Gordon Doherty - Strategos - Born in the Borderlands

When the sun sets on that day Byzantium will be no more.

Apion sat on a cool rock that soothed the biting pain of his scar, flexing his bare toes in a dewy patch of grass underfoot, drinking in the vista of the valley yawning below him: the farmhouse, the river and the terracotta and green lands glowing in the breaking summer dawn. He was alone; nobody around him except the goats, crunching into the thick islands of grass of this, the best grazing spot near Mansur’s farm. He decided they had the right idea and reached into his canvas satchel for the flatbread, still warm from the oven, that he had picked up on his way out. He bit a piece off, comforted by its chewy texture and charcoal flavour, and let his eyes linger on the landscape.

Over the last month at the farm he had come to cherish this time when the land would turn from darkness to dawn, the light bringing the valley to life as he watched in silence, feeling the first heat of the sun stretch across his skin. The spectacle allowed him to briefly forget the murky voices and images that swam in his head at all other times. Being up here and bereft of fellowship was like a tonic for his mind. Not that Mansur the farmer had been anything other than a benevolent and warm person since his arrival. Indeed, far from his expectation that he was to be a land-slave, he had been treated like a son by Mansur, who provided him with a fresh and hearty meal every night and had given over to him a small but comfortable and clean bedroom. Maria still scowled at him in a mix of suspicion and curiosity like something she had dug from her ears — of questionable hygiene in any case — but he had come to understand that this was just her way.

Mansur had tried to talk to him on the first few days, usually over meals at the oak table. It was throwaway chatter: about the lands and the prospects for the harvest; about Kutalmish, the farmer over the hill who grew the ripest nectarines and figs in all Anatolia. Apion had shunned the conversation, instead staring through the open shutters, his gaze searching northward; his thoughts on the charred pile of rubble that used to be his home.

Every evening after eating he would go to his room and kneel by the foot of the bed, clutching the prayer rope to his forehead, the words of the Prayer of the Heart tumbling out as he recited the lines again and again, seeking a moment of truth, an answer. Neither was forthcoming.

It was the nights that truly haunted him. He had managed a single night of sleep since arriving. On that first night it had felt as if he had rested his head on the pillow and then plummeted into a deep well, all thoughts evaporating from his mind. It had been a full day later before he wakened. But every night since, that apparition of the dark door floating in the blackness visited him, drawing him towards it. The door was closed, and only more blackness could be seen through the cracks around its edges. Every night he would wake, bathed in sweat, trembling.

‘So that’s where my other bread went?’ A voice said from behind him.

Apion’s heart leapt and he bit into his tongue. He swivelled to the direction of the voice. Maria stood behind him, breathless from climbing the valleyside, hair clinging to her face, her red robe was, as usual, soiled with grass and earth stains. She was grinning but her eyes showed apprehension and Apion still sensed her unease around him. He was a stranger in her home, after all. Perhaps Mansur had urged her to approach him, he mused.

‘Maria,’ he mumbled, gulping down his mouthful of bread, cracking what he intended as a warm smile but felt more like a wide-eyed grimace.

‘So you do speak?’ Maria’s face twisted into mock disbelief.

‘The bread is delicious! I hope I didn’t leave you short in taking it?’ He finished.

‘No, there are another three rounds, but they are in the kitchen and I am here,’ she stated austerely, reaching over to tear a piece from the bread in his hand. With that, her wariness evaporated and she sat down on the rock beside him and nudged her hips into his, moving him along.

‘Your skin is so pale, it’s like goat milk,’ she mumbled rather ungraciously through a full mouth and spray of crumbs. ‘Father says all Byzantines start pale but get burnt brown like us over their lives.’

Apion gave a half nod, chewing. What did she want him to say to that, he mused?

‘Then there’s your hair; it’s a really strange colour, like sunrise over our barley fields. And your eyes, they’re green like precious stones hidden under that brow.’

Apion flushed in self-consciousness.

‘You look. . really strange,’ she finished and then ripped another chunk of bread from him. ‘Not in a bad way, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Apion cocked an eyebrow.

‘Why’re you up here so early anyway? The goats are happy to wait and graze mid-morning you know,’ she cocked her head to one side.

‘I like being alo. . ’ he hesitated, ‘I like to see the sunrise.’

‘Well I like to sleep until it is light,’ she smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears, ‘though maybe one morning I’ll rise early and come with you?’

Apion saw the hopeful look on her face and nodded.

The farm was fully illuminated now, a patchwork of green plenty and brown fallow, hugged by the burnished red of the Anatolian landscape. A lowing of oxen drew their eyes to the tiny shape that was Mansur driving the beasts across the field, ploughing the earth for the next sowing of rye. Then, to formally announce the day, the cicadas broke into song, building towards their trilling crescendo that would last until dark.

‘And so begins the new day,’ Maria whispered. ‘I’ve been bringing the goats here for years but I’ve never stopped to take it all in like this. It’s like seeing your world like God would, looking down on everything and everyone at once.’

God. He wondered at her use of the word, unconsciously thumbing the knotted prayer rope. The farmhouse was devoid of religious matter. In a land riven by the religious zeal of Islam and Christianity that was almost unheard of. His own home had been typical of the soldier-farmers of the thema, devoutly Christian at every turn. He recalled Mother recounting the holy tale of the blind beggar and the tax collector at bedtime, her lilting tones would eventually turn to the lines of the Prayer of the Heart and the calming aroma of her violet scent would send him into a peaceful sleep. The memory was pleasant at first but then his scar tingled and he remembered that night, the screaming, then the charred rubble. Why would God deal a good Christian family such a hand?

‘Father says you come from a family just like ours — farmers?’ Maria asked, her voice inflecting uncertainty.

Apion nodded. He couldn’t look at her as she spoke; terrified that she would see it all in his eyes. He wanted to say something about his mother and father but again the words choked on his lips, and he hated himself for it. Instead, he pretended to gaze at the wagon haring along the dirt road far below and gripped his prayer rope until his fingers turned white.

‘Father says I’ve not to ask you too many questions,’ she started, biting her lip. ‘You can talk to me about them if you want though. . when you are ready.’

Apion nodded.

‘Look!’ Maria yelped.

She pointed excitedly to the silvery column entering the northern end of the valley. In silence they watched the clutch of twenty or so kataphractoi that led the procession: iron helmets, iron klibania hugging their torsos over crimson tunics, each rider mounted on a fine warhorse, some of which even wore armour plating over their heads and bodies. Every rider bore an arsenal of iron: the spathion hanging from their belts, crimson skutum like a shell on their backs, hiding a bow and quiver. Each rider also carried a kontarion , the lengthy and broad bladed spear over twice the height of a man, and one also carried the crimson Chi-Rho standard of the thema. Behind the riders, a bandon of just over three hundred skutatoi infantry marched, some garbed in iron helmets and klibania but most wearing padded vests, jackets and felt caps. They too carried kontarion, spathion and skutum. Behind the bandon a mule train followed obediently, laden with supplies. ‘My father was a soldier,’ he heard himself say as they disappeared from the other side of the valley.