vibrated with fervor and faith, "but that corner is the key of the
power of Islam in Asia. When we hold Cilicia as a base, we will
descend over the ranges of Amanus, even as we are about to push
through those of Taurus. Then--Syria is ours again, is Christ's
again. The sacred land in which our Saviour deigned to be born as
man, the hill of Calvary whereon He died, the tomb wherein His body
lay till the third day, shall no longer be polluted by these dogs of
Ishmael. After all these hundred years the Holy Land shall again be
hallowed with the Cross; Antioch, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem shall
again be consecrated to the Blessed Trinity and the Mother of God.
We will push on to Mesopotamia, beyond Euphrates, till the empire of
Rome has no frontier on the east but the Tigris, and no frontier on
the south but the dry deserts of Arabia, into which the unholy race
of Hagar shall be driven and made to abide. The empire of our
founder, Constantine, of Justinian, and of Heraclius, shall be
restored in all its majesty and power, and the dogs who follow the
False Prophet shall be kennelled again with the jackals of the
desert."
Generals and secretaries listened in silent respect to this outburst
of their chief, who spoke like some priest at the altar, rather than
as the leader of a mighty host arrayed for war.
"We are all eager to be at them!" cried John Tzimisces, passionately.
"Give us the hour, and our marching orders, and we will saddle this
coming dawn!"
"In good time, my valiant Lord Joannes. I well know your noble ardor
for the fight. There are a thousand things that a commander-in-chief
has to prepare, and a few of these are still wanting. Our
siege-train is not yet complete and we have at least fifty forts to
capture; the remount chargers in reserve are not quite filled up, the
reserve of arms is nearly full, the transport service is ready, and
the hospital-train, but the reports from the eastern defiles of the
Cilician Clisuras have not yet all come in. There are still seven
companies of vedettes who have yet to complete the intelligence
survey of the distant passes."
"Will it be three days more, twice three days, as many weeks yet?"
asked Bourtzes, in his blunt way.
"God in heaven knows, my dear general," said the chief, with his grim
smile. "In the mean time, I have copies ready of the _Hand-book of
Tactics_, which I have been compiling during the last three months.
Every commander of a division shall have it; my orders are that every
chief officer shall thoroughly understand the rules of this kind of
warfare--to which there are three main keys--rapidity of movement,
exact knowledge of all the facts, foresight of every detail."
All next night the general sat in his tent, with none but Basil
Digenes and his chief secretary. He had called for the final
recension of his book on _Tactics_, which he was explaining to the
lord warden as he ran over the heads of the twenty-five chapters.
"'Everything lies in this first chapter on scouting and the distances
between the vedettes,'" said the general, reading; "'in a very broken
country they must not be more than three or four Roman miles apart.
The scouts may have to be away from the main army fifteen days, and
must carry provisions for that time. They must explore every hill,
stream, and road in the district they survey, never be stationary,
but always on the move, and always in touch with the force they are
serving. Then take care they master that third chapter on "Occupying
heights that flank a pass," and "On flank attacks on an enemy
discovered to be on the march." Then that eleventh chapter will be
of the utmost importance in such a march as we shall make through the
defiles of the Taurus--"How to survey and occupy in force the points
that can command a defile which is to be forced." Many and many a
Roman army, from the time of the Caudine Forks down to that of
Gongyles in Crete, and poor Pastilas this very last year, has been
lost by neglecting this caution.'
"Listen to this, my son," the chief continued, reading from his own
book: "'This war is one of cavalry. Victory does not depend on
numbers, but on prudence, on rapidity, on ingenuity, so that a stroke
may be delivered when and where it is least expected by the enemy.
War against these children of the desert, on their own light horses,
and with camels as transports, has wholly changed since the epoch of
pitched battles. If you are swift enough, alert enough, keen enough,
if you are well served by your scouts, spies, and signallers, you may
defeat a battalion with a mere detachment, and an army with only a
battalion.'
"'Then attend to your signal-service. Pick the sharpest eyes, the
keenest brains in your force, and take care that the chain of signals
is never broken. The one thing essential is to conceal from your
enemy your own movements and your objective. Every advance must be
covered by feints. March as far as possible by night, and choose
moonless nights.'
"'Then as to night attacks. These are exceedingly dangerous, unless
carried out with fitting conditions, which are a thorough knowledge
of the ground attacked, assaults delivered simultaneously on many
sides at once, trustworthy guides, and intelligent officers. The
assaults must converge to an instant, they must be invisible till
they strike, and they must be directed by a single mind.' In this
war we must constantly resort to night assaults," said Nicephorus, as
he handed the volume to the lord warden.
"The first thought of a general, my son, is to have his men well
rationed, honestly paid, well clothed, and well mounted. It is a
scandal how these courtiers and clerks at home stint the soldier of
his food, his pay, and his rewards.
"You may wonder that I think it needful in our days of glory to
recite at such pains the way in which these accursed infidels are to
be defeated. Ah, who can say what is before us in the future?
Bardas Cæsar and my mother's brother, Constantine Meleinos, won
victories by these tactics, and I myself have seen them successful in
six hundred fights, great or small. If you follow these precepts, my
dear young warden, you will win an equal success--remembering always
this, that it is not thou who art victor, but that the victory is
given thee by Christ, our Saviour, very God and very man."
The general now sat alone in his tent studying the reports and rough
sketch-maps sent him from a score of advanced posts. His secretary
brought him a missive just received by a relay of royal posts from
the Sacred Palace.
From the parakeimomenos (lord high chamberlain) to the grand domestic
(or marshal) of the army-corps of the east, Nicephorus, the
Victorious, and so forth--after compliments, eulogies, and promises
in profusion--the mighty Bringas proceeds to explain that the council
of his Majesty, the Basileus, are so anxious that nothing should
imperil the life and glory of the general-in-chief, that they desire
him to remain in reserve with an army in Cæsaria, and to intrust the
advance into the enemy's territories to the illustrious commander,
John Tzimisces, whose failure to succeed would not so fatally
endanger the safety of empire--and more excellent reasons for keeping
Nicephorus in the background and idle.
"So ho!" said the general to himself, with a grim smile; "he would
pit John against me, and throw me into the shade! Too late, my
honest eunuch, too late! The orders to march at dawn have gone forth
this very night. But is Tzimisces a party to the plot? Never! he is
too noble a spirit. I would trust John with my life."
Another missive now came in, brought by a private messenger. It was
from Leo, the brother of Nicephorus, who was watching his interests
in Constantinople.
"The voice of all Rome is loud for the House of Phocas, and the name
of the victor of Crete is on every tongue. But the arch-eunuch is
plotting night and day against you, turning now to the exiled prince,
now to Tzimisces. Our autocrator himself is nearer than ever to his
God. It is thought he will keep his Christmas in heaven, and they do
say that art is assisting sin and disease to make an angel of him.
Strike--and strike quickly, and be careful that you celebrate a
triumph in the Hippodrome within three months. Three months is the
longest period that it is safe for you to be absent!"
"Yes, in three months' time I shall be in the Golden Horn--or in my
grave," said Nicephorus, and he flung himself on his couch with a few
prayers as he kissed the ikon of the Mother of God. As he raised his
eyes he saw a slip of parchment that, without his knowledge, had been
hung at the foot of the image. It was folded and addressed: "To the
Hero of Rome and Defender of Christ." Within were these words, in
the Armenian tongue: "She who loves thee warns thee to win a glorious
victory over the Hagarene and then to hasten back to Rome. The
Augusta is racked with anxiety and foreboding. In three months she
will be a widow. There is but one who could protect her and console
her."
The general crushed the parchment in his fierce grip, and then thrust
it into his breast. He tossed on his couch for hours, with a storm
of passions chasing each other across his soul.
Before dawn the great host had begun its advance. The general, in
the centre of his staff, was receiving and despatching mounted
couriers, who every minute came and went to and fro. Through seven
different passes of the Taurus, mainly through that known as the
"Cilician Gates," the various corps debouched down upon the Saracen
province that had once been the Cilicia of Augustus and Trajan. The
different armies had separate objectives, but were kept in close
touch with one another, and each was preceded by an outer screen of
light cavalry, which pressed on in front and scoured the whole
country. As the parallel forces poured down like a deluge on the
rich plains, the miserable people fled before them or crowded into
the forts; the Saracen troops of all arms were seized with panic, and
made no effort to stem the current. Fort after fort, walled towns,
castles, and camps fell rapidly into the hands of the invading
Christians. The overwhelming numbers that Nicephorus had collected
covered the country for a hundred miles. By light siege-train,
hurried forward, they captured fortresses by escalade. Tarsus,
Adana, Mopseutia, and Seleucia were taken by storm. The gallant emir
of Aleppo, Seif Eddauleh, of the dynasty of Hamdan, the hero of the
Saracens of Asia in the tenth century, whom the Greeks called the
"Accursed Chamdas," yielded before the avalanche. He ordered his men
to retreat inland towards Syria and to attempt nothing but separate
and small encounters to harrass the lines of communication. The host
poured on, the Arab historian declares, "like hungry wolves,"
ravaging the land, burning villages, and destroying all crops and
stores which they could not use. Karamountis, the emir of Tarsus,
attempted a pitched battle, but was utterly defeated and left five
thousand of his men dead upon the field, the rest being prisoners of
war. All the calculations of the Roman general were fulfilled, every
order had been carried out to the letter, every corps reached the
point at which it was directed at the appointed time. The whole of
Cilicia was swept as by a tornado, and within twenty-two days, the
Arab historian, Aboulfaradj, relates that fifty-five fortresses and
fortified towns had fallen into the hands of the Christians.
Enormous booty and tens of thousands of prisoners were taken, and
after three centuries the rich and broad land, watered by the Cydnus
and the Pyramus, and lying between the range of Taurus and the
Mediterranean Sea, passed again into the realm of Christ and of Rome.
There was a halt to concentrate the forces, collect the booty, and to
reinforce or refresh the army after its tremendous rush, and secret
despatches had again reached the commander. An unsigned missive in
the Armenian tongue warned him again that the Augustus was in
delirium, at the verge of death, that the Augusta commanded his
return to save the empire and herself from ruin. A later missive
from his brother Leo assured him that the Basileus had revived and
might live yet some months. "Go on and conquer! Drive the accursed
blasphemer, Chamdas, from his last lair in Syria. Then return and
triumph!"
Nicephorus resumed his onward march in earnest. He had now received
reinforcements of twenty thousand fresh cavalry, bringing up his
effective force to over two hundred thousand troops, including thirty
thousand engineers and sappers, with ample engines of siege and
storm. As the vast range of Taurus had lain between the empire and
the Saracen in Cilicia, so now the range of the Amanus divided it
from the provinces of Syria, Damascus, and Aleppo. Anazarba, Sis,
and other strong forts were swept away, their defenders ruthlessly
slaughtered, and their homes sacked, but nothing could arrest the
invaders till they poured over the passes of Amanus down into the
valley of the Orontes and reached the great plains which stretch away
from the "Gates of Syria" to the Euphrates. Once across the defiles
of the Amanus range, Nicephorus concentrated his whole force for a
plunge upon Aleppo, the seat and capital of "the accursed Chamdas."
Aleppo, which the Greeks called Chalepe and the Saracens called
Haleb, was then the most splendid and the richest city of Asia,
having some quarter of a million of inhabitants, and was the centre
of the trade between East and West. Its magnificent palaces, in the
midst of gardens teeming with all the flowers and shrubs of the
Asiatic plains, its immense circuit of walls, towers, domes, and
minarets, were crowned by the tremendous fortress on the almost
precipitous acropolis that rose above the plain in which the city
stood. At a glorious sunrise, early in December, Nicephorus gathered
his principal officers around him on an eminence from whence in the
distance the white towers of Aleppo could be clearly seen. "There
lies the lair of the blaspheming Hagarene who has wrought such havoc
upon the people of Christ and the realm of Rome! Within those proud
walls are the savage horsemen who have burned a thousand homes and
have slaughtered ten thousand of our brothers! Ay, and within those
gay and lordly palaces, with their smiling groves and terraces, there
are ten thousand of our sisters, daughters, and boys who have been
ravished from Christian hearts and turned from Christ to defile
themselves with the False Prophet, his lies and his fornications! By
God and His mercy, we will keep Christmas like Christians, within the
very walls and mosques where He has been blasphemed these long three
hundred years!"
The city was now entirely invested. All the efforts of the emirs to
relieve it were cut off with immense losses, and almost on the eve of
Christmas Day the order was given for a combined assault. The walls
were carried in a dozen places at once, the gallant Chamdas was
driven back step by step into the citadel on the heights, and by
nightfall the splendid city of Aleppo was entirely in the hands of
the Romans. The booty was enormous, for the rush of Nicephorus upon
the capital had been so sudden that nothing had been removed. Three
hundred and ninety thousand gold pieces were found in the Saracen
treasury; thousands of horses, mules, and camels in the barracks.
Gold plate, exquisite damascened work, jewelled arms, brocades,
embroideries, ivories, carpets, vases, robes, and painted manuscripts
were tossed about in wild confusion. For days the scene of plunder,
bloodshed, and destruction raged. The superb palace of the emir,
filled with precious things, was sacked, and then consumed with fire,
and everything which the victorious troops could neither use nor
transport was burned or destroyed. The ramparts of the great city
were levelled, the mosques were ruined, and the minarets thrown down
in the dust.
The general, with fierce exultation, surveyed the annihilation of the
terrible enemy who had made the Roman empire reel to its foundations,
and he saw that the frontiers of Rome were destined to extend again
to the Euphrates. Thereupon he ordered a solemn Te Deum to be
chanted in presence of a great muster of chiefs and chosen
detachments of his army. Before the crucifix, which was raised
beside the central altar, the fierce soldier of the Cross thrice
prostrated himself in the dust, and offered up a silent prayer of
thanksgiving; and then the psalm of praise was chanted forth by ten
thousand voices in unison.
As Nicephorus returned to his headquarters he found a missive to him
from Constantinople. It was unsigned, and in the Armenian language
and said that the throne of Constantine and Basil would be vacant
before the message could reach its destination.
XV
Empress and Chamberlain
It was a gloomy day in March, 963, when an unwonted stir of
officials, chamberlains, and equerries was seen to throng the gates,
corridors, and chambers of the Sacred Palace. The empress, in her
private apartments, lay pale and feeble on her couch, after the very
recent birth of her fourth child, Anna, destined one day to be the
wife of Vladimir, prince of the Russians. The roses on Theophano's
cheek were now faded to a marble hue, and, as her lovely head lay in
sleep, she looked like one of the dying daughters of Niobe as carved
by the hand of Praxiteles. But the noise of urgent messengers at the
door roused her from her slumber, and in her soft voice, which
retained its imperious tone with all its exquisite modulation, she
bade them tell her what was being reported. Her deep eyes seemed
even more lustrous and penetrating than ever, as they shone from out
the unwonted pallor of her face. "Tell me, Glaucopis, what they
say," she murmured.
"Most august lady," said the nurse, "the physicians have strictly
forbidden us to disturb your Majesty with any news."
"Romanus is dead?" she gasped out with a fierce gleam in her eyes as
she raised herself on her arm from the pillow; "when--how--where is
his body?"
"Madam, the emperor is being brought into the sacred chamber--not
dead, but fainting, unconscious, and, they say, dying. He insisted,
in spite of all the warnings of his physicians, on going out to hunt
the boar last night in the forest, and he was seized with a
fainting-fit early this morning. We can hear the bearers of his
litter even now in the corridor."
"And has my messenger returned from Cæsaria?" asked the Augusta,
eagerly, catching her breath with excitement.
A small, sealed slip of parchment was handed to the empress. She
tore open the scrip, and a fierce gleam shot from her eyes as she
read the Armenian words "I come."
She raised herself on her couch with a strange force of will, and had
herself supported between two black eunuchs of the chamber and
carried into the sacred koitôn, where at that very moment they were
bearing to his death-bed the still unconscious form of the Basileus.
The gaunt limbs of the once stalwart Romanus were a sight hardly so
pitiful as his emaciated and bloodless countenance, now plainly
stamped with the hue of death. As the physicians and chamberlains
carefully stripped off the rough accoutrements of the chase, and laid
him gently in his silken robe on the bed, his wife gazed intently
upon him, with a look of penetration and anxiety rather than of
sorrow or of love. Was he dead? Was he dying? What space of time
could she count as her own? To whom could she turn for help?
"Madam," whispered the chief physician, "he still lives. His
marvellous strength of constitution, and strict care, may even yet
save him for a short space. The one chance of life is perfect rest,
absolute silence. The slightest exertion, the smallest excitement,
will be instantly fatal. He asks for a draught of strong Samian
wine, but we dare not give it; it will be certain death. Let us
implore your Majesty to leave him to us, to spare him the shock of an
interview. It would be his death."
Theophano did not move nor answer; she gazed intently into the face
of the dying king. At last his eyes opened and the flicker of a
feeble smile played round his drawn lips. She bent down and kissed
them.
"Anastasia," he murmured, "forgive me, pardon all my wrong. I have
always loved you--ever since I went mad for your sake in the hermit's
chapel of St. Demetrius in the Asian forest, and for love of you
risked the golden throne which I am now leaving to you. May you be
happy in it, my early love, my only love, and guard our children till
they can fill it better than I have done!"
"Are you leaving it to me, indeed?" asked the empress, eagerly; "have
you sealed such a will? Is any testament signed?"
"It shall be, if you wish it," murmured the dying man; "send for my
secretaries and the keeper of the archives."
Here the physician drew the empress aside and earnestly whispered in
her ear: "It would be certain death for him to make such an effort.
His one chance of life is absolute rest."
"It is the will of his Majesty," said Theophano, imperiously, "that
all present should withdraw, all--save this scribe," she added,
turning to a secret agent of her own. "Close and secure these doors
in the name of your sovereign lord!" she called aloud to the ushers
and guards of the sacred koitôn.
"My will is that my beloved wife, the empress, be regent of this
empire during the minority of my sons, the Basileis, Basil and
Constantine," murmured, or, rather, gasped the dying man, almost
mechanically repeating the words that Theophano dictated aloud to
him, or nodding a feeble assent, while the scribe copied them down in
official form.
A loud altercation was now heard at the door of the chamber, and a
terrified chamberlain announced that the great parakeimomenos
himself, the eunuch Bringas, insisted on his right to enter the
chamber by virtue of his office--that of the imperial "Bedfellow."
"It is the will of his Majesty that he withdraw and wait in the
anteroom," hissed the empress. "Guards, do your duty, in the name of
your sovereign!" and Bringas was forcibly thrust back from the
chamber.
"Bringas--will be--your counsellor--your minister," gasped the dying
king, as he heard the name of his terrible master.
"And shall not the glorious lord general of the east be confirmed in
his office?" whispered Theophano, with the eagerness of frenzy. But
the strain of this interview had already overcome the flickering
strength of the dying man, who fell back in another fainting-fit that
almost seemed death.
Then Theophano bade the scribe fetch from her own chamber a flagon of
strong cordial that stood beside her bed. She moistened the lips of
her dying lord, and as he sipped a few spoonfuls of the drink a last
spurt of life came back to him. He opened his eyes, and even raised
his head, hoarsely calling for the cup. A mouthful seemed to give
him new strength. "Since you desire it, my beloved," he gasped, "I
confirm the lord domestic of the east in his supreme command. To
Nicephorus I leave this throne, my children, my wife. He alone is
worthy to possess them. They are his. May he keep them." He then
grasped the flagon nervously, and with hungry eyes besought his wife
to give it him--besought with his eyes, for he was now speechless.
Theophano knelt down beside the low couch, and, folding her arms
round her half-conscious lord, she raised him on his pillows. Then
she held the flagon to his lips and gave it him to drink. He sucked
in the strong wine like a beast that has been dying of thirst, until
the action of swallowing had ceased to be possible. The last dregs
of the cup oozed out of the corners of his mouth and poured over his
bare throat. He lay back--dead.
Theophano gazed on him with a look of triumph. Then she seized the
parchment whereon the scribe had written down the last will of the
emperor. She took up the pen and placed it in the still soft hand of
the dead man; holding his hand in her own, she made the pen rudely
inscribe his name--
_Romanos, Basileus Romaiôn._
For a brief space she stood there over the dead body of her husband,
herself pale and faint with the effort, looking like a marble statue
of the angel of death, as she pondered what should be her next act,
for she well knew how tremendous a crisis was at hand.