Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

19. The Assassin

The first day back at Argyroupolis saw the summer heat return with a vengeance, the ranks of the mustered thema seeking respite from the baking sun inside the sea of pavilion tents. Meanwhile, inside the town barrack compound, a newly-formed bandon readied to stand before its komes and the strategos for the first time.

Apion stood in the centre of the muster yard, boiling inside his plumed helmet, cloak, klibanion, tunic, leggings and boots, tongue welded to the roof of his mouth as his bandon formed up in front of him. Flanking him was a buccinator bearing his bronze horn, a drummer and a standard-bearer. Behind him stood Cydones, Ferro, Bracchus and Vadim. This was his first address to his men and he had been dreading it all morning.

The first file lined up, shields freshly painted with the Chi-Rho and a crimson backdrop. At this point he felt okay, but then the next file lined up, then the next and the next, his heart clenching at every one. In all his men numbered just over two hundred with the last six files depleted of their full complement. The majority of these men had been mustered from their farms by the strategos over the last year and each bandon was carefully seeded with members of the garrison, tasked with disseminating drill, tactics and procedure.

Finally, his unit was fully formed, front ranks glistening in the scarce klibania and helmets, the rest in felt caps and padded vests and jackets. He resolved to address the poverty of equipment — so stark in comparison to the well-equipped Seljuks he had encountered — when the time was right.

To a man they stood before him in silence, eyes forward as protocol demanded, but he caught many of them snatching glances at him and the white sash around his torso. While the garrison soldiers loved him, the newly mustered men would surely have their doubts, waiting on the words of this young lad promoted from the ranks, eager to dismiss him or keen to see his words stutter and fail. Sha had warned him about that. He cupped his hand firmly round his helmet, resting his other hand on his sword hilt. His words seemed to be stuck somewhere deep down and the silence crept on his skin. Then he ran his eyes over the front rank of dekarchoi from left to right; Sha, Nepos, Blastares and Procopius stood front-centre, newly promoted and bristling with pride. They wore their best soldierly expressions but their eyes were on him. Then Sha gave him a disguised nod of encouragement. The four were with him.

At that moment he knew the bandon would follow him.

He called to the skutatos holding the bandon standard and took hold of it. The wooden staff bearing the Christian Chi-Rho emblem on crimson cloth had three coloured tails: crimson for the thema, gold for the tourma and crimson again for the bandon. His bandon. He hoisted the standard into the air and glanced up, seeing the shimmering sunlight dance through the frayed edges of the prayer rope on his wrist and illuminate the stigma of the Haga on his forearm. He filled his lungs.

‘Nobiscum Deus!’

The men of the bandon were silent only long enough to suck breath into their lungs, then they barked back with gusto.

‘Nobiscum Deus!’

The first address over, the bandon broke up, heading back to the sleeping quarters to polish and hone their armour and weapons. Apion kept his stance true and proud as he marched back into the bunk area. As a minor officer, he would still live with the rest of the men and he was glad of that.

‘You held yourself well out there, sir.’ A voice spoke as he stepped into the shade indoors.

Apion turned to Sha, still not used to the African referring to him as an officer. He glanced around: only Procopius and Nepos were nearby. He let his lungs empty and his shoulders sag a little but he resisted the urge to show too much complacency. ‘Aye. It was good to see you in those lines though.’ At this, Nepos gave a wry hint of a smirk and Procopius issued a baritone chuckle.

‘It’s hotter than the bloody sun out there!’ Blastares croaked as he sauntered into the bunk room, his scowl shimmering with sweat. He lifted an arm to sniff his armpit and then winced, choking at his own stench. ‘Cotton tunics, that’s the way ahead!’

‘If we had them in the storeroom then you’d all have one by now,’ Apion nodded, ‘but the last supply train was all essentials: grain for the rations and ore for the smiths.’

‘Yes, war dictates,’ Nepos added.

‘Whatever. I just pity the poor bugger who has to march behind me,’ Blastares chuckled, uncorking his water skin and sucking thirstily on the contents. Then he stopped, belched and grinned wryly at Apion. ‘Oh yes, . sir,’ Blastares was still getting used to Apion’s new rank, ‘I’ve got bad news; that whoreson wants a word with you.’

Apion followed Blastares’ nod outside; Bracchus stood with Vadim in the centre of the muster yard, deep in conversation.

‘Something about going out with a detachment from the bandon. Today, unfortunately.’

Apion nodded in silence.

‘He’s got it in for you, sir,’ Procopius said. ‘Be on your guard.’

Apion looked to his trusted four. They had surely noticed the artificial obedience he had shown Bracchus. They knew something was wrong. But this was his battle and his alone.

‘Then I have my first sortie,’ he flicked his eyebrows up, trying to sound casual as he made for the doorway.

The cicadas trilled like an unseen army as he emerged again into the white heat of the afternoon, his skin stinging at the dryness of the air. As he approached, Bracchus looked up, breaking off his words with Vadim. The man’s features sharpened under the shade of his helmet. He saw Vadim off with a hand on the shoulder and then beckoned Apion with a grin.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ Apion stopped a few paces from the tourmarches and adopted the over-the-shoulder stare into the distance that Sha had taught him. It avoided confrontation, apparently.

‘You’re going on scout patrol today, komes, with a detachment from your new charges.’

Apion remained firm and focused on a two-storey tenement at the other side of the town but a blur in his peripheral vision marked the gathering of sixteen men. He nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I await my briefing, sir.’

Bracchus’ grin widened. ‘Good, I see our understanding is mutual. I command, you obey.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Apion barked.

Then Bracchus leant in. ‘You have your first job to do for me. There is a young lad you will be marching alongside, by the name of Sidonius. You see him, the shaven-headed one? Seems his father would rather not pay his debts. Shame he doesn’t realise his boy has been posted to my tourma.’

Apion broke his stare and shot a glance at Bracchus, then around at the forming men. Mostly veterans, going by their scars and otherwise lined faces. Then there was the odd one out: slight, shaven-headed and sporting a set of caterpillar-like eyebrows. Sidonius was busying himself tying on his padded corselet, trying to keep up with his colleagues. The lad looked nervous. Apion felt a horrible apprehension that those nerves were all too appropriate.

‘You go out from the town today as a sixteen. You return as a fifteen.’

Apion’s blood chilled. Never, a voice rasped in his mind. What kind of nightmare was this?

‘Don’t engage your mind.’ Bracchus’ words were icy. ‘That will only lead to one thing. All it needs is my word. Just one word and they’re dead.’

Apion’s mind swam. His stomach heaved and every muscle wanted to engage: to prise Bracchus’ chest open with his dagger and rip out his heart; to scream warning to Sidonius; to shout and shout until Cydones, Ferro, Sha, Nepos, Blastares and Procopius came running with their swords; to roar so loud that Nasir would hear him and come too, so loud that Mansur and Maria would hear and run for safety. He turned back to Bracchus and not a sound escaped his lips as he held the tourmarches’ glare. He swallowed the sickness inside. He thought of Mansur and Maria.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Keep pace; focus on your breathing, not the heat!’ He roared, his words echoing through the mountain pass. He remembered the early days of his running routine and sympathised with his men; they would be feeling the burning in their muscles, the fire in their lungs, the afternoon heat like shackles, but he could not show anything but steely resolve to them. The veterans behind him were good soldiers it seemed, silent and steady, yet to fall out of line even once. Then, at the rear there was Sidonius. The soldier was red in the face, panting and spitting phlegm every hundred paces or so.

‘Keep it up at the back!’ He growled. The men seemed to respond to gruff and booming tones more readily.

They continued at the unrelenting pace until the sun was starting to drop from its zenith and the path came out of the eastern side of the mountain and into a wide, dusty plain. He saw the sizeable palm thicket, the usual stopping point for patrols to the east, the babbling of the spring in its shade audible over the panting men. Apion raised a hand and croaked: ‘fall out to slake your thirst and fill your skins.’

They approached the palm thicket, shading a series of man-sized limestone boulders and the spring. The soldiers dropped their ration packs with a groan, some too tired even to drink from their skins, others kneeling to cup handful after handful of water. Apion strolled in behind them, welcoming the cool shade offered by the broad fronds. He ached to sit but his mind would not rest.

He eyed Sidonius. The refreshed skutatoi started to poke around in the thicket, bantering about the possibility of finding fruit, the young, red-faced soldier went off in his own direction, climbing over the first boulder then dropping down behind it into the thicket and out of sight. Apion’s heart ached, for the lad was as shy and ill-prepared for life in the thema as he had been just over a year ago. Yet only a short time remained before they were due back at Argyroupolis. There would be no other stop, no other opportunity. Opportunity? He almost retched at the word. He closed his eyes and searched for an answer. Mother and Father were not there in the darkness. Mansur was not here to offer his sound advice, nor was Cydones. Apion was alone. Do it for them, he reasoned, desperate to feel some sense of justification.

‘Fill your water skins and then we move out again,’ he barked to the men.

While the rest of the sixteen groaned, Apion’s face fell stern and he stalked over to climb the boulder heap. The current of the spring grew into a gurgling, then a gushing, as he dropped onto the bed of pebbles on the other side. Only a patchwork of sunlight made it through the canopy of leaves overhead and a musty tang of rotting vegetation entered his nostrils, an oddly welcome change from the arid air of the march. He saw the lad, crouching by the source of the spring, washing the dust from his face, but staring into the water, his eyes heavy and sad. Then Sidonius picked up a pebble and plunged it into the water, his face forming a scowl. Apion wondered if he could find some reason to believe there was sufficient badness in the lad to vindicate what he had to do next. His fingers trembled as he touched his sword hilt, his breath shallow.

‘Sir, you startled me!’ Sidonius leapt to standing, eyes wide but with a grin stretching across his face.

Apion stopped, only paces from the lad. He noticed Sidonius’ eyes fall on his hand, fingers resting on the scimitar hilt. Shame crept over his skin.

‘God walks with us, eh, sir?’ Sidonius pointed to the prayer rope on Apion’s wrist, then lifted the length of rope he wore around his own neck clear of his clothing. ‘I have prayed that war will not come, as I fear for my family if it does.’

Apion’s heart slowed, his head cleared. There would be another way. There had to be. Surely he could get back to the barracks and engage Cydones immediately, explain everything. But almost immediately, doubts muddied his chain of thought; the Agentes are answerable only to the emperor; by the time you have spoken to Cydones, Bracchus will know you have failed and the order will be given. He shook his head clear of the squabbling and fixed his eyes on Sidonius.

‘War is here, soldier. Praying will not change it. You are here now and you can fight to protect your family. But you need to build some muscle though; believe me, I know.’ He rummaged in his ration pack, but there were no betel leaves in there and there hadn’t been for some weeks now. Instead, he pulled out his last almond, oil and honey cake, breaking it in two and offering one part to Sidonius. ‘Are you hungry? This will keep your energy up, and it tends to stave off thirst too.’

‘Aye, my stomach is bottomless it seems.’ He nodded to the crumbs scattered atop his own pack by the spring. ‘We could stop for the rest of the day and I don’t think I’d be able to take in enough water or food.’

‘Ha — maybe you could hide in here! There’s enough fruit and water for a man to live on?’ He joked, and then wondered at the possibility. You go out from the town today as a sixteen. You return as a fifteen.

Sidonius did not reply, his face riddled with guilt.

‘You didn’t come in here to eat, did you? You came to slip away.’

The lad’s shoulders slumped and he held out his hands. ‘I’m not cut out for army life.’

‘When you’ve signed up, you have no option.’ Apion kept his face stern.

‘I’ve tried, but I feel like a child amongst all these veterans. My father is a rich farmer in Trebizond, but I am not cut out for that life. So I came here to prove I was more than a rich man’s son, but I don’t fit in here either.’

‘I see,’ Apion sighed. ‘Then you’ve answered the question already. Run for home and you will not find happiness. Stay here and at least you can protect your family by protecting the borders. Neither option is pleasant, but the latter is the correct one.’

Sidonius’ head dropped and he kicked out at a pebble. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry, sir, for being weak, I mean. I am sorry I spoke of this. I will not show such weakness again.’ He stepped forward to pick up his pack and leave the spring.

Apion stepped forward and grabbed his wrist. ‘Sidonius, wait. There’s something you need to be aware of. When we get back to the barracks. You are in danger.’

Sidonius’ eyes widened and then he tried to laugh it off but stopped as Apion’s expression remained firm under his jutting brow. Then panic set on the lad’s face. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m in as much danger as you. It’s the tourmarches.’

‘Officer Bracchus?’

‘You have not been here for a week yet, Sidonius, but you have probably heard the rumours already; he has no honour and his heart is black.’ His expression intensified and his grip on Sidonius shoulder grew vice-like until the lad’s face wrinkled in fear. Then a thud shook the pair, followed by a gurgling. Sidonius’ eyes grew wide and a hot crimson spray jetted from his mouth and nostrils, covering Apion’s face. Apion stepped back, mind spinning. Had the fire behind the dark door made him do it without realising? He leapt back and touched a hand to his sword hilt and dagger — both were still sheathed, but doubt laced his veins as he noticed his sword arm: knotted, scarred, sun burnished and adorned with the red stigma of the Haga.

Then his eyes locked on the arrow quivering in the lad’s neck, arterial spray fountaining from the wound. Sidonius grasped at the arrow shaft, mouthing silent cries for help, before slumping to his knees, his eyes distant. By the time the lad’s body crumpled onto the pebbles, Apion was crouched and scanning the undergrowth, a rhiptarion held horizontally, eyes narrowed. Then he saw a figure in the foliage: a Seljuk archer, fumbling for another shaft, darting glances at his weapon and then up at Apion. The Seljuk raised his bow just as Apion launched his throwing spear. With a thwack of cracking ribs and a shower of blood, the Seljuk was thrown back into the foliage. Apion dropped shield and spear and leapt into the green, whipping his dagger from his belt to land on the man, who was already shivering in his death throes, pink foam bubbling from the javelin wound, the cotton vest the man wore useless from a strike at such close range. Apion held his dagger to the Seljuk’s throat but the light in the man’s eyes was already dimming. Then a cry rent the air.

‘Allahu Akbar!’

Then the same cry rang out in a hundred foreign tones all around the thicket, followed by a chorus of swords rasping from their scabbards. The ground rumbled and Apion’s eyes narrowed on the foliage all around him, his skin anticipating the first lick of a sword blade or arrowhead. Then it happened. A scimitar split the air above his forehead and he ducked just as a Seljuk swordsman chopped the weapon down into the bark of a palm. Apion then leapt up to crunch an uppercut into the man’s jaw, sending teeth spraying across the spring. The Seljuk pulled his scimitar free of the bark and jabbed at Apion, who leapt back just too late, but his klibanion saved him, the blade chinking from one of the iron plates. Apion grasped for his own scimitar, then pulled his hand back from the hilt with a roar as the Seljuk’s blade tore across his knuckles. The Seljuk came again and again, ripping the blade past Apion, scoring the flesh on his forearms as each strike came closer. At either side, more and more Seljuk fighters poured into the thicket, ignoring the duelling pair and heading for the other fourteen skutatoi. Between parrying blows he shot glances around for his shield. Then he stepped on a wet pebble, his boot slid out from under him and he was prone, and a Seljuk warrior leapt for him. Apion swiped his scimitar round with a guttural roar, drowning out the snapping of sinew and bone as the Seljuk’s leg was sheared in that one blow. The Seljuk fell, screaming until Apion silenced him with a strike through the heart.

All around: desperate roaring and clashing of iron sounded from back over the boulder pile. Apion stooped to pick up his kontarion and shield, then splashed through the crimson shallows of the spring.

He slid over the boulder pile and saw it: five skutatoi remained standing, backs pressed together in a last stand as some twenty Seljuk spearmen harried and jabbed at them. The other nine lay like broken flotsam in the spring, punctured with arrows and their flesh ripped open by scimitar blades. In the shimmering heat outside of the thicket, a dust cloud billowed up from a moving mass. Blinking, he made out the seemingly infinite train of heavily armoured spearmen, archers and cavalry, a sea of banners bearing the horizontal bow emblem of the Seljuks. The akhi in the thicket were merely a light vanguard. He remembered briefly Bey Soundaq’s words at the mountain pass.

A storm approaches from the east, and the Falcon soars on its wrath.Byzantium’s time is over.

He turned back to the last stand, only two skutatoi stood now. This would be the end, surely. He gripped his scimitar hilt firmly, rushing for the nearest Seljuk with a roar. His blade sunk into the warrior’s neck and before the Seljuk next to him could turn to meet the attack, Apion had his sword free and scythed it round and into the man’s chest, bursting the unarmed ribcage, showering the ground in a shrapnel of bone and gore. The next man he fought mouthed screams but Apion heard only the blood pound in his ears, feeling the heat of gore on his face and the dull shudder of every blow he hacked into the man’s lamellar.

Then the next man came at him, shield raised, scimitar hooked over the top. Apion butted forward with his own shield and the man staggered but remained composed. Then Apion lunged forward for a killer strike. The Seljuk took a step back and let the blow fall through the air, sending Apion sprawling into the midst of the Seljuk mass pressing on the last two skutatoi. He scrambled to stand but slipped on the carpet of gore. Clawing at the crimson mush, he tried to pull his way clear of the melee until a pair of hands grappled on his ankles and pulled him back. A sea of snarling faces roared, jabbing their scimitars down at him. He grasped a shield from a dead skutatoi and, like a desperate animal, he tucked his torso behind it and kicked out as the Seljuks rained blows on the battered skutum. One scimitar ripped into his ankle and he could barely hear his own pained scream. He tucked his leg in and saw another skutatos drop to the ground beside him, eyes staring, jaw missing and blood haemorrhaging from the wound. He roared at the impotence, the certainty of death, then pushed to standing with a roar, lifting his scimitar and swiping round at the cluster of Seljuks. If he was to die then he would die fighting. Then a hand wrenched at his neck, yanking his entire body up and off of the ground.

He retched as his midriff landed on the back lip of a saddle, legs and arms dangling either side. Suddenly the acrid stench of blood was pierced by horse sweat. He righted himself to see what chaos his world had fallen into. He saw a stern grimace and forked beard of the rider. Cydones! He caught sight of some thirty other kataphractoi riding with the strategos. The akhi party lay shattered where they had stood just moments before. Then the wind grew into a whistle and the horse juddered as it thundered back through the mountain pass. The patter of arrows smacking into the dust around them thinned and then stopped and the jeering of the massive Seljuk column fell away behind them.

‘Ferro!’ Cydones cried over the wind. ‘Break off detachments of three, get word to each of the tourmae. The campaign army will not be enough — not nearly enough — we need all of our reserves, even the garrison from Trebizond. Send word to the emperor: tell him we need the support of the tagma or the eastern frontier will fall!’

‘Aye, sir,’ Ferro slowed and yelled orders to the rest of the kataphractoi. Sub-groups of riders splintered off and shot ahead at full gallop, lowered in their saddles.

‘Sir,’ Apion said, righting himself to sit in the saddle, ‘the Seljuk army, they’re not coming through the pass for Argyroupolis. They look to be headed south, around the mountains?’

‘Tugrul means to draw us out into the field,’ Cydones replied. ‘They are forcing us to break one of the tenets of the art of war, they are forcing us to fight them on their terms.’

‘Do we have the strength to meet them on the field?’

‘They outnumber us vastly, four of them to one of us. The Falcon means to crush us,’ Cydones said. ‘But we will face them. We must!’

Grey clouds scudded across the sky, driven by a warm summer wind. The wall guard at Argyroupolis stood stiff-jawed and attentive, looking over the sea of tents massed on the flat ground outside of the town walls. Meanwhile, inside the town, the barracks had been transformed: a contraflow of wagons and mule trains entered and left the enclosure, the warehouse their destination, laden with bare essentials such as tents, mallets, sickles, spades, axes, cookware and hand-operated grain mills along with caltrops, disassembled artillery, spare bows, swords and armour.

Every patch of free space in the muster yard and the space outside the barracks was packed with the fully mustered thema army and the shattered remnant of the Colonea Thema that had staggered in the previous evening. Thick clusters of infantry and riders stood, chattering nervously and drinking from their skins, nibbling carefully on their rations, cracked wheat and yoghurt cakes being a cheap favourite given their ease of being cooked down into a nourishing stew as needed or eaten solid while on the move. The occasional whinny came from the loose rabble of five hundred mounted Pechenegs that Cydones had managed to hire when it became clear that the emperor would not be sending the tagmata to support them. These Turk mercenaries were swift and deadly with their bows, if lightly armoured and liable to digress from orders. The populace crammed around the perimeter, eager to hear the latest word on the war. Fathers, mothers, wives, sons and daughters with faces wrinkled in concern for their kin who readied to engage the Seljuk advance. Tucked into the corner of the enclosure by the officers’ quarters, Apion stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sha, Nepos, Blastares and Procopius. The rest of the depleted bandon stood behind him.

‘Come on, come on,’ Procopius shuffled in discomfort, hands clasped over his groin. ‘I’ve got two jugs of the amber stuff sloshing around in here!’

‘Keep a lid on it, you’re just making it worse,’ Blastares hissed, breath reeking of the ale the pair had been quaffing all morning to calm their nerves. Then he jabbed a finger up to the battlements. ‘The big man’s about to speak.’

Three blasts on a buccina drowned out the rabble of soldiers and whinnying of horses and at once the crowd fell silent, the ranks inside the barracks rippled into neat bandon squares, Chi-Rho banners lifted high. Then the wall guard about-faced to glare into the city.

‘Warriors and citizens of the thema!’ Cydones strode along the battlements, fully armoured and gleaming, plumage whipping in the wind. He stopped at a crumbling section that straddled the barrack compound and the market square. He held his arms outstretched, his face shaded under the brow of his helmet. ‘Tugrul means to claim glory for his god and his people, but the fire is with us. God is with us! By the end of the month, the Seljuk threat will have been extinguished, these pretenders driven from our lands and back to the east. As you can see, our armies number greatly and our men hunger to wield their swords.’

‘The Seljuks number greater though!’ A lone voice heckled.

The skutatoi punctuating the throng of the populace surged for the man who had spoken out. Apion knew the man had a point though. The emperor had not sent any reinforcements, not even a token detachment of kataphractoi to raise morale.

‘That they may,’ Cydones countered, halting the soldiers with his words, ‘yet we have won fine victories against greater number before, and we will win many more.’

‘But while you’re out there, who’ll be left to defend the cities?’

Cydones paused before replying and the citizen seemed to shrink back into the crowd in the ensuing silence. A smart technique, Apion noted. ‘A garrison will remain in each of the population centres. Should Tugrul fall upon one of our cities or towns, then this army you see before you will fall upon him, dashing his army against the walls. He and his horde will not be allowed to roam freely in our lands!’

The crowd murmured, unconvinced. They all knew that a skeleton garrison, fewer than half of the normal number at barely two hundred men — half a bandon of infantry and a handful of archers — would be remaining while the thema army moved out. ‘The emperor must send more forces! We need the tagmata!’

‘The emperor knows well of our situation, the tagmata are being readied.’

‘Bullshit,’ Nepos muttered under his breath. ‘All of it. The tagmata aren’t even mobilised from what I’ve heard. The emperor sits in Constantinople scratching his arse and letting us take a battering from the Sultanate. The Armenians, fifty thousand men, would have been marching with us but for the purple-blooded fool’s ridiculous decree.’

Apion tilted his head back a little to direct his words to Nepos. ‘Cydones’ hands are tied though, are they not? He has to feed these people with hope or the battle is lost before it has begun.’

‘Aye, this is true. I wish it were not,’ Nepos concluded. ‘Yet I fear even the strategos cannot stir victory from the number he has mustered.’

‘Have faith. He won’t engage unless he knows he can win,’ Apion replied.

‘May God above march at the head of our ranks!’ Cydones roared, beating his spathion against his shield, freshly painted with the Chi-Rho. Two priests walked to flank the strategos and together they raised an enlarged, crimson standard, decorated with the image of the Virgin Mary, rippling as the cloth caught the wind. At last the populace cried out in fervent support.

Procopius sighed from behind as the fervour died, then there was a rhythmic patter of urine hitting the dust. ‘Bloody ale!’ The old soldier grumbled.

Blastares groaned and Nepos grimaced. Apion tried to ignore the warm spray showering his boots, noting the kataphractoi readying for the signal to move out. ‘Bandon!’ He roared, nodding to the standard-bearing skutatos. ‘Prepare to move out!’

Apion sucked in a breath, pulled on his helmet then hoisted his pack, kontarion, rhiptariai and skutum. The men of the bandon rustled into readiness and he stood to one side as they marched forward past him. Then a hand landed on his shoulder.

‘Not so fast. You’ve got more business to take care of,’ Vadim sneered, then leaned in to his ear. ‘Bloody business.’

The thema had set out in good spirits, marching to the war drums, priests flanking the strategos, chanting and raising the Chi-Rho and Virgin Mary standards to cheers from the bristling column in their wake. Over seven thousand fighting men followed the strategos and the symbols of God: three and a half thousand skutatoi, one thousand toxotai, two thousand light infantry, five hundred kataphractoi, five hundred Pecheneg horse archers and then the massive train of mules, siege engineers and the detritus of traders and merchants who clung to the mobilised army like pilot fish.

As feared, Tugrul’s forces had skirted the towns and cities of Chaldia and turned back, drawing the thema army from its homeland and into the south-eastern reaches of the defenceless Colonea Thema. Then they marched east for three days, into southern Armenia, the familiar mountain ranges tapering into an arid brushland. Rumours swept round that Cydones had expected to meet a contingent of one hundred mercenary Frankish heavy cavalrymen — the kataphractoi of the west — but they were never sighted. Nerves were frayed as soldiers worried about their own lives and those left behind. Somewhere here Tugrul’s army was camped, but it was another kind of army they came across; the decaying remains of the Colonea Thema.

Carrion birds formed a dark cloud above the never-ending heap of bones, flesh and putrefying guts. So Cydones ordered the dead be buried, an enormous and morale-sapping task, but one that not a single soldier griped at. After a day, the deed was done and the priests had blessed the graves. When they set off again, the arid ground and burning sun sapped the bluster of the thema and even rallying calls and shows of the Virgin Mary standard from Cydones and his officers had seemed to lose their gravitas.

At the end of the most brutally hot day yet, they stopped to set up camp on a yawning plain, dangerously exposed but utterly necessary given condition and morale. While the kataphractoi and the Pechenegs patrolled the area, the banda set to work on the standard marching camp. The exterior ditch and rampart was dug, then the palisade wall and four gates were erected, then caltrops, roped together, were sown into the dust outside the walls.

Before the sun dropped the weary infantry were finally relieved. Then the thema had gathered as usual to sing the hymn to the Trinity before settling in their respective tents with their wooden cups and bowls to eat an evening meal of millet porridge and hard tack bread, washed down with a sparing amount of their water ration, then nuts and honey to replenish the energy lost in the day’s march.

Now, the sun was dropping, illuminating the dusty plain and painting the camp in a lazy orange. Apion and his trusted four were sitting in silence inside his pavilion tent, and he and Nepos were locked in a game of shatranj. The tent was one in a sea of hundreds, with the standard ten sets of quilted bedding laid out, feet around the centre pole, spears dug into the ground by the head of each set of bedding, shield and armour balanced alongside it. As officers, the four no longer shared a bunk section or a kontoubernion tent and would soon have to disperse to their own tents, shared with the men they each led. Yet every night so far they had congregated like this.

‘Ah!’ Nepos broke the silence.

Apion looked up; the Slav was lifting the war chariot piece to hold it over a square for a moment, then he looked up with a wry grin. ‘Hmmm. . nice try,’ he said, replacing the piece.

Apion leant back with a sigh, wiping the sweat from his brow; this shatranj game had become an epic. Six nights of this had seen them play alternately cagily and aggressively, but still no outcome. Now as the sun slipped into the horizon it was the same again. Staying engaged with Nepos like this was both a tonic and a pox on his mind. Since Vadim had given him his latest order, Apion had a third, darker concern.

For by the sunrise, the Slav was to die.

Bracchus had found out Nepos’ dark secret: back in his home thema, the Slav had led a mob in the beating of what Bracchus called ‘one of his chosen men’, which Apion took as a euphemism for an agente. So the Slav had fled east, seeking refuge in the border garrisons, unaware that the master agente himself ran the very barracks he had run to. Bracchus’ diatribe rang in his thoughts. Once again, the truth comes to me late, but it always comes to me. It seems that your Slav friend dared to stand against one of my. . chosen men. As the years passed, Nepos may have thought he was to go unpunished for his crime. Not so. I will spare him the fate I have laid out for you, though, and instead grant him a swift death. So he will die tonight. Open Nepos’ throat before sunrise or your whore and her father are as good as dead. Riders in the camp will take word back west and it will be done.

He tried to focus on the shatranj board but his stomach turned over again at the order. Surely there had to be some way to get past Bracchus, get word to Cydones, to end this cycle. Yet in his heart he knew Bracchus’ men were all over the land, ingrained like a tumour. Nepos would have to die, Apion concluded with a swimming nausea. He glanced around the tent for something, anything to distract him from what lay ahead.

Sat at the other side of the tent was Blastares. Roaring drunk only a short while ago, he seemed to have blunted his inebriation with tomorrow’s ration of bread. The big soldier had watched the shatranj game, but with glassy eyes, no doubt his mind was replaying some rutting session. Procopius was snoring violently and Sha buffed his armour by the tent flap, eyes narrowed as he gazed into the setting sun.

‘What do you see on the horizon tonight, Sha?’ Apion asked with a smile, but his words sounded terse.

‘A very red sunset.’ The dekarchos replied. ‘I see us sleeping tonight, waking tomorrow, filling our bellies, and then I sense bloodshed.’

Apion’s skin crawled and he darted his gaze to the floor when Sha looked to him.

‘But with a pair of master tacticians like you two in our ranks,’ he grinned, nodding to the shatranj board, ‘the blood will surely be shed on our swords.’

Nepos chuckled throatily, studying the shatranj board with a wrinkled brow. ‘Don’t listen to a word I say; this bugger is the cunning one. Like a fox, he is. Looks like this game will have to continue over into tomorrow night.’

Apion felt unable to keep his composure. ‘Agreed. I say we get our heads down early, keep our minds sharp. Tonight might be the last opportunity for a good sleep for some time.’

Blastares lent weight to the order, his head already lolling forward, a crust of bread hanging from his lips and a grating snore filling the gaps of silence in between Procopius’ chorus.

Nepos yawned then tapped the board. ‘Wake that pair and we can all get back to our own tents. Tomorrow we will finish this once and for all, eh?’

Apion nodded with a weak smile. ‘Until tomorrow.’

The air was fresh under the clear sky and despite the waning moon, the myriad stars helped Apion pick his way through the shadows and web-like ropes between the tightly packed pavilion tents. He settled by the edge of one of the blocks and fixed his eyes on Nepos’ tent. Coughing and snoring came from the tent sentries and sleeping soldiers, and all around the palisades and temporary timber platforms serving as watchtowers, crackling fires outlined the double-strength camp perimeter sentries. There was no evidence that there would be a night attack, but nobody seemed to know where the Seljuk horde lay and anyone doing anything other than visiting the latrine would be challenged for being out of their tents.

He waited for what seemed like an eternity, crouching, watching as man after man sauntered from their tents, bleary-eyed, across the wide crossroads that divided the camp, over to the latrine pits by the eastern side. But still Nepos’ tent remained closed, the nominated sentry for the kontoubernion was stood by the tent entrance, shivering, eyes fixed on his boots. Then the tent flap opened. Apion crouched into the shadows and clutched at the dagger handle in his boot for reassurance. The Slav emerged, pulling his locks back from his face, shivering, his breath clouding in the air as he grunted to the sentry. The Slav wore only a tunic as he shuffled for the latrines. Apion shut out his thoughts and scuttled after him.

He moved quickly, closing in on Nepos across the wide walkway. He flicked a glance one way and then the other. The starlight seemed to shine on him accusingly, following his every step. The Slav wandered behind the mound of earth that had been piled conveniently to shield the latrine pits and Apion stopped for a moment by the last of the tents. He was by the middle of the camp’s western edge and the customary walkway dissecting the camp west to east lay between him and the latrines like a chasm. He glanced up the walkway to the centre, where the larger tents were pitched. The officers. The strategos. Bracchus.

He hesitated for a moment. To go after Nepos, to make for Cydones and tell all or to drive his dagger into Bracchus’ black heart while he slept. The image of the last option lingered in his thoughts. But Bracchus’ men all across Chaldia would know of the order that hung like an axe over Mansur and Maria and would carry it out on hearing of his death. He had no choice. He had to go after Nepos. He would have to be stealthy, to sneak up on the Slav before he could make a noise. It would be easier that way. He pulled the dagger from his boot, stood up and stalked into the latrines. He summoned the image of the dark door.

In the starlight, he could make out Nepos hiking his tunic back down. Only a few moments to spare. He blocked out the foul stench of the pits and rushed for his friend. Only at the last instant did the Slav turn, eyes bulging, hands clasping for his missing sword belt. Apion wrapped an arm around his throat, his own strength surprising him as Nepos struggled in vain.

‘Apion,’ he croaked, his tone hurt and desperate.

‘Shut up!’ Apion glanced all around. Good, they were enclosed within the earth ridge as he had hoped. ‘Someone could come at any moment. So shut up and listen, for your sake and mine. Do you understand?’

Nepos slackened a little in his struggle and nodded briskly. Carefully, Apion let go. Nepos staggered back, his face white in panic at the sight of Apion’s dagger. ‘Apion?’

Apion shook his head firmly, thumping a fist onto his heart, tucking the blade away. ‘Never, Nepos, my friend. I just had to make it look real. Here, have this.’ He pulled his satchel from his shoulder and lifted a package of salted meat, a portion of hard tack bread and a water skin from it.

‘Rations? What is this?’ Nepos shook his head.

‘You told me that first day I came to Argyroupolis that you had come here to get away from a situation at home. Well I know what happened; that man you beat, he was an agente!’

Nepos’ eyes widened. ‘How do you know of my past? Only I knew that man was an agente!’

Apion grabbed the Slav’s shoulder. ‘Because Bracchus is an agente, he is the master agente, he controls them all! He knows all about you. You’ve got to trust me. You need to get out of the camp. Tonight!’

Nepos started. ‘Bracchus? All this time I have been living under the gaze of one of the men I have been running from?’ Then the Slav’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then what does he have on you, Apion? Ever since that day we defended Bizye, you have seemed cowed under his influence.’

Apion gripped the Slav’s shoulders. ‘There is no time, Nepos. You have to trust me, and despite all of this I know you do.’ He held his gaze firmly on Nepos’ eyes.

At last, Nepos’ gaze softened and his shoulders slumped. ‘You are correct.’ He touched a finger to his lips, his eyes darting in thought, then he nodded. ‘So I have to disappear tonight? Then it starts here. Only you leave this pit. The rest — slipping from the camp — I will make good.’

‘You will need my help in slipping out of the camp. . ’

‘No, I can manage that, but there is one thing you can do,’ Nepos urged. ‘Go to Blastares’ tent, give him a nudge, press his bladder or tell him to go take a shit. Tell him it’s cold and to take an extra cloak — a dark one. Then return to your tent. I will do the rest.’

Apion nodded. ‘I get it, but where do you hide until then?’

‘Well I’m not hiding in the pit, that’s for sure.’ Nepos rolled up his half-sleeves and rubbed his hands together, then nodded to the earth bank. ‘I tell you though, Blastares is going to get one hell of a fright when he does come by this way.’

Apion looked to the loosely-piled earth; easily shifted by hand to allow the Slav to hide under a thin coating of the stuff until Blastares arrived. He turned back to Nepos. ‘When you escape, head back west and north, past Argyroupolis. Then stay true to the valleys until you reach the source of the Piksidis.’ Apion described the route back to Mansur’s valley, the hill with the beech thicket, the cairn marked with the Haga and the cave. He took the carved wooden chariot rider shatranj piece from his satchel and pressed it into Nepos’ palm. ‘Mansur will know you are genuine if you give him this. He will provide you with food and anything else you need, but you must be discreet, stay in the cave and visit Mansur only at night, for Bracchus has contacts everywhere. I will come for you when the army stands down, when Tugrul’s army is defeated,’ he grinned, then his words trailed off and shame overcame him at the troubled look in the Nepos’ eyes. ‘You, Sha, Blastares and Procopius trusted me, supported me, lifted me on your shoulders for me to become your komes. Then one of my first acts is to force you to desert, like a criminal or a coward — as far from the truth as possible — all because of that black-hearted whoreson.’

Nepos gripped him by the wrist. ‘I trust you, lad, like a younger brother. Go and be safe in that knowledge.’ Nepos held out a hand.

He clasped his hand into Nepos’. ‘I will sort this out, Nepos, I promise you that.’

‘We will meet again, Apion.’ Nepos stepped back towards the earth rampart.

With a last look, the pair parted and Apion hurried from the latrine and made straight for the tents.

Stood by the marching camp’s western gate, Peleus felt his eyelids grow heavy and he pushed the tip of his dagger into his palm. At once he was awake again. He glanced across to Stypiotes by the opposite gatepost, whose eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness but at least he was awake. Peleus suppressed a chuckle; his friend had been in a foul mood ever since the two had been chosen to go on guard duty. God help any Seljuks who might attack this entrance to the camp, he mused.

‘Tomorrow night, Stypiotes, we eat then we sleep,’ he croaked, ‘deep, dark sleep!’

Stypiotes scowled at him. ‘Stop talkin’ about it!’

‘But I need to do something; every time I stare out at the darkness I start to nod off,’ Peleus stopped, noticing Stypiotes’ eyes widening. ‘Stypiotes?’

‘Somethin’ moved, behind you!’

Peleus spun on his heel, nothing was there, but a small, round pebble spun on the spot, slowing then stopping. Stypiotes stalked over to Peleus’ side of the gate and the pair braced, holding their spears out, eyes prying into the blackness.

They did not notice the black-cloaked, and stealthy figure that climbed to perch on the edge of the gate. Nor did they hear the figure drop silently out of the camp and then sprint, bare-footed, into the night.

‘Ah, it’s nothing,’ Peleus said, pointing back into the camp, ‘look, it must have been one of the lads acting up.’

Stypiotes screwed his eyes up to peer at the shadowy figure that stood just to the side of the central walkway. ‘Who’s that?’ He barked, unable to make out the features of the man.

But the shadow melted into the darkness without reply.

Night passed in a heartbeat and Apion did not sleep, instead lying, eyes wide open, bathed in a slick of sweat. Packs of wild dogs howled in the brush and every one struck panic into his heart. Then the buccina cry had split the air at the first orange of dawn, but instead of the usual morning roll-call, it was the emergency call for muster. At once the camp sprung to life in a rabble of shouting and clattering of iron.

‘To your feet!’ Apion shouted to the nine men of his kontoubernion.

Footsteps, panting and a gruff horking up of phlegm sounded outside and then came a familiar voice. ‘Where’s the pointy-faced bastard?’ Procopius croaked, poking his head into the tent, wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘He’s not in his tent. A bit keen to get promoted is he?’

Apion pushed out from the tent, heart thumping. ‘What do you mean?’ He shot a furtive glance to each side of the camp. Good, he thought, no commotion and no sign of Bracchus.

Sha was there, pulling on his klibanion, looking round, face wrinkling. ‘Nepos? No, I haven’t seen him either.’

Blastares stumbled from his tent, frowning, lifting a finger to point at Apion.

Panicked, Apion cut in. ‘Blastares?’

‘My head is pounding!’ The big man groaned, rubbing a hand over a purple lump on his temple. ‘If that’s not bad enough it looks like some bugger stole my cloak as well. Last thing I remember is staggering to the latrines. And before that I had this disturbing dream about you, pressing my bladder!’

Apion disguised his relief.

‘Bloody ale!’ Blastares continued. ‘Though if I see some whoreson nicking around in my cloak I’ll fuc. . ’

A second buccina cry pierced the air, drowning out his words.

‘It’ll have to wait,’ Apion said. ‘Come on, something big is happening!’

By the time dawn was fully upon them, the Chaldian Thema stood in formation, the only noises were of horses scuffing and snorting and the iron rattle of armour. The ranks were tense; nobody knew for sure why the emergency muster call had been used, but many craned their necks to scan the horizon outside the camp. Empty.

Then Cydones and Ferro strode to the front of the army. ‘This morning, we seize our destiny!’ The strategos gave one of his customary pauses before continuing. ‘The dawn scouting party has returned. The Seljuk army has been located. Some eight miles to the south. We are in fine shape, men. Fine shape to seize victory. We march to victory, and God marches with us!’

Apion’s eyes narrowed. The strategos’ rhetoric seemed to rouse the ranks, but he knew that if the numbers of the Seljuk horde were to be believed then the wives and mothers of Chaldia would lose a lot of husbands and sons today. The Colonea Thema numbered not much less than the army mustered here today, he shivered, remembering the swarm of carrion birds that had feasted on their corpses. Then something caught his eye. He glanced over the ranks. There, about twelve men to his left, stood Bracchus at the head of the tourma. The tourmarches stared dead ahead, face pointed and cold, no hint of emotion.

He closed his eyes and prayed that Nepos was far to the west by now. He had his story ready: he had slit Nepos’ throat in the darkness and dropped his body into the latrine pits. Now he just had to avoid Bracchus until the latrine pits were filled in, so his story could not be refuted.

Then realisation sparked in his mind; it could all end today — the clash with Tugrul’s hordes presented the opportunity he had been waiting for. He flexed his fingers on his scimitar hilt and prayed that the battle would see him and Bracchus in close proximity.