The Lion in Winter
Part 11
1502-1516
"Andreas I Komnenos had 8 sons, and 150,000."-A History of the Rhomanian Army (note that Roman historians do not consider Andrew of Hungary a son of Andreas Komnenos)
Brown- 80+% Orthodox
Green- 80+% Muslim
Tan- 80+% Noble Heresy
Yellow- 50 to 75% Orthodox
Orange- 33 to 49% Orthodox
Red- 21 to 32% Orthodox
Note that the dominant religion in Cilicia is the Armenian Church, and in the Nile Delta is the Coptic faith. In Italy, the two major centers of Roman culture are Bari, Venetia, and Syracuse. Venetia is too small to appear on the map, but would be brown. The red in the Crimea is the former Genoese colony of Vospoda, and Tana (off map) would be red as well. The Serbian vassals are overwhelmingly Orthodox, Al-Andalus is overwhelmingly Muslim, and the Italian vassals are overwhelmingly Catholic. But the Italian ducal families are all Orthodox, and the creed is starting to trickle down amongst the major landowners and merchants, but the farmers and artisans remain completely untouched.
1502: The sack of Cairo sends ripples throughout the Muslim world. Everywhere there are at least some rumblings, but the main explosions come from opposite ends of the House of Islam. In India, it helps trigger a mass Muslim revolt against the Vijayanagar Empire in the coastal cities of Gujarat and Maharashtra. There has already been much dissent against the oppressive and discriminatory Hindu rule (for starters, Muslims are not allowed to own horses or buildings with more than one story, and are taxed three times more heavily than Hindus). Vijayanagar’s collaboration with Ethiopia in the Meccan campaign is also remembered, and not forgiven.
The Sultanate of Delhi invades to support its co-religionists, making as far as Pune before it is met by the assembled might of the Vijayanagar Empire, forty thousand infantry, sixteen thousand cavalry, and two hundred and ninety armored war elephants. The trumpeting behemoths are decisive in the smashing victory, coupled with the mercenary Timurid gunners in their howdahs.
But four days later the Muslim fleet annihilates the Vijayanagara navy off Kozhikode with the first known use of bomb ships outside of the Mediterranean. Without naval support, the Vijayanagara army is unable to reduce the coastal cities as Ottoman and Omani vessels make huge profits ferrying in food and armaments.
In North Africa, something too is stirring. Ali al-Mandari, one of the leading men of Tetouan, who had been ruined by Roman merchants in Al-Andalus and moved to Africa to rebuild, takes five galleys out into the Mediterranean to wage the jihad fil-bahr, the Holy War at Sea. In six weeks, he takes one Roman transport, laden with silk and sugar, and two Aragonese galleys. His example is immediately followed by sailors and tribesmen from Safi to Bizerte.
The overlord of all these jihadists, the Marinid Sultan in Marrakesh, does nothing to curb these raids, but instead encourages and shelters the raiders in exchange for a cut of the profits. With peace in Egypt, Carthage’s brief ascendancy as the premier supplier of plantation slaves for Rhomania is over, so he has little incentive to not harass Roman traders. These raids also serve to bolster his prestige as well as his coffers. The effective loss of al-Andalus without a fight is extremely embarrassing, and enforcing payments from the corsairs is a good way of reasserting his authority.
The rhetoric is couched in that of holy war, and for most of the participants, it is a holy war. But the jihadists soon begin attacking Andalusi vessels as well, viewing them as traitors to Islam. For they willfully exchanged a Muslim for a Christian ruler, and not only that, they chose the one responsible for the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of Cairo (in the Maghreb Andreas is viewed as the destroyer of Cairo due to ignorance about the Ethiopians). As such, they are treated as Christians; captives are impressed as galley slaves.
The Andalusi do not take kindly to being on the receiving end of a jihad. When two corsair ships are captured off Almeria in September, the crews are slapped into chains and then thrown into the sea.
In Constantinople, on April 19, Herakleios is crowned as junior Co-Emperor of the Romans, with the imperial mint issuing new coins showing both Andreas and Herakleios. Present are his two older sisters, Helena and Basileia, Crown Princesses of Russia and Georgia respectively. Almost immediately Andreas turns over much of the Imperial administration into his son’s hands.
There is relatively little dissent. Few of Vlad’s appointees remain after all this time, and the few that do are part of the army and have long since come over to Andreas’ side. The clergy mutter, but for the most part are appeased by the Cairo Proclamation’s restriction on Catholics or Muslims in the tagmata. Also smoothing their feathers are several grants of land in the Holy Land to the church, including the Biblical towns of Hebron, Jericho, and Nazareth. All of them are placed under the authority of the church, providing taxes after a four-year remittance period are paid.
There is also the fact that there is no clear better choice. Some prominent priests, including the bishops of Adrianople, Dyrrachium, and Larissa, believe Demetrios to be a closet Copt. Others suggest Theodoros, and while Andreas has done much to support his son’s menagerie, he states that anyone placing Theodoros on the throne of Rhomania will do so over his dead body. A rumor spreads that the bishop of Adramyttion remarked that the suggestion wasn’t so bad. The next day a mob wrecks his house in Constantinople.
Andreas is not in the Queen of Cities when that happens. He spends most of the year back in Syria, overseeing the first major training exercises of the south Syrian tagma. His primary mission now is to get them and both Egyptian tagmata into fighting shape as soon as possible, as he is alarmed by the rapid increase in Ottoman domains. He also finds the warmer climate of Syria and Egypt to be much pleasant than Constantinople.
In Persia the formal investment of Fars begins in May, Konstantinos Komnenos again commanding, as Andrew of Hungary drives the last of the demoralized German forces out of his domains. The new twenty-two year old Holy Roman Emperor Manfred I Wittelsbach has managed to rally his Bavarian troops, but is having more difficulties in keeping the other German princes in line, particularly after his loyal ally and vassal Archduke Antoine, Lord of the Westmarch, is resoundingly defeated by a relief Dutch army at the siege of Rotterdam.
But it is in southern France that sees the most action of the year. The armies of France-England move rapidly, even as Louis I moves equally as fast to marshal the Arletian lances. The French-English offensive is focused on the west, both to avoid the war in Lotharingia and to forestall a rumored Arletian plot to seize the main convoy bearing Bordeaux wine to England with the help of the Castilian navy. Their primary target is Toulouse.
Louis’ son and heir, Prince Charles, commands the main Arletian army, seventeen thousand strong accompanied by thirty Bernese battle cohorts, three thousand men. Leo Komnenos, commanding another three thousand men, has orders first to spoil a large raiding party rampaging along the Rhone before meeting with the main body. This he does quickly, smashing the two thousand French-English at Valence and inflicting quintuple the number of casualties he receives. Marching hard, he has almost joined Charles at the town of Merles when thirty thousand French-English assault Charles.
The heavily outnumbered Arletians and Bernese are quickly thrown on the defensive, even though three sharp ripostes from the cohorts stagger the Plantaganet right. The roar of the battle comes as a surprise to several of Leo’s officers, as it is coming east of the expected rendezvous point. When they ask Leo what to do, he replies in words forever remembered by the Arletian people. “We march to the sound of the guns.”
Ninety minutes into the fray, Prince Charles has been outflanked and the Bernese are on the verge of being surrounded, though they bitterly contest every inch of ground. The French-English commander, the Duke of Berry, has every expectation of victory when the west explodes with a mass crescendo of hellfire. Three arquebus volleys blast the Plantaganet right flank at point-blank range, trumpets screaming as Leo charges at the head of twelve hundred heavy Arletian lancers.
A modern rendition of
Leo Komnenos at the Battle of Merles, for the game
Century of Blood
The French-English line does not waver, bend, crack, break, crumple, or shatter. Instead it ceases to exist. As Leo rolls up the Plantaganets, Charles and the Bernese immediately counterattack, the onslaught of the Habsburg knights killing the Duke of Berry as he desperately tries to restore order. When he dies, all hope of saving the army dies with him. Between the battle and the five-hour pursuit until sunset that follows, the French-English host is effectively destroyed as a fighting force.
Still the Arletians and Bernese suffered heavily, over twenty five hundred casualties. One of those is a man whose arm was broken by Leo for looting. His crime was not the looting itself, but that he had dismounted whilst the enemy was still on the field to do so. Once they have been cleared though, Leo has no problems with his men pillaging the enemy camp and raping the camp followers.
Though somewhat disgusted by Leo’s post-battle activities, Charles does concede that the Roman prince turned certain defeat into a smashing victory. And the Bernese League also remembers its sons who were saved, including no less than nineteen scions of the Habsburg family. So two months after the battle, Maximilian von Habsburg, Count of Breisgau, Zurichgau, Thurgau, and Aargau, formally legitimizes Leo’s wife Klara.
Basileios von Habsburg-Komnenos, son of Leo Komnenos and Klara.
1503: The defeat at Merles is a harsh blow to Plantagenet hopes of an early victory, but it is by no means a fatal blow to the war effort. As spring dawns, levies are gathered across southern England and northern France. The quick start to last year’s campaign comes as a hidden blessing, as the majority of the formidable artillery train and the bulk of the French aristocracy had not been assembled and committed.
As Arletian forces move up the Garonne, the Plantagenet counterstrike gathers in Normandy when two balingers put into Calais with news from the north. Northumberland is burning.
A Scottish army has crossed the frontier burning and pillaging, the shires mustering in response, only to be caught completely flatfooted when a Norwegian fleet of nine thousand men and a hundred and twenty ships falls upon the coast. Caught between two fires, the men of Northumberland are engaged at Flodden Field and utterly annihilated. The combined Norwegian-Scottish army flies south, the Norwegian navy joined by fifteen Scottish vessels including two small purxiphoi, harrying the coast as far as Kent.
Scots warship in action off East Anglia
Newcastle-upon-Tyne defies the invaders, hurling back one attempted assault with hastily fabricated catapults made from the timber of torn-down houses. But everything else north of the River Tees is at the mercy of the Norwegian-Scottish army. Haakon VIII, King of Norway and Scotland, had skillfully exploited the marriage ties forged by his father Haakon VII with his twelve daughters to gather artisans and soldiers from across all of Europe. The result is that the Norwegian artillery train, though comparatively small, is one of the finest in all of Europe.
As Scots and Norwegian warships prowl the North Sea and even raid into the Channel, mopping up every English or French vessel they can find, Alexander MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, chief vassal of the King of Scotland, puts out to sea with his own armada. Almost immediately he turns the Irish Sea into his private lake, his galleys raiding the coasts of Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall.
King Edward VII, faced with the alarming possibility of losing control of the sea, authorizes the sailors of England and France to wage war by privateer (some had already started). The men of the West Country, the Cinque Ports, and London respond vigorously. The ships from London, large and well-armed (many with royal armaments illegally purchased from corrupt Tower officials), prove particularly dangerous. However the privateers have a tendency to turn pirate, and Danish and Hansa merchant ships soon become a preferred target. More alarming though is three attacks by men from Portsmouth and Plymouth on Castilian carracks bearing cargoes of wool for Antwerp.
The inhabitants of the Low Countries are also annoyed by the transformation of the Channel and surrounding seas into a war zone. In the first six months after Edward authorizes privateering, thirteen Dutch vessels are taken. This is somewhat compensated by the fact that Scots and Norwegian vessels typically sell their prizes and cargo in Dutch ports rather than take them all the way home.
Almost all of the French-English naval effort is waged by private citizens. The embarrassing fact is that the royal navy is extremely under-strength. Most of the funds have gone into the army, in particular to restoring the artillery lost at Cannae. Half of the king’s ships are leaky, and all are undermanned. On paper they are at full-strength, but the ships’ masters have been skimping on their crews and pocketing the extra wages.
There is similar corruption amongst the quartermasters. Provisions are universally late, often too small, and frequently corrupt. Provided with rotten meat, moldy bread, their pay at least six months in arrears, and forced to run a ship that needs a hundred men with seventy, it is little surprise when most of the crews mutiny. Five ships do sail, but turn pirate when they spot a small convoy carrying pay for the army in France. The chests of gold and silver, containing 60,000 pounds sterling, over an annual year’s revenue for the Kingdom of England, is stolen.
France-England is not the only one suffering, as Andrew of Hungary launches his invasion of the Holy Roman Empire. Sharply defeated at Linz and Passau, Emperor Manfred is swiftly losing control over his realm. An epidemic of dysentery that cripples his army forces him to abandon Munich without a fight. Andrew seizes the city, but then drives west instead of north after the fugitive Kaiser. His rationale soon becomes clear. On September 12, Mainz surrenders to the Hungarian armies, Pope Martin V of Mainz fleeing north to join Manfred in Schleswig.
Two days later, a papal legate from Avignon formally crowns Andrew in the cathedral of Saint Martin. He is now, by the Grace of God, Imperator Romanus Sacer, Apostolic (added at this time) Emperor of Hungary, King of Italy, Croatia, Dalmatia, Austria, and Bosnia, Grand Prince of Transylvania. The fact that none of the electors support this coronation is ignored.
It is the fulfillment of a century-old dream of the Arpad kings, who have been fighting for the Imperial Eagle since the War of the Five Emperors. But Andrew, his appetite whetted, is looking for more. In Mainz, he tells his heir Stephen the truth of his parentage, telling him “I have won the Roman Empire in the west. It will fall to you, as firstborn son of the firstborn son of Andreas Komnenos, to win it in the east, to restore the one, indivisible Empire of the Romans.”
1504: The Holy War at Sea continues in the waters of the western Mediterranean, the African corsairs striking at any ships that come within reach. In July the first purxiphos constructed in North Africa joins the fray, participating in a combined operation with twenty other ships. The expedition captures a Genoese convoy loaded with naval stores (for the Castilians), seizes three textile-laden barques out of Antwerp and eight other vessels, including an armed (five guns) Roman carrack, and raids the coast of Menorca, carrying over fifteen hundred inhabitants into slavery.
The only significant success against the jihadists scored that year is by the smallest of their victims, Carthage. The city-state maintains a total of fourteen galleys, although only seven are ever mobilized at once for financial reasons. On September 3, five of those galleys meet seven corsair ships off Cape Bon who immediately attack.
The Carthaginians accept the challenge, charging into battle. Just before both sides smash together to board, they fire…with Roman-army-grade Vlach shot. The charges, packed with hundreds of arquebus balls, scythe down the Muslim boarders in bloody swathes. The complements of two of the corsair ships are virtually annihilated. In the end three corsairs escape, another sinks, and the other three are towed back in triumph, to the cheers of Carthage’s people. Outsiders though have some difficulty in understanding the chorus, as the Italian of the Genoese is being steadily Berberized, along with some Greek influence.
In Persia, Fars at last falls to Konstantinos Komnenos. Although the Shah escaped before the end, and is organizing resistance in a new capital at Damghan, it is a tremendous victory. Not even Osman II made it this far. But it is soon marred. An Ottoman army marching on Damghan is ambushed and destroyed, not by a Persian force, but by a Timurid column that had swooped down from the north. The captured cannons and crews are carried back to Samarkand, where the Khan Ulugh Beg puts them to work creating his own gun foundries.
Although the nomadic tribes of Central Asia make up an important part of his powerbase, Ulugh Beg is no warlord in the vein of Genghis Khan or Timur. His capital of Samarkand is a thriving, bustling city of 120,000, with famous madrasas and one of the finest observatories in the world. There subsidized scholars write treatises on both trigonometry and spherical geometry. In 1495, Ulugh Beg had suggested an exchange of astronomers with the Roman Empire (specifically the University of Smyrna) to foster study, but the envoy had arrived during the confusion after Empress Kristina’s death and eventually returned to Samarkand empty-handed.
Construction on the first foundry has just begun when two children are born. The first is far to the northwest, and unknown to the Timurids. And even if they did, they would not care. For what does it matter that King Charles Bonde of Sweden has a daughter named Catherine? She will never amount to anything. Their new prince, on the other hand, is a different story. For he has been given the name, the name that has been silent for a hundred years, a name to make all the nations tremble. Once again, there is a Timur in Samarkand.
1505: In April, four ships offload their cargo into warehouses along the Golden Horn. It is three hundred tons of kaffos, by itself the equal of all the kaffos shipped into the Empire in the sixty years before the fall of Egypt. It is expected that a similar amount will be offloaded in other Imperial ports throughout the year. Ethiopia also provides ivory and slaves (taken from raids against pagans in the interior), but kaffos makes up four-fifths of the value of all Ethiopian exports to Rhomania.
The importance of this trade to both empires cannot be understated. Although still unknown in the rest of Christendom, Rhomania has known about kaffos for sixty years and it already has gained a market, limited only by the exceedingly high costs of the drink. In the four years since the fall of Egypt, the price of kaffos has dropped to a tenth of its former amount, placing it at a level that even carpenters or blacksmiths can afford the occasional drink. In that time the number of kaffos oikoi (coffee houses) in Constantinople has jumped from three to forty eight, serving the hot beverage in winter and iced kaffos in summer.
Besides providing Herakleios with a host of new establishments and imports that can be taxed, the kaffos oikoi will play an important role in Roman culture. Heavily frequented by students and scholars, the oikoi are important in fostering new developments in science and philosophy by providing a common and popular place for people to meet. They also prove to be a veritable fount of information, one that the Spider Prince quickly and effectively taps, although it is by no means his only or primary source.
The university kaffos oikoi (by this point all of them have at least one) are the first to introduce the newsletter. A sheet of paper, or on prominent occasions a pamphlet, the newsletters contain information about important university events and also news from throughout the Empire.
For all the future significance of the trade, which will eventually lead to the modern stereotype of the kaffos-chugging Roman, the greatest impact is on Ethiopia. It has been argued by some scholars that it made the modern Ethiopian Empire possible. Seeing how much kaffos is being exported, Kwestantinos slaps a huge export duty on it, but even that does little to stop the flow. He also legalizes its secular consumption in Ethiopia proper; previously the Ethiopian church had frowned on it due to its role in pre-Christian religious ceremonies.
Meanwhile money flows into Gonder’s coffers. The negusa nagast puts the money to good work, financing the construction of roads, bridges, towers, and ports designed to speed communications and transportation throughout his vast realm. After negotiations are completed with Katepano Demetrios, construction begins on a grand Roman highway from Alexandria to Gonder.
The owners of kaffos plantations find themselves making tremendous amounts of money, and immediately begin looking for how to make more. They quickly discover that it is faster and more cost-effective to transport the kaffos to the coast and then by ship to Suez. To that end, they foster the construction of ports, warehouses, and ships, creating the Ethiopian merchant marine virtually singlehandedly. For crews they turn to the numerous decommissioned sailors from the downsizing of the Ethiopian fleet.
With newfound wealth comes newfound taste. Having numerous contacts with Rhomania gives them an appetite for Roman goods, in particularly silk textiles, jewelry, and sugar. In particular, low-quality Roman silks are extremely popular, despite their comparative expense (on average, a Roman textile costs three to five times more than it would in Constantinople) beyond the class of kaffos merchants. The combined result is that already Ethiopia is Rhomania’s third most important trading partner, after Arles (number 2) and Russia (number 1, whose trade is worth is more than Arles’ and Ethiopia’s combined).
1506: The North African corsairs expand their range of operations, raiding the island of Elba, although an attempt to harry the coast of Provence is literally blown out of the water by the Arletian fleet. The Aragonese fleet, which is the premier power in the western Mediterranean, has like the French-English been suffering from a wave of graft and corruption, as King Jaime VII’s failing health makes it difficult at best for him to keep an eye on his officials.
Yet there is little response to the pirates from the east. In March, Herakleios issues orders for ten monores to reinforce the naval squadrons at Palermo and Malta, while four more plus a dromon are assigned to Valencia. Andreas does not intervene in the arrangements; he is in Jaffa with Empress Veronica and Prince David, commanding joint exercises of the south Syrian, Egyptian (more properly West Egypt), and Augoustamnikai (East Egypt) tagmata.
The reason is that the vast majority of the funds for the navy are being poured into a new project. A primary fleet base has been established at Suez, along with a support base at Aqaba, as well as a forward anchorage for lighter warships at Marsa Alam. The importance of these bases to Herakleios is clearly shown by the fact that the second full-fledged naval dry dock to be built is at Suez (the first is of course at Constantinople, receiving its first ship in 1501).
Besides building and paying for the necessary docks, warehouses, workshops, and barracks for the new bases, it is also quite expensive getting ships from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The rehabilitation of the Pharaoh’s Canal begins as well, an expensive, labor-intensive operation. Although it will take many years before it is ready, and be far too small to accommodate even the smaller warships, it can be used by flat-bottom cargo barges. To supplement it, the canal is flanked by a series of roads.
An unwelcome side effect is the boon the whole project is to Cairo’s revival, since the crippling of a Muslim metropolis that could rival the Queen of Cities was a welcome side effect of the Sack of Cairo. The importance of cities in Hellenizing the countryside, by drawing in young men and women searching for work and study, is evidenced by the fact that the region of Orthodox Antioch is also majority Orthodox, while the area surrounding Muslim majority Aleppo is also mostly Muslim.
A few light vessels are constructed at Suez, but all the heavier warships are made at the Arsenals. The galleys, with their prefabricated components, are relatively easy to dismantle, portage, and reassemble at Suez. To support this operation, a road network springs up linking the two Red Sea ports and the Mediterranean coast. The much larger purxiphoi, some of which like the Justinian weigh 1200 tons, are significantly more difficult.
To help solve the issue, Herakleios turns to a promising young shipwright and sailor named Kastor Diogenes, who had sailed on Genoese carracks on three Antwerp runs, Portuguese caravels on two visits to Madeira, and on a Norwegian barque that was part of the annual Greenland convoy. Admittedly that is not what caught the Emperor’s eye; it was his jibes that the only god he worshipped was Poseidon, which had earned the ire of the Arsenal priests.
Despite his unorthodox religious beliefs, when it comes to building ships those priests cannot deny that Kastor knows what he is doing. In 1500, his rebuilding of the old purxiphos Autokrator took only forty five instead of the projected fifty five days, with a corresponding decrease in cost. When Herakleios gives him this new assignment in 1504, it is a chance for him to put the lessons he learned in the Atlantic to practice.
The result, which first slides into the Golden Horn in August 1505, is confusingly for naval historians called a dromon (a shortened form of Kastor’s original term ‘great dromon’), the same as the oared battleships that make up the bulk of the Roman fleet. They are skinnier and longer than purxiphoi, which makes them better sea handlers but also enables them to sail further up the Nile than purxiphoi, reducing portage costs.
To decrease weight, the aft castle is shortened, while the forecastle almost completely disappears. Portuguese vessels have been moving steadily in that direction for forty years, finding the less top-heavy vessels more seaworthy. The reason that the forecastle shrinks much more than the aft castle is that it is common practice in all European navies to place some of the heaviest guns as bow chasers.
Before that was done, it was found that galleys, which mounted their biggest cannons in the prow because of the oars, had the advantage in the initial approach to battle, which could be decisive. With the emphasis on reducing top-heaviness, it is natural that the forecastle with its heavy weapons shrinks more than the stern castle laden with smaller guns. This also gives the bow a more galley-like look, which is why the new design is called a great dromon.
The Fleet at Suez by Andronikos of Kotyaion, 1511
1507: The reason for all the naval buildup and innovations is not a pressing need for Roman sea power in the Red Sea. With the Ethiopian fleet very friendly and the Omani one moderately so (both because of Ethiopian intermediation and Omani desire for Rhomania to act as a counterweight to the Ottomans), the ships of the Hedjazi and Yemeni are no threat. It is not the Red Sea or Arabia that draws Herakleios’ interest, but India itself.
The wealth pouring in from the kaffos trade has opened Herakleios’ eyes to the possibility of a similar onrush of even more valuable and exotic goods, spices and pepper. These commodities have been a significant part of Roman trade for centuries, and the prospect of controlling the source, or at least cutting out some of the middlemen, is extremely tempting. Using Indian and Arab merchantmen as sources of information, it becomes plain that the time to strike is now.
India has never been united, ever. A vast, diverse region, even its great empires have been decentralized states, prone to fracture into smaller, more cohesive components. Though just a few years earlier, India only mustered three states, they seem to be in the process of fracturing. The Muslim ports of Gujarat and Maharashtra are all independent city-states, squabbling with each other as long as Vijayanagar is not immediately breathing down their neck. Bihar is troubled with revolts in Bengal and Assam.
Meanwhile long-suffering Delhi has not had its fortunes improved by its Timurid Sultans. Facing powerful, hostile neighbors and entrenched corruption and nepotism in the administration, plus a falling-out with their Timurid cousins in Khorasan over Vijayanagara hires of Khorasani mercenaries, the Sultans have been hard pressed at best.
Currently the Sultanate is in an unwanted, unplanned border war. With the news of the Sack of Cairo, several bands of ghazis had decided to strike back for the House of Islam, and picked the nearest target, Swati Kashmir. The Kashmiri were not amused. The retaliation spurred more raids, which spurred more retaliatory strikes, and now not a month goes by without some skirmish in the Punjab.
To help finance the operation, Herakleios arranges for other financial backers to contribute, in exchange for a prearranged percentage of the profits. The Argyropouloi and Eparchoi families, some of the wealthiest jewelry and silk merchants respectively in the Empire provide some of their wares as trading goods. The Rhosoi of Trebizond, major shipwrights, equip two ships in the Red Sea at their own expense.
There are some issues on the part of the private backers in transferring money for their workers in the Sinai. To alleviate the risk and difficulty involved in shipping large amounts of bullion, Herakleios allows them to deposit their coinage at the Imperial Mint in Constantinople. The clientele are then given a certificate, which can be used to redeem the same amount of currency at the Alexandrian mint. This service comes at the cost of a holding fee, but soon takes off in popularity with numerous merchants using the mints and certificates to transfer capital throughout the Empire.
The result of all this nautical and financial engineering comes to fruition at the end of the year, and is known to all Roman schoolchildren as the Pepper Fleet.
Sebastokrator: A purxiphos of eight hundred tons, forty guns.
Aghios Nikolaios: A great dromon of four hundred tons, twenty five guns.
Aghios Giorgios: A great dromon of four hundred tons, twenty five guns.
Aghios Loukas: A great dromon of three hundred sixty tons, twenty two guns.
Nike: A great dromon of three hundred sixty tons, twenty two guns.
Anna: A carrack (similar to a purxiphos but intended as a cargo, not combat vessel, although capable of being armed) of two hundred forty tons, ten guns.
Petros: A carrack of three hundred thirty tons, fifteen guns.
Helena: A carrack of six hundred tons, eighteen guns.
1508: The Pepper Fleet, riding the monsoon winds, departs in the spring, joined by the Ethiopian purxiphos Solomon off Zeila. Their port of landfall in India is Surat, one of the largest and most powerful Gujarati city-states. Despite the heavy armament of the fleet, the focus is on trade, not conquest. Using the Plethon-Medici agent (the ludicrously rich family has agents as far away as Antwerp and Malacca as part of their mercantile network) already in port as an intermediary, the traders set up shop to sell their wares and purchase local goods, primarily pepper.
But things very quickly get out of hand. The Muslim merchants are not enamored of this new, strange competition. One or two Roman agents was acceptable and unthreatening, but this heavily-armed squadron is another matter. When a few Ottoman merchants spread a few words about exactly whose these newcomers are and what their countrymen were doing in Egypt a few years earlier, the tense situation immediately explodes.
A riot overruns some of the Roman stalls but is quickly dispersed by a few volleys of gunfire into the crowd. The westerners retreat to their ships, but negotiations with the Emir of Surat go nowhere. On May 1, a few dozen bravos try to light the Pepper Fleet on fire during the night, a brave but futile attempt. Those who are unfortunate enough to be captured by the enraged sailors are weighed down and thrown into the harbor. That morning, the fleet sets sail but not before shelling the waterfront.
As the monsoon winds are still against them, and their cargo holds largely bereft of pepper, the Fleet sails south. Similarly hostile receptions come from the other free city-states, who dislike the combination of religious and economic competition. Off Kozhikode a small squall temporarily scatters the ships, and the Aghios Loukas is beset by a squadron from that port. Although outnumbering the Roman warship nine to one, the Kozhikodan paraus, comparable in size and capability to a cannon-less monore, have absolutely no answer to her thunderous broadsides. Two of the paraus are roughly handled, at which point the squadron withdraws.
Finally the Pepper Fleet arrives at Alappuzha. A picturesque port crisscrossed by canals, it is called by some of the Venetian sailors the ‘Venetia of the East’. More importantly, the Vijayanagara Emperor Deva Raya II is there. His agents among the free cities have given him some word of the Pepper Fleet’s action, and he is eager to see this new force for himself.
He is delighted by what he finds. The massive size of the warships, dwarfing anything seen in India, and their gleaming arrays of cannons, are very appealing. Although India is no stranger to gunpowder or cannons, the Roman and Ethiopian pieces hold sizeable advantages in range and hitting power. He immediately begins negotiating with the Roman commander, Iason Laskaris.
As the admiral and Emperor talk, the merchants get to work. Roman jewelry sells rather well, but the silk textiles face stiff competition from native manufactures and do not fetch nearly as much of a profit as expected, but the lower-quality garments which are specifically designed to be affordable for the lower classes make some headway (the high-quality items are fighting against upper-tier Indian and Chinese silk and thus seriously disadvantaged). Also Ethiopian ivory and kaffos prove to be quite successful, so steadily the holds of the Pepper Fleet are filled with cloves, nutmeg, and pepper.
As the monsoon winds begin to shift, an agreement is made. The Romans are to be granted trading quarters in Alappuzha and Pondicherry, with their own church, well, and bakery, to be administered by their own laws, weights, and measures amongst themselves, in exchange for an annual payment. But that is not the most important part of the agreement, although it is something Iason had no authority to negotiate.
In exchange for Roman military aid in conquering the free cities of the west coast, they are also to be granted quarters in Mumbai, and the cities of Surat and Kozhikode in full, with complete sovereignty to be vested in Constantinople. It is an extremely, dangerously in the eyes of some courtiers, generous offer, but it is mitigated by the proviso that the transfer will only take place when the whole coast between Surat and Alappuzha is once more in Vijayanagara hands. Deva Raya II’s generosity is due to the fact that he has no chance of regaining those lands without a powerful fleet, which he no longer has.
With the monsoon now with them, the fleet departs for home, leaving behind four merchants and fifty soldiers in Alappuzha, along with a pile of trading goods. It is the merchants’ responsibilities to sell those goods for spices, storing them until they can be picked up by ships from the west.
After being gone for eight months, the Pepper Fleet sails into Suez. The cargoes are sold on the market, and the Empire goes wild. Even with the silks’ mediocre performance, the venture has garnered a sixteen hundred percent profit. Herakleios publicly censures Iason for exceeding his authority, but then appoints him commander of the Second Pepper Fleet and doubles his salary.
Although it will take a few years before it is ready, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that it will not be a fearsome force. The number of private backers for the Second Fleet is quadruple that of the First Fleet, the Rhosoi alone agreeing to pay for four carracks. And for every hyperpyra the merchants pledge, Herakleios matches.
1509: War continues in the west, poorly for France-England. A smallpox outbreak cripples the first Plantagenet army assembled after Merles, giving the Arletians a critical few years where they are not faced by any serious opposition in the field. The main thrust is concentrated on the Garonne, with the goal of securing all of Aquitaine. Of particular concern to Edward VII is the number of Gascon fortresses that capitulate without a fight. As fellow inhabitants of the lands of the langue d’oc, in contrast to the lands of the langue d’oeil, the Provencals and Gascons have much in common, and King Louis I has been skillfully exploiting the fact.
But in Calais, the only explanation can be treason, plus an angry God. So in April Edward VII decides to kill two birds with one stone, and orders the formal expulsion of all Jews in his domain. The Provencal coast is home to a sizeable Jewish population, and there are rumors that the French and English Jews are Arletian agents in disguise.
With Germany in chaos, most of the refugees flee to Iberia, as the way to Arles is blocked by the reforming Plantagenet armies. Neither Castile or Portugal give them a warm welcome. Al-Andalus is another matter, but when four hundred Jews are captured by African corsairs just eight miles from Cartagena, the ardor of the refugees for this new land is significantly weakened.
The blatant seizure so close to a major Andalusi naval base is a testament to the amazing growth in power of the corsairs. Their ranks swelled by renegades from Europe, the pirates have been steadily expanding their pillaging. Settlements on the Canary Islands have been sacked, and steady sweeps of the powerful Portuguese fleets have proven to be of little use.
Mighty squadrons can temporarily clear an area of pirates, but as soon as they depart the raiders return. The only way to stop them is to ruin their harbors and smoke out their bases of operation. But the African coast is dotted with small harbors and the interior filled with thousands of tribesmen just waiting to fall on any European army. The Aragonese attack on Oran, one of the most prominent corsair ports, last year was an unmitigated disaster. The fleet was smashed to pieces by an autumn storm, while the army wasted away under the triple assault of dysentery, smallpox, and Algerians. The loss of over thirty ships and twelve thousand men (at least half of which now swell the ranks of African galley slaves) make it the greatest military disaster in Aragonese history since Selinus.
So the Jews look further afield, to Rhomania. Despite the dangers, at least one hundred thousand over the next decade will emigrate to the Empire from France-England via Al-Andalus, nearly all of them settling in Calabria. Due to overzealous transfers of Orthodox Calabrians to Syria, the region is somewhat depopulated and is therefore an ideal place in Herakleios’ eyes to settle the newcomers. Thus begins the famous Calabrian Jewry, of such profound importance to the history of Italy.
At least six thousand are taken captive by the Barbary pirates en route. But although Roman naval efforts are focused on the exceedingly expensive (and equally profitable) Indian ventures, Constantinople is not completely blind to what is going on in these waters. Improvements in Roman blast furnaces have raised production of cast iron, and Herakleios has funded much research into the development of cast iron cannons.
Although heavier, and prone to much more catastrophic failure, cast iron cannons cost a mere fraction of bronze weaponry, hence Herakleios’ interest. When he begins issuing orders for the outfitting of the Second Pepper Fleet, Herakleios also arranges for greater production of cast iron cannons, with the view of having iron mikropurs and culverins, and bronze great guns.
However he also makes the iron guns available for sale, and sells the designs to several gunsmiths who begin producing for the open market. The much cheaper weapons, combined with a fifteen percent cut in the cannon tax, mean that Roman ship-owners can afford much heavier armaments for their vessels.
In Germany the situation is confused, as usual. Even though Emperor Andrew is obviously in the ascendant, his flagrant disregard of the rights of the electors has alienated most of any potential princely support he could have gained in Germany. Southern and central Germany are muttering, yet under his control, but northern Germany is effectively independent of either Emperor. The other Holy Roman Emperor, Manfred, is holed up in Schleswig, clearly the leader of a doomed cause. In March Denmark invades his domains.
By mid-May Manfred is billeting his troops in the houses of Aarhus. As soon as Danish troops had rolled across the border, he had fallen on and scattered them with an army of his own, three times larger than anyone expected he had, including twenty five hundred Russian archontes, the dowry of his Russian bride. Supplementing the finest cavalry in the world were hosts of mercenaries, paid for by Roman subsidies.
Herakleios was seriously annoyed by Andrew’s self-elevation, and the chancery of Constantinople addresses him merely as the Emperor of the Germans and Hungarians. Buda’s protests have been answered by a joint exercise of the Epirote, Macedonian, and Bulgarian tagmata in Serbia (also has the benefit of cowing the Serbian princes), and the betrothal of the Vlach Crown Prince Mircea (age five) with Princess Theodora (age two), the daughter of Emperor Andreas and Empress Veronica.
Roman marriage alliances mean little in the Baltic, but Manfred’s lightning campaign shakes Scandinavia, for one of those slain was the King of Denmark himself. His successor is King Christopher III, a boy of four. The situation for the kingdom is grave; Andrew has his hands full dealing with rebellious Bohemia and a recalcitrant Saxony, so he is no help, while the fleets of the Hansa, loyal to Manfred, are beginning to lick their lips. So the Danes turn to the mightiest Catholic power in the region, Sweden.
King Charles II (note that the OTL instance of creating fictional King Charles of Sweden has not occurred) has made great steps in centralizing his northern kingdom. His own succession was a significant victory for the hereditary monarchial principle, and he has skillfully used his estates in Finland to fund schools for scribes to administer the state. The remainder of his profits have been devoted to troops modeled after Roman akrites, quite adept at fighting in woods and crushing peasant tax revolts.
He is quite happy to intervene, but not without being paid a steep price. His initial demand is angrily rejected, but two weeks later news arrives that Russian warships are assembling at Riga. No one can forget that the Emperor in the North is the son-in-law of Megas Rigas Nikolai, who can add another fifteen thousand archontes to the twenty five hundred already in Manfred’s armies.
So Denmark accepts Charles’ demand. King Christopher is to betrothed to Princess Catherine of Sweden, to be wed when Christopher turns fifteen. At the same time, Charles is appointed head of the regency council to ‘ensure the safety of his new son’. Manfred, who has no desire for war with Sweden, withdraws from Denmark after the accord, laden with spoils and significantly more prestigious than before.
* * *
The White Palace, Constantinople, April 13, 1510:
Venera walked into the bath room, the steam immediately dampening her thin silken shift. Flicking off her sandals, she pattered across the stone floor towards the hot tub, heated by stones taken from the nearby bakery ovens. Herakleios was already in there.
She was not surprised by that. Her husband, junior Emperor of the Romans, was extremely fond of the hot tubs. When he was ill, it was almost impossible for him to stay warm, save in the tubs.
His eyes had been closed, but they flicked open as she approached. He had been doing better though these past couple of weeks, as spring blossomed. He’d eaten twice a day the past three days in a row, much improved from that worrisome spell in January where he ate a mere three times in ten days.
“Are the servants gone?” she asked innocently as Herakleios stared at her hungrily, her thin shift clinging tightly to her body. The look in his eye answered the question. “Good.” Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to strip, peeling the silk from her thighs. A giggle caught in her throat as she saw the boyish grin on her husband’s face.
This is ridiculous; we’re both adults, a part of her thought as she gently starting peeling the garment from her shoulders, going teasingly slow. That’s true, another part thought, and I don’t care. In between their responsibilities as Emperor and Empress, and the strain of Herakleios’ disease, they had to be so serious, so often. Her hand started trembling in rage as she remembered having to listen to the Bishop of Nicomedia prattle on about Herakleios’ habit of skipping services. That’s because he’s too busy bleeding out the ass! If God wanted him to go to church, maybe he should fix that first!
“Is something wrong?” Herakleios.
“No…I don’t think so,” Venera replied, revealing her naked breasts. “Do you?” she cooed. Herakleios shook his head no hurriedly. This is our time, and if we want to be silly, so be it.
“So did you hear what Andreas Angelos did?” she asked, shrugging off the shift. Again Herakleios shook his head no. His bastard half-brother was in Syria, fighting some Arab tribe that had pillaged the frontier. “He stole his commander’s underwear…” she pulled her own off… “…attached it to a kite and flew it toward the enemy’s camp.” She tossed it aside.
Sliding into the tub opposite from Herakleios, she continued. “Three days later the tribe surrendered to him, not his commander. Andreas contends the events are related.”
Herakleios nodded. “He’s probably right,” he said, his eyes following Venera’s hand as she dappled some water on her cleavage.
“He’s quite a character, don’t you think?” she asked, stretching her legs so that her toe traced his calf. “He still calls the Empress Veronica ‘that tavern wench’, except when she has that crossbow handy, of course.”
“Mm, hmm,” Herakleios grunted.
Venera smiled; she loved playing this game, seeing how long her husband could hold out with her teasing him. “Surrender already?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.
For a second, Herakleios was silent, but then his will to resist crumbled. “Oh, yes.”
Venera grinned, sliding over towards him. “That was easy,” she said, settling onto his lap. “I don’t think you’re putting up much of a fight.”
“You don’t fight fair.”
“And you like it that way,” she replied, kissing him. “Now what do I want, now that I’ve won? Hmmm…” She thought, scratching her chin and sliding forward. Herakleios was relatively tall, but Venera was even taller, more than even most men, so her breasts were right up in his face. “Hmmm, I just can’t decide.”
“Women,” Herakleios muttered.
She put a hand under his chin and tilted it upward so their eyes met. “What was that, honey?” she asked, coyly.
“Oh, nothing.”
Venera nodded, kissing him on the forehead. “Now, where was I? Ah, I was deciding what I wanted. I just…” She nipped at his ear. “can’t…” Nip. “decide.” Nip. “Ah, the hell with that, I’ll just take you.”
“Finally,” Herakleios muttered, sighing in relief.
Venera burst into laughter, her body shaking. “Worried that I’d keep that up for, oh, twenty minutes?” she teased, caressing his cheek. He nodded, exasperated. “Oh, you’re too easy.” A pause. “You’re also cold.” The water was cooling, since with the servants gone there was no one to add hot stones to replace the cool ones. “But don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.”
They kept each other very warm.
Venera of Abkhazia, Empress of the Romans, from The Komnenoi, Episode 103, "The Twins"
* * *
1510: The court at Constantinople does not pay much attention to the developments in the north. For in late April, Prince Konstantinos, son of Herakleios and Venera, catches tuberculosis. For a while, it looks like he might live, but on May 3, the end comes swiftly. At the hour of Vespers, the prince dies in his mother’s arms.
* * *
Constantinople, May 7, 1510:
Nikephoros was happy. Konstantinos was dead, killed by poison in his medicine. Without an heir, Herakleios looked less useful as an Emperor. And now it was time to celebrate.
He rounded the corner, and there it was, The Captain’s Daughter, one of Herakleios’ brothels. Nikephoros would give that to his uncle, he knew how to make money. The Emperor owned over two hundred brothels across the Empire; most were in the old Mameluke Sultanate, taking advantage of the fact that they were filled with young, bored garrison soldiers far from home. But there were some in the Imperial heartland, and no less than four in Constantinople. But this one was Nikephoros’ favorite.
He opened the door, but then his eyes darted over to a nearby dentist’s shop. He felt like he was being watched. There was no one there, but a man blandly glanced at him, then continued on his way. He looked familiar. Do I know him? The squeal of a girl inside distracted him. Nah. He entered.
Immediately Fatima, an old Arab battle-axe, a former prostitute and head of the establishment, looked at him. He held up a finger and she nodded him toward the room. She knew what he wanted. Fatima had a wide variety, which is why Nikephoros liked the place, including two girls from the Zanj and one from far Cathay, whom he’d all tried. But he had one particular woman that was his favorite.
He opened the door and sat on the bead, seeing the shape of Natasha’s voluptuous body behind a silk curtain. She came out, absolutely nothing on, but she’d carefully arranged her long raven hair so that it covered her breasts. “Milord wants me tonight?” she purred, sitting on his lap. Even though his silk pants, he could feel her body heat.
“Yes. You have done very well.” She’d successfully completed her third assignment, stealing the land deeds of the Macedonian tax prefect, proof of the official’s illegal purchases of estates outside the capital. Her next would be an assassination. If she was as skilled with the knife as she was in bed, he would have much use for it. He squeezed her breasts, the Russian moaning. “Oh, yes. Very well indeed.”
* * *
But whatever joy the Prince of Spiders feels at the death of Prince Konstantinos soon dissipated. For at the beginning of the next year, two women give birth. The first is the wife of Andreas Angelos. The jokester has a son, who is given the name Isaakios. The second woman is Empress Venera herself. On January 17, 1511, she gives birth to twins, the oldest a girl and the youngest a boy. They are Alexeia and Alexios.
1511: The fortunes of war continue to blow against the Plantagenets. Fate seems to smile on them when Leo Komnenos is ambushed near Bordeaux, and then frowns again when Leo proceeds to hack his way out. Despite the heavy losses to Leo’s column, it serves to bolster the Prince’s prestige as he demonstrated impeccable bravery in the melee. Six days later the garrison of Bordeaux surrenders to the Arletians after news arrives of the bungled ambush. To honor Leo, the new King of Arles, Charles II (his father died a year earlier), makes Leo’s eleven-year-old son Basileios one of his squires.
In the north, the situation is little better. Newcastle-upon-Tyne has fallen, and although logistics have stopped the Norwegian-Scottish advance short of York, their raids are ravaging northern England. Privateers are both sides continue to turn the Channel, Irish, and North Sea into a war zone, attacking each other and anyone else within reach. Five more Castilian carracks have been attacked, along with twenty Dutch vessels. Pride of place goes to the privateers operating out of Yarmouth, patronized by the Duke of Norfolk, which have, in addition to the usual Iberian, Italian, Hansa, and Scandinavian targets, seized three Roman carracks laden with silk, jewelry, and sugar. The hauls are enough to pay for the squadron’s expense for the next decade.
But Rhomania has not been entirely (admittedly mostly) blind to the piracy in the west. On May 4, four Barbary galleys attack a Roman vessel off Sardinia, surrounding her and closing to board. They are almost in range when her gun ports slam open and she delivers a double-shot broadside at point-blank range. One galley is literally blown out of the water, while the second is stormed by waves of marines wielding a new and deadly invention. It is called kyzikoi, matchlock handguns small enough to be held in one hand and named after Kyzikos, their city of origin (largely deserted in earlier years, it was reestablished by European refugees from the Smyrna War). The corsair ship is overwhelmed, the other two fleeing.
The ship is called the Moldy Wreck, named by its commander, Andreas Angelos. Rather discontented with playing second fiddle on the eastern frontier (hence his underwear prank), he had asked his father for a more independent assignment. Given a new, unnamed great dromon, fresh from the Imperial Arsenal, four hundred tons and twenty seven guns, his mission is to ply the trade routes from Sicily to Antwerp, killing any pirates of any nationality he finds.
Andreas Jr. faithfully carries out his orders, sinking another Barbary galley off Gibraltar, and forcing an English barque to cast off her two prizes (one Portuguese, one Castilian) near Galicia. But it is off Flanders when his most famous action occurs, the rescuing of a to-be princess.
Her name is Mary of Antwerp, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Reynaerd van Afsnee, the richest non-royal man in Christendom after Andronikos Plethon. Besides being the only child of such wealth, she is also considered one of the most beautiful women in Christendom. After months of negotiations, she is to be married to Crown Prince Arthur, the five-year-old eldest son of King Edward VII.
Reynaerd van Afsnee and his family have based their wealth for over a hundred and twenty years on trading contacts with Rhomania. Long-time trading partners of the Plethon family since before the War of the Five Emperors, that has enabled them to have first access to all high-quality Roman silk exported outside of the Mediterranean. That has not only made them supremely wealthy, but also done much to spur the rise of Antwerp, the silks’ port of disembarkation. By this point the van Afsnees have their fingers and agents in everything from the Neva to the Senegal. So at one stroke, Edward VII can get the greatest of the Dutch ports on his side, and draw on an absolutely huge financial network (the van Afsnee and Plethon-Medici commercial empires) for loans.
It is that wealth that compensates for her lack of nobility. The bullion content initially comes off as insulting, 100,000 florins of gold and sixty thousand of silver. But they are accompanied by 460,000 florins-worth of high-grade Roman silk and 70,000 florins-worth of Chinese. To that is added 80,000 florins-worth of Imperial silk, the finest quality of Roman silk, of the level worn by the Emperors themselves, forbidden by law to be exported outside of the Empire, on the grounds that the barbarians are not worthy of it. The final sweetener are the offer of six carracks plus ten thousand florins each for their outfitting as warships, to be delivered after the wedding.
Yet it is the loan offers that finally convince Edward. An immediate loan of 250,000 florins, with interest at half the current market rate, is provided in the dowry. Reynaerd’s Plethon friends, interested in marrying up possibly through the French-English royal family, offer a sweetener loan of another 75,000 florins in the dowry. Plus Reynaerd holds out the possibility of another loan of equal magnitude from himself, plus another 350,000 from the Antwerp burghers once the wedding occurs. Again the Plethon intervene, and based on their projections on the gathering Second Pepper Fleet (in which they are the second largest shareholders), offer an absolutely immense loan, one million florins, over fifteen times Edward’s revenues as King of England.
But an event of this magnitude cannot be hidden, and the value of the prize is immense. Off of the Flemish coast Mary’s transport is attacked by three English privateers.
The ship is well armed and manned, but the English know what and who is on board, and are willing to fight hard to get it. The tide is turning against the Dutch when a ship appears on the horizon, a full spread of sail out, bearing down on them at an unbelievable speed. The second volley from her great bow chasers dismast one of the English vessels. The Brabantines, holding out in the aft castle, launch a counterattack as the Moldy Wreck grapples the second English ship, the marines storming across with the cry of “For God and Emperor Andreas!”
Although Andreas Angelos is wounded in the left eye, the Englishmen take flight. The badly damaged carrack is escorted back to Antwerp, during which Andreas loses the eye, and torture of the prisoners reveals that the pirates were in the pay of the Duke of Norfolk, the most preeminent of the English grandees.
When they sail into Antwerp, the Romans are treated to a massive triumphal procession. The tale of the battle is immediately turned into a ballad, called Perseus of Rhomania, where Andreas is turned into a modern-day Perseus, Mary playing the role of Andromeda, today one of the most famous pieces of Dutch literature. Reynaerd, grateful for the rescue of his only child, gives the gold of the dowry to Andreas Angelos personally and divides the silver amongst his crew.
Andreas Angelos. Unique among the children of Andreas Komnenos, he is making quite a name for himself for his exploits at sea.
The engagement to Arthur is cut off, as Reynaerd is enraged over the assault on his daughter’s life by no one less than an English grandee and instead Mary marries recently-widowed King Charles I of Lotharingia for the same dowry, for which he had been negotiating. Three weeks after the marriage, it bears fruit when a combined Lotharingian-Dutch army annihilates Archduke Antoine at Utrecht. Participating in the battle are three companies of Hungarian hussars, part of an alliance arrangement between Charles and Andrew. The Emperor in the South (as he is known to distinguish him from Manfred) agrees to recognize full Lotharingian sovereignty in its pre-Cannae borders, in exchange for a twelve-year payment of tribute (used to pay for Hungarian garrisons in Bavaria).
Mary of Antwerp, Queen of Lotharingia, 1519. It is her life that is the origin of the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman betrayed".
1512: The situation for the Emperor in the North is improving, despite the defeat of his preeminent vassal in the west. The birth of a son by his Russian bride significantly strengthens the alliance with the Great Kingdom, as old Megas Rigas Nikolai quite likes the idea of a grandson as Holy Roman Emperor, to go with his nephew as Roman Emperor. To pave the way for any necessary intervention, a treaty is arranged with Vlachia whereby Russian troops will be allowed to march through Vlach territory, provided they respect all local laws and pay for all supplies.
One immediate benefit is that Sweden-Denmark dares not move against Manfred, now that he has withdrawn completely from Danish territory. King Charles II of Sweden is uncomfortable aware of how vulnerable his Finnish estates are to Russian incursions. And unlike a war with Rhomania, Lord Novgorod the Great would savor a conflict with Sweden. But Nikolai will not act without provocation, as his attention is fixed to the trans-Volga, where the Cossacks have been trouncing the Khanates of Sibir and the White Horde.
Andrew too is slowing down. With Germany muttering at best, he has had to rely greatly on Magyar troops and officials to keep his German territories in line, which only serves to further aggravate the princes. Manfred has been waging, thanks to the great print shops of Lubeck, a continuous propaganda war, harkening back to the days of the Ottonian Emperors and their war against the Magyar menace, exhorting ‘the German people to stand united behind their true Emperor, so that a new Lechfeld can be won, and Germania made safe, free and prosperous.’ Obviously something is working, for in August, an assassin makes an attempt on Andrew’s life, wounding although not killing him.
In these troubled times, it is hardly surprising that thoughts of the afterlife are never far from people’s mind. Saxony has been an oasis of calm for the past few years; the most powerful of the German states after Bavaria, its strength means both Manfred and Andrew must treat it with respect, even though it has been following a policy of de facto independence from either Emperor.
All that changes on September 14. On that day, Heinrich Bohm, a doctor of theology from the University of Prague, nails a list on the door of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in OTL, the site of the Dresden Frauenkirche). It is a list of criticisms of Catholic theology and practice, strongly influenced by Hussite beliefs. An usual method to start an academic debate, what is special is that Bohm posts a copy in German next to the Latin original. He wants a bigger audience for the debate, as there is a vacancy on the Dresden university faculty, and Bohm wants the position.
The reaction is not exactly what Bohm expected. By September 17, there are at least two thousand copies of the 75 Criticisms circulating in the city. By the end of the month, they are in Bohemia and Bavaria. Heinrich is summoned to the court of the Saxon Duke Johannes V, but not for a condemnation; he wants to hear more. He is particularly interested in the arguments about how the secular power should be wielded only by secular rulers, namely the princes, and that in the secular sphere good Christians owe the same devotion and loyalty to their prince as would be due to the Pope in religious affairs.
The Saxon court on the other hand is horrified. Bohm’s criticisms in many cases flirt with heresy at best, but when the word ‘heresy’ is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is Avignon. There is fear that this is the vanguard of a heretical attack, with Hungary constituting the main wave. Their concerns are not helped when several squadrons of hussars skirt the Bohemian border, enforcing tax payments from the villages. At the same time, the Elbe, swelled by autumn rains, overflows its banks and floods several villages, along with a part of Dresden itself. Many think it is a sign from an angry God.
So on November 12, the conspirators, a mix of clergy, pious nobles, and Johannes’ sister Amalie strike. Duke Johannes V is seized in the coup, but Heinrich Bohm manages to flee the city, eventually making his way to Gdansk. From there he takes a ship to Antwerp, and from there on to England. Although the troublesome scholar is gone, none of the conspirators are quite sure what to do next. Andrew is clearly massing on the border, thinking that with Saxony in an uproar, now is the time to strike. Then on December 1, Johannes dies under mysterious circumstances (many believe poisoned by Amalie).
Without even a puppet duke, only a council of confused old men and a women to lead a duchy filled with agitated people, Saxony seems right for the picking. So the council of Saxony turns to the one leader who has stood against heresy and won, his most Catholic Majesty, Emperor Manfred. On Christmas Day, at the very cathedral where Bohm nailed his criticisms, he is crowned Duke of Saxony. Although he appoints Amalie as his viceroy, and pledges to respect the rights and privileges of the Saxon nobility, the importance of the coronation for the history of Germany cannot be understated. For in Manfred are legally united the domains of Bavaria, Tyrol, Schleswig, Holstein, Brandenburg, and Saxony (although the first two are currently in Hungarian hands).
The Saxons do what they do not for the benefit of Saxony, or Germany, but for the beleaguered Catholic faith. They have no doubt that they have done for the right thing, for on December 31 the news arrives. Andrew of Hungary is dead, slain by infection from his assassination wound. But to the Saxons, the answer is that God has smiled on them for the faith, and delivered them from their enemy.
The Hungarians mourn their fallen Emperor. All of Buda goes into mourning, for his concern for the poor and his military victories abroad ensure that he is loved by all of Magyar society. Fifty thousand attend the procession as his body is carried into Buda, to be buried in a mausoleum next to that of Andrew the Warrior King. His son Stephen ascends the throne without any difficulty, pledging to finish the work his father has left undone. There is no doubt that Stephen will have the wholehearted support of the Hungarian people in that task, for he is the firstborn son of the most beloved of the Arpad kings.
1513: In Buda Stephen is crowned Holy Roman Emperor, in flagrant disregard of all the customs of the Reich, and without the approval of any of the Electors. His first action is to the north, where the fervor of fanatical Catholics has turned into violence against the Hussites of Bohemia, Saxony, and Pomerania. The hard-pressed heretics turn in desperation to Stephen, who responds vigorously and dispels the attacks.
However the whole operation does much to solidify the strengthening view in northern Germany that the war against the Magyar Emperors is a war against heresy. The new Pope in Hamburg (the place of exile after the fall of Mainz) Leo X fully supports the view, allowing Manfred to tax a fifth of clerical income in his domains, and ordering sees from outside Germany to commit to the fund. This causes an immediate spat with Edward VII, who is also fighting heretics but was never granted a similar privilege, because ‘my heretics are not threatening the person of the Holy Father’.
His position in northern France seems to be stabilizing, despite the failure of the Antwerp betrothal. The Arletian offensive, after the fall of Aquitaine, managed a lightning rush that moved the border to the Loire valley, but has slowed down significantly due in large part to the stout resistance of Tours and Orleans. In the lands of the langue d’oeil the Arletians can count on far less turncoats. Most of the fighting is concentrated in the Loire valley, and although the semi-professional Arletian lances give better then they get, sheer attrition is starting to show in France-England’s favor.
This is helped somewhat by Leo’s conduct. After the Bordeaux ambush, he has commanded seven different engagements and won them all, but through courage and ferocity rather than skill, piling up a horrendous Plantagenet body count, but also quite a high Arletian one. Plus his refusal to rein in his troops post-battle ‘antics’ is further complicating Arletian efforts to win over the region. Reminders that King Charles of Arles is a direct male descendant of Francis ‘the Butcher’ whisper in the wind.
That said, Arletian policy in the lands of the langue d’oeil is not the most conducive to earning the love of the French people. That Arles has been heavily influenced by Rhomania, there can be no doubt. At any given day, there are at least a thousand Roman merchants in the harbors of Provence. The centralized administration of Arles’ largest trading partner is the envy of the court in Marseille, and Charles is attempting to establish it in his new conquests. Provencal is to be the language of the courts and laws, which are to be organized on Provencal custom, instead of local tradition. The exception to this rule is Aquitaine, for Gascon custom is viewed as ‘close enough’ to Provencal to pass muster.
The taille is levied on all Frenchmen, including the local nobility and clergy, and breaking with French tradition, Charles sets the taille at a standard and very high rate and then leaves it there, without the usual annual adjustment. Naturally this imposition of an extraordinary tax now being treated like a regular occurrence angers many, particularly the nobility of France (Charles is intent on making France pay for the war, with the Arletian and Gascon tailles set at two-thirds the French rate). The war in Germany also exerts some influence on the war in France, as the clergy emphasize the heretical nature of the Arletians, plus the influence of the heretic Romans on Arletian policy, with some radical peasants and townsmen taking up the cry ‘taxation is heresy’.
Although the French are finding Marseille more burdensome than Calais, that does little to help Edward VII. In July the hammer blow falls. Lotharingia declares war on the third day of the month. Although the actions of Mary of Antwerp play a significant role (supposedly she refused to make love with her husband the king until he made war on England) it is also an easy way to gain the support of the long-suffering Dutch. Nine days later Castile declares war as well, contributing ten thousand men and thirty ships.
In the Mediterranean, Andreas Angelos is at it again. Off the African coast, he spots a Barbary galley bearing down on a Roman carrack. Chasing it off, he pursues, grappling and boarding the corsair within range of the port batteries of Algiers itself, the greatest of the Barbary cities. Two more galleys sally to support their Muslim brothers; the first is blown apart by the Moldy Wreck’s bow chasers, at which point the second withdraws.
Nonetheless, his would-be triumphal return to Constantinople is marred. The day before he arrives, his uncle Andronikos Angelos, dies of old age. Emperor Andreas returns to the capital for the funeral, for despite the row over Andreas Angelos’ parentage, the Master of Sieges has nonetheless been Andreas’ bodyguard, companion, and friend for sixty years.
While the west is at war, Russia is calm and peaceful, save for the low-level rumble along the eastern frontier. In May, an university is founded at Draconovsk, the largest city in Scythia (OTL Ukraine) with twenty thousand inhabitants. It is the second in Russia, and like the one at Novgorod it is a near copy of a Roman institution. But of the faculty, a quarter are Romans, another quarter Russians educated in the Empire, and half from the University of Novgorod.
Although the importance and number of Russian intellectuals are rising, Roman scholars still retain much importance in the Great Kingdom, particularly in the Novgorodian sphere (due to the division of Russia into Novgorod, Lithuania, Pronsk, and Scythia all of which have significant local autonomy, the Great Kingdom of the Rus is often classified as a ‘federal empire’). Many Roman university students are hired as tutors for Russian upper-class children, since speaking Greek is considered a sign of high culture.
At the same time, the intellectual current generated by the two universities is challenged by a new movements, the Monks-Beyond-The-Volga. As peasant emigration is concentrated south towards Scythia, the Orthodox church has taken the lead in developing the trans-Volga, where on paper Russia rules, but reality is a different story. It is a harsh, wild existence, living on the fringes of the known world, carving a place in the wilderness, both physically and spiritually. The monks are mostly Russian, although about 10% are Greeks, followers of a strong mystical Orthodox tradition heavily influenced by hesychasm and extremely popular amongst their Cossack neighbors.
Many of the monks also accompany the Cossacks on their raids against the Tatars to the east and south. Sibir, the Timurid Empire, and the White Horde all suffer from the attacks of the disciplined Cossack hosts, divided into polki (regiments) five hundred strong, each one with at least one battery of artillery. The White Horde suffers the most from the annual incursions, as it lacks the strength of the Timurid Empire or the distance of Sibir.
1514: Deva Raya II has been quite annoyed at the delay in the Second Pepper Fleet. Every year since the First Pepper Fleet, a few Roman vessels, along with a couple of Ethiopians, have ridden the monsoon winds, but these are traders, interested in spices, not warfare. His mood substantially improves when the Second Pepper Fleet sails in Alappuzha.
It is twenty two ships strong, including thirteen great dromons and two purxiphoi, along with fifteen hundred Roman soldiers. The largest of the great dromons, a five hundred tonner with thirty two guns, is the Hikanatos, commanded by Andreas Angelos. His father had had him transferred to the Indian Ocean during the winter, while his old ship continued its anti-piracy patrol in the west.
India as well as Rhomania is astir at the news from Persia. Aside from a handful of raids that have since died down, the Ottomans and Timurids are not fighting each other, allowing the Turks to concentrate their energies on the Shah, who is no more. With the fall of Damghan all of the former realms of the Shahanshah are either in Ottoman hands, or that of the Emirs of Yazd or Tabas. Their combined armies are resoundingly defeated at Meybod, although that victory is somewhat marred by a smaller defeat at Khorasani hands near Bafq. But the battle of Bafq does not stop the massive ceremony staged in Baghdad.
Suleiman is officially proclaimed Shahanshah, Sultan of E-raq and E-ran, and Caliph. The last title is taken on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire, as the most powerful Muslim state in the world, bears the responsibility for defending the Muslim faith against her enemies. This is especially important as in Baghdad’s eyes, the Hedjaz is a Roman vassal. Legally it is not, as Sharif Ali ibn Saud has no treaty obligations with Constantinople but as a gesture of goodwill sends a biannual shipment of three Arabian stallions to the Roman capital.
Suleiman is willing to practice what he preaches, and to aid the Muslims of Gujarat and Maharashtra he dispatches thirty galleys, virtually the entirely of the Ottoman fleet, to Surat to reinforce the gathering Muslim armada. Andreas Angelos had been dispatched to Kolkata, where he successfully negotiated with the Bihari king for a trade quarter in Kolkata with similar rights to the ones held by Romans in Vijayanagar. But he returns in time for the planned offensive, the Roman fleet providing naval support for the Vijayanagara army.
The Hindu Emperor can muster over fifty thousand men, forty cannon (although of a very poor quality compared to Roman artillery), and three hundred elephants, but without a fleet he stands little chance of seizing the port cities. Everyone involves knows that the contest will be decided at sea. On August 1, the fleets meet at Ratnagiri.
The Romans muster fifteen warships, joined by three Ethiopian vessels. The government in Gonder has negotiated successfully for trading quarters in Alappuzha, and made an arrangement with Rhomania that in exchange for military support in India they shall receive quarters in Surat and Kozhikode once they are Roman. Just before the battle, the Romans and Ethiopians are joined by an unexpected defector, the commander of the Ottoman contingent.
He is Basileios Komnenos, son of Anastasia Komnena and twin brother to Konstantinos Komnenos (both take their far more prestigious maternal family name). His time in Ottoman service has not been nearly as beneficial as his brother’s. Largely ostracized from the Ottoman court due to his refusal to convert to Islam (there were rumors in Constantinople that he had converted, but they were false), he also expected to be appointed governor of Hormuz. He only had commanded the fleet that starved the great port into submission, but the city had been given to an Arab from Basra. The fact that his star has risen this far is Sultan Suleiman’s desire to keep his best friend Konstantinos happy.
But Basileios has had enough of E-raq and E-ran. In exchange for asylum in Rhomania, he provides a complete order of battle for the Muslim fleet. They number a hundred and forty strong.
The battle begins at dawn, and is a slaughter. Only the Ottoman galleys can match the Roman and Ethiopian artillery in quality, and the two purxiphoi alone mount as many pieces as all thirty galleys combined. Most of the Indian attacks are blown out of the water before they can press home their attacks, although the sheer number of vessels mean the less maneuverable Roman and Ethiopian purxiphoi are grappled and boarded. But even there the odds are against them, for their Orthodox opponents are far taller than them.
The battle lasts all day and ends in a crushing Roman-Ethiopian victory. Both Basileios Komnenos and Andreas Angelos are the heroes of the day. The former identifies the flagship of the Ottoman contingent and leads the boarding party that seizes it, personally cutting down the ship’s pilot. Andreas Angelos meanwhile tracks down the ship carrying the fleet’s pay and takes it and its cargo.
The battle is nothing less than a disaster for the Muslims of India. With the sea in Orthodox hands, their re-conquest by Vijayanagar is only a matter of time and Deva Raya II sets to it with a vengeance. At the same time he dispatches waves of Rajput cavalry, descendents of emigrants, north of the Narmada river to pillage the Delhi Sultanate so there will be no aid from that quarter.
It is also a significant blow to the Ottomans, who have lost the bulk of their naval strength, just after news arrives that Khorasan and the Timurid Empire have signed a defensive anti-Ottoman alliance. The defection of Basileios Komnenos is a major surprise as well, since the Roman was very good at hiding his dissatisfaction. Some of Konstantinos’ political enemies use the opportunity to move against him, the new governor of Damghan accusing him of complicity in his brother’s treason. A few days an assassin tries and fails to kill the Roman prince.
Konstantinos’ enraged Persian soldiers immediately put the assassin to the rack, who finally shrieks out his master’s name in exchange for a quick death. It is the governor of Damghan. The troops without delay storm his villa, killing his attendants and presenting the governor’s head to Konstantinos. Quite pleased with the demonstration of his soldiers’ loyalty, the Roman sends the pickled remains to Baghdad.
Suleiman immediately presents the head to the court, publicly supporting Konstantinos and warning that any attempts on the prince’s life will be regarded as an attack on the sultan’s own. As for the possessions of both Basileios Komnenos and the governor of Damghan, all are given to Konstantinos Komnenos, who turns it all over to his Persian troops for pension funds. The only item he keeps is the governor’s fine sword, as a birthday gift for his eight-year-old son.
Osman Komnenos (named after his maternal grandfather), first of the Eastern Komnenoi.
1515: The year is relatively quiet. In Germany the fighting has settled down due to mutual exhaustion, although in France the combined Arletian-Castilian-Lotharingian armies are overrunning the countryside. Edward VII returns to England to put at least that kingdom in order, where some progress is being made. In April, a Scottish raid in Yorkshire is cut to pieces by Henry Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, who follows up the victory by trailing the survivors to an anchored Norwegian squadron, which he burns.
Three months later Prince Arthur is betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Grace O’Malley, the Sea Queen of Connaught. Her dowry is her mother’s fleet, plus significantly more enthusiastic support from the Irish. The Connaught squadrons promptly make the Irish Sea much more hazardous for the squadrons of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, and the Irish troops help Edward VII nip a Welsh revolt in the bud.
In Smyrna, Princess Zoe, elder sister of Andreas, dies in her brother’s arms. At her insistence, just before the end, she is taken to the courtyard where Helena was murdered. There she perishes. According to Eudoxia, who was there, her final moments were as follows:
The Princess Zoe lay on the ground, and she asked her brother, the Basileus Andreas “Isn’t, isn’t she beautiful?” And the Basileus asked, “Who, sister, who?” The Princess then spoke one word. “Mom.” And so passed Zoe Komnena, daughter of Basileus ton Basileon Theodoros IV Komnenos and Helena Doukina.
To the west, the Barbary corsairs grow more bold, particularly when the Moldy Wreck is sunk by four galliots off Sardinia, even though Andreas Angelos is still in India participating in the siege of Mumbai. Late in the year they do something they have never done before, establishing a land blockade of Carthage and striking Roman territory itself. Twenty six ships from Bizerte strike Sicily, pillaging several villages and carting over four thousand Sicilians into slavery.
In March of 1516 the Roman riposte comes. The panicked cry goes out that sixty thousand Romans have landed at Carthage. Shortly afterwards a revised report comes in; it is only ten thousand Romans, commanded by Emperor Andreas himself. The Emir of Tlemcen, regarding the revision, speaks for many when he
responds, “Same thing.”
Emperor Andreas I Komnenos, followed by Emperor Herakleios II Komnenos. Although the people of Constantinople are overjoyed to have their Emperor back, many in the Imperial court are concerned over Andreas' decision to personally command the African expedition. His health has been slowly but surely declining since the Egyptian campaign, and a long sea voyage and stint in Africa are unlikely to help matters.
Andreas himself ignores such concerns.
1516: The Second Pepper Fleet returns victorious, riding the autumn monsoon winds. All of the rebel cities have capitulated, and Deva Raya II has been true to his promises. Both Surat and Kozhikode are Roman cities, garrisoned by six hundred men and a great dromon each. Despite the grounding of one vessel off Socotra (which has become an Ethiopian province that spring, the first overseas Ethiopian province), breaking its back in the process, the flotilla wields a seventeen fold profit. There are no more plans for great fleets in the near future, but the number of ships making the India run are steadily rising.
Andreas Angelos and Basileios Komnenos return to a shaken Constantinople. The two are received by Emperor Herakleios, not Emperor Andreas as expected. Basileios’ request for asylum is granted, and he is bequeathed an estate (and staff who are clearly in Herakleios’ pay) in Paphlagonia for his upkeep, on condition that he use his paternal, not maternal, family name, Palaiologos. Basil accepts. Then the two learn what has transpired in Africa and at home.
Despite the fact that he cannot mount or dismount without assistance, or walk without a cane in each hand, Andreas insists on campaigning as he as always done, as plainly as the lowest soldier. His personal physician, his lieutenants, and even many of the rank and file protest his actions, but Andreas is adamant.
The army moves along the coast, accompanied by the Imperial fleet while powerful battle squadrons sweep the Mediterranean. Very few corsair ships are actually sunk, but they do remain in port. There is little support from the Iberians. Firstly it is because the speed of the Roman response meant there was no time to coordinate activities. Plus Aragon is still licking its wounds from the Oran debacle, Castile is raiding Cornwall (although a Cornish-Irish fleet does maul a squadron off Brittany), and Al-Andalus and Portugal are engaged in saber rattling.
Portugal’s African expeditions are gaining unexpected fruit. First, contact has been made with a large and powerful African state, the Kingdom of Kongo, a hub of a bustling slave trade that is quite eager to do business with Portugal. Lisbon provides guns, horses, and armor in exchange for ivory and slaves, the latter extremely useful on the new Portuguese sugar plantations in the Canary Islands and Madeira. Also three ships have blundered into a large and apparently virgin landmass to the west. One of the vessels though was captured by Andalusi warships on the European side of the line (so claim the Portuguese; the Andalusi claim it was beyond the line).
Andreas does not really need their help. A Berber army from the local tribes, numbering twenty thousand, shadows the Roman army. At Sidi Thabet, Andreas steals a night march on them and falls on their camp at dawn. The ensuing battle is little more than a slaughter, the survivors chased into the desert, where most perish from lack of provisions. After that, the Romans face no opposition until the siege of Bizerte begins.
Bizerte is a thriving metropolis, one of the greatest cities of north Africa, and a major rival of Carthage. It is also a thriving corsair port. It has a population of twenty nine thousand, plus nine thousand Christian slaves taken in the plundering expeditions. About half of that number are Romans, mostly Sicilians taken in the raid that sparked Andreas’ intervention.
It is a well armed, well fortified city, and the Roman army and fleet settle down for the siege. The corsairs, heavily outnumbered, are unable to contest the Roman control of the seas so supplies are no difficulty. Nevertheless it is clear that the strain is taking its toll on Andreas, who for the first time in his life has difficulty staying awake in strategy meetings, and many days he has to forgo his daily inspection of the camp and siege works.
Slowly but surely the siege continues. On the fifteenth day, the Christian slaves rise up, attempting to throw open the gates of the cities in conjunction with a Roman assault on the walls. Just barely, the men of Bizerte stop the double-pronged assault. And then Sinan Pasha, titled thus for his command of a pirate fleet, Emir of Bizerte, makes a terrible mistake. The next day, the heads of all the slaves, women and children included, are catapulted into the Roman encampment.
Andreas responds by tying all his prisoners to the embankments protecting his artillery, so the Bizertians’ fire will kill them. Eleven days later, a special shipment from Sicily arrives. Two days later, the city falls, and Andreas gives the order.
Bizerte is to be annihilated, its people slaughtered, its buildings torn down, its fields sown with salt, its existence completely effaced from the earth. The special shipment is the salt. To this day, nothing lives where Bizerte once stood. Ironically Sinan Pasha is one of the handful of Bizertians to survive, running the blockade in a galliot.
* * *
Roman Camp outside Bizerte, May 18, 1516:
Andreas groaned, leaning back in his chair. Outside the tent he could hear the death screams of Bizerte. He had heard those screams, o so many times. He looked at the man sitting across from him, sharpening his sword on a whetstone. “It never ends,” Andreas whispered.
Manuel of Kyzikos stopped and set down the whetstone, examining the blade. “No, no it doesn’t. The blade is sharpened, is used, then needs to be sharpened again. It never ends.”
Andreas rubbed his forehead. “Empire are the same way. One enemy falls, and another rises to take its place. It never ends, and I am tired. Tired of war, tired of rule, tired of life.”
Manuel, still looking at the sword, shrugged, slid the blade into his scabbard, and stood up. “Then rest.” He walked out of the tent.
“I cannot.”
“Why not?” Alexeia asked, seated where Manuel had just been.
“You look well, sis.”
“You’re still a bad liar. Why can’t you rest?”
“The Empire needs me. There is too much work to be done.”
Alexeia shook her head sadly, rising to her feet. “Let someone else do it. You have done enough.” She strode out.
“No, it needs to be me.”
“Why does it have to be you?”
Andreas looked at the person now seated in that chair, and his heart skipped a beat. It was Kristina, his Kristina. Crow’s feet nestled against her eyes, and only a strand or two of brown stood out in a sea of cascading gray hair. “You look beautiful.”
“You look wrinkly.” Andreas stared for a moment, and then chuckled, wagging his finger at her. Kristina grinned, but then her face grew serious. “Why does it have to be you?”
“Our son needs me. He would make a good ruler, but his body is weak. Once I am gone, his enemies will come out looking for blood.”
“Then kill them now.”
“I cannot. They hide in the shadows. That was your area of expertise. I’m a soldier, not a spymaster. I cannot-” Tears clouded his vision. “God’s wounds, Kristina,” he rasped, clenching his fists. “I miss you. You were my better half. Apulia loves me, but it was you, you who taught me mercy. By God, I miss you.”
She was close to him now, crouched down, but just out of reach. “I know, my love. I know. But soon, soon we will be together again.” Outside Bizerte shrieked; Kristina shuddered. “In a place where no demons lie.”
“And once I am dead, my enemies will reveal themselves,” he moaned. He stopped. “Once I’m dead, my enemies will reveal themselves,” he repeated. Kristina was biting her lip, an impish gleam in her eyes, the kind she always got when she had thought of a new scheme.
Andreas Komnenos laughed.
* * *
The campaign ends after the annihilation of Bizerte, Andreas returning to Constantinople. It is clear that his health has declined even further, to the point that he has to ride a litter back to the White Palace, an unheard of event. On June 30, he announces that he is retiring to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, near Philippopolis.
On July 27, the news arrives in Constantinople. Andreas Komnenos, Emperor of the Romans, is dead. Per his final request, he is to be buried in an unmarked tomb, in a nearby graveyard where soldiers slain during the Smyrna war lay buried.
The next day, Herakleios II Komnenos is proclaimed sole Emperor. Overall he is accepted, but the reclusive Herakleios is not loved like Andreas. He does not conduct the circuits as his father did, and the army views him as a weak leader, poorly suited to command. The support of Megas Domestikos Zeno does however do much to allay the strategoi’s concerns.
But it not enough. On September 13, Leo Komnenos lands in Epirus after traveling via Hungary. News of his victories in France have proceeded him, and many in the European tagmata view him as an ideal leader for future campaigns against the Catholics. The Epirus and Helladic tagmata go over to him immediately, granting him control over all of Greece west and south of Thessaloniki.
Immediately Zeno prepares to march west, gathering the Athanatoi, Varangoi, and the Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Thracian tagmata. On September 24, in Buda, Emperor Stephen formally announces the truth about his parentage, and that he is marching to claim his birthright, the crown of Rhomania. The Hungarian people are shocked, but it is pointed out that Stephen is still just as much an Arpad as he is a Komnenos, and a successful campaign against the Empire will be quite lucrative.
Herakleios is torn. Leo is the closer threat, but Stephen is the most dangerous. His situation grows even more grave on October 1. Zeno is dead, killed by an assassin with a kyzikos bullet to the heart. He blames Leo, but many point out that assassination is not Leo’s style, and a rumor sweeps Constantinople that Herakleios had murdered his half-brother, out of fear that Zeno would use his position in the army to usurp Herakleios.
The Macedonian tagma immediately defects to Leo. On October 10, when the Bulgarian tagma tries to do the same, the Athanatoi, Varangoi, Thracians, and the Constantinople archontate fall on them just ten miles from the Queen of Cities, and maul the Bulgarians. A total of thirty five hundred Romans are killed or wounded in the battle.
On October 14, the Hungarian armies ford the Danube, invading Serbia. The princes of Raska, Srem, Macva, and Backa join them.
The Time of Troubles has begun.
This painting, by Pavlos of Avlona, is considered by art historians to be one of the pinnacles of sixteenth century Roman art. The battle it depicts, an action between Roman great dromons and Barbary galleys, never occurred. Instead it is a representation of the Empire in the Time of Troubles, for it was painted at the beginning of the final stage.
Overall the painting is grim, but there is hope. The two great dromons, representing the duo of generals that it was hoped would restore the Empire of Andreas, sail under a darkened sky, but the sun is rising. This sense of hope, even in the midst of civil war and invasion, can be most clearly seen in its name:
Rhomania Endures.
Kristina of the Rus, the Empress of Blackbirds. Like her husband, she would cast a long shadow over the Empire in the Time of Troubles.
Although Stephen is clearly rushing things, hoping that the Leo-Herakleios rivalry will cripple the European tagmata, he has not left his flanks completely unsecure. Three thousand men are left guarding the Transylvanian march. They are not enough to stop the whole Vlach army, but with the fortifications in the region, the Vlachs will have a hard time advancing. At the same time, thousands of Magyar cavalry roll north, savaging the domains of Manfred to keep him off balance.
Most importantly, the Milanese are fully on his side, as Stephen promises that any conquests in Italy will be theirs to keep. Milan particularly desires the Romagna, ruled by the d’Estes, hated rivals of the Visconti.
But Roman Italy is not such an easy target. A Milanese attempt to cross the Po is thrown back, although with heavy Romagnan casualties, while Florence makes it quite clear that any Milanese soldier entering the Republic’s territory will be killed on sight. In the Adriatic, the Serene Republic may have entered the pages of history, but that sea still has her queen. On November 20, the Venetian fleet sacks Pola.
The defection of the Macedonian tagma and the crippling of the Bulgarian places Herakleios in a tight spot, a situation not helped by his poor health. The season is unusually cold, and his bowels have been very bloody of late. Eating at most every other day, if that, it is difficult for him to combat the rumor that he arranged Zeno’s assassination.
While the Imperial presses are working overtime reminding people that Leo is a bigamist, a rapist, and a possible Catholic, all the Constantinople mob can think of is the fact that under Andreas, justice was brought to them. In contrast, audiences with Herakleios have to be gained at the White Palace, and oftentimes he is indisposed. Leo too is known for his victories in France and the fact that he grants himself no more privileges than that given to the lowliest of his men, just like Andreas.
Herakleios can depend on the merchants though, who view Leo as bad for business, and, thanks to his half-brother Andreas Angelos, the support of the navy. Neither though is of much use at the moment; Herakleios needs the army, the area precisely where he is weakest. Thus when the Opsician and Optimatic tagmata arrive, he announces that he will accompany the army on its march to challenge Leo.
* * *
The White Palace, Constantinople, November 1, 1516:
It was snowing. She could feel the flakes landing in her hair, on her cheeks. She could feel them melting, the moisture trickling down her face, indistinguishable from her tears. She looked out, her hands resting on the balcony railing, staring at the cloudy haze enveloping Constantinople and the Sea of Marmara.
“Venera?” It was Herakleios. “Venera?” he asked again. No. No, I cannot look back.
Snow crunched behind her, and then a hand was on her shoulder, turning her towards him. A part of her cursed herself, for forcing her husband out into the cold. Another part, a much louder part, was not so apologetic. Why? Why should I be sorry? If he’s going to be traipsing around Serbia, he can damn well come out on the balcony!
“Venera, why will you not talk to me?”
Crack! Her hand stung from the slap she had just given him “Why?” she snarled. “Why are you doing this?!” He did not answer. “Why?!” she cried. Crack! He could have stopped that blow. He hadn’t. Her hands bunched into fists. “Why! Why! Why!” she screamed, pounding his chest with every word, wanting him to say something, to show that he hurt as much as she did. But he just stood there, taking every blow silently, making no move to defend himself as she hit him.
The world was a blur now. “You’re going to die!” she sobbed, collapsing. And then Herakleios’ strong arms were around her, holding her up with that inner strength that no one but her knew he had, the strength that kept him sane amidst the pain. “You’re going to die,” she moaned, her eyes squeezed as she cried into his chest. His health was poor even in the White Palace. An army campaign in this winter, could be, would be fatal with his condition. “Why?” she whispered.
“I have to. I do not fear my death. Death and I are old companions. But I do fear your death, and the death of the children. If I don’t go, you will die, and Alexeia and Alexios will die.”
She wanted to hit him again, to scream at him that he was wrong, but she couldn’t. Instead she clenched her eyes more tightly, trying unsuccessfully to stop the tears, gripping his jacket in her hands. He is right. There is no other way.
Herakleios did not have the loyalty of the Roman army. He was too much unlike his father, and Leo was too much like his father, at least in the areas that counted in the soldiers’ eyes. Damn them. Damn all those idiots to hell. The only armies that Herakleios could count on were those of his and her relatives, the Russian and maybe the Georgian. But they could not come; the Kalmyk horde, displaced by Timurid activities, had crossed the Ural mountains and was moving on the lower Volga. Until that vast Buddhist army was dispersed, neither Georgia or Russia could move on Rhomania.
So Herakleios had to go with the army. If he stayed in Constantinople, there was a very good chance the remaining tagmata would defect to Leo, and then they would be doomed. At least if he went, there was a chance for Venera and the children, if Leo was defeated. But none for him.
She stood up. “No, no. There must be, there has to be another way.”
Herakleios shook his head. “There isn’t.” He pried her fingers loose, cupping them in his own hands. “I’ve made arrangements for you to go home if the worst should fall.” With Hellas in Leo’s hands, the route to Egypt was too dangerous. Demetrios had little love for his little brother; he had already guaranteed Empress Veronica and Prince David’s safety as news as Leo’s landing had reached him. “But if you have to promise me.”
“No, I can’t.” The tears were coming again.
“Promise me,” he hissed.
“Herakleios, you’re hurting me.” You’re stalling.
“Promise me. Promise me you will not wait to flee if I am dead before Leo is.”
“I…I promise.” Damn you. No, damn me.
“Thank you.” Herakleios let her hands go. “I am so sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
“You deserved so much better, better than this, better than me. A whole man.”
She saw the regret flash in his eyes, and knew what the regret said. If you were a whole man, none of this would be happening. You could go on campaign just like Leo, just like Zeno, just like Andreas. Then no one would challenge your right to rule, and you wouldn’t need to abandon your wife and children to go on a suicide mission in the small hope that you can save them before you die.
She would not have those words. Not now, not ever. “I have a whole man, for a husband and for an Emperor. And if these…people…” She spat the word. “…are too stupid to realize that, then damn them for being fools.”
Herakleios smiled, a small one, but a real one. “Thank you. Goodbye, my love.” They kissed, a long, lingering kiss, the snow falling on them, chilling them, but it did not matter. Venera never wanted it to end, but it did. And then he was gone.
She did not know how long she stood there, silent, as the snow gathered in her hair. He will return. He must return. If there is any justice in this world, he will return. And if he doesn’t…God, you had better start hiding, for I will tear you down from your throne and damn you to hell as well.
Venera of Abkhazia, Empress of the Romans. Often the strong one of the family due to her husband's physical weakness, she is fiercely protective of her family and what is rightfully theirs.
The White Palace, Constantinople, November 2, 1516:
Herakleios had left the city. Nikephoros would have smiled, if it weren’t for the oncoming headache he could feel gathering. He sighed, setting down the book to glare at the source of said headache, his wife.
God, I hate that woman, he thought as he took a drink of hot kaffos. She wasn’t an ugly woman; he’d concede that much. She might have done decently well at a mid-level whorehouse catering to lower-grade artisans and the like. But in a lineup at Fatima’s, she stood absolutely no chance.
She was still nattering at him, about how he should get off his fat ass and kill Herakleios already. That was her worst trait; she was an idiot, an ambitious, blatant, bland idiot. She reminded Nikephoros of his aunt Irene…I still don’t know who killed her. She hadn’t always been this brazen though, thankfully. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t touched her since their wedding night, and that the bodies of her three lovers had never been found.
But it was so frustrating. He couldn’t divorce her without risking the ire of Emperor Andreas who arranged the match, and he couldn’t let her hang herself with her own rope. Having his wife accused of high treason would lead to too much unwanted attention.
She was still going on about killing Herakleios and taking over Constantinople. Have you forgotten the last phase of this plan, woman? The part where Leo tears me from limb to limb for being between him and the throne?
He’d thought about killing his uncle, but ironically Herakleios’ poor health made it harder, not easier to kill him. Like all offspring of the Empress of Blackbirds, Herakleios had been given small doses of poison in his childhood meals to build up an immunity. The regime had been slower on account of his health, but no less effective. Even in his current state, it would take a dose of poison strong enough to kill a healthy man twice his size to put Herakleios down.
Obviously such a large dose would be difficult to disguise, and because of his sensitive stomach, Herakleios went easy on the flavoring of his dishes. There were no spices or strong sauces to hide the scent of toxin, and there was no poison known to man that could kill a son of the Empress of Blackbirds in just a few bites. Of course, the same can be said about me. Grandmother was very thorough.
His wife may have ‘ideas’ of her own, but he had his own plan, which he’d already begun. The death of Zeno crippled Herakleios, making his military defeat at Leo’s hand virtually inevitable. If Herakleios called the Russians in against the Hungarians, it still wouldn’t help him against his half-brother, and if he called in the Russians against Leo, his life expediency would be measured in minutes. An Emperor that used barbarians against his own people was no Emperor at all. That the Russians couldn’t move even if Herakleios asked was just sugar on the pastry.
And Leo would be much easier to deal with than Herakleios, provided Nikephoros made a sufficient show of loyalty at the start to throw him off guard. Give Leo a year or two on the throne, and he would alienate all his supporters, making it ludicrously easy for Nikephoros to swoop in and displace him.
"Any idiot with a strong sword arm can seize power. It is holding power that is the difficult part. And the manner in which one seizes power can determine whether or not one holds it."-Nikephoros "the Spider" Komnenos
At least that had been the plan, but then had come the newest report from one of his best spies. There was another player in the game. If Nikephoros revealed himself as a contestant, with this new opponent in the field, he risked everything. No, it was time to withdraw, to watch and wait. Time was on his side, and he had backup plans. They would take longer, but he could afford to wait.
She was still talking. Nikephoros rubbed his forehead. The roar of Theodoros’ trained bear Ares outside wasn’t helping. Willow bark tea. And Fatima’s tonight. Definitely Fatima’s.
Edessa, Macedonia, November 13, 1516:
Stefanos Doukas, Strategos of the Epirote tagma, Megas Domestikos to his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Leo VI Komnenos, entered the chamber. Leo was in the center, unarmed, faced by five recruits armed with blunted blades. Stefanos strolled over to the bench next to the roaring fire, pouring himself a cup of hot kaffos.
Although winter had come early and cold, causing demand and the price of kaffos to shoot upward, Leo’s men did not lack for the brew. The Emperor had lost little time in levying the Emperor’s Cup, a tax paid in kind with the best kaffos, on the territories under his control. Leo had then promptly turned around and distributed it to the men. Stefanos took a sip, savoring the warmth.
By that point it was over. All five recruits were on the ground, Leo standing over them with a practice blade in each hand. “Bah,” he muttered, tossing the weapons aside and walking over to Stefanos. His newest attendant, the strategos thought it was Leo’s fourth, or maybe fifth, handed the Emperor a wine skin.
“What is this?” Leo asked pleasantly. Stefanos braced himself.
“Hot spiced wine, your majesty,” the trembling lad said. “Your favorite.”
“And what is the wine ration for the men right now?”
“One a day, your majesty.”
“THEN WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME ANOTHER SKIN TODAY?!” Leo bellowed. “GET OUT OF HERE, YOU IDIOT! AND LEAVE THAT WITH THE GUARDS ON YOUR WAY OUT!” He slammed the wine skin into the lad’s chest, nearly knocking him over. Leo must be in a good mood. He didn’t break the boy’s nose, unlike the last two. Or was it three? No, the first had had his wrist broken instead.
“Good day, your Imperial majesty,” Stefanos said.
“Eh, is it?” Leo glowered at the moaning recruits picking themselves off the floor. “Worthless wretches. Basileios could take them all with one arm tied behind his back.”
Leo’s son by his Habsburg wife had remained with his mother in Arles, where he still served in the Arletian army, to whom he’d already given good service by capturing two knights banneret and an English earl before his sixteenth birthday. Other than guaranteeing the safety and security of his family and possessions, Arles was not aiding Leo, which he had wanted. If he came in with Arletian backing, it would be too easier to tar him as a foreign invader, not a son of Andreas and a Roman prince coming to claim his birthright.
Leo walked over to the massive oak table that was set up in the left of the hall. It was covered with maps, the nearest that of Roman Europe. “The Kastrioti have joined your cause, Majesty.”
That caused Leo to smile. “Most excellent.” As soon as Leo had heard that the Hungarians had crossed the Danube, three hundred light cavalry had been sent to harry their march and report their movements. At the same time, envoys had gone to the Albanian chieftains to ask for their support (although nominally under Roman rule, one did not order the independent-minded Albanian lords around if one wanted compliance). The aid of the Kastrioti, the greatest of them, would be of great help in slowing the Hungarian advance. “Any news from the east?” Leo asked.
“The usurper has left Constantinople.”
“Herakleios is coming out of his hot tub? Perhaps he did get some of father’s blood after all.” Stefanos nodded. Several of the Serbian princes had gambled that since Herakleios couldn’t stomach food much of the time, he couldn’t stomach the killing of their children being ‘educated’ in Constantinople. It had taken the Sick Man of Europe less than twenty minutes to prove them wrong.
“Still, his advance is extremely slow, less than twelve miles a day.”
Leo snorted. “That’s it? Good. It’ll look really good when he finally arrives in Thessaloniki, only to see me with that Magyar bastard’s head atop my lance.” Leo clenched his hairy fists, shaking in rage. “Those…creatures never would have dared tried this while my father was still alive. He isn’t, but I will still send them screaming into hell for sullying my father’s name.” Even after all this time, he still worships Andreas.
But then, there wasn’t a soldier in the Roman tagmata that did not. He had always been their commander, their leader, their father. A man who had always shared their pain, their hunger, their trials, never sparing himself from the lot of his basest recruit. And he had always given them victory. In those regard, Leo was his father’s son.
Stefanos’ eyes brushed the other maps, Tuscany, northern Italy, Iberia, the Maghreb. He knew the plan, Leo’s grand design once he was on the throne, and the reason Stefanos supported him. First Tuscany, weak, divided, and in the way. Then the north. The lush fields of Lombardy and the great foundries of Milan would be a useful boon to the Empire, and a perfect support base for an invasion of Iberia.
Aragon was weak, Castile distracted, Al-Andalus a vassal, and Portugal was formidable at sea but negligible on land. Once the peninsula was secure, to secure the Iberians’ loyalty, the Barbary pirates would be annihilated and the Marinids crushed. The end result would be Mare Nostrum restored, save for Arles, a close Roman trading partner.
Leo Komnenos reviewing members of the Dyrrachium garrison. His vision is to build on the conquests of his father, to restore all the lands of the Mediterranean to the rule of Constantinople.
And while Leo is off conquering those western lands, he will need to keep a trusted advisor and soldier at home, to keep an eyes on things. And when the time comes…
The door opened, and a guard stepped in and bowed. “Your Majesty, the delegation from Thessaloniki is here.”
“Send them in at once,” Leo ordered. Control of that great metropolis would help secure their supply lines and their right flank against Herakleios, giving them time to crush the Hungarians.
Stefanos smiled pleasantly. It wouldn’t do to be rude to the delegates. It wasn’t fake though, for he finished his earlier thought.
House Doukas will rise again.
* * *
Andreas Angelos slowly stepped into the room, making sure that the hooded old man clinging to his left arm didn’t stumble. The man’s rough wooden cane tapped on the stone floor as the five Thessalonians followed.
He had been sent to Thessaloniki to try and make sure that city, the third city of the Empire, did not defect to Leo. The carrack he had rescued off Algiers had been Thessalonican, the ship and cargo paid for by a consortium of prominent merchants. Herakleios hoped that would give him some leverage.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” a smiling, well-trimmed man said. “If you would come this way…” he gestured to where several seats had been set up near the fire. “We have kaffos and hot spiced wine.” He looked at the old man. “And who is this?”
“He speaks for us,” Andreas Angelos said. “If you would be so kind.” He nodded at the nearest chair. Stefanos Doukas nodded and pulled the chair out, helping the man sit down. He rattled a sigh of relief.
“And who are you?” Stefanos repeated.
Instead the man pointed a trembling hand at the kaffos. “A cup please.” Andreas started to get one. Then the elder pulled down the hood.
Leo’s cup shattered on the floor. “Father?”
“Hello, son,” Andreas Doukas Laskaris Komnenos said. “I’ve come to give you this.” Slowly he pulled out a dagger and dropped it on the table with a clunk. He nudged it in Leo’s direction.
“What for?” Leo asked cautiously, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword. The guards’ eyes were darting back and forth between Andreas and Leo, the recruits in back holding their tourney blades.
“It’s simple. It’s for killing me.”
“Wha?” Leo said. Andreas Angelos’ eyes widened. What the hell is he doing? Just arrest and kill him, and be done with it.
“You have no problem with invading my Empire when I am dead. What difference does it make that I’m only mostly dead?” The end of the last sentence came out in a rasp, and Andreas Komnenos collapsed into a series of hacking coughs, shaking his whole body.
“Well, go on. Do it,” Andreas continued. “I’m not wearing armor under the coat. I can’t bear the weight anymore.”
Leo slowly picked up the dagger, hefting it in his hand. Andreas Angelos tightened his hold on his own sword. Looking around the room, he could see that all of Leo’s men in the room were watching their leader, including the Doukid strategos. All of them, except for Stefanos, were ready to draw their blades, even the recruit with a black eye and a broken nose.
If Leo attacked Andreas, he would die shortly afterwards, killed by his own men for daring to attack the Little Megas. He has to know that. He has to. But Leo had never been the most stable individual. And if he did attack…Leo was still considered one of the best melee fighters the Roman army had ever seen, and Father had not been lying about the armor.
Leo glanced at the dagger, then at his father as he lifted a shaking cup of kaffos to his lips. A look of horror flashed onto his face and he hurled the weapon into the stone wall, sparks flying. “I can’t.”
Angelos resisted the urge to smile. We’ve won. Although I don’t know why we didn’t just show up and arrest him. He’d met his father, accompanied by a retinue of monks, just short of Thessaloniki. The archimandrite at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity had sent in false reports of Andreas’ death and burial on the Emperor’s order. The Thessalonicans had immediately pledged their loyalty to Emperor Andreas, who had insisted on coming west even though the hard ride from the monastery to Thessaloniki had badly worn him out.
Andreas Komnenos looked at the dagger, then pulled the map of Serbia towards him. “I knew that I had hidden enemies, but I never suspected this, that the Hungarians would resort to these…” His hands clenched, his gaze fixed on Serbia, ignoring everything else in the chamber. “Perverse lies. I should, I should…” Angelos thought he could see the glean of madness in his father’s eyes. Andreas punched himself, whispering silently. He thought he could hear the word ‘Kristina’.
“Strategos!” Emperor Andreas snapped, suddenly his voice sharp and clear. Everyone stiffened. “I want a status report on the army, and the current disposition of all our forces within the hour. Go.” Stefanos Doukas almost ran from the room. Silently, his head down, Leo turned to follow. “Leo.” Angelos stiffened. Now. Now we arrest him. Leo stopped. “I am an old man, and it is hard for an old man to change his ways. I am accustomed to having a son accompany me in battle. I already have one…” He nodded in Angelos’ direction. “But two is better than one.” He, he can’t be doing this. Andreas pointed at a chair. “Sit.”
Edessa, Macedonia, November 14, 1516:
Zoe sprawled over the chair, juice dribbling down her chin. She wiped it up with a finger before it splattered her purple silk dress. You’d think she’d be cold in that, Andreas thought. He was covered in furs, and even that didn’t seem to be enough. His kaffos ration was small and he’d already used it up today. “You let him live,” Zoe said.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“He’s my son.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Wrong answer, little brother. You can’t lie to me…” She paused. “Or Alexeia for that matter, or Kristina,” she continued, grinning. Then she stopped. “So why?”
“I told you, he’s my son.”
“God’s wounds, Andreas!” Zoe shot up, pacing back and forth angrily. “He raped his own sister-in-law!” She stopped, facing Andreas and pointing out at the courtyard. “Why are the crows not eating his eyeballs right now?! The very first man Leo killed was a condemned rapist. Why are you not doing the same here? Where is your justice?”
“I can’t kill him.”
“And why not?”
“Because if I kill him, then there is no hope for him.”
“So?”
Andreas looked away, sighing. “And if there is no hope for him, there is no hope for me.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“A commander is responsible for the crimes of his men…and a father is responsible for the sins of his son.”
“What? No…” Zoe was down on her knees, holding his hand. Her warmth was welcome. “Andreas, don’t do this to yourself.”
“It’s my fault,” he said, ignoring her. The memories flashed in front of him. Andronikos’ horse stepping in the bloated body of a murdered eight-year-old Apulian boy, the shrieks of what was left of a Lotharingian king, the screams of Bizerte. And a bellowing young man, clad in plate, in the square and basilica of Saint Mark, killing, killing, killing, so much killing. “I have done things far more terrible than Leo. So there has to be hope for him, for if there isn’t, there is none for me.”
“What you did you did for the Empire. Leo just did it for himself.”
“You’re right. But that does not change the fact that my crimes are far greater than his.” He shrugged, wincing. “Perhaps we are both damned. We probably are. But I have to try.”
Belgrade, November 15, 1516:
They were watching him. They were always watching him. The most familiar was Andrew the Warrior King, the supposed namesake of his father. The hand-held portrait, an expected accompaniment of all Hungarian generals on campaign, stared at him. The looks were relatively easy to ignore. Not so the whispers.
Not worthy.
That was what the whispers said, over and over, and they could not be ignored. The Arpad dynasty had existed since the birth of the Magyar kingdom itself. Not any more.
Yes, it does!
Prove it.
Stephen sighed. He was just as much an Arpad as a Komnenos. Not really. He was Arpad, but by his mother, and she from a cadet branch. The imperial branch had died out, slain by an embittered Russian princess torn from her lover’s side.
Revenge. That was why he moved so fast. To conquer the city that Kristina of Novgorod had desired so much, and to wipe out the legacy of her lover. I am Stephen, of House Arpad. I will restore its honor and its pride. And forever blot out the shame at being usurped by House Komnenos.
Prove it.
And maybe then the whispers would stop.
Xanthi, November 26, 1516:
Herakleios sighed, settling in his chair. The warmth thrown off by the roaring fire felt good, although he was still clad in his furs. This is the first time I’ve felt warm since I left Venera. The march here had been bitterly cold and he had eaten at most every third day. So thankfully his bowels were mostly still, although even now he could feel a dull, constant ache.
He wasn’t sure what to expect from this meeting. Leo had raced east from his base at Edessa, and Herakleios had heard that supposedly his half-brother wasn’t in command, that the real leader was Emperor Andreas, returned from the grave. Probably some old man dressed up to gather support from idiots. Although that would be unusually clever for Leo. Perhaps Stefanos Doukas?
Herakleios glanced over at Petros Doukas, Stefanos’ younger brother and senior tourmarch of the Thracian tagma. He was just one of the forty men in the room, Herakleios’ strategoi and senior tourmarches, along with his new Megas Domestikos, Demetrios of Kyzikos, son of Manuel of Kyzikos and her Serene Highness Alexeia Komnena, the slayer of Galdan of Merv and Emperor Andreas’ half-sister.
Demetrios of Kyzikos. According to Andreas Komnenos, "once he fixes his line, not even Genghis Khan could move him." His popularity amongst the eastern Anatolian tagmata helps boost Herakleios' position in the army, and his skill at defense makes him a perfect counter to Leo's ferocious frontal attacks.
He could feel his eyes drooping, so he jabbed the tip of his sheathed dagger into his inner thigh to try and wake himself. He was tired, so tired. But he couldn’t sleep now; there was too much to do. Even with Demetrios helping him, he had to stay with the army to ensure their loyalty. These were European and west Anatolian tagmata; Demetrios was from the east.
First I have to deal with Leo. If it was a choice between Herakleios and the Hungarians, the tagmata would choose Herakleios. There was no doubt of that; the cavalry contingents Herakleios had dispatched north to slow Stephen were openly cooperating with Leo’s same soldiers against the Magyars, temporarily shelving the civil war until the barbarians were dealt with. Unfortunately though he could not do the same with Leo’s main force. I have to break him first, keep him away from Venera. Then I can go home…if I’m not dead yet.
It had been four days since his last meal, and he still wasn’t hungry. His physician said that he could last at most a month under his current conditions, if that. If he increased his firewood ration though, so he could have a steady supply of hot soup and warmth, the archiatros said he could last three, more than enough to deal with Leo. But if I do, I may lose the army. I must be a son of Andreas, even if it kills me.
Venera’s words flashed through his mind. “I have a whole man, for a husband and an Emperor.” This will kill me, but so be it. So long as she lives, then this will have been worth it, all this struggle and pain. That was why he had fought for the throne, that was the reason for his ambition. If he could, he would have loved nothing more than to retreat to the library, just as Theodoros did with his parks. But he couldn’t, not if he cared for Venera. As Emperor, he could keep her safe. If he wasn’t and a succession crisis wracked the Empire, she would be at the top of the list of rivals to be eliminated, particularly if Leo was the usurper.
The guards pushed the door open, nodding at Herakleios. They seems agitated. It was time. He didn’t want to move, but he had to. For her, he thought and stood.
Then he gasped. “Father?”
“Hello, son,” Andreas Komnenos said. He had been the first to enter, leaning heavily on Andreas Angelos. If it weren’t for him, he probably couldn’t walk. His father had lost weight, a lot of it, along with most of his hair. His wrinkles had grown deeper and more numerous. If one didn’t know Andreas well, they might think this was a different person. But one did not forget the eyes of Andreas Komnenos, and these were the same. The body may be broken, but the will, the iron will that had broken Venice, the Last Crusade, the Mamelukes, was still there. “Please sit. And could somebody get me a chair?”
The question was a whisper, but every man save Andreas Angelos, Herakleios, and Leo, who was off in the corner, rushed to obey. I will never have that. A moment later both Andreas and Herakleios were seated. “You are all soldiers,” Andreas said. “You know the feeling, that of a blade just out of sight, waiting to strike.” Men were nodding. “I have had that feeling for quite some time. That is why I faked my death, in the hope that my enemies would reveal themselves. They have, and they are the Hungarians.”
Herakleios opened his mouth. What about Leo? He closed it when his father’s gaze fell on him, and then on Leo. “We are all Romans. We do not serve a man, we serve the Empire.” He tugged on Angelos’ sleeve, who helped him up. Herakleios stood. “So let all those who would serve the Empire follow me.”
Herakleios knelt down on one knee. “What would you have me do, your majesty?”
Andreas looked at him. “Rise.” Herakleios did, and Andreas embraced him, Angelos supporting his back. Andreas Komnenos stepped back. “I would have you go home, love your wife, raise your children, rule justly, and give the Empire peace. As for me, I shall lead the army against Stefan.” A murmur of surprise swept through the room. “But first…I should have done this a long time ago.”
Andreas drew his sword. The blade sung, the steel shimmering in the air, almost as if it were alive. It was David, the sword he had always carried to war since Venice. None could fail to see the change. Before Andreas’ arms had shaken, but now with the blade, they were firm, strong, as if they were a part of each other, the sword and Andreas. “Your mother gave me this as a late wedding present. I have taken it on every campaign since. But all things must come to an end. David is yours, your majesty.” He handed the blade to Herakleios.
Herakleios held it, his eyes widening. It was one of the very last things Andreas had of Kristina. He did not think Andreas would have ever given it up. There was a tear in his father’s eye, and Herakleios knew that this was one of the hardest things Andreas had ever done.
Andreas whispered something in Angelos’ ear. Angelos’ eye widened, looking over at Herakleios and then back at Andreas. Andreas nodded. And then Andreas Komnenos “the Undefeated” did something he had never done before.
He knelt.
Central Serbia, December 17, 1516:
Andreas Drakos was cold. The icy wind from the north was certainly not helpful. At least it’s stopped snowing for now.
His best friend Giorgios Laskaris scratched furiously at his face. “Ugh, my snot has frozen.”
“Save it for later,” Andreas Angelos said, riding next to his father just behind them. Both Andreas Drakos and Giorgios were eikosarchoi, members of the Emperor’s Guard.
Giorgios Laskaris (left) and Andreas Drakos (right).
“Why?” Giorgios asked.
“Because then you can use it to thicken your soup.”
Giorgios shuddered as Drakos smirked. “You cannot be serious!”
“Yes, I can,” Angelos replied. “I just choose not to be.”
“Just ignore him, Giorgios,” Drakos said. He was right though, it was bloody cold.
The Hungarians had kept coming, even though they had to have heard the news about Andreas’ return. Maybe they don’t believe it. That must be the reason. Now the Romans and Hungarians were dancing around each other, snipping and snarling, Stefan trying to force an engagement, but never quite succeeding. He had forty thousand men.
The Roman army numbered thirty two thousand; although Andreas had more available, the logistics in this winter would’ve made supplying more extremely difficult. Even at the current numbers, supplies were scarce, with a cup of kaffos per man per week, and the personal firewood ration meant only one hot meal a day. The Emperor, as usual, had refused to grant himself more.
It was clear that the cold was very hard on the Emperor. He was covered in so many furs that he looked almost like a furry ball. Drakos had tried to sneak a few logs of his own ration into the Emperor’s a few days ago, but Andreas had caught him. The Emperor returned the logs, and then gave his own firewood as well to Drakos.
Andreas sighed atop his mount, and toppled over. “Father!” Angelos yelled, jumping off his horse and catching the Emperor before he hit the ground. Snow crunched as both Giorgios and Drakos leapt from their mount. “He’s freezing,” Angelos said.
“Cold, so cold,” Drakos could hear the Emperor moan.
Angelos was clutching his father, trying to warm his body with his own. “Get the tents up! Get a fire going! And where’s the archiatros?!”
“We’re still four hours from sunset!” A man shouted.
“We camp here!” Angelos shouted. And then to his father, he whispered, “Live, damn it. Live.”
* * *
Andreas Drakos entered the Emperor’s tent along with Giorgios Laskaris, relieving the other two guards. The Emperor was awake, although still pale, covered in blankets and seated next to a fire. That should be larger, much larger. It was little more than a campfire, and it was clear that only one man’s ration of firewood had gone into making it. Andreas’.
“Your Majesty, if you keep this up, you will not live much longer. You must have more hot food to keep you warm,” his archiatros, Andronikos Lukaris, said. “And more wood, so you can have a bigger fire and to heat the hot water bottles to keep you warm.”
“I cannot squeeze anymore out off my ration,” Andreas said.
“Then increase your ration.”
“No. I will not take from my men.”
“Perhaps we should find you a pretty maiden to keep you warm at nights. I can ask around the villages,” Angelos said. Drakos was pretty sure Angelos was, in fact, being serious, but he wasn’t sure.
Andreas smiled. “I like that idea. But no, another mouth to feed.”
“Uncle,” Demetrios of Kyzikos said. “This weather is not good for you. Return to Constantinople. Let us deal with the Hungarians.”
“No,” Andreas repeated. “I will not leave my men in the field while I sit in the White Palace.”
“Then at least let us attack the Hungarians. We can take them. Let’s end this campaign quickly, so there is no need to be in the field.”
“No. We are having supply difficulties, but the Hungarians have it worse. Let them starve some more before we give battle.”
“We are losing men from frostbite,” Angelos pointed out.
“And for every man we lose, the Hungarians lose four. For every week we delay the battle, four hundred Romans that would die in that battle live instead.”
“If we delay three weeks, you will not be one of those living!” Andronikos blurted.
Andreas fixed the archiatros with his stare. His body may be failing, but the will endured. “So be it.”
* * *
Andreas Drakos entered the tent. “The Emperor has refused our offer of firewood rations,” a Opsician tourmarch said. There were over sixty officers clustered in the tent, a small fire crackling in the center, but in the corners every breath could be seen. Giorgios and himself were the two lowest rankers, but they were both members of the Imperial bodyguard, reserved for the finest graduates of the School of War. And Andreas had his family name, Drakos, the House of the Dragon, his great-grandfather.
“He’s going to get himself killed!” a Macedonian droungarios shouted.
“He refuses to take from the general reserve,” Stefanos Doukas said. The Emperor Andreas had taken him along to keep an eye on him, and the strategos was an excellent battlefield commander.
“The fact of the matter is that if the campaign continues, Emperor Andreas will die,” Petros Doukas continued. “For real this time. Which means that this campaign must end, soon.”
“And how do you propose to do that? Surrender?” a Thracian tourmarch jeered.
“No, I say we attack,” Demetrios of Kyzikos said.
“Against orders?” the tourmarch asked. “The Hungarians are growing weaker. The longer the campaign lasts, the easier finishing them off will be.” There was a rumble of assent.
“The longer we delay, the greater the likelihood the Emperor will not live to see it.”
“It is his choice.”
“He is willing to die for you!” Andreas Drakos blurted. All eyes fixed on him, and he realized that he now had the attention of a lot of officers, all of whom outranked him, one of them the Megas Domestikos and Emperor’s nephew. He gulped, and then began to speak. “He is willing to die for you, for all of us. He has every right to be in Constantinople right now, with his wife and family, warm and safe. But he isn’t. He is here, freezing his ass off in Serbia like all of us. He doesn’t have to, but he is.
“He has never asked anything from us that he wouldn’t ask of himself. For fifty years he has starved, and froze, and bled with us and for us. And this is how we repay him?” Some of the men hung their heads in shame. “No, I say we smash these Magyar bastards to powder, and give the Emperor what he has always tried to give us, a chance to die in bed, old and full of years, surrounded by his loved ones.” His eyes were fixed on the Thracian tourmarch. For a moment, there was silence, and then he nodded.
“Then it is decided,” Demetrios said. “We attack.”
The White Palace, Constantinople, December 14, 1516:
Nikephoros settled under the sheets, the light of the fire flickering off the ceiling. Herakleios had returned. Minor setback, but nothing I cannot handle. Plan Beta is slower, but no less sure.
There was the hope that plan beta might not even be necessary, but Nikephoros was not so stupid to not prepare for it anyway. Still…
Herakleios had returned to the White Palace with as little fanfare as possible, only coming out of his litter to meet Venera privately. Nikephoros had been watching, of course.
His uncle looked horrible. His skin had been incredibly pale, the gray in his hair must have doubled in size, and it was clear he was too weak to mount a horse. Venera in her excitement at seeing him alive had nearly knocked him over. Fortunately for him, his wife had little trouble catching him before he fell, for in the last six weeks Herakleios must have lost at least twenty pounds. Herakleios was a tall man, five feet, nine inches, but coming out of that litter Nikephoros would’ve been surprised if he weighed more than a hundred and fifteen pounds. A lot of that he would regain come spring, but not all. And his uncle could expect to lose more before this winter was out.
So maybe he’ll die without me having to do a thing. Nah, not likely. Too convenient. The covers shifted. I’ll have to work for the throne. Natasha slid next to him, her large breasts just under his chin. “Is it done?” Nikephoros asked.
Her hand reached down as she smiled. “Yes.” Her latest mission had been the assassination of the eleven-year-old son of a wealthy grain merchant. The boy had done nothing to Nikephoros, but his father, who was one of the largest traders in the Scythian cereal market (and thus indispensable for maintaining Constantinople’s grain reserves), had required more money to stay bought. Nikephoros did not like to renegotiate, and he made a habit of securing clients with children. Parents were more vulnerable to threats.
Nikephoros arched his back as Natasha’s hand found its target. “Oh, oh.” She let up and Nikephoros grinned. She’s her best just after a kill.
Nantes, Brittany, December 22, 1516:
“Sebastien! Sebastien!” the men shouted, crashing their spears against their shields. The man they cheered raised his forty pound mace one-handed and roared. Sebastien leered at the Arletian-Castilian army. He was known as the Goliath of Brittany, standing eight feet, eight inches tall.
“So where is your champion?!” he roared. “Or is he afraid to face me?” The Arletians didn’t answer. “Then he is a wise one. No one can stand against me!”
Still silent, the Arletians opened their ranks, and Sebastien saw their ‘champion’. He spat. “This, this is your hero?! This is the best you have? A boy? Why, he stopped sucking his mother’s teats just a few weeks ago.” The Bretons jeered. The boy ignored them, throwing off his fur cloak to free his arms. Sebastien did the same, although his garment must have weighed more than the ‘man’ in front of him.
“So what is your name, boy? Tell me, so when I screw your mother I can tell her how I killed you.”
The boy snarled at him, and answered.
"My name is Basileios, son of Leo, grandson of Emperor Andreas, the Shatterer of Armies, and I am the last thing that you will ever see on this earth."
* * *
The steady trend of the Roman maneuvers have been to cut off Stephen from his lines of supply with Hungary. Originally the Hungarian Emperor had intended to supply his troops via river barges down the Danube, but the winter has turned so bitterly cold that even the mighty Danube itself has frozen.
The cold takes a terrible toll on Emperor Andreas. On December 19, he cannot mount a horse even with help. Finally at Andreas Angelos’ suggestion, he agrees to ride in a litter where at least he will be out of the wind, but only when his son orders a guardsman to attend Andreas in the litter at all times to keep him warm. Getting out of the elements helps, but is counterbalanced by Andreas’ actions on December 21, when he orders his wood ration distributed to the guardsmen, on the grounds that with the litter he no longer needs them.
Two days later Andronikos Lukaris tells Andreas Angelos, Leo Komnenos, and Demetrios of Kyzikos that the Emperor will likely not live to see next month, and that if there is any chance of him dying in Constantinople, the campaign must end now. They cannot wait any longer.
So on Christmas day, advance tourmai of the Opsician and Epirote tagmata engage the Hungarian vanguard. The battlefield is near the Serbian village of Golubac, but it is not the village that gives the battle its name. That honor instead is instead given to a range of gorges that begin just downstream on the frozen Danube.
The Iron Gates in summer.
The initial attack is poorly coordinated due to the lack of a clear chain of command, and soon thrown back in disarray when the Hungarian reserves are committed. But before the Hungarian counterattack strikes, Andreas is up. In fact, he is up before news arrives that the battle has begun.
The Hungarians are not much slower. Hard on the heels of the retreating Opsicians and Epirotes come the Magyars. Their morale is extremely good. Although Stephen and the Hungarian officers have ridiculed the notion of Andreas’ return, the rumors had nevertheless discouraged the men. The poor performance of the initial attack though makes for a very potent argument that ‘the Shatterer of Armies’ is not present.
So the Hungarians come, their blood up and their spirits high, and then they run into something hard. Demetrios of Kyzikos only has time to bring up the initial reserve, six hundred men, but for thirty minutes they hold off nine thousand Magyars. They lose half of their number, but they hold. By that point the Opsicians and Epirotes are back into action, with the Roman battle line secure, cavalry charges and horse archers flying forward to harry the Magyar lines, and the Varangoi curling round the Hungarian flank.
For it is as if the Andreas of old is back. No longer a broken old man, he is everywhere on the battlefield atop his warhorse, pulling out the fatigued and committing reserves to replace them, orchestrating charges and volleys to distract and harass the Hungarians. Leo’s initial attempt to take the flank is thwarted by the hard-bitten men of the Black Army of Hungary, who crack but do not break under the ferocious onslaught. But even so light cavalry and skirmishers advance to cover the withdrawal immediately, bleeding the Black Army and pinning them in place.
The Romans are not the only ones to note the difference. The Hungarians can see that the coordination of the Roman army is now pristine, the blows fierce and perfectly timed and supported. Men report seeing an old man on a horse, and so the Hungarians begin to wonder ‘Has the Scourge of the Latins return?’ Their line begins to waver.
But it is not the only thing. For though the will against which a continent contended in vain may still be strong, the flesh is not. After all that has happened, the body of Andreas Komnenos cannot take the strain. As Stephen commits his reserve in an all-out offensive, it breaks.
* * *
The Iron Gates, December 25, 1516:
“Steady, steady.” Andreas Drakos said, both to reassure the men near him, and himself. A volley of gunfire snapped out at the incoming Hungarian vanguard, a flight of arrows streaking out above them. Crossbows and arquebuses vomited back. He squinted. Croat axemen in the front. Good infantry, there’ll be knights coming up next to exploit the gaps.
Booms echoed across the valley, a series of immense whistles shrieking above his head. “Incoming rounds!” someone bellowed as the Hungarian artillery plastered their position. Men and horses went down screaming.
As Andreas jumped off his mount, he heard, he saw, the bullet slam into Giorgios’ plate cuirass. His friend toppled over into the snow. Andreas scurried over as the Croat axes began to hack at the spears of the skutatoi. “Giorgios, Giorgios!” he screamed. Not like this, not like this.
They’d known each other since they were thirteen, when they become roommates at the School of War. Now three years, on their very first campaign, to end like this. “Ow,” Giorgios moaned. “I feel like I’ve been kicked by a mule.”
“Are you, are you, alright?”
Giorgios whipped out his kyzikos and fired, the bullet blowing off half the head of a blood-drenched Croat. That was the end of the attack, which apparently had not been pressed. “Uh, I’m fine. Help me up.” Andreas did, Giorgios wincing in pain. “Armor deflected it. God, that hurts.” He looked at Andreas. “You look terrible.”
He started to reply when a man screamed. “THE EMPEROR’S DOWN!” The Emperor was now on the ground, cradled in Andreas Angelos’ arms. He was shouting for the archiatros, who was racing across the field, leaping over a man on a stretcher, bag in hand. Drakos and Giorgios skidded to a halt next to Angelos. The Emperor was breathing, just barely.
There’s no blood. It wasn’t an arrow or bullet that felled him. The news was spreading up and down the line. He could hear the whispers of consternation, and beyond the Hungarians readying for a more serious assault. This was a crucial moment. “Sorcery, it has to be sorcery.”
Angelos looked at him. “Yes, sorcery. That will solve two problems in one.” He wasn’t sure what the son of Andreas meant by that. Angelos looked up at the crowd of men staring anxiously at the body of their sovereign. Andronikos Lukaris bent over, taking his pulse. Angelos stood, Andronikos taking the body, and he began to speak. “The Emperor has fallen. The Hungarians could not take him in battle, so they have resorted to the black arts. This is the work of sorcery!” Murmurs swept the men, murmurs of anger. “Spread the word! This is what kind of men the Magyars are! Spread the word, and tell them, tell them no mercy for the Magyar dogs!”
* * *
The news of Andreas’ collapse spreads rapidly, and how. Fear quickly fades, to be replaced by anger. The Hungarian attack barely gets any momentum, dissolving into savage hand-to-hand combat with no quarter asked or given. Meanwhile horse archers and mauroi swirl around the periphery, pouring arrows and bullets into the fray. Some of the newer companies, desperate to get away from the maelstrom, start falling back. The resulting gaps are immediately exploited by crack Varangian brazoi who wade in with handgun and axe alongside dismounted kataphraktoi.
Hell then crashes into the Hungarian right flank. It is Leo. Never a calm man, his earlier explosions are like candles compared to the supernova that now erupts. His cavalry charge meets a squadron of Hungarian knights head-on, and flattens them. Leo’s first blow, clearly seen by both armies, decapitates the head of a huge fourteen-hand destrier in one stroke.
Then it is again the turn of the Black Army. The professional mercenaries kill the prince’s mount, only to have Leo single-handedly cut a path through them on foot. According to one account, Leo is shot at point-blank range in the chest. He then proceeds to beat the arquebusier to death with his own weapon.
When the reserves are committed, it is too much, and the Black Army begins to break, fleeing towards the frozen Danube. Leo ignores them, grabbing a riderless horse and chasing after his original target, Emperor Stephen.
* * *
Three Magyars were coming at him. Leo snarled, slamming his horse to the left at the last second as he plunged his lance through a chink in the armor protecting the neck of the horse. The animal collapsed as he dropped his broken lance, Leo braining the rider with his mace as he swept past. The other two swirled around, chasing after him.
Leo was racing ahead, where the great silken banners of the false emperor were flying. Time to pay, bastard. “NO MERCY!” There would be two emperors dying on this battlefield.
He was alone. What was left of his cavalry was regrouping or pursuing the Hungarian army, which was beginning to fold, flying to the Danube. At least a dozen crossbow bolts were embedded in his armor, and the rest was covered in dents from mace blows and glancing bullet strikes. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now, not the battle, not his life, nothing at all. Nothing except the kill.
Another Magyar fell, then a second, a third. He lost his first mace. Out came a throwing axe, shattering the face of a fourth Hungarian. The snap of bone, the scream of man, as Leo’s second mace found a ribcage. Blows were falling on him; he could feel them strike, but he felt no pain, even as a crossbow bolt mangled his left shoulder. My right is my sword arm anyway.
And then there he was, Stephen himself. The first blow splintered the false emperor’s shield; the second disintegrated it. Leo raised his arm for a third, and then his horse screamed. The animal toppled, a bullet in its brains. Both of Leo’s legs snapped.
He blinked, staring up at the sky, flat on his back. Struggling to rise, his right hand reached for a dirk. A shadow fell over him. “You’re dead, Greek,” the Magyar sneered.
Leo shot up, the dagger stabbing upward under the cuirass into the man’s bowels. He twisted. “So are you,” he growled. He never saw the blow that took off his head.
* * *
Although Leo fails in his quest to kill the Hungarian Emperor, the Hungarian army is collapsing. With the Black Army itself routing, there is nothing Stephen can do to stop it. Most of the fugitives choose the quickest apparent route to safety, across the Danube. And then the Roman artillery finally roars into action.
Not a single Magyar soldier is killed or wounded by that volley. Then the ice breaks. The heavily armored Magyar cavalry suffer the most, but even for the more lightly-clad infantry who escape drowning, the shock of the freezing cold water or the resulting frostbite and hypothermia in many cases prove fatal.
The Battle of the Iron Gates is, regarding the percentage of participants, one of the bloodiest in Roman history. Out of thirty two thousand Romans, over seven thousand are casualties. But for the Hungarians the situation is far worse. Out of their forty thousand, only twenty five thousand return to Hungary (over half of the lost drown in the Danube). To this day the Iron Gates are known in Hungary as the Graveyard.
Although Stephen escapes, albeit with a shield arm broken in five places, Hungary is effectively out of the war. The day before, the Venetian fleet sacked Zadar, and Leo had already drafted orders for the Apulian tagma to cross the Adriatic and besiege Ragusa. They had not been issued, but all they require is Andreas’ seal.
That however could be a problem. Andreas was not felled by sorcery, but by a massive stroke. His left side is paralyzed, and although he wakes shortly after the battle, he soon slips back into unconsciousness. While the army goes into winter quarters watching the Danube (after replacing several Serbian princes), Andreas is rushed back to Constantinople.
During the journey the Emperor slips in and out of consciousness, and is clearly delirious. He talks with individuals from Vlad Dracula to Pope Julius II (the latter is more yelling than talking). It is surprising that he even makes it back to the Queen of Cities. On examination, it is the learned opinion of the School of Medicine of the University of Constantinople that Andreas Komnenos will at most live three more days.
For ten weeks Andreas holds the dread foe at bay, and it seems that not even death himself can conquer Andreas Komnenos. But eventually even he must yield.
The White Palace, Constantinople, March 7, 1517:
“Father?” Eudoxia whispered, stroking his hand. “Father?” Andreas Komnenos moaned softly under the pile of blankets covering him, but he did not answer. For Andreas Komnenos dreamed.
“Ow!” he yelped, dropping his wooden sword. Andreas looked down on the red spot covering most of his eight-year-old hand where Manuel had whacked it. That would leave a bruise.
Manuel of Kyzikos lowered his own practice sword. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Andreas was about to nod, but instead he opened his mouth. “No.” He picked up his weapon and pointed it at Manuel. “No,” he commanded. “Continue.”
Why this memory?
Again there was a blade in Manuel’s hand. But this was not wooden, but steel, and it flashed, it sung. Blood flew as Venetian after Venetian fell from those strikes, but still they kept coming, too many. One got through.
He came at him and Zoe, screaming, his sword raised high as a cursing Manuel ripped his weapon out of a ribcage. Then Andreas moved, shoving his dirk into the Venetian’s belly. He stopped, his hot blood flowing, sticking, to Andreas’ trembling hands, the air ripe with the stench of loosened bowels, his fading eyes locking onto Andreas’, his killer’s, face as if it were an anchor holding him to life.
Why this memory?
Crusader cannonballs screamed down all around him. Wagons shattered, guns burst, and men died. The lethal rain continued, but he remained atop his horse, watching, waiting.
A crouching skutatos came to him. “Basileus, please come down. We cannot spare you.”
Andreas looked out as another ten bursts of flame leapt out from the crusader lines, and down at the soldier. “There are times when an emperor’s life does not count.”
Why this memory?
The memories came, sixty years of memories, memories of war. Smyrna, Constantinople, Sicily, Apulia, Venice, Cannae, Rome, Edessa, Mesopotamia, Mount Tabor, Cairo, Bizerte, the Iron Gates. So much war, so much death, so much loss. The faces of the lost floated before him, his mother, his father, Manuel, Alexeia, Kristina, Alfredo, Andronikos, Zoe, Zeno. Again Smyrna.
This time there was only one word.
Why?
He remembered his sister Zoe screaming in the night. He remembered holding her desperately, trying to calm her down, telling her she was safe. And he remembered screaming in the night, and Zoe holding him desperately, trying to calm him down, telling him he was safe.
Why?
He remembered the courtyard in Smyrna. The look on the man’s eyes as he rutted inside Zoe, the stench of the sergeant’s breath, the blood on his mother’s dress.
WHY?!!
Andreas Komnenos dreamed.
He saw himself reading a book in the library, a boy on the cusp of manhood. It was him, but not. He seemed different somehow, softer. A woman came into the room. She kissed the boy-that-was-not-quite-him on the cheek, took his hand, and led him away.
He saw children. Some looked like his own. Some did not. They laughed and played, with the man-that-was-not-quite-him and the unknown woman.
He saw the man-that-was-not-quite-him grow old and full of years. This man looked a lot more like him, but Andreas could see the difference between himself and this man. It was the hands; his hands had never held a sword. And then the man-that-was-not-quite-him died, the unknown woman at his side and his children, all of his children, surrounding him.
Tears clouded Andreas’ eyes. Why? Why couldn’t that have been me instead?
He smelled the answer before he saw it. It was a smell he knew all too well, that of fire.
Constantinople was burning. The Queen of Cities was screaming as the flames clawed at her, dancing their macabre dance of death. They lapped around the Aghia Sophia, darting up her walls, rising higher, higher, ever higher, until they towered over the dome itself. NO! The cupola collapsed, a rain of stones falling down as the flames danced ever higher, fanned by the breeze. He could hear words on the breeze. He could not make them out, but he knew the tongues, the tongues of those he had vanquished. They were many, they were vast and diverse, but here they were one. They were cheering.
He was in a blacksmith’s forge. The man beat on a red-hot blade, striking it with his hammer over and over. Andreas started. That’s my sword! It was not his famous bastard sword, his wedding gift from Kristina, adorned with gold and jewels. No, this blade was as plain as any sword could be, a common dirk. Andreas had taken it from a slain Roman soldier in Smyrna, on the Black Day.
A plain sword, an ordinary sword. He saw a little boy, held in his mother’s arm, sniffling as his father departed for a war. A plain boy, an ordinary boy. Me.
The blacksmith kept pounding on the dirk, and it changed. It grew, snaking outward, its contours shifting as the blows fell on it. It was David, his gleaming bastard sword. The blacksmith stopped, looked up at Andreas, and nodded.
Andreas did not even have to pick it up; David flew into his hand. He could smell the fires again, so he turned around and raised the sword. The wind was still blowing, and Andreas could hear the tongues on the breeze, still one. They were screaming.
“Now you know why.” Andreas spun around. The sword was gone, but he did not need it. The speaker was Nazim of Smyrna. But that was to be expected; they were in his house.
Andreas Komnenos remembered.
It was a cool, brisk day, near the outskirts of Drama. His eldest sister Anastasia sat atop her horse glaring at him. At her side were Petros and Alexios Palaiologos. The next few minutes could plunge the Empire into civil war.
Better that only one should die, rather than thousands. The boy Andreas took the diadem in his small hands and held it out to Anastasia. “Take it,” he said. “It’s yours.”
“You gave up the crown,” Nazim said. “Why?”
“It was the only way to avoid civil war.”
“You were willing to die for the Empire. Instead you were required to live for it. A far more burdensome task, I will admit, but also far more noble.” He looked at Andreas. “You disagree?”
“I feel that I could’ve done more, done better.”
Nazim nodded. “Yes. You could have. But you could have done far worse.” Constantinople burned. “In the end, you did the best you could. No one can ask for more. But now it is time to rest.” He stood up, opening the door. “Come.”
Andreas rose. He felt different somehow, lighter. The pain from his old, worn body was falling off of him like a tattered coat as he walked out.
He had been here before, a thousand, ten thousand times. It was the courtyard in Smyrna. The Venetians were raping his mother and sister. He walked, looking at the scene he had seen so many times. He felt different though. There was no anger, no rage, simply sadness, regret. He kept walking, Nazim alongside him.
The gate to the garden opened. Andreas paused, uncertain for a second, and looked back. The Venetians were still at it.
A cool hand touched his forearm, and Andreas looked to see the warm, kind face of his mother. There were tears in her eyes. “Welcome home, son.” The gate closed behind them, and together they went into the garden, not looking back, never looking back. But it would not have mattered, for there was nothing to see.
The courtyard was empty.
The demons of Andreas Komnenos were finally at rest.
From Empire of Blood and Gold: A History of the Second Komnenid Dynasty
Even after death, Andreas I was extraordinary. He was not buried in a grand tomb amongst the Emperors of old, or even in the environs of the White Palace. Instead he was buried, per his orders, in a more run-down district of Constantinople, in a common graveyard. But that graveyard was for those who had died in the siege of Constantinople in 1455-56. So it was with those with whom Andreas had first fought and bled that he chose to rest for all eternity. His mausoleum is still there.
He is one of the most contentious Roman Emperors, as can be reflected by the multitude of epithets he possesses. The original was the Little Megas, but he was also known as “the Vanquisher of all Rhomania’s Foes”, “the Scourge of the Latins”, “the Undefeated”, and most popular in his final days, “the Shatterer of Armies”.
It is unsurprising that modern historiography has often continued the trend to emphasize Andreas’ military exploits. For the most part, the contemporary terms have remained in use although varying in popularity. However by most historians he is known as Andreas Niketas, Andreas Victor.
Of course, when one turns away from Andreas the strategos, the names vary considerably. To the Lotharingian school, he is Andreas the Mad, a barely sane ruler kept only in check by those of his brilliant advisors, of whom pride of place goes to Alexeia Komnena. The Lombard school continues this trend, and it is altogether ironic, considering the actions of his progeny, that it emphasizes the contribution of Alfredo di Lecce. Professor Silvio Berlusconi even goes so far as to credit Strategos Alfredo with planning the Venetian, Cannae, and Egyptian campaigns.
In feminist literature, on the other hand, Andreas is known as Andreas the Wise. Some schools of thought in this field view Andreas as a sort of male proto-visionary for the rights of women. That is due to the importance he placed on women in his administration, namely his wife Kristina, his sisters Alexeia and Zoe, and his daughter Eudoxia, and his consistent anti-rape efforts throughout his entire reign.
The truth likely contains bits of all the names. No epithet can fully encompass a man, much less a man like Andreas Komnenos.
One of his most famous, arguably the most famous, of his exploits is his supposed return from the grave and the Iron Gates campaign. But for all the drama of that act, one thing is clear. Andreas Komnenos failed.
It is true that his return derailed the first round of the Time of Troubles. In all, five thousand casualties were inflicted what could have been a far more serious war. And while it ended the threat Leo posed and ensured the Hungarians would never have the strength to intervene later, it did not avert the coming disaster.
Even the brief winter campaign crippled Herakleios’ already poor health, to the point that most scholars agree that during his reign, it was Empress Venera who in fact ruled the Empire. But more importantly, neither Leo or the Hungarians were the hidden enemy Andreas had tried to lure into the open by his fake demise. The architects of the Time of Troubles still remained, delayed, but not defeated.
But Andreas also did not fail. It is true that the man Andreas by his actions and inactions helped cause the Time of Troubles. But it is equally true that the legend of Andreas would be crucial to seeing the Empire through to the other side.
There is one name of Andreas that has remained constant throughout the centuries, immune to the vicissitudes of scholars and historians. It is the name given to him by the Roman people themselves. To them, Andreas was their Emperor, a man who walked among them, fought beside them, bled for them, shared their pain and sorrow. They remembered an Emperor who had offered to give up his crown, his life, to spare them civil war, an Emperor who would charge into battle and sacrifice himself so that their sons might live, an Emperor who would stand in the freezing rain to see that even the lowliest crone could get justice.
The Roman people remember that, and so their name for Andreas has remained constant. To this day, they do not call him by name. Instead they simply call him “The Good Emperor."
