into the box, and then climbed up myself. We stood together and watched the fearful clash.

  The enemy were not large men—at least, not when set against the Sea Wolves—but they were many and dressed in dark cloaks and turbans, making them difficult to see in the pre-dawn light. Even so, in those first desperate moments of battle, it seemed as if the superior strength and battle-skill of the Danes would win out. For the Sea Wolves stood to their grim work, shoulder to shoulder, each man protecting his neighbour’s unshielded side, forcing the oncoming enemy back and back, one step at a time.

  “You see, eparch!” I cried. “They are driving them away!”

  The eparch, keen-eyed in the murk, said nothing, but gripped the sides of the wagon and stared at the dread battledance before us.

  I looked in vain for Gunnar; I could not see him anywhere, and feared he must have been among those killed in the rockslide.

  The Danes howled their full-throated battle cries, and I understood why they were called wolves. The sound was uncanny, striking fear into the heart, and weakening even the most stalwart will. Jarl Harald was fearless, standing in the front rank, his axe swinging with practised and deadly accuracy. Men fell before him—some shrieking in agony, some toppling silently, but all with startling rapidity. The axe-blade bit deep, its appetite insatiable.

  As the first flush of battle passed, it became increasingly apparent that the Danes were even more sorely out-numbered than my first estimate. It may be that more and more enemy were arriving—reserves held back from the initial attack were perhaps being committed now—for it did appear that the numbers of dark-cloaked foe were swelling.

  Slowly, painfully, the flow of battle turned against us. The eparch and I stood in the wagon and watched with growing horror as the Sea Wolves were inundated and engulfed by the ever-growing tide.

  “Pray for them, priest!” Nicephorus cried, seizing me by the arm. “Pray for us all!”

  Alas, I could not. God had forsaken me, and I knew my prayers would fall like infertile seed on the hard ground of God’s stony heart. For all the good my prayers would do, I would have a better chance of saving us all by taking up a spear, and I knew well what a sorry warrior I would be.

  I was spared further meditation on my worthlessness, however, by the sudden appearance of a grim-faced warrior waving a bloody war hammer. “What are you doing?” shouted the warrior. “Get out of there!”

  I was jerked off my feet and pulled bodily from the bed of the wagon, then hurled to the ground where I lay squirming in an effort to get away. The eparch likewise was hauled kicking from the wagon and dropped, scarcely less gently, beside me.

  “Aeddan!” shouted Gunnar, “you will be killed standing up like that.” Before I could say anything, he shoved the eparch and me beneath the wagonbed. “Get under there,” he instructed sternly, “and stay until I come back for you.”

  He
was gone again before I could speak a word to him. The eparch asked, “What did he say?”

  “He said we are to keep out of sight until he returns.”

  “But I can see nothing from here,” complained the eparch. He endured the ignominy of our position for but a moment or two longer, and when there came a great shout from the battleline, Nicephorus bolted from beneath the wagon, shouting, “I will not be seen hiding like a coward!”

  I ran after him, seized him, and pulled him back to the wagon. We did not go under it again, but we did stand beside it to watch the battle. What we saw, however, filled our mouths with bile. Everywhere, the Danes were being driven down. The ranks of the enemy had swelled the more, and were in danger of overwhelming all resistance.

  Even as we watched, there came another great shout and the dark foe surged as one, throwing back the defenders ten paces at once. Another shout, another surge, and the forerank buckled and gave way. The resistance was breached and our defences in imminent danger of being overwhelmed.

  Harald was a canny battlechief; he would not allow himself to be surrounded so easily. Realizing the peril, he raised his bull roar and began calling the retreat. The Viking warriors fell back and soon were passing along the road. Gunnar ran to us. “The battle is lost,” he said, breathing hard. “We must flee while we can. This way. Go!”

  So saying, he spun me around and began pushing me ahead of him. “This way!” I shouted to the eparch. “He will protect us!”

  Back along the road we fled, past the broken mounds of rock which now marked the graves of Danes, merchants and their families, running for our lives. The traders who survived, having seen how the fight was turning, were already fleeing up the hill; I could see them before us, bent beneath the burdens they sought to save.

  The first of the traders reached the crest of the hill and fled over the top. Seeing their escape, we all ran the harder to make good our own.

  Alas and woe! It was not to be.

  No sooner had the escaping merchants vanished from sight than they reappeared once more, flying down the hill and screaming for everyone to turn back. Not comprehending the significance of their screams, we proceeded on a few more paces. Two heartbeats later there arose before us an enemy host as great or greater than the one that came behind. They seemed to spring up out of the hilltop to sweep swiftly down upon us.