Gordon Doherty - Island in the Storm

‘Riders!’ he bellowed, summoning his seventy from the razing of the village. ‘At them!’

His men reformed into a wedge behind him and the earth shuddered as they charged for the treeline. The black-plumed Byzantine bowman and his twelve seemed frozen for a few heartbeats, then they turned and fled, some throwing down their weapons in terror. The Norman cavalry charge, Crispin enthused, levelling his lance and training it on the back of the lead rider, not a soul can stand against it!

The going underfoot became uneven as they raced into the forest, branches thwacked on his helm and his armour, but the wedge remained together. He saw the lead Byzantine rider glance back at him again and again as the gap closed. The glinting emerald eyes were sharp, but lacking something, he realised. No fear? A shaft of sunlight blinded him momentarily and he realised the forest was thinning. Another clearing lay just ahead. At once, the Byzantine thirteen leapt over a fallen pine and into this glade. Crispin heeled his mount into a jump too, then he heard the lead rider cry out.

‘Rise!’

From behind the fallen pine rose a wall of imperial skutatoi. Their faces were twisted in fury as they roared and hoisted up spears, the like of which he had never seen before — long and thick. Myrtle, ash and poplar saplings, carved to jagged tips. Crispin gawped helplessly as his stallion plunged onto the colossal lance before him, the tip piercing the beast’s breast armour, flesh and heart, the lance barely moving such was its weight and so firmly was it grounded in the soil at the butt-end. Sky and earth changed places as Crispin was catapulted from the saddle. He heard his stallion’s dying whinny and many more of his comrades and their mounts. Then, with a crunch of iron that shook him to his core, he thumped down onto the dust, rolling over and over. His soldier’s instinct had him instantly grasping for his longsword and struggling to his feet. But he halted as a maw of Byzantine blades and speartips shot for his throat and hovered there. He glanced at each of their faces, pitiless, furious, then locked eyes with the black-plumed, emerald-eyed one with the iron-grey beard who approached on horseback. He walked his mount in a circle around Crispin, hand hovering above the ivory hilt of the Seljuk scimitar he wore on his swordbelt.

At last, this rider dismounted and strode through the teeth of Byzantine blades, coming nose to nose with Crispin. ‘I should cut out your heart and throw it to the forest dogs, cur, but I fear your blood might poison them.’

***

They marched the disarmed Norman prisoners back through the forest, ignoring their foreign curses. When they reached the Seljuk village, Apion thrust his boot into Crispin’s back, sending him sprawling, his helm tumbling from his head. Only sixteen of the Norman’s fellow riders had survived the menavlion snare and they too were bundled along unceremoniously at spearpoint. The fifty Byzantine skutatoi he had sent on ahead were already working tirelessly with the surviving Seljuk villagers, hoisting bucket after bucket of water from the village well and fighting the myriad fires that roared in the houses. The stench of burning flesh wafted over him and he fought the urge to retch. Once more, he longed for the satisfaction of slicing this dog’s head from his shoulders, or forcing him to walk into the nearest blaze, to be burnt alive. But the brief was for Crispin to be taken alive, lest the many other Normans in imperial service took umbrage.

‘How does the scavenger feel, returning to the ruined corpse?’ he hissed as Crispin scrambled to his feet once more.

‘They’re only bloody Seljuks, what do you care?’ Crispin snarled, swinging to face Apion, his blonde hair dangling in his eyes. ‘You’d rather fight men in imperial pay and protect the enemy?’

Apion snorted. ‘I hear you’re very much in imperial pay — helped yourself to wagonloads of taxes. And this village is part of the empire. Seljuk blood in a man’s veins does not make him an enemy. Black blood pulsing round the body of a so-called imperial mercenary, however. . ’

Crispin’s fleshy jaw squared at this, as he and Apion glared at one another.

All around them, the fires began to dull, and the weak, exhausted coughing of villagers and skutatoi rang out. Komes Peleus and big Komes Stypiotes, faces soot-blackened and dripping with sweat, jogged up to Apion and threw up their arms in salute. ‘The fires are quenched, Haga! ’

At this, Crispin’s pale, rounded face creased in a cold smile. ‘So it is you?’ He laughed with a ferocity that belied his predicament. ‘The Haga dares to lecture me about virtue. I know of you, I’ve heard what you’ve done in your time. A slayer of souls, a burner, a death-bringer. You have no right to judge me.’

Apion felt shame coil around him like the cold hands of a wraith. Well used to its grip, he shook it off, grasping Crispin’s collar, pulling him nose-to-nose. ‘I have carried out some dark deeds in my time, aye,’ he spat. ‘I have even plunged a blade into my blood-brother’s heart.’ Memories of his last moments with Nasir stained his thoughts. ‘So do not think I would hesitate to do the same to you!’

Crispin’s smile vanished, his eyes darting. Apion could feel the man’s heart pounding through his hauberk. Then the pace of the heartbeat slowed and a calmness fell over the rogue Norman once more.

‘Your threats grow weaker with every repetition, Haga. If you wanted me dead it would be done by now. You have been ordered to take me alive, haven’t you?’

Apion growled then shoved Crispin away. Two skutatoi quickly corralled the Norman at spearpoint.

‘There is another option,’ Crispin cooed, waving a hand in the direction of the Black Fortress. ‘There is enough coin in my vaults now to keep a soldier in luxury, even a strategos like you.’

Apion’s nose wrinkled. ‘When the rest of your riders are prised from that hill, the money will go to the treasury, as intended,’ he said flatly then turned away to survey the state of the village. ‘To strengthen the border armies, to repair the forts and bolster the garrisons.’

‘Ah, so you have no interest in such diluted metals,’ Crispin shrugged.

Apion’s glare hardened at the implication.

‘But what about pure-gold?’ Crispin continued.

Apion ignored the man, instead accepting a tearful thank you from one old Seljuk woman. He switched to the Seljuk tongue to reply; ‘I am only sorry my men and I could not intervene sooner.’

‘. . pure-gold, and there is plenty more of it coming from my paymaster in Constantinople,’ Crispin’s haughty tones caught his attention once more. He swung round, one eyebrow cocked. The Norman was holding up a small purse from his belt, and had plucked a single, untainted, gold nomisma from it. When the coin caught the light, Apion strode back over to Crispin and grappled the man’s wrist, transfixed by the piece.

‘Ah, so pure-gold is the key to controlling the Haga? ’ Crispin purred, sensing victory.

Apion prised the coin from the man’s grasp, then drew his dagger and cut away Crispin’s purse. He gave both to the Seljuk woman. ‘Psellos’ gold serves only to weed out the jackals,’ he growled, sheathing his dagger. ‘Now shackle him,’ he called to his nearest spearmen. ‘Ready him to be transported west, where he can answer to the emperor in chains.’

Apion barely noticed Crispin’s face fall. The Norman was dragged away and Apion gazed at the spot where the man had stood, eager to flush the black truth of it all from his mind. Duplicity and treachery were still rife, it seemed. He thought of Romanus, the Golden Heart, the first emperor in living memory who promised to restore the empire’s broken borders and bring peace to Anatolia. The emperor had yet to set out on the long-awaited campaign to capture the fortress of Chliat and secure the Lake Van region, yet already, Psellos had sowed the seeds of destruction in his path. He thought again of Eudokia’s plea.