Read Strategos: Born in the Borderlands for Free Online Page B

bit into his tongue. He swivelled to the direction of the voice. Maria stood behind him, breathless from climbing the valleyside, hair clinging to her face, her red robe was, as usual, soiled with grass and earth stains. She was grinning but her eyes showed apprehension and Apion still sensed her unease around him. He was a stranger in her home, after all. Perhaps Mansur had urged her to approach him, he mused.
     
    ‘Maria,’ he mumbled, gulping down his mouthful of bread, cracking what he intended as a warm smile but felt more like a wide-eyed grimace.
     
    ‘So you do speak?’ Maria’s face twisted into mock disbelief.
     
    ‘The bread is delicious! I hope I didn’t leave you short in taking it?’ He finished.
     
    ‘No, there are another three rounds, but they are in the kitchen and I am here,’ she stated austerely, reaching over to tear a piece from the bread in his hand. With that, her wariness evaporated and she sat down on the rock beside him and nudged her hips into his, moving him along.
     
    ‘Your skin is so pale, it’s like goat milk,’ she mumbled rather ungraciously through a full mouth and spray of crumbs. ‘Father says all Byzantines start pale but get burnt brown like us over their lives.’
     
    Apion gave a half nod, chewing. What did she want him to say to that, he mused?
     
    ‘Then there’s your hair; it’s a really strange colour, like sunrise over our barley fields. And your eyes, they’re green like precious stones hidden under that brow.’
     
    Apion flushed in self-consciousness.
     
    ‘You look . . . really strange,’ she finished and then ripped another chunk of bread from him. ‘Not in a bad way, of course.’
     
    ‘Of course,’ Apion cocked an eyebrow.
     
    ‘Why’re you up here so early anyway? The goats are happy to wait and graze mid-morning you know,’ she cocked her head to one side.
     
    ‘I like being alo . . . ’ he hesitated, ‘I like to see the sunrise.’
     
    ‘Well I like to sleep until it is light,’ she smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears, ‘though maybe one morning I’ll rise early and come with you?’
     
    Apion saw the hopeful look on her face and nodded.
     
    The farm was fully illuminated now, a patchwork of green plenty and brown fallow, hugged by the burnished red of the Anatolian landscape. A lowing of oxen drew their eyes to the tiny shape that was Mansur driving the beasts across the field, ploughing the earth for the next sowing of rye. Then, to formally announce the day, the cicadas broke into song, building towards their trilling crescendo that would last until dark.
     
    ‘And so begins the new day,’ Maria whispered. ‘I’ve been bringing the goats here for years but I’ve never stopped to take it all in like this. It’s like seeing your world like God would, looking down on everything and everyone at once.’
     
    God. He wondered at her use of the word, unconsciously thumbing the knotted prayer rope. The farmhouse was devoid of religious matter. In a land riven by the religious zeal of Islam and Christianity that was almost unheard of. His own home had been typical of the soldier-farmers of the thema, devoutly Christian at every turn. He recalled Mother recounting the holy tale of the blind beggar and the tax collector at bedtime, her lilting tones would eventually turn to the lines of the Prayer of the Heart and the calming aroma of her violet scent would send him into a peaceful sleep. The memory was pleasant at first but then his scar tingled and he remembered that night, the screaming, then the charred rubble. Why would God deal a good Christian family such a hand?
     
    ‘Father says you come from a family just like ours – farmers?’ Maria asked, her voice inflecting uncertainty.
     
    Apion nodded. He couldn’t look at her as she spoke; terrified that she would see it all in his eyes. He wanted to say something about his mother and father but again the words choked on his lips, and he hated himself for it.