Peasant ogres lurking in the shadows laughed. Narses looked back and forth, wishing he could see them.
“If I could only fight you,” Narses said. “If you would duel us honorably—”
“You already lost,” the Armenian said. “Honorably, I might add.”
“That is not so,” Narses said. “A hundred of you attacked us at the same time. One to one, the story would be different.”
“No one forced you to leave the safety of your walls. No one forced you to come all this way from Konstantinopolis to drive us out of our homes.”
“His Majesty sent me. I was only doing my job—just an ordinary man following orders.”
The Armenian scoffed. “You could have easily defected.”
“You have no understanding of the overall strategic situation. The Sarakenoi surround us. How can we protect the homeland with so many criminals in our midst? We had no choice—”
“You chose to fight rather than make peace, and these are the consequences. Now you must live with them—for a little longer, at least. But if you want, we could kill you now.”
Laughter rose from the darkness. Narses had trouble thinking of a retort.
“So,” the Armenian continued. “First you are defeated in battle, then you are defeated again in the war of words. This is the mighty General Narses—nonplussed.”
Narses was unfamiliar with this educated term which no one ever used. He kept silent. The game voice warned that his Charisma skill (Professional, 7/10) would decline if he kept this up.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” the Armenian said. “You aren’t exactly known as a conversationalist. You’re more famous for murdering the poor and stealing what little they have, aren’t you?”
“I fight for His Majesty,” Narses blurted.
The Armenian snorted. “Oh yes, the usurper who hides behind the walls in his great fortress and sends men like you to do his dirty work. What a hero!”
“I protect Roman families. Roman lands.”
“The little that’s left. You must admit, my good mister Narses, that Rome is not what it once was.”
“It shall again be glorious, and sooner than you know. Even now there is a resurgence. A renaissance. An awakening.”
The peasants laughed. Their lack of respect infuriated Narses. His charisma XP declined, though not enough for him to actually level down.
“But you would agree that the current moment is not one of Rome’s finest,” the Armenian said. “Aeneas, Caesar, Augustus, Hadrian, Justinian—if they could see you now, what would they say?”
“They would tell you to fall on your sword,” Narses said.
The Armenian laughed. “You know, I’m willing to admit that you have some talents. You have real resilience—marching across all Romanía to fight us, to lose, and then to return with these mercenaries to fight us again. No one would ever deny that you work hard to accomplish your goals. Yet at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be much else to your personality. What else lies inside you except naked ambition?”
“I don’t need to justify myself to you.”
“No, but soon you may need to explain all the murder you’ve done before Holy God.”
“‘God sees the truth, but waits.’ I have never harmed anyone who was not seeking my death.”
The Armenian scoffed. “There are people in this room who are survivors of your war crimes. They lived in the towns you destroyed, Narses. Their husbands, wives, children, parents, cousins, and friends were all murdered by your immortal Hikanatoi Tagma—the death squad we sent to the Hell of the Damned, where they belong.”
“Keep the names of my brothers out of your filthy mouth.”
“You know, it’s honestly a miracle you survived the first siege. We cremated hundreds of those bastards. I helped move the bodies myself. We wanted to let them rot, but we couldn’t allow disease to spread. We already had enough problems.”
“I don’t disagree,” Narses said.
“You could have been a better man. But something stunted you. It must have been society or your parents—I don’t know, perhaps both. I wish I knew what it was—what stopped you from living as a full human being. You could tell me, if you want. Did you wake up this morning thinking that you were going to end up like this by the evening, captured by your foes?”
Narses was silent. He hated when anyone talked about his parents, whom he always struggled to avoid thinking about. They had left him in the Orphanage of Konstantinopolis when he was too young to remember their faces. Only His Majesty had rescued him, had raised him up, his true father and salvation. Narses’s heart swelled at the thought of him—
“Nonplussed again,” the Armenian said. “I’ve found a weak spot. Just talk about his parents and he loses control.”
Narses strained against the ropes that held him down like Prometheus.
“Let us go,” Sikelgaita said.
“The Latin woman speaks Roman!” the Armenian said. “Narses I know, but this person I do not. Yet she must be important—the Latins don’t usually let their women outside, do they?”
“I am Lady Sikelgaita of Salerno,” she said. “La duchesse de—"
“Duchess of what?” the Armenian said. “My ass? Who cares?”
More laughter.
“You must ransom me,” she said.
“We’re well aware that you sit like a dragon atop a hoard of stolen gold,” the Armenian said. “Like the rest of the Latins holed up behind the city walls—”
“Enough talk,” Sikelgaita said. “Free us now.”
“We have already tried to speak with your friends,” the Armenian said. “They won’t answer us. We told them we were willing to trade you both back if they freed Herakleia and gave us food, weapons, armor.”
“Stupid,” Narses scoffed.
“You have no right to treat with nobles,” Sikelgaita said. “You are slaves. Mere earth.”
“We win our nobility through work,” the Armenian said. “Tell us, Sikelgaita, what work have you done in your life?”
“I work harder than you know.”
“Atop your peasants’ stolen wealth. Where would you be without it?”
“God willed for me to rule,” she said. “The right hand of God raised me up.”
“Then the left hand of God will bring you down,” the Armenian said. “He also willed for us to capture you. And to kill you if your friends back behind the walls waste any more of our time. There will also be no priest for you, Sikelgaita—no absolution. You will go straight to the Hell of the Damned.”
“I am not afraid,” she said. “The Holy Father in Rome gave me an indulgence to fight for God.”
“Indeed, you do fight for God—or for the devil masquerading as God, in any event. For the demon Mammon.”
Sikelgaita sighed. “Who are you?”
“What does it matter?” the Armenian said. “I’m a Trapezuntine, the same as everyone else here.”
“Tell me your name, boy.”
“So you can attack my person, rather than my ideas?”
“I have a right to know.”
“Oh yes,” the Armenian said. “You have so many rights and privileges! You, and no one else! All of us here are sick of hearing about how the nobles are free to do whatever they please, while everyone else is just supposed to go along with their bizarre desires. Romanía is the dream of Roman slave masters, Latin lands are the dream of the feudal knights, and the poor, the vast majority, are just supposed to live these other people’s dreams—”
“Tell me.”
“He is Hagop,” a peasant woman said. Her accent was eastern, and sounded familiar. She might have also worked in the citadel.
“Hagop,” Narses said. “Of course.”
Sikelgaita laughed. “Only Hagop? Is that all? You have no title. You cannot inherit.”
“I grew up in Konstantinopolis,” Hagop said. “Yet my family is descended from the ancient Arshakuni dynasty, a royal house of Armenia long ago absorbed by Rome. You may address me as Prince Hagop Arshakuni, if you so desire.”
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The peasants laughed.
“Produce your pedigree,” Sikelgaita said. “Then I will believe.”
“I will call you scum,” Narses said. “For that is what you are.”
“Maybe,” Hagop said. “But if you were captured by scum, what does that make you?”
Some peasants cheered this response.
“You will regret joking at my expense,” Narses said.
“Oh, no doubt,” Hagop said. “No doubt at all, my dear mister Narses.”
Due to their stunted intellects, the peasants soon gave up arguing with a person of Narses’s brilliance. They were foolish enough to leave him with Sikelgaita, though a guard threatened to gag them when they tried speaking with one another. Much time passed—so much so that the peasants gave their prisoners a dinner consisting of a little briny water and some hard, brittle bread. This was apparently no different from what the peasants were forced to eat. Then they permitted the prisoners to lie down on blankets to sleep, though their wrists and ankles were still bound.
“It’s uncomfortable,” Narses said. “The lady, in particular, deserves a reasonable level of comfort—”
“Oh please,” Hagop said. “We sleep the same way. Besides, if you’d captured us, we’d have all been beheaded a long time ago.”
Narses told himself, in the darkness, that he would wait for the fools to pass out, then make his escape, crawling out blindfolded if he needed, for that was the strong kind of man Narses was. He could crawl for miles through shattered buildings of wood and stone, scaling mountains, swimming rivers, wrestling lions—hands and feet bound and eyes blindfolded the whole way. But the traitorous peasants must have slipped a sleeping potion in his water, for he woke up some time later—he had no memory of falling asleep—with someone telling him that the Latins had refused to even discuss his ransom.
“It gives me no great pleasure,” said the voice of Hagop, speaking in the darkness of Narses’s blindfold, “but according to the rules of war, you two are to be either killed or enslaved.”
“I fear neither pain nor death,” Sikelgaita said.
“Yes, thank you, we got that, you’re very brave, charging a group of unarmed children and old folks on your war horse,” Hagop said. “And yet despite your many faults, I personally would rather make you friends. I would rather set you free from the prisons of both mind and body.”
Narses laughed. “We’ll never join you, scum.”
“Lowlier soldiers we might be able to convince,” Hagop said. “I assure you, they despise you almost as much as we do. But for the higher-ups, what’s the point? Why should you abandon a way of life which gives you so much wealth?”
“You do not even know,” Narses said. “There is no hope for you criminals. The Latins, the Romans—someone will destroy every last one of you, until none remain. They will burn this city to the ground before they let it fall back into your hands.”
“That may be so,” Hagop said. “But from the ashes of history we will rise again like a phoenix, soaring brighter and farther than ever before.”
“Are these the words you use to turn good Romans against us?”
“We turned no one,” Hagop said. “You have such a low view of the poor, Narses—you think them such idiots that a few words from someone like me could convince them to give up everything they’ve ever known to fight for a vague promise of a better future. No one tricked them. The reality is that they had no choice. All they wanted—all we wanted—was to farm our lands in peace.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Raise our families,” Hagop continued. “Enjoy our feasts. That was it. We had no interest in fighting anyone or breaking any laws. But you forced us. The usurper’s tax collectors took whatever scraps the landlords left. When we saw our children starving, when the usurper ignored our complaints, what were we supposed to do?”
“Nothing but excuses,” Narses said. “It’s dark-hearted savages like you who always divide up the world in this simplistic way. It’s not as simple as ‘us versus them.’ All of us are Romans. We must all work together to stop the Sarakenoi—”
“You want me to work with you?” Hagop said. “Your men would kill me on sight, even if I surrendered unarmed. But you, Narses—”
“It’s a waste of time trying to convince him,” a boy said from somewhere. He had an odd accent Narses had trouble placing, and also spoke with a level of maturity unusual for one so young.
“He’s killed so many,” the boy continued. “He must die before he kills more. He’ll never join us.”
Hagop sighed. “I just wish there was something else we could do with him and his friend. We can’t give them back, and we can’t keep them here. There’s nowhere to send them.”
“Then again, they have the strategos,” the boy said. “They’ll kill her if we kill Narses. And they have other prisoners, too.”
“She is brave,” said the peasant woman with the eastern accent. “She knew the risks.”
“Losing her will be like the Latins losing their duke,” the boy said. “Now they have no direction, like ants without their king.”
“You are the one who threw the rock at Sikelgaita,” Narses said to the boy. “The one I chased.”
“Yes,” the boy said. “I am Joseph ben Solomon.”
“I remember you,” Narses said. “From Nikaia. You were Romanos’s friend. When I’m free of this place, Joseph, I’ll come and find you. You’ll join us, won’t you? You know the true meaning of honor, do you not?”
“You’re a murderer,” Joseph said. “You killed my mother and father and forced me to march with you for weeks to this place, beating and whipping me if I so much as stumbled. In Trebizond I fled for my life, and the people here helped me. They taught me to read and write.”
“To read and write what? Jewish nonsense?” Narses laughed.
“What kind of people let Jews live among them?” Sikelgaita said. “In Italía, we paid for this journey by taking money Jews stole from good Christians. We came here to fight unbelievers, schismatics, pagans, Saracens. We started with the Jews in our own lands.”
“God will repay,” Joseph said.
“He drove you from the Holy Land long ago,” Narses said. “He has forsaken you. Now you are cursed to wander the Earth for denying the divinity of Christ, a stranger in every land.”
“It is foolish to think of the Holy Land as a physical place,” Joseph said. “That is idolatry. The Holy Land can only be an idea in our hearts, nothing more. That is what God wishes us to know.”
“We waste our time here,” said the peasant woman with the eastern accent before Narses could answer. “We must either move them or kill them.”
“Put it to a vote,” Hagop said. “Is there any further discussion?”
No one spoke.
“All in favor of killing them?” Hagop said.
There was a shuffling in the silence. Many people were present here, but only a few had spoken. Narses wished more than anything that he could see.
“Motion carries,” Hagop said.
“Foolish to decide like this,” Sikelgaita said. “Nobles should decide, not peasants.”
“In the name of the Republic of Trebizond,” Hagop said, “I hereby sentence you both to death.”
“You have not the authority,” Sikelgaita said.
“The sentence is to be carried out immediately,” Hagop said. “Although I guess we need to move them outside where they’ll make less of a mess? Joseph, you don’t need to come with us.”
“I want to see,” Joseph said.
“Strange to hear such things from a child,” Hagop said.
“I may look small, but I’m still a person,” Joseph said.
“Let’s not get too carried away, now,” Narses joked.
Nobody laughed. Careful to keep from touching his skin with their own, the peasants led him and Sikelgaita away. Both Narses and Sikelgaita struggled to escape, but the peasants held them by the ropes wrapped around their wrists.
If only I could touch one, Narses thought. I would drain his soul in an instant!
“There’s nowhere to execute them,” Hagop said. “We don’t usually execute prisoners.”
“What does it matter?” said the eastern peasant woman.
“You’ve never seen an execution before, I take it?” Hagop said. “It’s gross. Most of the time it takes more than one stroke of the sword to cut their heads off. And that’s with a sharp sword, and an experienced executioner. We don’t have either right now.”
“They deserve worse than whatever we give them,” said the eastern peasant woman. “They killed children, did they not?”
“Many,” Joseph said. “Just yesterday we caught a few knights tossing babies into a bonfire. There was even a priest there to bless them.”
Hagop sighed deeply and quickly. “Pleasant types, these Romans. Professional courtesy from those who serve and protect the emperor.”
“It bothers you,” said the eastern peasant woman.
“Of course it does,” Hagop said. “I don’t want to kill anyone—anywhere.”
“Then let me do it,” she said. “I can—”
“Ra’isa—”
“I am the warrior, not you,” Ra’isa said. “You are the miner who likes books. I am the warrior. I will kill them.”
“No offense,” Hagop said. “But do you think you’re strong enough to take off their heads?”
“You think I am weak because I am a woman?”
“It requires a lot of arm strength.”
“I will stab down through the shoulder,” Ra’isa said. “Into the heart.”
“The sword will get stuck.”
“We can pull it out or get another one!”
The peasants eventually found a place outside which satisfied them. Narses noticed that his boots were crunching through snow, and snowflakes were gracing his cheeks.
Another storm is coming, he thought.
The peasants forced him to kneel. His hands were still tied behind his back, and he was also blindfolded.
“Let me look you in the eye when you kill me,” Narses said.
“Did you accord your many victims any of this respect you ask of us?” Hagop asked.
“You think yourselves better than me,” Narses said. “You think me such a monster, though I only defend my homeland. Let me look on you.”
“The murderer is going to order us around, now?” Ra’isa said. “We are not his servants anymore.”
Nonetheless, after arguing a little more—they argued endlessly about everything—the peasants removed the blindfolds. The situation was as Narses had expected. It was snowing, the burned-out suburbs surrounded them, and dirty peasants with grotesque faces were crowded everywhere, watching silently.
Ogres.
To his surprise, he recognized Clotilda, a Latin serving girl from the Great Palace who had joined his march upcountry to Trebizond. She had survived the first siege and joined the enemy.
Traitors, all of them.
Normally peasants would jeer people about to be executed, but Narses guessed that they were afraid of making too much noise and revealing their location to the Latins behind the wall.
This Ra’isa woman, now standing beside Narses and holding a sword, he also recognized from the palace. Hagop—whom he had never seen—was thin, young, and ugly.
“Any last words or requests?” Hagop said.
“Water,” Narses said.
“Can we please just get this over with?”
“It’s only a sip of water,” Narses said. “You can do that for me, can’t you?”
The peasants looked to Hagop. After a moment, he left, presumably to find a cup of water on his own. Sikelgaita, meanwhile, was crying beside Narses.
“You should meet your end with bravery,” Narses said.
“Shut up,” she said.
“You spoke of an indulgence earlier,” Narses said. “You told us you were not afraid.”
“I’m not,” she said. “The Holy Father has made sure that I will go to heaven. I am only sad to leave life. It is so sweet, so glorious.”
“Then you should not have taken it from so many good people,” Ra’isa said, glaring at her.
Hagop returned with a wooden cup filled with water, and held it to Narses’s lips. But Narses, in that instant, swung himself around and, with his hands still bound behind his back, grabbed at Hagop. The peasant fool gasped with surprise, and Narses was able to seize his wrist and drain, in one gulp, all the life in his body.
That is my water!
Hagop collapsed to the ground, dropping the cup, and with his farr at 100/100 Narses tore through the rope that bound his wrists. The other peasants attacked, including Ra’isa—swinging her sword—forcing him to leave Sikelgaita, who fell to the ground with blood spurting from a wound in her neck. With all his strength Narses ran from his execution site, leaping off the walls of the ruined buildings until he was able to jump over the Northeast Gate and return to safety.