Strategos: Island in the Storm (30 page)

Romanus gazed back for what felt like an eternity. ‘Then that is what we must do.’

Tarchianotes stood back from the table. ‘Folly,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘We should split the forces and move on – at haste!’

‘If we fail to gather the grain and rations,
Basileus
. . . ’ Bryennios added his dissent, albeit more graciously.

‘Then we will be compelled to split the army,’ Romanus glowered at him. ‘But first, send out our champion rider with a wing of kursores. Speed is of the essence.’

***

Diabatenus admired his beauty, reflected on the flat of his spathion. If he squinted enough, he could not see the purple veins snaking from his eyepatch. God truly favoured him, it seemed. ‘Lead the kursores to the farmlands in the north, you say?’ he grinned, looking up to the gruff Rus axeman who had come to his tent.

‘At first light,’ the varangos confirmed, handing him a weighty sack of coins. ‘Use this to buy whatever the people can spare. The emperor prays that you will ride as swiftly as always.’

‘It will be done,’ he nodded.

When the Rus left, Diabatenus turned his gaze back on his sword blade. A broad, white-toothed grin now split his features. An alternative brief had already been supplied to him by the other man from the emperor’s retinue who had come to him only a short while ago. The lost riches of his racing career would be dwarfed by the gold he would earn from this. He lifted his eye patch to reveal the cracked bone, the welt of pustules and the scarring that lined his empty eye socket. His grin faded into a sneer.

Yes, it will be done.

***

Genesios halted his oxen, seeing the dust cloud coming from the south. Fear gripped him instantly.
Another Seljuk raid?

‘Father?’ his boy whimpered, sitting astride the plough.

‘The raiders rarely venture this far north, Nicholas,’ he lied. ‘There is nothing to fear.’

His guts turned over as the dust cloud came closer. From the many farmsteads and shacks around his, he heard wails of distress, saw women gathering the hems of their robes and running from the fields, men throwing down their hoes and tools or grappling them like weapons, some trembling. They had fled the great stone walls of Theodosiopolis to leave behind raids like this.
Let the Seljuk raiders have the city and the trade route, we desire only to be left in peace and safety with our families,
he had implored the doubters. He clutched the Chi-Rho on his breast and prayed he had not led them all to their doom. He glanced to the barely started earthworks they had planned to develop into some form of defensive barrier, and cursed their lack of progress on this.

‘Father!’ Nicholas cried, a smile like a breaking dawn spreading across his fresh face. ‘They are imperial riders!’

And indeed they were. Kursores, he realised. Light and swift cavalrymen, torsos wrapped in iron or leather klibania, heads crowned in glistening iron helms. Genesios shuddered with a sigh of utter relief, then followed it up with a lungful of laughter as his fear melted away, leaving him shaking and drained.
Thank you
, he whispered skywards.

The handsome, eyepatch wearing lead rider pulled up before him, clods of dew-damp earth spraying as the man’s mount circled. ‘The people of Theodosiopolis?’ he mused, casting his good eye over the fertile strip of land, his gaze coming to a rest on the timber grain silos and storehouses. ‘I am Diabatenus of the Vigla. Who governs this community?’ the man asked, stroking his wind-ruffled, dark-brown locks back into place.

‘I do,’ Genesios replied. ‘The governor and the garrison of Theodosiopolis fled and bought residence in the hilltop towns of the Armenian princes,’ he pointed a finger to the southern horizon. ‘The people without such means needed a leader.’

‘A brave man it is who steps forward in treacherous times,’ Diabatenus nodded firmly. ‘Now, you have surplus food, I understand. Grain, salted meats, fish, cheeses, honey, nuts?’

Genesios hesitated before replying. ‘We have stockpiled for the winter, yes, but we are likely to need it in those cold, harsh months.’

‘I find coin often supplants the need for other things,’ Diabatenus grinned, lifting the heavy sack of coins from the back of his mount. ‘The emperor and his campaign army lie camped outside the walls of your old city, some ten miles south of here.’

‘The campaign army is in these lands? I had heard only rumour of this,’ Genesios’ eyes widened. ‘Then he means to buy our surplus?’ he looked to Nicholas and thought of the boy. He and many others would go hungry this winter without the surplus in the storehouses. But with coin they could replenish the stores over the next few months by visiting the northern market towns. He looked up to the handsome rider. ‘When I left Theodosiopolis I brought with me God and all that I love about God’s Empire. I will do anything for the emperor, God’s chosen one, anything for Byzantium.’ He smiled at the rider and beckoned him over to the silos.

‘In here you will find maybe a hundred wagon-loads of food and fodder,’ He opened the storehouse doors to reveal tightly bound bales of hay, hanging meats, various amphorae and brimming barrels of grain. ‘You should bring your wagons round from the west, as the ground is rough and . . . ’ his words trailed off as the acrid tang of burning resin curled into his nostrils. He turned around, frowning. The handsome rider was grinning, the kursoris beside him had lit a torch.

‘As I said, coin can bring about almost any possibility,’ Diabatenus’ grin grew. He turned to the kursoris, clapped a hand on the sack of coins then nodded towards the silo. ‘Put it to the torch. Earn your share.’

The kursoris looked uncertain, glancing back over his shoulder from whence they had come, then to the faces of Genesios and little Nicholas, then to the sack of coins. His expression hardened.

‘No!’ Genesios roared as the man tossed the torch onto the hay bales inside the silo. Several more riders did likewise to the other buildings nearby. ‘What have you done?’ he crumpled to his knees as angry flames and thick black smoke billowed from the silos and storehouses. ‘You have killed us all. Now we will not last even until the winter, let alone through it.’

Diabatenus grinned down at him and shrugged. ‘Then let me offer you some mercy.’ He nimbly swept out his spathion, hung low in his saddle and swirled the blade round in one stroke, hacking into the side of Genesios’ neck. The farmer shuddered where he knelt, the blade cutting deep, a spray of red showering his son before dark blood came in sheets.

Genesios’ reached out to his son, longing to protect the lad, but the blackness of death swept him away.

***

Diabatenus took a rag from his belt to clean the blood of his first ever kill from his blade.
Damn, but that felt good,
he realised. He had missed the raw, visceral power of the Hippodrome, but this was a fine substitute. He kicked his mount into a walk around the rising inferno.
This will do it,
he enthused.
I will forge a chariot of solid gold once Psellos pays me for this.

At that moment he felt utterly invincible. His charm, his looks, his wits and his abilities. Even his skin felt like cold, hard steel. So it was a surprise when he felt a dull blow in his flank. He turned round, frowning, expecting that one of his fellow riders had clumsily barged into him. Instead, he looked down to see the drawn, haunted eyes of the farmer’s little boy, gazing up at him. The lad’s face was smoke-stained and tear-streaked. He held the shaft of a hoe in both hands. Diabatenus’ gaze ran up the hoe shaft to where the blunt blade rested under the hem of his iron klibania. Blood washed from his flank in waves. He felt the urge to correct the lad, tell him he had been mistaken.
You can’t hurt me,
he thought,
I am Diabatenus, Champion of the Races, Breaker of Hearts, Best of the Vigla . . .
 
his thoughts fell away as he slid from the saddle, thudded to the ground then gazed up at the sky, his body growing terribly cold.

The last thing he saw was the farmer’s boy stand over him with a heavy rock in his hands. A heartbeat later, the rock crashed down, and Diabatenus’ beauty was crushed into the dirt like an egg.

***

Apion stood on the battlements of Theodosiopolis, clasping his helm underarm as he gazed into the clear, unspoilt morning sky. But his thoughts were dark and murky. Two days had passed since Diabatenus and his riders had been sent out. And it seemed that they had simply vanished into the ether. Romanus had insisted they keep word of this from the rest of the army.
We bury this news and we split the army. It is our only option now. Tarchianotes’ regiments will forge southeast towards Chliat, and I will lead the rest at a slower pace towards Manzikert.

He looked down to the vast camp outside of the city. Half of the site now lay empty. To the south, the rumbling was just beginning to fade as eighteen thousand men slipped over the horizon, despatched on the most direct route to Chliat to seize the fields, forage and fodder there. Not just any men either – the cream of the campaign army. The Scholae Tagma, the Hikanatoi Tagma, the Stratelatai Tagma and the Vigla Tagma – more than eight thousand cavalry, many of them the precious heavy kataphractoi. The hammer of the campaign. Supplementing them were the four hundred strong pack of Pecheneg riders. The infantry of the Optimates Tagma, the Anatolikon Thema and the Charsianon Thema, plus the bulk of the foot archers from the other themata had been despatched behind them at a quick march. Doux Tarchianotes had been entrusted with this fearsome and fast-moving corps.

‘Strategos,’ Sha called from the end of the battlements. ‘We are to leave within the hour.’

Apion turned and nodded to the Malian. So it was to be that Romanus and the remaining half of the army – twenty two thousand strong – were to march directly for Manzikert. The makeup of this half was troubling.

There was a solid core. The infantry of the Chaldian Thema, the Cappadocian Thema and the Colonean Thema along with Prince Vardan and his two thousand Armenian spearmen. These men would happily bleed for the empire, without question. And the siege engines loaded onto the wagons would be well utilised on Manzikert’s walls by Procopius and the artillerymen.

The makeup of the cavalry presented more issues. He saw Igor readying his Rus riders, polishing their white armour and honing their axes. These thousand riders were fierce and loyal, but as cavalry, they were not the most nimble. There was Bryennios’ western army – five thousand strong. One in ten of these men were heavily armoured kataphractoi. The rest were the more lightly-equipped kursores. These western riders were brave and skilled, but they had yet to face a Seljuk foe in full battle. This fact tossed up memories of Manuel Komnenos’ over-confidence the previous year. Then there were the two thousand Oghuz archer cavalry and the five hundred Norman lancers; men with no love of Byzantium other than for the gold coin minted in her treasuries. Lastly, there was Scleros and the seven thousand of the magnate armies. They busied themselves strapping their overly ornate weapons to their belts and backs, supping neat wine and boasting with each other as to how they would smash the skulls of the Seljuk garrisons. This rabble were yet to be tested in a battle of any kind. They had been involved in skirmishes with brigands along the way, but had never been seriously challenged. Would they stand firm and charge hard, should the need come? His gaze snagged on the one who stood solemnly amongst them. Andronikos Doukas. The young man was something of an enigma. Heedless of his shackles, he polished his armour and checked his horse’s snaffle bit and scale apron. Probably the best soldier amongst them. Yet the son of John Doukas would ride into this battle with not so much as a dagger to wield.
Your father has a lot to answer for,
Apion mused, batting away the sliver of sympathy he felt.

Just then, the buccinas blared and the standards were raised above the myriad banda of infantry – assembled now in an offensive formation to present a broad front nearly a mile across. The priests raised the campaign cross, chanting as they walked before the formed ranks. He flitted down the stone steps and gladly departed the ghost city of Theodosiopolis, taking the reins of his Thessalian from Sha then riding to the front of the column where the emperor sat astride his dark stallion.

‘
Ha-ga!
’ the men of Chaldia chanted as he passed them, men from other themata joining in.

Romanus beheld him as he approached. Apion nodded, sliding his helm on his head. Romanus nodded in return, then raised his bejewelled spathion overhead. The chanting fell away. ‘Forward – to our destiny!’ the emperor cried.

They headed east, turned south to cross the Araxes River then journeyed through the broad Murat Su valley. It was early afternoon six days later – six days with scant half-rations but otherwise without incident – when they came to the top of a green hill. On the brow, the emperor halted the column. He raised a hand and pointed south, down the slope that lay before them.

‘Look. At last we are on the cusp of all we have strived to achieve,’ he said to his retinue, his voice but a whisper in the dry, hot air.

Apion gazed south, fixated on the black-walled fortress town, less than half a mile away, standing proudly where the hills faded into a dry, dusty flatland.