HERAKLEIA
When the emissary came to Trebizond, he was wearing the most beautiful silk anyone had ever seen. His caftan was gleaming yellow, and patterned with blue symbols which resembled clouds or water fountains. In his thirties or forties, his fearsome—almost demonic—face was framed by a sharp black beard and mustache with white tips. His turban also matched his silk caftan. Vigorous, proud, muscular, his name was Chaka Bey, and he had come from the Seljuk regional capital of Erzurum, only a few days' journey away, approaching Trebizond on an enormous white steed, accompanied by twenty mounted slaves of many different nations who were attired in red silk, their shining scimitars strapped to their sides, one among them holding aloft the black standard of the Sultanate of Great Seljuk. A princess was with Chaka Bey, too. She was entirely covered in a green shimmering silk burka with only a slit cut in the fabric for her eyes, which flashed like two diamonds in the dark.
Trumpets blasted as this train wound around Mount Minthrion along the imperial highway and crossed the Mill River bridge, their horses’ hooves clopping along new paved streets in the Daphnous suburbs which were lined with new apartment buildings of wood, as well as small factories of brick, their chimneys churning smoke as river water turned their groaning mill wheels. Crowds of Trapezuntines made way and stared at Chaka Bey and his retinue as they stopped at the Maidan, where the city’s Laz inhabitants had organized a welcoming party—singing, banging drums, blasting bagpipes, and holding hands and dancing in a Horon circle that contracted and expanded, the dancing master at the center soloing with some of the Domari acrobats, Alexios’s friends Jafer El-Hadi and Amina bint Hamza al-Ghuraba of the Bani Murra flipping through the air.
After Chaka Bey and his entourage had watched the dancing for a little while, the Northeast Gate opened and they entered Trebizond proper—what was still called the Lower Town, located alongside Hadrian’s Harbor. This was within sight of the city-ship of Kitezh, floating some distance away on the sea. The new arrivals stared at Kitezh, pointed, and made remarks. Only the princess and her two ladies-in-waiting—who were also wearing silk burkas—seemed unimpressed.
Chaka Bey and his retinue ascended to the Middle Town, past the People’s Hospital and the Gabras School. Strategos Herakleia, Supreme Commander of the Workers’ Army, welcomed them in the citadel courtyard, located at the city’s highest point. The emissary, the princess, her ladies-in-waiting, and the slaves dismounted from their horses—whose reins the stable boys took—and bowed before Herakleia on their left knees. As they rose, a handsome Aethiop slave with a round face who was clad in silk and jewels presented Herakleia with a paper scroll bound with silk, which she then handed to an Arab eunuch named Samonas, who limped to her side and examined the cursive scrawl.
“Signed by Malik-Shah Jalāl al-Dawla Mu’izz al-Dunyā Wa’l-Din Abu’l-Fath ibn Alp Arslan,” Samonas read, speaking at a regular speed without the slightest difficulty. “Exalted Sultan of Great Seljuk, the august shahanshah, King of the East and the West, Lord of the Arabs and Persians, Master of Nations, Pillar of Islam, Destroyer of the Infidels and Polytheists and Hypocrites, Commander of the Faithful. Cosigned by his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk.”
Are they sure they got everything? Herakleia thought.
The slave bowed. Speaking refined Roman, he said: “My master is Chaka Bey, son of Sultan Alp Arslan and brother to Sultan Malik-Shah.” He gestured to the princess, who bowed. “This is his wife, Ayşe Khatun.”
Herakleia smiled. “Trebizond welcomes all of you. If you will follow me, we have guest rooms set up for you to refresh yourselves after your long journey. A banquet will follow.”
The slave translated for Chaka Bey, who murmured a gruff response in Seljuk. Then the slave turned to Herakleia and bowed again. “My master Chaka Bey wishes to know where your husband is, that he might speak with him.”
Herakleia cleared her throat. “I have no husband.”
“Then who is ruler of this city?” Chaka Bey said through his slave.
“Nobody told you?” Herakleia glanced at Samonas. “The people rule. They have elected me their leader.”
Chaka Bey growled something. The slave winced, then translated. “My master Chaka Bey wishes you to know that a woman cannot rule. For as the Prophet, peace be upon him, has told us: ‘Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler.’”
“It’s alright, that’s not a problem,” Herakleia said. “Since I just told you, I’m not the people’s ruler. The people are. And besides, wasn’t the Prophet—peace be upon him—married to Khadija bint Khuwaylid, a prominent merchant, trusted advisor, and early supporter of Islam? Was this not likewise the case with his third wife, Aisha Abu Bakr, general in the Battle of the Camel?” She nodded to Ayşe Khatun. “Your namesake, if I’m not mistaken, my lady?”
The slave made a pained expression, as though he knew it was a bad idea to argue with his master. Then he translated for Chaka Bey, who snarled a response.
“Really, why not discuss this later?” Samonas raised his arms before the slave could translate. Then, in Seljuk, Samonas spoke directly to Chaka Bey: “You and your people must be quite tired, my lord. Please enter our citadel that you might rest and refresh yourselves.”
Chaka Bey watched Samonas for a moment, then bowed and allowed himself and his retinue to be led inside the palace by Trebizond’s workers. Samonas and Herakleia remained outside. They exchanged looks the moment the guests’s backs were turned.
“I thought we already talked about this with them!” Herakleia whispered, her eyes wide. “We already agreed to respect our differences, that we just want to unite against a common enemy—”
“Whatever are you looking at me for?” Samonas raised his shoulders. “Evidently the bey was not privy to these discussions! I’m really not his superior, strategos, and can’t answer for his behavior—”
“A little touchy today, aren’t we?”
“All of us are under quite a bit of pressure, as it were. Much depends upon this embassy.” Samonas took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment. “But I shall endeavor to look on the bright side, as the saying goes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being stressed in a stressful situation.”
“Forgive me, strategos, but you aren’t helping.”
“Sorry for trying to be a friend.”
“Excuse my boldness, but you aren’t my friend, strategos. You’re my boss.”
Herakleia raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad you’ve clarified our relationship. Maybe once I lose my next election, we can be friends.”
“Then I won’t bother with you at all.”
Herakleia laughed, to her own surprise. They entered the palace, and checked the banqueting hall, but there was little for them to do. Trebizond’s workers had taken care of everything. Even now, Chef Aemilia and her assistants in the kitchen were finishing dinner, timing everything so that the food would come out steaming hot just as the guests came down from their rooms.
Herakleia turned away from the flurry of activity around her, struggling to avoid thinking about what had happened in the palace kitchen during the Latin occupation. A horrible death had taken place. Someone had locked the previous chef in the oven and cooked him alive. She shuddered.
Awful way to go.
Since the Trapezuntines had retaken their city, they had replaced almost everything inside the kitchen, especially the oven. Priests, rabbis, imams, and even a few shamans and mobads had blessed the room and exorcised its ghosts. The previous chef’s remains had been given a proper burial. All the workers knew, and only volunteers worked in the palace kitchen. Yet everyone believed the place was tainted. Herakleia considered herself a scientist, only concerned with what she could see and conceive of, but it was impossible to use this kitchen without thinking of what had happened here.
We should have torn the entire palace down or just abandoned it…moved our capital somewhere else.
There was so much history here, she could barely take a step without memory overcoming her. Ghosts haunted every stone. To brush her finger against one brick meant bursting the portals of the Hell of the Damned and unleashing a deluge of specters, enough to consume the world, to overwhelm the horizons with darkness like an eclipse. In this banqueting hall, during an unpleasant dinner with her Latin captors, she had lunged forward and nearly slit Domestikos Narses’s throat. How many lives would have been saved if she had succeeded? Upstairs in the doux’s chambers, she had fucked Duke Robert the Crafty to death. Blinding him with lust, rocking her thighs against his, he barely noticed when she lunged forward and snapped his neck, even though it was thick and sturdy as an old oak.
To free my people, the best orgasm of my life.
So much had changed in Trebizond since. Trebizond was change. When she had first fled here two years ago following the murder of her father, Good Emperor Anastasios, this city had been the Roman Empire’s last redoubt, perched at the northeastern edge of its territory at the confluence of nations and peoples. The Varangian Rus plied the rivers of the northern steppe with longboats, Iberian and Armenian kingdoms arose in the Kaukasos, Persians and Seljuks expanded their empire beyond all knowledge to the Earth’s eastern ends, and Arabs and Kurds and Assyrians and Jews and Domari and Mandaeans and god knew who else farmed the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the south, down to the green silvering reeds of the Arabistan marshlands and the Persian Sea, whose monsoon winds blew dhows laden with spice from Arabia Felix to Sindh and Hind and back again every year.
Those were the good old days. At that time Trebizond was garrisoned with kataphraktoi—horses and horsemen draped in mail and razor-sharp plated steel that in the sunlight gleamed so brightly it could gash people’s vision with black and purple welts, blinding them from miles away. Yet the uprising was still in its early stages, supported not just by the workers and peasants and women and children and criminals, but also disaffected members of the Roman ruling class. There were a few fatcat tax collectors, priests (including a mosquito-like fellow named Sophronios the Metropolitan), landlords, nobles, and a lot of laboring peasants and fishermen, some Roman, many in the mountainside villages Laz.
The city’s doux, David Bagrationi, had fallen for Herakleia. Who could blame him? Hers was a lively beauty, utterly self-actualized, such that even the grass and flowers and trees followed her movements—even the sun was unable to keep from peeking through the clouds to watch her. Living music, living fire, she used her beauty as a weapon, and had manipulated Bagrationi into welcoming all the empire’s refugees, who were then fleeing the devastation unleashed by the palace coup against her father by Nikephoros the Usurper. She had even convinced Bagrationi to let her leave for Sera, a semi-mythical land far to the east, where with her friend and bodyguard George Vatatzes she had learned the farr from the monks of Tiger Mountain, intending to bring an instructional manual on the subject back home to help her people fight.
A new weapon against the enemy.
Upon her return to Anatolia, the Romans killed Vatatzes and captured and tortured her, keeping her alive only because the usurper needed her to legitimize his rule. She would have been lost forever in the Imperial Palace’s dungeons, but her old mentor Dionysios somehow organized a rescue, perishing at the hands of the usurper’s henchman, Narses, in the process.
Herakleia nonetheless escaped with her new friends Alexios Leandros, Gontran Koraki, and Kambine Diaresso, who sailed together on their stolen imperial dromon, the Paralos, all the way from Konstantinopolis to Trebizond. There they found the city swarming with more refugees than Doux Bagrationi knew what to do with. These people had come from every corner of the empire, and even beyond, hearing that in Trebizond they would be free from landlords and tax collectors. As she and Alexios struggled to train a new army of amazons using the farr, and as everyone else built up the city’s defenses in preparation for the inevitable Roman invasion, Narses and his army of immortals struck, assaulting Trebizond with an enormous cannon called a basilik which the defenders had only barely destroyed in time.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Thereafter Trebizond underwent a rapid transformation; victory intensifies contradictions. Doux Bagrationi was deposed, and fled, never to return. The city was taken over by workers, peasants, criminals, women, and children of all kinds. These elected Herakleia their strategos. Freed from the shackles of slavery and feudalism, they built up the city’s manufacturing base, exporting so much clothing and iron so quickly that they destabilized the economies of regions as faraway as Gallia and Thule. Threatened by the idea that peasants and slaves could be free, the Romans, Venetians, and Normans united to conquer Trebizond in a crusade invasion. But the survivors fought back. Trebizond was devastated in a fire, but the Trapezuntines drove out the invaders. Many lives were lost.
New allies had arrived, in the meantime. Gontran and Diaresso brought the city-ship of Kitezh, the last relic of Khazar civilization, along with Talia the Automatōn, supposedly built by the god Hephaestos himself. Alexios also retrieved a small army of friends he had found in the Arabian desert, including Domari acrobats, Aethiopian witch-doctors and were-women, and an elderly Mandaean alchemist who could drown the world in rivers flooding from the galaxies in the night.
That was months ago. The city was restored and expanded. Dozens of refugees eager for work arrived every day, with the result that Trebizond was now bigger and stronger than ever. Still, it was vulnerable. Its ancient walls only protected a small portion of its territory; new apartment buildings and factories went up in the growing suburbs every day. If invaders returned, they would set this place aflame. And this time they might succeed in destroying the uprising forever.
Trebizond was therefore always searching for allies. Thus the arrival of Great Seljuk’s emissary, Chaka Bey. Thus the departure that very day of Herakleia’s friend, Gontran Koraki, on a mission aboard the Paralos to forge an alliance with the Venetians—enemies who might be convinced to switch sides for the right price. And thus the flight at the same time of Alexios Leandros to Serindia, to search for friends and armies in lands unknown. He had gone with his two adopted children, Basil and Kassia, and had also taken Sedko Sitinits, the merchant of Novgorod, with him as his guide, along with his wife, Vasilissa the Wise. Isato the shape-shifting Aethiopian princess, too, had gone with Alexios.
So many have left. So many are gone.
Chaka Bey’s chief slave—his chamberlain, or kapuji-bashi—descended the stairs to announce that his lord would soon arrive for dinner. Herakleia seized this moment to ask the slave his name.
“Forgive me, my lady, but my name is irrelevant.” He bowed. “You may address me merely as ‘chamberlain.’”
“Your name isn’t irrelevant to me,” she said. “Please tell me.”
“I am Ibrahim Hummay.”
“May I ask where you come from, Ibrahim Hummay?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I was taken from a faraway place you may not know, for no one here has heard of it. It is called Kanem, a land of great cities hidden deep within Saharan dunes and mountains. I dwelled alongside the shore of a place the Christians sometimes call the Lake of the Hippopotamus.”
“You’re right, I’ve never heard of it, I’m sorry. Not many people here know what’s on the other side of the Sahara.” She thought about her friend Diaresso, who came from Tomboutou, itself at the Sahara’s southern edge. “But it must have been a long journey. How did you cross the desert? Isn’t that hundreds, thousands of miles?”
Hummay winced. “It was not easy, my lady.”
“You don’t need to address me that way.”
“It’s simply old habit, my lady, forgive me. But I served the Fatimids in Fustat and the Abbasids in Baghdad for some years until I was sold to the court of Chaka Bey.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. We’ll do our best to make this alliance work. Can I ask…do you know if your master was aware of the way we do things here?”
Hummay smiled. “My master knew. We all did. Rumors of Trabzon have no doubt spread even as far as to the sultans of Mogadishu and the Isle of the Idolaters in Serendib. But we could scarcely credit such reports. A city without lords and nobles—it seemed easier to believe that Trabzon was inhabited by dragons and phoenixes! I suspect my master was disappointed to learn the truth. He is a warrior of traditional tastes, uninterested in the struggles of the poor and weak.”
“I hope you don’t feel the same.”
Hummay bowed. “I am but my master’s servant.”
We’ll see about that, Herakleia thought.
Already she was dreaming of radicalizing Chaka Bey’s entire retinue, even as she knew that this would destroy any chance of an alliance with the Great Seljuk Empire. But what if this nation was also Trebizond’s enemy, and one even fiercer than Rome? Caesar’s empire, after all, had been in trouble since the Battle of Mantzikert ten years ago, with Seljuks flooding Anatolia almost to the walls of Konstantinopolis. But it was hard to imagine a world without Rome. Everyone—even the Seljuks—wondered if there would one day be a resurgence, if Caesar would wake from his eternal sleep beneath the fabled Seven Hills and march his legions from wintry Hibernia all the way to the green mountains of Baktria.
By then, Chaka Bey was descending the stairs with his slaves. His wife, Ayşe Khatun, was now unveiled, revealing herself to be a Seran woman of such astonishing beauty that Herakleia’s breath caught in her throat. She wondered immediately if Ayşe Khatun was the woman’s real name. If she was Seran, she must have possessed a Seran name. But was it impertinent to ask, if the Seljuks had renamed her? People always said you should never ask monks about their past, since they now belonged only to god. Was it the same with princesses married off to foreign potentates in faraway lands?
Ayşe Khatun’s beauty was so intense it was almost frightening. It seemed that with a single glance from those green-blue eyes lined with kohl she could stop a man’s heart forever. Her skin was powdered white, her lips were red. Herakleia recalled how rare lipstick was in this time and place.
Chaka Bey and his retinue took their seats, with the bey himself sitting at one end and Herakleia at the other of the long table. The guests seemed awkward in their chairs; Herakleia guessed that they were more used to sitting on cushions on the floor. Samonas joined them, as did Ayşe Khatun, but Hummay was forbidden to sit, instead standing beside Chaka Bey and translating while everyone else ate. The same was true for the other slaves and Ayşe Khatun’s two ladies-in-waiting, Selcan and Aykiz, who would eat the leftovers later, out of sight. Herakleia found this reprehensible, but she reminded herself that she was working for the uprising. Beggars could not be choosers; it was impossible to make everything perfect instantly.
Great Seljuk can keep Trebizond safe. We’ll deal with the Romans first, then worry about the Seljuks later. The Romans have attacked Trebizond twice, while the Seljuks never have.
As a local Roman musician named Stephanos Georgiadis strummed folksy tunes from a lute which sounded a great deal like a mandolin, workers brought out dinner. The first course consisted of Varangian borscht with sour cream and generous helpings of warm thick flatbread fresh from the iron satz pans in the kitchen. The second course was mythopilavon, a rice pilaf with mussels and herbs, along with the usual Roman salad. The third course was dolma: grape leaves stuffed with chicken and beef spiced with curry. This particular course had Chaka Bey raving with delight. Herakleia was stuffed at this point—as stuffed as the delicious dolma—but the courses kept coming. Next were the mantia dumplings packed with anchovies, fried in butter, and served with a pesto dipping sauce. By now even Chaka Bey was claiming that he was full.
“You are trying to kill us!” he said through Hummay. “We will burst like wine grapes!”
“There is still dessert,” Herakleia said.
This consisted of baklava with apricot compote. Plenty of black Trapezuntine wine was also served during the evening. The guests were Sarakenoi, but they drank freely as Christians. Mere mention of pork would disgust them, and as for all the other Islamic duties, they would bow to Mecca five times each day, travel there to touch the black Kaaba once in their lifetimes, give constantly to the poor, fast from sunrise to sunset every Ramadan, and with all their hearts believe that God was one and that Muhammad (peace be upon him) was his prophet. All this they would do, rarely complaining, often enjoying the brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam. Even the thirst and hunger in the blazing heat of Ramadan would delight them. As the world took on a holy glow during this time, they would wish that it lasted all year, eating at night, napping in midday. Their house was built with all five pillars of Islam. As for wine, Allah was all-wise, all-merciful, and would forgive and understand the sin of enjoyment. Good works would make up for a few sips of al-khamr, that delicious poisonous medicine. Herakleia had been surrounded by Muslims ever since she had joined the uprising, and her piety ability had been growing ever since. She was now an Intermediate (5/10).
“I’m sorry, I have to ask.” Herakleia directed her gaze to Ayşe Khatun, then Chaka Bey. “Your wife seems too elegant to have come from these lands.”
The game voice warned that her charisma skill—which was Intermediate (5/10)—would decline if she kept singling people out by asking where they were from, a faux pas she had already committed with Ibrahim Hummay.
Hummay translated Herakleia’s question. Chaka Bey mostly resembled a sculpture designed to terrify evil spirits, even when his mood was mellow. But here his facial expression softened for the first time Herakleia had seen, and he even released a peal of deep laughter, nodding and raising his bronze cup of wine to Herakleia before sipping it.
“My master wishes you to know that he thinks you very observant.” Hummay bowed, speaking with pleasant, refined tones. “For his wife Ayşe Khatun is indeed what he calls a Seran beauty, and is a daughter to the King of China—an eastern princess.”
“Can she speak for herself?” Herakleia said, eyeing Ayşe Khatun.
“I can.” Ayşe Khatun smiled. Her voice was sweet and high-pitched. “One of my husband’s eunuchs in Erzurum has taught me to speak both Roman and Seljuk.”
Hummay translated for Chaka Bey, who watched his wife with pride.
“I come from a city called Dongjing.” Ayşe Khatun spoke the city’s name using the Seran language’s musical tones. It sounded like she was singing when she said it. “Have you heard of it?”
“I’ve been there,” Herakleia said. “You’ll find a lot of people here know about Sera. Trebizond is an entrepôt—like Isfahan. Trade from all directions flows here. Or most directions, I guess. There’s not much from the west that we need.” She looked at Samonas. “Do we import anything from the west?”
Samonas put his fork down on his plate. “Really strategos, forgive my impertinence, but I should think you would know better. Everything of value comes from the east. The west has little to trade save gold and silver. And even that is dwindling these days. They have spent so much specie on our goods that they are running out, and their money is becoming worthless. We have, at the same time, invested the money they have given us in improving the productive forces here, providing necessities to all, which means that we need the west even less than before.”
“Right,” Herakleia said. As an Educated Master (8/10), she had consulted the relevant Mazdakist texts on these subjects and even worked with Trebizond’s Workers’ Council to implement these policies.
Hummay continued to translate for Chaka Bey, who was sipping his wine and watching the discussion with amusement. He murmured something. Hummay said: “My master wishes to comment upon the eunuch disrespecting his sovereign.”
Samonas looked nervous, but Herakleia said: “We all speak freely here as equals.”
Chaka Bey lowered his wine cup. “My master says this goes against the will of Allah. Some are born to rule while others must serve.”
Herakleia’s couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Not this again—”
“You know Dongjing?” Ayşe Khatun said to Herakleia. “You have been there?”
This question broke the tension in the banqueting hall. Even the slaves had been looking uneasy, but Ayşe Khatun made everyone forget what they had been talking about. Samonas resumed his dainty way of eating anchovies by spearing them one by one with his fork, Chaka Bey shrugged and sipped his wine, and Herakleia discussed her favorite restaurant in Dongjing—Ma Yu Ching’s Bucket Chicken House—revealing that she had traveled to Sera to learn the farr.
“Ah, but this is a thing forbidden.” Ayşe Khatun looked back and forth dramatically, as though someone was spying on her. “For Tiger Mountain is in open revolt against the Son of Heaven.”
Herakleia assumed that Ayşe Khatun was referring to the emperor of China. The princess was too polite to call the man “dad.”
“They taught me a lot.” Herakleia nodded to Ayşe Khatun. “It’s likely that the entire uprising would have failed without their help. The odds are stacked against us.” She turned to Hummay, who was translating for Chaka Bey. “How can peasants hope to fight highly trained armored knights? Across history, there are all kinds of peasant and slave revolts. Spartakos in Rome is probably the most famous, but there are others. None lasted more than a few years. Sometimes it seems like the slaves almost didn’t even know what to do with themselves. If they had even managed to defeat the Romans, what kind of society would they have built? How could they hope to build a society without slavery? But we’ve found that it’s possible in this day and age, at least with the help of the farr.”
“I’m pleased with your success,” Ayşe Khatun said. “Zhongguo”—this was what she called Sera, once again using her singsong tones—“gives freely to the world, and expects only reverence in return.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me.” Herakleia looked to the others at her table, then raised her wine cup. “To Zhongguo!”
Everyone at the table smiled, raised their cups, clinked them together, and repeated Herakleia’s words. Chaka Bey said what was presumably the word for “cheers” in Seljuk—“şerefe!” Ayşe Khatun laughed.
“I hope we can be friends,” she told Herakleia. “Even after this embassy ends.”
“I hope so, too,” Herakleia said.
Yet for the rest of the meal, Herakleia did her best—with Ayşe Khatun’s help—to avoid all mention of business and official diplomacy. Chaka Bey’s earlier comment on how equality went against the will of Allah—nonsense from a theological perspective—had confirmed her worst suspicions: the embassy was a waste of time. Great Seljuk would soon ally with Rome to destroy Trebizond. Was it really so hard to believe? Already most of the Roman army—what remained of it—consisted of Turkish mercenaries. These two sworn enemies would put aside their differences to focus on Trebizond. Chaka Bey himself had probably come here to spy. He would soon tell his brother Malik-Shah that the rich city was ripe for the plucking.
For hours, then, as one course was brought in after another, and as rivers of black Trapezuntine wine and steaming Seran cha flowed down their throats, Herakleia sat with her future enemy. Chaka Bey laughed with Ayşe Khatun, delighted in her beauty, and held her hand and even dared to kiss it sometimes—in defiance of his own machismo. But one day soon this man would charge Trebizond’s walls on his war horse. His demonic face would drip with blood as he raised his sharp gleaming scimitar to cut Herakleia down.