Rioting and looting soon turned to striking. The next morning, the mob announced through its leader—a misguided youth, not yet mature in his mental development, who called himself Hagop—that no Trapezuntine would return to work until Herakleia was freed. The Latin archers on the walls responded to his outrageous demand with warning shots from their bows, but Hagop escaped to safety.
Narses laughed at this when he heard about it in the banqueting hall—seemingly the only place in the citadel where the Latins spent any time together—but it angered Bohemund. The young duke sat in one of the chairs, clutching his head with both hands, staring at the floor. His long blond hair was messy and his eyes were hollowed from stress and fatigue, his cheeks thin, his body strangely gaunt. Sitting beside him, Sikelgaita—still dressed in black—rubbed his back with one hand, her index finger ringed with a gold band in which was set a gleaming ruby the size of a grape, its facets shining reflected light on the walls.
Paul the Chain was here, too, having returned from whatever immoral acts he had been committing in the darker corners of the palace. He watched Narses, doubtless blaming him for everything, regardless of the city-ship the general had captured and the fugitive princess he had apprehended. Ziani the blind Venetian doge and Bishop Herluin were also present.
“All my life I learned from my father how to fight,” Bohemund said, speaking with such a weak and quiet voice that Narses strained to hear him. “How to tell the truth, protect the helpless, and defend the faith. That is what we came here to do. But when this scum unites against us…”
“We have ways of dealing with them, your grace,” Narses said.
Ziani turned his milky white eyes toward Narses. “Hey, what are you going to do? You can’t kill them. You know that. We’re short enough on laborers as it is. Where will we get more?”
“There is always torture,” Paul said.
“We need only kill a few,” Narses said. “Including this new leader, this Hagop. Make an example of the leaders and the rest will fall in line. It will save a great deal of trouble.”
Ziani wagged his finger at Narses. “You’re playing with fire. The rest might fall in line if you kill their leaders. Or they might get so pissed off, they’ll kill us!”
“We should just execute Herakleia and be done with it.” Bohemund looked to Bishop Herluin. “We know she killed my father. Death would be a just recompense, is that not so?”
Bishop Herluin nodded and spoke Gaulish.
“You speak of ‘moderation and compromise’ with a murderer,” Bohemund said to the bishop. “With one who is false—with a schismatic whom you have clearly despised since the moment you laid eyes on her. And strangely enough, now that I think about it, I never heard you mention ‘moderation and compromise’ when we first arrived in this awful place. Did you not sanction the killing of children, monseigneur, saying these pups would grow up into strong slavering wolves if we let them?”
“Hey, come on, give him a break,” Ziani said. “There were more people when we first got here.”
“I would have killed Herakleia long ago,” Narses said. “But His Majesty wants her alive. She is of royal blood—of a line far purer than anyone in this room.”
“Produce her pedigree, and I’ll believe it,” Bohemund said.
“Forgive me, but it is true, your grace,” Paul said, bowing. “Her mother was an Argyros. Their line is descended from antiquity, from the Flavian House and the loins of Venus herself.”
“Blasphemy,” Bishop Herluin managed to say in Roman.
“Descended from devils masquerading as gods, you mean,” Bohemund said. “It makes perfect sense that she’s a literal hellspawn. But do you really believe that? It’s impossible for her to be descended from Julius Caesar. Think about it. For instance, did Caesar ever allow himself to be captured?”
“He sure did,” Ziani said.
Everyone looked at him.
“When he was young.” Ziani gestured with both hands. “Caesar got his ass captured by pirates. He escaped or was ransomed, I can’t remember. The boy went straight back to Roma, raised enough dough to hire an army and a navy of his own, hunted the pirates down, and crucified them, just like that.”
“Sacrilege,” Bishop Herluin said.
“Returning to the subject at hand,” Narses said, addressing Bohemund. “Do you doubt your Roman allies, your grace?”
“What allies?” Bohemund said. “All your emperor did was give us a few bags of money and a title to this wretched city.”
“Many would kill for such things, your grace,” Paul said.
“We have no reinforcements,” Bohemund said. “Our supply ships won’t be back for weeks—at the earliest.”
Ziani frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, sadly, that’s true. We sent back almost every ship we’ve got to get supplies from Rivoalto in Venesia. Right now we’ve only got three ships left in the harbor here.”
“The granary of Trebizond is running out of grain,” Bohemund said. “For the peasant wretches harvested too little food—they had no idea that hundreds of extra mouths would be spending the winter with them.”
“Eating them out of house and home,” Narses said, thinking of the endless banqueting which had taken place in this very room since the city’s capture.
“And now, good Narses, General Narses,” Bohemund said, “you tell us this Alexios is somewhere in the countryside seeking to rally bandits to slay us in our sleep.” Bohemund shook his head. “I know how to fight duels and defeat armies. But to hold a hostile city—that is a new skill, one I am not familiar with.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Ziani raised his hands. “But I know what you’re thinking, your grace. If we leave, we’ll lose the city, and they’ll never let us back in again!”
“Indeed, we are trapped here,” Bohemund said. “Yet we didn’t even come to these lands for Trebizond. We meant this place only to be a stop on the way to Jerusalem, which we must liberate from the scourge of the Jews and Saracens.”
Bishop Herluin nodded and said something in Gaulish.
“Indeed they are,” Bohemund said. “Whether in Espagne or Jerusalem, they are leagued together on either end of the Mediterranean.”
“Trebizond is not exactly on the way to Jerusalem, your grace,” Narses said.
“It was—from our perspective,” Bohemund said. “Do you forget where we come from?”
Narses smiled coldly. “Believe me, that is something I never forget.”
“Your emperor paid us so much,” Bohemund said. “And he offered so much more. Who knew that any man possessed such money? We couldn’t turn him down. That’s why we came here. Now look at where that’s led us…guarding this ruin, while the Lord pleads with us to free Holy Jerusalem, to make safe the pilgrim road.”
Now no one spoke. The citadel was silent, as was the city outside, since the slaves and peasants refused to work. A handful were still chanting Herakleia’s name near the Northeast Gate. Narses barely heard them.
“Enough of this talk,” Sikelgaita said, her eyes flashing at Narses with the ruby on her index finger. “I hate all Greek vermin. They are like Jews. Like Saracens. But this Greek here—this one speaks aright. Perhaps in your genealogy, Narses, there are Longobards?”
Paul guffawed. Bowing, he apologized to Sikelgaita. “It would explain a great many things, your grace.”
Narses shook his head. “Forgive me, your grace, but I doubt it. My ancestors have always been Roman. They sprung from the Seven Hills when Kadmos cast his dragon’s teeth.” This was a clever lie, but the barbarians were too stupid to realize it.
“Hey, wait a moment,” Ziani said. “Wasn’t that Cadmus guy the founder of Thebes? He never even went to Roma.”
“It was just an expression,” Narses blurted.
“Enough talk,” Sikelgaita said. “Let us fight the enemy. Let us ride out and meet the dark horde—else we are not warriors of honor.”
Narses bowed and even placed his right hand over his heart, a gesture he had learned from the Turkish savages in the Anatolian highlands. “It would be my honor to wage just war by your side, your grace, against the mindless mob at the city gates.”
She stood and pointed at him. “He is the one Greek who fights for good. The only noble warrior in all Greece—a true knight. This Greek I like. He makes all you men look like cowards. Like women.”
“We can fight the criminals together, your grace,” Narses said, looking at the other members of the ruling council. “Even if no one here will join us.”
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Sikelgaita walked toward Narses with a new bounce to her step. For a moment it seemed like she was even going to take his hand.
“You are still in mourning for my father,” Bohemund said.
Sikelgaita turned to Bohemund, the ruby on her finger flashing as if electrified, its light bright enough to make Narses squint.
“Duke Robert, bless his name,” Sikelgaita said, “would have killed everyone in this room—save Narses and me. He would have wanted me to fight. We first met in battle, slaying foes side-by-side. At that time we fell in love. For there is no love like slaughter.”
Bohemund looked to Bishop Herluin. “What is the church’s view on this matter, monseigneur?”
Herluin spoke in Gaulish.
Sikelgaita glared at him. “You are the real woman. When have you risked your life to fight for good? You only sit in the church and eat, drink, and preach while we bleed to protect you.” She looked to Narses. “I do not care what the prelate says.”
“I cannot understand him,” Narses said. “He does not speak Roman.”
“So much the better for you,” Sikelgaita said. She had left the council by now, and Narses was following. “A funny thing. We brought the bishop here from Rome—the town in Italía, not this land. But Rome the town of dreary ruins and popes is far from Greek lands in Italía. The Greeks live in the south. Bishop Herluin speaks almost no Greek. He hates Greeks more than me.”
“As if that were even possible,” Narses said.
“You are Greek,” Sikelgaita said. “I like you. Perhaps not all Greeks are bad.”
“Perhaps,” Narses said.
I would never waste a moment with this woman if not for her power, he thought.
Narses and Sikelgaita donned their armor, walked to the stables, and mounted their horses—all by themselves, since there were no slaves to help them. Sikelgaita, Narses noted, was armed with an enormous double-bladed axe which she had strapped to her back.
As they rode to the Northeast Gate, she asked every Latin she encountered if they wished to join her in this glorious undertaking. She translated for Narses, explaining that she was talking about partaking in a great hunt—where noble knights would remind the peasants of their place. But no one joined. The Latin knights were too busy refusing to work, since manual labor of any kind was beneath their dignity. This meant that nothing got done. No cooking, no cleaning, nothing. Some knights were unable to remove their shoes without the help of their valets, who were beyond the city walls on strike. A small number of Latin servants had even joined the Trapezuntine strikers.
Traitors everywhere.
When Narses and Sikelgaita reached the Northeast Gate, they dismounted and climbed the steps to the top of the walls so they could have a look at the rioters beyond. The scum’s energy had lessened during the last day, but they were still present, keeping at least a bowshot away, ignorant of the fact that Duke Bohemund had ordered his few remaining archers to conserve ammunition, there being no one to make more arrows. Periodically the Latins shouted that the peasants could receive their rations if they returned to work—the grain, after all, was stored inside the city—but the rioters only answered with Herakleia’s name.
“Cowards,” Sikelgaita said.
“It might be better to release her,” Narses said. “She is so incompetent, it might help us if she led them.”
“We can never let a murderer go,” Sikelgaita said. “And do you not hate her?”
“With all my soul, my lady,” Narses said. “Yet sometimes we must put the greater good before our own individual needs.”
“I am the greater good,” Sikelgaita said.
They descended the stairway to the road and remounted their horses. Sikelgaita instructed the Latin guards at the gate to open and close it quickly, then to do the same again when she called for them outside. They bowed in response to her instructions and said: oui, madame la duchesse.
Sikelgaita looked at Narses. “We are both dressed in black.”
“Indeed,” Narses said. “We are spirits of death. Black becomes us.”
She grinned. “Are you ready to bring death to these foul creatures?”
“Always,” Narses said.
The gate opened, and Narses and Sikelgaita urged their steeds to a full gallop. They bolted outside Trebizond’s walls and plunged into the ruined suburbs, drawing their weapons and swinging them at the peasants. The wretches scattered for cover, the elders and women and children screaming and crying as Sikelgaita bellowed about honor, glory, and Saint George, the ruby on her finger glowing as her axe swooped through the air. Unprepared as always, the peasants had no weapons. None were foolish enough to face down two brave and fully armed knights, the result being that Narses and Sikelgaita soon found themselves galloping up and down empty streets. Only two peasants lay dead on the cobblestones, their warm dark blood reddening and melting the snow, both slain by Narses, who had gained a little XP for his Master Swordsman skill (8/10).
“It seems the cockroaches have scattered to the shadows,” Narses said.
“Ah, oui.” Sikelgaita stopped to talk with Narses. “Peasants always run like cowards, whether here or in France or Italía. Both within the walls and without.”
“Yet you are brave, your grace,” Narses said. “Braver than most men.”
“One day I shall find a worthy enemy,” Sikelgaita said. “Narses, we should leave Trabzon, you and me. It is dull here. Come with us to fight the heathen in Holy Jerusalem. You are too good for these Greeks. We will make a knight of you. Seigneur Narses de Trabzon, can you imagine?” She laughed richly and deeply.
Narses bowed. “Thank you for the invitation, your grace, but my duty is to His Majesty.”
“Perhaps we ask him to send you with us,” Sikelgaita said. “We take all the food and leave this place. Then we find glory in the battle against the Saracens.”
“If you wish, your grace,” Narses said. “I only need to find the last criminal—Alexios.”
“Ah yes, that is right,” Sikelgaita said. “I almost forgot—”
Narses felt a rock hurtling toward Sikelgaita through the air, and he was fast enough to bat it away with his sword in time. Another point of XP went to his swordsman skill. Whoever had thrown the rock scuttled behind a nearby house like a goblin.
Sikelgaita and Narses looked at each other, then dismounted, since so much debris lay in the way it was impossible to chase the perpetrator of this crime on horseback. The two knights ran as fast as they could through the ruins, their armor clinking, their weapons drawn. But the goblin had escaped.
Soon the knights were out of breath thanks to their heavy armor. Narses’s stamina was declining. Just as they were about to return to their horses—before they could be stolen—Narses spotted a dirty, orange-haired youth hiding under the black timbers of a burned-out house. Their eyes met, and then the youth vanished.
Narses chased him, with Sikelgaita following, and yet she soon had trouble keeping up. Romans rode horses almost as much as Latins, but the former still sometimes marched and drilled on foot. The latter, on the other hand, almost never dismounted save to eat or sleep. They would even enter churches on horseback.
Getting ahead of Sikelgaita, Narses followed the dirty youth through cold gray streets covered in snow, ice, and filth. The chase gave Narses a second wind. In his element now, he only ran faster with each step, the breath surging in his lungs, though the game voice reminded him that his stamina was decreasing. True, he was incomplete, lacking his sword Almaqah and his great war horse Xanthos and his successor Romanos, but Narses was still strong, and in his wake he had left so many enemies gasping, bleeding, wounded, crying like children for their mothers.
Though the youth was quick, Narses was sprinting so fast he was like a blur of wind—
The frightened youth looked back over his shoulder for an instant.
Romanos!
Narses slipped on an ice patch and slammed onto his side. Pain erupted across his body, and the game voice announced that his health was down to 95/100. The youth vanished behind a pile of smashed, charred wreckage.
It cannot be!
Narses turned over the image of the youth’s face in his mind. No, it had not been Romanos. The boy’s face was so filthy it had confused Narses for an instant. He even recognized him now—he was a slave boy whom Narses had captured in Nikaia, one of Romanos’s friends. Somehow he had survived the first siege of Trebizond.
Sikelgaita caught up to Narses and helped him stand. Together they returned to where they had left their horses, but the filth must have already stolen them, for the beasts were gone. Sikelgaita jogged back to the Northeast Gate—saying something about how they were in danger—but Narses was forced to limp, wincing from the pain.
“Did you break a bone?” Sikelgaita asked.
Narses shook his head.
“Then you must run!”
The peasants were regrouping. They had hidden behind the houses and were throwing whatever they could find at Narses and Sikelgaita. Part of a wooden beam struck his back and nearly knocked him down—his armor protected his flesh and bone, but he still lost another five health, and was now down to 90/100—while a stone clanged against Sikelgaita’s helmet.
“Nice shot!” a child shouted behind them.
The two warriors had sheathed their swords and were fleeing for their lives as debris fell around them. Now the horde of rabble was screaming and gathering like savage monsters, like zombies from the old world. Breathlessly Sikelgaita yelled for the Latin guards to open the Northeast Gate, yet the doors remained closed.
Why don’t they open?
No guards were visible on the walls. Narses by this point was so winded he kept thinking that he couldn’t breathe. His muscles burned, his fingertips tingled, his vision pulsated with his heartbeats, and he even felt dizzy. He used nearly all his farr to replenish both his health and stamina to 100/100 as the filthy horde surrounded him and Sikelgaita. Just 5/100 farr remained inside him—stored in the souls locked in his ribcage.
Now Sikelgaita’s back was pressed to Narses’s. Both noble warriors raised their weapons, ready to fight, but the peasants attacked at the same time from every direction, disarmed them, bound their wrists, and brought them into dark ruins. All the while, the peasants cracked jokes and congratulated one another. Narses was surprised he understood their speech—even if it was heavily accented—for he had forgotten that these cretins spoke Roman. The fact that they could make sounds into words, and words into sentences surprised him.
Someone suggested blindfolds. One of the peasant women—the desperate criminals still relied on ugly whores to fight their battles—tore strips that reeked of sweat from the bottom of her filthy dress and tied them around the eyes of Narses and Sikelgaita. They, meanwhile, were struggling to free themselves, and demanding that the wretches release them.
“Don’t let them touch you,” another peasant said. “They will drain your life force and escape.”
They think Sikelgaita is an immortal, Narses thought. Idiots.
In the darkness he had no idea where he was. The peasants led him one way and then another to confuse him. He wondered why the Latins had yet to ride out and free him. Bohemund must have heard about Sikelgaita’s capture, yet he refused to rescue her. What was wrong with him? Spending so much time with Sikelgaita had led Narses to believe that the Latins could fight—they had taken Trebizond, after all—but now he was doubting them again. Perhaps they owed more to Duke Robert than they knew. With his death, everything was falling apart. Either that, or it was Paul. Somehow the crafty eunuch had turned Bohemund against them.
Whenever anything goes wrong, Dickless always has his hand in it somewhere.
The peasants brought Narses and Sikelgaita inside a cold place full of echoes and sat them in rickety wooden chairs that creaked as if they were about to break. A young man speaking with an Armenian accent—Narses’s least favorite—asked if they wanted water.
“I would sooner drink my own piss,” Narses said.
“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed,” the Armenian said. He sounded educated, which angered Narses even more. Rome had given this man knowledge, and he repaid her with treachery!
“Yet if you wish to drink your own piss,” the Armenian added, “it could be arranged.”