Strategos: Born in the Borderlands (23 page)

The inside of the place was as run down and uninspiring as outside: a single storey brick building ran the length of the eastern side of the enclosure resting against the town wall, probably the sleeping quarters and mess hall judging by the size and rudimentary architecture. It had a tiled roof that looked to be teetering on the brink of collapse, the brickwork was crumbling and bleached by the sun, and flaking, cracked shutters hung limp from hinges. By the south-western corner near the gate was a ramshackle lean-to of timber that looked – and smelt – like the latrines. Lining the northern wall was a large and sturdy box building, uncomplicated but for the crenelated roof space, probably the officers’ quarters going by the small stable resting against it. The northern wall of the barracks was in fact the side of another building, a hulking brick structure with its entrance next to the officers’ quarters. A wagon was parked by its doorway, clothing and shields being ferried inside – no doubt this was an imperial warehouse, where the soldiers would receive their clothing, armour and arms.

But it was the centre of the compound that grabbed his attention: roughly three hundred men – almost the entire garrison going by what Sha had said – stood in a closed circle in only their tunics and boots. In their midst were two soldiers unarmoured apart from helmets, each clutching a well-polished spathion. They alternated between circling each other and lunging against each other in a flurry of sword blows. All this was happening under the keen eye of a barking officer who held a pole and wore a double-headed axe on his belt.

‘Are they training?’ Apion asked as they walked past the circle.

Sha kept his gaze straight ahead and spoke in a hushed tone. ‘They are being punished. The
kampidoktores
will see to that. His role as drill-master barely covers the brutality he exacts.’

Apion frowned at this, and then stopped in his tracks as the officer barking at the fighting men removed his helmet and wiped a rag over his sweating ginger stubble. Vadim! At that moment, one of the fighting men stumbled and fell to the dust. His opponent lanced his sword down then stopped, the point hovering at the fallen man’s neck. Apion stopped and stared.

The man with his sword ready for the kill looked up to Vadim. ‘I can’t, sir’ he croaked, ‘he is my friend.’

Vadim sighed and shook his head. ‘You are both dead. You just need to accept that. Now finish him!’

Apion shivered, noticing the dark and damp crimson patches in the dust all around the pair. The man relaxed his sword-grip and stood back, chin out in defiance. Vadim took his sword from him, hefted it over, eyeing the blade with narrowed eyes, and then in one stroke he punched the spathion through the reticent man’s chest, letting him gurgle and then slide free of the blade, crumpling to the dust like a sack of rubble. As an afterthought Vadim stabbed the sword underhand through the other man’s throat, cutting his pleas for mercy short and pinning him to the ground. The watching crowd were silent, simply dropping their heads in dismay. Then, at Vadim’s command, they dispersed, brushing past Apion and Sha. Apion hobbled forward to the scene of the two dead men, being solemnly lifted by a team of spectators.

‘Do not draw attention to yourself, Sha hissed, pulling him back.

‘Death bouts?’ Apion hissed, shaking free of his grip. ‘This is allowed?’

‘They were caught sleeping on watch.’ Sha said. ‘Punishable by death.’

‘But that was no punishment; that was vile, animal entertainment.’

Sha gripped him by the arm, the African’s face creased in concern. ‘It is what you will have to live with if you want to serve in the garrison. The tourmarches decrees the punishment for breaches of discipline.’

Then another voice pierced the air. ‘Bringing runts in at this time, Dekarchos?’

Apion turned to face the approaching figure. Something shivered deep within him. This officer wore no sash but instead a plume, a golden plume, an iron klibanion and leather gloves with iron studs on the knuckles. Two giant soldiers flanked him. Apion’s heart hammered.

‘Muster and recruitment will happen on my word.
My word!
’ Bracchus growled.

‘Leave this to me . . . ’ Sha whispered to Apion.

‘I gave an order. When I give an order you obey it as though it had been issued by the strategos himself.’

‘Tourmarches!’ Sha turned to salute, stamping one foot into the dust at the same time, his eyes shot for the horizon and remained fixed there. ‘He brings his own weapons. Given the low numbers of the garrison, sir, I . . . ’

‘You did as you pleased? Yes?’ Bracchus cut him off.

Apion felt that terrible chill creep across his skin as Bracchus leaned forward, the sun falling on his face, the piercing blue eyes and razor nose fixed on Sha. Then he turned to Apion.

‘Well,’ he purred, ‘I thought I recognised that lame gait.’

Apion’s skin shrivelled. His hand tensed, fingers itching to rip his scimitar free and plunge it into the cretin’s throat, right here, right now. Then he glanced at Bracchus’ guards, the bloodied sand and then Sha; he relaxed his hand. Then Bracchus’ lips wrinkled and Apion realised what was coming next.
Go on; destroy me in front of them all. Shout to them and show them my withered leg. Then tell them all how I live with the enemy. Call me it again: a Seljuk loving whoreson!

Bracchus’ eyes seemed to drill into Apion’s thoughts, his grin widening until suddenly, he stood tall and nodded. ‘Well, perhaps we make an exception for this one.’

Apion’s eyes darted around the enclosure: most were the swarthy and dark haired so-called natives of the empire. Dotted amongst them there were a few northerners and westerners, distinctive like him by their red or pure blonde locks. Then there were a peppering of Africans, Syrians and even a yellow-skinned man with almond eyes. The people and soldiers of the empire were tolerant and open to other cultures. All except the Seljuks. Now all Bracchus had to do was announce that Apion came from a Seljuk household and he would be hated by a lethal majority of the garrison. What was the tourmarches up to?

Bracchus fixed him with an ice-cold glare. ‘Vadim, provide our new garrison soldier with armour and weapons.’ He turned to the big Rus and nodded. Vadim beckoned Apion and marched for the officers’ quarters.

Apion hesitated and shot a glance back to Sha. The African shook his head briskly. Apion felt an awful dread grip his stomach as he followed Vadim into the dim quarters. Inside, a candle flickered, illuminating the crumbling brick interior and a large square table covered in a mess of paper. A bald and corpulent man was buried behind the pile of documents, trying to copy information from the papers into a tattered leather-bound book and at the same time shield a block of six coin towers from the mess. He would then turn to count coins into purses and then stamp the papers with a lead seal. Apion guessed this was the
protocancellarius
, the man Father had spoken of as being responsible for carving up the soldiers’ pay. On the wall opposite the doorway, a set of map scrolls hung unfurled, outlining the border themata, the forts, towns and cities represented by solid dots, a red line scored across the disbanded Armenian themata. Vadim flitted through the pile of documents on the table, oblivious of the fat man’s scowl.

‘When you sign this form,’ Vadim muttered, still stooped, ‘you are owned by the tourmarches. You obey him without question.’

Apion nodded silently.
Only until I cut out his heart
, the rasping voice replied inside his head.

Vadim stopped and looked up. ‘You affirm every word from a superior’s mouth with a yes, sir! The tourmarches is not to be questioned.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Apion barked, sincere and aping Sha’s fixed gaze from moments ago.

Vadim glared at Apion blankly for a moment, arms folded. Then his jutting brow and ginger-stubbled scalp wrinkled. He touched a hand to the scar running over his left eye and a dreadful grin crept over his features. ‘Your friend, the Seljuk with sling; I have yet to spill his blood. Remind him of this when next you meet. Now come with me and we will sort out your kit.’ He ducked under a low doorway into the adjoining warehouse.

Apion followed him in. The warehouse was musty and dim, lit only by a pair of open shutters, its walls clad in shelving. Vadim dug around near a pile of klibania, and then turned back to him with a garment. Apion braced for the weight of the garment to pull on him. This would be the sleeveless lamellar vest of rectangular leather or iron plates strung together to form a tough armour. Instead, he grasped the bundle with ease as Vadim dropped it – a padded cotton vest.

‘I’m here to serve in the infantry as a skutatos, what’s this? This is an archer’s vest, is it not?’

‘Expecting scale or lamellar? Well you have to earn it in this shithole. Only the front ranks get good armour, and believe me, they need it!’ He held up one of the klibania, pointing to a spear-tip sized hole in the chest, surrounded by an encrusted dark-brown substance. Then Vadim rustled around on a shelf and turned to hand him a rusted conical helmet with a frayed and cracked leather aventail. ‘Think yourself lucky you’re getting that. The last unfortunate bugger to own it was knifed last week in a fight over a woman. Most of the runts get a felt hat at most, but this is much less comfortable, chews into the scalp,’ he grinned.

Apion tried the helmet on. It rested like a cauldron on his head and only sat on his crown momentarily before sliding down over his eyes. When he pulled it up, Vadim stood before him with a pair of square-toed boots, sodden and mouldy. They were split above the knee at the sides so they could be folded down to the shin when marching and folded up to the thigh in battle. Then came the skutum
,
the teardrop shaped shield; battered and faintly etched with the Christian
Chi-Rho on a faded crimson backdrop
. He glanced to his prayer rope – his business here was anything but Godly.

‘What else is standard?’ Vadim scratched his scalp. ‘Ah, yes. You’re going to need a kontarion,’ Vadim lifted a broad-bladed spear, nearly twice Apion’s height, from the rack, ‘you really are.’ The giant may as well have issued him with a written threat. ‘You do not need a sword,’ Vadim glared at Apion’s sheath, ‘but you can have an axe and you can have a pair of
rhiptariai
too.’ Vadim gave him a small hand axe, which he clipped to his sword belt, and two shorter, lighter spears, for hurling at an advancing enemy.

‘All for the bargain price of half your first year’s pay!’ Vadim grinned. ‘Now, outside, the tourmarches will be ready for you.’

Apion turned to leave and he could feel Vadim’s breath burn on his neck as he moved back through to the room with the desk. There stood Bracchus, flanked by his giants, stood over a leaf of paper.

‘Make your mark here,’ Bracchus jabbed a finger into the fresh document by the table.

Apion picked up the quill and dunked it in the pot of ink. He could not write as such and could only faintly recall mother teaching him to print his name. As the quill scratched on the paper, he wondered at the significance. A contract for revenge. Then a stench of garlic hit him as Bracchus hissed over his shoulder.

‘In any fort or barracks in the empire the soldier usually signs his name, serves his time,’ the tourmarches’ nose and cool glare hovered just in Apion’s peripheral vision, ‘but it will be very different for you. Here I am king and the garrison are obedient to my rule and you will be especially so. You were fortunate my promotion took me from your filthy Seljuk master’s path, but now your luck is out, cripple. Now I own you. You obey my every word or you bleed your last into the dust,’ he jabbed a finger at the grey body of one of the dead combatants being carried past the door outside, ‘. . . you
Seljuk loving whoreson!
’

***

The gloomy bunk area was functional at best and the other three of Sha’s depleted
kontoubernion
sat around on their bunks wearing expressions that matched the odour of the place, examining Apion as he stood in their midst.

The garrison at Argyroupolis comprised of a single bandon, the primary infantry unit, numbering nearly three hundred men when fully populated, plus a smattering of archers. Apion would be sharing a bunk block, rations, reward and punishment primarily with Sha and these three.

‘You’ve got to be kidding?’ The biggest of them scoffed, glancing from Apion to Sha. Blastares was built and scarred like an oak and seemed to have the mood of a bear. He sported a broken nose that shuddered from between close-set eyes and his features were baked into a scowl. He shook his head and went back to sharpening his sword on a whetstone.

‘He’s lame, he can’t even stand straight. What’s the point of bringing in a cripple?’ Procopius, a prune-faced older legionary with a grey-flecked, cropped hair, added with a shrug of his narrow shoulders, jabbing a finger at the trembling limb. ‘He’ll slow us down, get us killed. We were better off as a four.’ With that, he went back to polishing what looked like an artillery torsion spring.