The next day, every student returned to class—much to Herakleia and Alexios’s relief—and two additional students also joined. These were Irena, Gabras’s quiet serving girl, as well as a servant from the palace named Theophano. Both were young, pale, and soft. Their hands were long, thin, gentle, elegant—in contrast to the thick calloused sunburned hands of the mothers, who had been working since they could walk. Though being a house servant was no picnic, Irena and Theophano had lived easier lives. Some students whispered in each other’s ears as they watched the two new arrivals.
Everyone is a victim and a perpetrator at the same time, Herakleia thought. Still, the house servants come from that world where none work, but all prosper; while the peasants come from a place where everyone works all the time but no one gets ahead.
The new arrivals were also Trapezuntines, while the mothers came from as far as Melitené—a hot dusty southeastern city bordering Sarakenou lands—and Thessaloniki, the great western metropolis whose walls repelled invading Bulgars and Franks almost every summer. Sometimes the students’ different accents were too difficult for everyone to understand; they tried to solve this problem by shouting at each other. Herakleia worried that a skillful wrecker could exploit these contradictions, but Ioannes—the one she suspected of disloyalty—welcomed the two new students and was in general much more helpful than yesterday.
Learning to run along walls changes a man, Herakleia thought.
Everyone indeed warmed up by running along the walls. Herakleia showed the mothers how to charge each other, envisioning the reactions taking place inside her, the electrons rolling off the atoms in her gut, flowing through her fingertips into the students, and then returning again to where they had begun. The air would flex like a muscle around her limbs, propelling her through the hidden chambers of the world.
This was what it meant to share energy. The mothers charged the new students and guided them into the sky, laughing and gasping, their breath catching in their throats as they hurtled just over the citadel, their legs kicking above the gilded roof tiles, the narrow streets crowded with cloaks and dresses, the city walls where workmen were setting up wooden scaffolds so they could check the bricks in preparation for the siege.
The students also had a fine view of the green hilly countryside, the mines in the jagged mountains, the suburbs and the geometric churches topped by domes, the monasteries hewn into the chalky white cliffs, the wooden tenements and workshops in the Daphnous suburbs where textiles and gold and silver jewelry were all manufactured for export, the Mill River Bridge and the road leading east to Lazistan, Hadrian’s Harbor and the sea filled with galleys and rowboats, the children running in distant fields and the kitchen workers baking for the entire city, each inhabitant being guaranteed several pounds of fresh bread every day. The bread, too, was different from in the old world. Herakleia suspected it was packed with protein. A single bite sometimes left her feeling full.
Once the students lit upon the huge courtyard just inside the citadel’s double gate, they jogged back outside the walls to their outdoor classroom, flushed, sweating, out of breath, their stomachs grumbling. Many had brought water flasks this morning, doubtless because they had been dying of thirst the day before; from these they took deep swigs. Some also snacked on bread saved from breakfast.
These students were followed by Berkyaruq, who was riding his favorite horse, a piebald courser named Sultan. Berkyaruq galloped past while saluting Herakleia with his right fist. She returned his salute as he disappeared into the green valley nestled between greener mountaintops—as vast and sheer as pyramids, but covered in pine trees so dark they were almost black. These mountains lined the Satala road, their tops rising into the heavy clouds which always hung over Trebizond.
Bagrationi must have sent Berkyaruq to find the Roman army, Herakleia thought. What if the guard doesn’t return? Or what if he comes back and says there is no army? It might be more useful to have Berkyaruq here. He could teach us more about fighting. I was never much of a fighter, I just know a few tricks. Maybe he’s going to look for blacksmiths. It won’t be easy, getting other blacksmiths to leave their villages. But without at least one blacksmith here…
Feeling stressed by this potential disaster—the problem of building houses without nails or fielding an army which lacked metal weapons and armor—Herakleia forced herself to focus on her class. The mothers were watching Alexios more than usual. Something was different about him. He was more confident and relaxed than yesterday, at least when he wasn’t interacting with Herakleia.
She remembered seeing him sit next to Tamar and wrap his arm around her shoulder at that dinner three days ago. They had left together. Had Alexios slept with the Queen of Trebizond while pleading with Herakleia to stay true to him?
Covering all his bases, she thought.
Alexios was attempting to teach the mothers the basics of self-defense, which he knew nothing about.
How many fights has he even been in? Herakleia thought. There was that battle on the Paralos. Then when he rescued me from Konstantinopolis, he did a little fighting, didn’t he? That was it.
“The first rule about fighting,” Alexios said, “is that the only people who are guaranteed to win a fight are the ones who run away.”
Herakleia sighed. The imperial army executes any soldiers who turn and run during battle.
“If you take on two bad guys at once,” Alexios said, “you’re just asking for trouble. You should only attack when you’ve got an overwhelming advantage.”
Shouldn’t argue with my co-teacher in front of the students, she thought. Even though he’s wrong. Maybe what he’s saying here applies to individual brawls, but it’s suicide in a pitched battle between two armies, especially since we’re days or weeks from engaging a numerically superior enemy with better training and equipment. There’s no way Alexios has even heard of Maurikíos’s Strategikon or any other manuals on fighting war.
Alexios was starting to get on Herakleia’s nerves. He was always looking at her and speaking to her with a lovelorn tone. What was she supposed to do? He was like a mosquito. Their little fling wasn’t worth the uprising, and he needed to accept that.
Maybe it was a mistake to screw him back on that ship, she thought. But what was I supposed to do? I was horny, and he’s not so ugly! It’s his personality that’s the problem!
Seizing the first pause in his lecture, Herakleia insisted that everyone start sparring again. They also needed to begin basic tactical drills.
“It’s better to learn by doing,” she said. “Theory without practice is useless. Science without real world experimentation is no better than mysticism.”
Herakleia’s words startled Alexios at first, but then he agreed with her.
My dog does whatever I tell him, Herakleia thought.
Using an organizational technique she remembered from her high school Spanish class, Herakleia lined the students up in two rows facing each other.
“Alright,” she said. “The person across from you is your sparring partner. Spread out, and try to knock the other person down!”
The students did as they were told. When the fighting began, and the fallow field was full of peasant women kicking and punching each other, Alexios and Herakleia exchanged looks. This was nothing like old world action movies. Though the farr boosted energy and even allowed Zhayedan to jump high into the air, the people here fought like overgrown children, swinging their arms like they were helicopter rotors. The mothers paired with Irena and Theophano also fought dirty, pulling their hair, punching their breasts, and forcing their faces into the mud.
The other students stopped to watch as Herakleia pulled the mothers off Irena and Theophano. After forcing them to apologize to the serving girls, she lined everyone up again, found them new partners, and ordered them to fight once more.
“We should also practice, shouldn’t we?” Alexios said to Herakleia.
She’d been so deep in thought that his words surprised her. Is this just an excuse to feel me up? Or am I just projecting? Am I unconsciously jealous Alexios is with Tamar?
“We’d better supervise,” she said. “We can’t get distracted.”
“Right,” he said. “Of course.”
The students continued fighting like the kinds of people caught on video brawling in parking lots. Herakleia wished she had a phone with an internet connection so she could look up instructional videos on basic martial arts techniques. Her class needed a kickboxing instructor or a mixed martial artist. Practicing wasn’t useful if students practiced the wrong way. They also needed to get to work with swords, shields, and armor, since that was how they were going to be facing the Romans.
Herakleia told Alexios to take over for a few minutes and jogged back inside the city through the double gate. Asking around for Qutalmish, a eunuch messenger told her he was in the palace’s uppermost chamber. She entered the palace and passed the usual cold dark marble halls and stairways and corridors—noting that the sumptuous silk draperies had vanished—and also made her way along the doors to the guest rooms where the rich were locked up. These doors were quiet, except one, which the landlord Gabras was pounding, along with the assembly wrecker Bryennios. They were both in the same room, and crying that they wanted to go home. This made her pause for a moment.
How the tables have turned, she thought. We’ll have to let them go once all of this is over.
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In Bagrationi’s chamber, the doux, Tamar, Qutalmish, and turbaned Samonas were huddled over a table covered with a huge parchment map of Anatolia, which was detailed with towns, cities, roads, mountains, forests, deserts. This map reminded her of something she had seen in the outside world, but she couldn’t place it. Samonas was carving notes into his wax tablet with his stylus, while Qutalmish had crossed his arms and was nodding to something Bagrationi was saying. Tamar, meanwhile, was eyeing Qutalmish.
When Herakleia entered, the three men turned toward her and bowed. Tamar stared without nodding.
“Strategos,” Bagrationi said. “To what do we owe—”
“Can I borrow Qutalmish?” she said.
Qutalmish’s eyes widened, and he looked at Herakleia.
“Me?” he said.
“We need someone to teach us how to fight,” Herakleia added. “Alexios and I, you know, we don’t actually have much experience. We’ve only been in a few brawls here and there. We don’t know a lot about battles or wars.”
Qutalmish looked to Bagrationi, who raised his eyebrows.
“Forgive me, strategos.” Bagrationi bowed once more. “But his services are required elsewhere.”
“What do you need him for?”
“Is it normal,” Tamar began, “to question a lord in his own palace?”
“Thank you, mother, I can handle this,” Bagrationi said with a frustrated tone. He turned to Herakleia. “We need him for all kinds of things.”
Samonas, glancing back and forth at Bagrationi and Herakleia, shuffled away from the table and approached a window overlooking the city. There he continued to scrawl in his wax tablet. Qutalmish remained at his place, though he swallowed nervously. Tamar continued staring at Herakleia.
“David,” Herakleia said. “Is this about—”
“You will address my son properly.” Tamar glanced at the three men. “Particularly in polite company.”
“Sorry.” Herakleia glanced back and forth from Bagrationi to Tamar. “My Lord Doux.”
“It’s fine,” Bagrationi said. “Now listen. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but since you arrived, we’ve had some problems.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was just about to send Qutalmish to scour the countryside for smiths. Berkyaruq has already left to ascertain the location of the Roman army.”
“I saw him leave, My Lord Doux,” Herakleia said.
“Our list of reliable professional soldiers is growing shorter.” Bagrationi stepped away from the table.
“Time was when Trebizond could rely upon at least a few hundred kataphraktoi to defend the theme,” Tamar said. “Now what do we have? Qutalmish is the last professional fighter in the city I know of.”
Qutalmish blushed as he bowed to the queen, who smiled.
“You mentioned your other soldiers died in that plague outbreak,” Herakleia said. “But you still have their arms and armor, don’t you?”
Bagrationi stared at her, his expression unchanged.
“Don’t you?” Herakleia repeated.
“We’ve had to sell a great deal just to put bread in people’s bellies. We just got rid of the palace tapestries this morning.” Bagrationi held up his hands. “Notice I don’t have any rings or jewels on my fingers.”
“Mine either.” Tamar held up her own hands.
“So we have one soldier and no armaments. Great.” Herakleia sighed. “But maybe Qutalmish would be more useful if he could show us—”
“We were too busy accumulating capital to focus on weapons,” Bagrationi said. “We relied on the emperor being too distracted to notice us—at least until we were ready to fight.”
“So much for that strategy.”
“It was working until you broke out of the palace and came here,” Bagrationi said.
“So the whole thing is my fault.”
“Whatever happened to your friend?” Bagrationi said. “The guard who helped you escape the Great Palace? Didn’t he go with you to Sera? He was a professional soldier.”
“George,” she said, her heart sinking. “George Vatatzes.”
It always hurt to recall her lost comrade. They had been through so much together, only for it all to end with an arrow in his back.
“He didn’t make it?” Bagrationi said.
Herakleia shook her head.
“Well,” Bagrationi said, “Dionysios told me capital accumulation would take a long time. And now what do we have?” Looking out the window next to Samonas, the doux laughed and shook his head. “A city full of refugees. A self-appointed strategos who has never fought a pitched battle. And, oh, I almost forgot—we have one century made up mostly of old women who have never held a sword in their lives.”
“What are you implying, My Lord Doux?” Herakleia said.
“This is what we were talking about when you barged in.” Bagrationi glanced at Qutalmish, Samonas, and Tamar. “We aren’t prepared for a military confrontation with the Romans. Even if they’re delayed, and by the grace of God we have two or three months before they arrive, we will lose, strategos, and lose badly.”
“You can’t know that. It’s possible they’ll be exhausted, demoralized, or out of supplies by the time they reach here—”
“That’s wishful thinking,” Bagrationi said. “We must prepare for the worst. We don’t even know how many men they’re sending. We don’t know whether they’re mercenaries or professional soldiers. There are simply too many unknowns.”
“I am sorry, My Lord Doux,” Qutalmish said, “but they must be mercenaries. Rûm has no professional army for many years.”
Bagrationi waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a battle we can win. Therefore we should at least consider surrender. Otherwise Nikephoros will kill us all and raze Trebizond to the ground.”
Herakleia narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Berkyaruq…you weren’t sending him to find the Roman army. You were sending him as an emissary.”
Tamar nodded. “It seems you aren’t entirely foolish.”
“Nikephoros might agree to terms,” Bagrationi said. “Particularly if we spare his legions the difficulty of marching all the way across Asia to our little city. If we end the uprising, return the refugees to their homes, give him hostages, swear we’ll never oppose him again—”
“You mean if we give up on everything we’re fighting for.”
“It’s better than giving up our lives, Herakleia.”
Samonas cleared his throat. “You may live to fight another day.”
Herakleia glared at him. “Did you put him up to this?”
“It was my idea,” Bagrationi said. “The sovereign is responsible for the government’s decisions, whether positive or negative.”
Tamar smiled. “Well put.”
“We’ll never get another chance like this,” Herakleia said. “The people, the workers, the peasants, they’ll think we betrayed them. In the future, if any of them even survive, they and their descendants—they’ll think it’s pointless to resist. This could set workers back by centuries.”
“Maybe,” Bagrationi said.
Herakleia walked past Tamar to the window and looked at the city. All those fathers, mothers, and children she had seen at the assembly were going back to slavery.
What was that quote from the outside world? she thought. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
She turned to Bagrationi. “I’ll never surrender.”
“That’s noble of you. But also a tad extreme, wouldn’t you say? Moderation and pragmatism is always key, my dear. Forgive me for saying as much, but at times you seem like a bit of an idealist.”
“I’m getting really tired of people calling me that.”
Tamar frowned. “Perhaps there is a reason so many people say the same thing about you. Have you thought about speaking with a priest?”
“Besides,” Bagrationi said, “you have other people to consider.”
Herakleia looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten.”
“I never agreed to marry a coward.”
Qutalmish and Samonas exchanged looks. Bagrationi approached her, seeming to loom toward the ceiling.
“That wouldn’t be the wisest choice.” He backed her against the cold wall. “I’ve played along with your little fantasy for the last year, all while you were having your adventures in Sera. I’ve sold almost everything in my possession to keep the refugees alive.”
“Some refugees, anyway.”
“I’ve borrowed as much money as the Venetians, the Genoans, and the Pisans will give me. It’ll take me years to pay back Cassio the Venetian. It’s time for you to fulfill your obligations. Although I know you’re a princess, you need to understand that you can’t just take, take, take. Sometimes you have to give.”
She looked up at him.
“If you refuse,” he said, breathing into her face, “I will release the rich from the palace, and turn the refugees out of the city. Then they can fend for themselves.”
Herakleia was unable to respond.
Bagrationi nodded to her. “You will have the good fortune of returning to a dungeon until you change your mind.”
Herakleia trembled.
“We’re setting a date for the wedding,” Bagrationi said. “Sometime soon. That will be the end of it. You’ll spend your life here, surrounded by luxury, given everything you could possibly need.”
“Except justice,” she said. Then, as Bagrationi was rolling his eyes, she turned to Qutalmish. “Will you help us?”
He bowed. “I am sorry, strategos, but I must follow My Lord Doux.”
“I’m tired of asking,” Bagrationi said. “Agree to the wedding. We’ll let you continue these little preparations of yours. I suppose we might as well, at least until Berkyaruq returns. And who knows? If the emperor rejects my proposal, we may have no choice but to fight.”
“I hope we get to fight,” Tamar said. “We’re already in too deep as it is. The emperor will never pardon us.”
“No one asked your opinion, mother.”
“Don’t speak to me that way.”
As the two members of the Bagrationi family bickered, Herakleia tried to think of what to do.
“Send Qutalmish to help us,” Herakleia said. “Give us all the arms and armor you have.”
“Then you’ll agree to the wedding?”
“Yes,” she said.
He turned to Tamar. “How long will it take to gather everything we need for a proper wedding?”
“One week,” Tamar said. “Probably two.”
“Then in two weeks’ time,” Bagrationi said, “we’ll get married. You’ll see to the details?”
“As best I can, under the circumstances,” Tamar said.
“Good.” Bagrationi turned back to Herakleia. “Now kiss me.”
She looked away.
“You will sanctify this marriage,” Bagrationi said. “You will learn to appreciate me.”
She leaned forward and pecked his lips, wincing as his beard pricked her face.
Anything for the uprising, she thought.
Bagrationi turned to Qutalmish, who had averted his gaze. “Do as the strategos says.”
He bowed. “My Lord Doux, it will be no problem.”
Followed by Qutalmish, Herakleia walked out of Bagrationi’s chamber. Though she was wiping tears from her eyes, she also swore to herself to build up the Workers’ Army—not just to resist the Romans, but also her fiancé.