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CHAPTER SIX

“DON’T FORGET TO TURN THE OTHER CHEEK!”

Three miles west of the city of Paltyrrha, the Arch­priest Athanasios was trying very hard to find a comfort­able position for his numb posterior and aching thighs. The raggedy gray donkey called Dyskolos had certainly lived up to his name, being difficult, poky, and not at all inclined to obey a man of the cloth. Without any warning, he would suddenly speed up to a bone-jarring trot, bypassing all the men marching in line, who would encourage the evil beast with catcalls, insults, and laughter, and occasionally with jabs of their sharp spears. Then the beast would jerk to a complete stop, allowing the jeering foot soldiers to catch up and pass them again, while Athanasios, legs pumping and arms waving, angrily tried to spur the tyrant forward.

It had been a frustrating afternoon for the priest, in­experienced rider that he was, but he attempted to pass the time as profitably as he could by saying his daily prayers, and beseeching God’s benign intervention with their dan­gerous mission. But time and again he found himself dis­tracted by having to attend to the reins, as he held on to his precarious seat.

On his fifth or sixth such run, Dyskolos tried a new maneuver, and succeeded in abruptly bucking Athanasios off over his head, straight into a large mud puddle. The startled priest found himself flat on his back and soaked through, struggling to regain his wind as he stared up at the vacuous face of his obstinate mount. Dyskolos smiled back with bared yellow teeth, having finally rid himself of his unwelcome burden. Then, floppy ears laid back, he stretched out his scrawny neck and shook his head, flinging foam into the priest’s face and jingling his bridle jauntily, and braying raucously a few times in unconcealed triumph.

Several soldiers of the Kosnicki Brigade, who were marching right next to them, almost fell over, they were laughing so hard.

“Now, father,” one of them yelled, “don’t forget to turn the other cheek!”

There were more hoots and guffaws.

“An ass in time saves nine!” another quipped.

The troops behind them began to bunch up as they watched the welcome spectacle of a cleric finally receiving his comeuppance.

Athanasios climbed shakily to his feet, then gazed down at his ruined cloak, his cheeks burning with the shame. He hated being humiliated like this. From the time he was a child, he had disliked being made the brunt of public ridicule or scorn.

“Hey, what’s going on here!” shouted the captain of the squad, riding over from the other side of the column.

He was a tall, amiable-looking man in his late thir­ties, clean-shaven save for a trim mustache, and neatly decked out with light chain mail, helmet and jaunty feather, and military cloak. His gear was beautifully polished, and he sat confidently astride a handsome bay, its shiny black mane and tail floating in the breeze. He gracefully dis­mounted, and gave the priest a hand, steadying him a bit as Athanasios tried to regain his composure.

“Sorry, father,” the officer said, “these rubes don’t know any better.”

He glared at the assembled soldiers, and vigorously waved them on.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he yelled. “You! Get along over there. Come on, move it out!”

His men gradually sorted themselves into loose ranks again, and the column started forward.

The captain quickly grabbed Dyskolos’s reins to prevent him from running off, and handed them over to Athanasios, simultaneously inclining his head.

“Sir Maurin von Markstadt, Lord Ézion, at your service, father. You seem to be having a little trouble with your mount.”

The hieromonk looked upon his savior with im­mense gratitude.

“Oh, thank you so much, milord,” he said. “I’m the Archpriest Athanasios Hokhanêmsos.”

He shook his head in dismay, brushing futilely at his damp clothing.

“I must confess, I don’t really know what I’m doing wrong. They showed me how to control the beast, but Dyskolos is the devil himself.”

“Dyskolos, eh?” The officer snorted. “Oh, I’ve heard about that one. I think someone was trying to play a joke on you, father. This donkey’s a real ass.”

He cleared his throat as he swallowed a laugh.

“However,” the officer said, “we have our ways.”

Maurin led Athanasios and his mount off the crowded road and over to a nearby tree. He chose a small, supple limb, broke it off with his bare hands, then carefully stripped it with his knife. He whipped it experimentally through the air a couple of times.

“Yes, that’ll do nicely,” he muttered to himself.

Then he turned to the priest.

“Would you happen to have an old spare rag,” he said, “something you won’t be needing again?”

Athanasios pondered a moment. “Well, I think so, milord, but....”

“If you’ll get it, please,” the captain said, “I’ll demonstrate.”

The priest rummaged around in his kit, and finally tore a strip from a frayed, well-worn tunic.

“Will this do?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” Maurin said, smiling. “You just have to be a little smarter than the beasties,” he said, abruptly stepping on the donkey’s reins to hold its head momentarily still, and then wrapping the cloth several times around its eyes.

He stepped back to admire his handiwork, tucking in the ragged edge of cloth.

“There, that should fix him. Now you can mount,” Maurin instructed the priest.

Athanasios climbed back into the saddle. Dyskolos stirred uncomfortably, badly wanting to be rid of his bur­den, but uncertain of himself in his blindness.

“You see, father,” the officer said, “without his sight, old Dysk here has lost his manhood, so to speak, al­though he had already lost that some years ago, ha ha ha, and so he won’t go running off to where he shouldn’t be going.”

“Well, then, how do I get him to move?” the priest asked.

Maurin handed him the switch.

“Try this, father,” he said. “A little application to the appropriate hindparts will work wonders, you’ll find.”

Sure enough, the beast was quite docile now, and moved when and where the hieromonk directed.

“It’s a miracle!” Athanasios said, “a gift from God.”

“Not really,” Maurin responded. “You just have to outthink them. You’ll find that after a few days, friend Dyskolos will have decided that you’re the master here, and then you won’t need the blind any longer.”

“May I ride with you a while, milord?” Athanasios asked.

“Certainly, father, I’d enjoy your company.” The captain nodded cheerfully. “But please call me Maury. Most of my friends do.”

“And I’m Athy,” the priest said, happy to be back in control. “Whence do you hail?”

“From up north,” the captain said, “a county called Kosnick. My cousin Dónan’s the ruler there.”

“Why, I know the place!” Athanasios said. “It’s tucked between the crook of the upper Paltyrrh and the Kultúra Rivers, west of Tavársky. Very nice location. But I’d have thought that you would have marched straight south to Myláßgorod. It’s much shorter, isn’t it?”

“Well, as the crow flies, sure,” Maury said. “But the roads are just a mess these days, clogged with wagons and foot-deep mud, and Count Dónan thought we would do better by taking the barges down the Paltyrrh. We had an awful lot of rain up there this spring. It only took us a few weeks to get downstream.”

“I see.”

The priest’s clothes were beginning to dry, and even though he was sure to be sore from his fall, Afanásy was finally feeling more comfortable with his situation. A thought came to mind.

“You look as if you’ve seen quite a bit of military service,” the cleric said.

“’Bout twenty years, off and on,” the officer said, “in six-month or one-year stints. I’ve experienced a lot of action, from the barbarians to bandits to brigands.”

Athanasios nodded.

“I rather thought so,” he said. “I wonder if you could satisfy my curiosity. Part of my work involves copying documents for the king and his court. The other day I came across a military record that I couldn’t decipher. Now, you understand that I’m supposed to know these things, even when I don’t. It’s a little like handling this donkey: no one wants to hear excuses about why I can’t ride, even though I’ve had very minimal experience in re­cent years. So I couldn’t ask anyone there at court without looking the fool, and I put the pages aside. But a man of your great military experience just might be able to help me.”

“Anything I can do, Father Athy,” Maurin said.

“Why, thank you, Lord Maury.” The archpriest smiled. “Here’s my problem. I have an old service record that consists only of a name followed by a series of ini­tials.” (He was referring to a document that he’d located earlier that year in the Official State Archives while investigating the mystery enveloping his own past history.)

The captain removed his hat and scratched his head. The sun was bright in the sky and beginning to heat the ground.

“Well, I have seen a few of these registers. Usu­ally, they indicate an officer’s rank and assignment, in that order, followed by subsequent postings, if he’s been trans­ferred to another unit.”

“Ah, so the letters ‘sl’ would be Sublieutenant?” Athanasios asked.

He had already worked that one out for himself.

“Of course,” Maury said, “and ‘fl’ is full Lieu­tenant, ‘cp’ Captain, ‘cm’ Commander, and so on.”

“Then what would ‘kg’ stand for?” the priest asked.

The soldier laughed. “That one’s easy,” he said, “King’s Guards! Very elite bunch, reconstituted during the wars with the northerners.”

“Of course,” Athy said, chuckling along with him, “and what about ‘dd’?”

“Hmm.” Maurin looked puzzled. “Hmm!” he rumbled again. “Well, I honestly can’t think of any unit having those initials. Now you’ve really got me interested. Just a moment,” he continued, “let me, uh, check with someone else who’s been around longer than I have. Back in a snap.”

The captain pounded further up the column, stop­ping to talk with an older officer leading another unit. They conversed together for a bit, and then Maurin came trotting back, smiling broadly.

“You almost had me fooled there, Athy,” he said, coming alongside the donkey. “I was right. There isn’t any troop with that designation. It means ‘Detached Duty.’ Very rare.

“Usually,” he continued, “they’re scouts or spies working directly for the king or one of the high councilors of state. They’re sometimes given passes that allow them to sequester anybody for questioning whom they wish, or to secure any goods they might need to complete their mis­sion. Basically, they carry the authority of the king on their person.

“I’ve only knowingly met one or two in my entire career. They’re very quiet fellows, operating strictly behind the scenes. They wear no badges and have no units, and you won’t even know they exist most of the time, un­less they’re forced to reveal themselves, and they really don’t like doing that. Trained killers, too, very nasty in a fight. Wouldn’t mind having a few of them with us for this ‘go,’ if you know what I mean.”

“Indeed I do,” Athanasios said absently, reeling from the impact of the information Maurin had given him. Because, if Arik Rufímovich, he who had later become Metropolitan Timotheos, had been on detached duty from the military during the period when he had delivered the child Athanasios to Saint Svyatosláv’s Monastery in May of 1166, just who was he working for then? When exactly had he joined the church? The answers to these questions, if he could find them, probably would tell him all that he needed to know about his origins.

He gradually shifted the conversation to other mat­ters as they moved through the hazy afternoon light west of Paltyrrha. Around them the flies buzzed idly ’round and ’round, cruising in large circles about the horses and their riders and the marching infantry, knowing that they would feast that evening on horse and human dung and other as­sorted garbage. Life for them was very good indeed.