When Narses landed just behind the Northeast Gate, he found the streets deserted. He wanted to rally the guards to avenge Sikelgaita, but everyone was gone.
Conserving his farr and stamina, he jogged through the empty city. Where were the Latins? Had all discipline broken down without him? The entrance to the citadel, too, was unguarded. No one was tending the hungry mounts in the stable. Mules groaned and horses whinnied helplessly.
Only when Narses entered the citadel did he find the knights. They were crowded in the banqueting hall for warmth, sitting at the table or lying on blankets on the floor with their gigantic annoying dogs panting beside them. A fire blazed in the hearth, and plates piled with half-eaten mounds of food covered the table, as did cups with the dregs of stale wine inside. Many Latins were asleep, though others seemed to be drowsing with their eyes open.
Bohemund sat at the head of the table, flanked by Bishop Herluin and Doge Ziani. All were slumped like fools who had drunk too much wine.
“Bohemund!” Narses shouted.
His voice echoed in the banqueting hall. Many Latins looked at him, then looked away.
“I have returned,” Narses said.
“I can see that,” Bohemund said.
None spoke as Narses approached the duke.
“Sikelgaita’s body is still out there,” Narses said. “We can avenge her.”
“Not without servants,” Bohemund said.
“What? This is absurd. How can you care so little about her?”
“I cannot dress in armor,” Bohemund said. “No one can lead my horse out for me. Even our food, Narses, is running low, for the chef doesn’t have enough people to help him in the kitchen.”
“We’re waiting for our ships to come back,” said Ziani. “They’ll bring supplies and, hopefully, laborers—laborers who listen to reason.”
“So until then you’re just going to lie here?” Narses said. “All while the peasants kill your stepmother?”
“She would understand,” Bohemund said.
Narses cleared his throat. “Your grace—”
“Am I not a noble, Narses?” Bohemund said. “What will I become if I do peasant’s work? It goes against God’s will. I am a noble—I am meant to fight. The peasants are meant to work.”
“So let us fight them,” Narses said.
“We go around in circles in this discussion,” Bohemund said. “Why do you not understand? If we do the peasant’s work, they win. That is the point of these demonstrations of theirs. They wish to level us—in more ways than one.”
“It’s not possible to get through life without a little work, your grace—”
“This talk wearies me, Narses. It makes me wonder by what right you address me in this ignoble manner.”
Another pointless discussion.
Narses left, asking the other nobles in the banqueting hall, one by one, if they would help save Sikelgaita’s body, but each spoke, acted, thought exactly like their duke. Narses spoke to many people, but he felt like he was just speaking with the same person again and again.
None of them care about leaving her behind.
Frustrated, he rushed to the doorway—stumbling over dog turds and rotting chicken bones left on the floor—thinking he must be able to find someone in the citadel who would help. But an idea came to him, and he looked back to Bohemund, who was still slumped in his chair.
“Do you not have lowlier soldiers?” Narses said. “Soldiers who are not nobles?”
“L’infanterie,” Bohemund said. “Most died in the siege. My father, may God rest his soul, sent them in the first attack waves—those first brilliant feints of his which confused the foolish amazons. The nobles, meanwhile, attacked Trebizond from the other side, and thereby won eternal glory.”
“We lost a lot more chasing after those criminals of yours,” Ziani added. “We lost three Venetian ships to some kind of mid-oceanic whirlpool—as well as hundreds of sailors.”
“For which the Duchy of Trabzon will duly compensate you,” Bohemund said.
“I have to admit,” Ziani said, “I’ve been having doubts. But one way or another, we’ll be compensated for our losses. Maybe we’ll take Kitezh for ourselves. Could be useful to the Serenissima, having a big ship like that.”
“So there’s really no one left in the city,” Narses said. “Unbelievable. Once again, I find myself surrounded by idiots and failures.”
“You cannot speak to your duke in this fashion,” Bohemund said.
“He’s lucky the other knights around here don’t know any Greek,” Ziani added.
“Otherwise I would fight to defend my honor,” Bohemund said.
“Yes, but you cannot,” Narses said. “For you lack the slaves you need to tie your shoes.”
Narses left the banqueting hall without waiting for their response, and was moving so quickly that in the hallway he ran into Paul the Chain, who stumbled backward and fell onto the cold floor.
Instantly Narses forgot Sikelgaita.
“Hello,” Narses said. “Finally I have a chance to speak with you alone.”
Paul drew his sword, then struggled to his feet. Narses wrestled the sword from his grasp.
Paul gasped and stepped back. “Domestikos, please—”
Narses stepped toward him and raised the sword. “Now you remember my title? I thought you had forgotten. I have been waiting quite some time for a chance to discuss our past differences. We weren’t even able to talk about them on Kitezh.”
Paul fled down the dark corridor, shouting the phrase for help in Gaulish, which he had somehow learned. Narses followed, and even imitated him. Together they both chanted: “Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!”
“Your part in the story has ended, Paul,” Narses said. “You no longer serve a purpose.”
Paul was sprinting as fast as he could, but Narses had little trouble keeping up with him. Running out of breath, Paul fled into the kitchen and crashed into a table by the door. The fat Latin chef—who was at that moment pulling a bread loaf from the oven’s fires—turned to them and shouted: “Tabernacle!”
In the mean time, Narses had backed Paul up against the wall, and was pressing his sword to his throat.
“So many times you doubted me,” Narses said. “From the beginning, from the first moment we met, without the slightest provocation on my part, you seized every opportunity to tell everyone how incompetent you thought me. Do you still think me incompetent now, eunuch?”
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Paul shook his head and raised his hands. “No, domestikos. I don’t know how you got that impression, I never—”
Narses laughed. “I have not heard you speak this word—domestikos—in so many months. It’s funny to hear again.”
“All I wish is to serve you, domestikos.”
“Your tune changes when you are alone with me,” Narses said. “People often talk like this when I’m about to kill them, if I give them the chance. They beg for their lives, they promise me the moon, for they know their time has come. I am the spirit of death, Paul, I am a skull beneath this flesh, and I have come to bring you to your new home in the Hell of the Damned.”
“No, domestikos. Please let me live.”
The Latin chef was still shouting at them, but neither Narses nor Paul heard.
“Have you seen the condition of this citadel?” Narses asked Paul. “What have you done to keep these Latin dogs under control? All of them are lazy and useless!”
“I pleaded with them to help you,” Paul said. “I never stopped trying to save you. But they would not listen.”
“Perhaps I should ask them. I wonder if they will confirm these claims of yours? Because I suspect that you were the one telling them to abandon Sikelgaita and me beyond the wall. You were the one claiming that our lives were forfeit—that it wasn’t worthwhile to risk the lives of noble knights to save us. That we were fools to have left on such a venture by ourselves in the first place.”
“Domestikos, please, I would never say such things—”
“This is a waste of time. You only know how to lie, steal, murder. You writhe here like an insect, Paul, a disgrace to Rome. I will not even consume your soul, for it disgusts me so. I would rather starve than eat you. It’s enough for me that you die as you have lived—pathetic and terrified.”
Narses was about to stab Paul through his throat, but at that moment something hard and heavy struck his face—a loaf of bread! The chef had thrown it at him! Narses’s health declined to 99/100. By the time he recovered, Paul had fled the kitchen. The Latin chef was brandishing a gigantic knife.
Narses walked over to the chef, batted the knife away with his sword, and shoved him into the oven’s roaring flames, closing the door behind him and holding it shut. The chef wailed and beat the door, but Narses had thrown his full weight against it, and kept it closed until the crashing and screaming inside the oven stopped.
We’re back to the good old days, Narses thought.
He opened the door and checked the oven’s interior, where the dead chef was charred black, the flames writhing around his corpse like hungry snakes made of light.
I must do everything myself.
There was still the matter of Sikelgaita’s body. After Narses had escaped, the wretches must have finished her off before scattering like cockroaches into their various lairs. Narses thought of going back for her, but he had learned, after many battles, that he could not fight so many people by himself, even if he was stronger than any individual peasant. They would capture him again. At least he had taken the soul of the annoying Hagop. Narses would always keep that soul with that of Herakleia’s sister, Zoë Karbonopsina, inside his chest. Only the faintest remnants of them he would keep—just so they could know that they were still inside him. Just so they could watch through his eyes as he destroyed everyone they loved.
What to do now? he thought.
The Latins would never listen to him, and the Romans were against him. He found himself walking the walled inner city of Trebizond, looking for any surviving foot soldiers to join him. What had Bohemund called them in his absurd language? L’infanterie.
He returned to the Northeast Gate—still unguarded—and gazed out into the ruined suburbs. No peasants were visible. The city was a wasteland, surrounded by a snowy wasteland, and a mountainous wasteland, and an oceanic wasteland, extending for a myriad stadia, myriads upon myriads. Narses was alone.
Always alone.
But three Venetian ships remained in the harbor, and there was also the city-ship of Kitezh. Just a few Latin guards were present there, but this was enough to ensure that its mongrel crew and Narses’s prisoners—Herakleia among them—behaved. Perhaps if Narses borrowed the guards for a few hours, he could scout the suburbs in force, and rescue Sikelgaita’s body from desecration.
Yet when he looked to Kitezh, he saw something disturbing. He narrowed his eyes. Yes—someone had fallen into the sea. Another followed. People aboard Kitezh were cheering. Narses noticed that fishing boats were docked to the ship, which was also unusual. The peasants must have rowed out from the suburbs and overpowered the Latin guards.
He descended the steps behind the Northeast Gate, only distantly aware of the fact that a few peasants with a ladder could climb over the wall and open the doors at any time now. Instead he was focused on reaching the harbor—where, to his surprise, he encountered Doge Ziani in the company of Venetian sailors. All were standing in silence and watching Kitezh as the ship unfurled its sails, the oars rising and falling. Its crew was moving the ship out of bowshot.
Narses clutched his head. This isn’t happening.
The suburbs were gone. The city-ship was gone. The Latins had nothing but their walls. These men—Narses used the term loosely—only sat in their mansions and complained about how nothing was going their way.
On top of that, the traitorous crew aboard Kitezh must have freed Herakleia and the other prisoners. Narses clutched his hands to fists.
I’ll kill her. I don’t care what His Majesty thinks. She must be destroyed. Like a plague, her ideas infect everyone she touches. The contamination has spread out of control. It must be purged at the source.
A Venetian official of some sort was speaking in their greasy tongue with Ziani, who was nodding with a grim expression. Finally he spoke, and the Venetians around him bowed. They shouted what sounded like orders to one another. Some rushed to the three ships in the harbor while others went back inside the city. They blew their horns. Only a single youth remained with Ziani to guide him.
Narses approached Ziani, who turned to him and spoke before he had even opened his mouth.
“Hey, Narses,” Ziani said. “Town Destroyer. That’s your interesting nickname, isn’t it? I could tell it was you from your smell. You’re here to ask me what I’m up to.”
Narses cleared his throat, then opened his mouth to speak, but Ziani interrupted.
“We’ve decided to get out of here,” Ziani said.
“To recapture Kitezh?” Narses said.
Ziani shook his head. “Nope. We’re going home.”
“You cannot do this.”
“God never wanted us to come here,” Ziani said. “We strayed from His will. We were supposed to liberate the Holy Land from the Saraceni—not to fight endless unwinnable wars at the end of the world.”
“But how can you give up so quickly? Can you not see the value of this place?”
“The locals won’t listen to reason. And already, the costs are getting out of control. Input exceeds output. We need a lot more guys to keep this place under control. I don’t even know if it’s possible. Our supply lines are also too long. It takes weeks at least to send a message for help, and our homes are a thousand miles away.”
“But the supplies you’ve requested must already be close to returning—”
Ziani waved his hand at Kitezh and the suburbs. “Just look at this place. I can’t even see it, and I understand it better than you. There are hundreds of us, and thousands of them. They’re pissed. Every moment we stay makes it more likely they’ll kill us. And I might be old, but my men are young. They have families. We have the Serenissima to think about. The other cities of Italía, the Lord Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, they’ll all seize the first chance they get to take the archipelago from us. Our home. It’s our armada alone that stops them. And we can’t lose what’s left of it. We committed everything to this project.”
“But think of the investment—”
“Yeah, like I said, we invested a lot in this enterprise. But His Majesty is going to compensate us for our losses—one way or another.”
Narses gulped nervously. Does he mean to attack Konstantinopolis?
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Ziani said, “I’m pretty busy. We’ve got to get out of here before these bastardi destroy our last three ships. Then we’ll really be in a pickle. You can come with us if you want, but don’t stand in our way, got it?”
Before Narses could respond, Ziani nodded to his guide, who led him to the harbor. Narses turned away from the Venetians as they rushed back and forth, some carrying chests or sacks of supplies, others pulling horses or mules, some joined by the Gaulish knights, who were hurrying their wives and children to the ships while also making them do the servants’ labor of carrying their armor and supplies and leading their horses. Even the Latin priests were filtering out of the church, hauling crosses, censors, books, candelabra.
The whole city will be emptied in a matter of minutes!
Narses walked to a side street so he could keep out of sight, then slammed his fists against the wall of a building and screamed out his frustration.
What am I supposed to do when everyone around me is weak? They are all cowards—every one of them!
He looked to the Latins fleeing the city.
If we cannot keep it, we’ll burn it. We’ll torch every building. We’ll destroy all the food we cannot take with us. We’ll make the criminals freeze to death or starve.
Narses walked inside one building after another in search of torches. Finding one, he lit it with his flint and steel, then went outside and pressed the fire to any flammable surface he could find. No one stopped him. Duke Bohemund was walking to the harbor with his father’s dogs, and though for a moment he met Narses’s eyes, he said nothing as the general set the city alight. Before long, everything was in flames. When Narses found himself coughing in the smoke, he made his way to the granary, and tossed his torch inside.
He was the last to go aboard the final Venetian ship, the Rosa, as it so happened—the one which had first brought him here—just as the peasants were scaling the walls and running about with buckets, trying to douse the flames. A boat had left Kitezh, and was oaring bright foam from the waves at full speed toward shore. Narses could have sworn that Herakleia was one of the rowers. He laughed at the sight.
Like so many others, you thought you had defeated me. Let’s see how much you enjoy the winter here without a roof over your head or any food in your belly.