Gordon Doherty - Strategos - Born in the Borderlands

‘Eurgh. . you bloody fool!’ The innkeeper bawled, while the onlookers groaned, shuffling back from the mess, covering their ale cups. ‘If I can’t knock sense into you then you’re of no use to me!’

The boy shot a pleading look at the innkeeper.

‘Out of my way, idiot,’ the innkeeper snatched the mop from the boy’s grip, then kicked the crutch from under him. A chorus of jeers filled the inn as the boy stumbled back, crashing through a pile of stools, his cloak falling to the floor. Now dressed only in a sleeveless and short tunic, a furious red, scabbed and serrated welt was revealed, running from his heel all the way up his leg, disappearing under the frayed hem of his tunic. The boy cowered, pulling the threads of his tunic down, covering the scar with his hands.

‘Useless, this one!’ The innkeeper jabbed a finger at the boy while grinning at his customers. ‘The crook that sold me him in the market told me everything about him: son of a pure-blood Byzantine kataphractos; mother from the northlands of the Rus; only ten years old. Oh aye, told me everything, everything except that he’s a bloody cripple!’

The crowd roared. ‘Seen you comin’!’ One drunk cackled.

‘He was sitting down when I saw him!’ The innkeeper stabbed a finger at his customer and then cast a glance over his shoulder to the boy, ‘and you can forget about eating tonight, you little runt. . you’re fast buying yourself a ticket to the salt mines. If I can be sold a lame-leg like you then I can sell you on just as easily.’

Mansur readied himself as the innkeeper mopped at the gory puddle. He touched a hand to his purse and took a deep breath, stepping from the shadows. ‘How much for the boy?’

The innkeeper stopped mopping for a moment, resting on the end of the pole, then turned to face Mansur with a wrinkle of incredulity twisting his features. ‘Eh?’

‘The boy, I want to buy him. He is a slave isn’t he?’

The innkeeper stalked forward, eyes narrowed as he examined Mansur. Then his pupils sparkled in realisation and a predatory grin split his face. ‘So what business does a Seljuk have in a place like this? This isn’t the fiery hell of a desert your lot call home. You’re in the empire!’

All around him, the crowd murmured, noses wrinkling as if a plague was in the air. Mansur kept his face expressionless. ‘Yes, I’m in the empire and I have been for years, tilling the lands, paying my taxes like any of you. . and I’ve got money to spend. Now, the boy?’

The innkeeper’s lips trembled for the briefest of moments, then his eyes fell on the purple purse on Mansur’s belt and his face brightened at once. ‘A slave. . aye. . and a damned good one.’

Mansur swallowed the urge to belly laugh at the transparency of the man. ‘Well I’m sure he is. How much?’

The innkeeper poked out his tongue to dampen his lips, shooting glances to Mansur’s purse, weighing it in his mind. ‘So young boys are your thing, eh?’ He sneered, wringing a chorus of cackling from the listening drunks.

Mansur’s face remained stony, eyes fixed on the innkeeper.

Finally, the laughter around them died and the innkeeper’s face fell firm. ‘Nine nomismata!’

The crowd roared at this. ‘You’re ‘avin a laugh!’ One shrieked.

Mansur suppressed a sigh and braced himself for haggling. Four gold coins remained in his purse. ‘You clearly don’t want the boy so let’s be realistic. What’s a slave from the salt mines worth?’

‘Ah, no; I said I was going to send him there but he hasn’t been there yet! Still plenty of time for him to develop into a big, strapping lad.’

‘You just described him as a cripple, did you not?’ Mansur cut in.

Okay, he’ll never be a runner but. . ’ the innkeeper started.

‘I could buy three child slaves for nine nomismata at the market square.’

‘Well, why don’t you? Door’s open,’ the innkeeper countered.

Mansur cocked an eyebrow. ‘Well, it seems I’m in for a bargain at the market then, three slaves for the price of one.’ He waited until the glint in the innkeeper’s eyes dulled, then strode for the staircase. One stair creaked under his weight, then another, then he lifted his foot again. .

‘Er. . wait,’ a deflated voice grumbled from behind him.

Mansur paused, then twisted around. ‘Your price?’

‘Six nomismata,’ the innkeeper sighed.

Mansur turned and continued to climb the stairs.

‘Okay, four!’ The man barked.

Mansur suppressed a grin and turned to descend the stairs. ‘Why the long face,’ he asked the innkeeper as he counted out the coins, ‘you’re still getting more than he’s worth?’

The innkeeper scowled at Mansur as the circle of punters leered at the exchange of currency. ‘Just be on your way.’

With a whimper, the boy shielded his eyes as he limped up one stair at a time with the aid of his crutch, Mansur slowing to match his pace. The light betrayed the savage discolouring on his leg all around the wound and the fetid mess that was his tunic. They pressed to one side of the stairs as Longibardus the doorman came thundering back with an entourage of four skutatoi from the city garrison in tow.

As they stepped out into the full glare of the mid-afternoon sunlight, the bustle of the city enveloped them. The salty tang from the nearby waters of the Pontus Euxinus mixed with the arid, red dust that clouded the air and caught in the throat, thrown up by the throngs of determined citizens and wagons that pressed past the pair and into the market square. All around them was an incessant rabble of shouting traders, barking skutatoi, whinnying horses and cackling drunks. Clusters of verdant green palms and beeches stood fastidiously in the swell of activity, providing precious shade in the wide street between the sturdy structures of the church and the granary. At the end of the street, away from the market square, the baked battlements of the city walls shimmered, punctuated by iron-garbed skutatoi and cotton-armoured toxotai bowmen. The boy looked up, eyes glassy. Mansur followed his gaze; towering above all other buildings and the high masts of the warships at the city dock, the Chi-Rho atop the red-tiled church dome pierced the eggshell-blue sky.

Mansur put an arm around him. ‘Come with me, lad,’ he whispered, turning to push back through the crowd towards the south gate. ‘You can trust me. . and I hope in time you will.’

The boy looked up at him, his emerald eyes meeting Mansur’s at last.

‘I’m Mansur.’ He squatted to be level with the boy, who was already tired from the effort of walking this short distance. ‘So what’s your name, lad?’

The boy licked his lips and pulled in a deep breath before replying.

‘I’m Apion,’ he jolted free of Mansur’s arm, steadying himself on his crutch, eyes searing under his frown. ‘I’m Apion. . and I am nobody’s slave.’

‘You okay back there, lad?’ A gravel voice called back from the wagon driver’s berth.

Apion sat in the corner of the cabin, a timber box, closed on all sides with a door on the right. He heard Mansur’s words but his mind remained elsewhere. Early evening sunlight flitted across him through the slats in the wagon roof, illuminating the crimson of long dried blood and red dust from the road crusting his tunic. The wagon sunk and then lurched on a pothole and a streak of white-hot pain burst from his scar, engulfing his leg in an invisible fire. He clutched at his thigh and winced, grimacing through the worst of the pain before slumping back. As the pain subsided, he peered through the slats on the side of the wagon, gazing at the speeding countryside outside, the patchwork of farmhouses and crop squares worked by stooped forms of the soldier-farmers of the thema becoming less frequent as they progressed.