Chapter 2: Imposters and Alans
At the coming of the Imposter, Kiev burned. Yaropolk, Prince of the so-called "Varangian Principality" fought for his life in the ruined streets. Rus mace met Khazarian scimitar[1] as the man who declared himself to be Yaropolk's father battled with him in the grand city.
The Imposter was a fool, but a cunning one; Yaropolk thought as he sidestepped the massive crushing weapon of his fellow Rus. The man's bald head and lovingly trimmed facial hair did call to mind the deceased Sviatoslav's features, but that is where the resemblance ended. This deceiver was massive where Sviatoslav was average, and where Sviatoslav was whole (before his death, of course), the Imposter was scarred and pitted, missing three fingers and an eye.
Still, Yaropolk could see why Vladimir had put his warriors behind the false Sviatoslav, and proclaimed the man his father. His brother wanted a chance for revenge against the Khazars. As he clashed weapons with the Imposter, the two exchanged few words.
"Why?", asked "Sviatoslav".
Yaropolk answered with his blade, slashing the Rus's wrist, forcing the larger man to shift his mace to the other hand.
The Imposter growled, and swung his mace in a skull-crushing assault. Yaropolk was forced to duck behind a portion of wooden wall that once guarded Kiev. The mighty warrior strode towards Yaropolk slowly, deliberately.
"You would forsake our traditions for those of the Jew? You would spit on our ancestors gods?"
Whirling around, and striking the deceiver in the throat, Yaropolk watched as the life bled from the giant Rus.
"If it means that my children's children will someday be rulers of all Khazaria, I will."
Yaropolk cleaned his blade on the pitted armor of the Imposter, and looked upon the destruction visited upon Kiev by his fallen foe.
"We will be more Jewish than the Khagans themselves, if needs be."
Yaropolk strode off to meet his trusted band of warriors, the druzhina. Before he did so, he uttered a small, half-pagan prayer.
"May Elohim, Perun, and all the gods bless the Khagan against my brother. He is an easier master then the Greeks and Arabs, and a far less arrogant lord then Vladimir."
--------
In 977, when Melech took power among the Khazars, a figure appeared among the Rus, claiming to be Sviatoslav, not killed by Khagan Joseph, but alive and well.
It was a paperthin pretext, but Vladimir of the Rus took the opportunity as it came. Proclaiming the man to be his true father, the two led a massive invasion of Khazaria in the first year of Melech's rule. The man who would be known to history as "The Imposter of Kiev" invaded Yaropolk of Kiev's Varangian Principality[2].
The Imposter was defeated and slain during his sacking of Kiev; popular legend of the time holds that Yaropolk himself cut the Imposter's throat while reaffirming his loyalty to the Khagan.
In any case, Vladimir the Rus was not beaten yet, and it took until the spring of 978, when a counter-attack of Khazar horse archers ambushed him, to get the Rus to declare a peace between the two peoples.
Melech had stopped another invasion by the northern raiders, and gained as impressive a reputation as his father, but at the cost of another sacking of Kiev.
Knowing that without any aid, one of the greatest and richest cities of Khazaria would be abandoned, and also knowing that he could solidify his hold on Yaropolk, Melech proclaimed that if the citizens of Kiev would join their ruler in Noahidism, they would not be required to pay even the small portion of tribute they usually paid for 40 years, the same amount of time that the Hebrews wandered in the desert.
Along with the rabbis sent to instruct the pagans of Kiev in the ways of faith, this proclamation caused nearly all of Yaropolk's capital to convert to the half-faith of Bene Noach. A few even converted fully to Judaism, and received training in reading, so that they could read the Torah.
Melech was a ruler determined to reform his lands, however, and this was not the end of his plans. Aware that while a greater portion of the nobles in his personal lands practiced Judaism, most of the non-Khazar nobility did not, he sought to bring more prestigious Jews to his court, and to this end struck up a written correspondence with the elderly Hasdai ibn Shaprut[3], friend of his father Joseph. Hasdai promised to encourage Jewish scholars and other trained men to visit Khazaria, as the only Jewish kingdom in the world.
Finally, as the son of old Khagan Joseph and an Alan princess, Melech attempted to enforce his royal right to Alania, which he believed to be his birthright. The Alans disagreed. Violently.
However, this was not to be a mere domestic rebellion against Khazar authority; in the Byzantine Empire, anti-Khazar sentiments lead to the brilliant general-turned exiled rebel known as Bardas Phokas[4] being sent to "help" the Alans in their fight against the Khazars.
Bardas was supplied with 5,000 Greek soldiers, and ordered to cause as much chaos among the Khazars as possible. This he did eagerly, "advising" the Alan king to hamper the Khazar trade routes for several years; not until 980 was he stopped and the Alan capital of Maghas occupied. Bardas fled Alania, but took enough loot with him that the Byzantines hailed him as a hero. Bardas's popularity led Emperor Basil II to exile the general once more, this time in Sinope, where Basil hoped he could not cause trouble.
Melech was not very partial to the idea of the Alans rebelling again, so he hired a force of 4,000 assorted soldiers from the Volga Bulgars and the Maygars, to permanently garrison Alania.
In order to gain much more power and money, he also proclaimed that any merchant traveling through Khazaria must give a tithe of 1/10 of his goods, and must travel through the capitals of the client states of the Khazars.
Soon, Melech's centralizing tendencies would lead to bigger rewards and bigger problems. However, the first portion of his long rule is generally agreed to have ended in 980 AD.
------
Author's Notes:
[1] According to the notes I've gathered on the Khazars, they were the first European power to use scimitars, excluding the Persians.
[2]Note; this is not the name that the Rus under Yaropolk call the Rus beholden to the Khazars, it is just a sort of "historian's name", like the Byzantine Empire.
[3]Hasdai ibn Shaprut was a Jewish scholar, doctor, and diplomat around this time period. He served the Caliph of Cordoba in all three professions, forging a short alliance between the Caliph and the Byzantines in RL. He also had a short written correspondence with the RL Khagan Joseph, (called the Khazar Correspondence, of course), in which he asked for as much information as possible about the Khazars. I'm assuming that in the event of Joseph's survival, Hasdai becomes his good friend, and extends that friendship to Melech.
[4]Bardas Phokas the Younger was a three-time rebel, twice rebelling against the Byzantine Empire, and once on their behalf against Bardas Skeleros. I plan to use Bardas Phokas later on in my TL, but I'm not sure in what context. Any suggestions? While it has to be somewhat plausible, the Rule of Cool is in effect, so feel free to make outrageous suggestions for Phokas.
.
