Fall of Empires

Chapter 41

An owl hooted somewhere in the darkness and bats flitted back and forth from their roosts; silent winged shadows in the firelight. The crackle of flames and the murmur of conversation from a thousand campfires filled the smoky air. Theophanes and Isaac were drunk, having drained a full wineskin and called for another as they settled down for the night atop the long mound that rose above the otherwise flat and scrubby plain. The emperor’s tent was pitched a short distance away. Heraclius had chosen to occupy the top of the mound to give himself a clear view all around and to provide advance warning of the enemy’s approach. They would be close now, a day away at most.

Rhazates’ host had trailed the emperor’s army as they had advanced deeper into Persian territory, waiting for an opportunity to bring them to battle. Here, Heraclius had determined, he would make his stand.
‘Let them come and do their worst!’ Those had been his last words to Theophanes and Isaac that evening before they took their leave of him.

As members now of the emperor’s staff, Theophanes and Isaac’s place was close by. The outcome of their mission to Shahrbaraz had pleased Heraclius greatly and he had invested them both in the elite regiment of the Excubitors, who were charged with emperor’s personal protection. Their role now was to be ever present by the emperor’s side and Heraclius employed them in the relaying of orders and the gathering of intelligence from the roaming bands of scouts. As the army had advanced from Ganzak towards the River Tigris, they had been ever active, galloping urgently back and forth along the line of march, breathless with the excitement of the whole enterprise and their new part within it.
Their fellow Excubitors, most of whose families had purchased their places amongst the emperor’s guards for them, considered such duties beneath them and regarded the two young men from Antioch rather sniffily. The emperor’s message boys they called them. This bothered Theophanes and Isaac not at all, for they knew how great their service to the emperor had been and they rejoiced in Heraclius’ regard for them.
The days were easy for Theophanes. The days were full of activity as he charged about upon Bucephalus with the wind rush of the gallop blasting all of his thoughts away as the ground blurred beneath him. The nights however were a different prospect. When the day’s riding was done and the camp was made and the emperor had dismissed them, when the evening meal was cooked and eaten and the wineskin was drained and the fire had burned low, that was when the turmoil started in his mind.
For now he knew. Now he knew with certainty that his Anna had been taken. The blessed relief he had felt at first when he had heard from the liberated Antonina that Anna lived had for a time soothed his mind. He had feared the worst and for a moment when had first seen Antonina he had thought Anna dead. The truth that she was now captive in Ctesiphon, locked within that unassailable city where he could not hope to reach her, tormented him with greater anguish than the churning uncertainty that he had lived with before. Antonina had a haunted look that she tried to hide when questioned about her treatment at Kavad’s hands. The knowledge that Anna could be suffering in the same way made Theophanes want to tear at his own skin until it bled to try to force the thoughts from his mind that he tortured himself with through the long, sleepless nights. The thought of how close his beloved had come to ending her life in the waters of the Tigris sent a chilling shudder through his body and brought images to his mind that drove him close to madness. He saw his love cold and dead, again and again.

Theophanes had been glad when Antonina had departed, sent northwards with a caravan of freed Roman captives who were being escorted back to Trebizond and thence to Constantinople. Her presence had only reminded him of his pain. Heraclius had asked to hear Antonina’s story for himself when Theophanes and Isaac had returned with her to the camp. The emperor knew of course the story of the girls in the river and he had listened with sorrow in his eyes to her account. He had promised that Antonina would be received and cared for in the capital by the Empress Martina herself until such time as she was able to return home.