Free Strategos: Born in the Borderlands by Gordon Doherty Page A

here, basking in the beauty of dawn.
     
    His thoughts were interrupted as he noticed Maria shuffling in discomfort. ‘It is beautiful, but there will be many more mornings . . . and I’m hungry. Are you not?’ She reasoned, jabbing a finger into his ribs and grinning.
     
    ‘Aye,’ he chuckled, ‘let’s go home.’
     
    He heeled the mare to turn towards the farm and they set off at a canter. When they got back, they prepared a platter of goat’s cheese, bread, yoghurt and figs, and a now unmissable cup of sweet, creamy salep to wash it down. The goats had struck up a chorus of enraged bleating as they ate.
     
    ‘You’ll get your food once we’ve had ours!’ Apion chirped. Through the open door he could see two kids, born in the last month, jostling for position at the front of the pen, ears flopping over their faces, eyes wide in anticipation. ‘Anyway, I thought you were goats, not pigs?’ He chuckled.
     
    ‘You’re one to talk; you get through the cheese faster than I can prepare it!’
     
    Apion spun round to see Maria stood, the hint of a smirk edging her lips. ‘Ah, it’s only because I graze them so well that the cheese is so tasty!’ He pulled a handful of blueberries from the branch in the middle of the table, popping one in his mouth, the tangy juice inside the fruit bursting across his tongue. The house was quiet and Mansur’s dark-blue felt cap was conspicuous by its absence from the peg by the door. It warmed him that the old man trusted him, a Byzantine boy, like a son. It warmed him more to reciprocate that trust. He looked to Maria, wolfing bread in a less than delicate manner, crumbs lining her lip. She was either black or white; she’d snarl at him in a temper then she’d grin at him and he felt good, like everything was okay.
     
    ‘You’ll come out with me again one morning?’ He munched on the last of the blueberries.
     
    ‘When I grow taller I’ll be riding the fawn mare . . . on my own,’ she replied, looking past him austerely.
     
    ‘Then we can race!’ Apion grinned.
     
    ‘You’re becoming more like Nasir every day. Is that what happens to all boys as they grow up?’
     
    Apion thought of the cinnamon-skinned boy and frowned. Nasir and he had clashed on a regular basis, usually on the valleyside when he was grazing the goats. The first time, Nasir came past and mocked him, saying that Apion was a cripple and not even worth fighting. Apion had stayed quiet, refusing to meet the boy’s glare and maintaining an air of disinterest. It was only after the boy left him alone that Apion let his fury boil over. Taking his crutch into his hand like a sword and smashing it time and again against a tree. The last time they had met, just last week, Nasir had introduced himself by means of bouncing a stone off the back of Apion’s head. His ears ringing, he could only lip-read the obscenities the boy hurled at him until his hearing recovered.
     
    Nasir’s face had been a sneer and a grimace at once. Then his expression had dropped as Apion stood and hobbled over to him, eyes burning. Nasir was a good half-foot taller but at that moment he felt level. He had pushed the boy in the chest and saw Nasir’s fists ball as if to retaliate, but instead the boy had simply snorted and walked away. ‘I’ve already told you: I won’t fight a cripple,’ he had thrown over his shoulder derisively. That was when Apion had challenged him to a horse race along the banks of the Piksidis. ‘If you won’t fight me and you won’t race me then I begin to think you are afraid of me,’ Apion had growled, hubris coursing in his veins yet well aware that in any such race, Nasir would ride on his father’s stallion, a good hand higher than his own grey mare. Regardless of this, the race had been set up for the following week.
     
    ‘A pox on him!’ Apion waved a hand as if swatting an invisible fly.
     
    ‘Apion! He’s a nice boy. He just tries really hard to act like a