15 September, 1066
Arados, Tortosa
The wind coming in off of the Mediterranean was blowing fiercely, coming in sudden gusts interspersed with the occaisonal lull. It brought the smell of the sea and of freshly-caught fish, blowing away the smell of dung and unwashed Syrians that normally hung over the portico, along with the shouts in alien tongues from the market. Petros closed his eyes and rested his arms on the banister, letting the stop-and-go of the breeze lull him into his imagination. When the wind blew strong enough to muffle the shouts, he could almost put himself in the capital, standing in a window the Great Palace and staring out over his city towards Bithynia. If he squeezed his eyes tight enough, the shapes on the insides of his eyelids kind of looked like the dome of the Hagia Sophia....
"Khristos, you're practically asking to be killed!"
Petros snapped up, instinctually turning part way and snatching at the dagger that hung around his belt. It was almost out when the words fully registered and he sighed, recognizing the man standing in front of him.
"Seraph! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
Serapion frowned, taking a small step back. "Sorry, I didn't mean too. It was just that the way you were standing anyone could've come up behind you and shoved you over."
Petros started to tell him that he was being paranoid, but as he considered it he realized that his friend wasn't wrong. "Yeah, you're right." Lord only knew that the fat bastard in the Palace was rather dagger-happy, and while realistically he didn't have the strongest claim that didn't mean he was safe.
Serapion coughed and Petros turned his attention back to him.
"So, business or pleasure?" he asked.
"Business, actually." Serapion said, clearing his throat. "Dimarkhos* Staurakios asked me to speak to you about his thematoi**...."
Petros' brows furrowed. Staurakios going out of his way to get Serapion to do something for him, and then Serapion actually doing so was the antithesis of what he knew of their relationship. That and the fact this was coming on the same day he had summoned the council was almost certainly very bad.
"What about his thematoi?" Petros asked.
"They're understrength." Serapion said.
"How understrength?" He was expecting that the number and training of the themata would have decreased after a half-decade of neglect, but hopefully it would just be a few who needed retraining...
"Sixty-six."
"Sixty-six." Petros repeated. "As in sixty-six that need to be re-trained, or sixty-six that are dead or aged out, or..."
Serapion looked at his feet, and Petros groaned raising his eyes to heaven and uttering a silent prayer for patience. He looked back down and said, more in a tone of annoyance and exhaustion than anger, "He's in the council room, yes?"
Serapion nodded lightly, and he friend turned on his heel and speed-walked down the hall leading to the meeting room, Serapion following a few feet behind him. Two flights of stairs and three hallways later he emerged into the small antechamber of the council hall, brushing past his Ekklesiarkh Sharaf en route. He ignored the clergyman's surprised remark and shoved the inner door open, barging through without breaking stride.
The council room had, like the rest of the palace, been built during the period of Muslim rule over the city and still bore the decorative tiles, columns and windows typical of their architecture. It was a wide rotundal room, a dozen paces across, with a circular table seating seven men in the dead center. Four of the chairs were occupied, seating his Magistros and the county's Bishop, Zenobios,
the Mystikos, Nikolaos,
the Prostrator, Tiberios
and finally the Sakellarios, Staurakios.
Petros' gaze locked onto the last man and he stormed across the room and slammed his hands down on the edge of the table, startling all four men. The ongoing conversation died abruptly as the other council members waited for him to give his harrangue and Staurakios squirmed in his chair.
But as he watch the Dimarkhos sweat, something in Petros' chest weakened and the fury died in his throat. It felt wrong to be shouting at a man who was already this scared, and he felt like it would be needlessly cruel. Like Khristos had said, 'Turn the other cheek'.
When he opened his mouth, all that came out was a weak sigh. "Really? How long do you have to neglect the thematoi for five-sixths of them to stop showing up?"
One of the other councilmen-Tiberios, probably-muttered a smart remark, but the komes ignored it. Staurakios stared at him for several second, the question hanging in the air as he struggled to come up with an answer.
"I, uh, I had no intention of letting things become this grevious. I believe the fault lays at the feet of the tourmakheoi*** who were responsible for the drills..."
Don't try and feign this off on some hapless subordinate, they're acting under your orders. Or lack thereof. "I don't want to hear excuses. From now until I tell you otherwise, you spend every waking hour getting the thematoi back up to strength, in both numbers and quality. You understand?"
Staurakios nodded frantically, relief washing over his face. Petros stood back up and briefly surveyed the councilors as Sharaf and Sarapion slid into their seats. He himself sat down in the last open chair.
"Alright then, now that that's out of the way, we should get on with the meeting. Zenobios, why don't you start."
There was a rustle of papers as Zenobios rose to his feet, coughing a few times before speaking. "Alright. So, as you know, Tortosa is an indirect vassal of the Imperial throne. Indirect means that-"
"We know what indirect means, Zenobios." Staurakios interjected. Zenobios gave him a withering look, then carried on with his presentation.
"Tortosa is a vassal of the Douxate of Antioch, which is ruled by Isaakios Komnenos. By himself, he's not that much of a threat, but two of his brothers are also strategoi, and so any attempt to depose him will get us smacked down.
"Looking at the rest of the Empire, you have a non-agression pact with your....uncle or cousin, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, komes Theodoros of Korinthos has control of two kometates, and can raise a little over 1800 thematoi.
He's not too fond off us, but I can probably bribe him with gold or wenches into allying with us. There's also an opportunity for an alliance with Leon Pegonites, the Doux of Kypros.
A friend of mine is his confessor, and Pegonites' eldest daughter, Melissa, reached the age of betrothal last year but has been unable to find any suitors. Given that Kypros can muster 1500 thematoi, marrying Melissa is probably your best bet."
He paused, giving Petros a deliberative look. Petros had never really given much thought to marriage--he had adopted the posthumous son of his predecessor at his birth, and so the succession had most likely been secured--but such alliance would definitely increase his prospects for the throne. That, and if the Turks ever came south there was far more water between Kypros and the coast than there was between Arados and the same.
"Make the arrangements for it, if you would." he said.
Zenobios nodded. "I'll do it after this ends, sir." He shuffled his papers again and coughed lightly before beginning. "Given our small size, we should try and expand within the Empire. As we can't fight a Douxate on even footing, we have exactly two targets; We can go after a small, landlocked kometate on the border with Serbia, or, and I've already started work on this, I think I can get you a claim on the Kometate of Kalliopolis. It's held by the brother of Konstantinos Monomakhos, and so I'd say it would be poetic justice to take it from him."
He looked over the papers and grinned at Petros. "Anyway, in regards to the Imperial throne, the basileus can muster some 15,000 men, a mixture of thematoi and professionals. However, the Oghuz Turks have at the very least twice that, probably more, so that's not too good. Speaking of the Turks, they control all of the land east of us. For now their attention is focused on Armenia and the Plateau, but that'll probably change, the big question is when that happens.
"To our south are three city-states; Tripoli, Beirut and Sur. All are Muslim, but none are especially fond of the Fatimids or the Turks. The vassal lords of both will probably gobble them up soon, so if we want to expand in that direction we'll have to move soon. That's all, unless you have any questions."
"Uh, yes," Serapion raised his hand, "How strong are the city-states?"
Zenobios checked his papers again. "They have about a thousand men each, mostly equivalent to our thematoi."
"How many do we have?" Petros asked, looking over at Tiberios. The commander also stood, clutching a single scrap of paper.
"On paper, we can field a maximum of 1200 men, leaving reserves to garrison the fortresses. However, due to the....negligence....of Staurakios and Zenobios, who is not entirely innocent either, we can raise roughly 750 men. Speaking frankly, without the protection of the rest of the Empire we're effectively a slight bump on the straight-away to Antioch."
Petros grimaced. He knew that his kometate couldn't propel him to the throne by itself and that he would have to rely on his intrigue skills to pave his wave to the capital, but Tiberios' words and tone were hardly re-assuring.
"You said that we can field a maximum of 1200?" Tiberios nodded. "Then I'm authorizing you to train and prepare as many soldiers as the kometate can support without seriously damaging our infrastructure."
The prostrator grinned and sat back down, flipping over the scrap of paper and scratching away at it. Petros turned his gaze to Staurakios, who was sitting stock-still after being called out for a second time.
"Of course, to do that we'll need money. As such, I'm relieving you of your duties to raise soldiers and from now on you will be charged with enforcing tax collection within my land. If you're wise you won't test my mercies again."
Staurakios nodded frantically, and Petros looked over to the man to his left. "Nikolaos, are there any ongoing plots within Tortosa?"
The mystikos shrugged. "There's a shepherd out in the scrub who's been trying to convince one of my agents to help him steal from his neighbor's herd, and an adulterer in Balemia who's wife is conspiring to have him disappear. Other than that, none that I'm aware of."
"Alright then, keep on looking until further notice." he swiveled yet again to the last councilor, the Ekklesiarkh. "Sharaf. How is the state of the congregations?"
The Syrian shrugged. "Something like nine-tenths Orthodox, with the odd Muslim or Monothelite. The former are mostly herders, while the latter are mostly migrant farmers coming up from Tripoli."
Petros nodded again and rose. "Thank you for joining me, gentlemen. I trust that you will fully carry out your duties?" There was a clamor of affirmitives, but he kept a lingering stare on Staurakios. "Alright then, dismissed."
As the council members shuffled out of the door, Petros looked over to Serapion. "Do you trust him?"
"Who? Staurakios? About as far as I can throw him."
Petros nodded, walking towards the door. "Same. If you wouldn't mind, keep an eye on the treasury in your free time."
As Petros and Serapion walked out of the council room, the komes decided that he should visit his mother that afternoon. Doing so was always an emotional and physical drain, and so he decided to take a short nap before he went to the women's quarters. Little did he know that an intruder was waiting for him there....
*Greek equivalent of Mayor
**Greek equivalent of levy
***Equivalent of NCOs
