Island in the Storm

12. The Lion’s Fury

The Seljuk artillery groaned and creaked. The Byzantine garrison on Edessa’s battlements gawped. The searing hot midsummer day was silent for but a moment. Then the artillery commander threw a hand forward like a catapult arm. ‘Loose!’ he roared, a thick spray of spittle clouding before his lips.

At once, the air was filled with the thwacking of ropes, the bucking of vast timber war machines — nearly thirty onagers and six trebuchets, lined on the crest of the war-scarred hills nearest the city’s southern walls — and the whistle of colossal rocks hurtling through the ether. With a crash that shook sky and earth, the rocks battered the city walls. Thick clouds of dust puffed into the air as sections of the battlements were gouged away where the rocks struck. Skutatoi were crushed on the walkway or punched like insects into the city streets below, leaving just a crimson stain where they had stood. The foundations shuddered where the rocks landed lower down, cracks snaking from the point of impact. But it had been this way for twenty three days now. And still the beetling and ancient bulwark remained tenaciously unbreached.

Watching from behind the artillery lines, Alp Arslan calmed his panicked mount. As the beast stilled, he felt his blood pound like thunder in his ears. He had woken that morning, annoyed by the rich red wine he had consumed in an effort to bring on sleep, needled by the knowledge that Edessa, this thorn of a city, awaited his attentions for yet another day. The city, garrisoned only by some three hundred Byzantine spearmen, had withstood all his artillerymen could throw at it. The Byzantine ballistae mounted on the high towers had been broken almost every day by the longer-ranged Seljuk trebuchets, only to be repaired at night. The sapping tunnels he had ordered to be dug had been countermined and destroyed, killing hundreds of diggers in the process. The horde of some fifteen hundred akhi spearmen he had assembled to storm the city had sat and watched, idle, their spears untarnished. As the days had worn on, he had even taken to leaving his battle armour, helm and weapons in his tent, so sure was he that each day would pass without a conclusion to the siege. This had been planned as a swift siege, the first of many, breaking the easternmost of Byzantium’s cities in order to prize open their southern borders just as he had gained a foothold in the Lake Van region. But then the cursed Fatimid boil had risen once again. Cities all across Syria had turned upon their Seljuk garrisons and declared themselves under the protection of the Fatimid Caliphate — Aleppo the biggest loss of all. All his progress from recent years was close to crumbling, and his rivals watched on with glee.

As the artillery stretched once more, the sultan pinched the top of his nose and bowed his head. For a blessed moment, he was spirited from the chaos all around him. He thought back to February, just a few months ago. Before turning his attentions on Edessa, he had sought first to assimilate or conquer the defiant Marwanids, one of the rebellious factions holding out against him in the city of Amida. They held out for four days. When the gates were smashed open, his armies sped to pour inside, eager to sack the homes and temples and put the populace to the sword. But he had ridden to their head and halted them with a raised hand.

His men had looked at him in disbelief, but he had defied any of them to challenge his order. ‘Today is not a day for slaughter,’ he had told them, thinking of his son, born that morning, ‘today, the battle is won. It ends here.’

And he had ordered just a handful of his finest beys to ride inside and negotiate a surrender. Then he had twisted in his saddle and looked up to the battlements of the city. The Marwanid prince stood there, smoke-stained and beleaguered. Alp Arslan simply raised a hand, then passed the palm over his face, showing his desire for a peaceable end to the day. And so Amida had fallen into the Seljuk dominion, swiftly and with minimal bloodshed. He gazed at his palm — the same one that had halted his army and granted mercy on all those citizens.

A scream rang out, tearing him from his reverie. He looked up to see that the latest bombardment of Edessa had brought down another section of the battlements. A Byzantine soldier was responsible for the screaming, his legs and pelvis crushed by a rock, the rest of him propped there in a dark pool of blood, arms thrashing.

Just then, hands barged him from his horse. He landed on the ground just before a Byzantine ballista bolt plunged into his horse’s throat. The beast reared up and collapsed, thrashing in a pink froth. The unseen hands dragged the sultan back.

‘They have done something to increase the range of their weapons,’ Bey Taylan said, his sparkling green eyes shaded under the rim of his helm, ‘we must draw the lines back. Kilic, the other who had pushed him from the path of the bolt, helped him to his feet.

Alp Arslan cursed himself for being so negligent, so certain of dogged but eventual victory, that he missed this. Seljuk war horns blared all along the noose of men encircling the city, and the lines drew back. As he buckled on a coat of leather armour handed to him by Kilic, he noticed a lone rider emerging from the city gates. Another on foot slapped the horse’s rump and sent it galloping towards him. The rider was unarmed, his tunic sweat-slicked and his dark face dominated by his wide eyes and dark moustache. A Seljuk prisoner of war, Alp Arslan realised as he came closer, seeing his wrists were roped together. ‘Speak,’ he said flatly as akhi spearmen helped the man from the saddle and cut his bonds.

The man gulped and bowed. ‘My Sultan. The Byzantines send you this,’ the man rose gingerly and reached for an amphora tied to his saddle. ‘Iced water. They said the River Scirtus’ waters are pleasant at this time of year and that there is plenty to go around.’ And then he produced a parcel of salted meat and bread. ‘And their storehouses are. . bountiful.’

‘So they can hold out for weeks, months?’ Alp Arslan shrugged. ‘I can wait just as long to see their wells run dry and their food spoil,’ he lied. He traced the snaking silver course of the River Scirtus across the land, cursing it for entering the walls of the city under a ferociously protected culvert and lending the defenders such an advantage. While his men could also drink until their hearts were content downstream from the city, food was much less abundant. He saw the two akhi who bookended the wretched rider. These, his finest spearmen, looked like beggars, their cheeks gaunt and their eyes black-ringed. The Edessan garrison had done well to burn the farms and orchards of the countryside in advance of his arrival. He sighed, squinting into the sun, then glancing around for inspiration. He looked over his shoulder to the line of Byzantine soldiers roped together there, kneeling. ‘I could send one of them into the city to tell the proud Byzantines that their hubris will be their downfall. I’d wager that they in fact have very little food left. Did you see these full storehouses?’

‘No, I. . ’ the man stammered.

‘Then you have been blinded by their words.’

Another day passed, and the bombardment continued. The walls of Edessa began to resemble a haggard cliff-face — scarred and pitted, jutting from the green-gold land. But they would not fall. Alp Arslan came once more to the ridge across from the city’s southern wall.

‘They will break today, I can feel it,’ the Sultan muttered.

‘They seek parley, it seems?’ Bey Taylan said, again by his side, pointing to the wagon that came from the gates.

The driver was an aged, bald man. A Byzantine this time.

Alp Arslan sat taller in his saddle. ‘Their stores are empty at last!’ he hissed.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Look at the driver’s skin — pallid and sickly.’ Just like so many of your own men, a voice hissed in his mind. ‘Let us hear what he has to say.’

The man slid from his horse and croaked; ‘The Doux of Edessa will turn the city over to you, Sultan. He asks only one thing: that you end the bombardment and put your siege engines to the torch.’

‘Never!’ Taylan spat.

‘Silence, young Bey!’ Alp Arslan snapped, cowing the snarling Taylan.

‘It is a trick!’ Taylan insisted.

‘Silence!’ the sultan repeated.

‘It is no trick,’ the bald man pleaded. ‘We are running short of food and so are you. Let our people leave the city without the threat of being dashed on open ground by your stone-throwers. Please, destroy your artillery and we will leave. As a token of our good faith, here is all we have in the city treasury.’ He swept the canvas from the back of the wagon to reveal twelve barrels brimming with gold and silver coins. ‘Fifty thousand pieces.’

‘They are dinars and dirhams, Sultan. Coin collected — no, stolen — from our people at some point,’ Taylan insisted, squinting at the bounty.

Alp Arslan shot him another glare of reprimand. ‘Gold is gold and silver is silver. It exists to compel men and stoke their greed. It was doubtless once Byzantine coinage and before that Persian or Roman.’ He turned back to the wagon driver. ‘If this is some ploy, Byzantine, I will have your head,’ he growled.

The man nodded, holding the sultan’s gaze earnestly. ‘I understand.’

Alp Arslan gazed upon the gold and silver. Should they renege on their word, he thought, this coin will allow me to hire a mercenary army that I can leave behind to finish the siege. Once more he remembered the good faith with which the siege of Amida had ended. He heard the first cries of his son again. A warmth touched his heart. But let there be no treachery, let this be the last day of this dogged standoff. He turned to his artillery lines. ‘Burn the siege engines.’

The engineers protested at first, but their commanders soon noticed the fire in their sultan’s eyes and put their men to the task. Within the hour, the siege lines were ablaze, thick coils of black smoke staining the sky and the flames bending and distorting the air. A cluster of akhi spearmen laid down their weapons and shields to lift the barrels of coins from the Byzantine wagon onto one of the sultan’s. They strained and puffed at each barrel’s great weight, then, when they came to the last one, one man stumbled and fell. The barrel tumbled with him. The gold and silver coins spilled across the sand before Taylan and Alp Arslan — but not a barrelful. . just a smattering. Below the rim, the barrel was filled only with wet sand.

Alp Arslan’s skin prickled. The stench of his blazing war machines taunted him, and he felt the gaze of all nearby who had witnessed the ruse. He swung to the Byzantine wagon driver. ‘You deceived me.’

The man clasped his hands together and knelt. ‘I did what I had to in order to protect my people. God’s people. There is enough food left in the city to last a few more days. Your men cannot hang on that long, we know this. So my people will not be leaving the city. You will, however, abandon these lands in search of forage. The siege is over. The city remains in imperial hands.’ With that, he bowed his head and muttered in prayer.

Alp Arslan’s chest rose and fell faster and faster with every heartbeat. He looked to Kilic, his battle-scarred bodyguard, standing just a few feet behind the kneeling man. One word to the giant killer and the treacherous Byzantine’s throat could be opened to his spine. Alp Arslan’s mind spun with the possibilities. A quick death? Maybe slow, wicked torture? Or acceptance, acceptance that he had been outsmarted. This last possibility irked him most of all. He turned to Kilic and Taylan.

‘Do with him what you will, then ready the army. We must depart for the south at once. There is fodder and game to be had there. Then we will turn our attentions upon rebellious Aleppo.’

He stalked away. Behind him, he heard a scimitar being unsheathed, then the thick, familiar hiss of slicing skin and bone and the thud of a severed head hitting the dust.

***

A week later, the sultan and his army came to Aleppo. The tall, sun-bleached walls of this desert city shimmered, the battlements packed with jeering Fatimid troops. The sultan’s head pounded. His nostrils and throat were parched and coated in dust, and his mind was thick with the fog of the copious volumes of red wine he had consumed in these last nights. He looked along his armies. They were well fed and watered now, but without the means to breach Aleppo’s towering walls. He looked to the pair of trebuchets his engineers had cobbled together in an effort to replace the burnt artillery — flimsy, weak-looking devices. They bucked and spat forth rocks no bigger than a man’s head. These rocks sailed through the swirling desert air and smacked into Aleppo’s gatehouse. A puff of white dust. Barely any damage to the walls. A moment of silence. Then more haughty cheering from the garrisoned Fatimids.

The beys nearby began chattering anxiously, offering him advice, each sure they were correct in their words. Alp Arslan was focused on something else entirely though; on the tallest of the city’s gate towers, a handful of Fatimid soldiers were scurrying to and fro, drawing some vast, black cloth with them. They then draped the cloth like a veil over the tower top as if to shade it from the blistering sun and hush the intermittent din of the siege. The laughter that followed echoed from the city and washed out across the Seljuk siege line.

‘What is this?’ he spat.

‘I believe they are trying to goad us, Sultan,’ Taylan growled. He was the only one who had refrained from offering jabbering advice.

‘Goad us?’ he said.

Taylan nodded to one of the enemy soldiers up there, clasping his hands to his head and pretending to swoon, bringing more laughter from the others with him. ‘They mean to tell us that our siege engines have served only to give their towers a headache.’

Alp Arslan snatched his wine skin from his nearby mare, uncorking it and lifting it, eager to drink hungrily.

‘We must hew more timber to fashion proper stone-throwers!’ Bey Gulten yapped, barging in between Alp Arslan and Taylan.

‘Send the ladders forward!’ another shrieked.

The sultan paused, the skin at his lips. Then he threw it down, the wine spilling into the sand. ‘There is no timber in these parts, you oaf!’ he roared at Bey Gulten. ‘And you, feel free to take the ladders forward!’ he bellowed at the other. ‘When you reach the top and find they are five feet short of the wall tops, then perhaps you can ask the Fatimid garrison for a helping hand onto the battlements?’

Both beys dropped their gaze from Alp Arslan. Bey Gulten did snatch a swift and fiery glare at Bey Taylan, by his side.

‘This siege has failed. This year of campaigning was supposed to deliver Syria to me. Instead, my reward is humiliation,’ the sultan snarled. He drew his gaze around each of the men there. How many here were truly with him? How many were as eager to see him fail as his rival, Yusuf, the dog who had tried to assassinate him?

He felt all semblance of self-control crumbling at that moment, his head thundering and his chest rising and falling in ire.

***

In a niche upon a craggy hilltop east of Aleppo, Diabatenus crouched on one knee, adjusting his eyepatch as he surveyed the scene below. He could see the Seljuk siege lines wrapped around the city like a noose and he had watched the bold move to ire the sultan with the black veil. A weighty move that played with the lives of the citizens, he mused, then weighed the scroll he held. With this one sheaf of paper, he too might save many thousands of lives. To trade cities rather than blows with the sultan was a noble aspiration. He glanced to the dying embers of the small fire he had kindled to cook his midday meal of thick porridge and let his mind wander.

The emperor had asked for the fastest rider amongst the ranks of the army to carry this scroll to the sultan. From the Scholae, the Vigla, the Stratelatai and the Hikanatoi, one name had echoed: Diabatenus, Champion of the Races! He smiled, thinking how times had changed since that thundery, grim morning in his slum-hovel back in the capital. It seemed that fortune had befallen him once again.

Then he heard hooves rounding the hilltop. A lone Seljuk scout was racing downhill for the sultan’s siege camp, unaware of Diabatenus’ presence in this nook. Diabatenus looked to the rider, then to the scroll once more, weighing it again. ‘Such a shame,’ he smiled as he pressed it into the embers of the fire. He didn’t wait to see it blacken and burn, instead he stood tall and hailed the rider.

The Seljuk scout swung his mount round and drew his sword. ‘Byzantine?’ he snapped, his eyes flicking this way and that, wary of more enemy soldiers.

Diabatenus held up his hands. ‘At ease, I am alone!’ he pleaded as the rider ranged around him, sword levelled. ‘I come only to pass on a message to your sultan.’

The rider eyed him in suspicion.

Diabatenus noticed the rider’s tatty garb and the poor welding of his blade. ‘A message that he would be glad to hear. I’m sure he would reward you well for it.’

The rider flicked his head up briskly. ‘Very well. What?’

‘The Emperor of Byzantium is on the move. Right now he marches east. . and he means to take the Lake Van fortresses. He plans to slay the Seljuk garrison there to a man, and then to march down the upper Euphrates valley, striking directly into the heart of your realm. His goal is to seize your capitals and lay waste to your lands. He spoke at length of it. He regaled his men with promises that they would soon be dining in the halls of Tus and Isfahan, their boots wet with Seljuk blood and their seed in as many of your women as they wished.’

The Seljuk rider’s eyes widened. ‘You bring this news to us. . why?’ he snarled

Diabatenus grinned. ‘Because I will be rewarded for it also,’ he said, plucking a pure gold nomisma from his purse, flicking it up and catching it mid-air. He thought back to that grim day when he had joined the Vigla for a paltry rider’s wage. Then he recalled the rap on the hovel door one morning that had changed everything. While all others had forgotten him, Michael Psellos, advisor to the imperial throne, had not.

The rider galloped on down to the camp and he settled to watch. From here he could make out the area where the sultan sat with his courtiers — at a row of chairs near the north of the camp by a grand yurt. The sultan seemed to be gulping down vast quantities of wine.

The Seljuk rider dismounted before Alp Arslan, and there was a hiatus as he bowed and relayed the message. Alp Arslan seemed cast in stone for some time afterwards as the rider backed away, his step faltering. Then, like a demon awakened, the sultan stood, hurled his vase of wine to the ground and bellowed a primal cry into the ether.

***

Taylan slid off his mail vest and unbuckled his swordbelt, handing them to his attendant. He crouched and frowned, examining the cracks in his mare’s hooves, then stood tall to stroke her mane. ‘Many months of war take their toll on us all, do they not?’ he whispered to her. All around him, the men of the akhi force sat slumped, gratefully devouring their bread and cheese rations. Felt and mail vests had been cast aside and spears and shields lay in piles. War was the last thing on the minds of these men. Taylan’s thoughts too turned to his growling belly, his eyes flicking to the large terracotta urn of yoghurt and the small pot of dates laid out for him on a blanket nearby. He sat to eat, resting his back on a sun-bleached rock. The sweet, sticky fruit and the cooling yoghurt felt like an elixir to his tired flesh.

His comfort faded when he saw in his mind’s eye the scarred, pale face of the cur who had sired him. The Haga, the poison-filled boil yet to be lanced. Anger licked at the sides of his heart.

He clasped his hands to his temples and thought then of Mother. Thinking of her brought a cooling calm to his mind. He vowed to visit her as soon as the sultan disbanded this army. It had been some months since last he set eyes upon her pale and emaciated form. He prayed he would be able to return to her soon, before. .

The crunching of boots and a sudden flurry of murmurs snapped him from his thoughts.

The sultan strode towards him, eyes ablaze, his long dark locks flowing and his flowing moustache tied back, the ends knotted at the nape of his neck. A sure sign that the Mountain Lion was readying to ride once again.

‘Sultan?’ Taylan cocked an eyebrow.

‘Pick up your armour, Bey. Ready your mount.’

‘We are to ride?’ Taylan asked, seeing the sultan’s eyes drift to the northern horizon.

‘Aye, we are to ride,’ Alp Arslan replied. ‘Byzantium’s armies have marched east and must be tamed.’

***

‘You had best be getting back to your bed, Lady Maria, the sun is weakening,’ the physician said.

Maria clasped the sun-warmed marble balcony edge at the top of the tiled hospital roof, closed her eyes and inhaled again as the zephyrs licked at her greying locks. ‘And when it drops, the stars will be revealed. Why would I hide from such beauty?’

The physician shuffled awkwardly. ‘We have talked of this before. You must not stay on your feet for too long. You are not strong enough. You may only have days — ’

‘My limbs may be weak, but my heart is strong,’ she cut him off. ‘Give me more time. And take that foul paste you call medicine with you.’

‘Very well,’ the physician sighed, surreptitiously placing the clay bowl of chalky paste he carried down nearby. Maria noticed this, but felt too weak to argue. ‘But I will be back before twilight,’ the physician added as he turned and descended the stairs into the hospital building.

Alone at last, she savoured everything around her. The sprawl of tiled palaces, mosques and the timber slums filling Mosul’s walls. The dull orange light bathing the dusty plain beyond. The hazy sky, stained with streaks of purple. The sweet scent of cinnamon from some nearby kitchen. The gentle babble and laughter of unseen families. The soothing mix of the day’s heat and the coming night’s chill, dancing on her skin. Each and every detail beautiful to her. She felt at peace, without pain. Then a dull ache in her abdomen called her back to reality. She touched a hand to the hard, jutting growth there — almost the size of a melon. The ache became a lancing pain. She winced, clutching at it now, staggering back from the edge of the rooftop, her robes suddenly awash with a tide of cold sweat. She stifled a scream of agony, sure that the physician would hear and take her back to the lonely ward and never let her leave again. But the pain came on again like a dagger, driving into her core. She opened her mouth to scream out, but the noise was drowned out by a screeching eagle passing overhead. At the same time, a deep, healing warmth touched her, dissipating the pain like a morning mist.

She blinked, realising she was prone on the rooftop. And she was not alone. The old crone who was with her held a warm hand over her growth. ‘You?’ she stammered, recognising the withered, hunched old woman. The milky, sightless eyes were unforgettable. She had come to her in the moments after she had learned of Nasir’s death.

‘I comforted you then and have come to do so again.’

She helped Maria to her feet.

‘You refuse your medicine?’ the crone inquired, nodding to the untouched bowl of paste.

Maria almost smiled. ‘The last time I was up here, I watched a crow with a broken wing. It stood just paces from the fouling corpse of a hamster. It could have eaten and prolonged its suffering. It chose not to.’ Her eyes drifted to two small piles of bones on the far side of the roof.

‘Then you may not thank me,’ the crone said, backing away and lifting her warm hand from the growth.

Maria frowned and touched it. A wave of disbelief washed over her — the growth was half the size it had been moments ago, and she was sure she could feel it shrinking further. ‘It’s different. Smaller. What did you do?’ she said, her eyes brightening with hope.

‘Ah, not enough. Never enough,’ she waved a hand dismissively. ‘I merely staved off the inevitable, gave you a handful more sunsets like this. It seems I am not as wise as the crow.’

‘But you did not come just to soothe my cancer, did you?’ Maria realised.

The crone’s face sagged, the deep furrows of time magnifying. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘I came to tell you that they will meet. Of that there remains no doubt.’

Maria frowned, then she understood. ‘No,’ she shook her head in denial. ‘Apion and Taylan? They cannot. Taylan will not rest until he spills Apion’s blood. Yet he is but a boy, blinded to his own weaknesses. If he faces his father then. . ’ she broke down in a chorus of sobbing.

The crone cupped an arm around her shoulders. ‘But then, if he did not face his father, imagine what he might become. Remember what happened to Nasir? A spark of hatred left unchecked can become an inferno given time.’

Maria clasped her hands to her heart, following the crone’s sightless gaze, off to the distant north. ‘What will become of them?’

The crone shook her head in resignation. ‘Fate sharpens his blades and grins at his own reflection. The hearts of men are all that stand against him now, Maria.’