TheHyphenated1 - Hey, thanks for sticking around! There's no rush, this isn't a race (and if it was, your prize is waiting for the next update instead of reading it whenever you want... not the best prize in the world...) Go at your own pace, this story
does have an end... eventually...
Hawkeye1489 - Ah. Blackadder. Joke. My mind did not catch these things. My mind can be very slow. Molasses slow.
AlexanderPrimus - Thanks for proofreading, buddy.
FlyingDutchie - A huge distinction that is...
Antoku - Thank AP. Its also in the Table of Contents too as an interim, I believe...
Vesimir - Alexandros the nth is a sign you have too many Alexanders running around.
And now I have something special... I'm not sure what the special occasion is for it, more its something that's been on my mind for a while. As a warning:
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, STOP READING NOW.
April 8th, 1353
Gregorios Stefanopoulos, like the thousands gathered outside the Thomasine Walls of the Queen of Cities, craned his head to see over the masses of people. While Gregorios was nothing more than a shepherd outside those great and forbidding walls, he, like any man, was curious. Curious enough he left his wife, that insufferable shrew, as well as his eldest son to watch his flock over the hills and dales to the north.
Curious to see the
Megas Komnenos, the Emperor of Christendom, the most powerful man in the world.
As he strained over a tall Bulgarian to his front, he made out the massed plumes of the
Oikoi Hetaratoi,
Kaisar Petros grimly at their front, sword at ready. Gregorios had only barely heard of the man—a warrior, a giant with salt and peppered hair. Only a man of such large frame would have fit on that immense white stallion. Behind him, beside him, for a thousand ranks wide and an unknown number deep, stood the massed
tagmata of the Imperial Army, spears sharp in the morning light.
Gregorios grunted as a Spaniard shoved by him rudely. He pushed the man back, uttering a few words of Greek about where the man could shove his head. Gregorios, like most of the men, had seen his fair share of service—he’d been a
politikos in the Reserve Army during the civil wars, and knew his way around a spear and a dagger as well as any other. When the wars had ended, he, like so many others, never received their land—a small amount of coin and whatever loot he’d acquired were his—that was all. So the son of Stefan had returned to what he knew—a shepherd’s crook and the bleating of sheep in the morning.
Finally the long blare of trumpets split the morning air, followed by the
whump, snap! of thousand of soldiers coming to attention. Gregorios turned to the famous St. Michael’s Gate, the Gate of War, the traditional avenue of Emperors marching to the field since its construction by the
Apokathistos. All eyes followed him, people craning, straining, trying to see. The shepherd distantly made out a small group of riders—men in mail and purple, carrying
kontoi that streamed the saints of the Empire, and prayers to the Almighty. At the head of the small column was a man clad entirely in the color imperial, his white stallion resplendent with gilt barding.
Gregorios had seen the Emperor once before—it’d been fifteen years ago, when Gregorios had still been a lad. That day had been filled with pomp and ceremony—thousands of mailed men and soldiers on parade, the color and class of the great
Basilioi and their retainers from Samarkand to Basiliopolis, a triumph that signaled the end of that long, dark civil war. The Emperor had been younger then, hale and hearty, full of promise. That triumph was supposed to mark the end of the long dark tunnel, where the horrors of the plague, the Persian invasion, and the civil war could be forgotten. It was supposed to signify the start of a new era, where the peace and prosperity of the
Apokathistos would be renewed.
Now, the murmurs in the crowd spoke of the ill times—some merchants from Alexandria spoke loudly of an eclipse seen in Tripoli, while men from the East talked of the plague’s return, killing in hours instead of days, leaving blood on its victim’s lips. Others muttered angrily of yet more taxes, more levies, and Gregorios was inclined to agree. The False Pope in Hamburg was raising another to be Emperor in Germany, the Franks no longer sent tribute as they once had. The promises of peace and prosperity had disappeared as annually more and more of his meager coin was taken up by taxmen, some from the Emperor, some from his local lord, all wanting their share. As if the monies made from a herd of fifty-four sheep amounted to much to go around.
Now as the Emperor rode closer, Gregorios could see how the years had changed the man. Where there’d been a young man, now there was an old whitebeard, wrinkles from years of worry cutting deep into his face. His back was no longer as straight as the pikes carried by the formed soldiers, but stooped slightly with wearied age. There was no smile on his face, only grimness, and a dark determination. Gregorios’ father had often spoke of what the ill-fated Patriarch long ago had said—that this emperor was bound that his will be done on Earth, no matter of if man or God stood in his way. Even well past his 60th year, that same brooding iron was apparent in those cold eyes.
Gregorios remembered his wife’s words from that morning, and held back his spittle. Others did not, some shouting over the massed ranks of the soldiers that the man in purple was a warmonger, a scoundrel, accursed by God. Others shouted the dissenters down, saying he was a hero, who had brought glory to The City, and that those Easterners, those fake Christians, those fat Persian lords, would be driven back as they had been driven away from the city long before. Tussles erupted, a few blows were exchanged—neither the imperial horsemen, nor his guards, nor the massed ranks of the army, paid them any attention.
Finally the man reached the center of that long, grim line of men, sharpened weapons and shining helms glinting in the sunlight. He reined up his horse—or was it the rider’s next to him adding to his feeble grip?—and the scrape of metal thundered in the air as nineteen
tagmata drew their blades as one. A storm of light erupted across the plain—Gregorios cursed and blinked.
“Emperor of the Romans, Lord of Two Seas, King of the Two Rivers, Sole Vice Gerent of Our Lord, we salute you!” voices rumbled in a multitude of languages, a veritable thunder that crashed through the clear sky.
An aged, weary hand rose, and as quickly as they’d been drawn, those thousands of blades found their scabbards. The wind kicked up, banners and cloaks began to rustle. Gregorios blinked—he could see the man’s mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear the words. He turned and shushed a loud couple next to him, but still, nothing. He leaned closer, straining to hear. He caught bits and pieces—a congratulations, a thanks for their service in the ruinous civil war only a decade before. Then there were words that promised them one last campaign, one last hurrah, before peace would come as in the days of old. More words, these saying the Patriarch had been proven wrong, that God’s grace fell on the Throne of Caesars despite its alliance with the Aionites.
Words of encouragement, words of hope.
Words of wrath, words of vengeance.
Something about the Persians—Gregorios assumed it was the usual. That they only called themselves Christian but that they were truly Muslim, that they laid in plush divans surrounded by harems, that they consorted with Mongol and Dane alike, that they danced the devil’s dance and played the devil’s drums. There were more words—they’re leader, that Amazon, how she threatened the Christian world. Gregorios’ ears perked up, he listened more closely—he’d heard all sorts of wives tales about the Empress of Persian, how she led men in battle, how she drank the blood of virgins to keep her youth, how she laid with Mongols and beasts of the field. He’d assumed that was all rubbish, but now, as he heard the words from his Emperor’s mouth, he couldn’t help but wonder…
…was it all true? Maybe the dearth, the privation that this massive army had caused would be worth it?
Finally the Emperor’s speech ended, its final words too soft, to creaky for the shepherd to hear. The aged man’s retainers turned his warlike stallion, until that ancient face was turned towards the imposing Thomasine Walls. A wrinkled hand rose once more, and Gregorios heard the Emperor call out the famous words first muttered almost a hundred years before:
“Close the Gate of Saint Michael, and let the world know that the Romans are to war!”
Horses whinnied, iron and steel creaked, and those great bronze doors, always open, always welcome to any trader, merchant, or commoner heading towards the Queen of Cities, heaved and moaned. At first, they wouldn’t budge—Gregorios heard the cracks of whips, and even more frantic whinnies from the panicked draft horses. Finally, the left gate, groaning under the stress, began to close, then the right. A full minute later, the two doors slammed together, a final, metallic clang echoing across the plains of Thrace.
Gregorios had no idea that neither he, nor his son, nor his son’s son, would live to see those bronze doors opened again…