Island in the Storm

8. Field of Carrion

Tepid rain fell in sheets as Apion led the mustered Chaldian ranks through the Sebastae Thema. A thick musty tang of rotting vegetation and wet earth hung in the air and the squelching of boots and hooves sounded behind him. August had brought with it a mackerel sky and then this seemingly never-ending deluge. Every day meant a torrid trek through churning mire in sodden tunics and cloaks and every night was spent under leaking pavilion tents, eating wet rations.

Rainwater drummed on his helm and trickled down his scale aventail, finding its way under the iron collar of his klibanion as he rode. His eyes remained trained on the south, where Manuel Komnenos’ army was but a half day’s march away.

He recalled the sharp and loyal man he had met at the Euphrates. A good man to lead this campaign — with a brief to stave off any Seljuk advance here in the borderlands while the emperor stabilised affairs in Constantinople. And he had heard good things from his scouts who had been relaying messages between Manuel’s campaign army and the Chaldians. Manuel had them marching at a fine pace and morale was high. The Thrakesion, Opsikon and Bucellarion themata had been mustered to provide the bulk of his infantry — and the scouts had spoken highly of their appearance: each man kitted out with fine iron klibania, marching boots, helms, freshly painted shields and good, sharp and true spears, bows and swords. Romanus’ funding had transformed them, it seemed. With these refreshed themata rode the Vigla and the Scholae Tagmata. Two fine cavalry corps that would provide a stern hammer to the infantry anvil of the themata.

He held out his water skin to fill it from the vertical drizzle. Ha! Focus on your own ranks, man! he mused, taking a sip of water then glancing back over his shoulder. There were his fifty riders, and immediately behind them, a sea of infantry faces stared back, eyes shaded under the dripping rims of their helms or archer’s hats, a forest of spear shafts, canvas-covered quivers and soaked crimson banners hanging over their well-ordered lines.

Just over nine hundred infantrymen. None of the three tourmae they were organised into were even close to having the eight banda of two to three hundred men that the military texts recommended. Nowhere near enough, in fact — each division contained barely enough men for one such bandon. They hadn’t been at full strength for some years, he mused. Not surprising given the constant Seljuk raids and the major clashes in the past two campaigning seasons. What mattered, though, was that each of these three divisions of spearmen and archers were headed by his trusted three. Sha led his tourma with carefully worded shouts of encouragement, being sure to twist in his saddle and catch the eye of as many of his charges as possible when he did so. Ever the diplomat, Apion thought with a smile. Procopius was a more taciturn leader. The men of his tourma always showed him the greatest of respect and a hint of fear at his stern silence. The aged officer had once confided in Apion that is was all an act, a front. ‘Isn’t life?’ Apion muttered, his smile growing. Then he heard a gruff almost animal-like groan. He twisted to his other side to see Blastares, dismounting, scowling, his face bright red and raindrops dangling from the end of his nose. A pair of skutatoi had stumbled and fallen, sending the front line of his tourma into disarray.

‘We taught you how to march weeks ago, you bloody fools!’ he roared at the pair who had caused the chaos, then wrenched one of them up from his knees by the scruff of his klibanion like a father lifting a mischievous child. ‘What the-’ the big tourmarches gasped, gawping at the man’s boots. The four leather strips that extended above the shin of the boots were stretched up to his thighs, almost as high as his groin, and tied there. ‘And we taught you never to march with your boots up. Fold them down, below the knee.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘How can that even be comfortable? Your balls must be rubbed free of skin by now!’ The men erupted in a babble of laughter at their shamed comrade, and Apion allowed himself a crooked grin too.

‘Unbelievable, bloody unbelievable!’ Blastares grunted, ranging level with Apion, Sha and Procopius. ‘And this rain is seriously testing my patience. I tried praying for good weather last night. . half way through my bloody tent roof falls in and I get soaked with freezing rainwater. I mean, come on — I’ve tried to be a good man?’ The big tourmarches held out his hands and looked to the sky.

Sha looked to Apion with a devilish sparkle in his eyes. ‘You know, back in Mali, we had a saying: the flower accepts the rain because it knows it will be watered.’

Blastares stared blankly at Sha for a moment, his jaw hanging open. ‘Hold on. Are you calling me a bloody flower?’

Procopius was the first to break the tense silence that followed, roaring with laughter from the pit of his belly. Sha broke down in laughter too and Apion found it infectious. Blastares’ scowl lasted only moments before he joined in too. ‘Bloody flower indeed.’

They splashed through a shallow flood river in one pine-edged valley, then up a snaking path along a mountainous ridge where the land opened out before them. A mile or more to their left stood the city of Sebastae — capital of this eponymous thema. The city’s walls were grey and shiny with rain, and there was just a speckle of iron atop the battlements. He had heard that this important stronghold was garrisoned by only eighty men these days.

He noticed his men’s heads all twist to the city, no doubt thinking of the taverns and warm fires within those walls. A gentle chatter broke out amongst them.

‘Eyes front,’ Blastares boomed, ‘We’re not meeting the campaign army there. It’s a camp on a plain for us,’ he said, flicking a finger to a ridge on the southeastern horizon. ‘Somewhere out there. Anyway, the wine in that city tastes like rat piss and the whores will leave you with warts on your cock!’

Stunned silence fell, followed by a chorus of chuckling when Blastares swung round on his saddle to flash them a stump-toothed grin. When the big man turned forward again, his grin faded.

‘Blastares?’ Procopius frowned, seeing the big man’s gaze snag on something to the southeast.

Apion looked there too, seeing only the grey mizzle and wet folds of golden land. Then he saw it. The dullest flash of silver out there — maybe two miles distant. An army. Coming north and coming fast.

‘Manuel Komnenos?’ Sha asked.

Apion shook his head, seeing the dull shape take form. ‘See how fast they come? They are all riders. Look, two thousand of them, easily.’ The column broke out in a concerned murmur.

‘Seljuk raiders,’ Procopius growled, switching his gaze from the approaching horde to the grey walled city. ‘They’re but a few miles from Sebastae.’

‘The rain!’ Apion cursed the sky. ‘The damned rain dampened their dust plume until they were this close.’ He looked northeast to the city and southeast to the horde. His nine hundred men and fifty riders were all that stood between the populace of Sebastae and certain slaughter.

‘I can have a rider bolt southwards, to reach Manuel Komnenos’ camp and call for his help?’ Blastares suggested.

‘Yes, do that, but be swift,’ Apion replied, his gaze flicking to the gorge a few hundred metres to the left of his column. The Seljuk raiders would have to come through that corridor to get to the city — as the rocky land either side was steep and crumbling — nigh-on impassable. ‘Then get your men into that gorge!’

The rain-sodden gorge was eerily still, until the silence was broken by the splashing of nine hundred pairs of boots and the clopping hooves of fifty horsemen. The din echoed from wall to wall until the Byzantine soldiers came to a halt. Apion thudded down from his mount. He crouched and held a hand to the ground — rumbling, growing closer, from the south, beyond the kink in the gorge. They had moments, he realised. He stood and scoured the terrain. The gorge was a definite choke point, but it was still fairly wide. Standing three men deep, his infantrymen might just be able to form a blockade long enough for Blastares’ messenger to summon reinforcements from Manuel Komnenos. But it would be folly to assume reinforcements were coming, he chided himself.

‘Skutatoi!’ he yelled, swiping a finger in the air as if drawing out his imagined spear line. At once, the spearmen hurried to form a phalanx from one gorge wall to the other, crimson shields interlocked, spears levelled, eyes glinting with a mixture of fear and battle-hubris. Next, he looked to the hundred or so archers within the infantry ranks, then up to the sides of the gorge.

‘I could have the archers up there in moments, sir,’ Sha said, reading his thoughts, ‘just give the word. They could have the Seljuks in a deadly crossfire.’

Apion shook his head, suppressing a growl of frustration. ‘No, the rain will spoil their efforts and the Seljuks will spot them early.’ He looked all around the gorge for inspiration. Nothing. The rumbling now seemed to shake the land. He closed his eyes, imagining the Byzantine spear wall and the space before it as a shatranj board. He imagined the Seljuks flooding into the gorge floor as opposing pieces. Their strength was in their number, he realised. His brow dipped as he saw what he had to do.

He swung to the spear wall and saw the two men there who carried with them canisters and siphons. These siphonarioi were Greek fire specialists, adept at shooting the blazing liquid across enemy ranks. But today, something different was needed. With a flick of the hand, he beckoned them forwards, a hundred paces in front of the blockade. ‘Open your canisters,’ he said, ‘empty the contents across the gorge.’ He drew out another line, wall to wall.

The two looked at one another quizzically, then shrugged, uncorking them with trembling fingers. They poured the dark, viscous substance from the mouth, walking carefully in a line as they did so, making a thick stripe that stretched across the soaked floor of the gorge from edge to edge.

Apion looked up, hearing whooping Seljuk war cries, echoing through the ravine as if coming from all around. The thunder of hooves grew rapidly until the Seljuk front rounded the kink and burst into view. They were ghazis, he realised. ‘Back!’ he cried, waving the two siphonarioi with him back to the Byzantine spear wall.

He shot glances over his shoulder as he ran. Round and round the ghazis came like a deluge of steel. Upon reaching the spear line, he took up a spear and infantry shield then barged into place beside Sha to face the onrushing cavalry. Each and every one of the ghazis raised and nocked their bows. With an ominous and lasting thrum, they loosed.

‘Shields!’ Apion cried. Like an iron insect, the crimson shields shot up. Thwack! A handful of skutatoi fell as blood puffed into the air, but the majority of the Seljuk missiles were wayward, their flight affected by the drizzle. Another volley. Thrum. . thwack! Again, only a few Byzantines fell and still the Seljuks raced forward, now only fifty or so paces from the spear line.

‘Stand firm!’ Apion called out, seeing two weak spots in his line where men had fallen.

A komes by his side gasped; ‘But sir, our spear wall is thin and they number in their thousands. . ’ the man’s words trailed off as the ghazis stowed their bows and drew their lances and scimitars — assured of an easy kill.

‘Allahu Akbar!’ the Seljuk riders roared in a booming chorus, breaking into a full charge.

Apion’s gaze fixed on the blurred dark stripe on the gorge floor. The hooves of the first rider crossed it, then hundreds more. Soon, nearly half of the ghazi mass had crossed it and were but thirty paces from smashing into the Byzantine line.

Apion shot a hand in the air. ‘Archers. . ’

From the rear of the spear wall, the hundred archers rose, bows nocked and stretched, each of them wrapped in strips of blazing cloth — the flames fighting valiantly against the rain. ‘Loose!’ Thrum. Apion watched as the volley arced up and over the foremost Seljuks.

A heartbeat later, the thin cloud of blazing missiles dropped, punching into the stripe of viscous fluid underneath the middle of the Seljuk pack. As if a storm had been conjured, the gorge shook with a thunder that drowned out the ghazi battle cries as a broad, billowing curtain of orange fire — a lightning to the thunder — spewed upwards from the gorge floor. The wall of flame dissected the ghazi mass. It sent those to the rear flailing back, reining in their mounts. Those at the front found their charge waylaid by the terrible screams of their comrades behind them. They slowed, glancing back to see the few hundred men caught right in the roaring curtain of fire falling, man and horse ablaze. The charge, a moment ago a maw of levelled lances and scimitars, fell to pieces. Many of them swung their mounts round, seeing that they were trapped in this gorge, between the wall of flames and the nest of Byzantine spears.

The image of the dark door throbbed in Apion’s mind, flames roaring beyond it. Before him, the burning gorge was a vile reflection of that haunting image. A wall of thick, acrid, black smoke wafted across him. The siphonarioi cheered out in delight. Apion smelt the overly-familiar stench of charred flesh, gazed through the carnage and mouthed into the ether; forgive me. To whom the plea was made, he did not know.

The rallying cry of the Seljuk leader saw those trapped on the near side of the fiery wall form into a cluster again, once more ready to attempt a charge on the spear wall. At least now it would be an even fight, Apion thought. They rumbled forward, a madness in their eyes, faces twisted with rage and fear.

‘Hold!’ Apion cried, seeing the nearest lance tip trained on him. Sha and the komes either side of him pushed a little closer. He felt their heartbeats thud with his own.

‘Stay together!’ He heard big Blastares roar near the other end of the line.

With a rasp of lance and sword, a clatter of shields and the screaming of man and beast, the ghazis surged into the Byzantine spear line. Apion was driven back several feet as two lances punctured his shield. Blood showered his face as he jabbed out at his attackers with a visceral rhythm. Sparks flew as blades clashed and danced off of armour. All around him, clouds of crimson puffed in the air as steel flashed relentlessly. His spear arm juddered numbly as he scored the gut of one of these hardy steppe riders, the man’s yellow-toothed snarl widening into a cry of agony as he toppled from his saddle, trying in vain to close his breached ribcage. Apion saw his Chaldians fall around him, chests run through by Seljuk scimitars or heads crushed under the weight of enemy war hammers. The ghazis were fighting for their lives. There was no route of escape. And nor could he offer them one, he realised. If they broke to the north, then they would fall upon Sebastae. And the south was still a wall of impassable flame. Every Seljuk in this pass had to die, he affirmed numbly, jabbing and swiping with his spear at those who came at him. The Byzantine line bulged at the centre, pushed back by the weight of the mounted pack. Some ghazi riders took to leaping over the spear line, only for their mounts to be pierced in the gut. Apion felt one such animal’s entrails spatter down on his shoulder as he hefted his quivering spear arm, looking for his next foe. But there was none. Just a sea of his comrades faces, tear-streaked, blood stained and trembling. The gorge was painted crimson and carpeted with ghazi corpses. With absurd timing, the drizzle at last faded and the sun came out, bathing them all in its warmth.

‘It’s over, sir,’ Blastares panted, beside him.

He glanced over the gawping, lifeless faces of the dead. He saw them at last as men, and did not try to fight the shame that overcame him. Then, like a brand to his heart, he wondered; what if Taylan had been within this pack? Lost beyond the dark door, might he have slain his own son? No, the chances that Taylan was even part of this raid were slim, surely.

He tried as best as he could to stow the dark thought away, unclipping his mail veil and wiping the blood and grime from his face.

‘Sir, what do we do with this one?’ a voice called out.

A Seljuk rider had been found amongst the bodies, cowering, hoping not to be discovered. The skutatoi who had found him held his spathion at the man’s neck.

Apion dismounted and strode to the man. The man looked up, jutting his jaw in defiance but his eyes aflame with fear. Crows had begun to gather on the sides of the gorge, delighted at this feast of war. They cawed as Apion beheld the man.

‘At ease,’ he said in the Seljuk tongue. ‘You are one man. You will not be harmed. If your comrades had thrown down their lances and bows, they might have been spared too.’

The Seljuk’s defiance faded, then he frowned, confused.

Apion hesitated with the next words that came to his lips, but he had to ask; ‘Was there a boy rider amongst your ranks. Taylan, son of Nasir?’

None of the other soldiers paid any attention to his words, but Sha, Blastares and Procopius did, glancing over to the conversation. Only his trusted three knew what he had found in his journey deep into Seljuk lands.

‘Taylan bin Nasir?’ The man’s brow knitted. ‘He would not ride with a mere vanguard!’

Apion’s thoughts spun as the Seljuk was roped at the wrists. ‘A vanguard?’ he said, glancing round the many fallen riders they had fought.

Now the Seljuk’s eyes lit up and laughter toppled from his lips. ‘Aye, you fought well today. But you have repelled merely a fraction of the army I ride with.’

Apion’s eyes locked onto the Seljuk’s. ‘Taylan is with them?’ His gaze darted up and around the horizon. The southern skyline was still masked by the wall of flames.

The Seljuk snorted. ‘Bey Taylan leads them!’

‘Bey Taylan?’

‘Aye. He comes to ruin these Byzantine lands and claim the head of some foul border lord. . the Haga.’

Apion closed his eyes, his heart sinking. When one skutatos lifted his spathion above the prisoner and looked to Apion for permission, Apion shook his head and turned away. The curtain of flames was dying now and he could see that the ghazi riders who had been shut off behind the wall of flame had fled southeast — going by their tracks.

When he looked to the horizon, he felt the breath catch in his lungs. Sha, Blastares and Procopius picked their way through the carnage to stand beside him, gawping southwards too. The clearing noon sky ended there, instead thick with a swirling black mass. A storm cloud? He wondered. But when dark shapes swooped and darted from it, he realised it was no cloud. Carrion birds. Innumerable flocks of them gliding through the southern sky, some swooping down onto the unseen ground beyond a ridge. They looked to each other, all thinking the same thing.

Sha said it first; ‘Is that not where we were to rendezvous with Manuel Komnenos’ army?’

***

Bey Taylan sheathed his scimitar as he led his horde from the plain behind the jagged ridge and out of the shade cast by the storm cloud of crows. As they galloped south, he wiped the coppery blood from his lips, then looked to the cluster of White Falcons riding alongside him. These few had served him well today, and had set a fine example to the many thousands riding behind him.

‘Bey Taylan,’ one of his Falcons said, ‘the vanguard have not reported back yet.’

Taylan’s eyes narrowed, then he shook his head. ‘I told them to range as far and wide as they felt necessary. There is little danger to us in these lands now.’

He heard men behind chanting in his praise, and wondered what his battle name might be. Then he thought of the scroll in his purse — the paper given to him by that mysterious, dark-cloaked Byzantine rider just a week ago. It had told him all he needed to know. Where the Byzantine army would be and when. It irked him that the victory wasn’t his and his alone, and so he took out the scroll, ripped it into pieces and tossed it to the wind. Still, he thought, amongst the many he had slain today, he had not found the one he sought. The scroll had said nothing of the Haga’s whereabouts. The cur lived on.

Anger and confusion tore at him until he hefted his lance into the air and bellowed; ‘Onwards, until Byzantium is in flames!’

Behind him, his ten thousand roared in unison.

***

Apion rode south at haste with his trusted three and a handful of his Chaldian kataphractoi. In the open ground, the thick stench of death from the gorge fell away, only the gore plastered to their armour reminding them of it. But when they came to the southern ridge, the reek returned stronger than ever before. The metallic stink curled round the patchy grass here, and the foul odour of spilled guts came and went in thick waves. They could see nothing but the ridge top, and heard nothing but the now deafening cawing of the crows and vultures circling the plain beyond. One of these creatures swooped overhead, an eyeball dangling from its beak by a tendon.

In silence, they dismounted near the ridge, then crept up it until the southern plain came into view. The foremost rider took one look then clasped a hand to his mouth, failing to catch a spurt of vomit. Laments broke out from the others. Apion stared at the scene before him. The plain might this morning have been a dust bowl or a pleasant meadow, but now it was carpeted with blood and broken bodies and bathed in a mist of buzzing flies. Manuel Komnenos’ army had been shattered, utterly shattered.

Byzantine spearmen in their thousands lay peppered with arrows. One of these skutatoi was pinned by a Seljuk lance so his corpse knelt, head lolling back over his shoulders, arms dangling. His mouth was agape and his eyes gone as the crows tore at the flesh of his empty sockets. This was the grim fate of the three themata that the emperor had invested so heavily in, every one of those fresh recruits in newly crafted armour was now but a corpse. Then there were shattered piles of man and horse. Flesh and bone. This is where the tagma riders had made their last stand, it seemed. Now they lay still, men with their necks twisted at absurd angles, many with dark, blood-encrusted puncture wounds on their chests where Seljuk lances had pierced their iron klibania and ruined their bodies. The toxotai had clustered together at the last with no other troops to protect them, he realised, seeing the shattered heaps of archers near the centre of the plain. Here the butchery was extreme. The archers, devoid of armour bar the small shields some wore strapped to their arms, lay in pieces. Limbs lay scattered, far from their bodies. Heads were cleaved open like ripe fruit and some had been sliced clear of the neck. Manuel’s fine manoeuvres on the training field had brought him little providence. The Seljuk host he faced had given no quarter.

Taylan’s face crept into his thoughts again. Could his son really have carried out this atrocity? He thought of the crimson gorge, barely half a mile distant. Perhaps it runs in the blood? A cruel voice hissed in his mind.

A groan from the battlefield startled him and the others. A nearby toxotes, lying face-down, shuffled to rise up on his elbows. His back was bristling with arrows. He held a Chi-Rho amulet in his trembling grasp, and lifted it to kiss the piece. Apion picked his way through the mire to crouch before the man.

‘What happened here, soldier?’

‘We came here to make camp, but. . but they were waiting for us. . in the hills. They knew we were coming. They knew exactly where we planned to stop and make camp.’

Apion’s lips trembled in anger. In his mind’s eye he saw the shrivelled, gull-face of Psellos. You foul-hearted bastard.

‘They swept down from the hills and came at us like spirits,’ the man stopped and coughed up a lungful of black blood, his face greying. ‘They clutched arrows in their fists like the spines of a porcupine. . loosed them like demons, one every few heartbeats. They swept past the. . infantry ranks. Drew the kataphractoi from us then annihilated them on the hills. I. . I managed to loose only half my quiver before we were overrun.’

‘All of you fell?’ Apion whispered. ‘What of Manuel Komnenos?’

‘They took the kouropalates. . drove him away at the end of a whip like an ox.’

A stiff breeze searched under Apion’s armour as he ran his gaze around the edge of the field. What had become of Romanus’ trusted man?

‘Help me stand, sir. My legs are numb,’ the toxotes whimpered. ‘I want to find my brother. . he’s a toxotes too. I heard him calling out during the battle. Sounded like he was in trouble.’ The man’s voice faded to a wet hiss, and the only other sound was the wind, the buzzing of the flies and the cawing of the birds. Apion saw the arrows had pierced the soldier’s spine.

‘You sleep, soldier. I will find your brother and bring him to you.’

‘Sleep, sir? Yes. . that would be a fine thing,’ the toxotes smiled weakly.

Apion drew his dagger and reached down to nick the man’s femoral artery. The archer felt nothing, his eyelids closing as his lifeblood washed away in seconds. Better this than the hour or more it would take him to bleed to death. Apion lay the man down, clasping the archer’s fingers over his Chi-Rho.

He stood, unable to escape the awful scene no matter where he looked. His crimson cloak licked up gently as the breeze came again. The buzzing of the flies seemed to grow louder and louder, the cawing more shrill. ‘Let us make haste from this place,’ he said hoarsely. ‘A Seljuk horde roams nearby. We cannot stay in the field, we cannot face an enemy that has done this. We must fall back behind Sebastae’s walls.’

***

Diabatenus’ head spun as he stirred from the blackness of sleep to the sound of drumming rain and the incessant splash of a leak. He came to with a groan, prised open his good eye and felt a headache come on as thunder rolled across the heavens outside. A flash of lightning quickly followed, briefly illuminating his shabby room. It was early morning, he guessed. He poked his tongue through his gummed-together lips and sat up, suppressing a groan as he saw the ruddy features of the whore he had bought last night, snoring by his side. Tits that taste like honey but a face like a veteran’s shield, he smirked.

He sat up at the edge of the bed. The grim reality of his room in the slums south of the Forum of the Ox greeted him: desiccated timber floors and walls, the shutter hanging on one hinge, revealing Constantinople’s iron-grey morning outside, the leaky roof, few possessions bar a trunk of ragged clothes and his old riding helm — plumed with black and red feathers — and a collection of empty wine amphorae. Indeed, he had added two more to the collection last night — or was it three? A foul waft from the nearby fish market pervaded the room and dismissed his curiosity.

He scratched at his scalp and stretched, unsure quite why he had awoken so early on such a foul day. He picked up his helm and, as usual, he held it so he could see only the good half of his face in its reflection. His mother’s words came to him then;

So handsome! With your looks you could summon a smile to a dead woman’s face.

This memory cut through the fog of the hangover and he grinned. He eyed the fine riding helm and recalled how his looks had indeed guided him down a glorious path. He had been a good rider, no more, but his looks had given him a sturdy confidence, and he had used this to charm women and men with ease. He had worked his way into the racing stables, becoming the champion rider of one stable master while sleeping with the fellow’s wife at every given opportunity. At just twenty he had become the famous Diabatenus, Lord of the Hippodrome, swiftest rider in God’s City. He gazed into his memories, reliving the glory of his many victories: the cacophonous roar of the crowds, the adulation, the fawning of the city’s elite, the prize money that had paved his path with gold. And then his memories juddered to a halt as one image flashed before him: the scything chariot axle that had torn out his eye. He lowered the helm to his lap, the reflection now revealing the craggy shards of bone and pustule-ridden skin that remained of his ruined eye. Anger and pity fought to take hold of him.

It had broken his reputation, stolen his famous looks and snatched away his fortune. Only a fool would bet their all on one race, he had been told. And an overconfident fool he had been: his villa, his stable on Constantinople’s sixth hill, his landholdings outwith the city — all staked on that fateful contest. The worst of it was that with only one eye he could race no longer. He could ride swiftly in an open field, yes, but his career at the Hippodrome was over. Four months had passed since that day. Four months of wallowing in self-pity and soaking his mind in cheap wine.

He picked his eyepatch up from the floor and slipped it on. Purple veins shuddered from the edges of the eyepatch, but at least it disguised the full detail of his injury, he thought as he threw on a tunic and pulled on his boots. And in the new career that was due to begin today, he could get by with just one eye. The riders of the Vigla Tagma were eager to have him for his speed, if nothing else. It would provide a paltry wage in comparison with his takings as a racer, but he had little choice; work or starve.

A rat scurried across the floor in front of him as he stretched and chuckled dryly. ‘You’re welcome to this place, rodent. Like a palace to you I imag-’

Knuckles rapped on the door, cutting him off. He frowned, glancing to the snoring whore. ‘I’ve paid you, you fat dog!’ he cried, imagining the corpulent slum landlord out there. No reply. Just another rap on the door. He cocked an eyebrow. Perhaps the Vigla had sent someone to summon him early?

He opened the door and frowned. This guest was entirely unexpected.

***

Apion stood atop the battlements of Sebastae, gazing out into the dank, cool September night, wrapped in his crimson cloak with a felt cap on his head for warmth. A pan of milk, orchid root and cinnamon boiled on a brazier beside him, but a warming cup of salep would be little comfort. Regardless, he poured the bubbling mixture into a cup and supped at the sweet drink, closing his eyes, trying to think.

Two weeks had passed since the clash at the gorge. Of his nine hundred foot soldiers, three hundred and sixty had died. Of his fifty precious kataphractoi riders, thirteen had fallen. To a man, those who survived were scarred, tired and afraid. They had come to little harm inside the city walls, but they had heard the rumours spread by those outlying Byzantine farmers and herders who had fled into the city in that time. Rumours of the Seljuk horde — ten thousand strong — rampaging around Sebastae unchecked, burning crops and slaying villagers, with no Byzantine force left strong enough to face them. Mustering an army to counter them would take months, and so the pillage went on unbridled.

And the rumours had darkened; some said the riders had roved on to the neighbouring themata, sacking and looting with ease. Word spread that they had even pillaged as far west as the city of Chonai, putting the populace to the sword. Tales had been whispered that the young bey leading them had desecrated the shrine of St Michael within Chonai’s walls, using the building as a stable for his best horses. Now the towns of Chaldia and even its capital, Trebizond, were at risk of such a fate. Indeed, Apion had heard his Chaldians pray at night for their loved ones, near-defenceless while his beleaguered force was holed up here. He turned to look down into the city. There, standing around another brazier at the centre of an old, oval forum, were his trusted three.

Big Blastares had been uncharacteristically quiet in these last few weeks — no doubt wracked with worry about his new bride, Tetradia, back in Trebizond. The big man’s emotions normally ranged from drunk to furious with little in between, and Apion had rarely before seen this battlefield lion so perturbed. Sha stood beside the big man, bending and twisting a sprig of thyme with his fingers, his thoughts faraway and surely on his farm and the freed woman with whom he had found love. Then there was Procopius. The old artillery expert looked gaunt and hollow. Time really had taken its toll on him, but this last fortnight seemed to have etched an extra few years onto his well-lined features. The old soldier had nobody to fret for but his troubled brothers in these very ranks.

Apion let his head loll. Shame crept over him. Shame that his actions, his choices, had brought this about. Taylan had grown into a white-hot coal of hatred because of him. Maria was a widow because of him. Then a fiercer, talon-sharp shame raked down the centre of his heart — shame that he was impotent to do anything to prevent Taylan’s marauding horde. The mighty Haga, legend of the borderlands — powerless. He ran a finger over the red-ink stigma of the mythical two-headed eagle, shaking his head in disgust. No ruse, no ploy, no subterfuge came to the surface.

Perhaps you could stop him? Offer him your head? A sibilant thought taunted him.

The scuffing of boots shook him from his malaise. He looked up to see Sha ascending the stone staircase. He stood with Apion wordlessly for some time, just gazing out into the night and the countryside of Sebastae, his dark skin glistening in the moonlight.

‘This night,’ he said at last. ‘It seems to be darker and colder than most.’

‘It may be the first of many, Sha,’ Apion replied. He thought of the Imperial Palace back in Constantinople. After the failed campaign of last year, and now this — an outright defeat — Romanus Diogenes’ place on the imperial throne would doubtless come under the gaze of covetous eyes once more. Psellos and his Doukas puppets would be rubbing their hands in glee. On their first day in this city, he had despatched a trio of swift riders for Constantinople to alert Romanus of Manuel Komnenos’ defeat — and of his suspicion that treachery lay behind the defeat. The dying archer’s words came to him again.

They knew we were coming. They knew exactly where we planned to stop and make camp.

He just hoped that knowledge would be of some use to Romanus in the dark days that would surely come. ‘We can only stay vigilant. Trust in the emperor.’

Just then, a commotion near the city’s southern gate roused him. He and Sha craned over the battlements and looked down while the city garrison archers stretched their bows. There were just three men out there. Two wore the gold tunics of the Vigla Tagma, but torn and filthy. Neither wore boots or armour. Apion recognised the other man. Tall and lean, but stooped, his long, dark locks clumped together with filth and gore. ‘Manuel?’ Then he shouted to the archers and the men at the gate. ‘Let them in.’

He and Sha hurried down to the gatehouse, Blastares and Procopius joining them as Manuel staggered in. His face was bruised and cut. One eye was swollen and his hooked nose was badly broken.

‘Kouropalates?’

‘They let me go,’ he rasped, his lungs wet with some internal bleeding.

‘They are near?’ Apion shot his gaze this way and that out into the darkness of night as the gates were hurriedly closed again.

‘No, they are gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Back to Seljuk lands.’

Apion frowned. While some of the troops nearby took to cheering this news and crying out in prayer, knowing their homes were now safe, Apion felt a creeping sense of doubt. ‘Why?’

‘Because they have completed their mission. Bey Taylan released me purely so I could spread the word.’

‘Word? Of what?’

Manuel’s bronze skin seemed to drain of colour at that moment. ‘Strategos, you must prepare a messenger immediately. The emperor must be informed. We fought Taylan’s horde, thinking they were the sultan’s main initiative for this year. But they were merely a diversion. While we paid them our full attention, something terrible has happened elsewhere.’

Manuel’s next words turned Apion’s blood to ice.

***

The late September nights brought with them a chill squall that swept across Constantinople and saw the populace deserting the streets early each night, or wrapping up well in woollen robes and cloaks. The rooftops of the Imperial Palace felt the full wrath of these gales, the winds howling around the domes and balconies there.

Inside his planning room near the top of the palace, Romanus sat on a padded chair with his back to the crackling log fire, studying a scroll again and again, one hand balled into a fist and pressed to his lips. This message had come in from the west, all the way from Italy.

. . and so our ancient city of Barion has fallen, and with it, the heel of Italy has slipped from imperial control and into the hands of Guiscard and his Normans. The imperial garrison were executed, the outlying armies were scattered, and those that I have gathered together are ill-equipped to. .

The letter rambled on with a tale of woe he had become all too familiar with. The gale outside screamed like a mocking laughter, the shutters rattling like an absurd applause.

‘Barion’s fate cannot be laid at your feet,’ Eudokia said.

He looked up to the darkened corner of the room where she sat, nursing their baby boy, Nikephoros.

‘Defeat wanders like an orphaned wraith until it can cling to a man and call him its father. I am that man. Every dent in imperial fortune will be laid at my feet,’ he replied. ‘The Doukid acolytes will laud this; Barion, the loss of the great slave-trading capital of the empire to the Normans. Just as they heralded the news about the slaughter of Manuel Komnenos’ army. Just as they cheered the sack of Chonai. The people are restless. They have gone two years with nothing other than frugal urban spending and tales of defeat or stalemate for the armies that have soaked up their monies.’

He cast his mind back to the recent races. They had staved off the growing threats of riots in the capital. But the money was gone and now the populace were sullen and seditious once more. He had sold all but his armour, a few horses and a small, modest villa in his native Cappadocia to fund those few days of entertainment in the Hippodrome and to equip the themata marching with Manuel Komnenos. They had been furnished with soft leather boots, fine iron klibania, fresh shields, sharp weapons and expertly woven banners. All now — according to the scroll delivered to him from Apion — lying tangled, torn and ruined with the corpses of that slaughtered army. All that remained of that force was the few thousand Komnenos had despatched to the south, to relieve the siege of Hierapolis, before the disaster at Sebastae. His thoughts turned to Apion’s suggestion that the ruination of Manuel Komnenos’ army had been a result of subterfuge. His lips grew taut, his fists balled like rocks. Then he fell limp with a sigh, his head shaking. ‘Soon they will begin to listen to Psellos and the Doukids. Soon they too will loathe me utterly.’

‘And so you choose to wallow in this darkest hour?’ Eudokia replied calmly.

Romanus looked up, confused by her blunt words.

She held his gaze, her eyes sparkling. ‘I never told you why I chose to wed you, did I, when it would have been so easy for me to accept my late husband’s demand that I remain a widow?’

Romanus frowned, shaking his head slowly, unsure he wanted to know her reasoning.

‘Because amongst the many ranting, black-tongued and venal snakes that moved in noble circles, there was one who was different. One I knew who spoke with his actions and took little pleasure in wealth.’ She stared at him, unblinking. ‘You of all people can change the empire’s fortunes. One swift and decisive move can wash away the doubt, turn the despair into hope.’

He looked to her, smiling despite his troubles. Their son had brought them together in a way he never thought possible. Where once there was only cold convenience, there was now a warmth, a true bond. But damn, she is still a shrewd one, he mused.

‘The Strategos of Chaldia and others like him will never desert you. Take strength in their faith,’ she continued. ‘And know that they will take strength from you. It has been so before and it can be so again.’

Her words stirred a tingle of hope in his heart. He rose from his chair to approach her, to hold her, when footsteps rattled from the staircase outside the door.

‘Basileus!’ Igor panted, his face glowing red from exertion.

‘Komes?’ Romanus cocked an eyebrow.

‘Manuel Komnenos lives. . but he sends grave news,’ the white-armoured varangoi leader gasped. ‘The sultan has seized the fortresses.’

Romanus shot Eudokia a confused frown which she reflected with one of her own. ‘What, where?’

Igor’s face lengthened. ‘While our armies were troubled at Sebastae and Hierapolis, Alp Arslan has swooped to seize Manzikert. The sister fortresses of Lake Van are united under his rule. The Gateway to Anatolia is in his hands.’

Romanus’ mouth dried in a heartbeat. A prelude to an invasion. If the dark hearts within the palace did not bring him to his knees then the sultan surely would.

He looked to Eudokia again. A swift and decisive move?

Now he had no choice.