Island in the Storm

13. Field of Bones

The column marched on into the Sebastae Thema. The mid-July heat was intense, and this dry and dusty land offered little respite as they trudged through the endless valleys to the cicada song, the taste of dust and the absence of moisture on the tongue.

Apion tucked his sweat-slicked hair back onto the nape of his neck and shuffled to adjust his equally sodden tunic. Relieved of his task of monitoring the rearguard of the magnate armies, he now led his handful of Chaldian riders at the head of the column alongside the tagmata cavalry. And the emperor was always in sight — something that gave him great comfort, especially as the Golden Heart was at all times surrounded by a thick ring of varangoi riders, Igor leading them, eyes vigilant. Even his retinue of Philaretos, Alyates, Tarchianotes and Bryennios were not allowed to ride within this protective circle of Rus riders.

Only the Varangoi and the vanguard, some half a mile out in front, wore armour in this heat — much to Igor’s annoyance. Apion and all the others carried just their spears, shields and swords — all helms and armour stowed on the lumbering touldon of mules and wagons. He glanced back over his shoulder, over the winding body of the serpent. The heat haze offered up a shimmering sea of faces, bobbing helms, spears and banners, and melted into the horizon many miles short of where the rearguard would be riding.

For the next few weeks, the march through Byzantine lands continued without incident. They moved at the planned ten miles per day, drinking vast quantities of water as they went. This water came from natural springs, wells and imperial supply dumps marked out on the emperor’s route map.

One morning, they went some three hours without a stop. But when the route took them past the banks of a small freshwater lake, the purple imperial banner was at last raised for a halt, and sighs of relief rang out. ‘Fill your skins, slake your thirst!’ A cry rang out from the signophoroi wielding the banner and was echoed back down the miles of the column.

Apion slid from his saddle with a groan, waving the Chaldian ranks from their marching positions, over to the lake’s shores. He looked west along the lake’s banks. The rest of the column hugged the shore for miles like a great herd. He watched as the men enjoyed the chance to quench their thirsts fully and splash themselves with the cool water. Some filled their skins and then emptied them into the collars of their tunics to soothe their tired bodies. Apion waited his turn to fill his water skin. He had seen countless barrels of water drained in the space of an hour on previous campaigns, with ten or twenty thousand men, but these forty thousand men and nearly twenty five thousand mules and horses drank so much that he was sure the waterline of the lake visibly dropped as he waited his turn.

‘Half a pint of water per hour for every man?’ Sha croaked, draining his own water skin by the lake’s shores and filling it again. ‘This lake will be a puddle by the time we’re done.’

Apion nodded as he saw a space and stooped to fill his skin. ‘That’s at a minimum too — a pint per hour when we leave imperial lands and have to march in armour.’

‘Pah!’ Procopius snorted, throwing water across his wrinkled face then blinking it away. ‘Onagers and trebuchets need no water!’

‘Aye, but the poor mules pulling the carts they are laden on do!’ Apion laughed.

Procopius shrugged, then looked over his shoulder and grinned. ‘Talking of mules. . ’

Apion and Sha looked to see Blastares, hobbling to the lakeside. The big man had the look of a shaved mongrel that had accidentally bitten into a lemon, his shorn scalp and skin glistening with sweat and his eyes like slits. ‘This is brutal, sir. Every year, I swear that it will be my last campaign,’ he grumbled as he crouched stiffly to dip his water skin into the lake. ‘That I’ll buy up a good farm and settle down with Tetradia. Get fat, get old, I tell myself. Though not as old as this one,’ he jabbed a thumb at Procopius and roared at his own joke. His laughter faded as Procopius’ face wrinkled in a scowl of indignation. Then the old tourmarches’ face bent into a mischievous scowl, and he started prising his boots off.

Blastares continued; ‘But every year I find myself at it again, cooking in the midday sun, wandering through the dust, breathing the scent of stale tunics and sweaty arses.’

‘It could be worse. You could be marching with the infantry, Tourmarches,’ Apion pointed out.

Blastares’ face puckered just a little more. ‘Seems like a distant memory — no, a nightmare! Still, riding is hard work. March and get blistered feet. Ride and suffer sore balls and a raw backside.’

Apion chuckled. ‘Anyway, to ride in just tunics and boots is luxury. Soon we’ll be in borderland territory. Then we’ll have to ride in full armour, our bodies cooking and our brains baking inside our helms.’

‘Thanks for the encouragement, sir,’ Blastares grunted sarcastically. The big man gulped his skin of water dry, then made to fill it once again. But he halted, glancing to his side. ‘What the? You filthy old bugger!’

Procopius looked up with an air of innocence, pausing only momentarily from lancing the next of the blisters on his gnarled, dirt and sweat-coated feet with his dagger, only inches away from the water Blastares had been drinking from. He flexed his toes a few times, prodding at one angry-looking blood blister. ‘Ah, this one’ll have to go as well. What’s wrong? Not thirsty?’

Sha stifled his laughter as best he could as Blastares stomped away to find another drinking spot.

Apion cocked an eyebrow and patted Procopius’ shoulder. ‘What need for artillery, old horse, when your feet can send a soldier like Blastares running?’

It was in the third week of July when they came to an area that Apion recognized, but he couldn’t quite place it. ‘Tell me,’ he said absently to Sha, riding by his side, ‘we are in the eastern reaches of Sebastae. The sun might be playing tricks on my eyes, but is this —?’

‘I fear it is,’ The Malian sighed, then pointed to the heat haze before them. ‘See the ripples in the land up ahead? That is the route to the gorge, I am sure of it.’

Apion’s blood chilled. Memories of the gorge and the wall of fire from the previous year were but an echo. Worse, that meant that somewhere near here was the grim flatland where Manuel’s army had been massacred. He tried to blank out the thought.

‘That field will have long since been cleared and planted with crop,’ Sha said, his thoughts attuned to Apion’s, his lips taut. ‘The garrison of Sebastae will have come from their walls to tend to the dead. . surely.’ The doubt in his tone battled with the words. Apion knew as well as he did that the garrisons of these eastern cities were thinner than ever, and were not prone to wandering the countryside in such scant numbers.

When they rode up and over a gentle range of hills. A series of laments rang out. All heads twisted to the right. There, just a stone’s throw to the south, lay a terrible sight. The field of the massacred, untouched since the previous year. Bones, stripped of every last morsel of flesh, bleached pure-white by the sun. The bloody, staring eyes of that day were now empty, gaping sockets, sprigs of rye grass sprouting through rib cages, trembling in the delicate breeze. The mouths locked in death cries were now lolling white jawbones. The vicious flesh wounds were absent — now just brutal scores and holes in the skulls and limbs, some with semi-rotted arrow shafts still lodged where they had struck. Rusted spathions, faded shields and crumbling fragments of armour speckled this grim sight.

Up ahead, the imperial banner rose, swishing twice, and a series of buccina cries confirmed it. ‘Time to don arms and armour,’ Apion said, reading the signal. He had been in the discussions where it was agreed that they would march unencumbered until they reached the unstable lands of Theodosiopolis, still several days away. The bones, it seemed, had served to highlight how far inside Byzantine territory the Seljuk scimitar could swing. With a rustle of iron, leather and felt, the men of the column dressed as if for battle.

They rode on in sombre silence until late afternoon. The next voice they heard was a sharp cry. A jagged Norman twang.

He and Sha twisted to the sound. Two riders hared from the east, coming for the head of the column at pace. One was a Norman of the vanguard. The other a tagma horseman in a fine iron klibanion, no helm and armed only with the spathion strapped to his swordbelt. And he wore an eyepatch, purple veins shuddering from its edges. The emperor, Apion, Igor and his clutch of varangoi were quick to react to the shout, coming forward to intercept the pair. Romanus sat straight in his saddle. ‘It is Diabatenus, my rider. The exchange!’ he gasped.

Apion’s ears pricked up at the words. He eyed the tagma rider. Bar his disfigurement, he had a handsome face and thick, sleek and swept-back brown locks.

‘Basileus!’ the rider called out, dismounting and saluting nimbly.

‘Report,’ Romanus said.

‘I found the sultan. I spoke with him. I tried as best I could to underline your sincerity. . but he seemed uncertain of the trade. He doubted you. Indeed he. . ’ Diabatenus dropped his gaze, ‘he said it was a pity you did not send two riders to him, for then he could have sent the other back to you with my head by way of reply.’

Romanus looked around the men of his retinue, then to Apion. Sadness lined his eyes. ‘How can a man dismiss an offer of a bloodless trade? He must surely know that I will now march on the Lake Van fortresses and seize them by force. His garrisons will be slain should they not surrender.’

Apion sighed. ‘I played shatranj with him once, after his horde took Caesarea. I sat across from him, unsure of whether I would end the night free to leave. . or with his dagger in my belly. Fortunately, he let me and the citizens leave unharmed, but I saw then that he was two beings within one: a valorous leader and a dog of war.’

Romanus’ expression darkened. ‘Then we will be compelled to seize Manzikert and Chliat by force, it seems. And I presume the sultan will bring his armies to those lands too, in an effort to block our armies?’

‘No, Basileus,’ Diabatenus replied, a beaming smile replacing his prior sobriety. ‘His sieges of Edessa and Aleppo failed. He was outsmarted by the doux of our city and the Fatimid governor of the other. His army was on the brink of starvation and he had to disband them. As I rode away from our parley, they were already melting away in small groups, hurrying back into the eastern sands to their homes. The sultan and the few riders he had left were set to follow them and return to the heart of the Seljuk realm.’

Romanus’ eyes darted. ‘So after years of smashing against our borders and expanding his realm, the Mountain Lion has foundered?’

Apion leaned in to the emperor’s ear. ‘Do not be fooled by some ruse the Doux of Edessa might have pulled off, or take confidence from our number. Remember, the sultan’s armies are founded on the principle of the feigned retreat.’

Diabatenus flashed a grin at Apion, his sense of hearing evidently as sharp as his looks. ‘I assure you, Haga, this was no ordered retreat. The Seljuk armies were panicked and eager to be gone from their regiments.’

Romanus seemed to mull over the report for what felt like an eternity. The column had halted, every man gazing at their emperor. At last, Romanus looked up, meeting the eyes of his retinue and then coming to Apion. ‘Then it seems that circumstance favours us. We continue east, to Chliat, to Manzikert.’