Exiting the Great Palace, Narses walked past the Milion along the Mese, followed by his Varangian and Turkish bodyguards. It was morning. The street was crowded with men, women, and eunuchs going to work, plus children walking hand-in-hand to school in the cloudy winter light. But everyone kept close to the colonnades lining the Mese, stopped, and bowed their heads in silence when Narses passed. This was the first time he had gone into the City as emperor.
They aren’t exactly strewing my path with rose petals, he thought.
Turning right at the Forum of Konstantinos, Narses and his companions made their way northward to the Golden Horn. Here were the Prosphorion and Neorion harbors, the storehouses for the empire’s goods, as well as the shipyards for the fleet, though these had lain idle for some time, as there had been no money to pay the workers, and few successful conquests to procure slaves. Now the harbors were silting up from disuse. Only a short distance across the Golden Horn was Galata, its walls blackened from fire. Two galleys flying the red-gold standard of Saint Mark guarded its docks, which were patrolled by soldiers in the colorful striped outfits and tights which the Latins preferred. The Venetians had even raised the chain across the Golden Horn, at least on their side, which made it difficult for ships to enter.
“I hate Venetians.” Narses turned to Paul, who was standing by his side. “Why have we not attacked them?”
Paul stepped forward and bowed. “Only a few hundred soldiers remain loyal to you in the City, majesty.”
“Order them to attack Galata.”
“They are needed for guard duty, majesty, to keep the mob—the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the City—at bay. Some rioters from your coronation did indeed attempt to assault Galata, but their ships were sunk and all of them were killed, captured, or driven back, so far as we are aware.”
Narses had noticed several burned hulks rising from the Golden Horn’s shallow waters. All the hulks lay within a stone’s throw of the Prosphorion Harbor. The Venetians had seemingly destroyed these ships moments after their crews cast off.
Pathetic.
Narses was tempted to handle the Venetians himself—to run upon the waters, as when Romanos had thrown him from the Kerasos Cliffs—but even Nikephoros would have been unable to destroy hundreds of trained soldiers alone.
“Must I always do everything?” Narses clutched his head and paced back and forth.
I need an army, workers, money, but I have none of these things.
“Parakoimomenos.” Narses turned to Paul. “You will perform a census today. Gather as many strong, young, unmarried men in the Hippodrome as you can find. Take some Varangians with you to ensure compliance.”
Paul swallowed nervously. “Am I to gather monks and priests as well, majesty?”
Narses shook his head. “No one associated with the church, no one who has any money—not yet. Just the dregs. The second and third sons. We will need thousands, enough for several tagmata at least. I also need you to gather the City’s shipwrights, take stock of the armory in the Mangana, and organize the blacksmiths into—”
“Am I to do all of this today, majesty, by myself?”
“There are other logothetes in the sekreta. Utilize as many as you require.”
"Majesty, they are busy with their own accounting work—”
“What does it matter, Paul, if the empire has no money to account for? Your logothetes will soon lose their jobs—and their lives—if they fail.”
Paul stepped close to Narses, eyed the guards surrounding them, and then whispered: “Just how are we to pay for all of these new initiatives of yours? I’m losing my mind just thinking about paying the Varangians at the end of the month. If they don’t get their salaries, they’ll ransack the palace—”
“For now, we provide IOUs,” Narses said.
“IOUs?”
“Papers which declare the money owed,” Narses said.
Paul rolled his eyes. “The paper itself is going to be more valuable than the nomismas declared on it…”
“Use a different material, something that can’t be faked. It doesn’t matter. Once we take Galata, we’ll have some money to spare. We’ll capture the doge and any other rich Venetians and ransom them back to Venetia. The lesser prisoners we capture we’ll use in gold mines.”
“Something tells me it won’t be that simple, majesty.”
“What else can we do, parakoimomenos? Await our destruction? We have months at most before the Venetian armada comes to Galata.” He turned to face Konstantinopolis behind him. “The criminals in Trebizond learned from Venetia. They organized their city around production. That is how they staved off their defeat for such a long time.”
“We, em, still don’t know for certain that they are defeated, majesty.”
Narses looked at him. “Do you doubt that I succeeded in my goal? That Nikephoros’s last wish was fulfilled?”
“You may forget that I was there, majesty. I saw the flames consume Trebizond. What I did not see was the criminal leadership captured and beheaded. Nor did I see the last criminal flag burn.”
“You doubt me, just like the rest. No matter what I achieve, you think me incompetent. Fine. Fair enough. Send scouts to Trebizond. I don’t care how they get there, whether via horse or ship. It doesn’t matter. Send them, and have them report back.”
“Resources are limited, majesty…”
“Send them. If they move quickly, it should only take a month or two for them to go back and forth. We have heard nothing from Trebizond, so we will have scouts confirm the truth of what I say. There should be an intelligence network both within and without the City. We must know what everyone is doing, what everyone is thinking, before they themselves know.”
Paul raised his eyebrows, as though surprised. “An excellent idea, majesty. I will take care of it.”
“Good. Now, as I was saying earlier: the criminals organized their city around production. It made them stronger than we expected. We found things there we never dreamed of—factories, basiliks, an entire army clad in armor, all built in a matter of months. So we will do the same. We will remind the men here of what it means to be Roman—and make Konstantinopolis into an industrial powerhouse. We will reconstruct the engineer Orban’s basiliks in order to give us a tactical advantage. But all of these undertakings will require a transformation of the entire City. We will take Konstantinopolis—filled with churches, monasteries, schools, scriptoria, and merchants’ warehouses—and make it into a barracks, a barracks with factories.”
Paul bowed and stepped back. “Yes, majesty. Will that be all?”
It seemed the eunuch was humoring Narses. “For now,” he said.
Returning to the Great Palace, Narses and his retinue made their way to the sekreta. This was a vast office—reminiscent of offices from the old world—filled with desks, chairs, shelves, papers, wax tablets, parchment, reed pens, feather pens, and styluses of all kinds. Hundreds of beardless eunuchs were scribbling documents or handing them to slave courtiers. No one was idle. Only a murmur of conversation—mostly orders issued to slaves—was audible. Yet Narses suspected that the eunuchs had learned he was coming. They were only pretending to be busy. The instant he turned his back, they would resume whatever lurid activities they had been up to earlier.
Probably just lounging about, Narses thought. Getting paid to do nothing with Rome’s money. But not to worry. The time has come to put them to work.
As soon as the logothetes spotted Narses, they stood and bowed. The sekreta was silent. Paul picked thirty eunuchs, seemingly at random, two for each of the City’s fifteen regions, and then he instructed the remaining logothetes to cover the others’ work.
“As the Master Parakoimomenos commands!” they shouted in unison.
Narses raised his eyebrows at Paul. Runs a tighter ship than I thought.
“Very well,” Paul said. “Get to it!”
Bowing once more, the remaining logothetes in the sekreta returned to their documents. Paul brought the thirty he had chosen into the huge marble hallway outside and grouped each man with four Turkish or Varangian bodyguards, whose official translators explained Narses’s plans.
Equipping the logothetes with wax tablets and styluses from a cupboard near the sekreta’s entrance, Paul instructed them to fan out to their respective City regions. Each logothete was to bring one hundred young, unmarried, lower-class, able-bodied men to the Hippodrome.
“At that point, I will handle them personally,” Narses said. He turned to Paul. “You will also ensure a steady supply of food, weapons, water, and armor to the Hippodrome, which will become our barracks for now, with all festivities canceled until further notice.”
“The people are not going to like that,” Paul said. “Sporting events in the Hippodrome are often all they have to look forward to. They serve as an effective distraction, channeling the people’s frustrations away from the government.”
Narses ignored him. “I will require slaves, tents, tables, benches, training posts. The officials who organize the games will instead assist you in organizing for my recruits.”
Paul bowed. “Majesty.”
Narses looked to the subordinate logothetes. “As you walk the City, announce that pay will be doubled for those men who volunteer to join the army, cooperate in training, and fight well. Try to find the sons of refugee families—those who are angriest about the troubles in Anatolia, those who wish to strike back.”
Bowing, the logothetes acknowledged his commands. Soon they had left the Great Palace with their barbarian escorts. Even from the Hippodrome, where Narses wended his way, he heard the logothetes shouting in the streets. Yet within the first two hours, they had only procured a few hundred men. Narses learned, as these men entered the Hippodrome, that they were all volunteers, and mostly the penniless scions of the Armenian nobility who wished to reclaim the ancestral estates seized by the Turks.
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“How lucky you all are,” Narses told them. “How blessed to have the emperor himself as your drill instructor.”
“Yes, sir!” they cried—already in unison, and at a good volume.
Yet Narses heard their thoughts. In their minds they whispered about the absurdity of the Emperor of Rome training new recruits. Could His Majesty find no one else to perform this task? Did he have nothing better to do?
“Rome is in crisis.” He paced before their serried ranks. “Life in the City goes on as usual. Emperors come and go. And all the while, our enemies nibble at our lands like an infestation of mice. My brothers—for you are my brothers, or you will soon be—we have now lost Galata, just across the Golden Horn, so close I could swim there myself if I wished. And now that the Venetians have Galata, how much time remains before they take the City itself? Who will be the last emperor of Rome? Who will be the last man to die for Rome?”
A recruit raised his hand. Narses nodded to him and smiled. “Will you be the last one?”
“Sir,” he said. “The City is impregnable. The walls have never been breached, not since they were built a thousand years ago by Megas Konstantinos.”
“Six hundred years ago,” another recruit said. “By Emperor Theodosios. A thousand years ago, Megas Konstantinos’s great-great-great-great grandparents hadn’t even been born yet.”
Some recruits laughed.
“Enough.” Narses looked at the first recruit who had spoken. “Times are desperate. The walls are strong, but they can be breached, especially if there is no one guarding them. That is why you are here. That is why I have plucked you from your lives. Together, we will bring back the hallowed days of Roman greatness, when the world feared the Roman legions—when mothers terrified their children by saying the word Rome. It will be difficult. Some of you will not survive. But those who do will win eternal glory…”
Enough speechmaking. While Narses was conversing with his recruits, slaves who worked in the Hippodrome had brought military tunics, scissors, razors, stools. These were usually used for actors, chariot riders, entertainers, lion-tamers, but now they were used for the recruits. The slaves cut the recruits’ hair and shaved their cheeks. Then the men changed into their new military tunics, casting their old clothes aside, putting away childish things. Narses announced that Rome would care for these men from now on.
“Your old clothing is like dead skin sloughed from a serpent.” He took a whip handed to him by a slave. “You are reborn.”
The recruits watched him in silence.
“Now let us begin,” he said, never raising his voice, forcing them to lean in to listen. “You will run around the Hippodrome. Run until you cannot take another step—until you collapse! Now go!”
He cracked the whip in the air, and the sound was so loud it even shocked Narses. The recruits flinched, then began running as he waved his whip in their faces, urging them on, jogging alongside them.
Within a few laps, the first recruits began to slow. Narses had no trouble keeping up, since he was supplementing his stamina with farr, itself drawn from the ghosts in his chest—Zoë Karbonopsina, Hagop the criminal, and Nikephoros Komnenos. Others Narses had digested entirely, saving these three for last.
“You have gone soft like silk,” he told the recruits, as they gasped for breath. “Soft like your mothers’ twats. You have been living in the City too long. Soon the Sarakenoi will be raping your mothers and sisters to death because of your weakness. They will get your mothers and sisters with hordes of children, all singing Allah’s praises, all bowing to Mecca. Is that what you desire?”
He cracked his whip, terrifying the men into motion. When they started flagging once more, he beat them with the whip’s handle. They struggled to move forward, walking or limping. When some fell, he kicked their stomachs, knocking the breath from their lungs. Slaves needed to carry some on stretchers to the small hospital attached to the Hippodrome. This was guarded by axe-wielding Varangians at all times, as were the gates and the baths.
Soon everyone had given up save ten men, all drenched in sweat despite the winter cold. Narses told them to stop. Then, long before they had caught their breath, he asked if they could read. Five said that they could. Then Narses told them to write their names in the Hippodrome sand. Four did this using their feet. Narses named them his kentarchs—Baghdasar, Poghos, Tavit, Krikor.
All Armenians.
“You will help manage the men,” Narses told them. “In time, you too will have subordinates of your own, if you do well. We must rebuild the legions from scratch. They were destroyed under my predecessor.”
By you, Kentarch Poghos thought. Narses glared at him; Poghos looked away.
I couldn’t hear people thinking to themselves before, Narses thought. Maybe it’s a byproduct of becoming an apprentice farr vampire.
Once all the surviving men had rested in the shade and drunk their fill of water provided by slaves, they began simple marching and formation drills. Narses taught his four kentarchs, and his four kentarchs then taught the recruits. Slaves also set up training posts and gathered wooden swords and shields and other supplies from the storage depths of the Hippodrome and the arsenal in the Mangana, itself attached to the Great Palace. Much of this equipment needed to be sharpened, dusted, oiled.
A great deal needs to be done.
As this took place, Paul's men brought more recruits from the City, though these were mostly Romans, and less cooperative than the others, often refusing to give their names to the logothetes who sat at wooden desks at the Hippodrome’s entrance. Narses warned everyone that they would be whipped for disobeying commands. He was forced to demonstrate the seriousness of this warning on a street urchin named Grigorios—hairy, dirty, barefoot, clad in rags—who tried to flee the Hippodrome. But Narses heard his thoughts. Before Grigorios could sprint to the gate, Narses tripped him up with the farr. Then he walked to the boy, tore off his shirt, hauled him to a training post—even as the boy pleaded for mercy—and tied him there. Grigorios had Romanos’s face. No matter. Narses gave him ten lashes, laying them on hard, the whip exploding in the air.
“Discipline!” Narses shouted. “Discipline!”
Deep red stripes tore Grigorios’s youthful flesh, the blood flowing down his back in gleaming rivers, the bone and muscle visible. Grigorios screamed in agony at first, but had fainted by the third strike. Once Narses had counted to ten, two slaves untied Grigorios and carried him to the Hippodrome hospital, where they soaked his red welts with saltwater.
Keeping Doctor Donnolo busy.
Narses turned to the recruits, all of whom were gaping at him in terror.
“There is no appeal,” he said. “There is no way out. You are with me, now, until we reconquer the entire empire—until the world is saved. The Sarakenoi might kill you if you fight poorly. I will definitely kill you if you fight poorly. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the recruits murmured.
Narses brandished his bloody whip. “What was that?”
“Yes, sir!” the recruits shouted.
No one disobeyed Narses afterward. They still kept their thoughts to themselves, unaware that Narses could hear them. Kentarch Poghos, for instance, believed that they had been enslaved—that they were no better than prisoners, though they had committed no crime. Narses disliked this young man, but Poghos was fast, strong, and literate, and obeyed commands despite his misgivings. In short, Poghos was the best Narses could do at the moment.
Yet the newer recruits brought by Paul’s logothetes were of a lesser quality. They ran slowly and for shorter distances no matter how many times Narses whipped the air. Though they knew better than to talk back, Narses felt them glaring at him the instant he turned away, and their minds were full of thoughts of escape. These would constitute the second training tagma. If, when they graduated, their quality remained low, Narses would use them as “cannon fodder,” a useful old world term. Wasn’t that how the Turks fought battles? They threw their worst soldiers at the enemy first. Then, when the enemy was tired from the slaughter, the Turks committed their elite soldiers to the fight. These left no foes alive.
Ultimately Paul only found enough recruits for two tagmata—about eighteen hundred men in total—before giving up. He never showed himself to Narses. The recruits simply stopped entering the Hippodrome without explanation.
I will make him pay, Narses thought.
These last recruits were so rebellious, they almost needed to be forced to train at spearpoint. Only one was cooperative—the second boy of the day with Romanos’s face. The boy even volunteered to manage the unruliest recruits, announcing to Narses that his name was Angelos Makrenos of the Fifth Region.
“Angelos, my angel,” Narses said. “My fighting archangel. For this initiative you have already shown, I promote you to kentarch.”
Makrenos smiled, bowed, and then hesitantly looked up, his eyes blazing with pride. “Thank you, sir.”
“I think we can expect great things of you,” Narses said.
“My uncle, sir,” Makrenos said. “He was with you during your coronation. His name is John Goudeles, owner of the Swan Tavern.”
“Your uncle is John Goudeles?”
“He is, sir. He was the one who told me to join you here. He always spoke so highly of you, saying that you were going to clean up the City and get rid of the corrupt bureaucrats who were strangling him with high taxes and government interference. He also…”
“Yes?”
Makrenos looked back and forth at his fellow recruits. “Let’s just say, sir, that the pay is more regular and reliable in the army than in a tavern.”
Narses laughed. “That it is. Carry on, soldier.”
Makrenos saluted. “Yes, sir!”
As Narses watched them train—having difficulty keeping his gaze from the glorious Makrenos—he thought it amazing that the boy’s uncle was Goudeles.
Where Makrenos was beautiful, muscular, young, charming, intelligent, upright, and capable, Goudeles was weak, hideous, old, annoying, foolish, stunted, and incompetent.
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree.
By day’s end, slaves had brought tents and camp beds into the Hippodrome, though Narses ordered the recruits to erect these themselves. Already exhausted, it took them an hour to build their army camp—minus the ditch and palisade wall, which they would work on tomorrow.
Next, they set up tables and benches. When they had finished, Narses gave them permission to sit and rest. Yet the slaves brought no food or wine. Narses looked to the slaves—most of whom were trying to stay out of sight behind tents.
“Boy,” Narses said to a palace slave in a silk tunic, wearing a golden name-tag around his neck. It read: “Iwannis,” an Assyrian name. “Where is my men’s bread, meat, and wine?”
Iwannis bowed, his hands clutched in front of his stomach. “Forgive me, sir, I do not know.”
“Find Paul the Chain,” Narses said. “Tell him I will thrust his head on a pike if he dares deny my men their daily bread for another moment.”
Narses said this loudly enough for everyone to hear, though as always he kept his anger under control. Iwannis bowed, then sprinted out of the Hippodrome through the gate beneath the kathisma.
For some time, the eighteen hundred recruits sat on the long benches before the long tables, staring ahead, afraid to look at their plates, each other, the Hippodrome, but especially the emperor. Memory of Grigorios was fresh in their minds; the urchin had not returned from the hospital. Soon the recruits would begin to shiver in the cold. Some wondered how they had even wound up in this place to begin with. A few hours ago, they had been living their lives, working for their families, doing homework, playing with their friends. Now they were training for the new imperial army, Narses’s so-called Defense Force.
If only I had been able to hide in time, Narses heard one boy thinking. If only I had stayed home…what have I gotten myself into?
Some were less miserable. Narses’s kentarchs were doing better, including bright-eyed Makrenos, who loved every moment he spent here. He also encouraged the recruits, telling them to make the best of it. “A positive attitude makes all the difference.” To Narses’s surprise, some listened. Makrenos was already so charismatic and popular, Narses wondered why he had failed to join the army on his own earlier. Later the emperor would ask this bright new hope for the future where he had been, and why he had been lurking on the margins of history when he belonged in the center, in the light.
Time passed. No food came. All was silent but for the sounds of the City beyond the walls. Carriages creaked and rolled over the cobblestones as horses clopped, crowds murmured, vendors shouted “fresh souvlaki!,” women sang, wooden semantrons rattled, Latin church bells rang from Galata, seagulls laughed. Someone strummed an Arabian tune from a lute, and doves cooed. These were the sounds of the world the recruits had left behind.
They can never go back. It will never be the same. This is their childhood’s end.
No one complained about the lack of food or even spoke at all for fear of being whipped by Narses. As time passed, he worried that his frustrated recruits would revolt. Much as Narses hated to admit, his recruits were not “speaking tools”—an old Roman nickname for slaves. They were men. And it would take just one man, one spark to ignite an inferno. Then hundreds of furious recruits would surround Narses and attack. He could never defeat so many people at once, even if they were all exhausted and undisciplined. Yet the recruits were ignorant of this fact. Perhaps they were too busy blaming each other to realize that Narses was the one enemy they all had in common.
When a crowd of skinny, silk-clad slaves finally charged into the Hippodrome with piles of pita bread, salted pork, and goat cheese heaped on platters so large that four people needed to carry each, nobody celebrated. There were no cheers. The recruits simply took their food and ate. Slaves poured wine from wineskins into wooden cups; the recruits drank. No one spoke. Narses was tempted to order them to be happy. He almost opened his mouth to say “eat, drink, and be merry!”—the closest he had ever come to cracking a joke. But he refrained.
They have been through enough for the day, he thought. Let them be sullen if they wish, for there is much more to come.