A Place Called Armageddon (61 page)

Leilah, at the head of twenty of Mehmet’s elite guard, the
peyk
, with their halberds, their breastplates, yellow turbans and bronzed shields, had been waiting by the Charisius gate, the nearest point for her destination, and had entered early on. The throngs gave before the march of armoured men. But many had preceded her, and many had come over the sea walls and got ahead of the landward army. In the frenzy of killing and looting that followed, all was chaos; and though she had the map Gregoras had given her, the twisting streets, filled with shrieking, confused her straightaway.

She needed a guide – and sought one in the square before a church, where scores of citizens were squatting, heads lowered on knees, eyes averted from the sights around them, many praying loudly to block out the sounds, until beaten to silence by their guards. Some attempt had been made to tie them together, but it was evident that rope and chains had run out fast. Lengths of silk, of sliced blankets and torn sheets loosely held them prisoner. Most could have broken their bonds in a moment. But there was nowhere to flee. Death waited beyond their huddle, and not a swift one either, judging by the screams nearby. In the slavery that was to come, there was life. Of a sort, at least.

Leilah looked beyond the dazed crowd. The doors of the church had been torn half off their hinges and dangled before an entrance from which smoke issued. Someone had been careless with fire, or over enthusiastic for Allah. Others, less fervent perhaps, were engaged in saving anything of value from the growing flames. She saw ikons, angels and apostles in wooden frames, tossed down the steps. Others, which had silver or gilt inlaid, were attacked with knives, their metals gouged out, the painted faces slashed and thrown aside. As she watched, some men rushed forth with a casket, joyfully hacked off its iron clasp, jerked open its lid to reveal the fortune in treasure within … to discover nothing but bones, wrapped in cloth that bore inked Greek letters and the symbol of the cross. Furious, the
azaps
destroyed the box, seeking what had to be a hidden compartment, and, finding none, scattered the femurs, pelvises and jaw bones of the city’s sacred saints over the bloodstained cobbles.

She looked again at the prisoners. ‘Wait here,’ she said to the
peyk
captain, and began to walk among them. Few met her gaze, pressing their faces into their knees, shoulders braced for a blow. One young man watched her come. He was better dressed than others around him, though his clothes were as filthy and stained. He had a bloody bandage across his forehead, and under it his eyes moved away, then found hers again when she drew near. ‘You,’ she asked softly in Greek, kneeling. ‘Can you read?’

He stared at her for a long moment, perhaps surprised that a woman’s voice came from beneath the cloth mask she wore, for she was dressed otherwise as a man, with a doublet and flowing
shalvari
, both black. She had a turban helmet on, her only armour, and a crossbow slung across her back. ‘Can you read?’ she repeated.

A slight nod. She pulled the map from the pouch, held it up to him so he could see the writing. ‘Do you know this place? Can you take me to it?’

He peered, read. After a moment, he nodded. ‘And can you speak?’ she asked.

He tried, producing only a gurgle. Then he cleared his throat, tried again. ‘I can,’ he said in a soft, educated voice. ‘I live near that … that place. I can lead you there.’

Leilah nodded. She took out her dagger, sliced through the cords that bound his wrists. ‘Stand up,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’

She turned as the man rose. But another was standing in front of her, larger, his face almost lost in a beard. ‘And what, by my great hairy balls, do you think you’re doing?’ His voice was guttural, his accent harsh. Vlach or Bulgar, she thought.

‘This slave is wanted. On the sultan’s business.’

‘Fuck his business. This slave is my business. Oi!’ He reached out, grabbed Leilah’s shoulder as she tried to step by him. ‘You are not going—’

It was as far as he got before Leilah reached up, grabbed his wrist, twisted it against its inclination so he had to bend suddenly to stop the pain. ‘Listen,’ she said, in Vlach, putting her mouth near his ear, ‘I am willing to pay. See?’

The hand she held suddenly had a silver coin in it. Her father had taught her to conjure from the time she could walk. It was a useful addition to her trade.

The man seemed more aggrieved than impressed. And she’d guessed his race correctly. ‘He’s worth three times this,’ he spat, in the same language, rubbing his wrist.

‘By noon, there will be so many slaves in Constantinople you couldn’t sell him for half,’ she said. ‘So you will take this and let me pass.’

He looked like he was going to reach for her again, thought better of it, looked around. ‘Why don’t I call a few of my friends over to discuss it?’ he said, more loudly.

‘I agree,’ she replied. ‘You call your friends and I …’ she pointed past him, ‘will call mine.’

He turned, went white under the beard. ‘Sultan’s guards,’ he said. ‘Sultan’s business. Of course.’ He stepped aside, trying to smile. ‘Anything to oblige our glorious leader, praise his magnificence.’

Without another word, she threaded through the prisoners till she reached the
peyk
. ‘This man will lead us there,’ she said to the captain. She turned back to the Greek. ‘Fast now. And do not try to run.’

‘Run … where?’ The youth swivelled and led them to the right of the church and up the steeply climbing street beside it.

*

Had she made a dreadful mistake? Had her dead husband been right to try and stay at the house, behind the indigo banner?

There were just so many of them, every lane and avenue filled with them, and the throng grew thicker the further they progressed. Sofia led her brood through gardens to avoid the thoroughfares, and every second house was filled with the sounds of smashing, with screams of rage, terror, worse. She’d given up trying to shield her children from the dreadful sights, there were just too many. Thakos, for his part, stared largely ahead, white of face, mumbling prayers, of which the only word she could clearly hear was ‘father’. Minerva looked at everything and showed nothing on her face.

‘Shh!’ Sofia hissed, commanding them with a raised hand to stop while she slowly approached the last building on the alley. Peering around, she recognised with relief the marketplace before her. Across it, opposite the alley’s entrance, a narrow lane led up. She’d brought them close. St Maria, and the sanctuary she’d prayed for, lay about two hundred paces away.

She hesitated. Crouched in the lee of the building, they were hidden. Yet for once the screams and smashing seemed a little further away. Shops and houses around the forum looked as if they’d already been looted, doorways kicked in, shutters torn off. There were three bodies, unmoving. All that did were feral cats and a few dogs, sniffing and licking among the blood pools; and ravens too, come for the bounty, tearing, gouging. Only a few of the huge black birds, and silent for once, not squabbling. What was the need when the whole city was laid out before them like a banquet?

She shivered. There was this open ground to cross, and now was as good a time as any. She turned. Her charges gazed up at her with huge dark eyes. ‘We are close,’ she said, ‘and there does not seem to be any danger here. Walk swiftly when I say; do not stop for anything. Come!’ She leaned out again, raised a hand. Nothing moved but feeding animals. She dropped her hand.

They were halfway across, halfway to safety, when they passed a wall-eyed dog tugging at a corpse. It must have been deaf, or too focused on its gorge, for it only seemed to hear them when they were upon it. It reared back, torn ears flattened, teeth bared, snarling. Thakos had a stick, raised it now above his head, shouting. But to do so he had to let go of the cat he’d held till then inside his doublet. It jumped to the ground and the dog, seeing it, lunged, snarling again. The cat ran away, in the arch-backed scamper of the panicked.

‘Cat! Cat!’ yelled Minerva, slipping her maid’s grip, running in pursuit.

‘Minerva! No!’ Sofia shouted, taking a step. But her son’s cry turned her back. The dog had attacked, had sunk its teeth into Thakos’s left boot. He hit it again and again with his stick, but it would not release him, tugged till he overbalanced, fell. ‘Get her!’ Sofia screamed at Athene, then turned and kicked the dog hard in its side. It gave a whimper, ran limping off.

Thakos rose. ‘I am well,’ he said, brushing filth from his cloak.

Sofia turned. Athene had caught up with Minerva, but the girl was dodging among the upturned market stalls, seeking. ‘Come!’ her mother called. ‘Come swiftly.’

And then, from a roadway halfway between them, a group of soldiers emerged. They were concentrating on what they were dragging between them – iron-bound boxes. They flung them down onto the cobbles. Then one of the soldiers looked up … straight at Sofia. ‘There’s one,’ he yelled. ‘She’s for me!’ He pointed at her. ‘Stay there, you Greek slut.’

Three of the men began walking towards her. Beyond them, unnoticed, Sofia saw Athene snatch up Minerva, reaching still for the cat. One hand went over the girl’s mouth as the maid ran silently up the alley before her.

Maria protect them, Sofia thought, as the men advanced. Forty paces away now, jeering as they came. Strangely, she felt calm. She thought only of her daughter. Perhaps if she distracted these men enough, Minerva would escape.

But she’d forgotten about her son. Only remembered him when she heard a sound she’d heard before. A drone, as of a beehive. She turned.

Above Thakos’s head, his slingshot whirled. His face was caught between terror and determination.

The approaching soldiers stopped. One shouted, ‘Put that down, boy!’

‘Thakos! No!’ Sofia pleaded. He was young, he would survive; as a slave perhaps, but in life there was hope. If he resisted, he would die.

‘Yes!’ he said, his boy’s voice even higher. ‘Run, Mother. Run.’

She had no choice now – and this chance. Ducking under the swinging rope, she ran fast for the alley that led to sanctuary. She saw the soldiers start forward, shouting, saw her son fling the knotted end of rope, as Gregoras had taught him. Saw one of the soldiers’ legs sweep out from under him, hands reaching to his face. Then she heard her son running, and she was running too, up the alley, with the soldiers in pursuit. Only Thakos’s need kept her from turning back to seek her daughter, despite the Turks. But Athene had been to St Maria near as often as her mistress. With the saint’s blessing, all could yet find protection there.

Thakos stumbled. She reached a hand, dragged him up and on, as the shouts behind them doubled.

‘Come, giant. If you want your share, do your share of the work!’

Farouk poked him sharply again with his
bastinado
and Achmed winced, looked down, to his comrades’ labours. The church had been half stripped before they arrived in it. But the lure of easier booty had taken the first ravagers on, and, according to Farouk, experienced in such matters, they had missed a lot. He had led the search and swiftly found a store of ikons that the Christians had hidden in an alcove behind a layer of freshly laid plaster. The dust and paint they’d used to try to age it had not fooled him. It was not his one eye he’d used, but his one ear. ‘There,’ he’d tapped, getting the hollow sound. His squad had broken the hiding place in, pulled out the framed portraits, the boxes inlaid with precious stones. Now the half-dozen men were squatting on the floor, prising out anything that glittered. Silvered saints were stripped of their armour, Madonnas robbed of their necklaces.

But Achmed could not look down for long. Only up, at the wonders above him. He knew this was a place for infidels, that the God they worshipped was false, that holy men and angels should never be portrayed. Yet he looked into the painted eyes upon the walls, upon the ceiling, in curving archways and fluted porticos, and they took his breath. In his village, the mosque was the largest building – and could have fitted five times into the place where he stood now. It was but a single storey, while this … this reached up into infinity. Or at least to a dark sky where gilded stars twinkled. And though he knew He could not be there, yet he knew Allah was everywhere, and especially in places of beauty. Even here then, perhaps, in this holy place of the infidel.

‘Gulyabani!’ Farouk cursed him with the name of the monstrous. ‘We need your strength. Break this …’

He stopped. Munsif, another member of the squad, had just come through the broken doors. He had someone gripped roughly in each hand – a woman, who squirmed and moaned, and a little girl, no more than five, who stared, terrified, from huge dark eyes.

‘What’s this?’ Farouk said. All work stopped as the men looked up.

‘I found them outside.’ Munsif flung them both forward and they fell onto their knees. ‘Thought they might give us some fun. This one, anyway.’ He kicked the woman, who whimpered.

‘Fun?’ laughed Farouk. ‘By the Prophet’s beard, haven’t you had enough? We must have had five each since we stormed the walls. Except for the giant here, who must be saving himself for his beloved goats.’ He rubbed at his one ear. ‘There’s gold to be made here, you fools. You can buy five gorgeous slaves with that later and fuck them every night till Ramazan.’

‘I haven’t,’ whined Raschid. ‘I haven’t had one. You all go first, just because I am small, and wounded for Allah …’ he held up his burned arm, ‘and then we move on before I have my share.’ He stepped forward. ‘I’ll have her.’

‘Wait,’ said another man, Abdul-Matin, laying down his hammer, rising. ‘I want her.’

‘And I.’

‘And I.’

The whole squad were dropping their tools, standing. Farouk laughed again, shrugging. ‘Ah, youth!’ he said. ‘Well, be quick. There’s other bastards out there who will be rich men ere nightfall and I would be one of them.’

As a pack, they fell on Athene. She screamed, tried to kick out, was engulfed and dragged down the nave to the only bit of furniture still standing in the wreckage, the altar behind its thrown-down screen. Raschid followed, still whining. ‘No! Not again! Let me go first. Hold her for me!’