The Medieval Marine - Cauldron Simmering
Copyright© 2025 by somethin fishy
Chapter 18: Anatolia
“In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche.
Adana, Byzantine Empire. December 1078
It had been a long trip, but Luke and his women finally reached officially safe territory when they entered the city of Adana. However, since Luke didn’t know the current state of Byzantine-British relations, he would keep his identity secret. By this time, Luke knew that news of Sultan Malik’s death was spreading like wildfire, although no one knew what the result was. He knew that Malik didn’t have any children yet, which would leave the throne open.
Having the Seljuk Empire in a state of civil war was helpful to Luke’s escape since if the Seljuks were busy fighting each other, they wouldn’t be looking for him. They had already seen signs of that during their trip from Birecik when they passed several Seljuk patrols, and they didn’t harass Luke’s group.
As important as the city was, Luke wasn’t impressed, although it was about what he would think of as a medieval town. There were a few wealthy individuals and merchants, while the majority of the population was poor. Luke’s first stop was to sell the extra weapons and horses they had captured on the trip. They sold six horses, almost fifty swords, and as many knives. Morvarid, Guzal, and Tuija watched with interest as Luke negotiated the sale of the extra arms. Fatma couldn’t be less interested.
During the week, Fatma was growing increasingly disillusioned with her decision to travel with Luke. While she had plenty of food, Luke’s women excluded her from everything, including conversation. It hadn’t started that way, as the women tried to engage Fatma in conversation during the first couple of days only to discover that Fatma had a superiority complex without the intelligence to back it up. In many ways, the women’s behavior reminded Luke of high school without the added confusion of overflowing hormones.
After Luke sold the extra arms, it was time to shop for food, spices, and other small things. While shopping, they gathered information on the current state of Anatolia so they knew what to expect. From the sounds of things, the group would have to be alert on their journey as the Sultanate of Rûm had been expanding ever since the Seljuk victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
Even after buying the food they would need, the spices they could find, and paying for a room for the night, the group still had more money than they started with. The large amount of money they had was threatening to become a problem. If they had been in Britain, they could have deposited the money in a bank and collected a bank draft, which they could redeem later.
Once the group entered their room for the night, Fatma stared at Luke with her hands on her wide hips.
“Are you ever going to take me to bed with you?”
“Nope. You wouldn’t be going to bed with me even if it was just you and me. It has nothing to do with your body but rather with your attitude. You are a spoiled bitch, and I don’t sleep with spoiled wenches because they will always betray a man’s trust. Even my wife, the Queen of Great Britain, isn’t as spoiled as you. Now, lay on the floor and go to bed like a good wench, or get out.”
Fatma stared daggers at Luke while she organized a blanket to lie on. Luke’s women watched Fatma’s every move, hoping she would do something stupid. They had reorganized their lovemaking over the last week. Now, while one of them made love to Luke, the other two stayed dressed and kept guard.
Morvarid had Luke tucked inside her while the twins kept watch. They had a rope across the door approximately eight centimeters from the floor to trip anyone who came in. Still, one of the twins stayed awake at all times. It annoyed Fatma when one of the women kept guard all night as it prevented her from sneaking off to find help to remove Luke’s women.
Since Luke hadn’t found the spices he wanted, they would have to visit a larger city. Since the port city of Mersin was nearby, they would head there first to see what spices were available. If Luke was lucky, he could find a British merchant ship to buy passage on. While British merchants rarely entered that part of the Med, there was always a chance.
When Fatma heard that Luke was looking for a British merchant ship in Mersin, she knew she would have to act before he left Adana. Her final goal was to eliminate the girls and keep Luke as her slave. She could imagine how good his thick British cock would feel inside her while the gold and silver he carried would be a nice bonus. Even though Fatma didn’t know how much money Luke had, she knew it had to be significant since he had taken all the money the nomads had carried, the money from the Sultan, money from selling seized arms, and finally, money taken from Isfahan.
Not seeing a better opportunity in the future, Fatma decided it would be best to leave Luke for now. Fatma would need plenty of skilled foot soldiers to achieve her final goal, and the best place to find the men she was looking for was in the gutter.
Getting away from Luke proved to be extremely easy. Fatma told Luke she was done with him and threatened to leave. He looked at her and told her to get lost. His women had annoying smirks that Fatma would be thrilled to wipe off their faces.
Something Fatma didn’t take into account was how the criminal element would react to her. In a city like Adana, it wasn’t hard to find a criminal gang to do her dirty work, but it was impossible to find one that wouldn’t take advantage of her. Within hours of leaving Luke, Fatma found a gang to do her dirty work. Unfortunately for her, she paid with her freedom as the gang quickly enslaved her.
The gang kept her for almost a month before they grew tired of her and sold her to a nomadic tribe to the east. Therefore, Fatma traveled full circle from being captured to being rescued to being recaptured before being sold to the same tribe that captured her in the first place. When the elders learned Fatma’s history, she was used to entertain the tribe by engaging in animal sex, with donkeys and pigs being at the top of the list. Fatma only lasted with the tribe for a week before she died from a broken mind and body.
After the gang took Fatma captive, their leaders discussed the news she brought them. Mainly the beautiful women and cash traveling with Luke. Since they had eyes everywhere in the city, they knew who and where Luke was. The problem was Fatma had warned them that Luke was a dangerous man, and Morvarid had been the sister of Sultan Malik-Shah l until she killed him. Part of her warning was detailing how Luke’s group had rescued her from the group of nomads.
Ultimately, the wealth Luke had with him proved to be too much of a draw, and the gang decided to move against him. The problem was that by the time they decided, Luke’s group had left the city and were riding to Mersin. When the leaders learned that Luke had already left town, they shrugged and returned to their regular activities.
Within five minutes of Fatma leaving, Luke’s group was preparing to leave. They had done this so often that it only took fifteen minutes to load all the horses, including Fatma’s, and be on their way. Since it was midmorning when they left, the group arrived in Mersin by lunch, and Luke made his way to the harbor.
The first thing Luke noticed was the number of shady characters near the small ships in the harbor. To Luke, that pointed to them being pirates. That was further reinforced when Luke saw people who looked Greek to him in chains. Since there were too many suspected pirates, Luke didn’t bother trying to rescue the captives.
To Luke’s dismay, there were no British merchants in port. In fact, there had never been any British merchants visiting the port. He learned that it was good that he didn’t try to escape by sea because the seas along the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean were thick with pirates. Almost every ship traveling in the region tangled with them. It seemed that when the British eliminated the pirate nests in the west, the surviving pirates relocated to the eastern Mediterranean.
Seeing the side trip wouldn’t get him a ride home, Luke bought some spices so the trip wasn’t entirely wasted. As Luke was finishing in the market, his women attracted some unwanted attention. Luke looked up to see fifteen rough-looking men closing in around them. Seeing they were trapped, the four drew their swords to defend themselves.
The thugs found it amusing to see the women with swords and taunted them. Knowing they had the training, Luke’s women stood their ground and remained silent while waiting for the men to attack. Luke was bored, so he decided that some antagonizing was needed to force the issue. He didn’t want to be stuck there until there were too many opponents to fight.
“What’s wrong, dogs? Are you afraid of three women? Afraid they might laugh at those puny things you call cocks?”
Around them, people were laughing at the attackers, which infuriated them. As Luke hoped, they attacked. By this time, all four fought with duel blades. One blade would block their opponent while the other would be thrust into an unprotected side, killing the opponent. As usual, Luke was the most aggressive and killed one attacker after another. He looked to move in a blur as his silvery blades sliced through the air. No movement was wasted or momentum lost as his blades sought the enemy’s blood.
While Luke was on a killing spree, his women got in on the action. Guzal and Tuija each killed two, while Morvarid killed three, including the group’s leader. By the time the women finished their kills, Luke had killed the rest of them. Morvarid took the purse from the leader before telling the nearby women that the people could have everything else. When they were done, there was nothing left but fifteen dead, naked bodies as the people took everything. The weapons could be used or sold, while the clothing could be washed and mended.
Since the reception was so warm, Luke and the women decided to leave while they had light. If need be, they could camp in the countryside. Luke’s next goal was Constantinople. He hoped that, from there, they could either find a British merchant or a large group of merchants who would go to Britain. If not, they would have to weigh their options going forward.
They knew the trip would not be easy as several small Muslim rulers were setting up shop in Anatolia, and each one would pose a local threat. Areas that had seen recent fighting also produced large numbers of bandits, with many being desperate and ferocious. Thankfully, Luke knew how to guard against bandits, and there were numerous fortified towns.
All the group had to do was reach a fortified town each evening and find a place to stay. It would also allow them to carry less food and exchange any horses that were lame. These factors would enable them to travel faster. The faster they traveled, the better because winter was settling across the land. Luke had already bought everyone warmer clothing, including hooded capes to wear.
To get to Constantinople, Luke first had to travel northeast, back to Tarsus. From there, they could travel north to Ancyra or Ankara, as Luke still thought of it. Then, they could travel northwest to Constantinople. After that, Luke wasn’t sure which way they would go. It would depend on the conditions they found. It was possible they would stay in Constantinople until spring before leaving.
By nightfall, they were 10 kilometers north of Tarsus and had set up camp in an abandoned building. Since they didn’t have Fatma to slow them down, the group returned to traveling 150 to 200 kilometers a day. Traveling those distances was even easier since they didn’t need to travel at night. With winter on them, Luke preferred to travel during daylight hours.
An advantage to traveling during winter that Luke hadn’t considered when he started but was thrilled with now was the cold weather kept the bandits in the taverns instead of raiding travelers on the road. One thing Luke wanted to look for in the taverns they stayed at was a bath. The cold was affecting Luke more than before, and it had begun to work its way into his joints.
Luke was thrilled to discover that he had been right to believe bandits wouldn’t bother them much. Three days after leaving Tarsus, the group arrived at Lake Tuz, where they could buy cheap salt. During those three days, they had only seen one group of bandits, and Luke had seen them before the bandits spotted them. As with many groups before, this was a fatal mistake as Luke slipped into the brush and grass. He was quiet as a cat and was almost on top of them before they spotted him. It only took Luke thirty seconds to kill the six bandits, but it took nearly an hour to gather the loot.
It took all eight horses they captured to carry all the loot they found, and Morvarid spent six hours counting all the coins they found while Luke guided her horse. While Morvarid counted coins, Guzal and Tuija took turns cleaning captured weapons. Luke knew they could sell the extra weapons and horses in Ancyra or Constantinople if the prices in Ancyra were too low.
One problem Luke remembered from old intelligence reports was Muslims moving into Anatolia. While Muslims were not a problem, their ambitious leaders could be. If one of them knew Luke was traveling through their territory, they may seek to capture him. Either to try to access the technology in his head or to use him as a bargaining tool against Marion.
Of course, ambitious Christian rulers were just as bad, but during the 1070s in Anatolia, Luke had to worry about the Muslim rulers. He would have to worry about Christian rulers once he crossed into Europe, but the closer they came to Britain, the more intelligence he had regarding the geopolitical picture.
“Luke, are we going to aid the Christian rulers as we travel?” Morvarid asked one evening as they passed Lake Tuz.
“No. The Byzantine Empire is dying, and no amount of new technology that could be introduced can reverse the trend. Their problem isn’t technological but political. There are too many entrenched factions that want power at all costs. They would rather see the empire destroyed than give up any of their power. If I have taught you ladies nothing else, remember this: a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Luke paused. “Gospel of Mark 3:25.” Morvarid looked at Luke curiously. “While I do not believe in the literal translation of the Bible, there are many lessons that can be learned from it. Just like in the Koran or any other holy book, one must read the text with an open mind and heart to learn those lessons. One of my favorite ancient texts is the Kama Sutra from India.”
“I’ve heard of that book. I think Malik even had a copy of it.”
“I loved it when we managed to get it translated into English. One, it helped people with their relationships, and two, it pissed the Church off to no end.” Morvarid giggled.
“But back to the Byzantine Empire.”
“Right. The Byzantine Empire is surrounded by enemies who are more united and aggressive. Various Muslim tribes in the east, Latins from the west, and Bulgarians from the north. Then you have the Orthodox Church vs the Catholic Church, and finally, all the people who want to be Emperor. Only one person can be Emperor, and each civil war they have to fight further drains the Empire’s strength. I think one of the aggressive Muslim tribes will eventually conquer the Byzantines before expanding into Europe. While I do not believe Muslims have a chance of conquering Europe, they will try their best.”
“If you have the chance, would you aid the Byzantines?”
“I don’t think so. Why are you asking now?”
“I have seen what happens under Muslim rulers, especially for the women.”
“And you think European rulers are any better?”
“They cannot be any worse.”
“Some are.”
“Still, I would rather not see Muslims take over any additional territory.” Luke looked at Morvarid, trying to figure out what she was getting at. “Don’t give me that look, Luke. I know the force behind the Muslim drive for expansion, and I know what happens to the people in its path. They get eliminated or end up as slaves. I do not wish to see that happen to any more people than necessary.”
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