Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart (8 page)

But Apion spared only a heartbeat of thought for the man’s fate. For he realised he had sent the citizens out onto the open plain where thousands of Seljuk blades would now be converging on them. The mocking voice from behind the dark door rasped in a dry laughter as he looked to the open northern gate. Outside, the flood of women, elderly, children and babies screamed as, from either side, a horde of ghazi riders closed in on them, arrows nocked to bows. The cowering citizens halted their flight and the riders waited on the order to fire.

‘Sir!’ Sha emerged from the chaos and backed up to him, his eyes bulging. The pair lifted their blades and turned; every direction offered only blazing fires, pockets of bloodied and cowering citizens and retreating skutatoi. Closing in on them was a wall of Seljuk spearmen. They were spilling through the gates, filling the streets, swarming over the walls. ‘Is this the end?’ the Malian panted.

Apion could offer him no answer.

Then a Seljuk war horn sounded three times. Gradually, the war cries of the akhi tumbled into silence. They slowed their advance and then halted, forming a spearwall in an arc around the last clutches of Byzantine defenders before disarming them. The skutatoi atop the northern gatehouse finally laid down their weapons as they saw that defeat was inevitable. A line of Seljuk archers hurried to kick the discarded weapons away, before nocking arrows to their bows and herding the Byzantine soldiers from the walls.

Apion looked all around, seeing only bloodstained Seljuk warriors grimacing back at him. Then, three riders trotted in through the northern gate and the noise seemed to fall away.

A pair of ironclad ghulam riders carried banners bearing a golden bow emblem. They flanked the broad-shouldered central rider, saddled upon a sturdy dappled steppe pony. He wore a gilded conical helmet with an ornate nose-guard and an iron plated vest that hung to his knees. He carried a scimitar and a finely crafted composite bow. His skin was sallow, his expression stony and gaunt and his nose long and narrow. His dark brown eyes were sharp like a hawk’s. He sported a thick and long moustache, the ends looping round the back of his neck where they were tied together. A pair of akhi hurried to surround Apion and Sha, pushing spearpoints into the flesh of their necks as this rider approached to within a few feet.

Apion threw down his scimitar and Sha followed suit.

‘Have I finally captured the legend of the Byzantine borderlands?’ Alp Arslan spoke stonily. ‘I know it is you,’ the sultan eyed him, examining his blackened, unarmoured form then gazing into his eyes. ‘We have clashed many times,
Haga
. All I have seen of you behind the iron veil you wear on the battlefield is those eyes and . . . ’ he dismounted and strode forward, lifting the sleeve of Apion’s woollen robe, revealing the red ink
stigma
. ‘Aye,
Haga,
it is you,’ he nodded
.

Apion stared at the sultan, expressionless. ‘Do your bidding, spill our blood. But do not seek glory in the slaughter, for there is none to be found.’

‘Years ago,
Haga
, I longed to take your head,’ Alp Arslan raised a clenched fist, his eyes sparkling, ‘dreamt of a moment like this.’ He lowered his fist and shook his head. ‘But now that the moment is upon me, I feel no wish to spill Byzantine blood. It
will
happen – but not today. I have seen enough Fatimid blood in these last months to sicken myself of all things crimson.’ He nodded to the bloody soup staining the battlements and the bodies of slain citizens strewn through the streets. ‘But, fifteen thousand souls march with me. Food and fodder are paramount, and so your fine city had to be taken. You know as well as I that at times some bloodshed cannot be avoided. But it is over now.’ At this, he barked to the ghazis outside the gate. Mercifully, they lowered their bows. Gradually, and in disbelief at first, the cowering citizens there stood once more, then they wasted no time in fleeing northwards. The sultan then clapped his hands and issued orders to the swell of akhi, despatching them to the cisterns with orders to put out the flames that threatened to consume parts of the city.

He looked back to Apion. ‘I came here to settle a dispute.’ He clicked his fingers. A clutch of akhi led forward a bedraggled form who wore only a torn robe, his grey hair loose and matted in gore like his beard. Bey Afsin’s rebellion was over. Beside him was Nasir, shackled, one side of his face lined with the fresh and angry welt of melted flesh.

‘That it spilled into Byzantine lands was a regrettable occurrence,’ the sultan continued, snapping Apion’s gaze away from his old foe, ‘and one I could not allow to burgeon any further.’ He turned to Bey Afsin. ‘Why did you turn from me, my once most loyal Bey?’ Afsin could not meet the sultan’s gaze.

Then Alp Arslan turned to Nasir. Nasir looked his leader in the eye. ‘And you, noble Nasir. I fear you are an even greater loss to my ranks. My plan was to have you elevated to my side. At the helm of the finest riders of my army, controlling a
ghulam
wing. Yet you throw your loyalty behind Bey Afsin’s hot-headed scheme and charge to the west like a blinded bull?’ His eyes hung on the melted flesh dominating one side of Nasir’s face. ‘The scars you bear will surely serve to remind you of your folly. But for how long?’

At this, a pair of akhi stepped forward and drew their scimitars, resting the curved blades on Afsin and Nasir’s necks, looking to their sultan.

Apion and Nasir shared a lasting, stony gaze.

‘In my time I have had men put to excruciating torture,’ Alp Arslan continued, twisting to address the watching thousands. ‘There was one ambitious soul who thought the sultanate would be better steered by his hand and so he set his mind to plotting my assassination. He had plenty of time to rethink his ambitions when I had him staked onto the hot sand, his eyes dashed from his skull and ants set loose upon the bleeding sockets. It took him a day to die and by then, the ants had burrowed through and infested every space inside his head.’

At this, the hordes looking on cheered in bloodlust and anticipation. Afsin squirmed in the grip of the akhi. Nasir did not flinch.

Then Alp Arslan turned to the pair. ‘Your acts were criminal,’ he paused and all around murmured in expectation, ‘but they were not treasonous, and your motivation is noble. Patience is all that separates us,’ he looked to both of them in turn, then boomed so all could hear; ‘We all seek glory for Allah. We all seek the conquest of Byzantium and the peace that will come after that.’ The sultan lifted his arms up, palms outwards. ‘So let it be known here and now that you will not be put to torture or death. Instead you will be placed back in my ranks and given the opportunity to demonstrate your loyalty. For we are stronger together. That this mighty Byzantine city has capitulated is but a precursor of what could be. First, you will ride south with me and put an end to the ambitions of the proud, misguided Fatimids. Then, when the time is right, we will return to this land, and deliver glory to Allah
together!
’

The thick swathes of Alp Arslan’s horde packing the battlements and the city streets erupted in a colossal roar. Nasir did not blink as the blade was taken away from his neck. His gaze remained on Apion.

Then the sultan too looked to Apion. ‘Does this not serve to demonstrate the futility of Byzantium’s resistance? While your forces grow weaker every day, my armies simply grow.’

Apion stared back in silence.

‘In these past years I have heard much of the
Haga’s
wit – sharper even than his blade, apparently. Yet I find you reluctant to utter but a word?’

Apion seared a glare at Alp Arslan. ‘I find that conversation held at
spearpoint
tends to be rather one-sided.’

Alp Arslan frowned. Then the sultan threw his head back and let loose a lungful of laughter that rang into the night. With that, he raised a hand to the spearmen behind Apion, who lowered their weapons.

‘Come then,
Haga
. Let us talk as simple men.
Weaponless
and alone.’

***

Dawn was approaching and the newly kindled fire cast the map room in an orange glow. Apion gazed into the flames. He wore a fresh, soft woollen robe. He had washed the worst of the grime from his face and beard, and wore his damp hair knotted atop his head. It was as if the events of the evening had been some kind of nightmare.

But then he looked up; where Doux Fulco had been sitting only hours ago, Sultan Alp Arslan now sat, supping the remains of the jug of wine left behind by the previous incumbent. On the table between them, a chequered shatranj board had been set up. The pieces had not yet been moved.

The sultan had shed his armour and now wore only a
yalma,
a
green silk close-fitting robe trimmed with gold embroidery. His dark locks hung down his back, and his flowing moustache was tied back there too. Apart from the finery of his garment, the sultan looked very much like the many Seljuk traders and farmers Apion had encountered in his time. He did not look particularly like Mansur, yet, looking at the sultan across the shatranj board, Apion could not help but think of his old guardian; the man whose sword he carried to this day; a man whose memory he loved and loathed.

The sultan was flanked by two standing figures. One was a towering rock of a man named Kilic, the sultan’s bodyguard. Kilic wore a permanent scowl on his flat-boned face, and was dressed only in a sleeveless linen tunic that displayed his bulging, scarred arms. The other was Nizam, a small, stout, grey-bearded vizier wearing a blue silk cap. He had seen this pair watching in the distance when his and Alp Arslan’s armies had clashed in the past, and Apion guessed that they were to the sultan what Sha, Blastares and Procopius were to him. Just then, a slave hurried in to place a platter of bread and a pot of honey upon the table along with a fresh jug of wine. At this, Alp Arslan nodded to the two behind him.

‘Leave us, please.’

Nizam bowed and Kilic grunted, his eyes never leaving Apion as they departed.

‘Eat and drink, Strategos. There is no victory, moral or otherwise, in starving yourself after a battle.’ The sultan went at the bread and honey before him like a man who had not seen food in days. Then he washed it down with a mouthful of wine before reaching out to tap the board. ‘When I was a boy, I used to play this game with my Uncle Tugrul. You remember the
Falcon?
’ he asked, pushing a central pawn forward, looking up with a stony gaze.

Apion let the question hang in the air. He had never spoken with the previous sultan, but they had clashed in battle, over twelve years ago. He had led his men in a ferocious counter-charge that had broken Tugrul’s great horde and shattered the
Falcon’s
reputation terminally. Alp Arslan knew all of this and knew it well. Indeed, it had been the driving force for his subsequent battering of the Byzantine borderlands in the first few years afterwards. Back then, rumour had been rife that Alp Arslan lived only to crush the Byzantine armies and to see Apion’s head on a spike. Mercy had seldom marched with the Mountain Lion. He eyed the sultan’s blade, resting by the hearth, and wondered what had changed in the intervening years; he tore a piece of bread, dipped it in the honey and then chewed. Instantly it invigorated him and soothed his knotted stomach. He reached over to move one of his own pawns forward, opening a path to develop his war elephant. ‘I remember the
Falcon
. At least, I knew of the warrior whose hordes I faced in battle, but I did not know the man behind the armour.’

The sultan’s stony gaze faltered a little, growing distant. ‘They were one and the same, Strategos. Some men can never truly shed their armour. I realised this when I was very young. I used to be known as Muhammud back then,’ he said. ‘I was a happy boy. Yet I always longed to emulate the
Falcon’s
greatness. I coveted a battle name as if it would make me a man.’ The sultan mused over his next move, then plucked a knight and moved it ahead of the pawn line. ‘Tugrul once told me that many years ago, when my people dwelt upon the open steppe, they would go to the foot of Mount Otuken. The drums would rumble like thunder and the tribesmen would watch on as the
khagan
approached, adorned with yak tails and bright pennants and his skin laced with paint. Then he would bestow the
er ati
upon the bravest of warriors. That was how Tugrul gained his battle name. That was how the
Falcon
first spread his wings. From the moment Tugrul told me this, he put an elusive goal before me. For I could never earn my battle name in such a fashion. Our people left the steppe long ago and now Mount Otuken lies windswept and deserted, its glory reserved for the ghosts of the past alone.’ The sultan’s lips tightened. ‘He knew the fire this would stoke within me.’

Apion eyed the sultan. He had dealt with many Seljuk
emirs
and beys in his time. Some wise, some haughty, some devious, some blunt. This man, the sultan who ruled above them all, was not what he had expected. ‘In these last years, your reputation has far outshone the
Falcon’s
,’ he said tersely, moving another pawn out to limit the knight’s movement, ‘and the name
Alp Arslan
is known across my empire and yours.’

The sultan nodded, moving a pawn forward to bring his vizier into play. ‘I first heard that name when I was saddled on my mount, soaked with blood. We had just subdued the last of the rebel
Daylamid
spearmen, high in the rugged mountains of Persia. A thousand men around me lauded the slaughter I had led, a thousand more lifeless faces gazed up at me from the blood-sodden earth.
Alp Arslan!
they chanted all around me. As a boy, I had expected to feel pride at that moment, but when it came, I felt only emptiness.’ The fire dimmed a little more as the sultan swirled his wine cup, his hawk-like eyes peering into the past. ‘The glory of Mount Otuken will forever evade me, but the cursed fire Tugrul stoked within me will never die. Sometimes I find myself pining for those days when I used to be known simply as Muhammud.’