“Maybe it is as you say,” Tossuc said at last. “If it is, you will not mind telling all you know of the Roman army.” He bowed with a mocking irony more sophisticated than anything Argyros had thought to find in a nomad, waved for the Roman to precede him into his tent.
“Do not step on the threshold,” Orda warned. “If you do, you will be put to death for the sin. Also, as long as you are among us, do not piss inside a tent, or touch a fire with a knife, or break a bone with another bone, or pour milk or any other food out on the ground. All these things offend the spirits, and only your blood will wash away the offense.”
“I understand,” Argyros said. He had heard of some of the Jurchen customs, just as the plainsmen knew something of Christianity. A couple, though, were new to him. He wondered nervously if Orda had left anything out.
The Roman had never been in the tent of a nomad chief; its richness surprised him. He recognized some of the displayed wealth as booty from the raid across the Danube: church vessels of gold and silver, hangings of cloth-of-gold and rich purple, bags of pepper and cinnamon and scarlet dye. But some of the riches the Jurchen had produced for themselves. The thick wool carpets, embroidered with stylized animals or geometric shapes, would have sold for many nomismata in the markets at Constantinople. So would Tossuc’s gold-inlaid helmet and his gem-encrusted sword, scabbard, and bowcase. And the cushions, stuffed with wool and straw, were covered in silk. Except for a looted chair, there was no wooden furniture. The life of the Jurchen was too mobile for them to burden themselves with large, bulky possessions.
Tossuc and Orda sat cross-legged with a limberness that Argyros, years younger than either, could not match. The khan began firing questions at him: how big was the Roman army? How many horses did it have? How many men were in the first meros? In the second? The third? What supplies did the baggage wagons carry?
On and on the interrogation went. After each of Argyros’s replies, Tossuc would glance toward Orda. The Roman could not read the shaman’s flat, impassive face. He knew he was not lying; he hoped Orda did too.
Apparently he did, for at last Tossuc fell silent. The khan reached over his shoulder for a jar of wine, another bit of plunder from the Empire. He drank, belched, and passed the jar to Orda. The shaman took a pull, then belched even louder than Tossuc had. He offered Argyros the wine. The Roman drank in turn, saw both nomads intently watching him. The belch he managed was paltry next to theirs, but enough to satisfy them. They smiled and slapped his back. Tentatively, at least, he was accepted. After riding with the Jurchen for a couple of weeks, Argyros found himself coming to admire the nomads he had fought. It was no wonder, he thought, that they raided the Roman frontier districts whenever they saw the chance. Living as they did on the yield of their herds alone, never stopping to plant a crop or settle down, they provided themselves with food and shelter but no more. Luxuries had to come from their sedentary neighbors, whether through trade or by force.
The Roman came to see why the plainsmen judged wasting food a capital crime. The Jurchen ate anything they came across: horsemeat, wolves, wildcats, rats all went into the stewpot. Along with other imperial troopers, he had called them louse-eaters, but he did not think of it as anything but a vile name until he saw it happen. It sickened him but also made him understand the harsh life that made the nomads the soldiers they were.
For, man for man, they were the finest warriors Argyros had ever met. He had known that for years; now he saw why it was so. They took to the bow at the age of two or three and began riding at the same time. And herding and hunting and struggling to get enough to eat merely to stay alive hardened them in a way no civilized man could match.
He was glad he was a good enough archer and horseman not to disgrace himself among them, though he knew he was not equal to their best. And his skill at wrestling and with the dagger won him genuine respect from the Jurchen, who had less occasion than the Romans to need the tricks of fighting at close quarters. After he had thrown a couple of plainsmen who challenged him to find out what he was made of, the rest treated him pretty much as one of themselves. Even so, he never lost the feeling of being a dog among wolves.
That alienation was only strengthened by the fact that he could speak with only the few nomads who knew Greek. The Jurchen speech was nothing like the tongues he had already learned: along with his native language, he could also speak a couple of Latin dialects and a smattering of Persian. He tried to pick it up, but the going was slow.
To make matters worse, Tossuc had little time for him. Planning each day’s journey and keeping peace among his people—who quickly turned quarrelsome when they drank-—kept the khan as busy as any Roman provincial governor. And so Argyros found himself seeking out the company of Orda the shaman more and more often. Not only did he speak better Greek than any of the other plainsmen; his mind also ranged further than theirs from the flocks and the chase.
Constantinople, the great capital from which Roman Emperors had ruled for almost a thousand years, was endlessly fascinating to the shaman. “Is it really true,” he would ask, “that the city is almost a day’s ride across, with walls that reach the clouds and buildings with golden ceilings? I’ve heard tribesmen who visited the city as envoys to the imperial court speak of these and many other wonders.”
“No city could be that big,” Argyros replied, sounding more certain then he was. He was from Serrhes, a town in the province of Strymon in the Balkans, and had never seen Constantinople. He went on, “And why would anyone build walls so high the defenders could not see their foes down on the ground?”
“Ah, now that makes sense.” Orda nodded in satisfaction. “You have on your shoulders a head. Now what of the golden ceilings?”
“It could be so,” Argyros admitted. Who knew what riches could accumulate in a town unsacked for a millenium?
“Well, I will not tell Tossuc,” Orda laughed. “It would only inflame his greed. Here, have some kumiss and tell me more of the city.” All through the Empire, even here on the plains beyond its border, Constantinople was the city.
Argyros took the skin of fermented mare’s milk from the shaman. Drinking it, he could understand why Tossuc so relished wine. But it did make a man’s middle glow pleasantly. The nomads loved to drink, perhaps because they had so few other amusements. Even the Roman, whose habits were more moderate, found himself waking up with a headache as often as not.
One evening he drank enough to poke a finger at Orda and declare, “You are a good man in your way, but eternal hellfire will be your fate unless you accept God and the true faith.”
To his surprise, the shaman laughed until he had to hold his belly. “Forgive me,” he said when he could speak again. “You are not the first to come to us from the Romans; sooner or later, everyone speaks as you just did. I believe in God.”
“You worship idols!” Argyros exclaimed. He pointed toward the felt images of a man on either side of the doorway into Orda’s tent and to the felt udders hanging below them. “You offer these lifeless, useless things the first meat and milk from every meal you take.”
“Of course I do,” Orda said. “The men protect the men of the clan; the udders are the guardians of our cattle.”
“Only the one God—-Father, Son, and I Holy Spirit, united in the Trinity—gives true protection.”
“I believe in one God,” the shaman said imperturbably.
“How can you say that?” Argyros cried. “I have seen you invoke spirits and take omens in all manner of ways.”
“There are spirits in everything,” Orda declared. When Argyros shook his head, the shaman chuckled.