Anna stood upright, broadened her shoulders, and met Alexios’s eyes. The blush on her cheeks faded. Then her muscles swelled and her grip strengthened. She was tired a moment ago, but now she was refreshed, and almost shone with youth, as though all those years of rearing children, doing laundry, and cooking and cleaning had never happened. She was young again, but with all the memories, experiences, and lessons of adulthood.
“Feels like a good cup of coffee,” Alexios said.
Maybe we could send a ship to Arabia or wherever coffee was invented to see if it exists yet, he thought.
“What’s coffee?” Anna said.
“Everyone’s always asking me what basic things are!” Alexios said. “But I’ll tell you later. Now do you think you have what it takes to knock me down?”
Before being enthused with the farr, she would have refused to answer this question. After all, beating up your teacher was disrespectful. Alexios had also bested a man twice his size just a moment ago.
But the farr gave confidence and opened minds. Without warning, Anna swung her fist at Alexios, and he dodged, but then she punched his face with her left hand, coming at him much faster than Ioannes. Alexios flew back, twisted in the air, and slammed against the earth, gaping with the wind forced out of his lungs.
His health declined by a few points, but he gained teaching XP, and also restored his lost farr.
That’s the way to do it, he thought. Let the students beat you up.
“Oh, sorry!” Anna shouted. “Teacher—Mr. Alexios—are you alright?”
Herakleia laughed.
This is what I get for all my hard work, Alexios thought.
Writhing on the ground like a worm, unable to speak, he gaped at the students. They could barely conceive of what had happened. From their perspective, they’d seen a flurry of movements, like a magician’s sleight of hand. If they’d blinked, they would have missed it. One moment Alexios was standing; the next he was on the ground gasping like a beached fish, with Anna standing over him, elbows and knees bent, almost leaping on the balls of her feet. For a moment, she was surprised by her own abilities. Then she helped him up and brushed him off, bowing, apologizing, blushing again almost like a schoolgirl, even invoking the names of saints.
As the audience came to understand what had happened, however, they were stunned, except for a few women near the front who joked that Anna should have known better than to assault the teacher on the first day of class. Ioannes, on the other hand, congratulated her.
“I actually don’t have a lot of experience fighting Zhayedan warriors,” Alexios said to Anna and the class as he brushed himself off.
“What’s a Zhayedan?” Ioannes said.
“It’s a Persian word,” Herakleia said. “It means ‘immortal.’”
“So we’re using Persian terms, here?” Ioannes said. “What’s next? Are you going to make us into Sarakenoi—”
“No,” Herakleia said. “We’re here to destroy religion, not to spread it.”
This comment elicited shocked silence from the crowd. Alexios was immediately conscious of how every woman here was veiled. Only their hands, feet, and faces were uncovered. The Romans were a religious people, crossing themselves whenever they even caught sight of a church, whenever they woke up or went to sleep, whenever they had a meal, murmuring prayers and singing hymns to themselves almost constantly. They kissed their holy ikons and bowed to them; so much incense burned in their churches that the walls were black with soot, which covered the gorgeous paintings.
These old habits will die hard, Alexios thought.
“What the strategos means,” he said, “is that everyone in Trebizond is free to worship however they like.”
“Are you unbelievers?” one peasant woman said.
Alexios and Herakleia looked at each other as if to ask: do you want to take this one?
Alexios opened his arms wide. “We appreciate all faiths.”
Some members of the class smiled, but many still appeared concerned by Herakleia’s comment.
“It’ll bring down the curse of God upon us.” Ioannes looked back and forth to the crowd, as though it was ridiculous that he should even have to explain something so self-evident.
Starting to wonder if this guy is another one of Nikephoros’s plants, Alexios thought. If I give him the farr, what if he uses it against us? It’ll be a lot harder to stop him…
“You’re free to stay or go,” Herakleia said, “if our openness here makes you uncomfortable.”
“We are good Christians,” Ioannes said. “And we demand good Christian leaders!”
“Then go to Nikephoros,” Alexios said. “He’s a good Christian, isn’t he? Travel to the nearest town or city you can find. See how the Christians there take care of you compared to here.”
The refugees gasped. Almost all them were whispering to each other.
This isn’t going the way I wanted, Alexios thought. We’re losing control of the class.
“Let me say something.” This was Anna, who was still standing with Alexios and Herakleia, but everyone had forgotten her. “Hey! Listen to me!”
The students stopped talking and looked at her.
“I’ve been a good Christian all my life,” she said. “This feeling—the ‘divine farr’ these two speak of—it feels like singing in a chorus at church when everyone hits just the right notes…”
“So?” Ioannes said. “It’s a false idol. It’s blasphemy. Evil doesn’t always look or sound or even feel evil—it can look beautiful, and feel great. And you, Anna, you must be working with the teachers! You were planted here to make them look good!”
Maybe I should have hit that guy a little harder, Alexios thought.
Some other refugees, however, opted to join Herakleia and Alexios—convinced by Anna’s support. The teachers enthused the students with the farr, then told them to recharge it by helping workers, peasants, women—whoever was most exploited in society. To give it away while asking nothing in return increased its power. Alexios remembered a line that had stood out to him in an old book called The Story of San Michele. It went something like: “What you keep, you lose, but what you give away, you keep forever.”
“It’s like eating or drinking or any other bodily function,” Alexios said. “When you’re hungry, you eat, and you feel full. When your farr runs out, you help liberate someone at the bottom of society—you try to free them from whoever’s exploiting them—and then your farr increases again.”
“But society isn’t just as simple as rich people stealing from poor people,” Ioannes said.
Damn, Alexios thought. This guy is intellectually where I was when Dionysios started teaching me.
“Really?” Alexios said. “Because where I come from, you either steal from someone or you don’t. There’s no in-between state of stealing and not stealing at the same time.”
Ioannes continued, oblivious. “The priests and tax collectors and officials and merchants and landlords don’t necessarily exploit us. We agree to work with them. Some of the money they take is used for improvements, while their organizational abilities are—”
Those enthused with the farr laughed at Ioannes, who had spoken in total seriousness. He stopped talking and stared at them. Perhaps he had expected an argument, but genuine laughter was harder to deal with.
“Exploitation is a scientific fact,” Alexios said. “It’s something that can be measured, just like any other material phenomenon. And it likewise has material consequences. It makes one group rich, while it makes another poor, even if the former group never works while the latter group works constantly.”
Alexios’s teaching XP increased. He had almost leveled up to initiate.
Herakleia looked at him. “Do you know what happens if a Zhayedan helps an exploiter?”
Alexios shrugged. “No idea. I’m kind of lucky, I guess. I’ve never had to. Not since coming here, anyway. I guess nothing happens? Maybe your farr decreases. Sooner or later we’ll find out, I guess. We can check the, uh, what’s it called—”
He almost mentioned the manual, but decided to keep it a secret, since he was now unsure of Ioannes’s loyalties. The student may even have been placed there to distract from other spies in the audience.
“What?” Herakleia said.
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“Forget it,” Alexios said.
Regardless, all the students who wished to be charged were charged at this point, the result being—for Alexios, anyway—that he felt stronger, sharper, and faster than ever. As for the other mothers, the younger ones looked older and wiser, while the older ones regained the glow of youth, like Anna. All looked at Alexios and Herakleia with whole worlds rolling in their eyes, ready to argue and develop ideas.
Never underestimate the power of an awakened mind, Alexios thought.
Pointing at each other, the mothers laughed at how beautiful they had become. Before long they were all crowding around a bright gurgling stream that flowed into the gardens and orchards of the Zagnos Valley which lay below the citadel’s western walls. As they looked at their reflections, many were amazed, surprised, and unable to believe what had happened. Some were less excited and even began to worry, however.
“It’s a risk being beautiful in a place like this.” Herakleia looked at the huge Pontic Mountains rising around them, the brown cliffs that rose into their summits. Closer still was Mount Minthrion, a tall rounded hill which overlooked Trebizond like a giant ocean wave made of rock. Its eastern flanks were tall and vertical, but the peak was flat and grassy, and sloped gently down to the west, where it met the two ravines that surrounded Trebizond’s walls.
“I see what you mean,” Alexios said. “Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to mess with them now. I’m not even sure I want to mess with them.”
The mothers (and some of the men who had joined them) were already leaping into the air and kicking and punching each other. Alexios, in the mean time, had leveled up to Initiate Teacher (1/10), just from encouraging the students to teach themselves.
They’re the best kinds of students, he thought. The ones who work without being told. Soon they’ll reach my own level of knowledge, if they haven’t already. I actually don’t even know much about the farr. I only got here a couple of weeks ago. We’ll all have to study the manual together at some point.
Someone was walking toward them from the citadel gate. It was Sophronios. He strode out to the field, spoke with Ioannes—whom he evidently knew—and then with Alexios.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” the metropolitan said. “But I shouldn’t have to tell you that this—all of this—goes against the will of God. The good Lord so forged men to do certain things, while women are meant to do other things.”
Alexios stared at him, unsure of what to say. Sophronios continued, speaking in a low voice.
“This little gathering will end. Everyone here must do penance. One month of sleeping upon the ground with only a rock for a pillow. And no blankets! You, Mr. Alexios, will have to wear a hair shirt for this entire period.”
“I don’t think so,” Alexios said.
Sophronios glared at him. “Do you defy the will of God?”
“I’m defying the will of a priest. The only difference I know of between men and women is that men can’t give birth—which, by the way, plenty of women can’t do either. And actually, in the future men probably will be able to give birth. Otherwise the differences are meaningless. They’ve just been blown out of proportion by a patriarchal society eager to exploit women’s labor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is that if you continue, our city will be destroyed, one way or the other. The Lord will rain down fire from heaven upon our heads, or the armies of Rome will chastise us. And if they fail to—”
“You didn’t speak like this at dinner the other night. You were so much more sensible and, I don’t know, normal. You were even pleasant.”
“That was when you were just a guest visiting from faraway lands,” Sophronios said. “Now you have decided to settle here and turn everything topsy-turvy.”
“I’m getting in the way of your bread and butter, you mean. After all, if women free themselves from exploitation, what reason will they have to go to church?”
“That is nonsense,” Sophronios said, returning to the city. “Absolute nonsense. You’re just a coward—fearful of the ways of the Lord.”
I’m not the one walking away. Alexios took a deep breath.
He turned back to the class, which was still laughing around the stream, all except for Ioannes, who stood apart from everyone with his arms crossed.
“You’re welcome to leave anytime,” Alexios said. “No one’s forcing you to stay here.”
“I’ll stick around and watch,” Ioannes said.
“Suit yourself.”
Alexios needed to refocus his class. He spoke with Herakleia for a moment, and she separated from the crowd of students, taking her bow and a few arrows with her.
After asking the class to watch, Alexios sprinted, jumped off the ground, and ran upon the city’s outer wall, nearly slipping on the bricks since his sandals had almost no grip. Then, while he was still running, Herakleia took aim with her bow and loosed an arrow at him. He drew his flashing, ringing Gedara blade and knocked the arrow straight back at Herakleia. She had drawn her own sword, and now sliced the arrow in half—the blade sparking against the steel arrowhead with a loud ping!
The two halves stuck straight into the ground on Herakleia’s left and right, wobbling as smoke rose from her sword, which she then whirled in the air and sheathed.
Playing tennis with arrows and blades, he thought.
Alexios also sheathed Gedara—which was glowing—and leaped away from the wall. He flipped over in the air and landed on the ground.
The mothers stared at their teachers. Then they clapped and cheered.
“All of you can do this,” Alexios told them. “It’s just the beginning.”
Now it was the mothers’ turn to run along the city walls. A few merchants walking on the Satala road—guiding donkeys piled with wool from the Chalybian sheep-herders or silk all the way from Tabriz—gaped as the women jumped along the bricks, their dresses trailing behind them in the wind and gleaming in the sun. Here Alexios discovered to his surprise that in this time period, women lacked underwear. The mothers were too excited to care that the world could see their nether regions, however. The few male students, on the other hand, wore under their tunics the same kind of loincloth that Alexios had found himself wearing inside his own garments when he first materialized in that distant farm in Troas.
Alexios and Herakleia helped their students up the walls, explaining that to release their inner energy required focus. But rather than meditating or praying or being mindful—rather than suppressing conscious thought—immortals sought to strengthen it.
“Ground your thoughts in reality,” Alexios said. “In what you can see and touch. There is no difference between you and the universe. Everything is connected, everything is real, everything is changing. Our job is to make the unconscious, conscious.”
The mothers stared at him, uncomprehending. Was it all nonsense?
When it came time to jump, the best students hardly did better than any normal person, while most were winded after only a little running. Something was holding them back. Maybe his first class was too hard.
Do I have what it takes to teach them? he thought. Or am I just wrong? Is what Sophronios said true, that the best women obey the men in their lives without question, and that’s the end of it? It’s wrong to change anything because nothing can change. Old habits just reassert themselves. Material circumstances don’t matter. Perception makes reality, not the other way around. There is no dialectic. There is no hope. It’s natural for women to obey men—and natural for there to be exploiters and exploited, rich and poor. Tribalism has always existed in the exact same form since the dawn of time. What was that thought-killing phrase people would say? ‘It is what it is.’
But thinking like this was ridiculous. After all, a magical board game had transported Alexios to Romanía. Nothing was normal.
The mothers were covering their mouths and yawning. Some had sat back down on the field, doubtless enjoying the first chance to take a break from childcare in who could even say how long. Herakleia, however, was speaking loudly and more quickly, as though she sensed that the class was getting tired. The effect was that students grew even more bored. They squinted their eyes or stretched their limbs. A few even laid down to take a nap.
“All your lives people have been telling you what to do, how to think,” Herakleia said. “It’s always don’t do this, don’t do that when you’re a girl. You’re never allowed to do anything—you always have to act ladylike. When your father or your husband or your lord tells you something, you can’t talk back. You have so many responsibilities there isn’t any room to be yourselves. But once upon a time, you were children, and you ran and played, at least when you were free from chores…”
Herakleia trailed off, unsure of what else to say, as though she had forgotten the point she was trying to make. Alexios was still impressed with her. She looked more radiant than ever, and he loved the way she spoke. Smart and strong, her only flaw was that her idealism sometimes outpaced reality—as was the case with this class, which maybe needed a break.
And yet look at all they had accomplished. What was Trebizond before the refugees came here? It must have been little more than a sleepy port on the empire’s edge, spared the destruction of marauding armies by the sheltering mountains. Now the refugees were organizing themselves, electing leaders, and fighting the imperium. To survive at all was a miracle in itself. Herakleia would say their initial success had little to do with her—that she was nothing without the uprising. This was both true and untrue. Leaders were powerless unless the masses were rioting; and without the proper leadership, reaction would destroy them. The masses needed leaders, just as leaders needed the masses.
The armies of the rich are organized, Alexios thought. So the armies of the poor must also be organized.
Alexios’s thoughts drifted to his time with Herakleia on the Paralos as he watched her. Her shirt and pants were white linen here, but he imagined her wearing glimmering silver silk pajamas.
“Begging your pardon, my lady,” Anna said to Herakleia. “But can you fly the way he can?” She indicated Alexios.
“Do you think it’s because you’re women that you can’t fly?” Herakleia said. “Can Kentarch Leandros only run on these walls because he’s a man?”
The students glanced at each other.
Herakleia frowned. Taking a deep breath, she sprinted toward the walls. Kicking off the ground, she ran so lightly over the bricks that she must have surprised even herself—flying over the top and disappearing on the other side.
Alexios looked at his students. They were staring in awe.
Should I check on Herakleia? he thought. It’ll set a bad example to show I lack confidence in my co-teacher. But I have no idea if she can land from a jump like that without breaking her bones.
Just as he was about to look for her, she leaped back over the wall and landed on her feet—smiling, dripping sweat, flushed with vigor. Then, without waiting for the usual reaction from the students, she approached Anna and reached out her hand.
“Come with me,” Herakleia said. “See for yourself.”
Anna took her hand.
“Are you ready? Herakleia asked.
Anna nodded.
“Alright,” Herakleia said. “Now I think it’s time for us to go!”
She ran as fast as she could, and pulled Anna along. The mother ran hard, but it was impossible to keep up with her young teacher, who had been adventuring across the world for the last year. Herakleia almost had to drag her. But then Anna changed. She shivered for a moment as if jolted with electricity, and now ran so quickly that she even passed Herakleia. Together the two women sprinted up the wall and disappeared over the side, Anna gasping as she soared up higher than she had ever thought possible. A moment later, the two women returned, still holding hands.
“You don’t need to fear men any longer!” Herakleia gasped for breath and patted Anna on the back. “You can be stronger and faster than all of them! No man will threaten any of you ever again!”
She stretched out her hands, as did Anna. Four students volunteered to take them. The six women ran together up the wall, hurtled into the sky, then returned, and brought more mothers from the crowd with them. Those brought more. And those brought more. Soon all the mothers were leaping over the wall and even the bridge that crossed the Zagnos Valley to the city’s west and the Aqueduct of Saint Eugenios in the Daphnous Valley suburbs to the city’s east. Alexios even convinced Ioannes to join, after forcing the miner to swear by the Holy Mother herself that he would only serve the uprising. And yet even as Alexios sailed through the sky holding Ioannes’s thick calloused muscled hand—the miner laughing beside him and kicking his legs, giddy like in a flying dream—part of him questioned the student’s loyalty.