Unlike on the journey from Satala to Melitené, civilization not only still existed in Arabia, but thrived here. It was, after all, the land where civilization began, where it was easy to see ruins piled atop ruins—entire cities time had sculpted into steep, rocky tells whose names no one remembered—and all around them, dry, dusty plains extending into faraway mountains which forests had once covered before the coming of agriculture.
But these were only the deserts lying between the places where people now lived. In more recent years, the Sarakenoi had constructed numerous caravanserais along the old well-maintained Roman road. Some were so large that new towns had sprung up nearby to serve the many merchants pulling mules or riding horses or camels into Tourkía or out of it. And so rather than sleeping rough, with nothing above the travelers’ heads but the stars and clouds and nothing beneath them but their own clothes and bare rock, roofs now protected them, and blankets and beds warmed them. In contrast to the weeks Alexios, Basil, and Kassia had spent eating stale, rock-hard bread that had nearly ground their teeth down to their roots, they now possessed the greatest luxury of all: hot meals prepared by other people. Thus were the three long days between Melitené and Samosata easier to bear.
On the last evening before Samosata, they were staying at one caravanserai which was bigger than many others. Many kinds of shops lay inside, and its storehouses were packed with all the merchandise traveling along the old Roman road. Beyond its walls and barred windows was Pirin, a town with farmland stretching into the brown hills and mountains beneath the dull overcast sky, its lands irrigated with the limitless waters of a gushing spring. At this time of year the climate here was still too cool for green to show itself, but the last traces of frost had vanished. Now Alexios never wanted to return to snowy lands again.
After that trip south from Trebizond, I’ll die with a smile on my face if I never see another snowflake, he thought.
After leaving Rakhsh in the stables—which were packed with enough mules and donkeys to supply an army—Alexios paid a few copper fals for the key to their room, where they deposited their baggage, washed up, and changed into clean clothes, leaving their dirty clothes with an old washerwoman who wore white robes named Miriai Sabti. She explained in Arabic-accented Roman that the laundry would be ready in the morning.
Although the children would have been satisfied to eat in their room before going to sleep, Alexios insisted that they have dinner in the caravanserai’s tavern, mostly because he wanted to do something he called “people-watching.” This was a concept foreign to a world where privacy was almost unknown, where people were almost always everywhere you went, where nothing was done alone, and where everyone talked each other’s heads off so endlessly that no one cared if you fell asleep in the middle of their amazing stories. Just that day on the road a Persian merchant named Abu Hamid riding a donkey had told them the tale of the thousands of birds who had left their homes to search for the mythical Simurgh at the Earth’s end, far beyond the cloud-girdled peak of Mount Kaf. Only after many perils which claimed many of the searchers’ lives did the thirty surviving birds realize, at their journey’s end, that they themselves had become the Simurgh—whose name actually meant “thirty birds.”
“So the real Simurgh is the friends we made along the way,” Alexios had said, frowning.
“Yes, that is so,” Abu Hamid had said.
Now, inside the caravanserai’s crowded tavern, Alexios, Basil, and Kassia found an empty table surrounded with stools. Sitting at other nearby tables were merchants and pilgrims from many different faiths, and even different sects within these faiths. Red dots shone on the foreheads of spice traders from Serindia, and the white robes of two Axumites swished. Jewish Radhanites ate alongside the more trusted slaves whom they must have planned to sell as far afield as Paris, Tomboutou, or even Zaytun—the distant terminuses of the world’s trading routes.
Alexios tensed up at the sight of this last group. It was his duty to destroy slavery wherever he found it. Yet it would be dangerous to take action in this place, where everyone was eating, drinking, and laughing. Even the slaves looked like they were enjoying themselves. No one in this tavern save himself, Kassia, and Basil seemed to have any issue with slavery. Perhaps even the slaves themselves believed that it was just the natural order of things.
People have always been like this, they must have been thinking. It’s completely normal and just bad luck for me or God’s retribution for my sins, etc., etc.
After all, where in this world—aside from Trebizond—could slaves hope to be free? The last of Romanía’s yeoman farmers were being swept aside by invasions, soldiers, and tax gatherers. Even in Gontran’s homeland of Gallía, what was serfdom except an upgraded version of slavery? It was better, perhaps, since serfs had their own lands, kept half their produce, and were entitled to trials by their peers as well as access to the commons, but none would argue that they were the ruling class. In those parts, power rested with the knights and priests.
And so if Alexios tried to liberate the slaves here in this tavern, the tavern-goers would all turn against him. At this point he himself was almost too tired to even sit here.
Alexios therefore told himself that freeing the slaves was impossible. But was this a cop-out? Were the slaves, in reality, desperate for freedom?
Freedom to do what? he thought. Wander the wastes looking for Sabians?
He was too weak to do anything about any of this, and practically on his own, besides.
No one does anything by himself.
As he nursed his wine, he wondered what the slaves here would do if he even managed to free them. They must have been far from home, and could never find their way back—assuming they even wanted to—without plenty of money and supplies. To free these slaves here, Alexios would have to liberate the entire caravanserai, steal all its goods, and give them to the slaves.
To effectively free one slave, you must actually free all slaves. So long as the mere concept of slavery exists, it threatens everyone.
But was this all just a weak attempt to cope with his own inaction?
Upon noticing the slaves’ pale skin, Alexios thought that it also would have been strange, in the old world, for anyone who looked this way to be enslaved. Yet slavers in this place did not discriminate based on skin color any more than hair color or eye color.
They’re equal opportunity slave masters, he thought. Ancient and medieval slavery is a true meritocracy.
What mattered when buying a slave was ability and loyalty. In Romanía, some slaves worked as city scribes, while countless unransomed prisoners of war ended their days hacking at rocks in the mines. Women of childbearing age sold at a premium, as did children and young men.
Shuddering, he did his best to focus on the other people in the tavern. There could be no end to the interesting stories they would tell, though if he spoke with them Alexios would also feel jealous at all the different places they had seen, and in his darker moods he would think that he could never explore them himself. FOMO. That’s what they called it in the old world. Always there would be his job and his family to take care of first. His own days of freedom were over. He had already squandered them.
Alexios realized that these well-traveled traders must have been major competitors for Gontran and Diaresso. Merely thinking their names worried him. Had they escaped Trebizond? Were they organizing any kind of resistance to the occupation?
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
We’re wasting our time, Alexios thought. I should have stayed in Trebizond to fight. Trebizond—the beacon of freedom for slaves around the world. The first slave republic. That would have been the best way to free these slaves here—give them a place where they could be safe. But Herakleia ordered me to leave. And if I’d stayed, the Latins would have killed me by now. And Basil and Kassia would either be dead or in chains.
The thought of any harm coming to these two beautiful children sitting before him—politely eating their dinners with their washed hands—distressed him. He found himself drinking so much wine and eating so much cheese and bread and meat that his cup and plate were empty before he even realized it.
The children we love hold us hostage. To see their dead bodies…I’ll kill anyone who touches them.
It was safe to admit to himself, now, that he loved them, and that they were his children. To tell them would take more work, however. Kassia and Basil had disliked him at first; now at least they tolerated him. Perhaps one day he would earn their respect, if not their love. Regardless, they would make him proud, in the future, if they survived all these calamities—they already made him proud. Besides, they were good friends, traveling companions, listeners, conversationalists. One day they would be great intellectuals and adventurers.
In many ways they’re already better people than I ever could be, he thought.
Anxiety gave way to a feeling of relaxation as Alexios ordered more food and drink. The people-watching was indeed excellent here, and he felt happy to be around human beings again, even if the slave traders were scum—even if the uprisers back in Trebizond would have executed them on sight.
Few people in the caravanserai even noticed him. His near-invisibility in itself was a nice break from all the attention he had gotten from monsters and mercenaries in the last two weeks. As a bonus, no one in the tavern had mentioned Trebizond. The news must not have reached them.
Yet he needed to stay alert. Soon he’d had enough to eat and drink. He was about to ask the kids if they wanted to head back to their room when someone brought a cup of wine and a stool and sat at their table.
“Hello there,” the man said in refined Konstantinopolitan Roman. “Would you mind if I join you? I couldn’t help but notice a group of fellow Romans—a trio of kindred spirits—sitting among all this eastern riffraff.”
The man was handsome and middle-aged, but muscular, armored, and covered with battle scars. They were all over his hands and face, marking him as a dangerous warrior. His lack of any head covering likewise meant that he was a Christian. He had a Roman nose, and the huge round cyclops eyes of Konstantinos Magnos.
“I’m sorry, we were just leaving.” Alexios stood and gestured for the children to do the same.
The Roman stood with them, and partly drew his gladius from the scabbard belted at his side.
“I suppose there’s nothing wrong with leaving,” the man said, “so long as you leave with me. But before we go, I thought we might get to know one another, Alexios.”
Kassia and Basil gasped. Slowly Alexios sat back down with the children, watching the Roman, who pushed his sword into its scabbard, returned to his seat, and sipped his wine.
“Are you surprised to meet me here?” the Roman said. “Even in paradise, you would find ones like me.”
“Why did you call me Alexios?” Alexios said. “That’s not my name. You must have me confused with someone else—”
“Please, spare me,” the man said. “I’ve been tracking you for weeks. My name, if you’d like to know, is Petros Barsúmes. I’ve come to bring you back to Trebizond.”
“Friend, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alexios said. “My name’s Ioannes, and these are my two children. We’re Christians from Konstantinopolis on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I’d be happy to buy you another drink, or—”
“‘One young Roman man named Alexios traveling with two young Roman children and one excellent horse, last seen riding south from Trebizond. Brought home alive, these dangerous criminals will be exchanged for twelve hundred nomismas.’”
“Fantastic,” Alexios said. “I pray God helps you find these miscreants. But if you’ll—”
“Now that’s a hefty sum!” Barsúmes said. “With money like that, one could buy a whole plantation in the suburbs of Konstantinopolis—staffed with dozens of slaves, most of them hardy and dependable workers, the rest beautiful exotic women. All one’s troubles would end forever.”
Kassia had started to cry. Basil told her to be quiet.
“Forgive me, friend,” Alexios said, “but I don’t see what any of that has to do with us. And since you’re bothering my children, now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave us alone.”
“All the hordes of Asia are searching for you, Alexios Leandros. It was too tempting to track you down—and a miracle that I found you first.” He laughed. “You know, they advised me, back in Trebizond, that I would have to hire a miniature army to catch you. But I managed to get you all by myself, spirit of death that I am.”
Alexios was unsure of what to do. At 5/100, his farr was still too low to fight this man. Maybe Alexios could take Barsúmes’s gladius, but that would drain the last of his own energy, and then he would feel almost too exhausted to even move, let alone battle a strong, seasoned warrior.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Barsúmes said. “You want to bribe me. You want to convince me to leave. Well, I don’t think so—not unless you have twelve hundred nomismas, which I doubt. Now we have a long journey ahead, so if you wouldn’t mind.” He stood and gestured to the doorway. “If we leave quietly, no one—your children least of all—need be hurt.”
Alexios’s body tensed. “No one threatens my kids.”
Barsúmes smiled sharp teeth. “The next time you question my orders, mere threats shall be the least of your worries. Now come with me. You know you want to surrender—you want to stop all this pointless running and hiding. Everything will be easier when you serve your proper masters, when men born to lead—our command sanctioned by God—tell you what to do. For to turn away from the empire is to turn away from yourself, from your father the emperor.”
Barsúmes’s round blue mesmerizing eyes shone with an unusual power as he spoke these words. Alexios did indeed feel tempted. It was the sweetest ecstasy to give himself up to the emperor and stop running. No pleasure would be greater.
“Hey!” Basil shouted. “Wake up!”
“He’s trying to put a spell on you!” Kassia said.
Startled out of his reverie, Alexios glanced into the tavern’s dark torchlight, at the dozens of figures—almost all of them sturdy travelers—eating, drinking, talking, laughing.
I can’t do this alone, he thought. I need their help.
“Come with me,” Barsúmes said. The tones in his voice were almost irresistible. His charisma must have been higher than Alexios’s intermediate level; indeed, the game voice was distantly warning him of some kind of attack. “We’ll have a nice time getting to know each other. I promise you, I’m a good guy.”
“You have no right to prey upon helpless pilgrims!” Alexios suddenly shouted, standing up. “As Christians we are guaranteed safe passage through the sultan’s lands!”
All conversation in the caravanserai stopped. Everyone was looking at them.
Barsúmes stood. “Be silent. You’ve had far too much to drink, Alexios.”
Alexios faltered for a moment, stunned by the power in Barsúmes’s voice, but then he managed to collect himself. “We are People of the Book! We respect other faiths, all we ask is the right to pray in the holy city of Jerusalem—and this sacred duty you would deny us!”
“If you speak another word—”
“Monsters like you are the ones who make us Christians look bad!” Alexios continued. Next, he drew on his memories of Diaresso’s insults directed at Gontran. “What are you except an infidel, an idolater, a polytheist, a swine-eater who pollutes all that he touches?”
Barsúmes drew his sword and swung at the children, knocking his wine cup aside, but Alexios—with the last of his farr—deflected the blow with Gedara, the symbols on its green blade glowing with power. Kassia and Basil fell onto the floor while the slave traders cowered with their slaves by the walls. Now Alexios felt he was going to collapse. Lacking farr was like being kicked in the stomach, and the game voice was telling him that his stamina was gone and he had lost one health, leaving him with 82/100. But just as Barsúmes was about to swing his blade, the two Axumites in the tavern pulled him away, took his sword, and shoved him outside the tavern. Barsúmes talked to them with an unusual calmness, and for a moment they withered under the assault of his charismatic words, but then steeled themselves against him, and continued bringing him to the courtyard.
By then Alexios had sheathed Gedara and grabbed the children. Basil had snatched Barsúmes’s fallen wine cup and was about to throw it at him. Now he set it back on the table, and together they staggered through another doorway on the tavern’s opposite side. This led to a different part of the caravanserai courtyard. The two Axumites, meanwhile, were throwing Barsúmes out of the caravanserai, barring the gate behind him, and shouting what were presumably imprecations in their own tongue.
After crossing the courtyard and climbing the stairs to the sleeping quarters, Alexios unlocked the door to their room, got himself and the children inside, and then locked the door behind them. He collapsed onto the floor, whispering to the children—just before his exhaustion overcame him—to open the door for no one.