A Place Called Armageddon (31 page)

He eased the string back, unnotched the arrow. He would not waste even one, while enemies lived. Besides, his crossbow was still on his back, hampering his draw. He unslung it and its quarrels, laying them carefully aside, replaced it with the bow quiver. Then, looking about the ship, he spotted a little platform halfway up the main mast. Exposed, but with the space he required.

Stripping off his helmet, laying it beside the crossbow, he pulled the bow string over his head, jumped, caught a rope, hauled himself up it to the platform. He’d been right, it was a good site. Through tangles of rigging, between cones of canvas, he saw clearly onto the main deck of the enemy ship. It was a trireme and large, perhaps the largest of the attacking fleet. And he had seen it before. Seen the man screaming commands upon its main deck who wore a distinctive steel helmet that was missing one of its plumes because Gregoras had shot it out.

He smiled. He had missed Baltaoglu Bey,
kapudan pasha
of the Turkish fleet, twice before. But both shots had been with a crossbow. Now, a reunion of hand and horn grip, the restoration of a name, the reclaiming of a cause, demanded a third attempt. So he reached again into the quiver, seeking, by touch. He needed two arrows. One, bone-tipped, to clear the path ahead. The second, metal, blunt-headed, fit for purpose – to punch through mail armour or steel helm.

He found both.

–
TWENTY
–
God’s Breath

Screaming obscenities, the sultan rode into the water.

Hamza did not follow, nor did any of the other leaders. Mehmet’s anger was indiscriminate, and though it was all focused on Baltaoglu now, clearly visible on his trireme’s deck a medium bowshot away, the object of it could easily change to those nearer to hand … and to sword; for the sultan had drawn his father’s scimitar and was swirling it round his head, chopping to left and right as if he were in the midst of his enemies.

‘How many men do you need, you Bulgarian pig-lover?’ Mehmet shouted. ‘How many of my motherless ships will you let sink before you prove you have any balls? Cowards!’

Hamza allowed himself the minutest shake of the head. He had fought Christians upon the open sea, knew how hard it was to take their ships. The advantages of being on high, of being able to drop, shoot and throw downwards, were immense. Even as he looked, he saw some of the enemy heave a barrel over their carrack’s side. It plunged into the
fusta
that was grappling it, crushing an archer too slow to scramble aside, smashing through the deck planks. In a moment the ship began to list, the next men already throwing themselves off her – those who could, for slaves were chained to benches and the free men did not have time to loose them, so fast did the
fusta
go down. Hamza closed his eyes, but could not clear the image of arms waving above the water, snatched away. When he looked again, another ship, despite the fate its crew had just witnessed, was racing to the gap left to renew the attack.

The sailors had to be aware of their sultan upon the strand behind them. His tug was clearly visible, his figure, at this distance, distinct. But Hamza was grateful that the furious sounds of the battle would keep his words from them. They were anything but cowards, these men. And Baltaoglu, for all his blunt ways and indiscriminate cruelties, was in the forefront of the fight and doing the best he could.

He glanced to the sun. It set fast and was already low in the sky. Darkness would aid the defenders, making assault all but impossible. And he could see on the other side of the boom – that great linkage of chains that closed off the Golden Horn and so one-third of the city walls to Turkish assault – the gathering of more vessels ready to come to their fellow Christians’ aid. He saw flags of Genoa, of Venice, of Crete, even of Constantinople. They would not risk lowering the boom when Turks could pour in. But under the cover of night?

Still, there was time. The gallant Turkish fleet continued to attack, fresh ships coming to replace the mauled or sunk. Christian arms had to be tiring. Christian arrows, barrels, stones had to be running out.

He felt it then, the barest caress on his cheek. Looked to the south, then up to the horsetails upon the sultan’s tug. Did they move? Did he hear the faintest of chimes in the tiny silver bells beneath them?

‘Allah, most merciful,’ he prayed, ‘hear the prayer of a humble servant. Send not these unbelievers Your sweet breath.’

‘Baltaoglu!’ raged Mehmet. ‘I will find your mother and fuck her!’ He had ridden up to his horse’s middle. The sea was soaking his cloak, the sinking sun striking it, water and light turning the russet cloth a deep and bloody red.

Gregoras wiped his right hand on the cloth at his neck, then drew the two arrows from his quiver. The bone-tipped one he notched, having drawn its flights through moist lips, steadying it with his finger where shaft met the tortoiseshell guide. The second, its metal head like a miniature turban helmet, he licked too then placed, slanted almost straight down, inside the strap across his chest. Raising the bow, drawing the string back in the same fluid motion, he waited till he felt the ship crest a wave, sighted and shot.

The arrow flew true, between rope and rigging, and took the partially armoured archer, covering his commander’s right side, in the armpit just as his own bow was rising for a shot. Gregoras did not watch him fall away, his hand pulling the second arrow from his chest, notching it without looking, keeping his eye on Baltaoglu. The Turk, his visor raised for clearer shouting, had turned in shock at his guard’s sudden plucking, at the gap in the wall of flesh and steel that had covered him. Another was already stepping forward to that gap. Gregoras had a moment while the ship rose upon the next wave, to draw, to sight, to expel breath and then release, aware as he did of the slight change in the target, unaware what it was … until he focused again and saw that some instinct had made Baltaoglu flick down his visor at the same moment Gregoras shot.

A barbed arrow would have shocked but not penetrated. Gregoras had better hopes for the blunter head. But some mischance of angle, some tilt of helmet rim, some shift of sea or touch of wind – for he felt it now, cool on the sweat of his face – made the arrow strike the metal mask, but not straight on. The man’s head jerked back, his feet shot up, Gregoras could almost feel the shudder as the big body hit the deck of the ship to which his vessel was joined. Then the Turk was lost to his protective wall of guards – and Gregoras was distracted by cries from below him. The latest wave of enemies were leaping back over the rail, leaving behind more of their dead and dying.

‘Christ’s … bones,’ wheezed Flatenelas, slipping down to kneel on the deck, ‘but I am … old!’ He tipped his head to the rail above him. ‘Do they come again? Look you, someone.’

Gregoras, from his height, had the best view. He looked – and if he could have found words and a faith long missing, he might have prayed too.

Baltaoglu’s vessel had already cast off, bearing away the exhausted and the maimed leader. But another was waiting to slip into its place, filled with eager, unbloodied men. Beyond that another, and another, ships circling everywhere in sight, wolves pacing while the prey was weakened for the next assault. He looked to left and right, to the Genoese carracks lashed on either side. As many boats surrounded them. He looked back to his own again, to the Greek bodies among the Turks. How many more could they lose and live? How long could exhausted men go on fighting the rested?

Grasping a rope, Gregoras slid down onto the deck. ‘Captain …’ he began, stopped, trying to figure out the way to tell such news.

But Flatenelas was not listening anyway. He had raised his visor, thrust his nose into the air like a hound scenting. He tried to rise. ‘Help me!’ he called. ‘Get me up.’ Three men rushed to his aid, lifting him. He looked all around, licked his finger, thrust it into the air. ‘God’s breath,’ he cried.

‘Amen,’ someone answered.

‘No, man.’ Flatenelas was grinning now. ‘The wind. It has returned.’ Gregoras turned, to the south, the way they had come. He did not need to raise a wet finger, he felt it on the sweat on his face. The wind that had driven them fast from Chios, that had abandoned them to the enemy within bowshot of their destination, was indeed blowing again. ‘How do we use it,
kyr
?’ he said, turning to his captain.

‘How? Like this?’ Flatenelas shook off the arms that still supported him. He stepped to the front of the aft deck, looking down into the belly of his ship. Cupping hands over his mouth, he bellowed commands. But Gregoras, standing near him, found them hard to hear over the tumult of war, the still pounding drums, the blare of trumpets and the shrieks of fighting men. Flatenelas realised, turned and shouted at his officers, ‘To your men! Get the sailors aloft and every length of canvas flying. Let every man who can use one wield his bow to keep the bastards down.’

His officers ran. All along the vessel men were tapped on the shoulders, commands shouted, heard, obeyed. Soldiers became sailors again, shedding cumbersome armour the easier to climb. Some men needed to stay, armed upon the rail to guard it, though it appeared that, with their commander felled and the assault on the aft driven off, the Turks were pausing for a moment.

Gregoras knew that Turks never paused for long. Many were already shooting arrows at the new targets of men scaling up masts. He was tempted to follow and retrieve his bow, but he would impede men about their work – and anyway, his crossbow was still to hand and he could shoot it near as fast. Throwing the quiver over his shoulder, he placed his foot in the stirrup, heaved the string to its notch. A quarrel for its groove and a second for his mouth and he was raising the weapon, sighting on an archer, pulling his trigger. He barely saw the man knocked back, was heaving again, placing, scanning, pulling. It was a flow he was long used to, and he did not think beyond the marksman’s thoughts. Only when he was groping in an empty quiver and found nothing did he pause, his arms and back afire. Noise, which somehow he had not heard despite its volume, returned full force. Yet it had a different feel to it now. Most of the drums had stopped and the trumpets’ blare sounded … sounded somehow desperate to his ear. As did the enemies’ cries. He reached up to wipe sweat from his eyes, raised them to see …

The sails! They were filled again, almost as one. On either side of the barge, Bastoni and the other Genoan captains had made the same choice as the Greek. Every Christian vessel was under full canvas, and men on each had hacked away the ropes that had bound them into one floating fortress. Separated now, they surged forward. The despair he’d heard in the enemy’s voice redoubled, as their oars were smashed into kindling, their sides stoved, their grappling ropes ripped from hands.

Gregoras peered over the side. Their ship had caught up with, and was passing, the largest of the triremes. On its deck, raving useless commands, stood Baltaoglu. He had a bandage crosswise round his bare head, and over his eye a second eye had formed, marked in blood. He was passing within a stone’s throw of Gregoras, but the Greek did not move. He had no quarrel left for him, and his arms were suddenly so tired, he was not sure if he could have raised the weapon anyway. Besides, it seemed that fate was not offering him the Turkish admiral’s life. Today, his eye would have to be enough.

Brushing aside the clinging enemy, tacking, the four vessels passed before Galata, making the turn toward Constantinople. As they did so, in the sudden silence of his enemy’s despair, Gregoras heard another voice raving. He crossed to the far side of the deck, looked to the strand of sand under the Galatan walls. He was close enough to hear, and easily close enough to see, the man on a horse that he was almost forcing to swim. The man wore a silver helmet that made Baltaoglu’s look plain, while spewing forth a stream of obscenities that would have made the abbess of a brothel blush. Behind him on the shore stood a nine-tail tug.

‘Mehmet,’ Gregoras breathed, reaching into his quiver again, still finding it empty. It would have been a long shot anyway, with a crosswind. Perhaps a better chance would come.

A little later, with the sun low upon the horizon and the Turks rowing frantically but failing to catch up with their sailed ships, Flatenelas and an officer found Gregoras staring up at Constantinople’s walls. ‘You will be ashore soon enough,’ the older Greek said. ‘When night falls, the Turks will realise that they cannot entrap us, and a fleet of my countrymen already gather at the boom to lift it and see us safely to shelter.’ He reached out, took Gregoras’s arm. ‘I am glad that my old friend’s son has returned in the hour of his country’s need. We need the strength I feel here. Need the skill I saw you display in the fight. You took that shot at the Turk commander, did you not?’ On Gregoras’s nod, he squeezed, continued. ‘And I will tell all, from the High Council to the lowest courtesan, that what I saw this day were not the actions of a traitor.’

As eminent a man as Flatenelas could certainly help restore his reputation, and smooth the way to the rescinding of his exile. ‘Well,’ Gregoras nodded, ‘I thank you for that. I am not sure about the Council, but it will be good to have the whores on my side again.’

Flatenelas laughed, turned away to the running of his ship. His lieutenant did not follow, stepped closer. Gregoras had not noticed what he was holding, saw it now – the bow that he had used and left on the platform above. ‘It was my father’s,’ the man said, ‘but I never had his skill with it. And I most certainly do not have yours.’ He held it, and the quiver, out. ‘I would be honoured if you would take it and use it. For our city.’

Gregoras looked at the wonderful weapon for a moment, then reached and took it. ‘It is I who am honoured,’ he replied. ‘What is your name?’

‘Archimedes. My father was Tanos, of Therapia.’

‘I remember him – and his skill. I will endeavour to live up to it. And I will return this to you, Archimedes, when we have triumphed. If I live to do so.’