Strategos: Island in the Storm (29 page)

‘Apion took nothing from you. He gave life to you. Nasir died on Apion’s blade only because of his own mule-headedness,’ she said, frowning now, one bony finger wagging. ‘And your mother lies ill – growing frailer by the day – and you choose to whittle away your time clashing swords and snarling about men you know little of.’

Guilt clutched at Taylan’s heart. It had been so long since he had visited Mother. Too long. Every time he visited, he longed to speak to her as he had once done. As a boy, he could talk with her freely. They would spot birds and butterflies in the gardens of their home, go to market in the mornings and cook together in the afternoons. A lost age, he realised. And soon she would be but memory.

Come closer, son, there is something I must tell you . . .

A volcanic sorrow threatened to erupt at that moment, and he only just suffocated it with a mask of ire. ‘So you expect me to forgive him . . . the
Haga?
’

‘I expect nothing of any man,’ the crone snorted at this. ‘And I repeat, you have nothing to forgive Apion for. But know this: I was with Nasir at the last. I walked with him into the grey land. He lamented his years of bitterness, longing to return to them and relive them well. Longing to bestow something upon you other than his hatred.’

Taylan contemplated her words, seeking out an answer in the dust around his feet. ‘But I swore to avenge his death.’

‘By slaying Apion, your blood father? One of the few men your mother still cares for? You would break her heart.’

‘But she has not spoken to the
Haga
in many years,’ Taylan replied.

‘Yet she has never forgotten him. She would mourn him and her grief would be strong. More,’ she stabbed a finger at him, ‘she would mourn you, Taylan, were you to lose yourself to war as Nasir did. That grief alone might be too much for her.’ She placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Men are defined by their choices, Taylan. Now it is time for you to choose: slay the
Haga
and break your mother’s heart, or stow your blade and let go of this false vengeance.’

Taylan felt a stab of panic in his breast, memories of Mother in her hospital bed flashing before him. ‘But . . . the hatred has become me and I it. Without it, what would I be?’

‘Find out, Taylan. Find out.’

He looked up. She was gone. The dust plume danced once more and then the breeze faded and it was gone. A fading eagle’s cry sounded.

At once, his emotions went to war, combing over her reason and seeking fault with her every argument. At last, he strode with purpose for his mare, vaulting onto the saddle. He drew his scimitar and glowered at his reflection in the blade. He saw nothing but his sparkling green eyes. A pang of grief and unspent anger broiled in his veins as he glanced up into the empty sky.

‘You cannot ask a man to go against his heart, old woman!’

15.
City of Echoes

The early-August sky was grey and the air intolerably muggy, and the gloom seemed to rob the armoured column of its lustre as they marched up into the Armenian highlands via the northerly passes. This was the route decided by the befuddled old priest in the church at Malagina. As they ascended, the air grew mercifully cooler, but thinner too, and the pace of the march slowed. This eastern land – beyond the themata – was nominally in Byzantine control, presided over by the border doukes and their mercenary armies. In truth, there was little sign of imperial control. No waystations, forts or patrols.

Soon though, they were on the uphill road towards the city of Theodosiopolis. That fortified, moat-ringed city was a solid Byzantine holding, and it would serve as a final staging post before the campaign column struck out on the final leg of the march to Lake Van. Vitally, its stores would provide the grain and water required for man and horse to make this strike into enemy lands.

‘There she is!’ Igor bellowed, stretching out a finger.

All necks craned to see the towering Mount Drakon up ahead, one face carpeted in green shrubs and grass, the other a haggard, rocky and arid tumble of scree. The imperious vista inspired the men, and they took to cheering as they approached; for at the foot of this mount was the city of Theodosiopolis.

Apion had been there just once, many years ago, to help plan the new moat system. But as they approached and came within sight of the city, he realised that something was wrong. The city’s walls seemed to be a shade of grey, reflecting the mood of the sky, and even the red-tiled roofs visible within seemed dulled with dirt, weeds sprouting from the cracks. And there was a distinct lack of movement on the walls. Yes, the purple imperial banners fluttered up there in the breeze, but they were ragged and filthy, and the usual glimmer of helm or spear was absent. The emperor saw this too and gave a nod to the signophoroi, a tacit command to bring the column to a halt, some five hundred feet from the city walls. As the campaign banners were waved and the ranks crunched to a standstill, the emperor and his retinue scoured the scene. Silence, bar a faint and whistling breeze.

‘Where is my vanguard?’ Romanus spoke testily, scanning the road ahead, as deserted as the city that it wound past.

They gazed ahead, each man imagining the Normans and the kursores of the vanguard lying slaughtered and unseen, ahead, destined to become another field of bones. But, with a thunder of hooves, the Normans and kursores of the vanguard burst round from the rear of the city, having circled the walls. They were calling out to the battlements, receiving no reply, only echoes.

‘Look, the gates have taken a battering recently,’ Alyates squinted ahead. The tall, arched timber gates were splintered around head-height, the tell-tale marks of a ram-head impressed on the planks. More, they lay slightly ajar.

‘But the walls remain intact,’ Tarchianotes replied. ‘Though not for want of trying.’ He nodded to the piles of rubble and earth that had been tipped into the moat channel to form a bridge. Below it lay a broken siege ladder, and the stonework here was charred black from fire.

‘Look,’ Bryennios pointed to the grass by the roadside. Hundreds of arrows lay embedded in the soil, like some foreign crop.

‘Seljuk raiders,’ Apion said, recognising the fletching immediately.

‘Aye, and incessant, they were too!’ a croaking voice startled them all.

Apion turned to see a withered old fellow in a coarse grey robe at the roadside. He led a single oxen and his twig-like legs looked painfully bowed.

‘The trade dried up first,’ the old man said. ‘They burnt any wagons that came near the city and slew the drivers. A shortage of jewels and fine pots is no great hardship, but when they started attacking the grain wagons . . . well, enough was enough. The populace left this cursed place nearly six months ago. They fled south to seek protection from the Armenian princes, or north to live in the countryside and help work the farmlands to earn their grain.’

‘And the garrison?’ Romanus said, barging through the men of his retinue.

‘
Basileus?
So the rumours are true,’ the old man said with a half-smile, casting his eye over Romanus’ armour and then sweeping his gaze down the road along the column. ‘It has been a long time since an emperor made it this far east. I spent my career as a skutatos, praying to see such a sight. Yet it never came. And now I am too old to ma - ’

‘The garrison!’ Igor barked, shaking the old man from his musings.

‘Ah, yes. The shower of cowards who walked these walls dissolved into the countryside too. Seventy men,
Basileus
, just seventy men were spared to guard this place. I could say I don’t blame them for running, just as I wouldn’t blame mice for scattering before a wildcat. But there is nothing to fear here. Just as the populace left long ago, the raiders did too. The danger for you and this fine army lies further east.’

‘East?’

‘I have heard word that the forts near the great blue lake are modestly garrisoned by their Seljuk masters. They have heard of your approach and are right now putting the crop fields west of Chliat to the torch. They mean to offer you not a single grain and not a drop of encouragement.’

‘They seldom do, old man,’ Romanus smiled, heeling his mount forward.

Apion followed the emperor, his retinue and the Varangoi forward to the gates while the rest of the column waited a few hundred feet from the city. The riders of the vanguard pushed the gate open. It groaned on its hinges and revealed the deserted streets within.

‘Be vigilant,’ Romanus said, beckoning them forward.

The clopping of their mounts’ hooves echoed through the broad way that led to the heart of the city and the many narrow alleys that sprouted off from it. Cups, clothing, bags and trinkets were strewn on the flagstones, entangled with the weeds that had shot up through every crack.

‘They must have been swift to desert their homes,’ Igor noted grimly.

Apion recalled the last time he had been here. The place had been vibrant – thick with traders and shoppers and well-kept by the militarily minded doux who had once commanded the garrison. Now, it seemed like just another cadaver. Forgotten, abandoned.

They trotted into the centre of the city. Here, a sturdy limestone keep sat astride a man-made mound. Untouched by rock, blade or flame, it seemed.

‘They just gave up,’ Alyates said, his words unintentionally amplified by the walls of the church and granary that boxed in the keep square. Apion looked up and around, seeing the serpentine, green tendrils of nature that clung to every wall, weaving through open windows and infiltrating homes. Claiming back the once-proud city. They came to a fountain that lay dried up and filled with dust. In the centre, a pair of marble legs sprouted and then halted at the thigh, the top half of this ornamentation lying in the dust in the fountain’s basin. It was an ancient statue of Emperor Justinian. Romanus stared at the broken effigy, wordless.

‘Have the men set up camp outside the wall. We will use the keep as a planning room.’

***

When night fell, a vast band of flickering orange torches illuminated the flatland outside Theodosiopolis, wrapping round the city and touching the lower slopes of Mount Drakon. Incongruously, the only lights within the city walls came from the lonely keep at its centre.

Six men were gathered around an oak table there, poring over the campaign map and a sheaf of papers. A fire crackled and spat in the hearth behind them, casting dark shadows on the walls and spicing the air with woodsmoke. Apion watched on as the debate raged, still weighing his thoughts.

‘We cannot split the army,
Basileus!
’ Alyates pleaded. ‘It goes against every military maxim.’

Tarchianotes was swift to counter; ‘But if that old goat’s word was true, then we face a great danger of starvation if we do not. The grain supplies we expected to find here are absent, just like the population and the garrison. And this,’ he jabbed a finger at their current position on the map, then dragged it east to Lake Van and tapped it there. ‘This is not Byzantium. We will find no supply dumps, no friendly – or deserted – settlements from which we can levy food and fodder. We
must
split the army and send our fastest regiments to drive off these rogues around Chliat before they leave the earth there burnt and barren. Forty thousand well-fed men might well bring victory, but forty thousand starving men will ensure defeat – regardless of whether we come to face to face with the Seljuks.’ He looked to Romanus. ‘Take half with you to Manzikert,
Basileus
,
to begin the siege. Take the infantry and those who will be able to storm that sturdy fortress. Send the other half – the riders and the foot archers who will be able to move swiftly – to the fields around Chliat. These men will clear the land of Seljuk rogues and secure the grain and forage that is to be had there. Then, when Manzikert falls, we can be reunited to take Chliat as well. Is that not the objective of this campaign?’

‘Have you lost your mind?’ Philaretos slammed a fist on the table in challenge to Tarchianotes. ‘Stay together, there will be forage enough! Some may perish. But is that not expected on such a great expedition?’

Bryennios shook his head. ‘A few dead or dying from hunger swiftly becomes a hundred, and then a thousand. I have seen such a sight before, and I pray I never have to see it again. Should our men perish, then let it be by the sword and not meekly, crying out for bread. We should separate the army. One half takes Manzikert, the other half secures the grain at Chliat, as Doux Tarchianotes suggests.’

‘I hear two voices for staying together and two for splitting,’ Romanus said. Then he turned to Apion. ‘Well, Strategos, what is your view?’

Apion balanced both views. There was danger in each. But Tarchianotes was right. The supply train was low on rations. Dangerously low. He had checked inside one of the touldon wagons and noted that they had grain enough only for a few days’ bread at best. Their stores were due to be replenished here in this dead city, but the empty grain silos offered nothing other than cobwebs and dust. If they moved on as a single column, their pace would be slow and lumbering. If the old man’s reports were true then the grain fields near Chliat would be ash by the time they reached them. Every fibre of his being screamed at him, demanding that he listen to the memories of old Cydones and old Mansur, two military giants of their day.
Never divide your forces. Sooner split your own head with an axe than send half of your army away,
Cydones’ stern words echoed in his mind. Then Mansur’s gravelly tones interrupted, as if challenging his old foe;
Who would clad his men in fine iron coats and boots and give them bright shields and tall spears, but neglect to keep their bellies full and their spirits high? Who, but a fool?
Apion gazed into the fire.
There is no correct choice, is there?
he answered the memories, then looked to the emperor and met the eyes of the others. ‘We cannot risk splitting the army,’ he said. ‘Yet we cannot risk marching on as one force.’

Philaretos snorted at this. ‘Such wisdom!’ he spat. ‘What else can you bring to this discussion; that night will be black and day bright?’

Apion resisted the urge to snap back at the firebrand doux. ‘Night is black, day is bright . . . and dusk is grey.’

Philaretos’ scowl deepened.

Apion tried not to let the man’s ire hurry him. ‘The men tire because of the march, Doux. Marching is an exhausting detail, especially in the thinner air of these highlands. Every infantryman requires a pint of water per hour and a pouch of grain, salted meat or cheese morning and night. We have talked only of two options; split the army or keep it whole. But there is a third option. Abstain from the march, and the men would require less.’

‘Stay here?’ Bryennios cocked an eyebrow. ‘Why – to solidify our borders in this region? But again, what would we eat?’

At once, another squabble broke out. ‘Impossible – the Lake Van fortresses must be taken,’ Tarchianotes rasped. ‘We cannot stay here!’

‘But the empire has clearly lost control over this city and these lands. We need to consolidate!’ Alyates snapped in riposte, stabbing his finger at the table top map around the area of Theodosiopolis.

Romanus hushed them, both hands raised, casting a stern glare around the table. ‘Strategos – perhaps you should explain your thinking.’

Apion nodded. ‘We should stay here, but only for a few days. Long enough for our kursores to sweep the countryside, bring in what rations they can from the farmlands where the populace of this city now dwell. Grain
is
out there.’

‘Enough to feed nearly forty thousand men for the week of marching that will take us to Lake Van?’ Tarchianotes frowned.

‘Why not? This city was once populous enough to have grain silos overflowing with surplus – and that was when just a portion of the locals worked the land. If even a quarter of those who lived within these walls have fled to the farmlands in the north, then now they will certainly have grain and fodder aplenty. There is no certainty that this approach will work, but if it does, then we need not consider splitting the army, and our well fed and united force would be primed to sweep over Manzikert and Chliat. You know this, all of you.’ Apion looked up, his face uplit by the flames. He held the gaze of each of the retinue until they looked away or nodded. He looked to the emperor last.