Constantinopolis (17 page)

The Captain had received a huge sum of gold from the treasury with which to pay the men and secure the ships. He stood to make a personal fortune from the expedition, regardless of the result. He was prepared to sail in the next several days. He had some grain, gold, powder, and the ships and men for the city. All he was required to do was unload the provisions and men, and drive any Turkish fleet away. The Turks had not had a fleet of any significance in his memory, so he was not worried about that part of his orders. The greatest concern would be passing the narrow straights at the Dardanelles. The Ottomans controlled the land on both sides and if there was insufficient wind, he might lose a portion of his fleet running the narrow channel before the Sea of Marmara opened up again.

Uberti observed a rider coming down to the quay. He was dressed in the livery of the Senate of Venice. A messenger. The rider dismounted and quickly made his way up the gangway on onto his galley. When he saw Uberti he bowed low.

“What may I do for you?”

“A message from the Senate my Lord, for your eyes only.”

“Give it here.” Uberti took the note and read it quickly. The Senate had received word from John Hunyadi that he was gathering an army and would be proceeding south to attack the Turks while they were busy laying siege to Constantinople. The Senate was concerned that the Hungarians might capture all of Europe if they were successful, and potentially gain control of the trade routes from the Black Sea. The Pope, however, wanted action and the Venetians must be sensitive to the political situation in Italy. Therefore Uberti was to proceed with his fleet to Constantinople, but not too quickly. The Senate was cancelling the second phase of the operation. Uberti knew a second and more substantial fleet was planned for the summer. His fleet was designed to reinforce, not necessarily to conquer. The Commander was to conduct a tour of Greek Islands, stopping at several ports with the appearance of adding additional forces and provisions. The real purpose was to slow down the reinforcement.

Uberti understood the point immediately. If the Hungarians were defeated by the Turks, or at least badly damaged, they would not be in a position to dominate the Balkans and the trade routes. Then they would need the Genoese and Venetians to assist them in defending their gains, and so would the Greeks. The status quo would remain, with the Italians dominating trade. If the Turks were eliminated as a factor in the meantime, so much the better. If not, they had dealt with the Turks for a century and had only been made richer for the effort. The Turks needed them and always would.

Uberti shook his head. He was sick of the perfidy and infighting of his Italian brethren. He saw the Turks as the primary threat to his people. Right now the Venetians and others were playing the Greeks and the Hungarians against each other as they had for a century. But the Greeks were almost gone as a buffer and the Hungarians were not far behind. When these buffers were gone, then who would stop the Turks? They would be at their door and the Italians were divided and weak, relying on their fleets and mercenaries rather than their own internal strength.

What should he do? Could he refuse these orders? What if he did? Someone else would immediately take the fleet over and he would be dismissed, or even worse. He could ignore the orders and rush to Constantinople. Could his 2,000 men make the difference against tens of thousands of Turks? Even if he could, what would be the benefit to him? He would still be punished and perhaps many of his men with him. There was little he could do about it. He would make his money, and when the time came he would be in a position to flee to greener pastures or bluer seas.

“Do you understand the instructions?”

“Yes I do.”

“I was required to assure that you read and fully understood the instructions. I do not know the content of this message but I was told if you dispute the orders, you are to return to the Senate house with me.”

“I understand the instructions and I will follow them. It will not be the first time I have followed orders I do not agree with. You may tell the Senate I am their humble servant as always.”

He thanked the messenger and dismissed him. He then turned and spoke with several of his key crew members, ordering an immediate forty eight hour furlough for the men. Let them rest up, no need to rush now. He watched the rider depart back to the Senate, and prayed that in the coming years there would still be a Senate to return to.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 18, 1453

Constantine stood on the city walls near Blachernae with Notaras, Sphrantzes and Giovanni. They looked out over the massive Ottoman camp. The rotting corpses of the Greeks still stood staked in the ground on the two ridges and the Lycus valley before him.

Constantine remembered standing in this same place only nine days before, watching the terrible impalement play out. The men were quiet, speechless, as the agonizing screams of the captured Greeks floated over the valley to them.

They had stood for more than an hour, watching. They were previously informed by messenger what was occurring and they had rushed from various parts of the city to the command tower. When they arrived, about half of the Greeks were already fully impaled and hanging in the air. They had watched the Turks cruelly impale the remaining prisoners. Giovanni, who was unused to the Turks’ brutality and had never seen an impalement, had run to the end of the tower facing the city and vomited.

Constantine had much experience with the Turks, having fought them on a number of occasions, particularly in the ancient Greek mainland and the Peloponnesus. While he had made much of the impalement, he knew the Turks were not particularly barbaric. The Romans and their successors the Greeks had employed beheadings, torture and even crucifixion regularly with not only enemies but their own people. The sophistication of his people had not reduced their cruelty, but rather enhanced it, giving it a mathematical and scientific edge.

Constantine had been somewhat surprised that Mehmet had resorted to impalement. He felt the decision showed his youth and was nothing if not counterproductive to the Sultan’s cause. The people in the city were horrified, terrified. The word had spread throughout Constantinople that this is what could be expected if the Turks won the day. The impalements had strengthened, not weakened, the resolve of the people. Mehmet probably thought he would scare the city into subjugation. He had badly miscalculated. The true tragedy of the situation was the agonizing loss of life. Constantine knew the two villages of Therapia and Studius well. He had visited them each multiple times and even knew some of the people personally. They were all dead, and these few unlucky souls had died even more terribly in front of him.

This terror had shaken them all badly, but also given them even more resolve. And in the past week, this resolve had even turned to hope. The initial moves of the Sultan had been played out, and the city showed no evidence of falling, even of bending. Constantine had been shocked by the appearance of the huge Turkish navy, and feared the city might be crushed immediately, but other than potentially cutting off future aid, thus far the fleet was impotent. Notaras’s insistence that the sea boom be rebuilt had cut off the most vulnerable part of the city from the Sultan, and the recent attack on the sea boom was an unqualified defeat for the Sultan. Notaras, with the sea chain and his tiny fleet, appeared able to keep the Turks at bay indefinitely.

Perhaps even more importantly, the cannon had thus far had no impact on the city walls. Constantine had learned through Sphrantzes that the main cannon had cracked at the first shot. The opening volley of cannon balls had made little impact on the city walls. He was not sure if the Sultan was giving up on the cannon, or just waiting to repair the behemoth, but its silence had to be discouraging to the Sultan. Of course, one volley did not make a siege. Constantine had little experience with siege cannon but Giovanni had assured him that it was not a matter of if they would break the walls, but when.

That fact would have left Constantine hopeless except that Giovanni assured him that a breach was not the end of the world. So long as the Greeks and Italians could keep a fast mobile reserve in position with well-armed, elite men, they could plug the hole and wait until darkness to rebuild the wall with wooden palisades. Additionally, even if the Turks were able to break through the outer wall, they would still have to breach the larger, taller inner wall. Although Constantine did not have the forces to guard this wall effectively, there still was no easy way into the city once the outer wall was breached. Men could be rushed to the point of attack, and also mount the inner wall to rain arrows and gunfire down on the attacking force. In some ways, a breach of the outer wall placed the attacking force in an even more dangerous position, because of the tall inner walls. A series of small doors, well hidden at angles, allowed Constantine and his men to appear as if from thin air to attack anyone who breached the outer wall.

After almost two weeks of the siege, Constantine felt a confident and calming peace. At this point, every day was a miracle, and God had already given the Emperor twelve. He hoped that if the city could hold out a few more weeks, or at the longest a few months, the Turks would leave and perhaps Mehmet would be discouraged for years to come. Constantine had plans to rebuild the Greek military forces from the islands and the Moria, and to use the new alliance with Rome to cobble together a crusade of Italians, Greeks and Hungarians to hit Mehmet from Constantinople in the South and from Hungary in the North. If Hunyadi came immediately, as Constantine had requested, they might even be able to attack during the siege itself. There was every possibility, given enough time to plan, that the Turks would be pushed back and weakened in Europe, if not driven out entirely. Millions of enslaved Greeks would be freed. The power of the Empire could be restored. He could marry Zophia.

Zophia. He was looking at the end of the world, or possibly the beginning and his thoughts always returned to Zophia. He had not spoken with her since he revealed the marriage embassy to Georgia. He had attempted to send her notes, gifts, everything. He could send men and have her summoned to the palace, but he knew that would get him nowhere, and would exacerbate the problem.

She was so stubborn. Did she not realize he needed her so badly? This siege was tearing him apart. The city teetered between destruction and salvation, sometimes by the minute. He could not sleep. He felt exhausted, his nerves frayed. He also felt an unexpected excitement. Battling for his life and the life of his people carried a thrill he had never experienced before. He needed to share these thoughts with her, to be with her, love her, sleep by her side. He always slept so much better in her bed, as if she protected him in some way he had never been able to understand. But he knew she would not see him. She was stronger than any person he had ever met. For her, there were no gray areas, there was only right and wrong. She might forgive without forgetting his decision to push through the Union of churches, but she would never be with him while he was seeking betrothal with another woman, regardless of the reason. For Zophia, he was hers alone, or she would not have him at all.

Constantine saw a sudden flash from the Turkish line, then another and another. He felt a rumbling vibration through the floor of his tower and then heard a tremendous series of explosions. The cannon! The giant cannon had been finally repaired was being fired again. He looked out to assess the walls and was horrified to see a breach in the outer wall. They had breached the wall! The Turks were screaming loudly in excitement and began streaming forward sending arrows at the inner wall and rushing toward the city with weapons raised. Constantine had hoped the Foss, the huge outer ditch, would continue to serve as a factor in the fight but it had not. The Turks - at considerable loss of life from arrows and musket fire from the walls - had worked day after day and had filled in small sections of the ditch. The Foss still served as a bottleneck point, where men had to slow down to make their way across the narrow sections that were filled in, but it no longer was a true barrier to the wall.

As Constantine watched, this was exactly what was happening. Men were jamming together at three or four points on the Foss and working their way across. Once they reached the near side they were rushing forward toward the breach in the wall, screaming with weapons raised. Some stopped to fire arrows over the wall or at Greek archers at the outer wall. The defenders were killing a number of the Turks, particularly as they moved closer to the breach, but there were soon hundreds of Ottomans past the Foss, and they were all running as quickly as possible to gain the breach in the wall.

Constantine turned to Giovanni who was already shouting commands. He sent as many archers forward as possible and they began raining arrows down on the advancing Turks, killing many and pinning them down outside the hole, at least for the moment. The Turks were also charging with tall siege ladders, slamming them up against the walls and attempting to climb up and over. Archers shot Turks as they attempted to climb, but they themselves were also shot off the wall by Turkish arrows fired below.

Constantine felt an enormous rumble and was knocked to the hard ground of the tower. He pulled himself up and looked out. A cannon ball had struck the base of the inner wall. Several men standing near Constantine had been blown out of the tower by the concussion of the cannonball, and had fallen to their death below.

Constantine felt pain in his head and placed a finger on his forehead, coming away with blood. His ears rang and he was having difficulty concentrating. What was happening? A few volleys of the cannon and his walls were disappearing? Why had the first volley so many days ago done almost no damage? He realized now with horror that he had been lucky the first time, that the walls could not stand up in the long term to the cannon. They could be breached. He was also terrified to realize that the Turks were coming, that the outer wall had already been breached and they must defend against the surge of Turks or they might soon break into the city itself.