At this time, Herakleia had finally gotten up, and now she was in Jamshied’s blacksmith shop working the bellows as part of her project to learn everything about the work that went into the city. Jamshied himself was holding a glowing miner’s helmet inside a furnace with a pair of tongs. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he withdrew the helmet and hammered it against an anvil, splashing the air with sparks. This was Herakleia’s signal to stop working the bellows.
Alexios burst inside Jamshied’s shop—flushed and gasping from running through the city, so that he looked handsome in the furnace’s firelight—and shouted something. Herakleia pulled the beeswax wads from her ears and then winced as Jamshied’s hammer clanging against the anvil deafened her.
“Gontran’s captured someone!” Alexios shouted.
“What?” Herakleia said.
“When I got lost in the snow,” Alexios gasped. “Gontran came and looked for me.”
Herakleia shut her eyes, vaguely remembering how Gontran had woken her just after she’d fallen asleep following the long night she’d spent helping Fatima give birth. Already these events seemed to have taken place long ago, but Gontran had only woken her up for a moment this morning. So much happened in Trebizond every day. After she’d gotten up just a few hours ago, Qutalmish told her that Alexios had safely returned to the city, but that Gontran was still out there. It was such a relief to hear that both of her friends had made it back to Trebizond!
“I returned to the city before Gontran,” Alexios said. “Gontran didn’t know I was here. He stayed out for awhile on the Satala Road and found someone who seems to be scouting for an invasion force.”
New quest begins, the game voice said. The Second Siege of Trebizond.
“Are you serious?” Herakleia said.
Alexios nodded gravely. “I’m sorry to say that I am.”
Herakleia slumped, then fell onto a stool, with the blood draining from her head and the entire world collapsing around her.
“This can’t be,” she said. “Another army already on its way…then all our work was for nothing…”
Jamshied stopped hammering, pulled the beeswax from his ears, and looked at Alexios. “Only days ago you and your council ordered me to cease weapons’ production. Now you come into my shop to tell me the enemy is at the very gates? Is it possible for me to get any work done at all?”
“It’s not my council,” Alexios said. “And the majority agreed with our decision.”
“It may have been the wrong decision,” Jamshied said. “The majority can make mistakes. To align yourself with workers and peasants does not make you infallible, nor does it make you a god. You are still only human—and not just human, but a young man so puffed up on his sudden fame and power—”
“We did the best we could.” Alexios clutched his fists and stepped closer to Jamshied. “It’s not as though I can just wave my hands and instantly make everything perfect. We had a hard choice and we made a decision. Either way meant taking risks.”
“As though a soldier would know the travails of a working man.” Jamshied waved his tongs and hammer. “Especially one so young and inexperienced with the ways of the world—”
“You don’t think I’m a worker?” Alexios said. “You don’t think I do work, risking my neck every—”
“Enough!” Herakleia stood from her stool. “Listen, Alexios, are you sure the man is a scout? Could he be a lost merchant or something?”
“I don’t think so,” Alexios said. “He wasn’t carrying much in the way of money, supplies, or trade goods. He barely even knows where he is. What seems likely to me is that we surprised him after he was dispatched only a short distance from an invasion force.”
“So Gontran captured a scout,” Herakleia said to herself.
“Why else would I waste my time in a place like this?” Alexios glared at Jamshied.
Herakleia was about to ask Jamshied’s permission to leave, but just then he nodded to her, closed his eyes, and waved his hammer.
“You were helpful in my shop, strategos,” Jamshied said. “You would have made a good blacksmith.”
“I’ll come back,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, you won’t.”
She stepped toward him and held her arms wide. He set down his hammer and tongs and hugged her. Alexios looked away.
“Should I resume weapons’ production?” Jamshied said as she stepped back. “We still have so few of these new black powder weapons, and so little ammunition…”
“That requires a decision by the council,” she said.
“As does every last little thing,” Jamshied said. “I cannot even fart without asking the council’s permission.”
“You’re welcome to return to the sultan whenever you want,” Herakleia said. “To live under someone who makes decisions without giving a damn about what the majority of workers thinks.” She looked to Alexios. “Maybe we should call an emergency session of the council. Did you get any information out of the prisoner?”
“He won’t talk,” Alexios said.
“You haven’t hurt him?”
“No, not yet…”
She crossed her arms. “You aren’t saying we should torture him?”
“All I’m saying is that we asked nicely, and he wouldn’t answer. The only thing we haven’t tried is asking in a way that isn’t so nice.”
“You forget that I was tortured, once. I’ll never do that to anyone else, I don’t care how bad they are or what’s at stake.”
“Herakleia—”
“It’ll be a waste of time,” Herakleia said. “He’ll just tell us whatever we want to hear. It’s also ethically wrong.”
“So is sending an army to crush us,” Alexios said. “What if this scout has information that will save lives?”
“We already know enough,” Herakleia said. “If anyone’s out there, they won’t take us by surprise.”
“We don’t know how many there are,” Alexios said. “It could be a thousand or it could be ten thousand. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know what they’re capable of or even which direction they’re coming from. But this scout knows. He’s also a Latin, Herakleia. He isn’t Roman.”
“So what?” she said.
“All of us know the Roman army isn’t what it used to be,” Alexios said. “An army of Latins, of Franks and Germans and Varangians—it could be more dangerous.”
“So far from the western provinces,” she said, half to herself. “To the lands the emperors ‘temporarily lost’ to the barbarians centuries ago. Did they march all the way through the Kingdom of Germany, and the Bulgar Khanate…?”
Jamshied raised his glowing tongs from the anvil. “I agree with Kentarch Leandros, much as it pains me to say. I can help with this prisoner. We can make it quick. The mere threat of pain alone may convince him.”
“What if we need to do more?” Herakleia said. “What if we need to mutilate him? Besides, any information we get out of him will be useless—that’s something neither of you seem to understand. Torture doesn’t work. Do you think I told them anything when they tortured me? Nonetheless, this all requires a council decision. I’m not unilaterally torturing a prisoner. If we do this, we do it together—all of us.”
“You must take charge, strategos.” Jamshied set the tongs back down. “Every moment we spend debating the finer points of these processes, the enemy takes another step closer—and gets that much closer to cutting all our throats. You may be kind, but the enemy won’t be.”
Herakleia shook her head. “If I try to take control like a king, the incentive to build up the city is gone because it’s just me in charge, rather than everyone in Trebizond. The rest of you will have no reason to help me because I’ll be the one making all the decisions and ultimately taking the gains for myself—in fact if not in name. Theory must match practice. Names and the things we are naming must also match. We cannot call Trebizond a workers’ state if I’m the only one in control. If we do this, our entire project will fail.”
“That’s the way it’s done in the rest of the world, strategos,” Jamshied said. “Often a single man rules an entire country as his own private property. All his subjects merely live there at his pleasure.”
“You speak to me as though I haven’t seen more of the world than you,” Herakleia said. “Do you think I’m a fool because I’m a woman?”
Jamshied watched her for a moment. “You may doubt yourself, strategos, but I don’t doubt you. Until I came here, I had never known women could lead armies or cities. In my homeland, women defer to men, as the young defer to the old, and the poor and powerless to the rich and powerful.”
“Well, it’s different here,” Herakleia said. “Back in Konstantinopolis, all the scholars are Neoplatonists. They view the masses with contempt. They think everyone needs to fall into line below God, who, by the way, has chosen the emperor to rule over us, as master of a universal empire—”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“There’s no need to show off your knowledge,” Jamshied said. “We all know you’re educated—”
“Let me finish,” Herakleia said. “To question Neoplatonism isn’t just heresy in their minds—it’s madness. But here we don’t just question those ideas—we prove them wrong by our example.”
“In the rest of the world,” Jamshied said, “these men can make decisions quickly. Even now I think we waste time—”
“We aren’t the rest of the world,” Herakleia said.
“Strategos.” Alexios glanced at Jamshied. “I also find myself agreeing with the blacksmith, much to my chagrin. We don’t have time for this.”
“I’m not finished,” Herakleia said.
“Then talk about it later,” Alexios said. “Once the danger’s passed, we’ll have plenty of time to talk. We’re both telling you this. Please listen to us.”
She looked at them one after the other. “Alright. We should go to the hall and call a council meeting. I should also see the prisoner.”
“That will take up more time,” Alexios said. “I told you, we already talked with him, and frankly I’m getting a little frustrated with having to repeat myself here. You don’t need to do every last little thing in the city, strategos. And besides, you won’t get anything out of him unless—maybe—you torture him, which you already seem reluctant to do.”
“So it’ll be a waste,” Herakleia said. “Then let’s call that council meeting. We still need to decide what to do about the invasion.”
“I must put out the fire,” Jamshied said. “Then I’ll join you.”
Though Herakleia was sweating from the heat, and her muscles and bones were aching from hours of blacksmithing, she wrapped her cloak around her shoulders, then walked into the frigid night with Alexios. The starry evening might have almost been romantic with the two of them together, but circumstances were too desperate. She only hoped now that this was a false alarm—that Alexios and Gontran were somehow mistaken about their prisoner.
“Where is Gontran, anyway?” Herakleia asked.
“Back in the citadel, like always,” Alexios said. “He’s exhausted from being out in the snow all day, although probably not too exhausted to count his money for the millionth time.”
“And the prisoner?”
“Also in the citadel,” Alexios said. “Locked up.”
“Soon it’ll be just like old times. We’ll all be together again.”
Alexios smiled. By now Herakleia had increased her pace to a steady jog, despite the ice on the cobblestones, dangerous even with the crushed rocks scattered there to keep people from slipping. Alexios easily kept up with her as they made their way from Jamshied’s blacksmith shop in the Upper Town, through the Lower Town, and out through the Northeast Gate into the Daphnous suburbs, where the community hall had been constructed due to the lack of space within the walls.
Inside the hall, it was dinner time. Everyone greeted Herakleia and Alexios when they entered the warm light. Amid the roaring conversation, the cutlery clattering on plates, the aroma of freshly baked bread, and all the crowds sitting around the long tables in the stuffy cozy heat, it took a few minutes to find the council members, all of whom were eating among the workers with their friends and family.
Once the council had assembled on the stage in the middle of the hall, they began their emergency session. Alexios rang a small bell—just cast in Jamshied’s shop, bells were still unusual in Romanía—from the ceiling above the stage. When the hall quieted, he apologized for the interruption. Every worker had stopped eating and speaking and was now listening—some keeping still—as Alexios related how Gontran had captured a Latin who appeared to be scouting for an invasion force on the Satala Road half a day’s journey away. This was all Alexios knew.
Herakleia, standing beside Alexios, turned to the council members sitting on their stools and asked if they believed it necessary to prepare for a siege, adding that it was possible that this could be a false alarm. If the council voted in favor of action, everyone in the city would need to work through the night to ensure that Trebizond was ready to meet this threat.
In response, there was neither discussion nor debate. Before any member of the council could speak, the workers in the hall had put down their forks and spoons, stood, and brought their dishes to the compost bin and then the dishwashers. Then they went outside to their pre-assigned tasks in silence.
Better safe than sorry I guess, Herakleia thought, wincing at the fact that almost the entire city was now working a night shift right after a day shift.
The council members on the stage looked at each other. The hall was now empty save for those workers assigned to dishwashing and those caregivers who were helping the disabled, small children, and elders finish their meals.
Jamshied stepped onto the stage. Although the decision was a fait accompli, the council voted unanimously to begin immediate siege preparations.
Following Trebizond’s last siege, the workers had voted repeatedly to devote a large share of resources to war. That was the overall strategy. Export iron, coal, and textiles. Use the money earned from exports to purchase better equipment and to train workers. Then build up the army—first for defense, then offense. That was it.
When the Romans had first attacked the city, it had only possessed one century of hastily trained amazons who themselves barely knew anything about the divine farr. Now it had three centuries—for a total of about six hundred troops—all of whom had been training nearly every day for months. New blacksmiths had been trained in the mean time, and until recently these had worked from sunup to sundown on swords, spears, shields, helmets, cuirasses, arrowheads, and even a few firearms—copied from Gontran’s unusual weapon which he had picked up in Sera, as well as the remains of the massive cannon called the Basilik which the Romans had dragged all the way across Anatolia to the city. In the previous siege, the amazons had gone into combat with rusted swords and little armor. Now every soldier was equipped with professional-grade steel, so sharp it could cut your eyes if you glanced at it.
A stream ran through the city, whose walls extended to Hadrian’s Harbor. Trebizond also lay in a part of the world where it was often raining or snowing, and many houses had cisterns. This meant that water and food would likely be of little concern in a siege, but the workers had nonetheless dug underground granaries in the Upper Town specifically for emergencies. Samonas and his assistants had filled these with enough grain, wine, and olive oil to feed the city for months. Trebizond was a faraway place, a month’s march from any major city, making it difficult for a besieging army to feed its troops for more than a few weeks. The longer the city could hold on, the better its chances.
We cannot flee, Herakleia thought. There’s nowhere to go. We must stay and fight.
By then the council members had left the hall to work on their assigned tasks. Alexios was soon mustering the amazons in the citadel courtyard; they would begin shoveling snow outside the city walls in order to expose the ditches dug for the previous siege. This was an exhausting task, but one which would save lives, since the ditches made it nearly impossible for siege towers or battering rams to approach the walls. Attackers would need to either fill in the ditches with dirt or snow while under fire, starve the city out, or attack the walls with ladders. Only Trebizond’s southern flank needed ditches, however. Moats protected the eastern and western sides—though they were frozen—while the sea protected the north. At the same time, the newly built Daphnous suburbs, extending beyond the eastern walls, were vulnerable.
By then Herakleia was—as usual—everywhere at once, carrying messages for different groups of workers, but also patrolling the walls and peering into the darkness for any sign of the enemy’s approach. After leaving the hall she had felt useless, however. The workers were now so good at pulling together like this that it seemed there was little for her to do. But snow and ice always needed to be cleared from the cobblestones, and gravel scattered there. Coal needed to be delivered; wood always needed to be chopped for the fires that kept workers warm, and which they used to light their torches. Even the dishwashers in the community hall—who themselves were regular workers assigned this unpleasant task for one day each month—could always use more hands scrubbing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen.
All these jobs and many others besides were difficult and annoying, and everyone was already tired from laboring all day, but the workers nonetheless kept each other’s spirits up, cracking jokes, telling stories, encouraging one another to keep going. If they failed, the enemy would kill or enslave everyone. Who in the city could sleep soundly, knowing this? Certainly the workers were also angry and grumpy, but they directed their anger against their unknown foe. Though the captured scout was apparently a Latin, people believed he was working for the Romans, who must have somehow raised a new army and sent it their way, thinking they could surprise the city in the winter.
Trebizond’s workers came from as far as Gallía, Libya, Varangian Rus, and Persia, and all these people had spent their lives suffocating beneath the yoke of feudalism or slavery. Now that they had freed themselves, they would work until they dropped dead to stop their old masters from chaining them up again. Until recently, few had even known that they could break free in the first place. The possibility had never entered their minds; and had anyone mentioned it, they would have said it was too dangerous, that it went against nature. The siege was a test of their new opinion on the matter, and the workers refused to be proven wrong.
New arrivals to the city would sometimes fall on their knees and bow and cry when the city granted them food, water, shelter, medicine, education, friendship, and—most important of all—power. These were necessities for human beings, but the new arrivals had lived without them all their lives, so emaciated—physically, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally—by the ruling classes of their homelands that the new arrivals thought people could only live so well in the afterlife. Occasionally the new arrivals thought there was some sort of catch.
“No catch,” the Trapezuntines would say. “All we want is for you to join us.”
These skeptical arrivals always broke down and cried, sooner or later, when experience in the city forced them to admit that Trebizond fulfilled its promise. The refugees’ reactions made Herakleia more determined to scatter the uprising’s glowing embers to the four winds—to set the world on fire.
The rich are only defeated when they are running for their lives, Herakleia thought. They seem invincible until the workers are driving them into the sea.
Trebizond’s growing Daphnous suburbs were the biggest concern. Since they were made of wood and stretched outside Trebizond’s walls, the enemy would burn them, and smoke from the conflagration could choke the population hiding inside the city. The council had endlessly debated this question. Should new walls be constructed outside the suburbs? Such a project would cost obscene amounts of labor and likewise delay the completion of other necessary additions to the city. It was also likely that, after several years had passed, when the new walls were finished, the suburbs would have already expanded beyond them.
Debating those who advocated the construction of a new wall, Kentarch Leandros quoted a maxim of the Romans or the Spartans—he forgot where he’d heard it—that the best city walls consisted of a disciplined, well-equipped, aggressive, and mobile army. The old city of Rome had gone without walls for hundreds of years, busy as it was at that time enslaving the world with its irresistible legions. In fact, Rome’s roads and manipular arrays had so shocked the barbarians that they had needed a millennium to find an effective means of resistance: heavy cavalry and horse archers. This, in combination with infamous Roman decadence—the mountains of stolen wealth transforming the formerly warlike Romans into ignorant hedonists—had so thoroughly destroyed the empire that it now consisted of little more than a rump state surrounding Konstantinopolis.
That which causes a society’s rise leads to its downfall.
But Konstantinopolis was still Christendom’s great city. The excise taxes the Romans wrung from merchants traveling along the Bosporos meant that the emperors always had sufficient coin to either hire mercenaries or convince a few of their own people to squeeze back into those old Roman cuirasses, tuck their rusted gladiuses into their scabbards, have their slaves haul them into the stirrups, and ride off to fight whichever barbarian horde was camped outside Konstantinopolis’s walls.
As for constructing Trebizond’s new walls, the workers were divided, and the issue had been tabled multiple times. The more immediate problem was figuring out how to keep the enemy from burning the Daphnous suburbs. Aside from providing people with buckets of water—with which they were to douse these buildings as best they could at the first sight of any approaching invader—there was little they could do. Herakleia remembered things called “fire trucks” from her life in the old world. These were self-propelled metal carriages which used a special kind of force applied to large tanks of water which were carried inside to douse flames. Of course there had been no time to design or construct these vehicles, especially since every component needed to be built from scratch. Everyone was always busy in Trebizond; and, much as the workers would like, they couldn’t transform a medieval town into a modern metropolis all at once.
They could, however, prepare for a siege. The night passed quicker than might have been expected. People grew drunk on exhaustion. Though their work was imperfect, it was far better than nothing. By dawn almost everyone was snoring in their homes. A few soldiers who had been ordered to sleep through the night were now awake and patrolling the walls, warming themselves by the flames which wavered above the coal in the bronze braziers. Gontran, who had been resting since his return from the Satala Road, was among them. Herakleia and Alexios had already gone to sleep, confident that they had done their best to keep the uprising alive.