Conquest

An hour later, over a hundred men sat in the cooling twilight to enjoy their food and wine. Leo said grace, then sat and gazed at the scene before him. Behind John Comnenus stood his equerry and men-at-arms: three tall men in blue tunics with gilded trim, their burgundy cloaks held by heavy bronze clasps of the royal house of Comnenus. With the light from the campfires flickering across their bearded faces and intricately worked armour, they had the ostentatious trappings of court soldiers, but their rugged demeanour was of men hardened by the ferocity of battle.

Prince John Azoukh sat beside the heir to the Purple of Byzantium. Twenty-eight years old, the same age as his royal companion, his was a remarkable story. As a small child he had been taken as a slave by a general of the Imperial Army, who, charmed by the little boy’s humour and intelligence, had given him to the Emperor Alexius as a present.

Leo could see why the Arab slave had endeared himself to the family of Alexius: his soft black curls were the perfect complement to a clear olive skin, gentle dark-brown eyes and a strikingly handsome face. But his most endearing quality was his infectious vitality. The Emperor had recognized his charms but also his intelligence; he grasped numbers and languages quickly, wrote poetry and played the flute beautifully. John Azoukh, the slave, was brought up at court as if he were John Comnenus’ brother; they became inseparable.

John Comnenus also had many qualities but was more reticent and considered. He was shorter than his Moorish companion and not the most handsome of men, but wearing his crimson smock, gold wristlets, gleaming bronze breastplate and a ready smile, he had the aura of a benign leader. There was much anticipation that Prince John would continue the wise and honest rule of his father. Byzantium was an empire of many cultures and peoples. Its noble families had intermarried with the aristocracies of the many lands they had conquered, creating a mingling of ‘old blood’ and ‘new blood’. For 500 years, since the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, Byzantium had kept alive the traditions of the Graeco-Roman world, and Christian civilization.

To the right of the Prince were the Immortals. First raised by the Persians centuries before, these men from Byzantium’s eastern provinces were renowned for their loyalty and fierceness in battle. Behind them, arranged in neat rows of tripods, were their pointed mail-fringed helmets, long pikes and round shields, and tethered lines of immaculate grey horses, freshly fed and groomed.

Forty years earlier, in 1071, the Byzantine army had been in disarray after the disaster of the Battle of Manzikert. Muslim armies had besieged Byzantium to the south and east, Asian barbarians had threatened from the north and, in the west, powerful forces from northern Europe were rivals for power in Christendom. However, Alexius I had reorganized the army and reinvigorated the Immortals.

The Varangians, to the left of the Prince, were no less impressive. Not so uniform in appearance, they carried a terrifying assortment of weapons, including their redoubtable weapon of mayhem, the double-handed battle-axe. Only with years of practice and a massively powerful upper body was it possible to wield it with deadly intent; it struck fear into the hearts of all their enemies. Although these men were foreign mercenaries, they were intensely loyal to their oath of allegiance and had served the throne of Constantinople for over a hundred years. Some were Vikings from Scandinavia; many were Normans from Sicily or North Africa. There were Celts from Europe’s northern wilderness. A few were English. Legend had it that, fifty years before, a handful of housecarls from the army of King Harold of England, who had survived the final redoubt at the Battle of Senlac Ridge near Hastings, had fled to Constantinople to join the Varangian Guard rather than submit to the rule of William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy.

The Varangians’ hair and beards were longer and wilder than those of the Immortals, whose tight black curls were kept neatly trimmed. Their locks also presented a mix of colours: red, blond and black and every shade in between, including the grey tresses of many gnarled veterans. Their shields came in all shapes and sizes and were decorated with a variety of creatures like an heraldic circus: eagles, boars, rams, bears, serpents and myriad mythical beasts. The royal household never ventured far without a bodyguard of Immortals and Varangians.

Way above Leo’s clearing, in an eyrie all of his own, the wizened face of the old man creased into a contemplative smile. He was recalling his own adventures. He too had been a warrior.