I almost laughed aloud when I realized what was shaping up. Our “diplomatic” mission was going to lead to a sneak attack on the Commonwealth capital. Our effort to surrender and end the war was going to trigger the bloodiest battle of them all.
And there was nothing I could do to avert it.
Chapter 26
Part of me felt almost exultant. A tremendous battle loomed ahead of us, and I was created for battle. The old excitement simmered within, making my innards tremble with anticipation.
Yet another part of me was filled with revulsion. Not fear, but loathing. How many of my command had already died? And for what? How many had I killed, over the eons? I remembered assassinating Ogotai, the High Khan of the Mongols, my friend, my hunting companion. I remembered the slaughter once we had pierced the walls of Troy. And Jericho. I remembered Philip’s accusing stare as the blood filled his mouth and gushed from the slash in his belly.
When will there be an end to blood? The Golden One boasted that he created the human race to fight for him. Could we not overcome the aggression he had built into us? Could we not learn to live in peace?
Your sentiments do you honor, friend Orion. It was the voice of the Old Ones speaking in my mind.
I sat in the command chair on the Apollo’s bridge, but my eyes saw the depths of the oceans in which the Old Ones lived. And I was there among them, swimming in their midst, safe and warm in the bubble of energy they had prepared for me.
“My sentiments won’t solve the problem we face,” I said.
“The problem you face, Orion, not we.”
“You are not willing to help?”
I felt a slight tremor of disappointment among them. “You must solve your own problems, my friend. Otherwise they are not solved, merely postponed.”
“Yet you threaten to wipe out any species that tries to use a star-weapon.”
A patient sigh. “Our ethical code demands that we leave younger species alone to work out their own destinies. But that same code cannot allow stars to be wantonly destroyed. A species willing to use such power is a danger not merely to itself, it is a danger to the entire continuum.”
“Meaning that it’s a danger to you.”
They fluttered their many tentacles, colors spiraling across the breadths of their huge, undulating bodies.
“Yes,” they admitted at last. “Such a species would be a danger to us and everything else in the continuum.”
“Does your ethical code allow you to help me to prevent this catastrophe?”
A long delay, while they swam about me and flashed colors at one another.
Finally, “Orion, you are laboring under a misapprehension. You apparently believe that if you could eliminate one of your species, this one you refer to as Aten, or the Golden One, that his demise would solve your problem.”
“Won’t it?”
“No. We fear not.”
“But-”
“Your species is very violent, Orion. It is part of your makeup. Even you, who are struggling to overcome this heritage of blood, can think of the solution to your problem only in terms of murder.”
“Aten must be stopped. He is killing his fellow Creators. He seeks-”
“We know. We have seen it in your mind. But suppose you succeed in murdering Aten. Do you believe that will end your war? Hundreds of billions of humans are struggling against one another. They use weapons of constantly increasing power and horror. Will the death of one of you stop the death desires in your entire species?”
I had to think about that for a while. The Old Ones respected my silence.
Choosing my words carefully, I said, “The first step is to stop the fighting, to put an end to this war. That by itself will not end the violence in the human psyche, but it will stop the killing. Then perhaps we can learn how to live in peace.”
“Do you think that is possible?”
“Do you see a better path?” I countered.
“No,” they answered. “Quite frankly, we do not.”
“Then help me to reach Loris.”
“The Skorpis will be waiting for you. There is nothing we can do to protect you from them.”
“Can you at least transport the cryosleep capsule my ship is carrying safely to the planet’s capitol building?”
They seemed to confer among themselves again, then replied, “Orion, that is a task you must accomplish for yourself.”
“You won’t help even that much? In the interests of peace?”
“You must accomplish peace by yourselves, Orion,” they answered. “It is your task, not ours.”
I would receive no help from the Old Ones. None at all.
“Your arrival in the Giotto system will set off a massive battle,” they warned.
“The last battle of the war,” I said, resignedly.
“Let us hope so.”
I said, “Thank you.” Bitterly.
“Farewell, friend Orion,” they replied. “Farewell forever.”
Before I could ask what that meant, I found myself back on the bridge of the Apollo, with Frede staring at me oddly.
“Don’t you want to eat?”
I saw that she was holding a tray of steaming food before me.
“No, thanks,” I mumbled. “I’m not hungry.”
How could be I hungry when I suspected the Old Ones had just bid me a final farewell because they knew I was going to be killed?
When I finally left the bridge and went to my quarters for a bit of sleep, I dreamed of ancient Byzantium, the triple-walled New Rome that stood against the barbarian hordes for a thousand years after darkness fell on western Europe.
I was a soldier, an officer, returning to the city after a long, hard campaign against the ravaging Seljuks who had swept out of the heartland of high Asia to conquer the ancient provinces of Cilicia, Cappadocia and even Anatolia. Noble cities such as Antioch, Pergamum and Ephesus were all under the rule of the Moslems now.
My cohort had fought for months, always retreating before the remorseless horsemen from the steppes, fighting and dying as the tide of barbarism pushed us constantly back toward the Bosphorus. It saddened me to see villages, towns, whole cities put to the torch by the invaders; to know that churches and even great cathedrals were being turned into mosques by the heathen savages. Our retreat was marked by columns of black smoke, funeral pyres for our empire, that rose into the hot bright sky like accusing fingers.
At last we stopped them, our backs against the narrow sea that separates Asia from Europe. Not much of the old empire was saved, but mighty Byzantium stood still free-barely. The cost was thousands of good soldiers; of my cohort, hardly a full maniple remained able to stand and fight, and most of us bore many wounds. But we could tell ourselves and anyone who might listen that we had given more than we had taken. The Seljuks were just as exhausted as we, and their piles of dead rose higher than our own.
The fighting was stopped, at least for now, and I had returned to the mighty city. Weary, sick at heart, half crippled from an arrow in my thigh.
I passed through the triple gates on horseback, all my worldly goods tied behind my saddle. The guards hardly paid any attention to a returning soldier; they were busy haggling with a merchant who had a long string of highly laden mules. They wanted a good bribe for allowing the caravan to enter the city.
Through the twisting streets of the old city I rode slowly, deliberately, savoring the sights and sounds and smells of it. Vendors hawked their wares. Shopkeepers talked about the weather or the latest fashions with their customers. Men and women strolled along the thoroughfares or lolled in cafes in the city’s many open squares. The aroma of roasting lamb and onions and pungent spiced wine made me almost dizzy after months of dried strips of goat or worse.
Beyond the low roofs of the houses in the market quarter I could see the beautiful curved dome of Santa Sophia. I nosed my tired mount toward the cathedral. If I should offer a prayer of thanks for my survival, why not offer it in the grandest church in Christendom?
Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if this was real life or a dream. Am I truly living in this era, or is this merely a dream while I sleep somewhere, somewhen else? What does it matter, I thought. I am lucky to be alive and I owe it to God and His saints to offer a prayer of thanksgiving. At last I reached the broad, cobblestoned plaza in front of the cathedral.
“You can’t tie that nag here!”
The nasty, rasping voice startled me. I looked down at the hitching rail where several other horses were tethered and saw a mean, wizened, bent old man in filthy rags casting an angry, beady-eyed look at me.
“This rail is reserved for the wedding party,” he croaked. “Don’t you try to put that flea-bitten animal in among the quality.”
I saw that the horses already at the rail were sleek and groomed and well fed. My own poor mount showed each of its individual ribs.
“Damned soldiers think you can do whatever you want, don’t you? Why aren’t you out fighting the Saracens instead of trying to butt your way in where you’re not wanted?”
Without a word I turned my horse and went to a farther hitching rail, tied her there and walked back to the grizzled old sourpuss.
“I’ve left my life’s possessions on that flea-bitten nag,” I said to him, “except for this.” And I pulled my jewel-pommeled sword halfway out of its battered old scabbard. “This blade had taken the lives of more Seljuks than you have hairs in your mangy beard, old man. If anyone so much as touches my horse or my belongings, it will take your life next.”
His eyes blazed with fury, but he held his tongue. I turned and went into the cathedral. It was strangely chill inside, and dark except far up in front, by one of the side altars, where a small group had gathered for a wedding. The people whose horses the sourpuss outside was watching, I reasoned.
Kneeling on the stone floor, I could barely make out the huge mosaic of the risen Christ that filled the interior of the main dome. Dim light filtered through the high windows of stained glass, dust motes drifting through the slanting shafts. I half expected to see my own breath frosting in the air, it was so cold inside the cathedral.
Here by the main entrance, next to the massive marble baptismal font, stood a statue of Santa Sophia. I gazed at it, in the shadows, and thought the face that the sculptor had carved looked familiar. I had seen it before, on another statue, in Athens. That other statue had been the work of an ancient pagan, the statue purported to be of Athena, the patron goddess of that old, decrepit city.
And here was the same face on Santa Sophia, decked in soft folds of cloth rather than armor and bronze helmet. Offering prayers for the faithful rather than holding a spear and bearing an owl on her shoulder. But the same face. She seemed to be smiling at me, a beatific smile that warmed me deep in my heart.
I did not stay long. Just one swift prayer of thanks for my life, then I limped back into the sunlight, worried that the sourpuss might take it into his head to steal some of my possessions or all of them and disappear into the crowds of the city before I could stop him. But he was still by the rail with the wedding party’s horses, and my horse still stood alone farther off. I had to admit, my mount did indeed look very shabby.
The old man grumbled something at me as I passed him.
“I suppose soldiers don’t tip a man who’s watched their horse, do they?”
“Soldiers don’t have any coins until they’re paid,” I said to him, over my shoulder. “And none of us have been paid since we first left the city, months ago.”
“Pah!” He didn’t believe my word.
I was billeted with a family that lived outside the walls. They were hardly overcome with joy to see me. I would be an extra mouth to feed, an extra horse to care for, as long as I stayed with them. They seemed to be having enough difficulty making ends meet, with five youngsters in their brood, the oldest a lad barely into his teens.
The man was a metalsmith; he eked out his living by repairing pots and copperware in the bazaar. The army would pay him a pittance for housing me, but he made it clear that my upkeep would cost him more than the government would pay.
The youngsters clustered around me, bursting with questions about the war and the lands I had seen. They stared at my face curiously, and I realized that it was my scars that fascinated them.
Their mother had been taken by a fever that had swept the city half a year earlier. The old man had a young serving girl to cook and take care of the children. A sturdy, redheaded lass from Muscovy, from the looks of her. She was pretty, with clear white skin that had not been roughened from hard work as yet. I wondered if the old man made her sleep with him.
The two eldest boys helped me unpack my meager belongings and dumped them on one of the beds in the upstairs room; then they took my horse down the street to the stable. During the evening meal the boys wanted to hear tales of battle and victory; all I had to talk about was battles that we lost and retreats in the face of the relentless enemy. Their father ate his barley soup and black bread in dour silence, except to cast dark looks at the serving girl whenever she smiled at me.
“How many of the heathens did you kill?” asked the eldest boy.
“Too many,” I said. “And not enough.”
The serving girl asked me, “What is it like to take a man’s life?”
I replied without thinking, “Better to take his than let him take yours.”
She shook her head. “I know they’re heathen Moslems and the Church has condoned warring against them, but still, the Christos taught us that it is wrong to kill, didn’t He?”
Her disapproving frown nettled me. I wanted to tell her what the Seljuks did to Christian women when they captured them, wanted to describe the villages we had seen where the women had been raped and then put to the sword hideously, where babies had been spitted alive and used as footballs, where fire and knives were used for torturing helpless children.
But I said nothing. Because I was ashamed. My own troops had done much the same to the Moslem villages we had sacked.
“They’re heathens,” the old man snapped. “Servants of the Antichrist. Killing them isn’t the same as killing a Christian. The Patriarchs of the Church have told us so. They’re not even human, really.”
“Their blood’s as red as ours,” I heard myself mutter.
“Good! Spill as much of it as you can.”
Leave as quickly as you can and return to the wars, he was telling me. And I resolved to do exactly that. This was not my home and never could be. As soon as my leg healed properly, I would go back to the fighting, I told myself.
After dinner, the two boys offered to share their bed with me. I laughed and told them that I had been sleeping on the ground for so long that a bed would probably keep me awake. So I unrolled my sleeping blanket and stretched out on the floor next to their bed in the upstairs room.
Just before I drifted to sleep, the older of the two boys said, “Next year I’ll be old enough to join the army.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Stay here and help your family.”
“There’s no glory in staying here.”
“There’s no glory in war,” I said. “Believe me. Nothing but pain and blood.”
“But fighting the Seljuks is doing God’s work!”
“Living is doing God’s work, son. Killing people is the work of the devil.”
“But it’s all right to kill the Seljuks. The priests have blessed the war.”
Yes, I thought wearily. They always do.
“The emperor himself-”
“Go to sleep,” I snapped. “And forget about the army. Only a fool goes to war when he doesn’t have to.”
That shut him up at last. I turned on my side and went to sleep, dreaming of the distant future when ships flew among the stars.
Chapter 27
I awoke in my quarters aboard the Apollo with Frede shaking my shoulder roughly.
“You’d better look at the imagery from our last navigation check,” she said, once I had opened my eyes and sat up in the bunk.