“Hello!” Bagrationi pounded the mansion’s door. “Is Master Gabras home?”
A peephole opened, and a young woman whose voice was muffled by the heavy wooden door said: “Forgive me, but he’s not in right now, My Lord Doux.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Bagrationi said. “You see, we’ve come to requisition this home in the name of relieving the housing shortage.” He looked back to the narrow street at Alexios and Herakleia. Alexios still wore the silk he had been given the night before in the palace, while Herakleia was now dressed in a man’s plain tunic and sandals with a sword belted to her side. The Arab eunuch Samonas was also with them, as were two Turkish bodyguards named Qutalmish and Berkyaruq. Dozens of veiled refugee women had joined them, as had their children.
Bagrationi turned back to the peephole. “I suppose we’ll have to do our requisitioning while Master Gabras is out and about—”
Someone shouted on the other side of the door, which clanked several times and then swung open and slammed against the wall, narrowly missing Bagrationi, who had stepped back. In the mansion courtyard through the doorway was a thin, pale, beardless man in a black tunic draped in jewels and long white ruffled hair. Standing nearby, his serving girl lowered her head and clutched her hands together.
Bagrationi bowed. “A pleasure to see you again, Master Gabras. It’s been some time since we’ve—”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Gabras shouted.
He reached forward and tried to close the door, but Bagrationi stepped inside too soon, then thanked Gabras for inviting him to enter his home.
“I did no such thing!” Gabras cried. “Hey! What are you doing?”
Herakleia and Alexios followed Bagrationi into the mansion courtyard.
“He was a slave driver,” Herakleia whispered to Alexios. “A landlord, a merchant, and a government appointee. He inherited every nomisma to his name.”
“Typical business owner, in other words,” Alexios whispered back.
“They’ll trash it!” Gabras gestured to the refugees in the street. “They’ll destroy it! And I worked hard for all of it!”
“It’s their right,” Herakleia said. “They paid for it, didn’t they?”
“Who is this woman?” Gabras said. “Why is she dressed like a man?”
“My name is for my friends,” she said.
“But this is my family’s ancestral home!” sputtered Gabras. “You can’t just take it from me! We’ve been here for hundreds of—”
“I’m sorry to say,” Bagrationi began, “but if you’re uncooperative, Master Gabras, the requisitioning will not be temporary.”
“What is this?” Gabras looked at his maidservant. “What’s gotten into the doux? Has he lost his mind? He can’t just seize people’s homes like this!”
“Why not?” Herakleia said. “How do you think your ancestors ever got the money to build this place?”
“This is outrageous!” Gabras said. “What right does this woman have to speak to me like this? Every nomisma we earned was by the book. Every contract was legal—”
“At the point of a sword.” Herakleia clutched the hilt of the blade at her side.
“Irena!” Gabras shouted at his servant. “I’ve been a good master, haven’t I? I took you in, let you live in our house, and always gave you the leftovers from every meal!”
Alexios was too busy taking in his surroundings to listen. Though Gabras was an unpleasant character, his mansion was elegant. It felt ancient, but also breathed life. His garden was packed with native flowers tended by honeybees. A burbling fountain decorated with the usual pudgy cherubs and cupids was fed by the public aqueduct through underground pipes. This was for decoration, not drinking or washing, as the pool beneath was filled with lilies and dragonflies. Alexios even spotted a frog as well as a turtle inside. There was a separate cookhouse, a large rain cistern, wooden tables and chairs, and onyx sculptures of pagan gods and goddesses which looked as though they’d been pried out of the Roman forum and carted to this spot.
The entire house consisted of two stories with every room opening on the courtyard. A covered stairway led to a balcony above, which presumably led to the bedrooms. It seemed these were empty.
“I’ve tolerated all your nonsensical edicts!” Gabras shouted, spitting and pointing at the doux. “I held my tongue when I saw this little hussy leading you inside my home like a dog on a leash!” He jutted his chin at Herakleia.
“Who are you calling ‘hussy?’” she said.
Gabras turned to the doux. “Even as you filled our beautiful city with all this homeless riffraff, this disease-ridden, violent, ignorant horde of vermin—I allowed it! I let it go! I was silent! But now—no more!”
“Father,” said a handsome and muscular young man who was walking down the stairs and belting his tunic. “What’s the matter?” He stopped when he saw the doux, then bowed. “Forgive me, My Lord Doux—”
“He’s trying to take our home!” Gabras said. “He wants to destroy your inheritance! He used to listen to me, we were in complete agreement, he always took my advice, but now—”
The handsome man narrowed his eyebrows. “Father—”
“We don’t have time for this.” Herakleia turned to the two Turkish guards standing outside the doorway. “Please let them in.”
The guards looked to Bagrationi, who nodded. Then they stepped out of the way of the crowd of refugee mothers and children. These remained outside, however, until Herakleia insisted that they enter. As they walked inside they stared at the courtyard as though they had been transported to another world.
“You can’t come in here!” Gabras shouted. “Get out of my home!”
He lunged toward them, but Herakleia and Alexios stepped in his way. The women took on frightened and embarrassed expressions and grabbed their children.
Grunting, Gabras pushed Herakleia and Alexios, but the man was so weak that they laughed in his face.
“Don’t listen to this slave trader.” Herakleia looked over her shoulder to the refugees. “This is your home, now.”
“Like hell it is!” Gabras drew a knife, and was about to stab Herakleia—even as his son shouted for him to stop—but Alexios disarmed him, then steadied him before his wobbly legs gave out.
The refugee women gasped; their children stared open-mouthed.
“That rich guy just tried to kill that lady!” one child exclaimed, before his mother shushed him.
Herakleia thanked Alexios, then ordered the guards to arrest Gabras. The guards looked to Bagrationi, but Gabras was shouting before the doux could reply: “You can’t arrest me! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”
“Yes, and that’s exactly why I want you in prison.” Herakleia turned to Bagrationi. “Have him arrested.”
“I can’t ask my guards to do that, honey,” Bagrationi said. “Gabras has always paid his taxes on time.”
“I forgot, your men are only used to helping the rich and hurting the poor.” Herakleia turned to Alexios. “Kentarch Leandros, arrest Gabras and anyone else who gets in our way.”
Alexios looked at Gabras, who was so frail that a breeze might have knocked him down. Then he’d break his hip, and in a few months he’d be dead.
Before Alexios could make up his mind, Gabras’s son—whatever his name was—had stepped between Alexios and the old man. The younger Gabras was tall and strong, like a wall of muscle, and Alexios had to look up to meet his face.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” the younger Gabras said, “but can we all just take a moment to calm down and discuss—”
“How many other properties do you own?” Herakleia said. “How many are empty? How much rent did you squeeze out of the refugees this month?”
The youth looked at her. “I don’t handle the financial aspects of—”
“No, but you definitely enjoy the financial benefits.” Herakleia turned again to Alexios. “What are you waiting for? Don’t make me do your work for you.”
The younger Gabras turned to her and crossed his brawny arms. “Are you going to arrest me?”
Herakleia stepped toward Gabras the Younger. She must have been half his size. Yet she surprised him—and everyone in that courtyard—with a sudden, lightning-fast punch to his face.
Alexios’s mouth dropped open. Maybe she’s a better fighter than Bagrationi thought.
The younger man fell to the ground with an odd smile. His eyes were closed; he was unconscious. The refugee women and children gasped.
“Michael!” The older Gabras hobbled toward his son and then turned to Herakleia. “What have you done to my poor boy?”
“Less than he deserved,” Herakleia said. “All of you have twenty minutes to pack your things and move to the palace.”
At that moment, an old woman appeared on the balcony. “The palace?” she said. “But why are we—”
“For the last time,” Herakleia said. “You have spent your life using a system of legalized theft to steal from other people. It’s time you got a taste of your own medicine.”
“Why are we moving these people into the palace?” Alexios whispered to Herakleia. “Why not move poor people there?”
“Keep your enemies close,” Herakleia whispered back. “Plus, there isn’t enough room.”
“Excuse me.” One refugee mother stepped close to Herakleia with a humble expression on her face. She spoke with an Armenian accent. “There’s no need to throw these people out of their home. They’ve done nothing to us—”
“All the calamities that have befallen you are due to people like this.” Herakleia nodded to the older Gabras, who was glaring at her with bloodshot eyes, so shocked that he was speechless. “We cannot only think of individuals. We must also think in terms of classes.”
The old woman on the balcony was still staring at them.
“Move!” Herakleia shouted.
The old woman rushed out of sight. Meanwhile, Irena the servant girl—who had kept out of the way since the doux and his retinue had entered the courtyard—was jogging up the steps to help her. Herakleia told her to wait.
“You don’t have to work for them any more,” Herakleia said. “You’re free.”
Irena stopped and looked at her. Then she looked at Gabras. She was unsure of what to do, and so stood rooted to the spot.
Gabras pointed at Herakleia. “You’ll pay for this. May God smite thee for what thou hast—”
“I’m sure he will,” Herakleia said.
The Turkish guard who was called Berkyaruq carried Gabras outside. Gabras yelled and pounded the guard’s back with his fists, shouting that he wasn’t going anywhere. The younger Gabras woke up and stumbled into the street, avoiding Herakleia’s gaze. The old woman hobbled after him with a bag in each hand. Irena watched them go.
“It’s the most manual labor she’s ever done in her life,” Herakleia said to Alexios, nodding to the old lady.
“Are you sure this is really ethical?” Alexios said. “Throwing old people out of their house?”
“Don’t let their age fool you,” Herakleia said. “They’ve been vipers all their lives. Besides, look at this place. It can comfortably house dozens. As far as I can tell, only four people were living here—until now, anyway.”
Bagrationi, Herakleia, Alexios, Irena, the eunuchs, and the guards were now alone in the courtyard with the refugees.
“This is your home, now,” Herakleia said to the women. “It might get a little crowded in here, but it’s better than sleeping outside.”
The refugees were too stunned to speak. Many were ready to return to the street.
They aren’t used to expropriating the expropriators, Alexios thought. They live instead by the sweat of their own brows.
As several eunuchs delivered bread, fish, and wine from a carriage that had rolled up outside, Herakleia continued speaking with the refugees.
“You remember your landlords, don’t you?” she said. “How do you think the people who lived in this house are any different? They don’t work, so where do they get their money?”
“Begging your pardon, your highness,” said an Isaurian refugee woman, “but we know none of these people. We have no quarrel with them.”
“But you do have a quarrel,” Herakleia said. “A quarrel not necessarily with the individuals—but with their class. Their economic interests are opposed to yours. Their class can only prosper at your class’s expense, and vice-versa.”
“Everyone hated the border lord back in Melitené,” a Syriac woman said. “He was always racking us with rent, always making us work, and for what? Just so he could have another statue of himself!”
The eunuchs, meanwhile, were laying food and drink on the tables. Herakleia invited them to join the feast, but after thanking her they explained that they needed to make many more deliveries since the palace had mandated a bread dole at the workers’ request. Soon they left.
Too hungry to wait for permission to eat, the children—who had been quiet until now—broke from their mothers’ hands and rushed to the food. Their mothers, however, shouted for them to wash up first. The cistern had a sink and soap. There the refugee mothers scrubbed the filth from their children’s hands—as well as their own. Though the mothers were hesitant to even sit in this mansion, they allowed their children to stuff themselves at the tables, yelling at them to slow down so they didn’t choke.
Some refugee mothers took a break from their children to thank Herakleia.
“Trebizond is under new management.” She glared at Bagrationi. “The management of workers.”
A strange feeling fluttered inside Alexios in response to what had happened here. Both the rich and poor had been given what they deserved. Now families were being housed, and children were being fed. How much further would Herakleia go?
All his life Alexios had thought that nothing could ever change, that it was natural for greed to rule the world. Every authority figure, every teacher, book, movie, TV show, and website had said that the way to change the world was by voting in reformers. Slow and steady reform would win the race. But what if they were all wrong? How much progress had these reformers made in the last few decades? What did they have to show for decades of reforms, aside from excuses? Everything back there was worse than it had ever been! And so what if, by driving a few rich people out of their mansions, it became possible to house thousands of poor people?
The voice told him that this fluttering feeling was his farr recharging. It had dwindled almost to nothing over the course of the last few days, but a new strength lay inside himself. New horizons were opening in his mind as he saw the difference that Herakleia had made for these people.
Soon the children finished eating. Now they chased each other in the courtyard, or stared at the dragonflies flitting over the water lilies in the fountain pool. The mothers—unable to resist any longer—were sitting and eating at the tables. Irena the servant girl joined them, and they welcomed her.
Herakleia poured wine for the women, saying that if anyone in the world needed a little booze, it was them. They thanked her, but sipped only modestly.
“I don’t even understand why you need me here,” Bagrationi said to Herakleia. “You seem quite able to take care of all this on your own.”
“It needs an official seal of approval,” Herakleia said. “I think if you aren’t here in person, we’ll have to fight every last parasite in Trebizond. It’ll get exhausting.”
“I’m not sure you know these people.” Bagrationi rubbed his forehead. “Rest assured, they’ll defend their property.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” Herakleia said.
“In the past, I would have been. But times changed. Although I’m much wealthier than the people who live in this place, I’ve sided with the poor, for better or for worse. Emperors and doukes are expected to side with the weaker party in disputes.”
“There’s an exception to every rule,” Herakleia said. “Even the rule that there’s an exception to every rule.”
“Begging your pardon, my lady, but how is that logically possible?” the eunuch Samonas said.
“It can’t be, and yet it is. There are always subjective factors. The dice-rolls of history and everyday life.”
Samonas gulped. “You speak in riddles, my lady.”
“And you speak too much.”
Herakleia was about to lead the doux’s retinue into the mansion next door, but then she looked back at the peasant women and children. There must have been three dozen of them. Their numbers would swell further when the women brought their husbands here in the evening.
“They need protection,” Herakleia said. “What’s to stop Gabras and his meathead son from coming back with a bunch of goons and throwing them out?”
“I mean, eventually we’re planning to turn the women into soldiers,” Alexios said.
Herakleia watched the mothers, who were eating quietly, seemingly afraid of looking at anything or showing the slightest enjoyment.
“They’ll need time to clean themselves up and rest before we can train them,” she said. “We should start tomorrow.”
“For the time being,” Alexios said, “the answer may be to keep an eye on the rich. There’s only so many of them, after all. And they’re the ones who caused all these problems in the first place.”
Herakleia looked at Bagrationi.
“What?” he said. “What do you want me to do now?”
“We can’t just put the Gabras family in the palace,” she said. “We need to lock up all the rich. Their friends and supporters, too.”
“Honey, these are taxpayers,” Bagrationi said. “They’ll kill me if I do that. I was going to let them stay in the palace if they wanted, but I wasn’t going to lock them up!”
“We can release them once these houses are secure,” Herakleia said. “Then they’ll be welcome to live just as comfortably as any worker or peasant.”
“The rich will never agree. Not so long as they live. Their children, their grandchildren, maybe even their great-grandchildren—they’ll never forgive you.”
“Who cares?” Herakleia said. “Nothing’s sadder than going through life without making enemies among the rich.”
“You truly are mad,” Bagrationi said. “I know you grew up among people far wealthier than I, but forgive me for saying that it seems as though you know nothing about the way they think. In some ways, it isn’t even about the money or the property. It’s more about the privilege. If they can’t lord it over everyone, then what’s the point?”
“They’re going to have to learn to live differently,” Herakleia said.
“What if they refuse? What if they try to kill us?”
“Then they’re going to have to stop living entirely.”