Strategos: Born in the Borderlands

12. Leaving

The thick blanket of snow clung to the land for the next two weeks, but Apion shunned the warmth of the farmhouse, spending his days trudging through the drifts, wrapped in his cloak, shivering. He sought solitude, poring over the newfound truth, and the blanket of white all around him seemed to help him focus on his thoughts. He searched for the resolve he had known previously, to bury his need for vengeance deep within. He pored over every possible alternative, but none rested easy with his heart. No, now he could see only one future for himself.

After weeks of such sombre thinking, a quick thaw ushered in spring. The land was quickly turned green and mild and Apion knew what he had to do; he stopped a wagon one day on the road and brokered a berth on the vehicle, heading east in three days’ time.

When he returned to the farm that night, he left his meal untouched and sat in silence, despite Maria’s attempts to drag conversation from him. Finally, she went to bed and he was left with Mansur in the hearth room.

‘Your mood is troubling me, lad. You won’t eat, you won’t talk with me, and you haven’t slept for weeks. Tell me, what do you want?’ Mansur cut a lonely figure behind the shatranj board, untouched since before the Trebizond visit.

The fire crackled in the hearth and a sweet woodsmoke puffed across the old oak table. Apion glared into the flames. His mind had been in turmoil since they had returned from the city. The rest of the evening at the inn had been numb for him. Every inch of his being wanted to rip his scimitar from its sheath and run for Bracchus, to plunge the blade deep in his heart and look into his eyes as the life slipped from them. Nasir had been worried for his friend, but at first when Apion tried to tell him what he had seen, he found his voice simply was not there. As Bracchus left the inn, flanked by his brutish bodyguards, Apion had watched him, a thousand voices screaming at him to act. But he didn’t and that made him feel all the more reprehensible.

‘Talk to me, lad. Remember how that has helped in the past. Play shatranj with me?’

‘I’m leaving the farm, Mansur. I’m joining the thema.’ He waited for a reaction but none was forthcoming. ‘You want to know why?’

Mansur was silent, staring. Then at last he spoke. ‘Nasir told me. He said you think you have found the man responsible for what happened to you, to your parents.’ His voice dried a little and then he croaked. ‘He said you seek to kill Bracchus?’

‘He is dead already, Mansur. He is a walking corpse. I found out what I need to know from the men of the thema, he sits like a peacock in his lofty post as tourmarches in the frontier town of Argyroupolis, buttressed by giants who kill for him on a whim. They say he is an agente, the master of all other agentes seeded in the eastern borders. Untouchable, a killer endorsed by the emperor himself. I will prove them wrong. For all he has done to me and all the crimes he has carried out.’

Mansur dropped his eyes to the floor at this, rubbing his temples, eyes shut tight. ‘Be careful what you seek, Apion. It may not bring you happiness.’

‘I don’t seek happiness. I seek revenge.’

‘In the ranks of the thema? Have you thought it through, lad? I am not sure you are ready and I don’t mean because of the weakness in your leg. No, you are a fine swordsman in a duel with me, but you cannot imagine the reality of the battlefield, your body coated in blood, skin and bone all around your feet. Around you a thousand men scream and a thousand more are dying. Blades and spears hack through the air all around you. Yet you can only pray to your God that they do not fall upon you as you remain utterly engaged in combat with the man before you. Combat, to the death!’

‘You forget that I have killed before,’ he thought of the Seljuk on that awful night. He thought of Kyros and his men, though Mansur knew nothing of that incident. ‘I have spilled blood and it did not trouble me,’ he lied.

Mansur shook his head. ‘You will be fighting my kin. You could find yourself fighting Giyath or Nasir.’

Apion looked up. ‘Some of the men who killed my parents were Seljuk,’ he spat.

Mansur’s face fell stony at the venomous riposte. ‘Your words are fired with anger,’ he replied evenly. ‘Your quest for revenge is understandable, but make no mistake: Tugrul’s hordes are vast and committed to conquest, lad. The years of skirmishing and raiding are over, for they have served their purpose of testing Byzantium’s defences. The Falcon is going to war. I fear you would lose your mind, if not your life, in the bloodshed that is to come.’

‘Is that why you left your post as an emir?’

Mansur’s eyes darted up. ‘I see. Nasir also told me you had spoken with Cydones.’

‘He told me there was more to you than you let on.’ Apion felt his anger dissipate just a fraction. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘What difference does it make? I fight in the ranks, I see blood. I fight as an emir, a strategos, I see blood.’

‘You fought under Tugrul’s banner?’

‘I did.’

‘Is he the war-hungry creature they talk of, the Falcon?’

‘He was and still is a sharp mind, Apion. He taught me to play shatranj. He lived with dreams that were spawned years before either he or I was born. To unite his people, to seek out glory for Allah.’

‘Then he is not all bad?’

‘Are any of us, lad, are any of us?’ His gaze drifted to the fire. ‘The early years of glory were seen as justified as we consolidated our grazing lands and removed the threats hanging over our people. I accepted the reasoning at that time. Yet as the years went by I had to ask myself why I was leading ever-growing armies against cities further and further south than our people had ever been before.’

‘Cydones says you were one of the finest tacticians he has ever faced.’

‘And he was one of the bravest young lions I remember. When we clashed, he was like a demi-god; he fought not for spoils or for glory but purely for his empire; a rare trait.’

‘He said that one day you let him and his men go home unharmed when you had beaten them. This is true as well?’ Apion leaned forward.

‘That day, I let my enemies go home unharmed,’ Mansur shook his head, ‘but there were many other days.’

Silence filled the room, only the crackling of the fire breaking the stillness. Apion felt a growing shame at his behaviour. Mansur was the last person who deserved his wrath over Bracchus. He pushed back from the stool and hobbled over to the hearth, pouring two cups-worth of goat milk into a pan. He dropped a few pinches of dried orchid root into the milk, stirred it and then sprinkled cinnamon over the surface and placed the pan over the fire. Salep would soothe their wounded hearts.

‘So is it Argyroupolis you will be headed to?’ Mansur spoke at last.

Apion nodded, eyes fixed on the bubbling drink. ‘Yes, I will be leaving in three days’ time; I have paid for a berth on a wagon.’

‘A wagon? No, you shall ride into the fort at Argyroupolis on horseback. The grey mare, she is yours, always has been since the first day you rode her.’

Apion felt his heart clench at this. The old mare was tired, fit for wagon work but not any more for hard galloping. A loyal friend, he could never take her into danger. ‘You need her, Mansur, you know you do. For the farm to operate, you need two horses. My pay will be coming home to you, of course, to help with the upkeep of the farm and feed the two of them. But no, I will be walking into the barracks at Argyroupolis. This brace will not stop me.’

‘So it is to be,’ Mansur sighed.

Apion looked to Mansur, realising that talking with the old man had indeed calmed him. He wanted to thank him. His eyes fell on the shatranj board. ‘Shall we?’

They played long into the night, trancelike, until a grating snore rent the air. Both of them jumped.

‘Snores like a boar, that girl,’ Mansur grinned, nodding to Maria’s bedroom.

Apion realised his eyes hung on the door a little too long and he glanced down at the table again. What would it be like to be away from her? She was a friend like no other and barely a night passed without him dreaming of her. Was Nasir right, he wondered, was he just a brother to her? His gaze fell on the shatranj board as he contemplated this. Then he noticed the gap in Mansur’s lines. He lifted his war elephant and placed it two squares away along a diagonal from Mansur’s king.

They were both silent, then finally Mansur raised his eyebrows and let out a puff of breath and chuckled.

‘Checkmate!’ Apion grinned.

His first ever victory over Mansur.

After a long pause, Mansur looked up with a wry smile. ‘Well played, lad. You’ve got a knack of counter-flanking there. Risky,’ he jabbed a finger at the two chariots, isolated and exposed wide of the main force, ‘but bloody effective.’

Apion nodded. ‘One of many strategies I have learned.’

Mansur chuckled, his chins folding and his eyes creasing. ‘Well put, lad, and well won. Today. But try that again tomorrow and you’ll see how easily that move can be countered itself.’ He stood and groaned, stretching his arms. ‘Now, it is time to sleep!’

‘Until tomorrow, when we play again?’ Apion said.

‘Until tomorrow, lad,’ Mansur chuckled.

Apion watched the old man waddle into his bedroom. Sadness touched his heart when he realised that he only had a few more days before he would be gone from this place. He traced a finger over his prayer rope, seeking the first words of the Prayer of the Heart. He sought out the happiness he had known before he had uncovered Bracchus’ true identity. Instead, he only found the fury inside him. The name rasped in his mind again. He dug his nails into the table until one snapped.

Bracchus!

His lungs rasped and his eyes stung from the wash of fresh sweat. But he had made it to the top of the hill, this time without the grey mare. He hobbled onto the beech-wooded plateau and pushed through the foliage until he came to the clearing, with the tumbled red boulder cairn at its centre. Here, he tore off his tunic and collapsed, the cool dewy grass soothing his naked body. One hill and so much fatigue and fiery pain in his leg. The ranks of the thema would hold far tougher challenges, he realised. His eyes fell on the stern etching of the Haga on top of the cairn. Its glare seemed to burn into him.

Back at the farm he had laid out his kit on the bed: a spare tunic, brown woollen leggings, boots and a brown hemp cloak. In his satchel he had packed food: bread, salted meat, a pot of olives, a round of goats’ cheese and a skin of stream water. Mansur had also insisted he take with him a miniature shatranj set. Keep your mind honed, lad; make your mistakes on the board and not on the battlefield.

Leaning against the bedstead was Mansur’s scimitar, tucked into a sword belt. The thema would issue him standard arms and armour on joining them but additional weaponry that the state didn’t have to pay for would always be welcome. If they scorned his use of the Seljuk blade, he would just have to learn to handle a spathion. And all this was only a day away, he mused, eyes fixed on the Haga.

Once his breathing had slowed, he stood to get dressed. He was suddenly all too aware of his nudity. Fortunately, the beech thicket obscured him from the highway down below.

‘Well, you do need better feeding, I must say; there’s no danger that the wolves will be preying upon you!’

Apion’s skin froze and he pulled his tunic across his crotch. The voice was light, lilting. Maria. ‘You followed me?’ He spun around, unable to locate her.

‘No, I came up here before you.’

‘How did you know I would be. .?’

‘Yes, amazing, isn’t it. You’ve only been coming up this hill for years. You didn’t need the mare to get up here today though, did you?’

Apion’s cheeks burned.

‘You’re pretty flustered though, I thought you were in prime condition for the thema?’ she mused, visible at last as she strolled from the trees towards him. She looked different, wearing a rich red robe — clean for once. Her hips swung hypnotically.

He touched a hand to his burning face; at least the ascent had disguised his embarrassment. He tried to straighten up, to look nonchalant about it all, but his pleated pony tail tracing against his bare back wouldn’t let him forget he was naked and she wasn’t. ‘I was hot, so I took off my tunic.’

He felt the old shame at his scar being fully exposed, the serrated flesh snaking from ankle to midriff, and was expecting the usual frown of disgust when she saw it. Instead, her hazel eyes stuck on his, the glance became a gaze as he saw her, so close now: her eyes were richly kohl-lined, her lips stained with ochre and curled into a decadent smile.

‘I think you’re a fool for what you’re doing, Apion, but you’ve been in such a foul mood for so long now that I wonder if serving in the army will do you good. But I came here because I want you to know something,’ her words were softly spoken, ‘I will miss you. You are like a brother to me, but more than that. . ’

A thousand reasons why she should not come any closer flooded to his mind, but she took just one more step and stopped. Then they embraced and she pressed her mouth to his, their lips rapacious as they tasted one another.

Maria ploughed her fingers through Apion’s hair as he hugged her to him. Inside he felt a myriad of fires raging. Fear and a deep, unknown excitement blossomed in every inch of his body. Without a word, they were prone. He pulled her to sit on top of him, lifting her robe, his hands cupping the warm smooth flesh of her hips, sliding up over her stomach and settling on the underside of her heavy breasts. She lifted the robe off at last, and then uttered a shuddering gasp as he entered her.

He had dreamt of this, countless times. Now it was so real, so natural. Her face was creased, eyes screwed shut, biting her lower lip and she moaned with every thrust. All the way from his lips down through his heart, stomach, all along his legs, he tingled, the sensation building ever-more intense until, like an explosion, the climax flowed through both of them, Apion shot to sitting as he moaned, pulling Maria to him so each panted into the nape of the other’s neck.

Time seemed irrelevant as the sensation ebbed into a placid calm. Then at last Maria rolled to one side to lie flat. Apion lay so his eyes were level with hers. What to say? He simply took her hand in his and smiled. The light of the rising sun came through the beech thicket, a touch of warmth blanketing them. Every birdsong was a precious melody and every breath tasted rich and full. Now this was the thing he had been missing, Apion mused, losing himself in Maria’s eyes.

Suddenly, Maria shot upright and grappled for her robe, ‘Well, that wasn’t at all bad,’ she muttered casually, looking off into the sunrise.

Apion felt his euphoric world crumble. Wasn’t bad? It sounded as if she was talking about an under-flavoured cup of salep. Was this something she did every day? The fuzzy warmth in his chest turned abrasive and he frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘What’s wrong, can’t take a compliment?’ She shuffled to standing. ‘Come on, we’d better head back, I need to finish making breakfast.’

Just like that? Inside he was furious, furious that indignation had swept away the utopia of moments ago. He wanted to shout and swear, yet he found himself grinning at her inanely.

Maria looked at him as though he was a troublesome stain. ‘Tchoh! Will you put your clothes on and come on!’

‘Raise your drinks!’ Kutalmish roared, his voice echoing around his hearth room as he lifted a cup of salep. The likeable, white-haired old man was barely visible over the feast-laden table piled with cheeses, grapes, apples, figs, vegetable stew, salad, fresh breads, yoghurt and jugs of chilled fruit juices. Nasir sat by Apion on one side, Maria by Giyath on the other. Mansur and Kutalmish made up both ends. This was it: the big send off for Apion, Nasir and Giyath, as they prepared to set out the following morning, Apion with the thema and Kutalmish’s sons with the Seljuk riders.

Apion’s stomach squirmed at the luxurious spread. He hadn’t eaten all day, not even at breakfast. His head was awash with conflicting emotions: revenge lay on his horizons and he would have to immerse himself in the conflict to take that revenge. Then there was Maria; their encounter at dawn had left him in a spin, his emotions rolling up and down like the hills. He had stumbled back down to the farm, weak and unable to keep stride with her in her purposeful march. When they had got back it had been just like any other day by the way she had acted, munching through her breakfast in a perfunctory manner, refusing to meet the giddy gaze he had fixed on her. The rest of the day had been a spiral of thoughts until now, with the sun setting, he would spend his last night at the farm with those who made up his world.

‘Not hungry?’ Giyath grumbled through a mouthful of yoghurt, shooting a glance from under his thick brows.

‘Oh I’m hungry, just not sure where to start!’ Apion replied, shrugging at Nasir’s older brother. In the years since Apion had first laid eyes on him, Giyath had grown to become a rock of a man, his head shaved, further emphasising the anvil of a chin and broadening his bull-like shoulders. He was every inch the fighter, the kind of man you would want as the beating heart of your front line. Apion had never quite clicked with him in the same way he eventually had with Nasir, perhaps because of the age difference or more likely because of the personality clash. This man was a shrill echo of the stubborn, belligerent persona that Nasir had been when Apion first came to Mansur’s farm.

‘Well get your fill because you’ll be on swill and rat meat with the thema!’ Giyath chuckled at his own joke, before breaking down in a coughing fit.

‘You think he’s joking?’ Nasir shot Apion a grin.

‘Enough that all three of you should do your duty with honour and, most importantly, return safely,’ Kutalmish cut in. ‘I trust my sons will do me proud and, Apion, I hope you will. . ’ the old man frowned, lost for words momentarily as he glanced to Mansur, ‘. . find what you are looking for. War will be upon us soon enough, so let tonight be a night we can remember. All of us sat around the table as one big family. All of us,’ Kutalmish repeated, a warm smile growing across his features, directed at Apion.

Apion felt all eyes fall on him, a shyness crackled on his skin. He wondered what they all felt of the unspoken truth: that Kutalmish’s sons were to pursue the life of warfare that their father had shunned; that Mansur’s protégé was to walk from the valley with a thirst for revenge and blood. Then he glanced up at Maria; he and Mansur had resolved not to tell her of the matter of Bracchus. Her face was radiant, light of troubles. She winked at him. He smiled in return. Maria prodded her tongue out then grinned; a ridiculous, toothy grin and one that Apion found hugely infectious. He could not suppress a snigger.

‘Something funny, is there?’ Giyath grunted, his brow set like stone.

Maria widened her eyes in mock terror.

‘Of course not, I. . ’ Apion started.

‘My father welcomes you as a member of our family and you laugh at him? You’ll do well to stay clear of the ghulam riders,’ Giyath’s tone was grating. The man angered easily and sought conflict and Apion had just handed him another point of contention on a plate.

‘Enough, Giyath,’ Kutalmish waved his hands over the table, ‘let us eat tonight in peace.’

‘Agreed.’ Mansur raised his cup. ‘Let us rise above all that is to come and remember what bonds us together. Strong bonds, stronger than blood.’

Apion felt a warmth cloak him and he too raised his cup. ‘And those bonds should never be broken,’ he said. Every face lit up, apart from the wrinkled frown of Giyath. Then, with a screeching of his stool on the flagstones, Giyath rose, tossing his knife down, then turned and stomped from the hearth room to go outside.

‘I’m sorry, was it what I said?’ Apion stammered.

‘No, Apion. Let him be controlled by his moods, the foolish boy,’ Kutalmish muttered, shook his head, then slowly began eating again.

The tense silence that ensued hung heavy in the air and Apion found it difficult to eat when every bite echoed through the hearth room. He wished he was back at the farm, alone. Or maybe with Maria in his arms? He suddenly realised that Mansur did not know of their encounter. Would he object? He glanced up at the old man, realising a gentle chatter had begun between him and Kutalmish. Mansur loved Maria but he loved Apion too. Perhaps it would be best to keep their relationship to himself for now, he mused. Yet he couldn’t shake the image from his mind: Maria, naked in his arms. He shot a wicked glance up at her. She winked, but not at him.

Apion followed her impish grin. On the other end, Nasir’s gaze was fixed on her, expressionless apart from his eyes, which sparkled with mischief. Apion’s skin burned and his chest clenched. What was she doing?

Mansur supped the last of his salep and chuckled. ‘Well, Kutalmish, I can only thank you for your hospitality again. The dates,’ He shook his head as he pulled his cloak on from the back of his chair, ‘my word, the soil in your orchard is blessed! Now we should be on our way, to let the boys sleep well before tomorrow.’

‘Pleasure to have you, Mansur. Pleasure to have all of you, but please, leave your robes. It’s cold and dark outside and very late. There are enough rooms for each of you to sleep here tonight.’

Mansur patted his stomach. ‘Aye but a walk would probably be best for me,’ he glanced out of the open shutter at the darkness and raised an eyebrow, ‘then again. . ’

‘I’ll get the fresh bedding?’ Nasir pre-empted his father, barely disguising a sigh.

Kutalmish nodded.

The bed was soft and warm, but Apion found sleep hard to come by, his stomach gurgling over what little he had managed to eat, his mind turning over the flashpoints of the evening. He tried to relax, breathing deeply. Eventually, sleep teased his thoughts into a collage of memories and images. Then one forced its way to the front; the dark door rushed for him, the knotted arm swiping out to push it open. Revenge! The rasping voice in his head grew louder and louder, jolting him awake.

With a groan, he slid from the warm comfort of the sheets, the brace clicking into place under his weight as his soles rested on the cool flagstoned floor. He slipped on his tunic and hobbled out of the room: the floor of the farmhouse was a forest of shadows in the moonlight but his eyes locked onto the door of the room Maria was sleeping in, two along from his own. Every one of his steps seemed to land on a loose flagstone, causing a clunking and grating. Fortunately, Mansur’s snoring more than drowned it out as he crept past the old man’s door — he had some cheek to talk of her snoring! Then he stopped. Maria’s door was ajar. Was she expecting him?

His blood raced as he reached out to push the door, the smell of her hair, the touch of her skin dancing in his memory. Her room was dark but he could sense her, waiting under the blankets, as he patted them from the foot of the bed. Until he reached the pillow. The bed was empty.

Then a distant shriek from outside echoed through the house. It was faint but it jolted him all the same. The sliver of moon outside, the darkness, the screaming. A nauseous swell touched his guts as his mind was cast back to that awful night. He thought of waking Mansur, Kutalmish. No, that would take precious time and he would not stand back and do nothing this time. He made for the door and hobbled out into the night.

The shriek had come from the highest hilltop. Apion, breathless, struggled through the last of the scree and up onto the hilltop, his strength deserting him already: whoever had Maria had taken her away from the farmhouse and up to this spot — his spot — in the midst of the beech thicket. He crouched to rest by the first of the beech trunks that encircled the small clearing in the centre. Apart from the hum of crickets, all was silent. Then a groan echoed through the trees. Apion narrowed his eyes and stalked forward.

Then he heard her. She moaned rhythmically, but there was someone else, grunting in tandem. Realisation dawned before he saw them, but denial kept him stalking forward until he saw the two shapes, writhing.

Maria grasped Nasir’s back, her legs wrapped around his thighs, while his buttocks thrust forward again and again. Apion felt a cold sliver of pain in his heart.

He fell back onto the bracken.

‘What was that?’ Maria hissed, suddenly breaking from their embrace.

From the shadows, Apion’s eyes hung on hers. He longed for her and loathed her in one sorry pang of self-pity.

‘A fox, probably,’ Nasir grunted in annoyance, before nuzzling into her neck and pushing her down again.

Apion stumbled back from the thicket, his brace clanking.

‘No, I know that noise,’ he heard Maria say.

The stinging precursor to hot tears itched behind his nose. He hobbled down the hill, roaring out into the darkness.

His scar flared in a white-hot agony as he threw himself forward, exhaustion gripping his muscles and spots swimming in his vision, but he continued, stomping towards the banks of the Piksidis, begging for the wagon that was to take him east in the morning to be there, right now.

As he approached the riverbank the blood froze in his veins; someone was sitting there, upon a rock, silhouetted in the faint moonlight. Apion crouched, ready to turn and hobble away.

‘Relax,’ a gruff voice grunted. ‘We’re not enemies, yet.’

Giyath. Apion’s skin prickled.

‘I can never sleep the night before joining up either,’ he eyed Apion furtively, ‘and all that talk at the table, it boils my blood.’

Apion moved to sit beside Giyath. The man’s face was a crease of untended fury for an instant and then his head dropped. He ran thick fingers over his shorn scalp.

‘It’s all very well to talk as if we are of the same blood,’ he looked at Apion, his eyes glistening in the moonlight. His words were weighted but his face was solemn now, unthreatening.

Apion wondered how many times he had actually spoken with Giyath over the years. Him aside though, there was Maria and Mansur, Nasir and old Kutalmish. They were his blood in every sense other than the physical. He relaxed with a sigh. ‘We practically are.’

Giyath cut him off, ripping a dagger from his belt with a rasp of iron. ‘I respect you as Mansur’s boy, but you’ve got to understand, for your own sake, if we ever met in the field, then I wouldn’t blink before sliding this into your guts,’ he grabbed Apion by the collar, pulled him close so the pair were nose to nose and Giyath’s breath stung in his nostrils, ‘to split your veins, to tear your organs, spill your blood into the earth.’

Apion’s heart hammered and his eyes darted from Giyath’s dagger, pressed against his ribs, to his burning features. He saw the inky depth of sadness in there, if only for a flitting moment. Then Giyath roared in an impotent fury and shoved Apion back from the rock.

‘Well then I pray we never meet in the field,’ Apion spluttered, prone, touching a hand to the pool of red trickling from the narrow gash on his ribs. Then boldness laced his blood as he stood, ‘for your sake as much as mine.’ He jutted his chin out in defiance.

Giyath stabbed his dagger into the ground and laughed a hollow laugh. ‘It’s not about me being better or stronger than you, Apion. That’s not the issue here.’ He looked up, now his eyes were glassy. ‘It’s the cold, hard truth of the battlefield. You’re with the thema. So even if you were a brother,’ tears rolled around his anvil chin and dripped to the ground, ‘it would be just the same: your blood or mine.’ He wiped angrily at his tears and turned away. ‘Now leave me, I want to be alone!’

Apion felt cold at the thought of returning to Kutalmish’s farmhouse. In the oddest way, he felt his only bond with another was this wretched one he had with Giyath, right now. ‘Why don’t you leave, Giyath, leave the Seljuk ranks? Here in the borderlands you could be neutral. You could tend the farm instead, make Kutalmish proud. War is coming but you don’t have to be part of it. You could be neutral, just like your father, just like Mansur.’

Giyath looked up at him once more. This time though, his eyes were dry. ‘Leave the ranks?’ He whispered and then slowly shook his head, eyes fixed on Apion. ‘Oh, no. You can never leave. You ask my father or Mansur and they will tell you so.’ He turned back to the river. ‘Now leave me.’

As Apion walked away, Giyath’s words circled in his thoughts.

Then a lone eagle cried, piercing the still of the night. He felt a presence nearby, but the land was empty as he peered into the darkness. Then he heard it from all around him and inside him at once, a whisper.

You may not see it now, but you will choose a path. A path that leads to conflict and pain. Much pain.

A dust storm raged in the dark outside and buffeted the timbers of the imperial waystation, making the space inside feel almost welcoming. The cloaked and hooded Bracchus cupped his gloved fingers around his watered wine and studied the clientele: punch-drunk, hunched and haggard seemed to be the common theme. These hovels were supposed to be a sanctuary to weary travellers, a place where imperial scouts and messengers could exchange their mount for a fresh one after a restful night’s slumber. Why anyone would feel safe enough to blink let alone sleep in this place was beyond him, yet in the candlelight, three bodies lay slumped and snoring in the bunks to the rear, veiled from the bar area by only a filthy curtain. Here he was; the master agente, executor of the emperor’s bidding and now a tourmarches, one step away from a strategos. He stifled a snort at the absurdity of it: unlimited power was within his grasp yet he was sitting amongst filthy rogues. He twisted at the snake band ring through his glove and for a moment, he remembered the time before, when he had no power, when people could take from him what they wished. Some took things that could never be replaced.

He heard her voice. Don’t look, son, go with them, please, don’t look back.

But he had looked back. He could see that stinking alleyway in the backstreets of Trebizond; the three thugs had paid their bronze folles to have their way with Mother and Bracchus had left them to it, heavy-hearted as always. She had explained to him every day since he was old enough to understand that this was the difference between them living and dying of starvation, but still it felt to him as if she died a little every time she sold herself this way. He waited the usual short while it took and then made his way back round to the where he had left her. But when Bracchus turned in to the alleyway he froze to the spot: his mother stood naked and bleeding, one thug stood behind her, gripping her shoulders, the other hurled blows into her face, already swollen and discoloured. They laughed, laughed like they were playing a game. He made to sprint for her when a third thug hooked an arm around Bracchus’ neck and dragged him away. It was then she had pleaded with him. Don’t look back! But the gruff tones of the thug drowned her out. Forget about ‘er, boy, you’ve got a whole new life ahead of you. You’re goin’ to fetch a pretty sum at market, he slurred and then ripped from his neck the bronze Chi-Rho, Bracchus’ only possession of value and the one his mother insisted he could not sell for food. It was the last time he had ever contemplated God. Bracchus sunk his teeth into the man’s forearm until he tasted blood and heard the man roar. Then he wrenched free, twisting to go back for his mother, but froze as he saw the knife tear out her throat. Then the blood. Dark blood. The shrieking laughter. The finality of her body crumpling onto the scum of the alley floor.

A pang of sorrow stabbed his chest and then he thudded the table with a fist, clearing himself of sentiment. The drinkers nearest him in the waystation shot furtive glances his way, and then returned to their drinks. They were ignorant. Ignorant of the debt the empire owed him.

It was a debt that could never be settled; the urban guard were absent when they should have been there to protect his mother. The empire could at least be grateful for the fact that he had focused his initial vengeance on the vile underworld, like the racketeer under whose protection those three thugs had operated; safe until they had underestimated the filthy, homeless son of a prostitute.

He had found the thug who had tried to drag him away, talking of slavery; the fool was staggering down the very same alley, blind drunk, only two nights after the incident. Bracchus had knocked him from his feet with a wooden club, then hacked off the man’s arm, tore out his tongue and left him to bleed to death. The next thug, the one who had held Bracchus’ mother by the shoulders, was found nailed through the shoulders to the doorway of the racketeer’s headquarters, his rib cage ripped open, organs pulled free and left on the street for the rats to feast on. The last one, the thug who had slit his mother’s throat, disappeared one night, then his severed head was sent crashing through the window of the racketeer’s headquarters, empty eye sockets cauterised with a red-hot blade. The racketeer himself had paid his dues with interest; the rumour had spread that they found only his skin and a sea of blood on the floor of his office.

Bracchus felt the dagger clipped under his tunic onto his thigh. It had served him well over the years and his heart had blackened with its every use until now, when he knew only darkness. In that time he had channelled his spite, using shrewdness to rise into the emperor’s favour. Now he had license for his deeds, as black as he wished to make them. The Agentes were sent far and wide in the empire with licence to ignore the law, to spill blood, plot subterfuge and instigate unrest to suit the emperor’s whims, and the man in the purple now desired that the eastern borders stay volatile, limiting the power and reputations of the outlying strategoi. So it was a dark role for the darkest of people. But did the empire know what a demon they had hired in him? Now he was in a prime position to become a strategos. With that role combined with his role as master agente of the east, who could curb his power? No, nobody would take from him ever again.

The slats lifted and a gust whipped around his ankles as the door opened. Another hooded, hemp-robed figure strode in, face in shadows. The figure cast a glance around the tables until his eyes fell on Bracchus. Bracchus supped his watered wine and nodded to the seat opposite.

Both of them sat, faces in shadows.

‘What do you wish of me, master?’ The agente hissed like a snake.

Bracchus felt a surge of exhilaration; some agentes resented being led by any man other than the emperor, but this one was totally obedient. He fixed his gaze on the man’s eyes, shaded under his hood. ‘The strategos, Cydones, is mobile, mustering and taking stock of the thema,’ Bracchus paused, toying with the idea that he could just as easily order the strategos dead with his next sentence. Perhaps the time for such an order would come soon, he mused, but for now, all that mattered was that he and he alone would be left to rule Argyroupolis, free of meddling of so-called superiors. ‘He must be kept from Argyroupolis for some time, until next spring at least. Keep him busy; pay our Seljuk friends well to keep him from the town.’

A wide grin spread across the agente’s features. ‘Consider it done, master.’