The Iron Lance Page 4

  The invaders, eager to avenge the assault, hastily formed a battleline and began their plodding advance. The imperial defenders looked out on a single vast, clotted mass of bellowing barbarians—less an ordered line than an enormous human tidal wave rolling across the land—and heard the deep jarring bone-rattling thump of the drums, the strident, sense-numbing blare of the huge, curved battlehorns, and the defiant cries of the warriors as they swept towards them with quickening pace.

  It was a display calculated to produce terror in the beholder; it was their chief weapon, and one which served them well; with it, they had conquered tribe and nation, overrunning all they surveyed. The empire’s soldiers had faced it before, however, and the sight and sound of barbarians massing for their attack no longer inspired shock or dismay, no longer quelled the heart in terror, or swallowed the senses in panic. The Immortals gazed with narrowed eyes and tightened their grip on lances and reins, calmed their horses with gently whispered words, and waited.

  Flanked on either side by his standard-bearers—one lofting the purple banner of the Holy Roman Empire, the other the golden vexillum—Alexius looked across to his officers, the strategi, who anchored the long ranks at the center of either wing. The foremost of these was a seasoned veteran of the Pecheneg wars, a man named Taticius, whose fearlessness and shrewdness had often saved lives and won battles. The emperor signalled his general, who sang out in a strong voice: “Slow march!”

  The trumpets sounded a single, shrill blast, and the troops started forth as one. The imperial formation—two divisions, each made up of ten regiments in ranks, five deep, and a hundred riders to the rank—moved in close concert with one another; shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, the riders formed a wall not easily breached or broken. Their long lances kept the foe out of reach of their horses, and themselves out of reach of barbarian axes and war hammers. Once in motion, there was little on the ground that could withstand a charge of mounted warriors.

  Taticius gave the sign, the trumpets blared again, and the riders quickened their pace. The invaders met this with a shout, and came on. Fifty paces later, the trumpets sounded a third time, and the riders doubled their speed. The horses, trained to combat, strained at the reins, excited for the coming clash; but the riders held them back, waiting for the signal.

  Faster and faster came the barbarians, the sound of their screams and drums and horns shaking the very earth and air, drowning out the thunder of the onrushing hooves. At the strategus’ signal, the trumpets shrilled once more. Ten thousand lances swung level.

  The two forces closed upon one another at speed. As the gap swiftly narrowed, the trumpets gave out a last signal and the horsemen put spurs to their mounts and let them run.

  For the space of two heartbeats, the world was a churning chaos of blurred motion as the two onrushing armies fell upon each other. The clash sounded a mighty crack which echoed from the surrounding hills, and ten thousand barbarians fell. Many of these were trampled down and their brains dashed out beneath the iron hooves of the emperor’s horses; the rest met death at the point of a Byzantine spear.

  The charge carried the emperor and his troops deep into the barbarian mass. The screaming hordes, seeing the gleaming gold and purple standards, leapt over one another in their frenzy to strike down the Elect of Heaven. But Alexius, mindful of the danger of allowing the enemy to surround his division, had instructed Taticius to signal the retreat as soon as the assault foundered. Accordingly, the trumpets sounded above the barbarian shriek and, with practiced ease, the imperial soldiers disengaged, fleeing back over the bodies of the dead and dying.

  The enemy, seeing the horsemen turn away, pounded on in blood-blind pursuit, screaming as they ran. They chased the fleeing horsemen—only to be met with another measured charge by oncoming cavalry. The emperor, having had time to halt the retreat, had turned his troops and reformed the ranks; Alexius, with five thousand horsemen behind him, spurred his division into the center of the oncoming barbarian battlehost.

  The barbarians, neither so quick nor so tightly clumped as before, were more cautious this time. They tried to dodge the spears and hooves, to allow the horses to pass and stab at the riders as they swept by. The Byzantines had long acquaintance with this tactic, however, and were not easily outflanked. The ranks behind covered for the line ahead, and the barbarians could not close on those they sought to strike. Indeed, most were fortunate not to be cut down as they darted into position.

  The charge ground to a halt, and the imperial troops made good their retreat, falling back the instant the attack faltered. They fled back across a battleground now deep with Pecheneg and Bogomil dead. This time, however, they did not regroup and charge again, but fled up the hill.

  The enemy, believing they had beaten the Byzantines, quickly reformed the line. The drums began beating, and the horns blaring, and they marched ahead once more, but slowly this time. Two disastrous charges had taught them respect for the elusive horsemen.

  Nicetas, who had been waiting on the hilltop, joined the emperor, and said, “The Cuman are growing restless, basileus. They say that if they are not allowed to fight before midday, they will leave the battlefield.”

  “It is a long time to midday,” Alexius replied. “Their patience is soon rewarded. See here!” He pointed to the approaching horde. No longer a single amorphous line, the barbarians had separated themselves into three distinct bodies, each under the leadership of a battlechief. “Tell our vengeful friends that we will soon deliver their enemies into their hands. Warn them to be vigilant.”

  Nicetas saluted, turned his horse and galloped back to his position. The emperor returned to the head of his troops to lead the next assault. Aware that he was embarking on the most dangerous phase of the battle, Alexius uttered a brief prayer and crossed himself. Reining in among his standard-bearers once more, he signalled to Taticius, who turned and shouted the order: “Slow march!”

  The trumpets sounded, and the long ranks of horsemen stepped out. The invaders reacted to the movement by increasing the distance between their divisions. Alexius could see that if he gave them half a chance, the enemy would try to outflank him. Should the barbarian horde succeed, the balance of the battle would shift perilously.

  Alexius watched the two enemy clusters moving farther out on either side of the central host. Behind the three advancing bodies, he could see the rest of the enemy horde taking up the positions vacated by the three advancing groups.

  They were learning, he thought; their battles with the empire over the years was teaching them the rudiments of tactical warfare. Each encounter was more difficult to win, and more costly: all the more reason to make certain it ended here and now. He raised his hand and signalled his strategus. An instant later the trumpets sounded their high clarion call, and the imperial troops surged ahead.

  As expected, the moment Alexius committed himself to his attack, the enemy’s two flanking bodies turned and drove in on either side. At the same time, the greater host behind swept in to surround and crush the Immortals.

  As before, the attack was halted by the dense numbers of foemen, who absorbed the assault with their shields and bodies. The horse soldiers abandoned their lances and took up swords to slash their way free of the enemy’s grasp. Glancing quickly to the right and left, Alexius saw the enemy divisions closing swiftly. He gave Taticius the sign, and the trumpets sounded retreat.

  Crouching low, Alexius jerked the reins back hard, wheeled his mount and led the Byzantines in full flight up the hill. The barbarians, amazed at the ease with which they had blunted the imperial attack, rushed forward to press their advantage. The three main bodies, followed by the great rolling wave—twenty thousand barbarians wide and twenty deep—swept on up the hill at a run, determined not to allow the Byzantines enough time to regroup for another charge.

  With an earth-trembling roar, the barbarians rushed to the kill, their feet pounding the hillside, weapons gleaming in the bright sunlight. The Immortals, unable to order the
ranks and prepare the charge, had no other choice but to retreat further up the hill. The trumpets shrilled the call to retreat.

  Within moments, the imperial horsemen were fleeing the field, cresting the hill and disappearing over the other side. The barbarians, screaming in triumph, pounded after them, baying for blood.

  Upon reaching the hilltop, the enemy saw the Immortals galloping down the far slope toward a loop of the river. Eager to catch the horsemen as they floundered through the ford, the barbarians flew after the retreating troops, shrieking in triumph.

  Down and down they came, streaming headlong into the valley, racing for the river. As the first barbarians reached the fording place, however, ten thousand foot soldiers suddenly appeared on either flank. Hidden in the rushes at the water’s edge, the imperial infantry rose up with a shout. At the same instant, the Immortals turned their horses and started back, throwing the barbarians into a howling panic.

  Desperate now to retake the high ground lest they find themselves pinched between the two opposing forces, the foemen turned and fled back the way they had come.

  It was then that the Cuman mercenaries appeared on the hilltop behind them: an entire barbarian nation, thirty thousand strong, and each and every one of them nursing a long-standing hatred of their Pecheneg and Bogomil neighbors.

  The trap was sprung, and the slaughter commenced.

  Alexius, confident of the outcome, withdrew from the battle. Summoning his Varangian bodyguard, he charged Dalassenus to bring word as soon as victory was complete, then rode at once to his tent.

  That was where the Grand Drungarius found the emperor, bathed, shaved, dressed in his clean robes, dictating a letter to the Magister Praepositus, who was taking Alexius’ words and inscribing them on a wax tablet.

  “Ah, Dalassenus! Enter!” he called as the young man appeared behind Gerontius. He waved the chief scribe away, saying, “That is all—bring it to me to sign as soon as you are finished. It will be sent immediately.” The scribe bowed once and withdrew. “Well? Tell me, how did the battle end?”

  “As you predicted, basileus,” answered the commander.

  “Indeed?”

  “Down to the last detail. The Cuman auxiliary were merciless. Once they had the scent of blood in their nostrils, we had no need to engage the Immortals. We merely stood by to prevent the survivors escaping into the hills.” He paused, and added, “There were no survivors.”

  “Gerontius, did you hear?” called the emperor. “Our victory is absolute! Pour the wine! Dalassenus and I will drink to the triumph.”

  The elderly magister bent to the table, and turned a moment later bearing golden cups. The emperor lofted one of the cups and said, “All praise to God, who has delivered our enemies into our hands, and driven them into the dust of death!”

  “All praise to God,” the Grand Drungarius answered.

  They drank together and Alexius, laying aside his cup quickly, said, “See here, Dalassenus. I have already sent messengers back to the city. The ships will be ready to sail upon your arrival. It is a cruel thing to dispatch a man fresh from the battlefield, I know. But you will have a good few days’ rest aboard ship.”

  The young commander nodded. “It is no hardship, basileus, I assure you.”

  “It is not that I do not trust the Logothete or the Syneculla,” Alexius continued. “Indeed, they will go with you. But this is primarily a military matter, and the Patriarch of Rome must know the importance I place on the victory we have achieved today, and how much I value his aid. Now that the northern border is secure, we can turn our attention to the south and east.”

  The emperor began pacing back and forth, clenching his fists. “We can begin taking back the lands the Arabs have stolen. At long last, all we have worked for is within our grasp. Think of it, Dalassenus!”

  Alexius stopped, regaining control of his free-racing hopes. “Alas, the army is not ready to meet the challenge.”

  “Your troops fight well, basileus,” Dalassenus disagreed mildly. “We could not ask for better soldiers, nor would we find them.”

  “Do not misunderstand me. I agree: they are brave men—the most disciplined and courageous soldiers in the world—but they are too few. The constant warring has taken its toll, and we must begin rebuilding the themes. There is so much to be done, but it is within our very grasp now, and—”

  The smile on Dalassenus’ face arrested his kinsman’s familiar tirade.

  “Forgive me, cousin,” Alexius said, “I am forgetting myself. You, who have been with me from the beginning, know it all as well as I. Better, perhaps, in many respects.”

  Dalassenus turned to the table, refilled the emperor’s cup and handed it to him. “Let us savor the victory a moment longer, basileus.” Raising his cup, he said, “For the glory of God, and the welfare of the empire.”

  “Amen!” replied the emperor, adding, “May the peace we have won this day last a thousand years.”

  THREE

  Murdo wilted under the abbot’s interminable prayers and wished he was far away from Kirkjuvágr. His knees ached from kneeling so long, and the smoke from the incense made his empty stomach queasy. The dim interior of the great church reminded him of a cave: dank and cool and dark. Save for a smattering of candles around the altar, and a few tiny slit windows, he might have been deep in an earth-howe, or one of the ancient chambered tombs scattered among the low hills. Outside it was balmy midsummer, but here inside the cathedral it was, ever and always, dreary mid-November.

  Craning his neck sharply to the right, he could see the stern countenances of saints Luke and John staring from the nearest wall in sharp disapproval at his fidgeting. Higher up, under the roof-tree, a frog-eyed gargoyle grinned down from a corbel—as if in merry mockery of Murdo’s growing discomfort. To his left knelt his mother and father, and before him his brothers and cousin. None of them, he knew, shared his distress, which made it all the worse.

  The Feast of Saint John was one of the few holy days Murdo truly enjoyed, and here he was spending it in the worst way possible. If he had been at the bú, the morning service would have been over long since and he would be filling himself with roast pork and barley wine. Instead, he was trapped in a damp, dark cavern of a church listening to some lickspit priest gabble on and on and on in irksome Latin.

  Why, of all possible days, did it have to be this one? He moaned inwardly, contemplating the ruin of the day. The waste of a good feast-day was a mortal sin, yet the bishop, in typical ignorant clerical selfishness, had decreed the Feast of Saint John for the cross-taking. The only consolation, and it was cold comfort indeed, lay in the fact that at least Murdo was not alone in his misery.

  Indeed, the entire church was full and so was the yard outside—full of men and women of rank, as well as merchants and tenants of various holdings large and small, from many of Orkney’s low-scattered isles: hundreds of islanders in clutches and knots, all of them kneeling, like himself, heads down, faces almost touching the clammy stone, intoning their dull responses in a low, mumbled drone. Murdo imagined they were each and every one praying that the abbot would, for God’s sake, stop.

  Seeing them like this, their backs all bent, put Murdo in mind of a field of boulders, and it was all he could do to stop himself leaping up and making his escape by skipping from one humped back to the next like stepping stones. Instead, he lowered his head once more, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to think of the succulent roast pork and sweet ale he was missing.

  When at last the ox-brained abbot did stop, Murdo rose to his feet, almost faint with hunger. He stared glumly, forlornly ahead, as yet another black-robed cleric ascended to the pulpit high above the upturned faces of the overcrowded sanctuary. Bishop Adalbert stood for a time, gazing beatifically down from his lofty perch. Satisfied that every eye was upon him, he thrust out his hands and declared, “This is the favorable day of the Lord!”

  “Amen,” the congregation mumbled. The response sounded to Murdo like the sea when it lies un
easy on the shore.

  Again, the bishop put forth his hands and proclaimed, “This is the favorable day of the Lord!”

  “Amen,” muttered the crowd, sounding more and more like a fretful sea.

  “Amen!” cried the bishop triumphantly. “For this day our Saviour King will receive into his service men of faith who will fight for him in the Holy Land.”

  The cleric retrieved a square of parchment and made a show of unfolding and opening it. “This,” he explained, “has lately come into my hands: an epistle from our holy father, the Patriarch of Rome, bearing his seal.” He flourished the parchment to show the red blot of wax and the golden cord. Holding the letter before him, Adalbert began, “I read it thus: ‘Bishop Urban, servant of servants, to all the faithful of Christ, both rulers and subjects: Greetings, grace, and apostolic blessing. We know you have already heard that the frenzy of the barbarians has devastated the churches of God, and has, shame to say, seized into slavery the sacred relics of our faith, those blessed objects of veneration by which we recognize and proclaim the truth of our salvation. Alas! Not content to destroy our churches, the infidel have seized the Holy City of Jerusalem itself and would prevent God’s people their rightful worship.’”

  The good bishop paused to allow his listeners to more fully savor this dire state of affairs. “‘Grieving in pious contemplation of this disaster,’” Adalbert continued, making Murdo squirm, “‘we strongly urge the princes and people of every western land to work for the liberation of the Eastern Church. Who shall avenge these wrongs, who will recover the relics and lands if not you? You, my people, are the race upon whom God has bestowed glory in arms, greatness of spirit, physical energy, and the courage to humble the proud locks of all those who resist you.’”