by Sean Munger
The large table concealed a stunningly detailed scale model of the city. When it had risen into place, Artabasdos secured the winch and the Emperor sat casually down at the head of the miniature Constantinople, the lord pondering over his domain. I bent down to examine the model. Every building was reproduced with exact precision. The Palace was complete with miniature gardens and stables. The Forum of Constantine was a neat circle with a needle protruding from its center. The land and sea walls marched in jagged impenetrable rows around the perimeter of the capital. There were small paper flags of various colors sticking up out of many towers on the land wall side, and I surmised that these represented military units.
“Brother Stephen,” said the Emperor, after we were all seated around the table. “What is it that these ghouls want?”
“Human flesh, Sire,” I replied.
“Would you say they’re good at detecting human flesh? I understand that when you came through the cistern, you and Panteugenos’s archers did battle with numerous ghouls who sloshed through the sewers to get to you. At the palace we too observed the phenomenon of ghouls massing in one direction or another, moving toward the greatest concentration of live human beings. It seemed they could see or smell their desired prey through walls and across great distances. Would you agree with that?”
“I would, Sire.”
Leo stroked his chin. He was staring at the model but I couldn’t tell exactly what he was looking at. Finally he said, “The ghouls, mindless and thoughtless as they are, appear to be driven by convenience. They pursue only the prey that’s easiest for them to reach. Say you have a group of ten ghouls on a street. You, Brother Stephen, and you, Brother Theophilus, are standing at opposite ends of the street equidistant from the pack of ghouls. You, Brother Theophilus, take ten steps backwards, meaning that Brother Stephen is now ten feet closer to the ghouls than you are. I would expect to see the ghouls turn en masse toward Stephen and away from you. Does that stand to reason?”
“I don’t know if it’s capable of being reduced to such a simple formula,” said Theophilus, the first time he’d spoken during our entire interview with the Emperor.
“Well, why shouldn’t it be? The ghouls are incapable of rational thought. Their senses exist only for the purpose of finding fresh human meat to consume. Since they can’t think, they would have no reason to choose to pursue you, who’s farther away, as opposed to Stephen, who’s closer and more accessible. Granted, it would make sense if there were, say, two humans twenty feet away as opposed to one human ten feet away, that the pack might reverse direction and head for the greater concentration of potential prey even though it might be farther away, or they might still opt to pursue the closer prey—but if we concern ourselves with questions of that nature, we’ll soon be debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The point I’m making is, we can be reasonably certain that ghouls will always pursue the greater mass of people that’s closer to them and easiest to reach, correct?”
Artabasdos said, “What have you in mind, my liege?”
The Emperor rose slightly from his chair and began to make gestures in the air over the model, his fingers evidently representing lines of troops that might well exist only in his head.
“We send our troops out into the city. They go street by street, house by house, herding the people who are still left alive to a predetermined evacuation route. Our troops engage the ghouls only as much as necessary to protect the civilians to the greatest extent possible. We bring the mass of Constantinople’s survivors to one of the main gates in the walls and escort them outside. Then we seal all the gates, thus locking the ghouls inside the city.”
“The casualties would be frightful,” said Gabriel Camytzes.
“There will be heavy casualties no matter what we do. We give the troops strict orders to leave behind all the dead, all the wounded. Only able-bodied soldiers and civilians who haven’t been bitten by ghouls will be permitted into the sanctuary beyond the walls. We keep the survivors penned up there, surrounded by a row of siege towers.”
“But the survivors will be beleaguered by masses of ghouls just the same as they would be anywhere else,” Theophilus protested.
The Emperor replied, “Not if we deploy a counterweight.”
I was puzzled. “A what?”
“A counterweight. We need a large mass of human beings which outnumbers our troops and the surviving civilians, and is closer to the ghouls as the crow flies. We also need to make sure this mass is physically separated from the ghouls. If we kept this mass, for instance, concentrated up here, in the Blachernae Quarter, with the city walls between themselves and the ghouls—and if that mass is closer to the ghouls than the body of civilians and our own troops that are proceeding with the evacuation—the majority of the ghouls will be attracted to the Blachernae Quarter, away from where the evacuation is taking place. There may be some stragglers still attracted to the evacuation, but our troops can deal with them as they approach. It’s a classic diversion tactic. Split our forces, tempt the enemy into following a decoy that they can’t reach, while ferrying the vulnerable portion of your host to relative safety.”
“Where will we get such a large mass of human beings?” asked Michael Camytzes. “And how do we get them outside the city walls?”
“We already have it,” the Emperor replied. “And it’s already outside the walls.”
The rest of us seemed to get it at the same moment. I said, “We’re going to use Maslama’s army as the counterweight.”
“Precisely!” The Emperor’s eyes flickered with the contemplation of impending glory. “Right now the Saracen troops are fighting pitched battles with the ghouls out there beyond the walls. Once the Mohammedans have eradicated them, Maslama will certainly draw his surviving troops back into a concentrated body. When I make peace with him this afternoon, I’ll suggest that he amass his forces up here near the Golden Horn. Then I’ll release our troops from the wall towers into the city to round up our civilians. Maslama keeps the ghouls relatively concentrated up in this northwest corner of the city, while we get our people out down here in the southwest corner, perhaps through the Golden Gate. Then Maslama brings his troops the long way around the western side of the city to link up with our forces, and together with the Saracens we form a solid cordon of soldiers that will march the mass of Constantinople’s surviving civilians several miles to the west—far enough away so the ghouls can’t smell them anymore—while the ghouls themselves remain locked safely inside the city.”
Eutropius looked chagrined. “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” he said, “I’m not certain that abandoning our capital to the ghouls is any less viable an option that simply surrendering to the Saracens. Either way the Empire will be lost.”
“And the ghouls will get out eventually,” Gabriel Camytzes cautioned. “As strong as the walls and gates are, the ghouls will eventually overrun them. Given enough time and left to their own devices they could probably climb over the walls.”
Artabasdos spoke next. “And what’s to say that Maslama won’t take advantage of the situation? You’re talking about delivering the entire remaining civilian population of Constantinople directly into his hands. Even if we succeed in evacuating Constantinople, Maslama can then exact any ransom he wants from us—including the unconditional surrender of the Byzantine Empire—by merely threatening to order his troops to turn their swords on the civilians.”
Leo sat back in his chair, casually crossed one leg over the other, and raised a hand as if batting the criticisms out of the air like gnats. “Gentlemen, calm yourselves. I certainly have no intention of permanently abandoning Constantinople. I agree that would be an act of madness, and in any event we must endeavor to destroy the ghouls instead of simply penning them up. There is another part of my plan.” He pointed at me. “Brother Stephen said he believed that ghouls will gravitate toward human flesh wherever it is. I think he’s right. When Maslama marches our people away from the city, beyond the range o
f the ghouls’ sensitivity, there will be a small handful of humans—maybe even just one or two—remaining alive inside the walls. They’ll be together in one specific place, an area with a perimeter large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of ghouls. Say, maybe—” the Emperor tapped the building on the model, “—the Hippodrome.”
It made sense to me. “All the ghouls in the city will converge on the last remaining prey.”
“Then we can destroy them.”
“With what?” Gabriel Camytzes asked.
The Emperor shrugged as if this question was trivial. “I was thinking of Greek fire. But I’m open to suggestions.”
“How do we deploy it?”
“While we’re evacuating our people, we line the Hippodrome with drums of Greek fire, all connected together with fuses. Enough to incinerate the entire lot of them. The human bait in the center will light the master fuse at the appropriate time. The Greek fire ignites the greatest fireball in the history of the world, and poof—the ghouls are sent back to Hell en masse with a minimum of Byzantine casualties.”
“You mean the human bait,” said Theophilus.
“Not necessarily,” said Leo. “In order for this to work, the bait has to be kept alive at the center of the Hippodrome long enough for the evacuation to take place and the ghouls to congregate around them. We construct a small impregnable bunker in the very center of the arena. If it’s strong enough to keep the ghouls out for a period of days, it might be strong enough to protect the occupants from the intense blast of the Greek fire going off. It’s a long shot, but at least it’s a chance.”
I didn’t think it sounded like very much of one. Somebody’s going to have to volunteer for a suicide mission, I thought. But since we’re all going to die anyway, does it matter?
“I’m still concerned about the Saracens,” said Artabasdos. “Even if you can get Maslama to agree to help us, once the ghouls are destroyed, he stands to lose nothing by holding our people for ransom, or perhaps simply massacring them. Constantinople will be his for the taking, empty of people and undefended by Byzantine troops. He couldn’t dream of an easier or more complete victory.”
“I have an idea or two about that,” replied the Emperor. “But leave that up to me. What do we need to put this plan into motion?”
“Lots of troops,” said Gabriel Camytzes.
“Then you’ll be in charge of coordinating them,” the Emperor decreed.
“We’ll need a lot of Greek fire,” said Gabriel’s son.
“You have my express order to commandeer every drop of it you can possibly find. Start by visiting the troops in the wall towers and requisitioning their stocks.”
“We need bricklayers and stonemasons to build the bunker for the bait,” said Eutropius.
“Get on it, then.”
“First and foremost,” Artabasdos spoke up, “we need a truce with Maslama, don’t we? Without his cooperation this plan can go nowhere.”
“Exactly right.” I was completely unprepared when the Emperor motioned to Theophilus and myself. “We’ll send the two monks to secure that.”
“What?” I gasped.
“Who else would you have me send? I certainly can’t go. After we double-crossed him last time, Maslama certainly won’t trust any of the usual envoys, including Eutropius or Artabasdos. But he’d think twice before slaughtering two helpless monks traveling under a flag of truce.”
“Your Majesty,” I protested, “I’m certainly not a diplomat—”
“You need not be. All you have to do is carry my message to Maslama and bring his reply back to me. Brother Stephen, we all must do our parts. God has chosen us to deliver our people from evil. The Byzantine Empire is out there waiting for us to save it, if we can.” The Emperor stepped over to me and patted my shoulder. “Besides, after all the ghouls you and Theophilus have destroyed, negotiating with Maslama should be child’s play by comparison.”
Four hours later Theophilus and I found ourselves in a small boat drifting through the Water Gate of Bucoleon Harbor toward the Sea of Marmara that was filled with the Saracens’ blockading ships. A large white flag, marked with a message hastily scrawled in Arabic, hung from a pole lashed to the front of the boat. Because the Emperor could spare none of his guards to escort us into the Saracen lines, Nicetas and Zonaras had volunteered to accompany us. They wore their armor but brought no weapons. They rowed the boat slowly and cautiously. The rolled-up parchment containing the Emperor’s message to the Saracen commander was hidden in my cassock. I swallowed hard as I realized this piece of paper was the only thing standing between me and swift execution by a Saracen scimitar, or perhaps a lifetime of slavery under their yoke.
“Which ship should we steer toward?” Nicetas asked me.
“I’ve no idea. They all look the same to me.”
It was late afternoon now, the sun poised to begin its descent toward the hazy smoke-filled horizon. From the viewpoint of the water, Constantinople did not seem to be in visible distress. Many of the fires on our side of the wall, whose smoke plumes we’d observed from the dome of St. Sofia, were now out. With the tall sturdy Sea Walls blocking our view of the streets the carnage that must have filled them was invisible to us. Artabasdos and the Emperor had decided to send their white-flag envoy by boat because reaching the Land Walls on the other side of the capital would have meant a long bloody trek through streets we presumed were largely controlled by the ghouls. Theophilus and I had already made that journey once. Time, Leo impressed upon us, was of the essence. The longer it took to reach Maslama and gain his assent to the Emperor’s plan, the more people would die and the greater the numbers of the ghouls that would eventually have to be exterminated.
“Their ships are awfully quiet,” said Zonaras, noticing, as I had, that there was very little activity on or around them. Their green crescent banners fluttered in the wind and we could see a few dark dots of men on deck, but the ships themselves were motionless. “Why aren’t they taking part in the battle against the ghouls?”
“Probably not much they can do from out here,” Nicetas replied. “I could see why they might want to deploy a few ships along the shoreline to help, but they’d want to keep the blockade in place in case our forces tried to evacuate the city by sea.”
Theophilus, shading his eyes from the sun, suddenly pointed. “Look, there!” he cried.
A small boat, lowered from one of the Saracen ships, was rowing toward us. Several figures, their helmets and chain mail glinting in the sun, were on board. In a few moments we started to hear the shouting of the Saracens’ gruff voices. I saw a puff of smoke rise from the boat, then another—there were archers aboard, lighting their arrows, no doubt aiming at us.
“Stop rowing!” I told the soldiers. “Everybody, put your hands up. Let them come to us.”
Our boat bobbed and drifted in the choppy waters. One of the Saracens shouted something but it was in Arabic and thus unintelligible to me.
The Emperor had made Theophilus and I memorize a few Arabic words; this was how we found out it was true he was fluent in that tongue. Theophilus cried through cupped hands, “Hoodna! Hoodna!” (Truce!)
The Saracen boat neared. There were six or seven archers, their bows ready to let loose. One gray-haired man in chain mail and a green turban seemed to be the leader. He kept shouting back at us but whatever it was I couldn’t understand. I held my hands up. I dreaded the thought of seeing one of those flaming arrows arcing toward me. Somehow the idea of being killed by the Saracens while on a mission of truce seemed more cosmically tragic than being torn to death by the ghouls or burned alive down in the cistern.
“Hoodna!” shouted Theophilus again.
Finally the gray-haired man hollered something in Greek, though it was heavily accented. “What is plan?”
“What?”
The boat was now about twenty feet away. “Your flag,” said the gray-haired man, pointing to the banner on our bow. “It say, ‘Truce, Emperor has plan to destroy devils.�
� What is plan?”
So that’s what it means. The Emperor had painted it himself.
I cupped my hands and cried, “We’re allowed to tell only Maslama himself!”
“No more Greek tricks!” shouted the gray-haired man. “Your Emperor—liar!”
“This isn’t a trick, I swear. We’re unarmed. I bear a personal message from the Emperor to your commander.”
The gray-haired man looked back at the men in his boat. There followed an animated conversation in Arabic between him and another man who stood behind the archers. During the brief exchange, the smoldering tips of the arrows never wavered in their aim. The Saracens’ boat rose and fell on the water, but the archers compensated perfectly. These were well-trained men of war.
If I were the Saracen commander, I thought, I wouldn’t trust us either. How many times has Leo double-crossed them since the siege began? And they must be even madder now, knowing that we introduced the pestilence of the ghouls into their lines.
Finally the gray-haired man looked over at us. “Okay,” he shouted. “But any trick, you all die.”
They came alongside us, threw a rope onto our boat and the gray-haired man, accompanied by two fierce-eyed Saracen warriors, clambered aboard. They frisked Theophilus and myself. Finding no swords or daggers, the gray-haired man motioned to the two of us and then to his own boat. He put his hand out in front of Nicetas and Zonaras. “Soldiers—no come,” he said. I nodded, and then Theophilus and I began to transfer awkwardly to the enemy’s boat. My heart was pounding. As soon as I sat down in the prow of their boat, one of the warriors drew a long curved dagger and held it at my throat. I made a point to keep my hands folded and in view.
“We’ll wait for you by the Bucoleon Gate,” Nicetas called to us as the Saracens began to row away from the truce boat.
“Good luck!” Zonaras added. “God be with you.”
So, with knives to our necks, the Saracens brought us toward the shore beyond the Land Walls. As we drew closer, I started to smell the acrid reek of burning flesh. Perhaps their battles with the ghouls have been as desperate and bloody as ours, I thought. Even sitting there in the boat, though, part of me was amazed and sobered to be face-to-face with our enemies. As fearsome as they seemed to us, as blasphemous and offensive as our patriarchs thundered that infidel Mohammedanism was in the sight of God, these men surrounding us were people like any other. The soldier holding the knife to my throat looked to be younger than I was. I wondered how many of his friends had already been food for the ghouls.