“Lord Arslan wishes to welcome you to the Sultanate of Iconium,” said someone with a beautiful voice. “By the grace of Almighty Allah, there is food and drink, if you will have it.”
Narses opened his eyes. He was lying on warm animal furs inside an enormous felt tent lit by torches. The wind swelled the thick canvas and made the wood poles creak, like they were in a ship at sea. His head ached where the bow had struck him.
Narses raised himself up. Before him was a handsome man and a beautiful woman. The man—brawny and confident, with a goatee and unibrow—Narses had never seen, but the woman was somehow familiar. In her face was united the savagery of the steppe and the regal majesty of the imperium. Both pagans sat cross-legged on soft low divans of silk. They wore barbaric outfits which consisted of plain loose flowing shirts and pants. Arslan wore a shining white turban, but the woman was veiled in glimmering satin, and her long curly black hair was tied behind her head in the Roman manner.
On a Persian carpet before them was a cloth, and atop that cloth was a ceramic bowl of white cream, a plate of flatbread, a side dish of honey, a plate of roasted goat meat, a cup filled with some kind of milky liquid, and a wooden spoon. It took the last of Narses’s strength to resist the urge to humiliate himself by attacking the food like a starved animal.
The man spoke in a foreign language. Then the woman translated into Roman, speaking with an educated Attic accent.
“Lord Arslan wishes to inform you that this is yogurt.” The translator pointed to the cream. Then she indicated the drink. “This is kumis, if you’ve never seen it. Please drink.”
Narses sipped the kumis, but the taste made him wrinkle his face. He set the cup down. Arslan leaned back and laughed. “Güzel, güzel,” he said. These were the sounds Narses was able to catch, at any rate, as Arslan continued blabbering in his barbaric tongue.
“He wishes you to know that it is a man’s drink,” the translator said. “He declares that you Romans are like women because you hide in your cities and pray to God in your thousand churches and monasteries, paying us Seljuks to fight your battles for you.”
“Not true,” Narses said.
“It is true.”
“So what if it is?”
“So you cannot drink kumis.”
“May I have water?” Narses glanced back and forth from Arslan to the translator.
“When you remember your manners,” she said. “You will address Lord Arslan as ‘effendi.’”
Talks too much for a woman, Narses thought. Immodest and bold.
“May I have water, effendi?” he said.
Arslan nodded. Behind Narses, a muscular guard with a scimitar belted to his waist placed his hand over his heart, bowed, and stepped through the doorway flaps, careful to never turn his back to his beylik. The guard returned with a ceramic cup and pitcher of cool sweet water which tasted like it had come from a mountain stream. Narses drank one cup after another, emptying the pitcher.
“Thirsty from your adventures,” Arslan said through his translator. “General.”
Narses looked at him. “I am no general, effendi.”
Arslan hefted Narses’s Almaqah blade, which was tucked into its jeweled scabbard. Narses’s heart leaped at the sight, and his hand went to his side, where the weapon could always be found. Lacking his sword was like lacking part of himself.
“My Lord Arslan says that none but an important man would carry such a fine weapon. He says it was forged in a place called Axum, far to the south, beyond the Great Desert, more than a hundred days’ journey from Holy Jerusalem, the heart of the world.”
“He is mistaken,” Narses said. “Our smiths in Konstantinopolis—”
“I advise you not to lie to your new master,” the translator said, as Lord Arslan sheathed Almaqah. “He has only kept you alive because he believes you will fetch a large ransom. Though truth be told, he doesn’t need the money and could kill you at any time, particularly if you displease him. We are nothing like the slaves you are used to commanding.”
Narses looked at her. “What is your name? How am I to address you?”
“I am Zoë Karbonopsina. My friends here call me Sayyeda Khatun. My father was Emperor Anastasios.” She displayed a golden ring covered in jewels and embossed with a chi-rho. Only members of the imperial family wore such rings.
Narses bowed on his hands and knees. “Forgive me, princess. I did not know I was in royal company.”
I remember her, he thought. Herakleia’s sister. Just as beautiful. She must have been only sixteen or so when Anastasios agreed to marry her off. Those were desperate times. It wasn’t normal to marry princesses to barbarians. Nikephoros was Domestikos of the Scholai. I was just an excubitor. Years would pass before the coup. She’s been out here all that time, unknown to us. We thought she was dead, or lost to the Skythioi, which is the same.
“You may rise,” Zoë said.
Narses did so. “Thank you, princess.”
“Address me as ‘khatun,’ here. I am no longer a Roman princess.”
“Yes…khatun,” Narses said. “Forgive me.”
Zoë continued. “Some years ago my father sent me to wed the Khazar Khagan, that he might forge an alliance to save Romanía. En route I was captured by Turks, who have since become my friends. Now I serve as translator, although my Lord Arslan speaks some Roman and enjoys practicing with me.”
I’m sure he does, Narses thought.
“Now you will tell us your name,” Zoë said. “We must know so we can demand the proper ransom from the Roman legion which is even now marching through our lands without permission.”
If Narses told the truth, she would remember him from the palace. She might even have found out that he had joined the coup which killed her father. Plus, the immortal century might lack the coin sufficient to pay his ransom. Narses therefore said the first name which came to mind.
“I am John, khatun.” He bowed once more. “Fourth Century Kentarch, Hikanatoi Tagma.”
“Just John?”
“Just John, khatun.”
“You are one of the emperor’s elite soldiers,” Zoë said. “I thought I recognized you. We must have met in the palace.”
“Perhaps, khatun.”
She spoke to Arslan in his barbarian tongue.
“I wonder.” She switched back to Roman. “Did you help the usurper Nikephoros overthrow my father and seize the throne?”
Narses widened his eyes. “No, khatun. I was one of your father’s strongest supporters—”
“Why then do you serve the pretender who now calls himself emperor?”
Narses bowed once more. “He threatened my wife and children, khatun. I swear by the Virgin, I had no choice.”
She stood. “I am no longer Christian, and yet you still offend me when you desecrate that which is holy.”
Before Narses could answer, Zoë had left the tent. Arslan shrugged at Narses as if to say: what are you going to do?
“The khatun,” he said in Roman. “Sometimes she is very angry khatun.”
“Yes, effendi,” Narses bowed.
Arslan stood and walked to the entrance, stopped by the guard who stood there, then turned to face Narses.
“Good night.” Arslan patted the guard’s shoulder. “This is Tuğrul. He is very helpful.”
“Thank you, effendi,” Narses said.
He smiled. “You are welcome!”
Arslan left Narses in the tent with Tuğrul. The two men bowed to each other. Then Narses turned and ate the bread and goat meat, offering some to Tuğrul out of politeness. The guard shook his head. Narses tasted the yogurt with the spoon, but found it unpalatable, until Tuğrul showed him to mix the yogurt with honey. This was edible, and Narses finished it. He asked Tuğrul if there was any wine.
“No wine,” Tuğrul said. “Only kumis.”
The guard was so close that Narses could have pulled his sword from his scabbard, cut his throat, and taken his farr. With all that energy Narses could then escape this tent, get Almaqah back, and return to his men. But strangely he liked Tuğrul and even appreciated how the guard had helped him. He recalled longing to rest during the doomed journey across Anatolia, and how he had thought of surrendering to the Skythioi if it meant that he could just lie down for a few hours. Now he had gotten his wish, and the Turks—the Seljuks—the Skythioi—were treating him honorably. In contrast, the Romans, had they captured a Seljuk emir, would have paraded him through the City before executing him in the Hippodrome.
Narses forced himself to drain the cup of kumis. Tuğrul laughed.
“More?” the guard said.
Narses nodded. Tuğrul left the tent and returned with friends. They surrounded Narses, poured each other cups and bowls of kumis, clinked them together, and drank. A single sober guard stood by the doorway and watched them longingly. Soon Narses felt drunk. Everyone was talking and joking. Although he had no idea what they were saying, he laughed with them.
They just keep giving me more of this stuff. He drank one cup of kumis after another. I’ll be killed if anyone finds out I did this.
At some point when the world was spinning and he was overwhelmed with laughter he fell into the warm furs on the tent floor and passed out. When he woke, sunlight was shining through the tent canvas, and all was quiet. Narses squinted, clutched his head, and groaned. His hangover was worse than when that rider had struck him with a bow.
His new guard, whose name was Khurlu, brought him food and drink. Narses sipped some water.
Kumis, he thought. Never again.
Khurlu laughed and pointed at him. “Kumis!”
Sometime later, Princess Zoë pushed the doorway’s flaps aside and said: “Kentarch John.”
Narses stirred. He must have dozed off. His headache felt better.
“We have communicated with your friends,” Zoë continued, speaking with her usual cold, stiff, educated tone. “They have refused to ransom you.”
Narses sat up. It felt like she had stabbed his belly. “What?”
“Address me as ‘khatun,’ John,” she said. “One wonders if you truly are who you claim to be. It seems you are unused to speaking with superiors.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He looked from side to side. Should he believe her? Despite the shock of the century’s betrayal, he still managed to say: “Forgive me, khatun.”
“You now have one choice,” Zoë said. “You can swear allegiance to the sultan. Or you can die.”
Narses fell back into his animal skins and groaned. “That is hardly a choice, khatun.”
“Is it really so awful here?” Zoë said. “How can you know for certain? You haven’t left this tent since you arrived.”
“I will never pledge fealty to any pagan, khatun.”
“Why not?”
“I have no desire to spend eternity languishing in the Hell of the Damned.”
“Is that so? I’m sure you’ve done nothing else in your life to displease Holy God.”
“Nothing can compare to abandoning the truth.”
“You sound quite absurd. Besides, you don’t have to convert if you remain with us. You can pay a small tax, practice your faith discreetly, and swear to convert no one to Christianity. Some Turcoman riders among us still worship the Great Blue Sky, you know. They call him Tengri. An ovoo has been erected—”
“I would be a hypocrite if as a Christian I served a pagan lord, khatun.”
“Once again, I doubt that hypocrisy would be a first for someone like yourself. Never in your life has circumstance forced you to say one thing and do another.”
“I am a man of my word, khatun.”
“Are you willing to die for men who have abandoned you?”
He looked away. “Perhaps they had no choice, khatun. Perhaps they ran out of money.”
“After sacking two cities? I doubt it.”
“How did you—”
“We have been following you since Chrysopolis.”
Narses was unable to think of anything to say.
“You do not even know the extent of the sultanate,” Zoë said. “Our borders stretch north to Skythia, east to Serindia, and south to Arabia Felix. Rome, to the west, has been a minor problem we have been too busy to properly address, preoccupied as we are with battling titans.”
“Congratulations, Khatun.”
“There is no harm in joining the victors. You would not be the first. This place is the future. Rome, we both well know, is old and dying.”
Narses looked at her. “Why does Lord Arslan want me to join him, khatun?”
“Lord Arslan wishes to conquer Konstantinopolis and present it as a gift to his brother the sultan.”
Narses laughed. “Good luck.”
“It is a thing we cannot do without soldiers who have knowledge of the City,” Zoë continued. “Knowledge of weak spots in the walls, the ability to open the gates, and so on. Knowledge I myself lack.”
“You’ll never take the city without an armada, khatun. It would take hundreds of ships, at least a hundred thousand men, dozens of siege engines, hundreds of ladders, and control of the chain that crosses the Golden Horn. Triple walls face the only landward side. Even the greatest army on Earth couldn’t get past them. Tens of thousands of men at least would lose their lives.”
“That siege may not take place for many years, but we gather our strength for when it comes. In the mean time, Lord Arslan has asked me to teach you our ways. He thinks you may prove useful.”
She offered her hand to help him up. Narses thought this unusual, and refused it.
“I thought you suspected me of supporting the coup against your father, khatun,” Narses said.
“What is the greater revenge?” she said. “Killing his murderers, or making them friends?”
“You cannot change me, khatun. I warn you. I am a dangerous man.”
“Please, I have killed men who were stronger than you. Now take my hand.”
Narses shrugged. Seems like Anastasios’s entire family was fucked up.
He did as Zoë commanded, and she brought him through the tent flaps. Outside it was late afternoon. Cliffs and rocky hills were covered with grass, shrubs, and conifers; golden light shone over them. A few large yurts were set up. These seemed as sturdy as houses, while smaller tents were little more than large blankets flung over a few beams tied together. Laundry lines stretched to posts stuck in the ground, and clothes were drying there near animal skins hung over wooden hangars. Men on horseback were herding sheep in the distance; flocks of goats bleated. A woman sitting on a stool was milking one goat, while two other women nearby washed clothes in a foaming basin. A boy was playing with a dog. Here and there men talked together.
It was all so beautiful and peaceful, like Narses was looking at a mosaic of pastoral life rather than something real before his eyes. He even forgot for a moment that he was among pagans.
He turned to Zoë. “What kind of place is this, khatun?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it a military encampment?”
“We move as one people,” she said. “Warriors and families together. We only came here because others drove us from our homeland. Someday we shall return.”
“What do you mean by ‘we,’ khatun?”
“It has been a great deal of time since I have spoken Roman with someone who knows it. I have been here for so long that I am Seljuk. I was not even sure I could still speak Roman until I met you.”
“Yet you have not married, khatun.”
“You recall that I was formerly promised to the Khazar Khagan of Kitezh. Lord Arslan has no desire to upset the powers to the north and believes that one day I may be reunited with my groom if only to forge a Khazar-Seljuk alliance. Until then, I am technically a kidnapped bride, one who has fallen in love with her abductors, who are now her brothers and sisters.”
Zoë and Narses walked through the camp, with Khurlu following. Children chased each other in the grass. A few men were cooking dinner over a fire using copper pots and pans. The fuel was dried animal dung.
“This seems like such a relaxed place, khatun,” Narses said.
“We have little to fear,” she said. “The Romans are preoccupied with killing one another. The less they have, and the lower the stakes of their conflicts, the more they fight. There are only a few Akritai border lords who can match us these days out here on the marches. All our other foes are thousands of farsakhs away.”
“But is life always like this here, khatun?”
“Sometimes we raid. But we are a pastoral people, content to live alongside our flocks and herds. It is a very different sort of life from the City you and I come from.”
“What do you mean, khatun?”
“Here there are only two specific days in our lives—the day we are born and the day we die. There are no dates or days of the week in between, unless we speak with the qadi, who may know how many years have passed since the death of the Prophet, may peace be upon him. Visiting imams sometimes ask us to pray to Makkah on Friday. And then there are only two seasons: when the winter sends us south, and when the summer sends us north again.”
“Is it not a dull way to live, Khatun?”
“I prefer it to palace life. I have found that food tastes better when you are always on the move. The world seems more beautiful. People are often in a good mood, not like the palace coup plotters, who could own all the gold in the world and still not be satisfied. We tell tall tales and crack jokes. There is plenty of work, but it is often predictable. As women our job is to keep the goats and sheep from wandering off. We milk them, shear them, and slaughter them, wash the laundry, cook and clean. We protect the virtue of our daughters.”
Ah yes, the legendary virtue of savages, Narses thought.
Zoë continued. “Our men hunt for us and protect us. There is not much more to it. Sometimes the sultan calls upon the men when he needs to make war in the summer, and we women are left to fend for ourselves. At other times there are marriages or funerals, fasts or feasts. Early in my stay here I tried to teach the women to read and write, but they said they had no use for it. As you may have noticed, there are no books, nor wax tablets. Knowledge is kept by elders and passed from generation to generation.”
This woman talks too much.
“Writing I suspect was invented to keep track of property,” Zoë said. “When some began to possess too much property to remember. Here we don’t own more than what we can carry, and much of that we hold in common.” She gestured to the undulating plateau which extended into low mountains in every direction. “It is easy to share this place. No one else wants it.”
“His Majesty the Emperor wishes to destroy you, khatun,” Narses said. “He wants to retake that which is rightfully his.”
“Then let him come here himself and fight for it. Why shed blood over land he has not even seen? Besides, his armies fight poorly. Everyone knows he relies on mercenaries. And deeper inside the interior of Anatolia there is hardly a twig of wood, nor even a rivulet of water to quaff one’s thirst. Out there it is like something between steppe and desert, a rocky wasteland unsuitable for any but us. In short, I think the usurper speaks beyond his strength.”
Narses envisioned his black-clad immortals swarming over the Anatolian plateau, the Basilik breaking the walls of one city after another with thunder and fire.
She still has no idea of our capabilities. I surrendered to the Skythioi without fighting.
“We shall see, khatun,” he said.
At dinner everyone sat around a bonfire, the women and children on one side and the men on the other. They devoured more bread and yogurt, along with something called pilaf, a kind of grain eaten with a spoon. Narses found the food delicious, bolting down one bowl after another, and he was similarly impressed at how much everyone else ate. No one went hungry; every belly was stuffed. Dessert consisted of apricots, which he was unable to consume; and kumis, which he refused to consume. The men drank plenty of their mare’s milk liquor, however, and began wrestling each other, as their friends cheered. Lord Arslan kissed Zoë and then joined in the wrestling; Tuğrul went with him.
“Can you tell me no news from the palace?” Zoë sat beside Narses. “I haven’t heard anything for quite some time.”
“You know I can’t, khatun.”
“Not even of my family? My sister, for instance?”
“She’s why I’m here,” he suddenly growled through clenched teeth, balling his fists, his muscles tensing.
Zoë laughed. “Herakleia was always the baby of the family. Always getting into trouble. No one could manage her. She listened to no one.”
“Nothing has changed, khatun. She has only gotten worse.”
“Remember that you are discussing a member of the royal family.”
Narses bowed. “Forgive me, khatun.”
“I wonder what she’s gotten herself into this time,” Zoë said. “For Rome to send hundreds of soldiers into enemy territory, it must be quite serious. And yet…”
He turned to her. “What, khatun?”
“Nothing.”
“Please tell me.”
“Your whole venture here seems a bit hopeless, does it not? How could you expect to survive an invasion of the sultanate when you are so poorly equipped?”
“We expect to pick up more men along the way.”
“Have you not suspected that the usurper set you up for failure?”
“His Majesty the Emperor Nikephoros would never—”
“It’s quite convenient, wouldn’t you say? He must have had some problem with you.”
Narses held his breath. Is she playing with me? Does she know who I really am?
“Or perhaps your leadership,” Zoë continued. “Your commanding officer. Is that the proper militaristic term? No matter.”
Narses came close to sighing with relief.
“If the usurper feared a popular leader in the army,” Zoë said, “he couldn’t simply order him killed, especially while dealing with the uprising. It might be wiser to give a competitor a more glorious death—losing his life in a pointless military adventure to the east, for instance.”
“Forgive me, khatun, but His Majesty the Emperor would do no such thing. He is a just and honest man—”
“You sound like one of his partisans. I thought you were forced to do his bidding after he held your family hostage?”
“Forgive me, khatun, I speak that way out of habit.”
“We only refrain from destroying your century because we are curious as to its intentions,” Zoë said. “Do you mean, for instance, to attack the city of Ankara, as you did Nikomedeia and Nikaia, thus making it easier for us to settle these cities ourselves?”
They know so much about us, Narses thought. We know nothing about them.
“We also find you amusing,” Zoë added. “It has been some time since the Romans have invaded our lands, not since Manzikert taught them to keep clear.”
Narses turned to her. “If we are so worthless, will you not release me, khatun?”
“We have already discussed this. You were brought to us by the grace of Allah. It was no accident.”
Narses laid back on the grass.
“You have not been dismissed from my company,” Zoë said. “Is this what has become of famous Roman politeness?”
Shut up, he thought.
Zoë stood and said something to Khurlu, who then brought Narses back to his yurt and watched as the prisoner wrapped himself in animal furs and pretended to sleep. Khurlu then approached Narses, listened to him snore, and even touched his face—trying to make him flinch—but the immortal convinced the guard that he had lost consciousness. Sighing, Khurlu doused his torch and sat against one of the wooden poles. There he was soon breathing deeply, thus granting Narses another chance to escape.
And yet he was again unsure of what to do. Zoë’s words had penetrated him. Despite all her time away from home, she had a knack for palace intrigue, that was certain. What if she was right, and His Majesty had set Narses up for failure? And what if the immortal century had abandoned him? Then joining the Skythioi would be the ultimate vengeance. He would revenge himself upon Herakleia, Nikephoros, Romanía, everyone and everything.
You have to understand, general, respect flows both ways, that sniveling rat Orban had said. Well, where was he now with his Basilik? Trundling across the steppe for stadia upon stadia, with the Skythioi watching from behind every mountain.
People of the steppe, he thought. Power of the steppe.
It was true that the pagans here could crush the Romans. If the Skythioi attacked the Ankara road from two sides, they could destroy the immortals. Then the Basilik would fall into the Turks’ hands. And if they discovered how to use it against the walls of Konstantinopolis…
The Skythioi would reward him if he revealed his knowledge. Perhaps they would even make him Emperor of Rome. He would still be the sultan’s vassal, and would need to strip the gold tiles from the city’s rooftops to pay the Skythioi for their campaign, and melt down all the ikons and even the steam-powered automatōns in the throne room, but he—Narses—would be caesar. He would wear the purple robe.
Until now, Narses had never thought about this. He was selfless, sacrificing everything to save Rome. If God willed it for him to accomplish this as domestikos, that was fine with Narses. But to become emperor…the possibility was always too remote to consider. For one, he had no connections with the Imperial Houses: the Komnenoi, the Doukoi, the Palaeologoi. All his power, such as it was, rested with the military. And then if Narses turned the Romans’ weapons against them—if he taught the Skythioi about the farr, naphtha, and the Basilik—they might become unstoppable. Konstantinopolis would be just the beginning.
He was so excited that he lay in the dark, his eyes wide, listening to the sounds of the camp slumbering outside the yurt’s animal skin canvas. Only when he decided to join the Seljuks did he sleep.