The Crimson Emperor

By Wim Baren

In troubled 6th century Byzantium, Phocas, a centurion scarred by personal tragedy, is driven by a powerful vision to take the throne to restore the Empire’s blessings. He befriends a weapon-maker’s son, Romulus Demantius, who saves his life in battle, and in turn he saves Romulus’s.
Hiding his plotting and subversion among the troops, Phocas raises a revolt, usurps the crown, and his malign influence spreads over the Empire like a suffocating darkness, seen through the eyes of several families. His incompetent reign of terror and bloodshed in obedience to his deranged mission brings the Empire to the edge of military and financial collapse, inflaming bloody riots and violence across the land. Their ancient foe Persia seizes the opportunity and attacks with all its forces.
Repelled by Phocas’s madness, Romulus and his family escape to Carthage, where he joins a huge military expedition to retake the crown and release the Empire from Phocas’s misrule. Along the way, foes bring deadly harm to those he loves, leaving him devastated. A final sea battle sees Romulus brought to the point of death, with only the hope of his heart’s desire to save him, even as the Empire turns to face a heart-stopping fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wim Baren
• Release date: Jan 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781495138546

Wim Baren

About The Author, Wim Baren Wim Baren is the author's pen name. He lives a stone's throw from Colonial Williamsburg, a place rich in history. He imagines himself a novelist. He's written two full-length tales set in long-ago times. He's also written a couple of short stories, and a bunch of short broadsheets about his creative writing experiences and insights. All of these are on Smashwords, and almost all of them are free. As of the date of this writing, he's feverishly inventing two new tales, also set in ancient times. One is a sequel to "The Crimson Emperor" – a fabulously romantic tale about Byzantium known by practically nobody – and another is an alternative history surrounding the Empress Theodora of Byzantium, a larger-than-life novel about the most powerful woman in the 6th century world at the time. That period of the Eastern Roman Empire did not lack excitement, to say the least… So, with a spouse he dotes upon and a pleasant prospect over which his front entrance looks to stimulate his thoughts, he's got a quiet and most enjoyable lifestyle. Would that everybody could enjoy the same, or more… Thought and ideas are welcome, courteously done. mailto:[e-mail]

Book preview

Part I - Sunset Over The Empire

1 Romulus

2 Phocas

3 Threads

4 Maurice

5 Zenianthe

6 Fabius

7 Voyage Of The Damned

8 Fulvius

9 Campaigns

10 Lydia

11 The Offer

12 Festus

13 Julia

14 The Perfect Man

15 Hearts Divided

16 Embassy Of The Dead

17 Divided Loyalties

18 Two Brides And Three Grooms

19 Call Of The Sirens

20 Songs Of The Heart

Table of Contents

♠

Part II – Journey Into Darkness

21 At The Seat Of Power

22 Fractures And Fissures

23 The Empty Sepulcher

24 Prophecy And Decree

25 Heaven’s Mandate

26 The Scorpion’s Tail

27 At The Golden Gate

28 Flight From The Capital

29 Patrician Deceit

30 Night Escape

31 The Hunt And The Kill

32 True Colors

33 Crimson Policy

34 Passage To Freedom

35 Roman Candles

36 Persian Fire

37 The Angels’ Song

Table of Contents

♠

Part III – Golden Dawn

38 Seeds Of Good And Evil

39 Talismans And Serums

40 Fortunes Of War

41 Rip Currents

42 The Laughing Patrician

43 Unity Of The Flock

44 Parting Of The Ways

45 The Jaws Close

46 Carthage Arising

47 Descent Into Madness

48 The Living And The Dead

49 Spirits Asunder

50 Rough Justice

51 A Fateful Battle

52 The Cleansing

53 Golden Sunrise

Epilogue - The Chronicles Of Heraclius

♠

Some Useful Notes

About The Author, Wim Baren

- 1 -

Romulus

When the blade hath sung,

And battle be done,

And blood hath run over all…

Regenerate Love,

And the Peace of the Dove,

Lifteth souls from Evil’s thrall…

-- From a battle song of the Imperial host

♠

What does it mean?... Why so much blood?...

Romulus’s vision in the cathedral frightened him.

It was early January of the New Year of 587 in Constantinople. Worshipers of all classes made their way into the Church of Saint Sophia. The Holy Nativity service was to be celebrated.

The great cathedral rose up to a stupendous height. Its golden dome gleamed in the sunlight. The people entered, and the wide central nave opened its arms to welcome them. The marvelous dome floated weightlessly, impossibly high over their heads. Pale daylight softly illuminated the vast and holy space.

Maurice - Most Christian Emperor, Blessed of Heaven, God’s Vicar on Earth - looked out from the Imperial loggia. The Empress Constantina, their five sons and three daughters, and their eldest son’s wife and her father were there. The noblest Patrician families filled the galleries. Everyone else crowded the great basilica floor and beyond.

Incense wafted delicately through the quiet air. White smoke from the priests’ censers floated in wispy curls. Shafts of gentle light descended from the forty embrasures which ringed the majestic dome’s perimeter. Innumerable crimson and white rose petals had been carefully strewn on the spacious floor.

Lucius and Serena Demantius had brought their son with them to this service for the past three years. This year, they brought his four-year-old twin sisters, Julia and Liviana. They were three years younger than he.

The Patriarch was an august figure of high majesty, with his flowing white beard and his tall spare frame. The lesser priests and acolytes stood at their appointed places, fulfilling those gestures and offerings as the Mass went forward.

The press of congregants was great. Those on the basilica floor stood for the services, kneeling in place at offered reverences. Heavenly music and incense breathed delicately throughout the gathering. Threads of the low chanting and the addresses of the Patriarch wove through the rich, velvety atmosphere.

♠

The First Vision

Romulus was standing next to one of the magnificent columns of the great basilica. His father and mother were next to him. Serena was holding a hand of each of their daughters.

He noticed it absently…

A shaft of light descended from a pierced opening high up. It painted a small pale square on the column right next to him. The colors of embedded gemstone facets danced with a miniature brilliance. Their beauty captured the young boy’s curiosity.

He looked at this square of many flashing colors. His mother was adjusting her cloak’s shoulder drape. The Patriarch was nearing the end of a verse of the traditional blessing. It was one Romulus knew by heart.

He gazed into the square. It began to glow strangely, burning with an unearthly brightness. Its colors melted in a liquid flow into a smooth, pure white light. Nothing else seemed real around him.

It became a tiny image, crisp and clear.

He gasped…

…

A titanic battle was before him, terrific in its carnage and blood…

A mighty struggle roared out across the lands. Groans and cries of mortal pain pierced the ears. Horses screamed. Their hooves trampled dust and bones and flesh into the mire in a vast and terrible field of war.

In this savage furnace of blood, a Byzantine soldier battled ferociously. His face was mysteriously obscured. He sliced and thrust with deadly swings against four enemy warriors clothed in rough dark animal hides. They hacked and slashed and stabbed at him with their swords and axes and spears. He desperately fought them off, weaving a beautiful but deadly net of tight strokes and cuts.

They are too many for him!… Romulus’s heart was pounding wildly, his frightened eyes white.

The Byzantine’s valiant efforts were flagging. Black-bearded faces and glittering eyes grinned in triumph as they pressed closer to cut him down in blood. Their shouts of unstoppable victory, of their foe’s death, rang out harshly.

No!...

The legionary’s frantic efforts were weakening. He was being dragged down by their sheer weight of numbers and their wolfish ferocity. His iron strength began to fail. Death loomed before him on this nameless blood-soaked battlefield – a black ragged-pinioned phantom, its eyeless skull grinning.

Look!... Oh! Savior!...

Another soldier of the Empire suddenly leapt in. His back was to Romulus. His face was likewise obscured. Nearly superhuman in strength, he attacked in a white-hot fury. His sword was a gleaming blade of Death. With inconceivable violence, he hewed their enemies’ arms and shoulders. He sliced thighs and bodies with a raw terrible force, through their thick armor of hides as if they were of paper.

The soldier in peril rejoiced. His strength, marvelously reborn, surged through him. His spirits leapt with exultant new life. With a mighty roar, the two soldiers slashed and hacked their way through their foes towards triumph.

Saved!!…

A sword slash from a dying enemy at their feet swept upwards with blind aim. Its blade cut deeply across the rescued soldier’s still-hidden face.

No!!... Romulus screamed. He could not tear his gaze away.

A horrific sheet of blood poured out from the ghastly wound. It overspread the soldier’s obscured face as he started to fall. His blood flowed and flowed, without end, an unceasing river, an impossible torrent. He was soon covered in it, yet it did not stop.

The earth around him became soaked. The blood spread outward in an engulfing flood. It swelled without limits, until the entire ground and everything upon it – men, horses, weapons - were drenched in a crimson slick.

Horror overwhelmed Romulus. He could hear himself screaming at this dreadful scene.

…

The vision faded. There were no screams.

The radiant light dimmed. Once again it was a multicolored reflection. The beautiful gemstones played softly in a beam of daylight from above. His mother was finishing adjusting her cloak. The Patriarch was ending the very prayer verse he had begun.

The horrific vision seemed to take a long time…

It took no time at all.

♠

In ancient Rome, raising up a child was exactly what it said.

Lucius Demantius was twenty-six when Romulus was born in 580. The midwife and another servant placed the new-born babe on the ground before the feet of the family’s Domine, for his decision. They watched him apprehensively. If he declined to lift the child up, servants were to take it and leave it exposed outside the city, to live or die as Chance dictated.

To their relief, he bent down and raised the child up, accepting it as his own.

Lucius was a tall man, overtopping most Byzantine citizens. He had a powerful physique, a broad chest and shoulders, and long strong limbs. His bearing was erect, his demeanor commanding. He was acknowledged as handsome. His nose was chiseled, aquiline. His cheeks were taut flat planes, his jaw firm, the column of his neck strong. His clear wide dark-grey eyes had a gaze that seemed to look far off.

And he made weapons.

The Demantius family business was armaments. It dated from 331 AD, when Constantine the Great relocated the Roman Empire’s capital - New Rome – to Byzantium, then renamed it to Constantinople – the City of Constantine.

The past twenty-five decades had brought good fortune to the Demantius family. Their diligent industry had delivered success - and great wealth. Distant ancestors built their large sumptuous residence, with forges and workshops, at what became the prosperous eastern end of the city. It rested on a lower slope of the First Hill in Regio IV, a wealthy district. It spoke eloquently of the family’s social position. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, the spacious home lay in the shadow of the thousand-year-old Walls of Byzantium.

Lucius’s father, Sentarius Demantius, added modest amounts of land to the family’s holdings, and improved some of their outbuildings. It was his grandfather, Arrius, who had taken their trade to greater levels than anyone could have imagined.

Arrius made it his business to know everything. He learned all he could about the Imperial host’s weapons - how they were used, how they were produced, how materials were obtained and shipped. He became closely acquainted with the most influential Imperial Government officials. They determined how the military obtained its weapons, and from whom.

He assembled a network of agents in several cities. Their activities expanded the Demantius connections with numerous garrison commanders, and with other far-flung hosts of the Empire on its eastern and southern frontiers.

Arrius went even further.

He courted the key senior military leaders, including the most brilliant commander of all of the Roman Empire’s sons, Flavius Belisarius himself. He learned how their troops’ training and methods of warfare could be helped with weapons designs. He exploited this knowledge.

His relentless industry brought ever-larger contracts. The Demantius armories became one of the two largest weapons suppliers in the Empire, and the most respected.

Lucius followed in his grandfather’s footsteps.

He knew every Government official who had fingers in the lucrative pie of weapons contracting. He knew all the major shipping families. He knew his competitors, what they specialized in, and their strengths and weaknesses. He knew the principal suppliers of raw materials needful for manufacturing their implements of war, and where they came from.

He expanded the family’s network of agents in the most powerful cities around the Great Sea, and in Syria and Mesopotamia and Egypt. He ceaselessly built his knowledge about the expected and unexpected uses – and misuses - of weapons, and how they performed best under different battlefield conditions and terrains.

♠

When his son showed interest in military subjects, Lucius was not surprised.

Romulus wanted to learn all he could about the Imperial host. He avidly soaked up its stories, its needs and its warcraft. He looked at the army through the wondering grey eyes of a young boy romancing about a soldier’s life. He absorbed everything about the Demantius household’s business operations. He pressed his father with smiling eagerness to tell him more about what they did, and how things worked.

He haunted the family’s workshops. He was familiar to all the servants who labored at the forges. They welcomed his small figure. His bright smile and undisguised wonder at their work were always present whenever he came by.

He learned about the business’s production methods - how weapons were designed, molds created, metals smelted, and weapons finished. He learned what materials were needed, and where they were to be found. He learned how to distinguish different qualities among aggregates that all looked the same.

Most of all, he loved the weapons themselves.

Their shapes were things of beauty – clean, purposeful, immutable, strong. He imagined each had its own life spirit which would seek out and perfectly match the soul whose weapon it was. He enjoyed handling them, thinking of how it would be to be a legionary. He imagined how they were carried and held, and swung or hurled in warfare.

This is how our legionaries fight, how they battle our enemies!...

He was excited by the vision.

He was convinced the day when he could go to be a soldier for the Empire was not far off.

♠

After the service, he told his parents of his vision.

Lucius smiled indulgently at first. As his son’s vision unfolded, an odd look settled on his features. Serena listened quietly and said nothing. Her expression showed puzzlement, then apprehension.

"Please, Domine... What does it mean?..." The boy’s innocent tone was appealing.

Nay… I cannot say as yet... Sometimes things are revealed to us wrapped in mystery, to become clear later... I see your vision so...

Lucius gazed at his son with an unreadable look.

Romulus was disappointed. He wanted a mysterious message to be revealed.

But wait… he thought.

…Was this that Word whose Presence is always within Saint Sophia?…

He could not make himself entirely believe it.

Perhaps, too, it is from all the soldiering you have imagined… Lucius smiled gently.

That evening, he and Serena sat together near a warming brazier in the great main room. His mind was again turned toward his son’s vision. He revolved the tale this way and that, looking for the meaning of what he had heard.

There is a ‘somewhat’ there... More than a child’s dreams of a soldier’s life...

Serena waited patiently for her husband to finish his thoughts. She was pondering what Romulus related to them. It was so unnaturally profound a vision, so extraordinarily vivid as their boy had told it. They themselves had witnessed more than one mystical sign in their lives, things shown to them as if by the Divine Hand. They never entirely discounted these portents.

To Lucius, this visitation was different.

Maybe... He has seen but one future of our Empire... And it is not of good fortune, I think...

…Why would this vision appear?... And why to my son?... The questions tugged at him.

Serena looked at him, concern in her splendid sea-green eyes. She was five years younger than her husband. She was a tall shapely woman of graceful bearing and demeanor. Others considered her uncommonly beautiful. She was the quiet power behind the scenes. She directed the activities of the household itself, and oversaw the daily routines it required to function peaceably and effectively.

Already there is talk... The Emperor Maurice is not as the Divine Justinian was... she broached.

A faint look of concern crossed her features.

Is it true what they say?... About the mutiny?...

The memory of it was terrible to her. Some years back, the Imperial legions posted along the eastern provinces abutting the Kingdom of Persia had revolted. It was not merely rebellious to Serena. It was a black impiety. It went against her sense of the Divinely ordained statutes of Heaven. Those commandments – faithfully observed - gave stability and surety to the Empire.

A sin against Heaven!!... As the ancient Hebrews, when they fell away from the Lord’s testaments and statutes…

The army’s unrest was put down with difficulty.

Aye… And loyalty to him grows more thin… Lucius observed.

They both knew all too well the people’s stubborn resentments over relentless taxation and fees simmered ceaselessly below the surface.

The Emperor is... Not completely settled in his mind on current affairs…

Lucius did not like discussing the Imperial family. It seemed disrespectful.

Nay... Our son’s vision is too clear... Except for the soldier’s face... And that has meaning...

He was vaguely disquieted by the tale.

Why does this, my son’s vision, affect me thus?... More than a battle’s image?... Mayhap some terrible thing to come?... Overturning the Empire itself...?

The symbol of the blood... It speaks of war... Or civil unrest... he mused.

And that we already see...

But… Was the wounded soldier saved?... The vision does not say...

Who was the soldier in peril?... Who was the rescuing soldier?...

…And why so much blood over all, as the Nile over its banks?...

He shrugged inwardly, dismissing these thoughts. The riddle was obscure. Its meaning was yet to be made clear. Enough strange things had happened in the history of the Empire – even to the Divine Constantine himself - to make him heed visions like this one.

Serena was not thinking about things as grand as the Empire’s future. She was concerned with her boy’s life and health. This dream did not give her any comfort at all. On a sudden impulse, she wondered about the other soldier who waded into the bloody fray.

Perchance, my son himself?...

She drew herself closer together. She did not want to think about this disagreeable vision any further.

Come, my beauty...

Lucius stretched forth his hand and took hers, slender and soft as a dove’s breast, as he gazed at his wife…

♠

Aye... The lad is apt, though outmatched by the weight of it...

The soldiers were amused as they watched Lucius’s son. They smiled indulgently as he awkwardly tried to lift and swing the short heavy Roman sword.

Lucius kept a close eye on Romulus as they had traveled through the Hebdomon in the suburbs of the city. They were going to a legion Commanding General’s sumptuous quarters in the expansive Campus Martius. The soldiers posted there as a guard had seen them before. They recognized his father with an unforced salute of respect. They enjoyed showing the weapons to the child, and watching him play at soldier.

At seven years old, he already was showing a deceptive strength in his youthful frame. On his very first visit the previous year, he had decided he would make himself a soldier.

Soldiers are strong!...

He wanted to be strong like them. His father smiled as he watched his boy in his childlike attempts to be a legionary.

"Domine... I must be like them... Else I cannot be good enough to fight battles..."

He took on any physical task he could find, in and around the family’s workshops and forges. He tried to lift, haul, carry or drag any load which would be a challenge. He strained himself to his limits. More than once, he was in silent tears at the ravages to his muscles and the pains he was inflicting on himself. He never complained.

He went to his bed each night after all his muscle-tearing efforts, so sore he thought he would never get up the next morning. Often he was sure he would not sleep. His sleep was instantaneous and deep. He found each morning the miracle of his still-sore muscles having healed enough for him to continue with his unrelenting discipline.

His father enrolled him in a nearby gymnasium for schooling in physical exercise and in subjects such as Roman mythology, philosophy, the Roman classics and rhetoric. When Romulus eventually attained the age of Roman manhood at sixteen, these subjects would enable him to present himself well in debates and social interactions in the public spaces of the capital. They would give him the commanding presence expected of an adult male citizen of the Empire.

It surprised no one when his physique began to fill out. It became more sharply defined. He soon became known for his strength among his peers. He remained modest and good-natured, developing many friends, and not a few admirers. They found him quick to smile and laugh, optimistic and hopeful, perceptive, not sly.

Lucius engaged two private tutors. A long-time friend named Honorius - a retired military commander, still broad-chested and solid-muscled at age 60 - knew weapons skills and tactics, and military history. All were of enthusiastic interest to Romulus.

The other tutor was Leontas. At age 40, he was a spare man, dry and unemotional. He was the boy’s teacher in the remaining subjects he would need.

Romulus spent three glorious mornings a week with Honorius fulfilling his dreams. He dutifully endured two other mornings each week with Leontas with a deferential courtesy. He made himself diligent in these studies as well, and mastered the full array of subjects Leontas had to offer.

♠

His first visit to the army’s winter quarters came when he had just reached his seventh birthday.

He was excited from the moment his father mentioned it to him. His excitement grew on their way out to the Campus Martius in the Hebdomon suburbs. While Lucius attended to business, he was left under the watchful eye of a guard detail outside the tent of the legion Commanding General, an old friend of Lucius. The unit leader of the guard detail was a centurion – one Phocas by name - about 23 years old, of Isaurian heritage.

Phocas was not handsome. He was remarkably ugly.

He was of middling height. He had a powerful build which made him look bigger - long strongly-muscled arms, hands with an iron grip, and legs which were knotted and bandy. A shock of unruly reddish hair grew low on his broad deep-lined forehead, above his bushy eyebrows. His pebble-colored eyes were deep, set close together over a splat nose and thin lips.

He was taciturn and gruff in his manner to almost everyone. But he knew many military exploits, and was content to relate these to an eager young boy who looked up to him.

Romulus’s relationship with Phocas deepened with each visit. Phocas never spoke about his own life, always about Romulus’s, or about military subjects. He could speak about many things he knew from history. He spoke with a quiet depth of feeling on some. Romulus wondered what his life was like when he was not on duty, and what other magnificent things real soldiers did.

On a following visit, Phocas could see Romulus had grown noticeably broader in the chest, and stronger. He asked the boy to show what he knew about handling the legionary’s typical weapons. Romulus enthusiastically complied. Then Phocas included some different weapons for gladiatorial combat. The boy could confidently maneuver with most of them, but was unpracticed with the net and the mace.

At times his excitement became too much for him. Phocas, with a critical eye on him, kept him from injuring himself.

Like a son…

On one visit, Phocas and the other soldiers were surprised, even astonished, to learn how much their young charge knew about how their weapons were made. They learned from him what decisions about their design and fabrication had to be tested and proven true before they could be put into general production.

Despite his youth, Romulus spoke of these things easily. He knew them well. He related them, not from any pride of knowledge, but because these men might find them interesting. The soldiers became more impressed with, and respectful of, the growing lad.

They adopted him as one of their own.

♠

The afternoon was winding down. The sun was sinking toward the horizon. Lucius was still exploring weapons-related design issues and needs with the legion’s Commanding General and his senior officers.

Phocas gazed thoughtfully at Romulus.

Thou!... Boy!... Come and hear a tale shall make even a soldier weep...

Romulus’s eyes brightened. He obediently left off with the weapons and sat himself down at Phocas’s knees. The grizzled centurion looked even more intimidating from this level.

Please, sir!... Tell about the Persians!...

Phocas’s face changed; it grew dark and grim. The pain of a terrible memory shot across his features.

The Persians... he muttered. The Persians... Cruel they are... Barbarians!... They are devil’s spawn!... he growled, snapping his powerful jaw shut.

Romulus looked wide-eyed at him, taken aback by this ferocious hate. The centurion’s narrowed gaze looked off into the distance, toward the horizon...

Remembering…

♠

His tiny village lay on the south-central coast of Anatolia. It was shadowed by the Taurus Mountains, on the shores of the Great Sea. It was a nothing, an insignificant backwater, like so many other backwaters. It was unimportant and unknown but for occasional passing caravans, a marker on the road in the middle of nowhere.

Yildiz it was called. Terrible winters had impoverished the inhabitants. Their fishing yielded pitifully less than the year before, which was less than the year before it. Thirty or so souls still remained there. They had not yet followed their more desperate neighbors, who left to find some less hopeless way to stay alive.

Since he could remember, he had been sent out towards the foothills to the north to collect what bits of fuel he could, and later to trap small animals. Their rude stone hut was always cold and damp. Their pitiful fire provided little warmth during the long bitter winter nights.

His father took out their small ancient craft to ply the metal-grey waters for fish. He came back too often empty-handed. His mother did what she could to keep repaired the few things they had which were most needful – most of all their worn fishing nets. It was a losing struggle.

He had an only friend, a younger boy. Paras was thin and sickly. He looked like he would not survive through another winter. But he did. He had taken a liking to Phocas. Phocas at first did not understand this liking by Paras. He tried to reject the other lad’s friendship. He preferred to be alone…

Because young Phocas already knew he himself was ugly. Villagers embittered by their brushes with famine made him a source of thin and cruel amusement behind his back.

But Paras’s gentle friendship grew on him. He came to look forward to their being together during the days, when he wasn’t out doing needful things for his parents. They went out a few miles to the north, to the low rise of the foothills. Phocas could show Paras his secret places, and other places where there were useful things to collect, or where a cave was which a giant wild boar was supposed to inhabit – but Phocas had never seen it.

It was on a day in early winter, a day of bitter cold. He was by himself that morning, going out ever further into the foothills to look for a richer find of wood for their fire - one which could last longer and save him from having to go out again too soon for more fuel. He could go much faster when he was alone, when Paras, who could not keep up, was not with him.

He went deeper than he had ever gone before into the trackless foothills. They now rose more steeply before him. The forest cover grew darker. The pines and fir trees closed in. They encircled him and the space around him in their dense velvet green. They blocked out the pallid daylight which was being slowly crushed by gathering winter clouds. It was silent there. He felt a peculiar sense of restraint, as if to make a noise would break something fragile.

On this trip he had come upon a new place. His eyes widened. There were so very, very many branches and twigs lying on the forest floor. Nay, he could not count them all!

Such a lot of fire!...

He decided to gather up all he could see, and build piles. Next time he came, he could easily pick one up and quickly bring it back home.

The day passed unnoticed by him. He gathered and built many piles of wood. Daylight began to fade. Satisfied, he lifted a pile and slung it on his back for the journey home. Leaving the forest cover and the foothills, he was now on the path he had made. For the next three miles, it would take him back to the village.

He drew nearer the tiny hamlet. Now he crossed a more deeply-cut road. It was used by lonely caravans. They traveled across that part of southern Anatolia on their way from places of legend like Aleppo or Antioch or even Jerusalem. They were going to that seat of fabulous things and big warm houses, where food was unending – Constantinople!...

He drew within eyeshot of his village. He was passing a small grove of trees and tall grasses off to one side of the little path.

He stopped, uneasy, still as a statue, and listened.

…

Something was odd…

Noises were coming from the village. He could not see their source. A strange feeling told him to move into the little grove. He put his burden down quietly, so quietly. He knelt and clutched the ground at his feet. He crept on his stomach as close to the edge of the grove as he could, staying as hidden and secret as he might.

There...

Now he could see something. A cloud of dust was rising. The whinnying and neighing of many horses and the soft heavy beat of hooves came to his ears. He pressed himself to the ground tightly, and peered through the tall grasses.

Is it a caravan? Would they have news? Do they have food?...

Nay, it was not a caravan. It was more magnificent than a caravan.

A troop of mounted soldiers, richly caparisoned and clothed with brightly colored garments that flowed softly, easily in the breezes, emerged from the eastern end of the clutch of huts.

Soldiers!...

He could see their leader. He was a young man, slim of physique, swarthy of skin, handsome and fine of features, with a smooth beardless face. It was stamped with cruelty. Phocas shuddered as he gazed upon this young man.

He was mounted on a beautifully arrayed Arabian charger. He smiled with an evil beauty at his troops, and at the village they were leaving. Smoke was now rising from behind the huts. With a whoop, the soldiers galloped off. Their brightly-colored silken garments were fluttering, their horses’ manes and tails flowing. They were glorious even in the dull light of the overcast leaden sky.

He wondered what it meant. He felt a chill in his marrow from more than the blustery day. A sharp sense of loneliness suddenly overcame him. He wanted now so very much to run and embrace with all his love his mother and father, to hold onto them and shed tears of tenderness with them, and to tell them so, and then to be close and true friends with Paras!...

Something warned him. Caution was needful. His heart was racing; he did not know why. He slowly, wary as a bird, made his way toward the village. He approached yet closer, now hesitant, timid - afraid, of what, he did not know. He saw no activity, no small groups gathered to share their misery with one another, no movement.

No signs of life at all...

Trembling, he entered the village. It was unnaturally silent. He looked towards the small square around which the villagers’ huts had been built. A sight met his young eyes...

O, Horrible!...

And he remembered no more…

…

He found himself on the ground where he had stood, his eyes streaming with floods of bitter tears, his body shaking with horror.

The square was a funeral pyre. The bodies of his neighbors were burning to ashes and dust before him. Smoke rose in billowing spark-flecked greasy plumes of grey and black.

Around the pyre were six rude mocking crosses, planted in the ground. On each was hanging a village elder, cut and speared from the soldiers’ blows, crucified. Their calves had been slashed completely around the leg, just below their knees. Crimson streamed down from their sliced veins, a taunting mercy which helped them to die more quickly. And they were now dead.

He could not know the soldiers were Persian troops. He was ignorant of how they had mocked the One True Faith - and these elders and the entire village - murdering them on these crude wooden crosses by the Death of the Purple Boots.

He was overcome with a sick nausea. The gruesome scene hurled, and hurled again, a dreadful shock of horror at his senses. He wandered in an unseeing daze to his parents’ hut. It was empty. They too were in that funeral pyre.

Dead… They are dead…

Weeping, his eyes blinded with tears, he stumbled out in a fog, around towards the back of the huts.

What is that?...

A thin body, broken and twisted, covered in blood, lay on the ground before him. Edging up and looking closer, fighting the nausea threatening to overwhelm him from the stench of death everywhere, he saw…

Oh, Paras...

Paras was not yet dead. His weeping eyes flowed with fresh tears at this, his only friend, left to die in pain and suffering.

The sickly boy was on the point of death. Phocas gently lifted him up in his arms. He gaspingly, brokenly told Phocas what he saw – the troops’ sudden swoop into the village, the young cruel-faced troop leader’s sharp commands, the village elders’ brief questioning, the burst of violence as they rounded up all the villagers, their executions by the Persians’ bright swords, the elders’ torture and crucifixions…

Paras had hidden himself until all the violence was nearly over. He was discovered. He was hauled before the young commander, who told him he should remember the name of Shahr-Baraz and admire his works. He had Paras brutally beaten and slashed, and let go, to live or – most likely – die, an insect a young child will play with, pulling its wings and legs off.

And Paras died there on the ground as he gasped out his tale.

Phocas’s tears ceased. Something died within him that day.

He remembered little of the following days. They were a long sad blur. He lived by his wits, scrabbling from the unforgiving earth to find whatever he could to eat, and to clothe himself with against the winter’s threatening onset.

A day came when he saw a caravan advancing from the east. He ran to them, told them of the fate of his village, and begged them to take him with them, lest he die there. They made him work for his passage. They took him to Smyrna, where they were destined.

There he left them and found another caravan heading to Nicomedia, a city across the Bosphorus from Constantinople itself. He worked his way there with them. He persuaded a ship’s captain headed to Constantinople that he could help as the lowest crew member if only for passage.

In the capital, alone, unloved and friendless, he did not notice its magnificence. He kept seeing the young perfectly-groomed Persian commander’s cruel smile. He found his way by chance into the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus at a quiet moment.

In its cool silence and unearthly beauty, he vowed revenge to the Living God against all heathens with every fiber of his being...

♠

...And why wouldst seek knowledge of the Persian barbarian?...

In Phocas’s eyes was remembered pain, tinged with a faint tenderness for this young boy.

O, Paras... Like unto your spirit is this one…

Because, sir... I would learn how they fight... So when we fight them, I can help defeat them forever... The boy’s earnestness was touching.

Phocas considered this gravely. He leaned forward, closer to Romulus. He looked like he had a secret.

And... Art thou to become a soldier?... he asked, now faintly amused.

"Yes sir!... But only if my Domine approves..."

The boy looked slightly uncertain for a moment. His face brightened.

But it is to serve the Empire!... And surely that is worthy!...

Phocas leaned back. So... Thou hast been... Guided... In this path?...

Guided, sir?... None hath made me think of our army... I chose it myself...

The grizzled centurion stroked his chin slowly, still gazing deeply on Romulus. The boy felt his soul was naked before this strange man.

"Thou hast been guided, boy... Guided... As I have been..."

He looked away.

O Lord, Thou bringest me my friend and my youth in this boy...

He turned back to Romulus.

War is not pleasant... It is death and suffering... And exaltation...

How, sir?... About exaltation, I mean... Romulus’s young face was Innocence itself.

War is a path to Truth, lad... Truth we shall know only when we are past the Gates... When we choose war, we must be prepared... We must want to see Truth... And Phocas again stopped, entranced.

…And Truth Herself is but Beauty... Beauty... A pang of sadness lanced through him.

A woman’s image came before his eyes.

Could I but see her once... Though she be veiled by Death... O, thou Ida...

He shook himself and turned back to Romulus.

Aye, exaltation... Showeth thee by a tale... Wouldst know of the Martyrdom of the Virgins?... he asked.

Romulus nodded his head in an emphatic ‘Yes!’

And Phocas began his tale…

♠

The Martyrdom Of The Virgins

In the year of our Lord 571, in the reign of the Divine Emperor Justin II, a call for succor went out from the Christian faithful of Armenia. Their homeland had been divided after many wars between the Empire and the great Sassanid Kingdom of Persia, ruled over by the tyrant King Chosroes I.

Those who lived and worshiped their faith under the Persian King’s cruel reign were sorely oppressed. Many took flight, seeking aid from the Empire. But King Chosroes made the burden of his reign heavier, and behold, on a day the Christian peoples rose up against him to throw off his yoke. With a dreadful stroke, the Great King decreed a most terrible vengeance, and sought to crush their rebellion even as they cried for salvation to the Divine Justin, Most Christian Emperor and Heaven’s vice-gerent on Earth, who could not refuse them.

And Byzantium warred against the mighty Persian kingdom. But Heaven did not smile on the Empire, and it went ill for Byzantium’s forces.

For nigh on two years, the Persians’ unnumbered soldiers were not to be stopped, and captured Dara the Beautiful, a city near the Tigris. They swept like fire through chaff over Mesopotamia and Syria, and up into eastern Anatolia, to Cappadocia and Isauria and Cilicia and beyond. Their advance was like the angry seas which sweep far over and beyond the harbor walls of a hamlet under flood. They breached great fortresses and sacked cities, razed villages and towns in the ruins of fire and blood.

They took captives of the peoples they conquered, to the number of nigh three hundred thousands, of the great and the low. They would be taken back to Persia – men, women and children all - there to live and die as slaves.

Now, it so chanced as he warred with Byzantium, King Chosroes was minded to draw the Khan of the Turks away from his alliance with the Empire. And he decreed he would seek out two thousands of Christian girls – all to be virgins, and the most beautiful of all the captives – as a gift to the Khan, to be his concubines.

So on a day, the Great King commanded a body of his most trusted guards as procession of triumph to attend him, and he sought diligently amongst all the peoples he held prisoned, choosing those young girls most worthy to be this magnificent gift.

Now a Persian soldier of pleasing cast - Isfarin by name - was with the King’s guard of honor. Isfarin was himself young, and of slight experience. But he found favor in the sight of his commanders, and even of the Great King himself. And so he witnessed the long and measured procession as the King moved, in his heathen pride and majesty, through the captives, and marked those girls whom he would.

And Isfarin saw how the young women were separated from their families - their friends, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, cousins and neighbors, amidst innumerable tears and tenderest embraces, and his heart wept for them in sorrow at this cruel parting.

Of all the many thousands upon thousands, but a few found a way to hold fast to one another. And in this, Isfarin found himself commanded by the Great King himself to remove and place apart two young girls of heart-melting beauty – Crissa, blonde and of the Circassian race, and Briseis, dark-haired and of Athens - who had tearfully befriended one another during the endless march of the captives. Through their tears they two had become inseparable and of one spirit.

Isfarin’s heart, still tender with youth, was overcome with Crissa’s graceful beauty and gentleness of bearing. He could not deny he loved her with his every breath, and his thoughts flew to her constantly.

The Great King’s chosen ones were parted from all other captive peoples. They were watched over by an impenetrable shield of iron and bronze, a troop of soldiers devoted to their care and safety, under pain of death to themselves should aught fail in their duty. And Isfarin was of that troop.

The march was long. The road they followed drew nigh a river, small at first, but after many days becoming broad and fierce in its strength, its might beyond even that of the Great King himself in its willfulness. Along that river - now grown to deep and mature power, its lightly rippled face belying its unending turmoil - marched a procession of trees which compassed its bank. And on the thither side of these trees, a grassy sward went down to the very shores of the swift-flowing waters.

The virgins would seek to bathe in these waters from time to time, and sought the veil of privacy from others’ eyes which was due their modesty. And so the guards would turn their gazes away and place themselves at discreet distances, so the girls could bathe unseen. And the guards accepted this as custom, and grew less vigilant.

Now Isfarin had so managed his affairs as a guard that he could approach Crissa and Briseis from time to time. From a discreet distance he would speak softly, and Briseis would hear his voice and come to him. He trembled when he first spake with her, as a young man unused to the ways and words and gestures of love, and pleaded his case with her in unpracticed phrases and sighs, and Briseis was aware of his passionate love for her dearest friend. And she spake with Crissa of Isfarin, and how it was with him, and Crissa saw Isfarin as in a new light, and her heart was made tender toward him by his kind words and ardent sentiments toward her.

The days passed, and Isfarin and Crissa stole moments of sweet love and tenderest yearnings towards one another, and felt the bittersweetness of their separation, not to be escaped. Isfarin could have died the most happy and fortunate young man if the long march had never ended, so he could be near her.

But it must and would end, and it was thus his dreams of Crissa would end, although he nor any of the guards knew to what purpose the girls were destined. He grew weak with fear at their doom once in Persia, and paled at their becoming slaves in mighty Ctesiphon, the glorious and magnificent capital and throne of the Great King. And so he sought to find a path to free them, that he might be able to join himself with Crissa when they had parted with the rest.

But it was not possible. His heart sank and his spirits quailed as he faced the vast black wall of Hopelessness. Crissa saw him in his despair, and her own heart yearned for his as she asked him what ailed him. And he told her all his thoughts, and how it now was with him, and he could not see a path to freedom for them. And Crissa said to him a path was with them even now, and she and he could take it when they would, but she said no more. And she looked at him so tenderly his heart was like to burst with love. Isfarin’s spirits were lifted up at this, and he regained his youthful joy and happiness whenever he was with her, so he could be of comfort to her.

Now, it so happened they were come within five days of the camp of the Khan of the Turks. And at this time, Rumor took flight about the girls’ destiny, and traveled through their midst as wildfire through dry reeds.

Isfarin was gazing upon Crissa and Briseis, his eyes full of dreams and his heart beating with both joy and sadness at his feelings, fleeting between union and loss. He saw Crissa’s and Briseis’s faces pale as they spake privily with another girl whom Isfarin did not know. When the girl had departed, Crissa and Briseis wept openly with one another in a tender embrace, and Isfarin’s heart came near to breaking as he gazed upon them.

When he softly approached and asked what he could do to comfort them, Briseis spake the truth about their separation, and the Khan’s gift from the Great King. Surely that day for Isfarin grew black as night, and he sensed himself swooning as the world for him ended.

Now was Isfarin burning with the fires of resolution to find a way to depart from this camp with Crissa and Briseis. He determined he would do this thing, or he would die. The marches followed the river, and the trees grew larger and thicker as the mighty river widened and showed its reckless power and strength. Its broad currents swept the banks and the rocks on their edge, and left hollows of waters whirling in tempests of white foam after them. And the days had grown shorter and the winds were no longer gentle.

Now they were but two days’ journey from the Khan’s camp. And every mile, every yard, every step took Isfarin’s spirit closer to utter despair, even as he cast about in a desperate search for some sign of salvation. But Heaven would reveal naught to him.

Now it so happened, once again the girls sought to bathe and purify themselves as part of their presentation to the Khan. And the guards accepted this and hid their gaze and distanced themselves while the girls went down to the shore to bathe.

At this time, Isfarin was overcome with longing to speak yet again with Crissa, and Briseis saw his heart’s desire, and brought Crissa to him before she would go down to the shore. And Crissa now spake to him about the Great King’s gift, and the shame she knew it would bring upon her - to lose her virtue and to be constrained to renounce her faith. And as she spake so to him, her tears gathered in her eyes and she wept softly on him as she told him of her love for him. And Isfarin wept also, and their tears flowed sweetly there in the trees before the river.

And now Crissa spake with him about what she was minded to do, to preserve her honor and her faith. And as she spake with him, Isfarin felt his knees go weak with terror, and his courage fail him, at this resolve – that Crissa and the other maidens were minded to let the river take them away from the guards and the Great King, and from the earth.

Bittersweet beyond words was their parting, as Crissa and Briseis were resolved. And Crissa’s eyes shone with a heavenward joy as she embraced Isfarin for the last time, and kissed him tenderly, and stroked his hair with her slender fingers, looking deep into his eyes in love. But now she and Briseis turned and faced the river, and, their hands clasped in one another’s, made their way to the waters with the other girls. And Isfarin could not take his gaze away, but his eyes flowed with tears such that he could not see for them.

He did not see Crissa leave her saffron tunic by her side as she stepped into the waters. He did not see her step out further, as the waters swirled around her legs. He did not see her as the river embraced both her and Briseis, in one another’s arms, comforting one another with soft and uplifting words. And he did not see them look back at him on the shore as the river took them for its own, and all the other maidens.

Isfarin’s heart was breaking when he heard sudden shouts and cries. The guards had discovered the girls’ loss in the depths of the mighty river, and now were running and jerking with rage and fear at this breach of their sacred duty to their King. Isfarin saw the guards’ commander, his face black as thunder, commanding all to gather, and to search out any who would desert. And Isfarin found himself climbing up into the middle terraces of the trees and hiding himself where even the keen-eyed eagle could not see him.

The guards searched all the shore and the forest where the girls had departed to bathe, but found none surviving. They beat their breasts, and cut themselves, and cried to one another in tones of woe and dread as they fell back in despair to their commander. Through his tears, Isfarin saw the Great King himself finally come to them, his face hard as stone as he commanded to his generals the entire guards’ company be brought forth. They departed the trees and came together near the road, far from where Isfarin lay hid. And Isfarin saw they were enclosed by a larger number of soldiers, all of grim mien.

And then Isfarin saw in horror the surrounding soldiers slay all the guards. Their heads were severed and mounted on pikes, their bodies were heaped into a great funeral pyre, and were set aflame. Smoke, black and dense, rose out of these flames, and passed into the trees where Isfarin had hidden, and he was nigh on choking and making sounds which would discover him to the Great King’s awareness. But the King and the army and their captives slowly gathered together, and by nightfall, they had put great distance between themselves and Isfarin.

The morning came, and Isfarin, worse for his durance in the trees, made his way down. He gazed about, and then went to the shore. He looked out at the river as if it were a friend now, and could deliver him from his grief and agony. He looked down and now his eye picked out the saffron tunic amongst all the other garments, and his eyes filled with tears, and he cast himself upon the ground and wept until he could no more, and he lay senseless and heedless of what or who might come upon him.

He knew not how he made his way to Nicomedia, nor from there to Constantinople. He remembered little, except he was living, and would go on living, although his heart was well and truly broken, and his spirit desolate. And on a day, he put himself in the way of becoming a soldier of the Empire when the Divine Justin II was Emperor, and from that time became a Christian, having never found a love such as that he and Crissa felt for one another.

Now it is rumored he fought many battles for the Empire, and many were they against the Persians. And he was a fierce soldier against his foes, but fought with the strength of ten against the Persians. One there was who fought beside him, and saw that when Isfarin fought, his eyes shone with a radiant joy as he cut his way through his foes. But this soldier also saw that, after all Isfarin’s battles but one, he wept softly to himself on the battlefield.

And now Isfarin fought his last battle, and he raged as a ravening tiger across the field of blood and carnage, and none would stand against him. But many of the Persians made their way warily round about him as he fought, and made as if to slay him with a sly stroke. And Isfarin saw their ruse, and slew many of the foe. But one was not slain, and gave Isfarin a mortal stroke before he was himself slain. And Isfarin fell to the earth, knowing he breathed his last that day, and that the new day’s sun would not greet him again.

His fellow soldier came, and saw him, and lifted him up in his arms to cradle him and comfort him. The sun was setting at the horizon, and she was a fiery red-gold sphere which could not be looked at. His comrade saw a strange light in Isfarin’s eyes as he looked up at him, and the fellow soldier wept for the death of one so worthy. But Isfarin’s eyes grew bright as he looked to the sun. And he uttered his last words, with a smile of bittersweet love and mortal pain, and his eyes were now alight with an inexpressible and long-awaited joy.

Lo... he breathed in pain, and lifted an arm to point.

She comes...

And his fellow soldier looked to the west, but could see naught for the brightness. But as he gazed still, with tears filling his eyes from the unbearable light, perchance he saw a slender form, and a face of heavenly beauty, and it was that of a young woman in white. And her face shone, and she gazed with sweetest tender love upon Isfarin, and she beckoned, and Isfarin’s soul winged its way out to her in that moment.

And thus it was how Isfarin died...

♠

Phocas finished.

Romulus’s eyes were filled with tears. Phocas’s eyes were also moist. His gruff face showed no emotions.

And did you meet Isfarin, and so learn this tale from him?... The boy wiped away his tears.

"Isfarin served with me some years ago… When I was but young and new to soldiering... We fought together... He was brave beyond the measure of men… Perchance he sought to follow his lost love with every battle and every stroke...

He died in battle, and so fulfilled his dream, now no longer lost...

Phocas looked away for a moment.

Thou… Ida… Art thou there for me?...

But a breath doth lie betwixt me and thee…

And lo!... This was that exaltation of which I spake – the exaltation of the spirit when it is lifted closer to Heaven...

His far-off gaze had a strangely softened cast, almost gentle.

He glanced at Romulus. The boy was trying not to show his emotions. Phocas pretended not to see him wiping his eyes dry.

Aye… ‘Tis a tale to wound the heart…

The centurion tried to sound off-handed. His eyes were moist.

The sounds of stirring came from within the Commanding General’s tent. The meeting was breaking up at last. Several men came out.

Lucius came up behind the centurion and his son. Phocas saw him, and rose to his feet in respect. Romulus jumped to his feet.

Now we are finished, my boy... We leave this place for home...

He looked closely at his son, and frowned.

What hath caused thee distress?... I see it in thy face...

He turned his gaze to Phocas, questioning.

Before Phocas could respond, Romulus burst out, "O, Domine!... Would a soldier’s life not be the most glorious thing I could do for our Empire?!..."

He smiled with a young son’s loving joy up at his father. Then he burst into tears.

♠♠♠

- 2 -

Phocas

The small snake was only three feet long.

Its diamond-patterned skin glittered in the dim firelight. It slithered in quick twisting jerks away from under a rock near the campfire, leaving a winding, back-and-forth signature in script through the dusty soil.

A shadowy figure had come up out of the gloom and sat down. He was the fifth. The others shifted slightly to make room. Heavy cloaks wrapped them; deep hoods concealed their faces.

Phocas studied the figures.

Arianus, aye... Thales… Serverus... Latimius, aye... he counted.

Principius...?

He does not come...

His muttering went unheard.

Sarto is dead... Ascalas, dead... Principius...? Perchance weak, not with us... He frowned.

Nay, it reckons not... Others… There are others...

He drew his own cloak more tightly around him, seeking warmth where there was none.

♠

In the failing half of the year 601, the plains of Pannonia were bleak. They lay north and west of Greece, endless and featureless. They spread from south of the Danube River to a rising ground of foothills, huddled and grey. September was ending. The weather was already cold, almost freezing. Icy winds soughed mournfully over the land, making it more forbidding still.

The Byzantine host lay quiet for the night, listless. The campaign had been long and fruitless; no crushing victory over their foes, nor the plundering afterward. It was not helped by this weather. Their enemy was not the barbarian horde they had been searching out these desolate lands to defeat. It was this wretched climate, hostile and oppressive.

Their foes – a strange people who named themselves ‘Avars’ - were migrating south. They were oozing slowly in a vast human flood into the Empire’s warmer provinces between Constantinople and Rome.

The night was moonless, the stars brilliantly clear in the frigid air. The pinpoint lights of unnumbered campfires dotted the plain.

Phocas let his gaze slide from one far-off fire to another.

These Avars… They do not want battle... We are too many...

The camp was enormous. It was enclosed by a crude earthen barricade. The numbered legions’ troops were quartered in disciplined rows, unit by unit. Their low tent-like coverings gave thin protection against the raw September weather. The ground around them had been trampled into dust and clods of hardened mud.

Flickering campfire lights glinted off bronze and iron weapons and shields, stacked in orderly arrays. Elsewhere, pack animals, cavalry horses, provisions, and supplies from the baggage train were neatly organized. Earthen paths wove their way among the units in this military city. It was a hardened muscular profile of an army at rest.

The camp’s gates faced out north and east, and south and west. Guards were posted at each, and at lonely points inside the perimeter wall. They stoically bore the cold, their thoughts toward home, or battle, or survival. A small fire burned fitfully at each gate. Those hunched around it imagined it gave warmth.

A solitary lookout at the western gate, tightly wrapped in his long cloak, paced back and forth across the entrance itself, in a mind-numbing ritual. The dull slap of his weapon against his thigh kept time with the monotonous sound of his footfalls.

A soldier at the southern gate peered out into the black unrelieved night.

Death out there... Evil... Wasted time… Sooth, wasted campaign season...

He felt the weight of his sword.

One: Shout... Two: Rouse... Three: Arm... Four: Team up... Five: Seek out... Six: Slay…

He mouthed to himself the general orders for action if an enemy attacked at night. He knew them as well as he knew his palm. He also knew these Avars almost never mounted night attacks.

‘Almost’ is not ‘never’...

Along the barricade, a perimeter guard looked around inside the camp. His gaze slid over the familiar scene, row after