Rome AARisen - a Byzantine AAR

A couple things before the update itself. One, to make things easier for everyone trying to navigate through this thing, I’ve added a link to the Table of Contents in my signature. A link has been available for a while in the first post of the AAR as well. Secondly, I’m going to start linking to the newest update in the first post as well. Hopefully that will help people not get lost!



May 10th, 1263

Konstantinopolis

Safiya Komnenos-Hohenstaufen tapped her foot impatiently, glaring at the servants before her. They fumbled slowly with the mechanism to the great bronze and iron doors before her, and she chafed. Safiya, after all, was not one inclined to patience—and today would test every ounce of patience she had, even before she had to wait for Dumbo and Dimwit to open the doors to Emperor Andronikos’ study.

Safiya had never been one for subtlety either—Ioannis Angelos had found that out when he’d made slight overtures towards her two months before. The man had been fun, to be sure, but he wasn’t the prize she wanted. That man lay beyond those slowly creaking doors. He was probably still irate from her first, rather direct attempt. Safiya licked her lips.

She relished a challenge.

The doors finally opened to their full width, and Safiya strode into the imperial study. She didn’t walk in with the poise of a woman, despite her two years advantage on the young Emperor—she shuffled in, an act her sense of pride rebelled at. She fought the urge to walk up and simply grab him—no, this Komnenos worked differently. She kept her head down, even as she glanced up quietly at him.

Andronikos Komnenos was already growing into a handsome teen—a shock of reddish brown hair and a face devoid of blemishes were the first things to get her attention. His frame was still boyishly thin, there was no doubt though that his grandfather and great-grandfather’s genes would carry through—Adrianos Komnenos was a notorious rake in his day, and the ancient Emperor Alexios had songs written about how he made ladies swoon at court. But what caught her attention the most were his eyes—sharp, direct, blue as the sky…


…and glaring angrily at her.

“Majesty,” she curtsied. She didn’t bow—he’d grown flustered that first time when he’d seen the cleavage of her breasts. She wanted him flustered, yes, but not angry. She bowed her head alone, as if demurely.

“Lady Safiya,” Andronikos replied, his words harsh and staccato. “What brings you to my study this evening,” he folded his hands quickly, eyes as unwelcoming as his voice.

“I wish to apologize… for my actions when I arrived,” she said slowly. Contrition. Look down, fold your hands in front, she told herself. Bend over just so slightly so he can see… yes! He was looking at her, and he saw demure, respectful, contrite, and cleavage. “I was… too forward…and…”

“Well, um, it’s quite fine,” Andronikos blinked, the waved his hand as if he could dispel the mental cloud misting up his mind. He turned back to his scribbles. Weeks ago, Safiya would have reached over, spun him around, and leapt onto his lap to make her…point…apparent. But wiser Safiya knew to simply stand back, not smile, and wait.

“Is there something else?” he snapped a few minutes later. Yes, he was annoyed for now—she knew he was more annoyed at himself for desiring her than for her providing him such a lovely view.

“I…” she said, before catching herself. Stammer. “I…um… I understand Your Majesty enjoys playing the lute, as well as the Spanish guitar.” Act unnerved, vulnerable, she told herself. “I…well…” she looked away slightly, “this is embarrassing. I am trying to learn both and…” She started to walk over, hands in front, clasped together as if she was nervous. She flicked her eyes up momentarily—his stance was still uncomfortable, but his hands had unfolded. An opening.

“I’m just a terrible player, I think,” she added quickly, now that she was close to his desk. There as a note of some kind he’d be working on. She glanced over. The top of the note said it was to someone named Konstantinos Komnenos, and there were words further down about trusting Albrecht von Franken completely. At her gaze, his hand moved over the letter before she could see any more. She shrugged—it’s not like she was interested anyway.

“I was wondering if Your Majesty could show me?” she looked up, head down but eyes staring directly at him. He swallowed slightly. Good.

“I suppose,” he said, voice uneasy as he slid the note into a drawer. She curtsied again, setting her lute down next to him, and pulled over a chair.

“So, Majesty, where will the music lesson start?” she asked, sitting down beside him. She let him simmer for a moment, before she slowly bent over, and just as slowly brought the lute up to lap. “Bluesleeves? The Ballad of Basil and Sophie?” She leaned close, making sure he caught the smell of her perfume. She wanted him to remember it these last three weeks before their wedding.


“I…” he stammered a moment long, before finally catching his voice. “W…well,” he blinked and his eyes cleared. Cobwebs gone, he looked her up and down. “We could start with a ballad. Do you know any?”

“The Oak and the Dove?” she said.

“That’s a complicated piece,” he warned. She looked at his eyes again—they weren’t solid like the blue wall she’d faced after her first, overt attempt at him. There was interest, curiosity. Time to pull his mind where his trousers wanted to go.

“Yes, but it is a favorite I love to hear played!” she cooed a little, “but there are few singers who know it. So I thought I would teach myself. It’s coming along nicely,” she added, “but I thought I would show a master what I’ve done,” she smiled slightly at the compliment to him, “and let him advise me on what needs work.”

He blinked. She had him again! He was probably thinking she was a foolish girl who expected him to teach her the entire song in one sitting. No, she’d gone ahead, she’d worked alone on it. Another barrier in his mind torn down. She’d picked the song carefully. It was melodic and slightly minor—the songs Andronikos preferred, if her observations were right. It was also notoriously difficult on the lute—but there was nothing that stubbornness and two weeks of constant practice could overcome.

“Well, then…” he stumbled, “show me what you have learned?”

Safiya nodded, and set the lute across her lap. Ivory fingers gently tested the strings, then a quiet, mournful song rose into the air.


She looked up wanting to curse at herself. She’d missed two notes—neither had been particularly noticeable, and the minor chords they were a part of sounded true otherwise. Nonetheless, she knew he would know.

She looked up warily, expecting him to frown like one of her tutors. Instead, his eyes were wide, and his jaw slightly open. She smiled, broadly.

“I…I had no idea you were so skilled with music, Lady Safiya,” the teen stammered. She bowed, this time letting her goods go on display. She didn’t look up at him coyly this time—she knew his eyes would’ve been rooted there. The moment she looked up, he’d try to fight it. No, let him have his secret taste when he thinks no one knows. After holding the bow slightly longer than necessary, she looked back up.


“Thank you, Majesty,” she replied. “I’ve always fancied that song,” she went on, before he could begin tutoring like she’d originally asked. “I think this song is much like us,” she added. “You and me,” she started to lean in closer, but not touching him. No, not yet. “We’re like that knight and that dove, wrapped up in the spells of an evil witch…”

“So you would seek comfort in my…”

“Branches,” she smiled demurely. She knew young men like him. She knew his mind was rooted on her finding comfort in something else that started with “b” and “r…” “I have the witch of my mother’s memory, hanging over my head, all days, all nights. And you,” she looked up into his eyes, “you have warlocks of your own, binding you to do things you don’t wish to do…”

He swallowed again. She knew he was looking. Wondering. Imagining.

“You’re a young man, in the peak of your season!” she laughed. “Yet you have duty binding your hands and feet, and a crown binding your mouth shut. We are alone, in many ways,” she looked away slightly, making her voice sound wistful.

“That is something we share,” he quietly stuttering. She looked back at him, leaning very close now. She ran a hand around his shoulder—he flinched slightly, but he leaned into it. Good.

She had him.

“Majesty, I just wanted to say that I don’t ever want to add to that burden you carry,” she whispered in his ear. “We are to be married in three weeks. I will do anything you need of me as your wife. No matter when, or where,” her hand slid further south, “or how. You can rely on me, speak freely around me, and do what you will…” she let the words hang guilty in the air, before adding, “…around me.”

His breathing was fast. She knew she had him… he was slack jawed, eyes glazed over staring below her face. She smiled at this, and other…evidence.

“They might not say you are a man yet,” Safiya licked her lips slightly, tightening the noose, “but they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I...um…”

He stammered, face red, eyes fixed on her. She reveled in it—the great Andronikos, the boy who acted like a man, the unflappable, they said—he was putty in her hands. Her eyebrow raised as she looked him over once more—yes, she was going to enjoy this.

Immensely.

Next, however, was the hardest part for her. Reluctantly, she pulled her hand back from its goal, her other arm from around him. He blinked, confusion and want in his face. No, Safiya told herself, she was not her mother. She would not slake his desire now—she didn’t want just a rough and tumble session here in his study, she wanted the man.

“I want to thank Your Majesty for listening to me,” she said quietly, trying to act suddenly shy, suddenly disturbed by what she’d done. “And I…um…I want to thank you for the music lessons, too. And,” she added hurriedly, “accepting my apologies.”

“It’s…quite…alright…” the teenage boy before her stammered.

She rose from her chair. “You are a most kind and gracious lord, Majesty,” she bowed again, letting him see what would soon be his. “Perhaps one day you shall be able to help me tune my lute,” she added. “By your leave, Majesty?”

“Yes…” he blinked, visibly trembling slightly.

Safiya bowed again, and strictly following protocol, of course, maintained her bow as she backed out of the room. As servants closed the doors behind her, she had to resist the urge to laugh—only a huge, beaming smile showed as the sign of her victory. Soon, she would be Empress of the Romans, married to a husband wrapped around her little finger…


May 18th, 1263

Barcelona


Ackbar al-Tayyif clenched the linen cloth even more tightly over his nose. Despite his best efforts, the smell of blood, fire, filth and death made him want to retch. He stumbled over something, and felt his way around the object with his feet before continuing his march. He likely couldn’t have seen what it was clearly through the smoke, and if he could he still probably didn’t want too see the latest part of Barcelona’s ruin.

As if the towering flames, rent structures, and the screams and moans of the second greatest city in Iberia weren’t reminder enough.

The imperial armies had arrived outside of Barcelona on February 18th, 1263, amidst the mud and slop of an Iberian winter. Many had called the Megos Domestikos a fool for launching his campaign during the dead of winter, and Ackbar was among them. He was once a drover, born and raised in Syria, who’d learned quickly that driving livestock for the imperial tagmata could be a lucrative business if one was good with a sword or had coin to pay swordsmen. He and his small retinue of guards walked the beef and lamb that would feed the upper echelons of the vast army—through the muddy slop just like everyone else.

Yet Ackbar had little time to think of the past as he ducked around yet another burning building. He needed to find Chillarchos Maimonides—some kafir of a kentarchos in his thematakoi had rounded up part of al-Tayyif’s flock as “booty,” and would only release it if his damned chillarchos told him so. Tayyif knew Maimonides, and he’d set the bastard Greek straight!

“La'anatullah,” he hissed, cursing at the stupid junior officer while deftly avoiding a dog running loose. A still hand, charred, beckoned to him from the ruins of a building. Ackbar shuddered—as soon as he found the chillarchos, he could escape this hellhole.

It shouldn’t have been this way. The city had surrendered surprisingly quickly considering its formidable defenses—no doubt the arrival of the imperial fleet on the 16th of April to blockade the sea approaches had convinced the city leaders that holding out would only mean starvation and deprivation for their people. So they’d thrown open their gates under a white flag four weeks later, hoping a quick surrender would earn them leniency in the eyes of the Romans.


“God have mercy,” Tayyif hissed as his knee bumped something that fell onto the filthy street with a splat. He looked down. It was someone’s leg.

“Oi!”

Al-Tayyif froze. Yes, he bore wrapped around his arm the yellow kerchief ordered by the Megos Domestikos, but he was still wary. Many knew him as the drover of the officer’s beef. Some even knew he was well off. In a city being sacked…

…no, Tayyif corrected himself.

This was no sack.

It was far, far worse.

Tayyif gingerly peeked around the corner of the next building, and finally saw where the noise was coming from. Several soldiers dressed in the garish, peacocked finery of an army in the midst of looting had several men lined up. Tayyif paused, not out of morbid curiosity, but because the assemblage blocked his path. The kneeling men were from all walks of life—two men in the finer silks of a noble, obviously still hoping this was all a joke and they would be shortly ransomed, a servant boy, a few freedmen and artisans. He saw Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the group, some muttering prayers, some clutching holy symbols.

None bore any weapons, nor any armor.

“For the crime of harboring a traitor against the Regent Albrecht von Franken and thus against His Imperial Majesty…” the dekarchos in command of the ten soldiers intoned, and al-Tayyif lowered his head. The man hadn’t even finished before the screams started this time. One by one the bound men were dragged forward across blood slicked streets, and one by one the sentence pronounced by a German in Konstantinopolis was executed.

All men above the age of 15 were to be beheaded.

More screams in the distance. A woman begging, pleading. Al-Tayyif lowered his head even more, walking past the soldiers now bagging the heads of their victims. The drover clambered over the burnt out remains of a building—Was a church? Was it a mosque?—and his eyes drank in the bitter, terrible scene.

The chillarchos, nor his standard, were anywhere in sight.

Soldiers were everywhere in sight, silken scarves around their heads or ankles, jewels dripping from their fingers and hanging heavy from their necks, holy symbols, family heirlooms, precious memories shoved into their shirts and pockets. He watched as one group cornered a woman—a Jewess, by the looks of her—and had their way with the her, despite her pitiful screams. When the first of them finished, he loudly cursed her for clawing at him and ruining the false silk that he’d stolen. Laughing, one of his comrades cut off her head too.

Al-Tayyif shuddered. He’d seen sacks before, he’d seen women violated. But for the army to order, order its men to kill them once they satisfied themselves? It went beyond a sack. It went beyond rape and murder. It was the work of Shaitan, and nothing less!


Amidst the death and ruin, Ackbar thought he saw a flag in the smoke, some standard furled in the dead calm. So he clambered from his precarious perch, grabbing burnt wood and stone alike. He was almost to the bottom when he heard a muffled cry.

He froze.

There it was again.

Now Ackbar Tayyif tumbled the last of the way, jumping and twisting, surprising himself by not falling onto the blood and mud caked streets. Finally on the ground, he stopped and listened. There it was again! He followed the noise, to a headless torso hidden amongst the timbers. Behind it, he could see the whites of two eyes staring at him.

The person was alive.

Without thinking, al-Tayyif shoved the headless body aside, and peered further in, ready to leap back. Was it a man? A defender, ready to pounce?

No… it was a boy, shaking like a leaf. He couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6.

“How did the slave catchers not find you, boy?” al-Tayyif asked, amazed. Tayyif shook his head—it was not his concern. He extended a hand. “Come here, boy,” he said in Andalusi. The boy, shaking and trembling, extended his hand. Tayyif grasped it, and pulled him from the wreckage. Clutched tightly in one tiny fist was a severed hand, a ring on one of its fingers. Tayyif was shocked, appalled—he could only stare, before humanity finally stirred in him again.

“Drop that,” he said, trying to pull the macabre thing from the boy’s hand.

“Mama’s ring!” the boy started to shout, “You can’t have it! I won’t let them take it! I… mmmrrph!”

“Hush boy!” Tayyif covered his mouth and dragged him around the corner of the ruined house. “Hush or they’ll hear you! Here!” he reached around with his other hand, and roughly yanked the ring off its long dead finger. He held it out to the boy, who grabbed it and clutched it tight. “Don’t let them see it,” Tayyif cautioned, letting his hand off the boy’s mouth. “If they see it, they’ll kill you and take it.”

The boy nodded.

“Now, come with me, hurry!” Tayyif hissed, grabbing the boy by the wrist and pulling him. Only now did Ackbar’s mind ask what he’d just done. The orders to the army had been explicit—no exemptions, no exceptions. All children, regardless of age, gender, or status, were to be sold into slavery. Those who broke the orders were liable for breaking on the wheel, or worse. Tayyif looked back at the boy—eyes wide in terror as they jogged past the darkest of scenes. No, he couldn’t leave the boy. If he could find the chillarchos…

…he started off in the direction he thought he’d seen the standard.

“Ackbar al-Tayyif?” a voice asked in sharp, clipped Greek. Ackbar froze. Ach, they couldn’t have made it more than a hundred yards from the boy’s house. Slowly, the drover turned, boy in hand, expecting some smirking junior officer and his greasy soldiers to be glaring at him.

Instead, he found a man in burnished man, the turban of an Andalusi around his head in lieu of a helmet and coif. By his accent, he was a Jew. By the clasp on his green cloak, he was a chillarchos.

And Tayyif knew of only one chillarchos in this army that fit that description.

“Chillarchos Maimonides!” Tayyif started to bow. The boy stood rigid, afraid, making Ackbar’s bow awkward.

“Tayyif,” the man growled on in Greek, “I’ve got a man here that says he saw you pull a boy from a house nearby. He says,” Maimonides nodded behind him to the accuser, “he thinks you’re running off with the boy. Says you don’t have any irons on him or anything.” Maimonides could just barely see a greasy looking man with rings and necklaces galore around his squat neck, and several bolts of silk wrapped garishly around his head. He grinned at Tayyif—a dark hole with only one tooth.

“I…um…” Tayyif stammered.

Maimonides’ face changed, a look of concern. The Jew sighed, and walked closer to the drover.

“He is no slave, correct?” Maimonides asked in Andalusi, his eyebrow raised.

“Ah, um…” Tayyif stammered, unsure of how to respond.

“Behold, men!” the chillarchos grinned suddenly and turned around, “Even the drover has taken a slave today!” A roar of laughter erupted from the small clot of men in that sea of spilt blood, and Tayyif felt a chill go down his spine. “He was once a drover of sheep! He needs no irons on the animals he drives!”

More laughter.

The greasy one-toothed soldier looked at his commander, then joined the others in a barking laugh. Ackbar smiled uneasily, even as Maimonides walked forward and clapped him on the shoulder.

“A dark day today, my friend,” the Jew said in Andalusi, his face suddenly grave now that he wasn’t facing his men. “A dark day. Enough have died. Take the boy, tell others he is your slave.” Maimonides looked down at the child, then back up at the drover. “This is no place for children, no matter what faith they’re from.”

Al-Tayyif nodded hurriedly, and started to walk away, jerking the frightened and scared boy behind him.“What is your name?” al-Tayyif asked in Andalusi, even as the soldiers around him shouted derisively in Greek that even the drover had found a slave.

“Taqi ad-Din ibn-Taymiyyah.” The boy’s voice was unsteady, weak.

“Well, ibn-Taymiyyah,” Al-Tayyif said, “you are fortunate. You have survived Barcelona…”


So Safiya makes a power play of her own… Andronikos might be intelligent, Andronikos might be cautious, but he is fifteen. Has she ensnared him? Meanwhile, further west, the Imperial Army has taken Barcelona and committed untold atrocities on orders apparently signed by Albrecht von Franken. A young boy was saved from the carnage, who will one day grow into a man with a grudge…

The lyrics to The Oak and the Dove were written by RGB, who in addition to being a writAAR par excellence also has an eye for poetry that far exceeds my philistine attempts! If you have not had a chance, between now and the next update, go take a look at his own magnum opus, From Rus to Russia a megacampaign that has just entered EU3 with a vastly different world than our own. Its intriguing, full of maps, great narrative, and yes, some poetry too!