Another great update! The quality of the narrative is getting better and better!
The Mauricians: A Medieval Roman novel
- Thread starter Pururauka
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Hahaha, thanks my friend, you're too kind!
Not many people seem to be reading this, but I'm glad the ones that do like it
If you are unsure about certain things and don't feel confident commenting just heap praise onto the writer, works every time
I'll sure plenty are reading it's just not many are commenting.
Well, thank you both!
And any feedback would be greatly appreciated
Chapter 4-III- Yareb
Chapter 4 -III-
“Now!” the shout resonated clearly, from a distance.
He grabbed a rock from the stack he had piled up nearby and began to aim them as best he could, trying to hit the soldiers’ heads. All of the others were doing the same.
“Ambush!” the Romans screamed in Greek beneath, some raising their shields, others trying to scatter. Two of them had already been hit cleanly on the head, and due to the lack of helmets, had had their skulls cracked and lay dead on the road.
Yareb continued hurling the rocks, mustering all of his strength. He knew that all the Jews in Antioch, as well as some Christians from the Green deme, had had enough of the despotic commands that had come from Constantinople. The last straw had been the visit of the Emperor’s magistros, Alexander, whose short stay in the city had seen many Jews who had been compulsorily converted to Christianity “by the grace of an imperial decree.” But those who refused had been swiftly put to death. Even my father, he remembered.
By now, Alexander had gone onto Palestine to continue with his itinerant murderous rampage, and as a result the Roman military presence had declined accordingly. But still, he also knew that doing what he was doing now would not guarantee complete success for his people. However, his friend Moshe did know what would; so this ambush was but a means to an end.
The assault ended; six Romans lay dead, three more were still alive, but wounded, the rest had scattered. He ran back downstairs, by which time his companions were already there, finishing the surviving Romans off with their daggers.
“That wasn’t too bad was it?” asked Hed, a young boy of around seventeen, as he wiped the sweat off his brow with his forearm.
“No, but we need to get moving, we are not there yet” was Yareb’s quick reply. “Let’s go.”
The gathering point was near the city center, by the great Christian cathedral. As they ran down the narrow streets, they passed the burnt down remains of the local synagogue. He had heard about how Alexander had ordered it to be burnt, with Rab Chizkiyah, and any other men who refused to leave, trapped inside. As if enough synagogues had not by this point been turned over to the Christians. “Bastards” he muttered to himself.
The quick shout from Hed forced him to look to his left. He had only been focused on what was ahead, as they ran towards the central square, and had only glanced at the synagogue in passing. Hed had been running almost alongside him, but suddenly he was not there.
He stopped completely. So did his other five friends. Hed lay on the road, crying, an arrow stuck to his arm, blood flowing from the wound. Before long, more arrows began flying in their direction; upon crossing an intersection they had failed to notice the group of Roman archers that had been headed in their direction. And now they had run into each other.
“Kill those fucking Jews!” barked the one who must have been in command, in Syriac.
Yareb knew that their only chance was to disperse. “Run! Scatter!” The boys did not need to hear the order twice.
He himself, continued on, trying to make it towards the city square. He heard as yet another arrow whistled past his head, and saw it land some distance ahead; but he kept on, ducking his head as he ran. And abruptly he remembered. Zecharya’s bakery! It was but half a block away. He turned right at the next intersection, and there it was. Some distance behind, he could still hear the shouts of some Romans following him. He ran in, and there was the baker.
“Yareb! What in the world?” he asked surprised.
“Zecharya please, just let me hide for a few minutes! Please?” he begged panting, sweat dripping from the sides of his jaw. The Romans were getting closer.
“Get in here!” he replied as he dragged a large empty basket out, next to the other ones full of bread. Yareb jumped in, and Zecharya poured the bread from a neighboring basket on top, covering him completely, finishing not a moment too soon.
“Jew, where is the other heathen?” Yareb heard in the darkness of the basket. Through the weaving of the reeds he could perceive that only two men had followed him. He knew that even breathing might move the bread on top, revealing him.
“My friend, I am no Jew and if you must know, I saw a boy running down the street but he turned left at the next corner, I believe” Zecharya countered, as he pulled the small wooden crucifix, that hung from his neck, from under his tunic.
“You’re a dirty Jew, you probably still deny Christ in secret…”
“If the boy’s not here let’s go” interjected the other soldier, turning to leave.
“Bah…” said the first Roman, kicking down the bread basket next to the one Yareb was hiding in, as he left. The bread scattered across the floor. Please God… he couldn’t hold his breath much longer.
A few more moments of tense silence ensued. With the Romans gone, Zecharya walked up to the doorway, observing them until they turned the corner. “Go ahead and breathe boy.”
Yareb took a big gasp of air with his mouth, before straightening up, as the bread started to fall off the basket. “Thank you so much…” he started as he stood upright.
“You need to get out know. I know what you’re up to and this is not going to end well. The Romans are going to come back son…” the baker replied, sighing as he sat back on the front step.
“Zecharya, they murdered my father and made my mother baptize. You know how they also killed Chizkiyah, and look at you know. Look at you now! They make you call yourself a Christian! Something had to be done.”
“You are much too young Yareb. Too young to know that the Romans will come back, and take revenge with their typical cruelty.”
To Yareb it did not matter, the Romans had become more and more intolerant over time; he did not care if the Emperor was a low usurper as some claimed. He did not care if the “rightful” Emperor was someone else, somewhere else. Past revolts had failed, but times were different now. Waiting for a Messiah had only kept them expectant in the sidelines; now they would not wait. Now we have the Persians. All he cared about was setting things right; his father did not die in vain. He demonstrated to Yareb what was important in life: your faith and your principles. And now as Moshe had promised, they could coordinate actions with the Persians and be free. Truly free.
He turned to face the empty street again. Shouts and cries, echoed from afar; he knew the revolt was now in full swing. From the horizon he could discern the columns of smoke rising. “Very well, Zecharya, your choice. We have lit a flame that won’t be blown off. Freedom has finally come for God’s people.”
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Why would they not wear helmets? Are these not armed men, prepared for action?
This is just a cavil. I'm following this with great interest.
Well, I thought it unnecessary for them to be walking around fully armed, in a city that after all was Roman, and at this point still off of the Persian front, and just before Alexander's plan begins to bear fruit.
Very glad to have you along!
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Great update! Are the Persians actually going to give the Jews freedom or is that guy just being really naive?
OTL the Persians allowed the Jews to manage Jerusalem during the first part of their occupation (until the Christians revolted and pissed Sharbaraz off, and it was then that he slaughtered as many Romans as he could, and carried the Vera Crux off...) If they can establish contact, something similar happening ITTL Antioch shouldn't be too ASB.
In any case I think the Persians wouldn't mind a client state (Jewish or not) as long as it is carved out from Rome and not them. HOWEVER, the war is far from over, and the Romans still have strength left to keep up the fight.
Actually, the touch about the helmets is quite good. I can tell you from experience, no soldier wears a helmet if it can be avoided. The bastard things are just too hot and heavy
I thought so. Although I cannot claim to know from experience, I would imagine that much. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 4-IV- Gennadios
Chapter 4 -IV-
He looked nervously about as they continued to wait at the agreed rendezvous point with the praetorian prefect in the Artopoleia quarter, by the forum of Constantine. Once again, the spring night brought about perfect moonlight, freeing him and his men of the need for torches. That’d have been an added inconvenience, surely.
“Gennadios, is he coming?” one of the men asked him.
“Shhh! Be quiet! He’ll be here…”replied the patrician as he put a raised finger to his lips.
But Theodorus was running late; they had decided to meet almost an hour before. The original plan they had put together had been scrapped after Phocas suddenly called off the traditional races which followed the festivities of Epiphany. Popular discontent had resulted, but Gennadios had vacillated in acting then: Alexios, count of the walls, had then not been contacted yet, and although Alexander was away, Priscus had still been in the city. Furthermore, though the Emperor’s son in law had been initially considered as a co-conspirator, Theodorus had discarded the idea of including him, after Priscus had apparently patched up his tense relationship with Phocas. The new plan was set to take action that very night; capitalizing on the nascent discontent that had followed the news of the revolts all over Syria and the Levant. The prefect had already, supposedly, convinced Alexios, as well as the head of the demes, to intervene in their behalf. The plan would surely succeed with Alexios’ help. Even if he was not actively involved, just by staying out their way would suffice. Moreover, Phocas had sent Priscus with a large detachment of the excubitor guard to Nicaea, were the conspirators had created a “diversion” in order to direct those forces away from the capital. With the comes excubitorum gone, Phocas was virtually left alone; Alexander was in Jerusalem, his brother Comentiolus was still guarding the Danube, his other brother Domentziolus had just left for Sicily, and the younger Domentziolus was still running around in Cappadocia.
“Look Gennadios, something’s wrong. Something’s amiss!” insisted the man.
“Damn it Leo! Theodorus will come, just shut up!” But he did not like the delay either. Not at all.
No sooner had he finished with the phrase that they all heard the sound. Distinctive and unique, although faint at first; it was unmistakably the sound of horseshoes smashing against the cobblestones of the Mese. And they were fast approaching.
“Were they coming with horses? Wouldn’t that be…?”
“No…” Fuck, we’ve been caught… “Run! Everyone run!” yelled the patrician as he turned to leave, pulling the hood of his robe over his head. The group gathered around him spread out; some running towards the adjacent forum, others turning into the neighboring streets. But the horses were gaining up on them.
Gennadios continued to hear them closer and closer. As he turned a corner off of the street he was on, he looked back, briefly as he ran, and saw three excubitors but a few feet away from him. Suddenly, he felt a heavy blow in the back of the head, before everything went black.
____________________________________
The first thing he felt on waking up was the immense pain, which spread from the top of his head down to his shoulder blades. Before he even opened his eyes, he tried to turn his neck but the action only resulted in a sharp sting which ran further down his back. Fine then…
He opened his eyes. He clearly realized where he was. Even if he was blind he could have known it; feeling the cold stone slabs he was sitting on, and his back was resting on, and just using his nose. His hands had been bound tightly together with some coarse rope; he had not sensed how his wrists hurt before, the pain from his neck being the first thing in his mind.
The small window on the upper reaches of the wall to his left let him know that morning was fast approaching; he could distinguish the purple-orange tones of the sky, in spite of the four iron bars which intersected it.
“How are you feeling?” The voice was unmistakable. Gennadios tried to turn his head abruptly, but soon regretted the decision.
“Theodorus…?” he said, as he managed to sit up somewhat straighter, and to turn his whole body rather than just his head.
“Yes… we messed it up, didn’t we?” The soldiers had not been kind to the prefect either. His bruised face showed obvious signs of “interrogation.”
"What happened? How did they know…?” started the patrician.
“Apparently Germanina, wasn’t as reliable as we first thought…they arrested the Empress, and then they came for me…I’m … I’m … sorry I couldn’t even warn you...” Theodorus barely finished, before his voice cracked towards the end.
This is it then. “I guess we are dead men now … I hope the rest got away” concluded Gennadios as he let out a heavy sigh. He felt empty; his stomach empty, his entrails empty, his heart empty. He knew that he was going to die. He could only hope that it would happen quickly.
“They brought twelve other men with you, I hope that wasn’t all of them…”informed him his cellmate.
“No…that wasn’t all of them…”Trying to rely on as few people as possible for their communication had backfired. Constantina’s servant had apparently revealed everything that she knew of; it had been enough to seize Theodorus before he even left his home. Phocas must have waited then until Gennadios and his men stuck their necks out before seizing them. He was now certain of his fate and of his partner’s. But would they dare execute the Empress? Well, that certainly didn’t matter for Maurice and his boys…
The creaking noise of the old hinges in some nearby door brought him back from his thoughts. Someone was coming. He could hear the steps approaching, before the hoary, greasy, wooden door of their cell swung open.
“Get up you bums! Time for your reward…”grinned the one in front of the group. His accent was somewhat strange, but not to the point of being difficult to comprehend. He was a Syrian perhaps. Four men rushed into the cell and pulled both of them up, placing their own arms between the prisoners’ arms and ribcages. The pain on Gennadios’ neck increased as they yanked him up. Once on their feet they were made to walk, with their guards behind.
As they continued down the corridor, the chuckles from the men behind them annoyed him. They could probably care less who is Emperor; they could care less if it was Chosroes instead. “Will you shut up already!” he yelled before he even realized it. Everyone stopped walking. Theodorus looked at him wide eyed. But the laughs stopped. And then he felt it.
Being unable to put his hands in front of him, he hit the rocky floor face on. Someone had kicked him on the back. He could taste the blood from a busted lip. Before long, someone grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head up. The pain in his neck was unbearable; he felt it was about to snap. He cried out.
“Now you shut up! Shut up fucking traitor!” the soldier pushed his head back down, hitting it on the floor one more time. He felt his nose crack. Fuck; God let it end already. They pulled him back up as they had done in the cell. They continued walking on. He could now clearly see the open doorway to which they were headed. Dawn had already broken outside.
Coming into a walled courtyard, there were arranged long makeshift gallows from which hung some of the men that the prefect told him had been captured, as well as some he did not recognize. Next to the gallows, somewhat closer to the center there was a chopping block, and the bodies of four of his co-conspirators lay piled up to the side, Leo among them. The black robed figure of a priest stood silently nearby. The heads were piled up further to the left, next to an improvised dais upon which had been arranged a seat for the Emperor Phocas, where he was surrounded by a few of his excubitors. The only one Gennadios could recognize was Priscus; he had made it back after all. But the figure which struck him the most, in a heavy contrast to the macabre spectacle he know beheld, was the chained figure of the Empress Constantina, still veiled in the holy robes from the monastery, standing impassively, with a hollow face next to the piled heads, restrained by two men.
Theodorus and Gennadios were brought before Phocas, who looked at them blankly as he leaned forward in his seat, without getting up. “We are not going to waste time trying to secure your repentance; God is a fair judge, and if there’s mercy to be had on you, He will do so. Now tell Us, who else has betrayed the Empire?”
Gennadios looked down. If anyone got away he would not betray them. He did not hear the old prefect utter a word either. He could hear Phocas breathing out heavily. “We would hate to consider that your families have also had a role to play in this whole fiasco…”
At that moment he was glad that, in a moment of precaution thinking carelessly for an instant about what could happen if he failed, he had sent his wife Maria, and his two little daughters, off to their family in Athens. Hopefully, on news of his capture they could make it out alive. He was ignorant as to whether old Theodorus had done likewise. “Do what you want tyrant. Hang me, behead me…in two months’ time, the disgusted people will drag you through the streets when Theodosius enters The City. We’ll settle accounts in the afterlife.” Saying that had actually felt good. He felt free from the emptiness he had felt earlier; free from the overpowering fear that had plagued him for the last months as they planned the coup.
“Bahh…get it over with” was the Emperor’s reply, waving a hand. “Now let me have a word with Constantina.”
The patrician was dragged back from the stage along with Theodorus, who had actually started to cry, silently, and back towards the center of the courtyard. To the chopping block.
“Constantina; We expected better, much better from the daughter of Tiberius Constantine. After all, Maurice was born a peasant, but you…” Gennadios heard from a distance. He could see that the Empress had been brought before the throne, but on being addressed there was no reply from her, only silence.
To his right, Theodorus was punched in the stomach and thrown to the ground, then dragged, and his head placed in the block.
“Eis to onoma tou Patros, kai tou Huiou, kai tou Hagiou Pneumatos…” The priest made the sign of the cross over the prefect, as the executioner raised the huge axe that he had been leaning on. The old man continued to cry.
Gennadios could not look. He closed his eyes and heard the chopping, crunching, noise that the axe made on encountering flesh. He heard a soft thud, followed by another, a harder, one. And then a dragging noise. The metallic smell of blood penetrated his nostrils.
“We gave you and your daughters a chance. We gave you life! And this is how you repay Us! And now you have the insolence to not even answer Us!” Phocas continued in the background. But Gennadios still did not hear a reply.
He thought he knew where he was; a courtyard of the Boukeleon palace by the southern Sea Wall, south of the Great Palace. He could hear the soft roar of the waves crashing against the base of the walls from a distance. He opened his eyes.
Theodorus’ body had been dragged away and placed with the others. He knew he was next. Suddenly, he was on the floor again. Son of a bitch! He assumed that the same soldier had kicked him on the back again, with the same results, as his hands were still tied. He was dragged up and his head placed on the wet block. The pain from his neck now spread all the way down his arms and his legs. He cried out, once again.
“Well then you’ve chosen your fate… We wash our hands from your decision.” Phocas carried on. By now he could not see the usurper anymore, the position of the block forced him to look to the right off the dais, into a wall. But there still was no forthcoming answer from Constantina. It did not matter; Gennadios knew now that she too was going to die. The executioner raised the axe, high over him.
“Eis to onoma tou Patros, kai tou Huiou, kai tou Hagiou Pneumatos…”
The patrician closed his eyes. “Fuck you Phocas! I’ll see you in Hades!” he shouted as loud as he could, while the bloodstained axe came down.
How do the people of Constantinople view Theodosius? I imagine it would be mixed since he seems to be pro-Italy and it is his main power base.
Neat little update, as ever. Sorry for my boring comments, all I have is unadulterated praise for this TL!
Hmmm...let' see;
I would say that the upper reaches of society miss him more everyday (in spite of not knowing him.) Phocas' crackdown (including Maurice's young kids, Narses, John Mystacon, Germanus, his own man Leontius, and now Gennadios, Theodorus and Constantina) is certainly unnerving a lot of Constantinople's 1%.
With regards to the common folk, we could account for the fact that prices have risen to fund the two front war, but most importantly is the fact that Phocas upset them by calling off the Epiphany races, AND putting down the riots that almost led to Priscus being executed. With that in mind Theodosius is still far away, I wouldn't say that people would be ready to revolt just yet and call him in. If he was a lot closer however...
Also I would like to restate once again, this is not the post 1054 Empire, the West still has Romans (and Orthodox Catholics at that,) the fact that Theodosius has had to work with what he had available wouldn't necessarily antagonize the Constantinopolitan crowds. Furthermore, we could argue: the fact that he's had to spend actual time beyond the walls of The City has given him a broader view and understanding of the Empire (that it doesn't extend only as far as the Theodosian walls and consider the rest as expendable.) If he manages to win the war it'd be interesting to see how that could translate into his foreign and domestic policies.
Welcome!
Neat little update, as ever. Sorry for my boring comments, all I have is unadulterated praise for this TL!
BG, as always any comments (short or explicit) are welcome!
Not many people seem to be reading this, but I'm glad the ones that do like it
More than you think
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