Gontran and Dagobert rode in silence for some time. Hours would pass before they reached Trebizond at the earliest; it was afternoon, and Gontran kept the four horses moving as quickly as possible, doing his best to avoid being caught out here at night with his prisoner. He had decided to bring Dagobert and the horses back to the city. Maybe then he would hear some news about Alexios.

That’s what I’m telling myself.

Gontran soon grew bored enough to strike up another conversation with Dagobert.

“You sound like you’re from Picardy,” Gontran said.

“Coucy-le-Château is my home, and that of my lord the Sire Ursio de Coucy, may God rest his immortal soul.” Dagobert crossed himself. “I spent so many years with him. He taught me so much. I cannot believe he perished in that terrible fashion…that he will remain unburied in the snow until some wolf comes along and devours him…may God rest his soul, my poor sire…”

“Coucy-le-Château,” Gontran repeated. “Feel like I’ve heard of it. Is that near Reims?”

“It used to belong to the archbishop of Reims until it passed into the lordship of the Sire’s father, the baron Enguerrand de Coucy.”

“I’m guessing Ursio has an older brother. That’s why he’s way out here in Romanía, right?”

“He is the fifth son in his family.”

Gontran raised his eyebrows. “You were the one who said I couldn’t inherit anything. The same’s true of Ursio, isn’t it? And probably you as well? You’ll get nothing if you spend your life hanging around in France. So you come to kill and steal in Romanía.”

“That is none of your concern.”

“Are you always so pleasant? It must have been a nightmare to travel halfway across the world with you.”

“I have nothing to say to those who know nothing of their proper place, of those who disdain the love of Jesus Christ.”

“And yet you just said something, didn’t you?”

Dagobert kept silent and looked away. Gontran said nothing further.

It took hours to pass the Haldi’s cave and the watchtower and come within view of Trebizond. In the evening the city looked even more beautiful than usual—long and narrow, between two ravines, guarded by impregnable walls, the citadel strong as a keep of France, all blanketed in snow and lit by the orange light of the sun falling into the west. Some months had passed since Gontran had traveled so far from Trebizond, and he was surprised by all the changes he could see from this distance, in particular the many new buildings in the Daphnous suburbs to the east. Dagobert, in contrast, was so in awe that his mouth fell open.

Only a small part of Trebizond—the citadel and the Upper and Lower Towns—were guarded by the old thick Roman walls. Most of the city now extended into the surrounding plains and hills, its new wooden buildings stretching into recently cleared forests. The fanatics had worked quickly—since they were, after all, building their own homes. Laziness would have only prolonged the period they spent sleeping in the open under the stars, shivering as the mountain wolves howled at the moon.

Smoke rose from many chimneys—which must have looked strange and new to Dagobert’s eyes—while dozens of fishing boats floated on the waves near Hadrian’s Harbor. Gontran could see the Paralos moored there alongside a large Arabian dhow which must have sailed in from Alania. The sound of hammers clanging anvils, of saws tearing through wood, of clattering carriages, neighing horses, and murmuring crowds rose in the air even from this distance, where the city was so faraway that it resembled a model of itself.

Trebizond was loud and crowded. The workers’ insistence on developing a proper sewage system also meant that it smelled like the sea and the wind. In Gontran’s experience, some cities were so dirty—particularly in places like France and Angleterre—that you could smell them before you saw them.

“What a strange seeming place,” Dagobert said, breaking his long silence, no doubt in spite of himself. “Quite different from the capital of Greece—from Constantinople—and yet quite similar. It still has the grid layout we have found in our journeys in this part of the world, orderly and logical. I cannot understand how the Greeks build such cities. Even Paris—a town of confusing winding warrens in comparison—is smaller than this. Old Rome itself but a hovel nestled amid ruins.”

“Do you have an interest in city planning?” Gontran asked. “If so, this is your place. They’re putting up new buildings and laying out new neighborhoods all the time.”

“Trebizond, you know, it looks the most to me like Venice,” Dagobert continued, “except built upon the land, rather than upon those wooden platforms the Venetians sank into the slime of their lagoon, and now connect with bridges and rowboats. And yet even then Trebizond is different from this. Where are the bells? In Venice, Rome, and Paris, the bells ring ceaselessly from the campaniles, but none ring here. It is because you have all fallen to the devil, is it not?”

“If you want to put it that way,” Gontran said.

“You invite the wrath of God upon yourselves. I only pray He vouchsafes me opportunity for vengeance.”

“God has had plenty of chances to destroy us, but for whatever reason he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“His ways are not our ways.”

“Yet we’re made in his image, aren’t we?”

Here Gontran realized he was descending into a theological debate—beloved of the Greeks and apparently also some Latins—more or less out of boredom. It would still take some time to work their way to the city through the snow. But he was also still worried about Alexios, and wanted to distract himself from the conviction growing within him—that he had abandoned his friend.

“What preposterous foolishness,” Dagobert said. “It doesn’t take a prelate to bandy about with such a feeble wit. We are made in His image, yes, but not in His essence. That is obviously quite beyond us—with the exception of our immortal souls, though since you are unrepentant you have damned yours to eternal hellfire.”

“Alright. But what about Jesus? Was he a man, or god, or somehow both at the same time?”

“Another easy question. Such foolishness may trip up the schismatic Greeks, but even a layman such as I can easily parry your intellectual thrust back upon you. The Son is consubstantial with the Father. They are of the same essence.”

“But would that mean that Jesus didn’t actually suffer when he was on the cross?”

Dagobert sighed. “Jesus was incarnate of the Virgin. He is man and god at the same time.”

“So he died for our sins.”

“What childish questions! Of course he did!”

“That means God basically sacrificed himself to himself—which kind of invalidates the whole idea of sacrifice, wouldn’t you say? There was never anything at stake. God was always going to be fine. He’s the one who made all these rules in the first place.”

“Be silent!”

“Even though the guy created the universe, he couldn’t do anything about Adam and Eve biting into that fruit in the garden—right? Why did he even put the Tree of Knowledge there to begin with?”

“It was God’s volition!”

“But how did his negligence allow the serpent into the garden? It’s almost as though god was setting up Adam and Eve for failure. And then we get blamed for that, thousands of years later? We have to spend our lives sitting in church listening to sermons just because Adam bit into a fruit? We had nothing to do with it.”

“Enough!”

Gontran chuckled. “This is funny. No one’s ever spoken to you like this. You thought you were so clever, but that’s only because you never encountered anyone who questioned the church.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Ah yes, what a profound stance you have taken, to question the church—no one has ever done such a thing before. What proof of intellect, to hate the believers! Perhaps you have forgotten how there are many in France who care nothing for the beauty of the One True Faith? One encounters them quite regularly skulking about in open sin.”

“But when was the last time any of them spoke with you? When was the last time you were trapped with one and forced to talk with him?”

“It is the schismatics. They have turned your head.”

“Don’t blame my friends in Trebizond. I’ve hated the church for as long as I can remember. I hate getting up early in the morning. I hate struggling to stay awake while the priest drones on about how God is good. Who cares! I hate looking at everyone else in the parish and seeing how desperate they all are to just get it over with. Most of all, I hate the tithe. I hate seeing my family work harder than animals, while the priests just kept getting fatter, lazier, and dumber. And the whole time, the priests can relax because they’re protected by monsters like you. If any of us complained, we’d have to deal with a thousand armored knights charging us on horseback.” Gontran reached forward and slapped the back of Dagobert’s head.

“Ow!”

“How do you like it?” Gontran said. “How do you like being forced to confront ideas you despise?”

Dagobert was silent.

“But now that I think about it,” Gontran said, “there’s something even worse than the tithe. When people fall in love with their chains, when they mistake prison for freedom, when they think they’ve got it pretty good in prison, so why should they risk making a run for it?—all because they’ll lose their minds if they dwell even for a moment on how terrible everything is and how it doesn’t need to be that way—that’s the worst part of all. My parents always spoke up in defense of the church when I complained about it, though it was easy to see how it stunted their minds.” He waved his hand. “All mystics. How are you supposed to argue with people who believe in things you can’t see or touch?”

“The Lord is my shepherd,” Dagobert said. “I shall not want.”

“That’s right. And he shepherded you right here.”

Dagobert continued his silence. Gontran realized that this conversation helped him deepen his appreciation for Trebizond. He even felt happy to return to this place—could it be called home? All he’d needed was a break—though this argument with Dagobert had also added XP to his Intelligence Skill (5/10).

Gontran knew of no other city where churches, mosques, or other temples were so inactive. The workers themselves never outlawed religion here, either. All they did was work to provide those things on Earth which the church promised in heaven. Once everyone had everything they required, what need was there for priests? And people could believe what they pleased—could even say what they pleased—so long as they stuck to the rules.

One thing is definitely missing, though. Gontran looked at the sullen Dagobert. The chance to mess with the biggest assholes currently living: French nobles.

“I thought you had no problem parrying my feeble intellectual thrusts?” Gontran said to Dagobert. “God made light itself, but wiping out original sin with a snap of his fingers, that’s asking too much?”

“I shall go out of my mind if you continue speaking of this nonsense, and then you shall get no information out of me!”

“That’s alright, I doubt there’s much in your head to begin with. You don’t even have the intellectual tools you need to defend your ideas. This little conversation of ours reminds me of what my friends are always talking about. For example: can god create a stone so heavy that even he can’t lift it? You must have heard that one. It’s such a basic question.”

Silence from Dagobert.

“And you’re thinking,” Gontran said, “that you have no idea. It makes no sense. It must be one thing or the other. Either god has the strength to make the stone, or he has the strength to lift it. But the truth is that god is unique, and can defy our simplistic earthly notions of logic. He can make a stone infinitely heavy, and then lift it, since his strength and creative powers are both infinite. As for sin—or the problem of evil—why doesn’t God simply destroy it with a snap of his fingers? Because without evil, there can be no good. Each is defined by the other. And besides, life might suck, but it’s alright, because the afterlife is the only true reality anyway. You might not be able to see it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

Dagobert remained silent.

“I learned about this from traveling around,” Gontran said. “After I learned to read, and decided I wanted to figure out why everything sucked everywhere. If I’d stayed in France, I never would have figured any of this out.”

“You argue now in favor of God after spending all this time committing sacrilege with your denigrations.”

“I’m just showing off. Isn’t that something philosophers do? Argue in favor of both sides with equal rigor? But you wouldn’t know. You’ve never met someone exposed to Mazdakism, have you? Mazdakists are too extreme for me, they go too far, but a lot of their ideas have still rubbed off on me.”

Silence.

“It’s funny, Dagobert. We’ve spent the whole afternoon together, and you haven’t even asked my name. I defeated your master in combat, captured you, and then made mincemeat of your beliefs, and still you think me lowly vermin.”

“Finally you begin to speak the truth.”

Gontran laughed. “It makes you so angry for me to talk about god like this. It’s all thanks to this abusive relationship you have with your actual parents as well as the country you come from, such as it is. But I guess I can’t really call a bunch of feuding landlords a country, can I? It’s more like a culture, I guess? Regardless—God, parents, and country all kind of blend together in your mind.”

“What is this nonsense?”

“That’s what my friends in Trebizond have been telling me, anyway. They seem to know a thing or two. Just look at what they’ve accomplished…”

“They know nothing.”

“And when you were a baby, when you were a child, if you questioned your father, he’d beat you. Maybe he still does. As for your mother, she’d enable him—make excuses for him. She’d coddle you. And what’s likely is that you learned to live with that kind of abuse, since it was impossible for you—as a baby—to escape. That’s why you get so angry when I insult god, something you’ve never seen or touched. Although, now that I think about it, your bread and butter also comes from god, doesn’t it? So long as your peasants believe in god, they keep paying their rent, don’t they?”

“They believe out of love,” Dagobert said. “They pay out of love. We protect them.”

“I’m sure you do. That’s why you’re wandering around foreign countries picking fights with strangers, remember? Anyway, hard as it may be to believe, I actually come from a place—or part of me comes from a place—far beyond France. It’s very different from anything you’ve ever known.”

“Now you speak even purer nonsense. How can you come from two places at once? No man has two hometowns!”

“It’s possible. Just bear with me. In that country it’s not so controversial to question god—at least the one you know from church and the bible. People do it all the time. They joked so much about it the jokes aren’t even funny anymore, they’ve grown stale.”

“They will not be laughing when they close their eyes for the final time, upon their deathbeds, and then open them to devils prodding their flesh with fiery pitchforks in the Hell of the Damned.”

“I’m sure that’ll happen.”

Dagobert groaned with exasperation. “You are quite an object of ridicule. There is nothing sensible about you.”

“Tell me about it,” Gontran said.

The sun had fallen below the horizon by the time they reached the Satala Gate, which the workers were about to close for the night. Alexios was standing just inside the gatehouse, his eyebrow raised and his arms crossed. Gontran laughed and shook his head.

“I don’t know whether I should punch you or hug you,” he said.

Alexios widened his arms.

Gontran dismounted, stepped forward, and hugged him. Dagobert, meanwhile, was shocked that Gontran had switched to speaking Greek.

“I was worried about you,” Gontran said to Alexios. “We were all worried we’d lost you.”

“I must have come back to the city just as you were leaving to look for me,” Alexios said. “I just missed you.”

Gontran stepped away. “You didn’t send out anyone to bring me back?”

“We were so busy you were long gone by the time we figured out what had happened.” Alexios looked at Dagobert and the horses loaded with armor and weapons. “Besides, it doesn’t look like your trip out there was a total waste.”

“That bastard Leon thought I’d lose a horse,” Gontran grumbled. “I came back with three more.”

“Can you introduce me to your new friend?” Alexios nodded to Gontran’s prisoner.

“Kentarch Alexios Leandros, meet Squire Dagobert.”

“Dagobert,” Alexios said. “That’s quite a name.”

“And this guy is many things, but he’s definitely not my friend.” Gontran looked at his prisoner and switched to French. “Are you also from the House of Coucy? No, you must be from a different family, that’s usually the way it works. You didn’t tell me your last name. You must be Dagobert de Something.”

Dagobert kept silent. At this point he was refusing to even look at Gontran or Alexios.

“Very well,” Gontran said. “I dub thee Dagobert de Something!”

Dagobert said nothing, of course, and Alexios was unable to understand the joke, having no knowledge of French.

“Dagobert isn’t in the best mood,” Gontran said, switching back to Greek. “I guess the famous chivalry and politeness and courtesy of French knights doesn’t apply when they’ve been captured. Dagobert and his master, some guy named Ursio de Coucy, attacked me on the Satala Road.” Gontran then repeated these words in French for Dagobert’s benefit.

“Never has there been a display of such wanton perfidy!” Dagobert shouted, glaring at Gontran. “You false wretch, you dispatched my noble lord the Baron Ursio de Coucy in most cowardly fashion—”

“What language is that?” Alexios said. “Gallic?”

“You call it Gallic, I call it French. Bad French.” Gontran turned to Dagobert, who was still spitting out swears and insults that would have prompted violence back in France. “Hey, listen for a minute. We can’t ransom you if we don’t know who you’re working for. Who are we supposed to contact?”

Dagobert fell silent and looked away.

“It’s unusual for two people to be riding alone out there,” Alexios said. “Could they be scouts?”

“They must be. He won’t say a word about who they’re scouting for. Clearly he expects to be rescued.”

“Then whoever his friends are, they’re probably not far,” Alexios said.

“What are you saying? That we’re going to have to deal with another invasion? Another siege?”

Alexios answered Gontran’s question with a grim expression. Then the kentarch ran off, saying he needed to tell Herakleia.