October 7th, 1188
David Komnenos,
Exarch of Mauretania and late
Kaisar of the Roman Empire sourly tore a piece of duck from the roast laid before him, and chewed, angry thoughts rumbling through his mind.
Normally parties, especially his birthday celebration, was a time for David to relax and enjoy himself. But not today. It’d been months since news had arrived of his father’s change in the succession law, and yet it still rankled David to no end. That he – the son who had proven himself a capable commander and leader of men, who had shown himself skilled a the darker games a lord must play – had been named junior Emperor to a brother that was only a boy?
But how to respond? Rising up against his Lord Father was not a possibility – no Emperor wished to begin his reign with patricide, not that patricide would be easy against Basil. David viewed himself as a skilled commander and superb leader, but next to Basilieos Komnenos, David knew he was but a mere candle next to the sun.
As his brother, the Prince of Tangiers laughingly fawned a young beauty from the Crusaders States of Algeria, David’s frown grew deeper. Without outright war, that left more nefarious schemes. Poison was one option to get rid of Heraklios, yet he knew his mother and father would be watchful of any such move from him, so it was easily ruled out. However, there were other ways… if the army, the church, and the nobility wanted David as senior Emperor, they would make him so after his father was dead and unable to intervene. It was a process that would take years, but considering the contents of his father’s latest dispatch, it seemed as if Basil Komnenos, despite the rumors of weakness and sickness, still had iron within him.
Time for David to build those alliances.
David had to smile a little – the old man had decided to personally lead the Imperial response to a massive Cuman incursion into Alania and Imeretia – the former an Imperial client state, the latter a
theme in the hands of the Komnenoi. 30,000 Cumans under their
Khagan Kutan had poured across the border, intent on causing mayhem. Yet the Emperor, despite (according to David’s sources) still suffering from his debilitating illness, had personally led the Romanoi in three engagements, and through the use of several rapid columns and old-fashioned logging, managed to hem a large portion of the Cuman host into the Kodori valley. There, with no place to turn, they were forced to meet the Emperor in a formal, set field battle – exactly the kind of engagement the Romanoi excelled at.
A stylized image of Kutan surrendering to Basil – save Kutan surrendered in the Kodori Valley at Basil’s quarters, not in a boat
“Taifun, remind me to send my father a congratulations on capturing Kutan and… how many of his wives?”
“All fifteen, Highness,” Talil Taifun, the Spymaster for Mauretania smiled at his master’s momentary lack of information. The son of a Moorish nobleman and a Christian mother, Talil had kept his given name, despite taking the baptism on the defeat of the Sultan. He and David had fast become personal friends, and despite his own skill, it was a rare event when Taifun knew something David did not. “As well as 15,000 prisoners, and all of the Cuman’s seasonal foals.”
“He’s got a sword pointed right at their balls,” David said bluntly, lifting his wineglass. As always, he sniffed it slightly before bringing it to his lips – habit. After all, the Komnenoi had a long and inglorious history with wine and… incidents.
“Indeed, Highness. Supposedly he’s going to use this incident to formally add Alania and several more sections of Cumania to the Empire, as a buffer to keep this type of confusion from happening again,” Talil offered.
“Wise,” David nodded, taking a deep drink of the wine. It’s exactly what he would have done – more land that way meant more areas the Romans could build forts to contain the local chiefs, and more worthless territory the Cumans could lumber into “on accident” before they actually ran into something valuable. “Now, what about our other problem?”
“Which one?” Taifun asked quietly. “My intelligence has backed up your suspicions – the
comes of Ifni indeed has not completely renounced the Mohammedan faith, and he is plotting with several groups…”
“Not that problem – kill him and it ends,” David said sourly. “I’m talking about the problem of Thomas.” A fly swooped in low over their heads, its buzzing annoying David to no end. He’d never get used to the flies in North Africa.
“Ah. Well, Highness, I think there are several…”
“No, Taifun, I know a way to solve the problem altogether,” David murmured over his wine goblet. “I wanted to run the idea by you – see what you think. It’d involve only killing one person, and solving the whole affair…”
Taifun nodded.
“Mehtar Lainez,” David said quietly, taking a bowl of specially prepared, and tested, soup from a passing page. He sniffed it, and like the wine, it smelled as it should – in this case, of carrots, beets, beef and broth.
“Lainez?” Taifun’s face was puzzled. “You mean to kill that spider, and not Thomas?”
“Yes,” David replied firmly. “Without that spider guiding him, Thomas will go from being a dangerous threat to just another annoying…” he swatted to the side of the chair. The buzzing stopped. “Git,” the Prince finished his sentence.
“But surely sire, after you have been crowned, you intend to have your brother shorn and tonsured?” Taifun raised an eyebrow. “It would be the only way to keep him from…”
“No,” David said simply. “He will have his uses. My brother is angry, my brother is stupid, but he is very reliable at being those things,” the Prince said. “I can surely find a way in the future to use that to my advantage – thrust a disaster onto his angry lap instead of my own? And should he get too out of hand, he is reliably reckless in battle… problem easily solved.” He supped deeply from the soup bowl. The broth landed in his belly with a palpable thump.
“I would be leery of such a plan, Highness,” Taifun commented, “but Your Highness was the one that figured out that the Bey of Jalal was the key to conquering Fez, and that Georgios Palialogos was sleeping with his
logothetes and thus in a compromising position. Even I hadn’t deduced the latter…” Taifun acknowledged. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“I am,” David said firmly, before a puzzled look came onto his face. His tongue felt dry, and his mouth felt hot. “I want you to start drawing up some plans to get rid of that Spaniard. Maybe find a young brothel boy here we can spring on him, or…” The burning in his mouth had changed – it’d cooled, and something harsh, metallic was in its place.
David’s mind was at work. Something was wrong with the soup, but what? He looked around the table at other guests at the party. Several of them had already finished their soup, with no ill effects. If no one else was looking ill, it meant that it was something specific to just his soup. Which meant it was intentional.
Poisoning.
The Exarch weighed the taste in his mouth, as Taifun asked him a question. He didn’t care, he needed to figure out what this poison was, so he could proscribe himself the proper antidote.
“Highness?” he heard Taifun ask, concern palpable in his voice.
The taste grew more acute, as David thought. It wasn’t hemlock, and it wasn’t wolfsbane – it was something far more potent. A few possibilities ran through his mind. He looked around, eyes wide, the metallic taste sharp and bitter to his sensitive tongue. Yes – wormwood, covering the oil of almonds.
Mithradates had called this plant ‘the death oil.’ Not just because of its lethality, but also the difficulty of its production. Made from the oil of crushed almonds, it had a tendency to kill its creator before it could be fully processed. Once finished, however, it was colorless, odorless, and utterly lethal – a tiny drop in a bowl of soup would kill the average person.
Almonds, which in the wild produce prussic acid when crushed
David felt a wave of nausea hit him like a wagon slamming into his face. Despite the ill feeling, he felt happy, even giddy. Part of his mind wanted to simply laugh at the quizzical expression on Taifun’s face, but his self-training took over. That was a symptom of the poison at work.
For David Komnenos did not just read what the
Mithradatium held, he practiced what the ancient King Mithradates preached – he took small doses of
all the poisons within, carefully measuring the amounts, slowly building up an immunity. Through minute amounts, diluted into large quantities of water or wine, one could even build up a resistance to ‘death oil.’ Yet, with this potent brew, it was impossible to build an immunity – so the Exarch knew he needed to act. Quickly.
He needed salt.
“Highness?” Taifun asked, as David rudely reached in front of him for the salted pork. Without a word, David stuffed the meat into his mouth, its saltiness almost burning without the customary spices one would add before eating. The metallic taste in his mouth changed to a burning, and as he swallowed the oversalted meat, it burned sliding down his throat.
Yet David shoved another piece into his mouth, chewing quickly, sucking as much of the salt out of the meat as he could. It wasn’t much, but he hoped it would be enough. He felt a hand on his shoulder – Taifun was good at his work, he’d figured out what was going on. David heard him call for water and salt grains – the Exarch only needed to stall a little longer.
A few moments later David looked up, and a goblet filled with cloudy water sat before him. He downed it in one motion, and instantly felt his stomach revolt at this final, sudden intrusion. Quickly the soup, the pork, and all the water, was retched onto the table, to the gasps of the partiers.
“Highness!” someone cried, as David continued to retch. David paid no heed – while it was rude, he needed to get as much of the poison out of his system as he could. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the Exarch felt his roiling stomach calm a little, and he looked up, at a worried, expectant Taifun.
“Lainez,” he whispered.
Taifun nodded, and slowly, carefully, David stood up from the table. The world still spun slightly – that effect of the poison would take a while to wear off. He’d be weak for a few days as well – but, David was thankful, he would live.
“I apologize… I am feeling ill,” the Exarch rasped out quietly. Would you all excuse me, please?”
As the Prince stumbled haphazardly out of the room, he noticed a finely dressed matron at the table looking sourly at her plate. For a second, his eyes hung on her – she’d introduced herself as Lady Kantakouzenos, with a request that her cousin receive a diplomatic post in the Exarchate. Yet something about her seemed familiar – all too familiar.
Another wave of nausea suddenly hit the Prince, and David’s mind became too focused on trying to stand up. As he left the room, hands holding onto the walls, he dismissed the suspicion of the woman. He’d seen her up close at her audience. It couldn’t be…
He needed to get to his chambers, where he’d lie down to recover. In the morning, he and Taifun would start planning the counterattack against the only man that would have dared to try such a thing…
A few hours later…
Mehtar Lainez cursed to himself. The walls of the exarch’s palace in Basiliopolis were far more slink than he’d imagined, and it was only with tenacity and the sharpest spikes in the front of his boots and climbing gloves that Lainez had maintained his grip onto the sheer walls.
“A madcap end to a madcap day,” he said to himself, fifty feet above the courtyard below still filled with partygoers.
It’d started with his arrival in Tangiers, almost two weeks before, with an immense beard and under the alias Georgios Donauri. He’d purposefully chosen to arrive on a ship bearing a spy from Konstantinopolis – David’s agents were smart, but they would likely have all their attention focused on the spy, not some minor yardhand who disappeared off his ship soon after its arrival.
He’d then made contact with a personal friend of his, an upstanding merchant and regular scoundrel named Theophylaktos Batazces, who’d directed him to several men he could hire to tend to him as servants. After some unplanned hijinks and the stealthy shearing of several sheep, Lainez had a suitable wig of white hairs, and with the addition of some makeup, he was now Lady Sophia Kantakouzenos, lately of Konstantinopolis, wishing to see the Exarch about a personal matter.
After hiring his retinue in this ridiculous costume, he’d proceeded to wear it, every day, every hour of the day, until their arrival in Basiliopolis, and through the two day wait to see the Exarch. He’d made up a cousin who needed a post on the frontier as the reason for his visit, and from even ten feet away fooled David twice – once at his audience, and again at the dinner table. From there, it’d been easy to deduce the patterns of the servants, and who tended to take what from their platters. Planting the death oil into the proper soup bowl had been child’s play.
Save David was smarted than Mehtar thought.
So Mehtar was now here, climbing the sheer walls of the palace while unknowing guests milled below, gossiping about the prince’s sudden and strange sickness.
“Mehtar, you have the most foolish backup plans,” he told himself.
On a “job,” Mehtar didn’t trust any more getups or disguises after the first, and considering David’s caliber when it came to matters of intrigue, this would likely be the only chance he would get to finish the business before all hell broke loose. Since their first run in during the Spanish campaign, he’d watched David’s reactions to others who had plotted around him – the Prince’s response to a threat was usually both subtle and devastating. No doubt on the morrow hordes of David’s agents would set out for Tarraconensis, looking for Mehtar.
Which meant the job had to end here, end now, and look natural.
So Mehtar planned to make sure it worked, by killing David in person. Amongst his belongings as Lady Kantakouzenos he’d carefully hidden boots and gloves with climbing spikes, a dirk, dark clothes, and finally his ultimate backup tool.
A death viper, wrapped tightly in a bundle he told everyone was his “feminine supplies.” It was a large beast of a snake, some four feet long with immense fangs, native to lands south of the Sahara. He’d originally purchased it as a curiosity in Barcelona, and kept it for just such an occasion.
The Royal Balcony at the Basiliopolis Palace, Mehtar’s destination
Finally, Lainez reached his goal – a massive balcony that overlooked the western side of the city. First, he peered over the edge, and on seeing no guards (he didn’t expect any, there was no logical reason really to have guards on a balcony that was fifty feet up a sheer wall from the ground), he clambered over the top. Two doors on the balcony led to the rooms of the Exarch and his wife respectively. One was open – Mehtar made for the closed door.
It was a light wooden thing, in contrast with the heavy oaken doors through the rest of the palace. Carefully Mehtar pushed against it. A gentle creak greeted his ears – enough to set off an alarm in his mind.
The door had a lock – it would otherwise make no sense to have a door here, opening to a balcony that was so remote from the ground below. And the only reason someone would leave the door unlocked was…
Mehtar looked into the room, and saw a figure against the wall. There was a glint of something bright in his hand. A knife.
“How did you get the poison into only my bowl of soup?” the figure asked.
There was a time where Mehtar would have shot back a reply, wasting time and breath, like he had the first time he’d tangled with the Emperor’s eldest son. Mehtar had been barely 16 then – he was now several years older, and through experiences most other
logothetes could never imagine, decades wiser. Mehtar knew some of the poison had to still be at work, and that likely David could not see him if he moved further into the darkness. Instead of wasting breath, Lainez stepped back from his position, deeper into the shadows, edging along the wall. While David talked, Mehtar would moved to block the exit, and consider his options.
The adder was out already, and Mehtar needed both hands to keep the snake under control – one right behind its head, the other further back to keep its angry form from whipping around, potentially knocking over items and making noise. He couldn’t draw his dirk, not while holding the snake as well. Very well – the snake would be his weapon.
As he slipped along the wall, Mehtar’s eyes, adjusting to the darkness, watched the shadowy form in the corner. David too was edging towards the door, yet Mehtar knew he had an advantage. While the Prince moved quietly, he occasionally hit something – the poison was still at work in his body, making him occasionally stumble. Mehtar was silent, an inky ghost in the darkness of the room. Mehtar unconsciously held is breath as the two drew closer and closer, hoping that the poison was still affecting his prey’s vision as well…
Closer and closer they crept, the Prince looking around, Mehtar’s eyes locked on his quarry…
Mehtar thrust the snake out, shoving it’s head hard against the bare flesh of David’s neck! He heard its angry hiss, and a sharp cry from David’s lips.
The Prince stumbled back, thumping against a bare stone wall. Mehtar thought he saw the form slump towards the ground, but only a second later David lunged forward, knife out. Mehtar spun out of the way of the errant charge on instinct, even as his mind was still registering that David was somehow still up.
Yet Mehtar was still blocking the door.
David turned around again, and this time, by the closed door, Mehtar was in a thin sliver of light. David charged yet again. This time, Mehtar waited till the last minute to move aside shoving the snake’s head out again. Once again he saw it bite its fangs deep into the prince’s neck.
The snake, known to Mehtar’s world as the ‘death viper’
But Mehtar moved too slow. David plowed into him and the two tumbled to the floor with a thump.
Mehtar kicked his leg out, flipping himself on top of the Prince, as David lashed out with his hands, one trying to send the dirk into Mehtar’s neck, the other grabbing at the hand that held the death viper. Mehtar grabbed the prince’s knife hand, stopping the blade less than an inch from his own jugular. David was shoving with unholy force, grunting, panting, trying his best to survive, but Mehtar had expected this.
When men stared death in the face, they gained unholy strength. The merchant in Barcelona who price gouged had almost managed to lift a beam, with Mehtar on it, off of his dying body. All Mehtar knew he had to do was to hold on – the poison from earlier, and the poison from the bites, would slowly break his strength.
So Mehtar sat on top of David, and held his ground, not pushing – that would waste energy – but keeping the Prince in place. A few seconds later, Mehtar saw David’s eyes go wide – clearly he too knew what Mehtar was doing. He opened his mouth to call for help, but only a hoarse gurgling came out – the poisons yet again. Slowly, Mehtar began pushing the knife away and the viper closer to David’s throat, as slowly, the Prince’s strength ebbed away. Finally, the snake made contact yet again, and, enraged and angry as it was, bit him again and again.
Finally, Mehtar let go, as the Prince’s breath rattled. Lainez shoved the head of the snake into the Prince’s shirt, then, in a quick, single movement rose from over the Prince’s body and backed away. It was only then that Mehtar felt the sharp pain in his thigh. Lainez watched the prince shiver and shake on the floor a few more seconds, the adder curling up near the dying man’s neck, before he reached down with a hand. It was far too dark to see anything, but when he felt wetness, he knew David’s knife
had caught him, only a few inches below his waist, and inches from things Mehtar didn’t care to be parted from. Still eyeing the prince, Mehtar slowly backed away, his bloody hand reaching into a pouch and pulling out a kerchief. First, Lainez took the Prince’s knife, and with a few quick, thorough swabs, removed the blood from the steel. Then, he wrapped up the wound on his thigh with the same kerchief – if there were a few drops of blood on the floor, considering the size of the massive viper’s fangs, most would assume they came from the snake’s initial, deadly strike. Or the second, or the third.
Quickly, Mehtar made his way out of the room and back onto the balcony. His leg throbbed, but that’d be no matter – climbing down was always easier than climbing up. Below, it seemed as if the party had broken up, and in the dead of night, Lainez knew slipping past the guards wouldn’t be too much of a problem. He’d merely need to scale a wall or two…
David is dead, and a storm of epic proportions is brewing. With the eldest prince’s death, the compromised succession has been thrown into chaos. Will Sophie and Basil get things sorted out before its too late?
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