Strategos: Island in the Storm (24 page)

The vigla sentries parted at Igor’s command, then the varangoi in the inner circle recognised their leader and saluted silently.

‘The emperor is asleep?’ Apion asked in a hushed tone.

‘Fitfully, but yes,’ the Rus by the tent flap replied. Through the canvas, Apion could hear Romanus’ dull moans.

‘And he has eaten tonight, I presume?’

‘Heartily,’ the Rus replied. ‘And he drank like a man who had been lost in the desert. Five cups of watered wine!’

Apion and Igor shared a narrow-eyed glance. ‘Bring me his wine jug,’ Igor ordered. The big Rus at the tent flap ducked inside then reappeared with the near-empty jug.

Igor took it, sniffed at it, shrugged, then tilted it to catch the light. There was nothing suspicious about it, it seemed.

‘The cooking area?’ Apion suggested.

‘This way,’ Igor beckoned, leading Apion round to the rear of the imperial tent. Here, a smaller set of tents were erected in a semi-circle. They all faced onto a blackened campfire, over which hung pots and kitchen implements. A squat, bald man ambled around the kitchen area, gathering up washed implements and stowing them away. ‘Symeon,’ Igor muttered to Apion, nodding to the food-taster. But Apion’s attentions had fallen on the only other figure in the space, sitting on a stool, irons shackling one arm to a post.

Andronikos Doukas gazed listlessly into the black remains of the fire before him, his flat-boned features sullen. Apion eyed the length of the chain, then the closeness of the kitchen area.

‘He has always been kept this close to the cooking fires?’ Apion whispered to Igor.

‘Yes,’ Igor sighed.

‘And when the emperor insisted on living in the hilltop hovel – his food was prepared here and taken to him?’

Igor sighed again. ‘It was. And in all that time this one has been but a few paces from the emperor’s meals. The chains are too long.’

Andronikos shot to standing, his eyes flashing with ire as he overheard them. ‘You assume I am responsible for the emperor’s madness?’

Symeon, ambling nearby, started at the outburst, dropping the pans he carried then apologetically gathering them up.

‘Convince me otherwise, boy,’ Apion snorted.

A silence ensued until the fire left Andronikos’ eyes and he slunk back to his stool, his chains clanking as he dropped his head into his hands. ‘I see. So you judge me on my father’s deeds. I should have expected as much.’

‘Men are fickle and I am no judge,’ Apion snorted. ‘All I know is that our emperor has fallen to some madness, and I find you within arm’s reach of his kitchen.’

Andronikos looked up, his eyes meeting Apion’s. ‘I care little for the emperor. Also, why would I care for the cur who calls himself my father?’ He snatched up the chains and shook them, teeth gritted. ‘His meddling has seen him cast into exile . . . and me brought along on this campaign, tethered like a rabid jackal.’ He shook his head, dropping the gathered chains. ‘So if you are looking for an answer to the emperor’s madness, look elsewhere.’

Apion watched Andronikos as the young man dropped his head back into his hands. Words were ever so cheap. He had seen some fine actors in his time. Was this young man another such?

‘What do you think, Strategos?’ Igor whispered beside him. ‘We will have him removed from the imperial tent area, that is for certain. But as to his punishment . . . ’

Apion heard little else of what Igor said. His eyes hung on Andronikos but, like a hunter, he noticed something flash in his peripheral vision. He looked over to see the squat Symeon waddling to and from a storage tent, humming some tune. Then he saw it again. A flash of silver. He saw that the man wore a bracelet on his wrist, with an amulet dangling from it – a tiny, silver cylinder with an asp coiled around it. As Symeon turned, the moonlight glinted on the tiny purple gemstones that were the serpent’s eyes. The sight stole Apion’s breath away and the crone’s words hissed sibilantly in his thoughts.

Beware the serpent with the amethyst eyes!

‘Komes,’ Apion said, cutting Igor off. ‘I think we have our man.’

Igor frowned, following Apion’s gaze, then gawping as Apion strode over to stand before Symeon. ‘Symeon? Never! The man is as loyal as they come.’

‘A simple test will prove it.’

Igor shook his head, sighing. ‘Do what you will.’

The squat food-taster looked up to Apion, a pleasant smile spreading across his face.

‘You taste the emperor’s food, yes?’ Apion asked him.

‘Not a morsel goes to him without me sampling it first,’ Symeon nodded.

‘Show me,’ Apion said, gesturing for Igor to give the food-taster Romanus’ wine jug.

Symeon took the jug and a cup, pouring a little wine and then sipping at it. ‘It is a pleasant task,’ he grinned. ‘And I can assure you I have had no ill-effects in these recent weeks.’

Apion did not return his grin. ‘Now hand me your amulet.’

Symeon frowned, clutching his bracelet. ‘My amulet? Whyever would - ’

‘Just do as he says,’ Igor cut in, albeit reluctantly.

Symeon lifted the bracelet from his wrist and placed it in Apion’s hand. Apion eyed the piece. It was the size of his smallest finger and it was finely carved, the snake’s body etched with individual scales, the mouth open, fangs bared as if striking. Within the mouth was a tiny stopper. Apion plucked it out, then held the amulet over Symeon’s wine cup. As he tilted it, he watched the food-taster’s face, saw a bead of sweat dart down the man’s forehead. Finally, a glimmering, silvery globule dropped from the mouth of the amulet and splashed into the wine.

Igor gasped beside him.

‘Care to drink some more?’ Apion asked Symeon.

The food taster hung his head.

‘What was it?’ Apion asked.

‘Quicksilver,’ Igor answered for him, snatching the amulet and tipping another drop from it. The silvery bead splashed on the ground and divided up into several smaller beads. ‘Symeon, why?’ he demanded, grabbing the little man by the shoulders and shaking him.

‘They told me to make it look like some sort of illness,’ Symeon confessed to the big Rus. ‘They have my wife . . . in the torture chambers under the Hippodrome,’ he said with a trembling voice, his eyes rimmed with tears.

Apion knew there was no need to ask who. He closed his eyes and bowed his head as he tried to block the memories of those dark chambers where Psellos and his portatioi agents tormented and mutilated their political foes.

‘Now they will kill her,’ Symeon whimpered. ‘Unless . . . ’

A rasp of iron tore Apion from his thoughts. He looked up to see that Symeon had stolen the sword from Igor’s scabbard and pushed back from the big Rus. The little man swiped out with it clumsily, slashing the Rus’ chest armour and sending him toppling backwards. The food taster spun round, his eyes wide, fixed on the red satin sides of the emperor’s tent.

‘No!’ Apion cried.

‘I have to,’ Symeon wailed, then made for the side of the tent, hefting the sword back to cut through and buy a chance to slay the emperor inside.

Apion leapt to block him. Without shield or armour, he could only draw his scimitar, grappling it two-handed, readying to parry. But his raw, wounded palm stung like fire and the hilt fell from his grasp. Defenceless, he could only watch as Symeon’s wild sword strike swept down for him and the side of the tent.

A stinging pain slashed across Apion’s cheek and he heard a sudden clanking of thick iron. He staggered back, blinking. He touched a hand to the spot on his cheek, where hot rivulets of blood trickled. The blade had only nicked it. And there, right before him, was a terrible sight. Symeon, gagging, eyes bulging, face reddening, Andronikos Doukas stood tall behind him, wrist chains wrapped tightly around the food taster’s neck. The little man thrashed like a fish trapped in shallow water. The sword toppled from his grasp and his face grew purple as Andronikos wrenched tighter and tighter. A moment later, and Symeon’s body fell still.

Igor was back on his feet now and came to stand with Apion. They both watched as Andronikos set the food-taster’s corpse down, then settled back on his stool. He looked up with a sardonic half-grin. ‘Seems it was a good thing that these chains were long.’

***

The campaign army had marched on into fine June sunshine and now they were at the eastern edge of the Charsianon Thema. Three days had passed since Symeon’s death, and Apion struggled to take meaning from what had happened. He thought over it as he rode. A seemingly good man had been outed as another of Psellos’ pawns – but then his motives were valorous. The grim truth was that the food taster’s wife was now doomed to die in those dark torture chambers. And Andronikos, the one he had suspected initially, had proved to be a noble man.
Noble? By virtue of choking a man to death?
And so the thoughts continued in this grey loop.

At dawn on the fourth day after Symeon’s death, Romanus and Apion sat alone in the imperial tent, playing shatranj. The emperor was – for the first time in weeks – clean-shaven and freshly bathed, his flaxen hair still-damp and neatly swept back. More, the pink-red tinge to his skin and the copious sweat were gone. The poison was fading from his system. Apion had taken over as food-taster, and this morning’s meal of eggs, bread, honey and yoghurt was delicious and free from any uninvited ingredients.

Apion watched as the emperor made to lift a pawn forward, a move that would expose his king within two moves. But Romanus hesitated, replacing the pawn. The emperor looked up, cocking a wry smile.

‘Proof enough that I have recouped my senses?’ he said.

‘You never lost them,
Basileus.
They were simply tainted by quicksilver.’

Romanus sat back, gazing at the tent flap, beyond which the purple-orange of dawn was growing, promising another day of fiery heat. ‘Yet it seems I did my damnedest to dispirit the men. It is a wonder that they did not think to cut me down for my deeds. Throwing their belongings in the river, having them build some manor . . . and the fire at Malagina – I have little memory of how that started, other than a vivid recollection of walking through the flames, laughing like a drunk. My stallion, after years of charging bravely into battle, bearing my burden . . . burnt alive without an enemy blade in sight. The Armenians are better men than I – forgiving me for the slurs I cast at them shows they are noble allies indeed.’

‘I have explained what happened to Prince Vardan. And the armies are simply relieved to have their emperor back,
Basileus,
’ Apion insisted. ‘That is why none tried to depose you or relieve you of your post – because they need you to lead them, to make them believe.’ He cast his mind back over Romanus’ speech the previous day – the first time he had addressed the men since his poisoning. They had stopped at noon near a fresh spring and an orchard. They waited there for the rest of the afternoon until the majority of the column had caught up. The men unburdened themselves of their armour and sat in the tall grass, speckled with roses and lilies, nourishing themselves on cherries and icy-cold water. Romanus took that moment to stand before them and lay his soul bare.

I will forever carry the guilt of my actions in these last weeks. That you still heed my word is a testament to your strength and will. Be angry not at me for my times of madness, but at the cur who poisoned my food and those who compelled him to do so. They have hurt us all, but they have not broken us. This campaign set out to march east and seize the Lake Van fortresses, and it will not be waylaid by treachery! I look over you and see nigh-on forty thousand faces. I listen and I hear forty thousand beating, noble hearts. I know we will be victorious. God is with us!

The cheering of the gathered men had seemed to rock the land for miles. Apion felt a gentle smile creeping across his face at the memory.

‘But the rhinokopia,’ Romanus continued. ‘If I had actually went through with it I don’t think I would be able to face them . . . ’

‘But you didn’t do it,
Basileus.
I knew there was something else at play here. No man turns from a noble and brave leader into a mindless tyrant without a cause. Psellos.
He
is the one who forced Symeon to do what he did.
He
is the one who slew your stallion.
He
is the one who tormented the troops.

Romanus sighed. ‘The dog still operates from exile, it seems.’

Apion felt his dark memories surface again, remembering the many slain at the advisor’s behest. Old Cydones the most prominent. ‘Perhaps you should consider nullifying his threat more permanently?’

Romanus shrugged. ‘And then what? Watch while another black crow flutters down to perch on the shoulders of the Doukas family? No, best accept the enemy I know and understand than some new force.’

‘True. The Doukas family and their supporters are widespread and entrenched in imperial lands. But not all of them are black-hearted. The one you have in chains, outside. He is no lover of his father’s scheming.’

Romanus stroked his jaw in thought. ‘Andronikos is a decent man with a shrewd eye for the battlefield. He has led men in wars past and shown himself to be a strategos in the making. It does not please me to see him led with us in chains like some exotic animal. But he is John Doukas’ son, and as much as the young man despises his father, John covets the lad, sees him as a protégé yet to fall into line with his thinking.’ He toyed with the pawn again as he said this, then changed his mind, lifting his knight out over the pawn line and into play. ‘Yet I brought Andronikos along thinking it might stop Psellos and John’s attempts to dethrone or slay me. How wrong I was. It seems that John cares as little for Andronikos as he does for his father?’