Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

5. Night

Apion stirred from thick sleep. The farmhouse was still and silent. A winter draft tickled his ankles and he pulled them up and into the welcome heat under his hemp blanket. He prised open an eye; it was pitch-black inside and out apart from the pristine crescent of moon hanging in the triangular gap between the shutters, just below the carved Christian Chi-Rhomounted above the window. It was well into the night, he mused, knowing the path the moon took at this time of year. A gruff choking snore from Father startled him; then the subsequent weary groan from Mother sent a smile easing across his face. ‘Could wake a bear in hibernation,’ she said of Father. He sighed, hugging the edge of the blanket and studying the features of the moon until his eyelids began to droop. Sweet, thick sleep was overcoming him again. Then a shadow darted past the shutters. He sat bolt upright.

It was fleeting, maybe even never there, but he was awake now and his skin rippled with a sense of unease. He blinked hard, rubbing his fists into his eyes. He leaned forward to scan the crack in the shutters, his blanket dropping from his shoulders, the icy air shrouding him. Then, outside, an eagle screeched like a demon, its claws raking at the roof tiles. It had probably hurt a wing or lost its baby and it sounded pained. The bird finally left, its screaming fading. Once more all was still, all was silent. He felt for the creature but welcomed the return of the placid night, then smiled and sank back down onto the bed. He rested his head on the pillow and pulled the blanket back up to his neck. His thoughts began to wander into sleep.

Then a trilling and utterly foreign scream rent the night air. ‘Loukas! Your time has come!’

His feet slapped on the deathly cold flagstones as he leapt to standing in one movement, eyes bulging, prying at the darkness through the open door of his bedroom, heart crashing against his ribs. He crept forward and poked his head out into the hearth room: the shadowy outline of the table sat inconspicuous as always. Another imagining, Apion hoped? But he knew in his heart something was terribly wrong.

‘Apion, get back into your room!’ his father croaked, stumbling from his bedroom, pulling on his tunic by the hearth. Then the thick timber door leading out to the yard smashed inwards as though struck by a battering ram, his father stumbled back and at once, his home was invaded by the dancing flames of bobbing torches. Dark towering shapes and jagged voices flooded into the hearth room along with the acrid stench of burning pitch. At once, Apion felt his skin pulled tight, eyes fixed on the intrusion, terror awash in his limbs. He ducked back into his bedroom and watched them from the shadows. There were four of them, each wrapped in thick black robes, heads and faces covered by thin cotton scarves and each wore a sword belt that bore the dreaded Seljuk scimitar. Then a fifth walked in and barked at the other four in the Seljuk tongue, then broke into Greek, the other four obeying his orders. Apion stalked back into the shadows of his bedroom, cowering, Father would protect them, surely.

‘Can’t find your sword, Loukas?’ The leader spoke in a muffled voice through his veil. Then an awful rasping filled the room as three of the four intruders drew their scimitars from their scabbards, the curved blades glinting in the torchlight. ‘Lucky we remembered ours!’ A nightmarish orange illuminated the blades as three of the figures stepped forward to surround Father. The fourth remained fixed by the door, sword sheathed.

‘Loukas? What’s happening?’ Mother shrieked, her voice trailing off into a series of sobs as she ran to grasp Father’s arm. ‘Where is Ap. . ’ Father turned and struck her hard across the cheek. Instantly she was silent, one hand on her stinging face and eyes wide in shock, blood dripping from her lip. Father glared at her, terror and urgency contorting his features.

‘Rest easy, Loukas, for tonight you will all die for your sins,’ the leader purred, flicking a finger either side of the cowering pair. The three armed henchmen stalked around to encircle them. Then the leader stopped, twisting his head back to the fourth intruder. ‘What about you? Why are you suddenly so shy, hero?’ The fourth intruder remained stock-still. ‘So maybe your reputation is exaggerated? So be it,’ the leader spat, then turned back to Mother and Father. ‘Slaughter them and then torch this hovel!’ Then he nudged at the wooden blocks and carved toy soldiers on the floor. ‘There is a boy child in this house; make sure you find him. . and stick him like a pig!’

Apion could only watch as Mother’s scream filled the farmhouse before it was cut short in a single swipe of a scimitar across her neck, her body collapsing like a sack of rubble, head dangling behind the gaping wound and crimson soaking her night robe in a heartbeat. Father roared, thrashing out at his opponents with balled fists, but the intruders danced back easily from every blow.

‘You have brought this upon yourself, Loukas!’

Father could only muster a pained snarl in reply.

‘Take him down,’ the leader sneered, ‘make it slow. . then bring me his head.’

Apion’s stomach lurched at the words. He stepped forward from the shadows but his feet froze on the floor as one of the henchmen jabbed his scimitar hilt into Father’s face. A dull thud of metal on cracking bone was accompanied by the light patter of blood on the flagstones. Apion’s throat clenched, mouthing a silent scream, as Father toppled to the flagstones, sprawled across Mother. The henchmen flicked their scimitars over and over in their hands and circled Father, like butchers eyeing a fresh slaughter. Then Apion felt a change, like a roaring river suddenly drying to a trickle, his fear was gone. What was there to fear when all was lost? His eyes fell on Father’s battle gear resting in the shadows by the table. The helmet, the klibanion and the spathion.

Apion strode from the shadows, taking the helmet and placing it on his head, the rim resting on the bridge of his nose and the mail veil icy cold on his face, the leather aventail dangling around his neck and shoulders. The flickering torchlight bathed him but the intruders were captivated with their work as he approached them, prodding Father with the razor tip of their scimitars, puncturing his flesh, showering the hearth with blood. Father roared in pain at each prod but his face was drawn and exhausted as he cradled the bloody form of Mother underneath him, his spirit conquered. Father’s eyes were dimming but as Apion took up the spathion, their eyes met. Father extended a hand out past the legs of his torturers, reached out, then shook his head, his mouth haemorrhaging blood.

‘No,’ he spluttered as Apion lifted the weighty blade.

Then the leader stepped in between them, still oblivious of Apion, and snarled. ‘Now finish him!’

One of the henchmen wrenched Father’s head back by the hair and the other swept his scimitar down. Apion’s stomach turned over at the ripping of sinew as Father was beheaded, eyes staring, mouth agape in shock. Apion’s mouth gaped likewise to scream but his voice was simply not there.

‘Now find this dog’s child and bring him to me!’ The leader turned to the silent intruder, ‘and you, you useless whoreson, go outside and make sure nobody gets in or out of this place before we burn it to the ground.’

In a nauseous blur, Apion moved back into the shadows, to his bedroom; this would buy him a precious few seconds of life before he joined Mother and Father. No! Then they would have died in vain, Apion fretted, eyes darting around for any sign of hope as the henchmen emerged from his parents’ bedroom. He realised he still held the spathion but what use was a weapon he could barely swing against these two brutes?

‘He’s not in there,’ one henchman grunted and then extended a finger at the very shadows in which Apion hid, ‘so he must be in that room.’ Together, they stepped forward, scimitars in hand.

Apion realised escape was his only option. If he could flee into the night, wake the soldier-farmers in the next valley, then these raiders could be trapped. He turned to the shutters, ready to unbolt them as quietly as he could. But when he turned he froze, they were already ajar, punched open from outside. Was this some kind of trick? Then he sensed the presence of the two henchmen behind him.

‘Too late to run! Ready to join your Father, boy?’ One henchman hissed.

Apion spun, poised with the sword in a two-handed grip, trembling.

‘Now put that blade down,’ the second henchman hissed, his breath reeking. ‘Just close your eyes and it’ll all be over.’

Apion felt the terror boil in his veins. He roared and swung the sword wildly, the blade glancing from the walls, showering sparks across the room, the henchmen leaping back. Suddenly, the leader stormed into the room and stopped, masked features examining Apion.

‘Is that a boy we have behind that veil? So this is Loukas’ runt?’ Then he pointed a finger at Apion. ‘Take his head.’

Apion was frozen momentarily, eyes hanging on the tarnished ring on the leader’s finger, a snake winding around the band. Then he roared and wrenched the spathion up, the blade caught the leader’s finger, chopping clear a chunk of skin and bone. The leader staggered back with a roar while the blade flew from Apion’s hand, plunging into the gut of the second henchman, who touched the hilt in stunned silence, blood gushing from his mouth, before toppling like a log, dead.

‘Finish him!’ The leader rasped, his voice laced with fury as he clutched the bleeding stump of his finger and ducked back out of the bedroom.

Apion staggered back as the first henchman lurched forward, sweeping his scimitar down. Spinning away, he leapt for the open shutters, then his mind flashed with a white light as the blade hammered down on the back of his helmet then ground into his flesh. He felt a hot streak of agony like nothing before, the blade tearing at his back, ripping through his thigh and hacking all the way down his calf to his ankle.

Then he could see only the floor and a dark liquid pooling around him. His body grew cold and needled towards numbness. Blackness swam over him. He could hear only a dull ringing and the murmur of the intruders.

‘Now drag him outside, I want to see all three heads on spikes.’

Apion felt his ankles being grappled and an unearthly agony stung him to his core.

Then another voice called, the fourth intruder, from outside.

‘Imperial riders!’

‘Then leave him,’ the leader spat from the hearth room. ‘They can all burn where they lie.’

Everything around Apion seemed to be growing distant. He could hear splashing and the smell of pitch grew thicker. Then there was a dull clatter of a torch being hurled to the floor, followed by a roar of fire and anxious yells as they ran from the building.

The heat intensified until it stung through the numbness and was accompanied by the stench of crackling flesh. From somewhere, Apion found the energy to prise apart his eyelids: there, in the corner of his bedroom, lay the staring and unmasked features of the man he had struck down; a Seljuk man, engulfed in the inferno, the skin on his face blistering and exploding like a roasting pig, eyes clouded over. Apion turned away in disgust but all around him was a raging orange; the flames had engulfed his home already. Death was coming for him. He searched for the opening line of the Prayer of the Heart and made to close his eyes, when he caught sight of his own reflection in the blade of the spathion, still lodged in the burning Seljuk’s guts. He grimaced at the image, the weakness he portrayed. Behind the blade, he saw two charred masses where Mother and Father had fallen, the flames having consumed their flesh already. Were they to have died for nothing? Did their killers deserve to walk free? A desperate cry rasped from his lungs and he lurched to prop himself onto his elbows and then pulled his torn body forward, the searing hot iron helmet tumbling from his head and rolling into the inferno. The heat pulled the air from his lungs as he tried to breathe and the room above him seemed to be solid with a jet-black smoke. With a grimace, he pulled himself on through the hearth room on a black slick of his own blood, a smoking timber beam crashing down by his side barely registering as he fixed his eyes on the doorway.

The roof groaned as he clasped a hand to either side of the doorframe. The intruders were gone and there were no imperial riders to be seen. The night lay in front of him and out there he would find the creatures responsible for this. All of this. Tears stung his cheeks as he hauled himself clear of the doorframe. He roared out into the night, then, behind him, the roof collapsed. The cloud of flames hurled him through the doorway, then a glowing beam crashed down on top of him, landing with an unearthly pain up the length of his butchered leg, gouging into his back with a rapacious sizzling of flesh. His lungs had nothing left in them to scream with and he felt darkness rush in.

An eagle’s piercing cry high above rent the night air and at once he was gone from the world.

He awoke to the sound of lungful after lungful of screaming. His own. He had the prayer rope clasped with both hands across his heart.

‘Apion!’ A voice echoed. A broad moustachioed face emerged from the misty confusion. Mansur shook him by the shoulders.

‘Father?’ Maria scrambled to Apion’s bedside.

‘Get out, Maria,’ he waved a hand at her. ‘Please, start the fire and prepare some salep.’

‘Apion, be calm, please, you are safe, you are safe.’

He felt his chest heave more slowly and the screaming had died to a whimpering. His face was wet with tears. Glancing around the room it was all so peaceful, so quiet: the fire crackled through in the hearth room and the shadows of his bedroom danced lazily in the half-light from the flames.

‘Mansur, I’m sorry. I, I saw it all. As if I was there again. . ’

‘Easy, lad, take a deep breath,’ Mansur frowned, brushing a thumb across Apion’s cheeks, wiping the tears clear.

‘It was all like it was happening again for real. I felt every blow, the fire. . their bodies. . ’

Mansur’s eyes looked lined and heavy and he shook his head. ‘You have a heavy burden on your shoulders, lad. It is time you shared it with me. Come, let us have a drink and talk.’

The hearth room was pleasantly warm, the fire freshly loaded with logs. A rather grumpy Maria had prepared them each a cup of salep, a hot milky drink spiced with cinnamon and orchid root, and then trudged back to her bed to leave them alone. Apion had told Mansur everything, eyes hanging on the gentle flames as he did so. The old man had remained quiet while the story was told, even during the long pauses as Apion composed himself. As the grim tale progressed he found his words flooding out like a river, the images flitting before his mind’s eye.

‘I was dead. I swear death took me.’ He shook his head, gazing into the speckled surface of his salep. He took a sip, the creamy sweetness of the drink coating his throat, comforting him. ‘When I woke, my wound was cleaned and dressed and I was resting in a shaded dell, way up on the hills, miles from the farmhouse, a pleasant breeze cooling my skin. Everything was silent apart from a lone eagle calling somewhere high above. I did not feel the pain of my wound at first. My mind was blissfully free of the memories of what had just happened.’

Mansur frowned, confused. ‘The slave traders had found you and bandaged you?’

Apion shook his head, his face wrinkling. ‘If they had found me then, in the smoking ruins of my house, I would not be alive. No, only a woman was there; silver hair and eyes that were pure white — she must have been blind. She was old, older even than you,’ he paused a moment, checking to see if he had caused offence. Mansur issued a weary smile so he continued. ‘She dug at roots in the earth and hummed a tune to herself. Her voice was comforting to me in my state, something about it made me think of Mother. Then she came over and removed my dressing. I couldn’t look at the wound but she rubbed the root against my flesh and it took the pain away. I asked her who she was and she just laughed. Not at me, just a little laugh as if she had remembered a joke.’

Mansur was captivated. ‘Did she tell you how she had got you to this place?’

‘No, but she spoke to me while she reapplied my dressing. She said the burning timber that fell on me had saved my life, cauterising the flesh.’ He stopped and frowned. ‘She gave me my crutch and told me it was time for me to carry on with my life, but she had a single piece of advice for me.’

Mansur leant forward, nodding.

‘She said I would choose a path. A path that leads to conflict and pain. She told me to go anywhere I wanted. Anywhere except. . home.’

‘Where she found you?’

Apion nodded.

‘Then you left the dell,’ Mansur rubbed his moustache, imagining the scene, ‘where did you go next?’

‘Well I found myself hobbling on my crutch a long way from those hills. The pain came back gradually as I made my way back.’

‘Back?’

‘I went home, Mansur, despite what she told me.’ A tear forked from his eye. ‘The place was a charred mound of rubble. I kept looking at it, trying to see it, as if the ruin was not real. I spent days there, just sitting, staring into the ash. When the slave wagon came by, I barely noticed them as they shackled me. They packed my wound with salt, knocked me unconscious and took me into the city. I woke in a cellar, insects running through my hair, rats biting at my flesh. I survived in that place for over a month until the trader took his slaves to market. That’s when I ended up in the inn; one stinking cellar for another. Every day for the best part of a year they would beat me, spit on me, yet all I could see was the blackness of the ash. All I could think of was righting the wrong.’

Mansur held his gaze, the old man’s eyes were red-rimmed. ‘It’s over now, Apion. You are here and you are safe under my roof. Perhaps the old woman who tended to you was right. As dreadful as what you have just told me is, perhaps you should try not dwell on what happened at your old home. I realise that what I am suggesting would be far from easy, but to let go of this could be to give yourself a chance to live a happy life? Ask yourself what your parents would have wanted of their son; a blackened individual, joyless and bitter, or the boy they knew, the boy they loved and who loved them back?’

Apion looked at him solemnly and shook his head. ‘You speak wise words, Mansur, but I can’t even remember who I used to be before that night.’ He had tried so hard to remember the past as it once was: Mother preparing a meal of stew and bread for Father’s return from campaign. When he arrived, dressed in a leather klibanion, iron helmet and boots, Apion saw him as a model kataphractos. Then the three of them would spend the time outside of campaigning season tilling and sowing the modest farmland. Hard work, but happy times. Yet the memories were becoming flatter and more hazy over time.

Mansur’s face saddened at this and he gazed into the fire. ‘I know where you are, lad. Loss; it takes a long time to come to terms with it. Indeed it drives you to seek answers from the darkest of places before you finally make peace. . ’ his words trailed off, his voice breaking up.

Apion noticed that Mansur’s eyes glistened now. ‘Your wife?’

‘Ten years ago,’ Mansur spoke flatly, his grey crop shimmering with sweat, his face stony as he gazed into the fire.

Apion nodded. So Maria would never have known her mother. Suddenly he felt heart-sad for her. Mansur’s grief was there but not there, like its rawness had been chipped away and polished down to a smooth burden that he bore without question. He pulled at his prayer rope and wondered at his next words, whether Mansur would appreciate them.

‘Does it help to know she is with God now?’

Mansur did not look round from the fire but his face hardened a little. ‘God, if such a thing exists, makes our lives a constant struggle.’ He lifted his salep and supped thoughtfully.

Apion frowned. ‘You must have loved God once to say such a thing?’

Mansur turned to him and nodded. ‘When you lose what is dearest to you, you have a choice: worship or reject. I have made my choice.’

‘My mother and father, they were Christian. I am Christian. But, and I don’t know if I am betraying them in saying this, I can’t see why God could let what happened to them happen,’ his eyes darted around the flagstones as he searched for his feelings, then he looked up to Mansur.

‘That’s what makes me doubt it all, lad,’ Mansur replied. ‘If God created man, then why are we so foul and blinded? We live our lives for a few handfuls of seasons and we spend most of them making mistakes, terrible mistakes. Only when we’re grey and withered do we realise where we should have turned and when.’ He shrugged his shoulders and lifted one side of his mouth wryly. ‘By then, our children have grown into their own cycle of pig-headedness, doomed to blunder on until we are all merely dust.’ A log snapped in the fire.

Apion nodded as he considered Mansur’s words. ‘Father would have taught me and guided me well. I know it. He always showed me things and said that when I was old enough he would teach me all that he had learned. He promised that after the next campaigning season, he would teach me to tame a horse and make it my own, so I could become a rider like him. Now I will never learn from him.’

The old man held his gaze for a moment longer then shook his head and took a deep breath. ‘As I say, learning is usually a matter of making mistakes. Well I am grey and withered and I’ve made many mistakes in my life. I can help you learn.’

‘You’d do that for me? A slave, not of your blood, not even of your kin?’

Mansur finally broke into a weary smile. ‘You’re no slave, Apion, just as you told me that day in Trebizond. So, the learning begins tomorrow; the grey mare is about the right size for a lad of your age and build. After breakfast we will get you used to life in the saddle, how does that sound?’

Apion grinned.