A couple of days after their withdrawal was confirmed, the Roman army also left Sebastopolis. Instead of triumphantly advancing into the lands the Arabs had stolen from my ancestors, we were trudging back toward Constantinople in defeat. That was hard to bear, all the more so in light of the high expectations with which I had invested the campaign.
The men from the Armeniac military district soon detached themselves from the army, returning to the farms they tended when their services as soldiers were not required. The men from the Anatolic military district and that of the Opsikion continued westward with the excubitores. So did the Sklavenoi, a remnant less than a third the number Neboulos had brought to Sebastopolis.
On our reaching Ankyra, the horsemen from the military district of the Opsikion prepared to take the southbound road, going back to their farms and villages. I put a stop to that, ordering them to accompany the rest of the army as we proceeded west toward the Sea of Marmara. Some of the men from the Anatolic military district also wanted to break away from the army: at Ankyra, we were already close to their homes. Again, I did not let this happen.
A few days later, we reached Dorylaion, another good-sized town- or, rather, strong fortress- in the Anatolic military district. Another good road leads south from it into the military district of the Opsikion. Once more, the men from that military district tried to leave the army.
I met with some of their officers, saying, "I have one more task these men can perform for me. I do not think they will find it a disagreeable task, even if it does take them farther from their farms than they might have expected."
"If you tell us what it is, Emperor," one of those officers said, "we'll be able to let them know, and then we won't have the grumbling that's been going through the ranks." His colleagues nodded.
But I shook my head. "Keep them together, and tell them just what I've told you- no more, no less. The mystery will bring them along, I think." I smiled, something I had done little since losing the battle east of Sebastopolis. The officers obeyed me, not least because their curiosity was also piqued.
I had the same sort of conversation with the officers from the Anatolic military district. They too got the bulk of their men to remain in the ranks, though a few, their home villages being so close to our line of march, did succeed in slipping away and resuming the farmer's way of life in which they passed the time between campaigns.
I was less concerned at that than I might have been under other circumstances, for we were moving along easily, de ep within the bounds of Romania, and I did not expect the onset of any foe. Indeed, all the men we had left except the excubitores had stowed spears and javelins and bows and arrows- all the weapons save those they wore on their belts- in the supply wagons that rattled along with the cavalry from the military districts.
We had passed Malagina, on the way up to Nikaia, when Myakes said, "Emperor, I know you have something on your mind, but I don't know what. If I ask you straight out, will you tell me?"
"No," I said. He gave me a reproachful look, having sometimes succeeded with such looks since my boyhood. I looked back at him, making my own features, insofar as I could, reveal nothing. He looked more reproachful yet, which I took to mean I had succeeded. Smiling, I said again, "No."
"You're a cruel man, Emperor," he said. Still I held my face steady. Sighing, he withdrew from my presence.
As we traveled the road from Nikaia up toward Nikomedeia, we began passing through country wherein the Sklavenoi had been resettled in large numbers. News of what had passed at Sebastopolis having preceded us to that part of Bithynia, our line of march found many Sklavinian women, often with brats at their side or squalling in their arms, come to learn whether their men had turned traitor, had fallen in the fighting, or had returned against the odds.
Sometimes we would see and hear happy meetings and cries of delight, sometimes wails of grief when a woman learned her barbarous husband was not coming home. Only a handful of Sklavinian women felt obliged to slay themselves from grief on learning that their men had perished. Most who discovered their men missing from the shrunken ranks of the special army assumed those men had run off with the followers of the false prophet to Syria, and so did not deem themselves required to commit suicide to join them in death. Some, indeed, wasted no time in taking up with other barbarians.
Because of these women, the journey from Nikaia up toward Nikomedeia, which should have taken at most two days, needed more than twice that long. The army, and especially the Sklavinian portion of it, took on more of the aspect of a migration than a military force: I was reminded of the bands of Mardaites- men, women, and children- traveling the military road across Anatolia toward their new homes on the frontier against the Bulgars.
"This, this carnival is disgraceful," Leontios complained, pointing to the disorder and to the unmilitary persons among the Sklavenoi.
I fixed him with my coldest stare. "When I desire your opinion, be sure I shall request it. Until such time as I do, be so good as to keep it to yourself."
"But, Emperor, I-" he began. I squeezed my horse with my knees, urging it up into a trot so I did not have to find out what vacuous opinion he was about to put forward. Not even he was so foolish as to try to keep up with me, which, given the depth of Leontios's folly, says how obvious my move to avoid him must have been.
On our reaching Eribolos, which lies on the gulf of Nikomedeia a few miles south of the town of that name, I ordered the entire army, Sklavenoi and cavalry from the military districts alike, to march west along the coast road by the southern shore of the gulf toward Prainetos, reproducing on the way the journey I had made a few years before to see Neboulos's special army as it was being assembled and drilled. The remaining Sklavenoi were glad, the route taking many of them close to the farms and villages they had established since being resettled in Romania. From the cavalry from the military districts I heard nothing but grumbling: they had thought that, in compensation for being prevented from returning to their homes, they would be allowed to go into Constantinople, and now saw themselves diverted from the city as well.
Some of their officers were sufficiently aggrieved at being turned aside from the imperial city to come to me to complain of it. For such presumption, I would at most times have given them my heartiest imitation of the wrath of God. That afternoon, though, I said only, "I still have one task remaining for your horsemen."
One of the officers, quicker than the rest, asked, "For the cavalry alone? What about the Sklavenoi?"
"Oh, the Sklavenoi will also be involved, never fear," I told him. He and several other men tried to question me further, but I looked enigmatic and said nothing.
That evening, we halted at Leukate, where white, chalky cliffs tumble down steep and sheer to the gulf of Nikomedeia. Far below us, small waves slapped the base of the cliffs, a gentle, murmurous sound. At my order, the Sklavenoi camped nearest the cliffs. I broke the horsemen from the military districts into several blocks, posting them in a sort of cup around the remnant of the special army and the drabs and nasty little children accompanying the barbarians.
Myakes came up to me as I was talking to messengers I was about to send to each encampment of the cavalry from the military districts. Being a longtime companion of mine, he exercised the privilege such men have, saying, "Emperor, I've been looking at the dispositions you've made here. Looks to me like you're going to-"
My own disposition was none too quiet. I held up my hand. He, unlike Leontios, knew better than to go on after a clear signal to halt. "What I am going to do, Myakes," I told him, "is have my revenge." I turned back to the messengers. "Tell the men, without being in any way ostentatious, to arm themselves from the supply wagons and then to await my signal."