A Place Called Armageddon (28 page)

He moved away. Achmed wanted to understand more clearly what was being said. But he found that he could not stay awake, even with the cold water thrown in his face, even with the pain the rough cloth brought.

Oblivion found him. He sank into it, gratefully.

–
EIGHTEEN
–

Exile’s Return

20 April: two weeks into the siege

It was a Greek upon the Golden Gate who saw them first. He was one of several stationed there, at the southernmost towers of the land walls, who were gifted with long sight. He did not stare, as the rest of the garrison did, at the mass of Turks two hundred paces away behind their stockade. His duty, for the length of his watch, was to look to the sea, to its horizon. Though it was optional, he was encouraged to pray.

Which he did, in a way, when he first glimpsed them. ‘Christ’s hairy balls,’ he muttered, rubbing his eyes, trying to dislodge what had to be motes of dust. He raised a hand to the side of his face to shelter his vision from the sun, halfway up its climb through the sky. Sunlight on water, seabirds, a school of dolphins had all had him reaching for the bell rope before. He had even pulled it once in his excitement, just once, stopping when he realised that the sail he saw was single and slanted, just another Turk making for the Bosphorus.

This time he’d wait. This time he’d make sure he was spared his comrades’ mockery. Even when the single blur resolved into four distinct ones, even when he saw the sails were not lateen, like most Turks, but square-rigged, he did not pull and shout. But he did begin to pray, correctly this time. And even when he was certain, he still took a breath before he grasped the bell pull, closed his eyes. For a moment, he was the only one in the city who saw its deliverance, and it filled him with a power that he’d never imagined.

The bell rang loud at his pulling. But it was his voice, the words, that brought men running. ‘Sails!’ he cried. ‘Sails from the west, and the cross of Christ upon them.’

A lieutenant ran up the flight. ‘How many ships?’

‘Four that I can see, master. But mayhap they precede the many.’

‘Four will do for now.’ The officer turned to two men just appearing, both booted and spurred. ‘Ride – one for the Commander, one for the emperor. Tell them of four ships, and more to come.’ He laughed and clapped his hand upon one messenger’s shoulder. ‘Tell them that salvation is here.’ He turned back to the man with long sight. ‘Keep ringing that bell, brother. Soon every bell in the city will ring the glorious news.’

More men came, and he sent them all off, on foot along the ramparts, on horseback into the city. They must have cried the news as they went, because as the first bell ringer fell back in exhaustion, another in the nearby Church of St Diomedes began his peal. St John Studius was next, and then the monastery of Gastria, and on, like flame in a forest leaping from tree to tree. It was different from the alarums that signalled an attack and brought defenders to the battlements. The toll had a joy to it that the city had not heard in weeks.

Theon, showing papers to his lord, heard it just before the panting messenger was admitted to the emperor’s chamber. As soon as the news was blurted out, Constantine was calling for boots and cloak. ‘They will be making for the boom. We must make sure it is ready to be raised. To horse.’

Sofia, picking over the meagre produce at a stall upon the Hippodrome, heard the wave of bells, waited as they appeared to pass overhead and crash into the Hagia Sophia, whose deep voice joined and drowned all others. A messenger galloping into the oval was surrounded, and not permitted to pass till he had barked his news. It came back to them in ripples of voices.

‘What is it, Mother?’ said Thakos, looking about at the running, smiling people.

Sofia gathered her son and daughter into a hug. ‘A fleet approaches. Relief for the city, perhaps. Come!’ She began to lead her children where everyone else was going, up the hill to the Splendome, beneath the tower of St Irene, one of the highest points in Constantinople.

Her son dragged. ‘But I am to go and practise my sling with Ari,’ he said, holding up the rope weapon that all boys seven and over had been issued with.

‘Perhaps this means you will not need to use it,’ Sofia said, adding, when she saw his pout, ‘and you want to greet our rescuers, don’t you? We can see almost everything from up there.’

Less reluctantly, her son followed. They were still early enough to get a good spot near the summit.

The Greeks were not the only ones with long sight. On the shore of the Marmara sea, Turks were stationed for the same purpose. Only the tower’s height had meant that the defenders had seen the ships first.

The bells had woken Mehmet, resting from a long night of carousing with his favourite, Radu. The younger Dracula was snoring softly beside the divan when the sultan heard the horse gallop up to his tent, heard the shouted news. Such was his hurry that he was already dressing himself, while bellowing for servants, when the officer of the guard entered. ‘I heard,’ the sultan said, strapping his sword belt round his waist, throwing on his long cloak. ‘Send your fastest rider ahead, to Baltaoglu. Tell him to make ready the fleet. Tell him not to cast off until I have spoken to him. I will be on the messenger’s heels. Go!’

He ended on a roar that finally woke Radu. ‘What is it, beloved?’ He yawned as he spoke.

Mehmet kicked him, not gently. ‘Get dressed fast, unless you wish to be left behind. A Christian fleet is coming. And, by Satan’s testicles, we have to sink it.’

He had last seen it lit by a single sunbeam that had split the clouds. He’d hoped it was for the last time. Now the dome of the Hagia Sophia glistened in full morning sunshine. No Turkish crescent flew over it; the men who lined the walls waved banners of the city and the other nations who defended it. The enemy was still outside, and he was in time.

The young voice came from right next to him. ‘Is that where God lives, sir?’

Gregoras looked at the boy beside him. A son of Genoa, and so of the Roman faith. ‘Perhaps. There is some dispute about it.’ He smiled. ‘Though I would prefer he lived with us this day, upon the water.’

The nine-year-old looked around, as if seeking. ‘But do we not make for land, sir?’

‘We do.’ He reached out and rubbed his hand through the boy’s thick hair. ‘But someone is going to try and stop us getting there.’

‘Who, sir?’

He turned the boy forward. ‘Them,’ he said, and swallowed. He had seen Turkish fleets before. But never one of the size that approached now.

It was close enough to study in detail. Suddenly so, for his own ship,
Stella Mare
, and its three companions had just rounded the curve of Lighthouse Point, St Sophia looming above it, and entered the stretch where three famed waters met – the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. Clear of sheltering land, the sea became instantly choppier.
Anafor
, thought Gregoras, giving the swell its Turkish name. Yet his vessel – its three masts of sails filled with the same south-westerly wind, the
lodos
, that had driven them fast from Chios – seemed to leap forward in the rougher sea, flying between wave tops like a dolphin, as if she sought safe harbour as eagerly as those who sailed her.

‘Are those the infidels, sir?’

‘Aye.’

‘S … s … so many?’

Gregoras glanced down. He could see the terror in the eyes of the boy, who was probably little older than his and Sofia’s son. The lad, Bartolomeo, had adopted Gregoras ever since he was plucked from the sea. ‘Aye, they are many. But look at them.’ He knelt so his eye was level with the child’s, rested one arm on the rail, lifted the other. ‘That one ahead is a trireme. It has a mast but no sail raised, for we have the wind. Still, it is driving hard towards us, propelled by men on oars.’ He shifted his hand. ‘Those beside it are biremes, smaller, fewer oars, and those on either side, still smaller, are
fustae
.’

The boy laughed nervously. ‘They look like water bugs.’

‘That’s it!’ Gregoras threw his arm wide. ‘And look at us, how tall we stand in the water, how high the sides of our ships. Those we do not crash through we will squash …’ he stood, stamped, ‘like bugs.’

‘Bartolomeo!’

The call came from the boy’s father, a lieutenant on the ship. He was beckoning his child to shelter below. Behind him, on the raised aft deck, another arm was waved – at Gregoras. ‘Come! We are both summoned.’

He rose, the boy did not. ‘I wish to stay with you …’ his eyes went wide, ‘and watch the fight.’

‘I think you will see enough of it, wherever you are. But arrows are about to fall like rain upon us, so you need something over your head.’ He walked, the boy following. His impatient father muttered a curse, grabbed him roughly by an arm, started to drag him below. Bartolomeo glanced back to Gregoras, who quickly raised his mask, giving a flash of ivory. It had never failed to delight the lad, and it brought a smile now.

As the boy descended, Gregoras climbed the steep stair to the aft deck. Bastoni, master of the
Stella Mare
, the man who had summoned him, lifted his head from the straps of his breastplate. ‘So, Greek, it begins. Are you ready?’

‘I am.’ Gregoras had left his Ragusan name and mercenary history upon the vessel that had sunk. ‘Where do you want me?’

‘At the start, here beside me. There may be some parley and you speak Osmanlica better than any here.’ He cursed, fumbling with the strap. ‘Can you aid me with this?’

‘With pleasure.’ Gregoras bent to the straps, swiftly securing them. ‘And after the talk?’

‘Where you will.’ The man grunted. ‘I would not take lessons from you in how to sail my ship and I would not tell a hunter where to position himself for the kill.’

He gestured to the crossbow, propped up against the rail, amidst a pile of armour. Gregoras glanced, reappraising. He had won the weapon from the captain himself in a shooting challenge the second day aboard. Other Genoans had rushed to avenge this insult to their leader’s prowess, and each further challenge had given him the pieces of armour he needed to protect himself. They were mismatched, and nothing like his fine set that someone in Giustiniani’s company would have stolen by now. The sallet was impressive, near new, with the visor that was becoming more the fashion. The bevor was less so, and he knew he would not want to expose the gap between them too long, offering the chance for a keen-eyed Turkish archer to put an arrow through his neck. The breast-and back plates had belonged to a smaller man, and stopped well short of his waist. He would need to be standing behind something so that his bare legs were covered.

Gregoras jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘How long?’

The master looked past him at the enemy, up to his own sails, down to the waves. ‘A half-glass.’

‘Then I had better arm. Would you help me?’

‘Aye. If you’ll finish with me. There’s little I can do now except run at the whoresons.’

Each aided the other and both were soon done, the master standing in a beautiful suit of blackened armour, Gregoras in his motley. He reached into his visor, under his mask, as if to remove his ivory nose. Reconsidered. His sallet had a visor, so he was unlikely to get hit in the face. He dropped his hand.

Bastoni had seen the gesture. ‘You never told me the story of your nose,’ he said.

‘No. I never did.’

After a moment, both men smiled. Each took a deep breath. The Turks had got so close, heads could now be seen. ‘Go with God,’ Bastoni said, then turned and marched to the front of his aft deck.

Gregoras picked up his crossbow. It was a foot bow, a hunter’s bow, which he preferred, certainly for a sea fight. A bigger bow, wound with a crannequin, would send a bolt farther, harder, but it took too much time to fit the winding mechanism, draw up the string, unlock, aim, shoot. More to carry too, and heavier, when he shifted positions. A foot in the stirrup, a pull using the back, it was ready in moments. Turning it over, he studied the face plate. The decoration was nearly always the same – the Huntress, a naked version of Diana with long flowing hair and high-set apple-shaped breasts. It made him think of the last woman he’d seen naked, Leilah, a memory that brought a smile as well as a question: where was she now? Awaiting him in Ragusa? Would his change of heart cost him her?

The quarrels rested head up. He reached past the smooth sharpness, grasped a shaft, pulled one out. It was not as beautifully fashioned as the one he’d found outside the warehouse doorway in Constantinople, nor the one he’d pulled from the Scotsman’s pack in Korcula. Both those had curved flights of heron feather, could have been made by the same careful hand. Even though he knew that was impossible, he’d wondered briefly if some vengeful crossbowman had been stalking him. No, good bowmen made good quarrels, that was all. He would, if he’d had the time, for they flew that much more truly. Unfortunately, these flights before him were of curved leather, ordinary. Still, they would do the task at the range he would be shooting. But there were only twenty in the quiver. He would have to choose his targets carefully. Unlike arrows, quarrels were hard to scavenge in a fight. Once these were gone, he would need to rely on other ways of killing.

He checked that now – the falchion at his side. He liked the weapon, with its thick, slightly curving blade; shorter than most swords, it was perfect for the close combat he would soon be seeing. Sliding it back into its sheath, he checked that his small, round buckler was equally secure on his other hip, then rose, just as the master shouted his name.

‘Gregoras! They come!’

The distance had halved again. The Turkish vessels were spread out ahead in the shape of a buffalo, a thin, wide crescent like horns, the bulk in a body in the middle. Close enough now for Gregoras to notice at last what the stiff south-westerly propelling them had prevented till then – the music. The wind still kept it faint to his ear, though he knew it would be loud enough, and soon. It was the same on sea as on the land – the Turk fought to a constant, frantic wailing accompaniment of horns and drums.