Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart (23 page)

‘We only have your men and the border tagmata to add to this rabble,’ Romanus muttered to Apion absently.

‘I cannot speak for the border tagmata,
Basileus
,’ Apion said, a shadow crossing his thoughts as he recalled the odious Doux Fulco and his ilk, ‘but the men of Chaldia will not disappoint you.’ The shadow lifted as he thought of Sha, Blastares and Procopius and the well-drilled if depleted tourmae they led.

‘I don’t doubt you, Strategos,’ Romanus sighed. ‘But even if the army of Chaldia offered a full complement, we still could not set out for Syria in this condition. Despite our efforts in these last months, there is still much work to be done.’ The emperor scoured the camp again and again, as if in search of an answer. ‘It seems that intrigue clings to this campaign like a plague carried from Constantinople – that three of the four themata have been unable to utilise the grants we provided is interesting indeed.’ He sighed through taut lips. ‘At this, the most desperate days for the empire, must I fight a war in my own camp?’

Both men looked at one another. One name remained tacit between them.

Psellos.

‘
Basileus
,’ Apion spoke firmly, his emerald eyes fixed on Romanus. ‘Indeed, there is much to be done. But we must start somewhere,’ Apion said.

‘Aye. Suggestions?’ Romanus asked wearily.

Apion raised a finger to point at the trudging smatter of infantry as they filed inside the camp. ‘Those filthy banners, they epitomise the poverty of the ranks. The men feel as worthless as those rags look. Have the craftsmen set up their looms – fresh banners can be woven within the week.’

Romanus cracked a grin. ‘Aye, that seems a fine place to start. Then tomorrow, we ride to visit these armamenta who, in over half a year, could not stitch together a single felt vest.’

Then Igor joined in, a manic grin sweeping across his face as he drummed his fingers on his axe shaft. ‘Yes, tomorrow we will crack some heads!’

The group split up and Apion wandered through the camp picking through the sea of fluttering banners and brightly coloured tents to reach the one he shared with Dederic and some of the varangoi. Inside was empty and stifling hot, so he pegged the tent flap back to allow fresh air to circulate. The ten sets of quilted bedding were laid out around the centre pole and the spears and armour of each man were balanced at the head. He ate a light meal of cheese and hard tack biscuit, washing it down with a swig of rather tepid water. Then he took the opportunity to rest, slipping off his cloak and boots then reclining on his blanket. As he closed his eyes, a merciful breeze danced over his tired limbs, lulling him to sleep.

As his thoughts slipped away, he saw her again, and her name echoed in his dreams.

Maria.

***

Maria sat, cross-legged by the poolside in a pale-green linen robe. The coral-blue water was absolutely still, reflecting the vibrant tiles of the villa courtyard and the unblemished August sky that hung over Hierapolis. Honey-gold finches chirruped from their nest in the palm tree in the corner. Dragonflies hovered in the shade and around the verdant vines that scaled the walls. She closed her eyes and tried to let the serenity cleanse the fear from her heart.

Then the creaking of a thick wooden door shook her back to reality. Her chest tightened at once, her heartbeat galloping. She looked into the shaded hearth room to see the silhouetted figure entering the villa. A thousand doubts raced through her mind. She had been told what to expect; that her husband would return to her today after more than two summers since he had ridden west with his warband, and that he had been horribly disfigured.

When Nasir stepped out into the sunlight, she shuddered. Not at the sagging, blistered welt of skin and patchy hair that clung like a mask to one side of his face. But at the look in his eyes. He had found no vent for his anger in his latest foray.

She clapped her hands. The slave girl came running. ‘Bring bandages, balms and salves,’ she called out, sending her off back inside the villa.

‘It is too late to heal the wounds,’ Nasir spoke, his voice dry from the dust of the ride.

‘But you will still be weary and saddle sore from your ride, will you not?’ she approached him gingerly, extending her arms as if to embrace him. Deep in his grey eyes, she saw an echo of the young man she had once loved, before he had descended into bitterness. Then his gaze steeled and his nose wrinkled.

‘Is it too much even to embrace me?’ she spoke weakly.

Nasir shook his head, waving one hand at her as if swatting a fly away, then headed back inside the villa.

She stared at the spot where he had stood. Sometimes, when he was gone with his riders, she imagined that the iciness between them was just a trick of her memory. Yet when he returned, she always felt such a fool for deluding herself.

She entered the villa. It was cool and gloomy inside. Nasir sat on a wooden bench, unstrapping his scale vest, facing away from her.

‘How did it happen,’ she asked, ‘your wounds?’

He halted, trembling with rage.

At that moment she knew the answer. ‘Apion did this? I’m sorry, I . . . ’

‘You’re not sorry. You never were,’ he spat at the mention of the name. ‘Your father’s blood is on his hands. Don’t you remember what they did to him?
All because that Byzantine whoreson was not there to protect him!’

Maria choked back a sob. It was this distorted truth that had convinced her to perpetuate Nasir’s cruel deception. To let Apion live all these years believing that she too had been slain with her father on that day.

‘Aye, he has burned the flesh from my face,’ Nasir snapped his head round at that moment, showing the ruined side of his face; gritted teeth, the melted folds of skin and one bulging eye. ‘But the pain of these wounds is nothing compared to knowing that . . . ’

‘Father!’ a voice called out. Footsteps pattered through the villa and then a broad and tall boy raced into the room like a blur, rushing straight for Nasir. He slid to his knees and threw his arms around Nasir, back turned to Maria. Nasir returned the embrace, kissing the top of the boy’s head and smoothing his charcoal locks. His voice had softened now, but he cast baleful looks up at Maria.

‘Aye, Taylan, I have returned, but not for long. The sultan has already tasked me with another mission.’

Taylan looked up, then recoiled in shock. ‘Your face,’ he said, lifting a fawn hand to Nasir’s wounds. ‘The Byzantines did this to you?’

‘It is but an old scar now. Many of them fell to my blade in penance.’

‘And many more must fall when you ride out again!’ Taylan growled, trying in vain to disguise his sobs.

Maria clasped her hands to her breast at this. This was the one thing she feared more than anything. That Taylan would inherit Nasir’s anger. He was only thirteen, but was already familiar with the scimitar, and Nasir had sent him to ride with the sultan and watch battles from afar.

‘Aye, many will fall, Taylan,’ he said, his chill glare never leaving Maria, ‘but there is one whose blood must be spilled above all others.’

Maria’s heart turned to ice.

Bey Nasir had been away on campaign for more than two summers, but the Nasir she had once loved had been absent far longer.

***

A baritone chanting rang out from the dusty, sun-baked streets of Ancyra as the bishop led the populace in morning prayer. The few skutatoi posted on the walls were the only ones to notice the tiny dust plume approaching from the south, winding through the russet and gold hills. One squinted at the banner that emerged from the plume, then looked to the other, frowning.

‘I drank a lot of wine last night, and I mean a
lot
.
Unwatered
too. Tell me my mind is still addled with merriness?’

‘Eh?’ the other skutatos frowned, then squinted at the banner himself. His jaw dropped. ‘Is that . . . ’

Neither noticed the cloaked and hooded figure watching from an adjacent rooftop. The figure saw the approaching horsemen. Then three rapid glints of reflected sunlight flashed from their midst. The figure noticed this then scurried back from the roof’s edge.

Leo the smith was a simple man, a man who could only enjoy reward after a hard day’s work. That was why the events of the last few months had been so confusing for him, he mused, weighing the full wineskin in his grasp. He wiped a rag over his wrinkled scalp and spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the
streetside
, then looked both ways before lifting the keys to the armamenta from his pocket.

‘What is there to be scared of?’ he chided himself as he unlocked the door. ‘They’re all in on it. Every whoreson in the city.’

The half-rotten timber door opened with a clunk and he stepped inside the cavernous red-brick workhouse. Where normally there would be a riot of hammers on iron, sawing, shouting and sweltering furnaces blazing, there was only stillness and silence. The furnaces lay black and cold, the lathes and anvils still and silent and the long workbenches were empty, all apart from one bearing a brass bell upon it. He stalked across the floor of the main workroom, the place echoing with his every footstep, then slumped down on the chair and lifted his feet onto the battered old table before him. He sighed and looked to the wineskin, made to pull the cork from its top, then hesitated as he felt a touch of guilt.

He looked around. Wool, flax, ore and timber were piled high but untouched and the furnaces, looms and lathes lay inactive. Likewise, Leo thought, the tannery at the edge of the city was empty and blessedly free of the noxious stench. This, despite the surplus of hides that lay untreated by its doorway.

Yes, it felt wrong. He lifted the wineskin to his lips and sucked upon it, the tart liquid washing into his gut and further lifting his mood. But it felt so, so good. Being paid twice his usual wage to do nothing? That was quite something. Besides, he thought, every other worker was taking the money without questioning their morals. Yes, he grew bored easily without daily labour. But then, he grinned, he could simply spend his wage on whores and drink to whittle away the time.

He shrugged wearily as he thought of his wife’s tears that morning. He had thought this relative wealth would have at least brought a smile to her face. Instead she seemed determined to focus on the scent of the whore he had spent the previous night with.

‘
Cah
!’ he swept a hand through the air as if batting his troubles away. ‘She’ll learn that it’s better this way.’ He tipped the skin up once more. Today, like the last few days when it had been his job simply to keep an eye on the building, he planned to get so drunk that he would sleep through his shift. Already he felt a fuzziness right behind his eyes. A smile crept across his face as he lifted the skin a third time.

‘Be on your guard,’ an urgent voice filled the room.

Leo sat bolt upright. His heart thundered and he looked this way and that.

He felt fright drain from his body, convinced he had just fallen asleep for a moment. Then he saw a hooded figure stride towards him across the workroom.

He leapt up, yelping, spilling his winesack on the flagstones, backing up against the wall, his chair tumbling to its side.

The figure halted suddenly, only a pace from him.

Within the shade of the hood, Leo saw the ghostly pallor of the man and recognised him at once. It was Zenobius, the curious stranger who had ridden into the city some months ago. The albino had also been in the armamenta that day when the Strategos of Bucellarion had ordered the workers to stand down. Bizarrely, he seemed to be overseeing the strategos’ actions that day. He had the look of a soulless bird of prey that day and now he looked like a hungry one.

‘Gather the workers,’ Zenobius said, flatly.

‘What?’ Leo stammered.

Zenobius grappled his collar and hefted him from his feet and against the wall. The albino’s glare was empty. ‘This is all you were asked to do for your coin. Now do it, or I will cut you to pieces,’ he said, then pointed a finger at the brass bell on the workbench.

‘The workers, yes!’ Leo nodded hurriedly, rushing over to lift the bell. This was left in place to be rung whenever the works needed to be resumed. ‘But who is coming?’

Zenobius simply moved a hand to his belt, where the edge of a sickle blade glinted.

At this, panic washed through Leo’s veins and he stumbled through the double doors into the
workyard
up the timber stairs onto the roof, clanging the bell with all his strength.

***

Apion clutched at the handle of the armamenta door. It rattled but would not open. He looked to Dederic and shook his head, then he twisted round. Romanus and a party of forty varangoi in their pure-white armour were mounted in the middle of the street. Philaretos and Gregoras were mounted alongside them.

Romanus’ lips grew taut. Then he waved Igor and a clutch of the varangoi forward.

‘Stand back!’ Igor grunted.

Apion twisted just in time to see the scarred Rus begin his charge, head down, growling. He leapt back as Igor threw his sturdy frame at the door. With a sharp crack, the lock gave way and the door burst in, falling from its hinges in the process. Igor dusted his hands together then cricked his head towards either shoulder until a popping noise sounded from his collarbone. Then the party filed inside, halting on the main workroom floor as a pair of young men cut across their path carrying timber to the furnace.