Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (7 page)

The roof groaned as he clasped a hand to either side of the doorframe. The intruders were gone and there were no imperial riders to be seen. The night lay in front of him and out there he would find the creatures responsible for this. All of this. Tears stung his cheeks as he hauled himself clear of the doorframe. He roared out into the night, then, behind him, the roof collapsed. The cloud of flames hurled him through the doorway, then a glowing beam crashed down on top of him, landing with an unearthly pain up the length of his butchered leg, gouging into his back with a rapacious sizzling of flesh. His lungs had nothing left in them to scream with and he felt darkness rush in.

An eagle’s piercing cry high above rent the night air and at once he was gone from the world.

He awoke to the sound of lungful after lungful of screaming. His own. He had the prayer rope clasped with both hands across his heart.

‘Apion!’ A voice echoed. A broad moustachioed face emerged from the misty confusion. Mansur shook him by the shoulders.

‘Father?’ Maria scrambled to Apion’s bedside.

‘Get out, Maria,’ he waved a hand at her. ‘Please, start the fire and prepare some
salep.
’

‘Apion, be calm, please, you are safe, you are safe.’

He felt his chest heave more slowly and the screaming had died to a whimpering. His face was wet with tears. Glancing around the room it was all so peaceful, so quiet: the fire crackled through in the hearth room and the shadows of his bedroom danced lazily in the half-light from the flames.

‘Mansur, I’m sorry. I, I saw it all. As if I was there again . . . ’

‘Easy, lad, take a deep breath,’ Mansur frowned, brushing a thumb across Apion’s cheeks, wiping the tears clear.

‘It was all like it was happening again for real. I felt every blow, the fire . . . their bodies . . . ’

Mansur’s eyes looked lined and heavy and he shook his head. ‘You have a heavy burden on your shoulders, lad. It is time you shared it with me. Come, let us have a drink and talk.’

***

The hearth room was pleasantly warm, the fire freshly loaded with logs. A rather grumpy Maria had prepared them each a cup of salep, a hot milky drink spiced with cinnamon and orchid root, and then trudged back to her bed to leave them alone. Apion had told Mansur everything, eyes hanging on the gentle flames as he did so. The old man had remained quiet while the story was told, even during the long pauses as Apion composed himself. As the grim tale progressed he found his words flooding out like a river, the images flitting before his mind’s eye.

‘I was dead. I swear death took me.’ He shook his head, gazing into the speckled surface of his salep. He took a sip, the creamy sweetness of the drink coating his throat, comforting him. ‘When I woke, my wound was cleaned and dressed and I was resting in a shaded dell, way up on the hills, miles from the farmhouse, a pleasant breeze cooling my skin. Everything was silent apart from a lone eagle calling somewhere high above. I did not feel the pain of my wound at first. My mind was blissfully free of the memories of what had just happened.’

Mansur frowned, confused. ‘The slave traders had found you and bandaged you?’

Apion shook his head, his face wrinkling. ‘If they had found me then, in the smoking ruins of my house, I would not be alive. No, only a woman was there; silver hair and eyes that were pure white – she must have been blind. She was old, older even than you,’ he paused a moment, checking to see if he had caused offence. Mansur issued a weary smile so he continued. ‘She dug at roots in the earth and hummed a tune to herself. Her voice was comforting to me in my state, something about it made me think of Mother. Then she came over and removed my dressing. I couldn’t look at the wound but she rubbed the root against my flesh and it took the pain away. I asked her who she was and she just laughed. Not at me, just a little laugh as if she had remembered a joke.’

Mansur was captivated. ‘Did she tell you how she had got you to this place?’

‘No, but she spoke to me while she reapplied my dressing. She said the burning timber that fell on me had saved my life, cauterising the flesh.’ He stopped and frowned. ‘She gave me my crutch and told me it was time for me to carry on with my life, but she had a single piece of advice for me.’

Mansur leant forward, nodding.

‘She said I would choose a path. A path that leads to conflict and pain. She told me to go anywhere I wanted. Anywhere except . . . home.’

‘Where she found you?’

Apion nodded.

‘Then you left the dell,’ Mansur rubbed his moustache, imagining the scene, ‘where did you go next?’

‘Well I found myself hobbling on my crutch a long way from those hills. The pain came back gradually as I made my way back.’

‘Back?’

‘I went home, Mansur, despite what she told me.’ A tear forked from his eye. ‘The place was a charred mound of rubble. I kept looking at it, trying to see it, as if the ruin was not real. I spent days there, just sitting, staring into the ash. When the slave wagon came by, I barely noticed them as they shackled me. They packed my wound with salt, knocked me unconscious and took me into the city. I woke in a cellar, insects running through my hair, rats biting at my flesh. I survived in that place for over a month until the trader took his slaves to market. That’s when I ended up in the inn; one stinking cellar for another. Every day for the best part of a year they would beat me, spit on me, yet all I could see was the blackness of the ash. All I could think of was righting the wrong.’

Mansur held his gaze, the old man’s eyes were red-rimmed. ‘It’s over now, Apion. You are here and you are safe under my roof. Perhaps the old woman who tended to you was right. As dreadful as what you have just told me is, perhaps you should try not dwell on what happened at your old home. I realise that what I am suggesting would be far from easy, but to let go of this could be to give yourself a chance to live a happy life? Ask yourself what your parents would have wanted of their son; a blackened individual, joyless and bitter, or the boy they knew, the boy they loved and who loved them back?’

Apion looked at him solemnly and shook his head. ‘You speak wise words, Mansur, but I can’t even remember who I used to be before that night.’ He had tried so hard to remember the past as it once was: Mother preparing a meal of stew and bread for Father’s return from campaign. When he arrived, dressed in a leather klibanion, iron helmet and boots, Apion saw him as a model kataphractos. Then the three of them would spend the time outside of campaigning season tilling and sowing the modest farmland. Hard work, but happy times. Yet the memories were becoming flatter and more hazy over time.

Mansur’s face saddened at this and he gazed into the fire. ‘I know where you are, lad. Loss; it takes a long time to come to terms with it. Indeed it drives you to seek answers from the darkest of places before you finally make peace . . . ’ his words trailed off, his voice breaking up.

Apion noticed that Mansur’s eyes glistened now. ‘Your wife?’

‘Ten years ago,’ Mansur spoke flatly, his grey crop shimmering with sweat, his face stony as he gazed into the fire.

Apion nodded. So Maria would never have known her mother. Suddenly he felt heart-sad for her. Mansur’s grief was there but not there, like its rawness had been chipped away and polished down to a smooth burden that he bore without question. He pulled at his prayer rope and wondered at his next words, whether Mansur would appreciate them.

‘Does it help to know she is with God now?’

Mansur did not look round from the fire but his face hardened a little. ‘God, if such a thing exists, makes our lives a constant struggle.’ He lifted his salep and supped thoughtfully.

Apion frowned. ‘You must have loved God once to say such a thing?’

Mansur turned to him and nodded. ‘When you lose what is dearest to you, you have a choice: worship or reject. I have made my choice.’

‘My mother and father, they were Christian. I am Christian. But, and I don’t know if I am betraying them in saying this, I can’t see why God could let what happened to them happen,’ his eyes darted around the flagstones as he searched for his feelings, then he looked up to Mansur.

‘That’s what makes me doubt it all, lad,’ Mansur replied. ‘If God created man, then why are we so foul and blinded? We live our lives for a few handfuls of seasons and we spend most of them making mistakes, terrible mistakes. Only when we’re grey and withered do we realise where we should have turned and when.’ He shrugged his shoulders and lifted one side of his mouth wryly. ‘By then, our children have grown into their own cycle of pig-headedness, doomed to blunder on until we are all merely dust.’ A log snapped in the fire.

Apion nodded as he considered Mansur’s words. ‘Father would have taught me and guided me well. I know it. He always showed me things and said that when I was old enough he would teach me all that he had learned. He promised that after the next campaigning season, he would teach me to tame a horse and make it my own, so I could become a rider like him. Now I will never learn from him.’

The old man held his gaze for a moment longer then shook his head and took a deep breath. ‘As I say, learning is usually a matter of making mistakes. Well I am grey and withered and I’ve made many mistakes in my life. I can help you learn.’

‘You’d do that for me? A slave, not of your blood, not even of your kin?’

Mansur finally broke into a weary smile. ‘You’re no slave, Apion, just as you told me that day in Trebizond. So, the learning begins tomorrow; the grey mare is about the right size for a lad of your age and build. After breakfast we will get you used to life in the saddle, how does that sound?’

Apion grinned.

6.
The Horseman

Dawn had not yet broken and only the moonlight outlined the land. The fresh wind rushed over the pair riding on the grey mare.

‘Slow down!’ Maria cried out, grappling her hands together around Apion’s waist and hugging herself to his back.

‘Are you joking? This is like having wings! Anyway, we’re nearly finished.’

He leant forward on the saddle and focused on the dark-blue dappled eastern horizon, then heeled the beast’s flanks. ‘Ya!’ He bellowed. The mare accelerated before they hit the uphill slope to the tip of the valleyside separating the two farms, heading for the hilltop.

At first, the very act of staying on horseback had proved difficult for him, his scarred leg stinging as he clung to the beast, but the rush when he rode was unmatched and only a few weeks after Mansur had first shown him the basics of handling a horse, riding felt more natural to him than walking.

This morning he and Maria had raced at full pelt down the banks of the Piksidis, before turning in and up to the tip of the valleyside. Then they had sped down the opposite side, rounding Kutalmish’s farm, Apion shouting a pox on the boy Nasir – much to Maria’s chagrin – and then galloping back up the valleyside. Now they were coming to the hilltop just north of the farm. Apion had first discovered this hilltop on his first solo morning gallop; it was probably the highest point near Mansur’s farm, and afforded a fine vista of the breaking dawn.

As they reached the hilltop, they rounded the small beech thicket and then the mare slowed just by a terracotta boulder cairn. Apion’s eyes were drawn to the topmost boulder, sporting a faded etching of some creature with two heads, broad wings and rapier-like talons. The etching was very old by the look of it, but the fierceness in the creature’s eyes still made his spine tingle every morning when he saw it.

Then Maria cuffed his ear. ‘Have you lost your mind? I was terrified we were going to be thrown to the ground and dashed on the rocks!’

Apion laughed; this was the first time she had ridden with him. She had begged him to take her with him because Mansur – who had forbidden her from riding as she was too small – was away to market today. He turned to her, grinning, but his face fell as he noticed that she was shaking. He put a hand on her knee. ‘I’m sorry, Maria, I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that I’ve never felt more in control than when I’m riding.’ He patted the mare’s mane and the beast snorted in reply, breath clouding in the dawn air. ‘I’d never be able to make it up here on foot with my crutch.’

She glanced at his withered leg and he felt the usual shame. His leg had at least formed a pink welt of scar tissue since leaving the squalid conditions of the cellar inn, but this scarring held the limb bent at the knee, forcing him to walk in a lop-sided fashion. To stretch the scar and stand tall sent a furious agony through his body, so riding suited him perfectly.

‘It’s okay,’ she said softly, ‘I know you didn’t mean to upset me.’ She looked around, the wind dancing through her hair. All was still dark apart from the band of light blue to the east. ‘Anyway, why have we stopped here?’

‘You said you would watch the sun rise with me one morning, remember?’ He pointed to the glimmer of red on the eastern horizon. ‘Well, here we are.’

She rested her chin on his shoulder and they remained in silence as the glimmer swelled and spread, growing into orange until the light spilled through the valleys, illuminating the burnished terracotta hillsides, silhouetting the farms and mills that dotted the rich soil flatlands in between and igniting the Piksidis like a silver asp.

They watched until the sun was fully over the horizon, their breath slowing at the majestic transformation.

Maria sighed contentedly, finally breaking the spell. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I never tire of watching the land come to life. It washes away all the worry from my mind,’ Apion replied.

‘It’s a wonder you get any sleep at all – you’re up before the goats!’

Apion laughed. It had taken him a while to realise but life on the farm had kept him engaged at all times: riding, goat herding and farming absorbing his days and every night was ended with a welcome cup of creamy salep. Even the nightmares had begun to subside in the last few weeks, and the resulting rest had been most welcome. Every morning he had found himself refreshed and calm, rising before dawn to come up here, basking in the beauty of dawn.

His thoughts were interrupted as he noticed Maria shuffling in discomfort. ‘It is beautiful, but there will be many more mornings . . . and I’m hungry. Are you not?’ She reasoned, jabbing a finger into his ribs and grinning.

‘Aye,’ he chuckled, ‘let’s go home.’

He heeled the mare to turn towards the farm and they set off at a canter. When they got back, they prepared a platter of goat’s cheese, bread, yoghurt and figs, and a now unmissable cup of sweet, creamy salep to wash it down. The goats had struck up a chorus of enraged bleating as they ate.

‘You’ll get your food once we’ve had ours!’ Apion chirped. Through the open door he could see two kids, born in the last month, jostling for position at the front of the pen, ears flopping over their faces, eyes wide in anticipation. ‘Anyway, I thought you were goats, not pigs?’ He chuckled.

‘You’re one to talk; you get through the cheese faster than I can prepare it!’

Apion spun round to see Maria stood, the hint of a smirk edging her lips. ‘Ah, it’s only because I graze them so well that the cheese is so tasty!’ He pulled a handful of blueberries from the branch in the middle of the table, popping one in his mouth, the tangy juice inside the fruit bursting across his tongue. The house was quiet and Mansur’s dark-blue felt cap was conspicuous by its absence from the peg by the door. It warmed him that the old man trusted him, a Byzantine boy, like a son. It warmed him more to reciprocate that trust. He looked to Maria, wolfing bread in a less than delicate manner, crumbs lining her lip. She was either black or white; she’d snarl at him in a temper then she’d grin at him and he felt good, like everything was okay.

‘You’ll come out with me again one morning?’ He munched on the last of the blueberries.

‘When I grow taller I’ll be riding the fawn mare . . . on my own,’ she replied, looking past him austerely.

‘Then we can race!’ Apion grinned.

‘You’re becoming more like Nasir every day. Is that what happens to all boys as they grow up?’

Apion thought of the cinnamon-skinned boy and frowned. Nasir and he had clashed on a regular basis, usually on the valleyside when he was grazing the goats. The first time, Nasir came past and mocked him, saying that Apion was a cripple and not even worth fighting. Apion had stayed quiet, refusing to meet the boy’s glare and maintaining an air of disinterest. It was only after the boy left him alone that Apion let his fury boil over. Taking his crutch into his hand like a sword and smashing it time and again against a tree. The last time they had met, just last week, Nasir had introduced himself by means of bouncing a stone off the back of Apion’s head. His ears ringing, he could only lip-read the obscenities the boy hurled at him until his hearing recovered.

Nasir’s face had been a sneer and a grimace at once. Then his expression had dropped as Apion stood and hobbled over to him, eyes burning. Nasir was a good half-foot taller but at that moment he felt level. He had pushed the boy in the chest and saw Nasir’s fists ball as if to retaliate, but instead the boy had simply snorted and walked away. ‘I’ve already told you: I won’t fight a cripple,’ he had thrown over his shoulder derisively. That was when Apion had challenged him to a horse race along the banks of the Piksidis. ‘If you won’t fight me and you won’t race me then I begin to think you are afraid of me,’ Apion had growled, hubris coursing in his veins yet well aware that in any such race, Nasir would ride on his father’s stallion, a good hand higher than his own grey mare. Regardless of this, the race had been set up for the following week.

‘A pox on him!’ Apion waved a hand as if swatting an invisible fly.

‘Apion! He’s a nice boy. He just tries really hard to act like a fool.’

‘Like his brother?’

She nodded. ‘Exactly like his brother. Father says Giyath himself used to be a nice young man and it was only when his mother was . . . ’ she looked away, eyes to the floor.

Apion frowned and sat forward. ‘Maria? What happened to their mother?’

‘She was killed. Father says I must not speak of it.’

‘Why?’ Apion said. ‘The truth could never be as terrible as what happened to my parents, Maria.’

She looked up to him, eyes glassy. How much of his past Mansur had told her he did not know.

‘Nasir and Giyath’s mother, Kutalmish’s wife, was killed,’ she said. ‘A Byzantine patrol fell upon the caravan as they came here from the east to settle.’

Apion pulled his chair around and put a hand to her shoulder, nodding.

‘They lashed out with their swords without question, assuming the caravan was some Seljuk military supply line. I was there, Apion. I can’t remember it as I was but a baby, as was Nasir. Before they realised we were civilian they had killed his mother and . . . and . . . ’

Realisation dawned on him ‘Your mother was there too, wasn’t she?’

Maria nodded.

Apion pulled his arm around her and let her sob gently into his shoulder. So Kutalmish and Mansur had been widowed on the night they had made the bold step to abandon soldiery and embrace a life of peaceful agriculture in the empire they had once fought. No wonder Giyath was an aggressive beast, and Nasir’s rage was understandable. He wondered if the dark door lived in the minds of them all. Did they seek retribution as he did? Did they see every Byzantine being as he saw the masked men from that night?

‘I didn’t even know her,’ Maria spoke softly, wiping her eyes, ‘it still hurts to think of her though. Father won’t talk to me about her. It’s as if I never had a mother.’

‘He hurts, deep inside. I know it,’ Apion rubbed her shoulder. ‘I think he finds it difficult to talk about his past.’ Apion realised the irony of the statement; it was Mansur’s patient ear that had listened to the tale of Apion’s dark past. ‘You can talk to me about her, any time you want to.’

‘I will.’ She offered a hint of a smile but her eyes remained sad. ‘But I know that you suffered a terrible loss, as cruel as ours. I want you to talk to me of your family as well.

Apion nodded, cupping Maria’s hand, searching her eyes for a glimmer of happiness.

Instead, Maria straightened in her chair, eyes growing wide, staring over his shoulder and through the doorway. Then she pushed back on her chair, shaking. ‘Maria?’ Apion’s blood iced. He twisted in his chair, following her stare to the vision trotting up the dirt path, rippling in the heat haze. Two horsemen approached, armed.

She stood, whispering, eyes searching the floor of the hearth room, fingers grappling at the hem of her dress.

‘Who is it?’ Apion pushed up from the table, head darting from Maria to the riders until the sunlight splashed from their conical iron helmets and he noticed one wore a golden plume. He recognised the garb: kataphractoi, defenders of the empire, just like father; so why did his gut ripple in unease?

‘Stay inside,’ she barked, stepping to the doorway, shifting her diminutive figure into the space and bristling, attempting to fill it out in vain. Apion felt only one need at that moment; to protect her.

He shuffled forward on his crutch, then barged past her, out of the doorway and into the growing heat of the morning. Then the gold-plumed soldier slipped down from his horse and strode forward, a smile etched under his blade of a nose that ill-fitted the malevolent grimace worn by his bull of a partner. At that moment Apion recognised him: Bracchus, the soldier who had mugged Mansur that day in the wagon and the big Rus who had accompanied him.

Bracchus sucked in a lungful of air and blew it out again with a groan. ‘Oh dear, Mansur really has run out of tricks this time, eh, Vadim?’ His voice boomed, belying his tall but lean frame. He turned to his partner, flicking his head towards Apion. ‘Seems to have fled the scene and left a boy to deal with his problems. A Byzantine boy living and working for a Seljuk . . . what’s your story?’