Read Online Strategos: Island in the Storm by Gordon Doherty - Free Book Online Page B

anxious to see who had come to their lofty settlement. Towns like this were dotted all across the Parhar and Antitaurus Mountains. Collections of loosely affiliated but notoriously fickle Armenian tribes and federations – more often at war with one another than working together. Again, he heard Philaretos’ mocking words.
    The lead sentry brought them to the doors of the fortified manor then motioned for Apion to enter, alone. Apion nodded to the others, then slipped from his saddle and stepped forward.
    Inside was just one cavernous hall, with a mezzanine of sleeping areas up above. A roaring log fire crackled in a hearth at one end of the hall, and in the centre, a well-weathered man with a thick brown beard and a jacket of leather armour sat at the head of a feasting table laden with wine, fresh and aromatic bread, cooked birds, bowls of blueberries, dates, figs and pots of yoghurt and honey. A motley collection of others lined the sides of the table, cackling and babbling in drunken banter. Slaves scurried to and fro around the dining area and an old, black mongrel lay asleep in front of the fire.
    The sentry hurried over to whisper in the brown-bearded one’s ear, then came back to him. ‘Prince Vardan invites you to join him,’ he said, gesturing to an empty seat at the table, a few places away from the prince.
    Apion stepped forward, removing his helm and drawing a stool to sit. At once, the chatter ceased. All eyes swung to him. A fawn-skinned bald man with a nose like a sickle frowned. ‘What have we got here,’ he said, his tone serrated and his demeanour glacial, ‘a Rus?’
    ‘My mother was Rus. My father was Byzantine.’
    ‘Aye?’ snorted another fellow, plump and ruddy, his teeth stained with wine. ‘Then what does that make you?’
    ‘I’m just a man,’ Apion replied, refusing the offer of a cup of wine from a passing slave girl. As the slave carried on around the table, he winced as the hook-nosed one seized her by the wrist and pulled her to his lap. He groped her breasts and pawed at her crotch, his bald head wrinkling as he cackled. Most around the table cheered at his lewd behaviour. Only Apion noticed that the man had slipped a tiny clay vial into her bosom.
    ‘What kind of man comes to a mountaintop village in the dead of night?’ the plump one scoffed, tearing his attention away from the slave. ‘Were you lost?’ His cronies hooted in laughter at this. Prince Vardan remained silent.
    Apion pinned the plump one with a stare. ‘What kind of man drinks himself into oblivion when there is a Seljuk horde rampaging on the fringes of his lands?’
    The chatter died again. The plump one gawped, outraged. Prince Vardan’s eyes narrowed on Apion.
    But it was the bald, hook-nosed one who spoke; ‘How dare you speak in such a tone?’ His face was pinched as if Apion had just spat on his mother’s corpse.
    Apion snorted. ‘You condemn my tone yet you ignore my words? There is a horde not three miles from - ’
    ‘Be careful, wanderer,’ hook-nose countered. ‘The last man to speak to me so was a slave of mine. I had his throat cut with just a click of my fingers,’ he raised his fingers as if to panic Apion. ‘Kept his head until it putrefied.’
    ‘Enough,’ Vardan spoke in a throaty voice from the end of the table. ‘The man is here at the behest of Emperor Diogenes. He is my guest and he will be treated as such.’ He clapped his hands, bringing more slaves scurrying from the darkness at the edges of the hall. ‘And he is right. It is late, you are all drunk. Leave me!’
    With a groaning of chairs and stools on the stone floor, the prince’s guests stood to leave. The plump one cast him a mean eye. Hook-nose stepped round behind Apion as he made to leave. ‘Be careful, Byzantine,’ he whispered, his breath foetid, ‘for although Vardan may shield you tonight, tomorrow is a new day. Who knows what it might bring?’
    His sibilant words rang in Apion’s ears until they were