Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart

10. Affinity

Summer seemed reluctant to give way to autumn, and the Ides of October saw a muggy heat settle over Constantinople. While the city streets, harbours and forums swarmed with crowds on this particular day, the Hippodrome was deserted. Until Apion and Dederic emerged onto the racetrack from the shade of the western tunnel. They were both barefoot and wore only light linen tunics.

Apion squinted into the mid-morning sun, shading his eyes with one hand as he swept his gaze along the vast, empty banks of seating that hugged the arena. The gilt copper statue of the four horsemen mounted at the north end gazed back at him lifelessly. In the narrow strip of raised land marking the centre of the arena, an eclectic line of obelisks, columns and monuments jutted skywards. Some of these were crowned with statues of great chariot riders of the past and of immortal heroes and the old gods, Heracles and Apollo being the finest.

But it was not to admire such finery that they had come here, he thought, running his eyes around the lengthy sides of the track and the tight u-shaped bends at either end. The surface was even, though the tracks of the last chariots to have raced here were still marked in the dust, along with splinters of wood, shards of bronze and dark patches where blood had been spilled. But after a week of confinement within the palace, this was a meagre hardship to endure in return for the freedom of an open piece of ground and the chance to run.

He glanced around once more as he swept his hair up in his hands and knotted it atop his head. They were definitely alone. Igor had been reluctant to let them come here, and so they had slipped out here when the big Rus left them to attend to the Doux of Mesopotamia’s arrival.

Beside him, Dederic dropped his water skin and a hemp sack by the trackside, then contemplated the length of the racetrack. ‘How many laps of this did you say we should run?’

‘Three laps is roughly a mile. So I’ll be running thirty of them. You just do as many as you wish.’

Dederic wiped at his brow and nodded to the Imperial Palace, the tip of which peeked over the eastern terrace. ‘I wonder that old Cydones had the right idea?’

‘Sleeping through the midday heat?’ Apion gasped sarcastically. ‘Nonsense — where’s the fun in that?’ Then he shrugged. ‘Aye, we’ll do this at dawn in future, but let us not wait for tomorrow. It is as I said, when you engage your body,’ he tapped a finger to his temple, ‘it frees your mind of troubling thoughts.’

Dederic’s gaze grew distant and he fell silent. Then, at last, he nodded. ‘Aye. . aye, I’ll go with that.’

They walked to the northern bend in the track and then stopped in a patch of shade. ‘We’ll start from here,’ Apion said as he stretched his calves and hamstrings. Dederic followed his routine. ‘This’ll keep you limber and stop you from aching quite as much later on.’

They set off at a light jog, side-by-side. Apion noticed Dederic’s breathing growing laboured before they had even reached the southern bend.

‘Feels like my heart is going to burst from my chest,’ the Norman gasped between breaths.

‘That will pass quickly, it is just your body over-reacting to the stress. It is akin to battle, is it not?’

‘Aye,’ Dederic panted, ‘but this feels somewhat. . more deadly!’

Apion roared with laughter at this. ‘Take a breath over two strides, then exhale on your next. Find a rhythm and your heart will settle into it. Also, keep your shoulders back — this will increase your intake of breath.’

They came round to the northern bend and past their starting line and then Apion picked up the pace into a run. Dederic kept up, breathing faster to do so.

‘The physical battle is easily won,’ Apion spoke between strides as they came round to start their third lap. ‘After that comes the battle of endurance — a test of the mind.’

‘Aye,’ Dederic panted, ‘All I can. . think of. . is one word. Stop!’

‘You will stop,’ Apion replied, ‘but only when you choose to. The negative thoughts won’t have their way.’

They fell silent after this, both men utterly focused. Apion felt his heart pounding in his chest and the blood throbbing in his ears. By the sixth lap his skin was slick with sweat and, blessedly, he realised he was thinking of nothing other than the track ahead and of his stride. Past and present troubles had been shed somewhere in those first few circuits. He glanced to Dederic and hoped the Norman had found similar peace.

The sun was rising towards its zenith when they started their fifteenth lap and the heat was fierce. At this point, Dederic fell back and then stopped, slumping down in the shade of the western tunnel, gulping hungrily at his water skin between heaving breaths.

Apion continued until he came to the northern bend for the thirtieth time. His thighs were on fire, but now it seemed more of an effort to stop and break the rhythm than to keep going. But he did slow gradually as he rounded the southern bend. Then his breathing calmed as he came to a halt by Dederic. After stretching his muscles once more, he sat and wiped the worst of the sweat from his brow, then took up Dederic’s offer of the water skin. He could manage only sips, but it instantly cooled his chest. After a short while, the Norman rummaged in his hemp sack and brought out two eggs and a small loaf of bread. They ate swiftly and washed the meal down with the last of the cool water.

Apion pushed up, readying to stand, when Dederic’s words stopped him.

‘Sir, does it last longer if you run more?’ he said.

Apion looked to him. The Norman’s brow was furrowed as he studied the dust before him. ‘Longer? The silence in your mind, you mean?’

‘Aye,’ Dederic looked up. ‘It is as you said it would be; I thought nothing of the fat lord while I ran nor while we ate. Emelin and the children were a warm glow in my heart and their troubles seemed distant, conquerable.’ He scratched a line in the dust with his finger. ‘But now those troubles clamour to return to my mind.’

‘Running only staves off my troubles for a short while, Dederic,’ Apion settled back down cross-legged once more. ‘I understand the torment.’

The pair shared a lasting silence, each man gazing into their own past.

‘I’ve heard things, sir,’ Dederic said at last, tentatively, ‘the men in the Chaldian ranks spoke of what happened to you. To those you loved.’

Apion tensed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dederic waved a hand, ‘I didn’t mean to bring your attention to that which you seek to forget. I can only pray that the same fate does not befall my family.’

Apion nodded. Then he leaned forward and clasped a hand to the Norman’s shoulder. ‘Then don’t let it happen, Dederic.’

Dederic frowned.

‘Back then,’ Apion said, gulping back the gall of sorrow and bitterness, ‘I should have saved those I lost. But I failed. Not a breath passes without the question gnawing on my thoughts like a pox; what could I have done differently? The answers come thick and fast, mocking me. But there is only one answer that I know to be true,’ he held Dederic’s earnest gaze. ‘If I was back in that time now, I would do whatever it took to save them. Whatever it took.’

Apion felt a stinging behind his eyes and he saw the same glassiness in Dederic’s gaze.

‘Whatever it takes,’ the Norman nodded. Then, at last, his familiar smile reappeared. ‘In the meantime I think I will run until my heart bursts!’

Apion chuckled at this. Then he looked to the Norman earnestly. ‘Something else may well help to set your mind at rest, Dederic.’

‘Sir?’

‘The Chaldian ranks are bereft of leaders. Without Sha, Blastares and Procopius I would be lost. Indeed, I need more of their ilk. I could use a man like you to lead a tourma for me, when we return to Chaldia. It pays better than a mercenary purse — some two hundred nomismata for a year’s service. Within a few years you would perhaps have enough to pay off the fat lord of Rouen? What do you say?’

Dederic gawped for a moment, then his face split with an earnest smile. ‘I look forward to serving Chaldia, sir.’ He stood and held out a hand. Apion clasped the Norman’s forearm and rose.

The pair grinned, then walked into the western tunnel. But there they halted, the breath freezing in their lungs.

They were not alone.

A pair of numeroi approached, emerging from the shadows of the tunnel. The spearmen were fully armoured in their iron klibania, and they wore baleful grimaces under the rims of their helms. One had a broad, stubbled jaw and the other a drawn, sickly pallor. They flexed their grips on their spears as they approached.

Apion’s heart shuddered once more, this time with the anticipation of battle. The dark door surfaced in his mind as he saw the pair level their spear tips.

He swept a hand across Dederic’s chest, pushing him back. The pair stepped back from the tunnel and into the sunshine-bathed racetrack once more. A glance around the sweeping banks of the Hippodrome revealed no further aggressors. But the pair of numeroi were light on their feet and they split as they came from the shadows to flank he and Dederic.

Instinctively, Dederic and Apion pushed together, back-to-back, twisting round as the spearmen circled them silently. Apion pinned the one nearest him with his gaze.

‘Why do you hesitate?’ he said flatly, ‘two unarmed men should not pose any difficulty to you.’

At this, the stubble-jawed numeros chuckled gruffly, then lunged forward, punching his spear towards Apion’s chest. The tip tore Apion’s tunic and scored his chest as he leapt clear, pulling Dederic with him. Then he lurched forward and clasped his hands together to bring them down upon the numeros’ neck. The stubble-jawed spearman roared at this, his helmet falling to the dust as he staggered back, clutching at his neck, his face boiling red. But the spearmen were quick to come for them once more. Apion and Dederic edged away until they backed against the stone wall that ringed the racetrack.

‘I was going to make it quick,’ the angered numeros growled, drawing a line across his throat with one finger, ‘now I think I’ll just spill your guts and let you bleed out while I watch.’ His sour glare bent into a shark-like grin. He fired a nod to his colleague and the pair lunged forward like wolves.

Then a crunch of iron upon bone was accompanied by a splatter of hot fluid and a foul stench.

Apion blinked through this mess and stared at the sight before him. The stubble-jawed numeros stood, spear extended, frozen like a statue. A battle axe rested in his forehead, cleaving his brain, and a bloody soup of grey matter pumped from the wound. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head and then the body crumpled.

Apion spun to see Dederic gawping at the other numeros. The man flapped his lips wordlessly as he contemplated the axe embedded in his chest, before he, too toppled to the ground.

‘I told you not to come here alone, Strategos,’ a voice boomed from above. ‘The Numeroi watch your every step.’

Apion twisted and looked up. Igor of the Varangoi stood some twelve rows up on the western terrace, flanked by a pair of his men. Each of them wore their pure-white armour and robes.

The big Rus hobbled down the steps and thudded onto the track. He placed a foot on the chest of the dead numeros and wrenched his axe free. Then he gazed at the bloodied iron and sighed, stroking the blade as if it was a pet. ‘And I only sharpened you this morning.’