The Towers of Samarcand (32 page)

Longo waited for the signal to be passed up from the rear that the smoke was ready.

He gave the signal.

The bellows snout was pushed through and the man behind it began to pump. Almost immediately there were cries from the other side as the smoke filled the Turkish tunnel. Longo and his men put wettened cloths to their faces.

The man with the bellows had stopped pumping and was now digging through the rest of the wall-face. The shouts from the other side were getting fainter. Longo came alongside him to help. Soon the hole was big enough to crawl through and one by one the raiding party pushed themselves into the tunnel.

Longo knelt next to the man with the siphon once he was through. Then Marchese took the tinderbox from his belt, opened it and took out the flint, fire steel and tinder. He nodded to the man and they rose and began to move down the tunnel as fast as they were able. It was taller than their own and the wooden props more frequent. Through the smoke, they could hear panic.

Then there was light before them. They were nearing the shaft of the Turkish mine. They could see a torch and the flash of steel ahead through the smoke. Armed men had entered the tunnel to stop them. Longo knelt and gestured for the siphon.
When it was level, he struck the flint against the fire steel and lit the tinder.

A moment later, there was an almighty roar and flames spat out of the siphon’s nozzle, shooting the length of the tunnel. For a second, they lit the terrified face of a man aiming a crossbow. Longo raised his hand and the nozzle was closed. The flames subsided, leaving an avenue of burning props on either side of the mine. ‘Quick!’ he yelled.

Barbi had calculated that they’d have about five minutes before the wood burnt through and the mine collapsed. Five minutes to scatter the guards, spike the cannon and get back through the tunnel. It wasn’t long.

They hurried forward with the cloths still pressed to their faces, their lungs bursting and their eyes streaming with tears. They found the steps and fired a tongue of flame up them to clear any ambush at the top. Then Longo climbed outside and began to pull the first siphon-carrier up behind him. An arrow whistled above his head.

‘Quick!’ he shouted again and scanned the ground for the cannon.

There they were, one on each side of the mineshaft, armed men in front of them. He ducked as another arrow embedded itself in the wattle fence. By now, the second siphon was out and its carrier already opening his tinderbox.

‘When you’re ready …’ shouted Longo, his sword raised. ‘
Now!
’

The two siphons spewed fire and, free from the tunnel, their flames arced high and wide through the darkness, turning men into fireballs on either side. There were more screams. The wicker palisade was alight and a janissary was scrambling towards a water butt when a flaming swing door fell on top of him.

Arrows hissed through the air and one of the siphon-carriers grunted and fell forward. Longo ran to him and pulled the contraption from his back. The siphons still had work to do. It was time to spike the cannon. He turned to the man beside him. He was a young officer of the guard and his eyes shone with the excitement of at last striking back at the enemy. ‘You have the nail?’

‘And the hammer,’ yelled the young man. He turned and beckoned to another, who had struggled into the siphon harness. They rose and ran towards one of the cannon. A moment later, Longo ran to the other. It was dug deep into its pit and resting on a thick cradle of oak. In front of it the swing door and wicker fence lay on their sides, both alight.

The siphon-carrier got down on one knee at the rim of the pit and sprayed flames in a circle to keep any help from coming. Longo jumped into the hole and began hammering his nail into the firing hole of the cannon. It was hard work for the bronze was thick. Then, after several strikes, it split. The cannon was broken.

But it had taken time.

Longo and the soldier pulled themselves out of the hole. Longo shouted, ‘Fire the cradle!’ The man turned, opened his nozzle, and soon the cannon was surrounded by flame. Longo looked across at the other cannon. Its cradle was already alight. Good.

But it has taken too long
.

He glanced over towards the mineshaft. Would they really be able to make it back through the tunnel? It seemed unlikely. He turned to the siphon-carrier. ‘Give it to me.’

The man struggled out of the harness. The canister was hot. Longo took hold of one of the straps and began dragging it towards the mineshaft. ‘Follow me!’

As he approached the shaft, he saw that the young officer and the other siphon-carrier were already there. They were crouched behind piles of bodies, pinned down by arrows.

‘They’re getting closer,’ said the officer as Longo crawled up beside him. A crossbow bolt thudded into the body to his front. ‘We won’t make it back through the tunnel. It’s aflame.’

Longo looked behind him. The shaft’s opening was crimson with fire. He turned back. ‘Get your siphon.’

The young officer rolled his way over to the man with the canister. He cut the straps with his dagger. Moments later he was back with Longo, the siphon beside him. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked. ‘We’re trapped.’

Longo looked above the bodies to his front and saw Turks readying themselves for an assault. ‘They mustn’t get the canisters,’ he said. He was opening his tinderbox. ‘We can use them to hold the bastards off a bit longer then we’ll have to throw them into the mineshaft. And we must do it before the tunnel collapses. Understand?’

The officer nodded. Longo looked at him and smiled. He reminded him of Luke. He turned to his front. ‘Now let’s take some with us.’

Longo lit the nozzle. The young officer did the same. They rose and stood shoulder to shoulder, screaming defiance at the enemy as they hosed it with fire. Their two flames soared into the night and the men before them ran. There were shouts and the clash of metal and a riderless horse suddenly emerged to one side, reared, and galloped away. They sprayed fire until there was no more left to spray. Then Longo turned. There were flames leaping up from the shaft and the heat was intense. It was the mouth of hell.

‘Now!’

The young officer threw his canister into it and Longo followed suit. There was the sound of hoofbeats behind them and they turned once more. A hundred paces to their front, a troop of sipahi cavalry was lining up for the charge, their swords drawn. Longo looked around for a weapon. There was a pike and a crossbow lying on the ground. He chose the pike. ‘Start running for the walls,’ he yelled to the other men. ‘We’ll hold them off for as long as we can.’

He heard hoofbeats and looked at the sipahis, but they hadn’t moved. There were more riders behind them.

We’re surrounded
.

He lifted his pike and spun round, ready for the first lance. The soldiers gathered around him, forming a little ring. The flames from the mineshaft were higher now, and they could see nothing beyond them. They could only hear.

The hoofbeats were getting closer. They might take one or two with them if they were lucky. Longo looked up at the sky.

Fiorenza. Giovanni
.

Now there were shouts. One shout. In Greek.

Horsemen emerged from the night: Dimitri followed by several others. They had bows and big quivers by their sides. Some led horses without riders. Dimitri reined his horse in. ‘Get on the horses and ride!’

His men were already forming a line beyond the mineshaft. They unleashed a volley of arrows at the sipahis. Then another. Longo turned to the wounded man who was sitting by his side. He put his arm around his neck and lifted him. Dimitri was holding a horse. They managed to get him into the saddle but it took time.

‘Quick!’ Dimitri cried. He’d grabbed the reins of another horse and was holding them out to Longo. ‘Get on and ride!’

Longo mounted. He felt the ground shake and heard a low rumble beneath him as if some giant was turning in his sleep. He looked over to the mineshaft and saw a smoke cloud rising into the night sky.

The Turks’ tunnel has collapsed
.

He dug his heels into the sides of his horse and it sprang forward towards the city walls. Dimitri was behind him shouting at the horse archers. He looked up. The city walls were closer than he’d thought they’d be. He could see men lining their ramparts, shouting and waving.

Then Dimitri was by his side. ‘This way!’

Longo turned his horse and saw before him the Romanus Gate, open with archers on its battlements. They unleashed a hail of arrows high into the sky over his head.

‘Come on! We can make it!’ Dimitri was ahead of him, riding low in the saddle. Behind were the horse archers and behind them the sipahis. Arrows were thudding into the ground around him.

He heard a cry to his side and looked over to see the young officer slump forward in his saddle, an arrow in his back. The horse behind him had an empty saddle.

‘Don’t look back!’ yelled Dimitri. ‘You can’t help them!’

The gate was much nearer now. If no arrow hit his horse, or him, he might just make it. He kicked harder.

He looked up at the open gate again. Closer. There was a man in white standing there waving, urging them on.

Plethon
.

More arrows were being fired from the walls now. He heard screams behind him.

I’m going to make it
.

One last kick, one more shouted encouragement into the ear
to his front and he was passing Plethon and galloping through the gate. Men were already pushing it closed behind him. He heard the clatter of hoofs on stone as the horse archers came through. He turned and saw the garrison’s archers run in and the gates close behind them.

I made it
.

It was spring in the Tuscan countryside, yet the couple that rode up to the walls of Florence were dressed as winter and summer.

Plethon and Fiorenza looked like allegories. The philosopher was robed in his usual toga while Fiorenza was dressed in dragon-green damask, every inch the Byzantine princess that she was. He was Father Frost, Old Man Winter: white of hair, beard, toga and horse. She was the early blush of summer, buttercups and ripened corn. People had stood by the side of the road to stare at the strange pair since they’d landed in Italy. They’d stared at them in Naples, in Rome, and all spaces between. Now they were staring at them from the walls of Florence.

Plethon had spent Christmas at Constantinople, thinking it less merry than the one he’d spent in Mistra. The Emperor Manuel had been moody and his court’s new ceremonial hadn’t lent itself to the festive season. And then there’d been Armageddon to think of. The end of the world was apparently nigh.

So it was with some relief that he’d taken ship for Chios in early April in a world that was still intact. With him had
gone Marchese Longo, Dimitri and the engineer Benedo Barbi, who’d done what they’d come to do to the Turkish cannon and whom no amount of Manuel’s flattery would compel to stay in Constantinople. The city was safe until new guns arrived from Venice and who knew when that might be? After all, Chios was still Genoese.

The Turkish galleys in the Propontis had hardly given the Genoese round ship that slipped out of Pera a second glance, minding more about things going in than out. Plethon was surprised to note that there were only half the galleys that there’d been the week before.

It had taken two days for them to get to Chios and two more to decant Dimitri and Barbi and swap Longo for his wife, a good deal of gold and a small army for an escort. They’d then sailed to Methoni and, from there, ridden straight to Mistra.

They’d stayed in Mistra for only a day, Fiorenza befriending the Despoena while Plethon spoke to the Despot. When he’d finished doing that, he’d ridden out of the city with a guard of three Varangians and some spades.

From Mistra, they’d gone back to Methoni, reboarded their ship and crossed the straits to the Italian mainland, landing at the port of Otranto on its southernmost tip.

For Fiorenza, the ride up through the Kingdom of Naples had been a depressing one. Ever since the murder of the childless Queen Joan eighteen years earlier, the country had quivered to the tread of Angevin armies and the once-fertile region of Apulia was a place of derelict fields and beggars. Their Genoese escort had ridden up beside them to shield them from outstretched hands, shaken fists and the curses of people with little left to lose. In Naples they’d met one of the Angevins.

King Ladislaus was of the senior branch and had finally
dislodged Louis of Anjou from his capital the year before. Plethon and Fiorenza had made their reverences and tried not to notice the royal stutter, an inconvenience that had dogged Ladislaus ever since the Archbishop of Arles had tried to poison him ten years before. Life seemed precarious in Naples.

Plethon had explained as they’d ridden out of the city. ‘Ladislaus and Louis are both of the Angevin line,’ he’d said. ‘They both lay claim to the Kingdom of Naples and each is supported by a different Pope: Ladislaus by Rome and Louis by the Antipope in Avignon. This poor kingdom is where the two Popes fight each other by proxy.’

From Naples they’d ridden north to Rome to meet with Pope Boniface and King Sigismund of Hungary, the man who’d commanded half the Christian army at Nicopolis and so nearly turned defeat into victory.

Rome had once been a city of a million souls, the marble centre of the Roman world. Now its inhabitants numbered fewer than twenty thousand and it was a place where wild animals scavenged among the grass that grew beside its ancient ruins. It was a place of riots and anarchy and they’d been obliged to meet in the fortress of Sant’ Angelo where the ashes of Roman emperors lay.

While Fiorenza had tactfully gone to Roman mass, Plethon had met Pope and King in a room without windows. The meeting had been one of reference: oblique, opaque; the vaguest of threat cloaked in mantles of velvet courtesy, the mantles changing colour at a speed that made the change unseen. It had been a dialogue of shadows in which the treasure had been mentioned only once.