Chapter 1: Beginnings
"Omnium rerum principia parva sunt." (The beginnings of all things are small.) --Cicero
On August 7, 1428, Ashot Khatchatryan was born in a little village near Arpa, in the province of Armenia.
His father died when he was seven, when mercenaries caught him in an open field. His mother saved his life by hiding him in a copse of trees while the mercenaries ransacked his house.
Ashot had trouble sleeping at night soon after the attack. He had nightmares of mercenaries breaking through the door, the windows, the chimney, then running a sword through him, just as they did his father. Ashot's mother would come to his bed, hold him in her arms, and tell him stories of his ancestors, who used to be strong and powerful, and rule all the lands around him "as far as the eagle who soars above the clouds could see." And his great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers ruled the land with compassion, and watched over every sleeping child in their beds, so that no mercenaries would come and take their family away. And after Ashot would fall asleep his mother would return to her bed and shed tears over her dead husband.
Thus Ashot grew in wisdom and stature.
When he was fourteen he apprenticed to an aging local merchant named Aram Parsivan. Aram entranced Ashot with stories of his travels--of buying silks and spice in Astrakhan, incense in Bagdad, and wine in Genoa ("There's no wine better than that which flows from the mountains of Piedmont"). He spoke of the merchant markets of Venice and Constantinople. He spoke of wild horses running on the plains. Ashot always listened with his eyes gazing off into the distance, as if he could actually see those giant grey beasts with the two long white horns old Aram talked of.
One day Aram came to Ashot and said "I've got a shipment of silk that needs to go to Venice. But I'm too old to accompany the delivery myself. Do you want to go?" Ashot could hardly believe his ears. Of course he wanted to go! But how would he know what to do? "When you get there, find a man by the name of Giacomo di Vezzuri. He and I go way back. Tell him you came on my business and he'll take care of you."
Shortly after passing Yerevan, the party were into the Ararat mountains when a mercenary party ambushed the caravan. Several guards were slain. Soon the mercenaries were upon him about to strike, and to Ashot it was just like his nightmares of old. Paralyzed with helplessness, he stood there waiting for the blow, when, as his life flashed before his eyes, a new image focused itself--the sight of his father's death. Instantly he was transformed from docile victim to enraged animal, and this sudden transformation caught the attackers by surprise. Ashot knocked the sword out of the hand of the mercenary leader and slew him with it. Within a minute every mercenary was dead, with no survivors escaping to tell about it. The ravaged caravan buried their dead, then they continued their journey.
At Trebizond, the party of travellers caught a cog to Constantinople. From there, they transferred their goods to a transport that was headed to Venice. Other than a storm and a sighting of Ottoman warships that got no closer than the horizon, the journey was rather uneventful.
In Venice, Ashot arrived to discover all of the inhabitants speaking a foreign tongue. He left a guard with the silks and took off, reciting the name Giacomo di Vezzuri as if it were magic words. Most of the time he got no response but the occasional few would point him in a direction towards the Chiesa d'Oro. As he came within view of the great cathedral, one old lady pointed him down an alley and into a small shop.
"Giacomo di Vezzuri?"
"Si. Chi sono voi?"
Ashot looked confused for a moment, then replied "Aram Parsivan." Now Giacomo looked confused. After a few minutes, Ashot broke the silence, sighing "I don't suppose you don't understand me either."
"Are you Armenian?"
"Yes!" Ashot answered, relieved that he finally heard something familiar. "I am apprentice to Aram Parsivan. He told me Giacomo di Vezzuri could help me with his load of silks once I got here."
"Aram was an old friend of mine. How is he doing?"
"He's getting up there in age, but he is in good health."
"Italians always remember who their friends are. Where is the shipment?"
Ashot led Giacomo back down to the docks, where Giacomo expertly ordered the porters to carry it into the market, where he passed them on to a local seller for a tidy sum, which he then turned over to Ashot, who was observing the whole process in awe. Giacomo spoke, and people obeyed.
Soon enough Ashot was headed back home. At the edge of the village he was met by a little girl who ran out to meet him. "Aram is dead!" Ashot couldn't believe his ears.
"He was in such good health! I told that to the man in Venice! How did he die?"
"He got old, I guess." And with that, the little girl skipped away.
He went to the old merchant's home, where he found Aram's nephew, whom Ashot knew. "My uncle left me this shop. He told me that if you returned, you could have all the profits from your venture." Ashot gratefully accepted the last gift of his master, but wondered what he was supposed to do now--his old master was dead. "I don't know--go be a merchant or something."
Ashot returned home, gave his mother half of what he had earned, then bid her farewell, departing once again for Trebizond. Shortly thereafter he arrived in Giacomo's shop. "Aram is dead."
Giacomo paused a little, looking pained, then replied "Surely you didn't come all the way from Armenia to tell me that!"
Ashot replied "I want to be a merchant." Giacomo sized him up, then said "Learn to speak Italian." And with that he left Ashot to attend to other matters around the shop.
Every day Ashot walked to the market. He watched people selling and acting and soon picked up many words.
One day he was at his usual place in the market when the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon entered the market. His friends saw his reaction and said "Don't look. She is the daughter of the richest merchant in Venice. You have no chance with her."
But he kept on watching. He watched which booths she went to and what items she bought. Every day she came he watched. "Where does the spice come from?" he asked his friends.
"It comes from far away, very far away, in Astrakhan and India."
"I'm going to bring her favourite spice her myself." His friends laughed at first, until they saw he was serious.
"You can't go by yourself! It's far away! It's dangerous! You'll get killed!"
"Then who will come with me?" Half-grudgingly, half for the adventure, his friends joined in and pooled their money together.
The next day he was off, having boarded a boat for Trebizond (where else?). There they hired a mercenary guard led by one Giraybay. Ashot hated dealing with mercs, but his friends convinced him it was necessary, so he left the guard in the care of a particularly close friend, Petru Voda.
Once at Astrakhan, they found the market had been bled dry due to especially high demand and a drought that year, so the company of friends journeyed onwards to India. Once there, thanks to Petru's exceptional barganing skills, they managed to score 120 camels fully loaded with spice.
Back in Venice, they opened shop. The merchant's daughter walked in that very day, looking particularly anxious. "I hear that you have melange."
Ashot took this customer, as his friends watched with smirks on their faces. "Yes, we do--it's the only thing we have."
"Surely you know that you are the only shop in the city with melange, no?"
"Si."
"Then you must be selling it for a fortune?"
"Yes, my princess, but there are other ways to pay than gold."
"Don't call me a princess--I'm not one."
"Then what else am I supposed to call you, lady-without-a-name?"
"My name is Bianca Foscarini, daughter of Francesco Foscarini, the richest merchant of Venice, and I can haggle better than any of you men. What is your 'other' price?"
"For a kiss, you may have all the spice you want at half-price."
"How dare you! I will pay the price in full."
And with that, she bought half of the spice in the store.
The next day, most of that spice she had bought had made it's way into the hands of her father's merchants, where they at first charged double what she paid for it, getting it into the hands of all of Venice's nobility. Then the following day the spice was on sale for half the price she paid for it, costing Ashot a fortune. "That little witch!"
Ashot was undeterred. He went to France to buy a shipment of her favourite wine. He went to Novgorod to buy her favourite furs. He bought cloth from Flanders and Ivory from Tunisia and Bianca couldn't help but notice how often she was going into that little shop near the bell-tower of St. Mark's.
One day, a messenger ran in to the shop. Ashot Khatchatryan? Your mother is dying.
Ashot boarded a ship for Trebizond the next day. As he passed by, he could see fields and villages razed to the ground all around him. Nothing but stubble was left. He hoped to see better news before he reached Arpa, but it too was the same. A besieging army recently left Arpa, whose denizens looked like walking skeletons from starvation. He got to his mother's village to find it slightly more intact than the others--some of the houses, though burnt, were still standing. Inside he found his mother, dying of wounds inflicted in the mess. "My son! My son! Now I can die in peace!" "Don't say that, mother! You're still young, vibrant, alive. You're going to live! You're going to live..." And as he recited these last few words, his mother died in his arms.
Ashot buried his mother behind the house, with a simple unmarked rock serving as headstone. Then, he marched straight for Van.
He requested an audience with High Chief Usun Hasan of Ak Koyunlu, the current ruler of Armenia. (The province changes hands so often its own residents get confused.) The King, hearing that a rich Venetian merchant wanted to see him, dropped all matters for the rest of the day to open a timeslot, and was disappointed to see an Armenian walk in.
"I thought you said you were a rich Venetian merchant. Guards, show this man the door."
"Both you and I know that gold makes the world turn." Usun motioned to his guards to wait. "What business brings you here?"
"The business of my people."
"Your people are my people."
"You are the Regent we pay taxes to right now."
"To suggest that otherwise would happen in the future is treason."
"I am not suggesting a rebellion, your highness."
"Then get on with it!" Usun was still upset he had been tricked into seeing this scum.
"My people need protection. They are prey to every passing merc and thief. My father and mother are dead. You are responsible to protect your citizens. Where is protection for the Armenians?"
"The Muslims trust Allah to protect them. The Christians trust their God to protect them. Don't blame me if your God cannot protect his flock."
"The Muslims are only protected because his Majesty only sends his troops to guard the Muslims!"
"I'm a poor man. Do you see gold lining the walls of this castle."
"So if you had the chance to sell a province, you would jump at the chance to plate this castle in gold?"
"None of my kingdom is for sale!"
"Not even for 150 ducats of gold?" At this figure, the King was startled.
"What do you want?"
"My people's freedom. I want the province of Armenia."
"You think 150 ducats can buy you Armenia?"
"What price does your Majesty suggest?"
"250 ducats. No less than 250 ducats."
"Then I will hold your Majesty to his word."
"You cannot possibly have 250 ducats!"
"Not yet. But when I have the gold, I will return. And then I hope your Majesty is a man of his words. For Allah hates a lying tongue."
With that, Ashot departed. He sent word to Petru to get all the gold he could, sell their share of the shop, and to meet him in Tehran.
They met up shortly thereafter. Ashot explained what had happened. "Where are you going to find 250 ducats? Even Francesco Foscarini has a total wealth of 60 ducats. This is a Kingdom you're dealing with, not a merchant!"
"I'm going after the rarest good of them all--silk."
"You're not going to China, are you?"
"Yes I am. And you are welcome to come with me."
"You have any idea how infested the silk road is with thieves? Silk is rare for a reason: hardly anyone can survive the Gobi. You're going to get yourself killed!"
"Are you coming?"
Petru grumbled and muttered his assent. "Not without protection." Petru went to the market in Tehran and soon had a force of 1000 soldiers to accompany them.
"1000 men? Don't you think that's excessive?"
"I told you, I wasn't coming without proper protection. Legends don't get born out of nothing, you know."
The caravan got caught between enemy lines in a warzone; got ambushed in the Central Asian Steppes (three times), got lost in the Gobi and nearly thirsted to death before stumbling upon an oasis, and lost 100 men to some fever whose name they never found out. And that was all in just getting to China.
Their appearance in Beijing was the talk of the town. It had been two hundred years since the last European set foot in Beijing. The Emperor invited them to supper, bringing his advisors to try and gather as much intelligence as he could from the foreigners, and to determine if they were a threat. As for the soldiers, they felt helpless against the size and might of this grand old city and remained respectfully demure.
After the buzz died down, Ashot spent every cent he had on silk. He even had some given to him as a gift from nobles honoured to greet the aliens. Soon enough, a large band of camels was weighed down with silks, as were much of the men in the militia--who grumbled, but were satiated with a promise of higher pay once they reached Venice.
The return journey was no less hazardous. Silks were given up in place of gold to every minor kingdom along the silk route intent on taking its tolls. After the party got past the mountains, they attempted to pass many cities at night in hopes of avoiding further tolls. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and sometimes the mercenary guard beat overzealous toll collectors into submission. A dust storm made off with some silks, as did a landslide in the Caucasus. Thieves however were kept at bay by the sheer number of swords guarding this shipment.
Once at Venice, Ashot set up in the middle of the market, without a shop or a booth, and began to sell in broad daylight, attracting lots of attention. Friends were shocked to see them alive after a 2 year long disappearance. The first customer was none other than Bianca Foscarini.
"Did you walk all the way to China to get this silk?"
"No, fair maiden, I actually rode a horse most of the way," Ashot replied to raucous laughter.
"And how much is this one?" Bianca asked, pointing to a particularly deep blue.
"That one is free of charge, a gift in tribute of your beauty."
"No kiss as ransom for this cloth?"
"A woman's heart cannot be bought or sold with gold or goods--it can only be given freely, just as the gift to you is given. Next one is 10 gold pieces, however."
Bianca couldn't help but smile. "Freely taken, freely given--" and she kissed him on the cheek, before disappearing around a corner.
After paying the mercs their promised wages, giving Petru his fair share, and taking out money for the journey back to Armenia, Ashot found he had exactly 250 ducats.
"Shall I dismiss the guard?" Petru asked.
"No--I still have need of them. Would you like to become a minister in my court? Or perhaps the general of the army?"
"You don't even know that Usun will honour his agreement with you."
"That's what the mercs are for. If he refuses, I've reserved a 12,000 man army in Tehran as we passed. They're on standby, waiting to hear if I have need of them."
"They aren't taking other orders?"
"It's amazing what the promise of 250 ducats can buy. If Usun doesn't listen, I'll force him to listen. So, are you coming?"
"I have unfinished business here in Venice. If all goes well, send for me."
Shortly thereafter, a small army was found besieging Van, holding a white flag. Upon further inquiry, the army said all they wished was an audience with the High Chief, after which they would lift the siege. When Usun saw Ashot again, at first he didn't recognize him, then his face turned a little pale.
"Did you manage to find your 250 ducats?"
"Si."
The King was a little unnerved at Ashot's brevity. "So you want to purchase Armenia and rule it for yourself?"
"Si."
"And why should I let Armenia go?"
"Because you are a man of your word."
"What if I'm not?"
"Then an army of 14,000, currently on standby in Tehran, will be the alternate recipient of these 250 ducats, and after Armenia's independence is declared and your army crushed, I dare say that you will lose more provinces than just Armenia."
The king laughed. Then an advisor ran up to him and whispered in his ear "he's not joking."
"What do you mean, he's not joking?"
"According to our spies, there is indeed an army of 14,000 awaiting further orders in Tehran."
The king cleared his throat. "Would you excuse me while I conference with my advisors?"
"So, what's your idea?" the High Chief asked his spymaster.
"Well, if he gives you the 250 ducats, he can't possibly have the money to pay that army, so he would have to worry about an enraged militia. Supposing he survives that, then he'd have to deal with the fact that Armenia is an economically bankrupt province that has been a drain on your coffers for years. He can't possibly make money running a kingdom from there. When a particularly bad famine strikes, and his people revolt out of thirst, hunger, and misery; when he goes bankrupt and has to flee the country; then, we can take Armenia back, and we'll be 250 ducats the richer for it."
"Excellent plan. Call the young man back in."
"So, will his Majesty keep his word for his own honour's sake, or will it be required of him by force?"
"I am a man of honour. I rule my kingdom with honour. How dare you suggest I would not keep my word! Show me the ducats, and Armenia is yours."
And so on May 30, in the city of Yerevan, Ashot Khatchatryan was crowned Ashot the Fifth, King Regent of Armenia.
