Strategikon (Medieval Sandbox) IC
Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 6:37 pm
Constantinople....the Queen of Cities...
January, 1018 AD
Constantinople
The Great Palace of Constantinople as per usual teemed with people from all walks of life. The outer courtyards, Imperial Gardens, and fountain centered plaza's thronged with visiting populace. Servants, workers, lounging citizens and hardworking artisans that bellowed out their wares to passerby's. Nobles decked in colored robes, silks, and jewelry strode with purpose and authority. While the characteristic tramp of Palace Guards in their polished armors, plumed helms, and lacquered shields boasting what unit they belonged too. The mighty Hippodrome rose like a great oblong palace of the Gods above the city scape. The intricate, multi-faceted, concave, rotunda of the Hagia Sophia with all of its angles and impossibly brilliant engineering mirrored it as the ultimate place of Christian worship. The mighty city-scape like a ladies silk dress spanned Westwards across the Golden Horn. Its neighborhoods and forums providing an expanse of urban forest unable to be challenged else ware in the known world. Traders of every known nation, craft, and service could be found within the boundary walls. Themselves the impressive, unmatched, giant Theodosian Walls. Cradling the city in fortifications that have held off invaders for over seven centuries. Meanwhile the quays, wharfs, and sea lanes of the city were choked with water craft. Ranging from small dinghy's to massive barges loaded with goods and cattle.
Deep in the warrens halls of the Great Palace, in a throne room that itself seemed like a wide boulevard enclosed with a ornate painted ceiling, stood an aging man. Looking at an old ornate golden chair bearing great lions heads for arm rests. Lush red and purple velvet cushions were on the chair complete with matching carpetry leading up to it. Yet he did not seat himself upon it. Instead looking at the chair as if deep in thought. His garb was plain, just the Imperial purple, no jewels or fancy accolades drapped about him. No silver polished scepter. A golden, jewel encrusted, precious stone-muraled-crown lay on a small brown table next to the throne. No he did not wear it. He simply gazed solemly with wisened eyes and skin just now begining to crease with age. His piercing blue eyes like blazing stars casing their light on a dark world. His hair once black and deep now white with the passage of many winters. He stood of modest build and fair complexion. Like the ancient Laconians of Sparta this man was. From times long pasts and epochs half-forgotten save for the scriptorium librarians in the Imperial Library.
This was Basil, second of his name to wear the Imperial purple, Bulgaroktanus. The Bulgar-Slayer. A name that struck fear into the hearts of his enemies and culled any rebellion before it began. A man who would render 10,000 men invalids as a message to his enemies. But had that man passed? Was this the same man as his youth? Contemplation brought about such thoughts to a man's fore. For what is a man, truly, but the sum of his actions.
Troublesome tidings had come from the North, across the Danube, where the expanse of territory known as Kievan Rus' lay. That realm was ravaged by civil war, internecine struggle, and fragmenting to the point of near dissolution. Of course that information was weeks old at best and the situation could have escalated from there or subsided to calm. Such was the fate of the world to leave its autocrats unnerved by the fragility of man's stability. Then of course there was the Eastern Frontier. The Buyids had grown strong in Iran and else ware. Would they be able to be just as deadly as the Sassanids of old? Only time would tell and truthfully....that made Basil more anxious. A joyous laughter sounded off in the distance. A young lady, his daughter, a beautiful woman seemingly plucked by ancient fables. Like some ancient amazon of old she had a strong lithe body. Her features fair and beaufitul to behold. Powerful jaw, piercing eyes, and hair like the finest of textiles. He cast a gaze out into an inner courtyard adjacent to the throne room were she laughed with other noblewomen and young scions of other powerful Byzantine houses. What would be her fate should he perish today? Basil cast such mental machinations aside and walked with hands clasped behind his back. A small circular table there was. Laid out by servants. A pair of eunuchs stood motionless nearby, ready to serve their master's call, and themselves mirrored by a pair of hulking men in fine armor. Bearing great axes, swords at their hips, and spears before them while their shields remained slung on their backs. Varangians. The Emperor's bodyguards. Resolute, unyielding, and fearless in battle. They went were he went and while not Roman....was precisely why they could be trusted so readily.
On the table a map of the Empire was laid along with surrounding regions. Basil cast his gaze to the Georgian Kingdoms which of course may become a deadly battleground between Christian and Muslim once more. While North of the Danube the Pechenegs might be no longer in cheque with the power struggles North-East of them in Rus'. Perhaps emboldened they may seak to raid across the Danube and pillage even further North along the Black Sea? Believing themselves able to do so since they were no longer sandwiched by a Byzantine-Rus' bloc.
"Send word to the garrisons along the Danube. They are to go on alert for raiders from the Euxine Sea to Dorostolon. Addition, prepare a ship to head North to ascertain the situation in Rus'. Thirdly, prepare logistic plans for a march East to Georgia, notify all Tagmata commanders in the capital and the Strategoi in Cappadocia and Antioch." Basil looked up as one of the eunuchs furiously scribed verbatim the Emperor's words before handing them over with a bow. Basil largely was indifferent to the learned classes. But never neglected the necessity of reading and writing. Scanning the short lines of script, words he had just spoken, he nodded and rolled it up. Placed it on the table and with one fluid motion picked up a small decanter of hot wax and poured a dollop onto the parchment. Pressing his ring into it as it cooled. Pulling away slowly the eunuch picked up the paper gingerly, bowed once more, and hurried to the information dissiminated to the appropriate receptiants.