Arnau felt his heart rise into his throat along with a considerable quantity of bile.
He stared.
The Venetian fleet was quite simply the largest Arnau had ever seen. In fact, even taking into account the busy port of Barcelona, there were probably three times as many ships out there than he’d ever seen gathered in one place. A number of warships rose high above the fleet, which consisted largely of wide-bellied merchant vessels. Arnau could not imagine how many men and horses a fleet like this could carry. Suddenly the Laskaris brothers’ fears about the strength of the Byzantine forces in the city seemed extremely well founded, even with those units that had been drifting into the city over the last few weeks.
‘How many ships?’ breathed Ramon, more to himself than in any expectation of an answer, though one of the Warings relayed the question to an officer standing at the parapet, who turned, his expression dark.
‘Roughly five hundred, we think, including all the ancillary and supply vessels. Too many, damn the godless dogs.’
Clearly the presence of two Western Christian Templars was not going to prevent the military men of Byzantium from expressing their hatred of the Roman Church’s army that was now at their threshold. Ramon did not seem inclined to take offence, and given everything that had happened, Arnau could quite understand the man’s attitude.
‘They’re getting close to the city,’ Arnau said tensely. ‘Aren’t they worried about the artillery?’ His gaze slipped to the looming shape of a massive bolt thrower on the nearest tower.
‘They’re not officially at war,’ reminded Ramon, but the Byzantine officer rounded on them with anger in his eyes.
‘The dogs were not at war with Zadra when they sacked it and burned it to the ground,’ he snapped.
One of the Warings threw the man a warning look, and then turned to the two Templars. ‘Regardless, it seems that they are not stupid, and are staying just out of range. Only just, though.’
‘May we?’ Ramon asked, gesturing along the wall with an open hand. The Waring nodded and the four men began to hurry along the sea walls, all the time keeping the fleet in sight. Soon it became clear that they were catching up. Their speed on foot along the walls was outpacing the fleet, which was continually reorganising as it approached the narrower channel of the Bosphorus.
They followed the progress of the Venetian fleet for a little more than a mile, all the time closing on it. As they neared the end of the great promontory, the nature of the walls changed. They passed an ancient and impressive church and the lower end of the great circus which, from this low angle, presented a massive arc of brick and marble, topped with a colonnade some fifty feet above the city streets. From here, though, the sprawl was left behind and they reached the region of the imperial palaces. Arnau had been this far before but no further, for there was no civilian access to even the inside of the walls once it passed into the territory of the imperial palace.
‘Where now?’ he asked, gesturing ahead to where the wall came to an abrupt end as it met a grand and decorative seafront palace complex. Instead, the wall marched off inland and uphill, away from the water.
The Waring gestured left. ‘I will lead.’
He hurried off ahead and led them away from the water, where they lost sight of the fleet behind the palace. They moved at a faster pace now, hurrying along in the wake of the two Warings, who pounded tirelessly along the wall walk. Here they passed through an area of elegant and perfect gardens and grand imperial structures. After perhaps five minutes of gently curving back to the right, they descended the slope to the water once more, on the far side of that grand waterfront palace. Here they reached the shore again and rushed to the parapet to peer over.
Arnau stared in shock and horror.
The Venetian fleet had deftly reorganised, the bulk of the transports and supply vessels keeping far from the city walls, closer to the town of Chalcedon across the channel, through which the Templars had passed the day they arrived. Meanwhile, most of the warships among the fleet had formed a moving line along the nearest edge and were already opening hostilities in the most despicable manner.
Unable to reach the walls with their light weaponry, archers and artillerists on board the warships were targeting Byzantine merchants and even poor fishermen, peppering their vessels with deadly missiles. Already sails floating forlornly on the water and the skeletons of ships jutted from the water’s surface like brown creaking bones as they slowly disappeared beneath, holed by Venetian missiles.
The Waring’s earlier comment had clearly been correct, that the wily Venetians were keeping neatly out of the city’s artillery range, for missiles being loosed from the tower tops were uniformly plopping into the water fifty feet short of the nearest hull.
‘What kind of war is this when a Christian ship feels entitled to sink a fishing boat without compunction?’ roared Ramon, gesturing from the wall. The soldiers atop the parapet, who had been eyeing the new arrivals warily, now gave emphatic nods at the outburst, which had been so rancorous and out of character for such a generally good-natured knight that it had quite taken Arnau by surprise.
‘This is no war,’ a nearby officer barked in reply. ‘A war requires a declaration and violence on two sides. This is an atrocity!’
It was Arnau’s turn to nod now. The Venetian fleet, excommunicated by order of the Pope and carrying an army led by another Italian nobleman more intent on interfering in the Byzantine succession than fighting back the borders of Christendom, had been in sight of the city for less than an hour, and already they had begun to display exactly that unchristian horror which had seen them earn the Pope’s ire in the first place.
Arnau was a good Christian, and had been all his life. His belief in the Lord was unshakable, and his trust in Mother Church and her offices total. Now, though, for the first time in his life, he felt doubt. Not in the Lord, for he knew God was eternal and all-powerful, but in the men who ruled the Church in God’s name. How in all honesty could the Pope now condone what was happening? Yes, he had maintained his excommunication of the Venetians, yet he had rescinded that of the Crusaders, putting them at liberty to continue in their unholy campaign with the tacit approval of the Church.
Yes, the Greeks followed a heretical doctrine, and one day they would have to see that this was wrong and fall in line with the true Church, but such things were best done with compassion and understanding, not by the sword. This was against everything good and true. Arnau’s soul screamed out with defiance at what the Crusaders and their Venetian allies were doing. They may not follow the rule of the Latin Church, but they were still Christians and, from what Arnau had seen in those to whom he had spoken, good men and women of true belief.
He found himself unexpectedly making a silent vow not to let the godless Crusaders destroy this holy city. Moreover, the vehemence with which he made the vow took him even more by surprise.
Realising how ridiculous it would sound to say as much out loud, and also how Ramon might react to such a declaration, he kept silent and watched as the last few endangered Byzantine boats were systematically destroyed by the Venetians, their personnel throwing themselves into the water, where they swam for the shore, many picked off by arrows before they could get far from their sinking ships. When the only remaining Byzantine vessels had managed to come safely close to the city walls, away from the warships, the fleet began to move across the channel towards Chalcedon.
Arnau’s heart hardened further against them.
‘Where is the Byzantine fleet at a time like this?’ Ramon growled.
The Waring beside them snorted. ‘What fleet? A century ago or more, this city had a fine navy. Then Stryphnos, the accursed treasurer and admiral, stripped the fleet of anything worthwhile and sold it all off to pad the imperial coffers. What is left of the fleet could hardly stop a barge and sits wallowing in harbours on the Golden Horn.’
Ramon simply grunted again. Such was the short-sightedness of bureaucrats. They watched in silence no
w. The walls here, in good view of the invasion, gradually filled with more and more soldiers coming to watch the activity in the channel.
Over the following hour, the great and the good of the Byzantine military, accompanied by two Templar knights, watched the Venetians land a huge Crusader force at Chalcedon. Anchoring in the town’s sizeable harbour, and all along the neighbouring coastline, the Venetians, their butchery done, simply watched their Frankish passengers ravage, butcher and burn a Byzantine town in full view of the capital.
‘Why do the army here not go to help them?’ Arnau said, stricken, watching plumes of smoke rise from the town opposite as churches, houses and palaces burned, the population flooding out into the countryside to escape the conquering Westerners.
‘You heard Laskaris,’ Ramon reminded him. ‘He doesn’t think they have men enough to save Constantinople, let alone rush to the aid of others. They must sit within the safety of their massive walls. It is a sad rule of war. One cannot sacrifice one’s only advantage to save something that cannot be saved.’
Arnau watched as the sun began to sink and the fires across Chalcedon increased. He suddenly turned to Ramon and spoke in Aragonese Spanish for the first time in what seemed an age, a tongue he was confident only the two of them here understood.
‘I know what we should do, which is to leave and sail for Acre, away from all this and keeping the Order uninvolved. And I know what Bochard would have us do: remain, even in danger of our lives, separate from all this while he does whatever nefarious thing he is here to do with his hunger for relics and his bags of coin…’
Ramon threw a worried glance at him, but offered no argument, so Arnau went on.
‘But what I really, truly want to do is put my sword to every neck in that crusading army for what they’ve done and what they evidently plan yet to do.’
He expected argument from Ramon. He expected recrimination and opposition.
He did not expect a nod.
‘But we are bound by our Rule, Vallbona,’ the older knight said. ‘We must not raise our hand in violence to a Christian brother without the accord of our superior, which we are clearly not going to get here. Bochard would plainly refuse us any involvement.’
‘If we asked him…’
Again, Ramon nodded. ‘But there is an answer, Arnau, my friend. It is Christians we are forbidden to fight. The Venetians conceded all right to that label when they were excommunicated. They are no longer within the protective embrace of Mother Church. And already the Byzantine nobles will be planning their first reprisal. I believe the time has come, Vallbona, for us to speak to the Laskaris brothers.’
Chapter 7: The First Blood
June 26th 1203
The two Templars leaned on the balcony and peered out across the water. Behind them a grand ancient column rose into the blue sky, topped by a bronze statue of some long-gone hero. From here, on the acropolis hill, the highest point near the Bosphorus, the view was excellent, affording a much broader range of vision than the city walls below at the water’s edge. Here they could watch the progress of the crusading army, and the meagre efforts being put in place to counter them.
They had visited the palace two days earlier, after watching the Franks looting and burning Chalcedon, intending to see the Laskaris brothers, but had been halted in their tracks. It seemed that without the preceptor’s authority they would not find easy admittance to the Great Palace, and the two brothers were understandably busy with military affairs.
As such they had returned, impotent and tense, to their apartments in the Blachernae palace. There they had spent the night fretting, relaying to Sebastian all they had seen and not particularly caring that Bochard and his squire were not around.
The next day had brought a visit from Alexios Doukas, the well-informed imperial prisoner. He had been able to tell them a few things of use. Firstly that, to the consternation of everyone with an ounce of sense, the emperor had placed the defence of Constantinople in the hands of Michael Stryphnos, the very man who had effectively destroyed the imperial navy for profit years earlier. According to Doukas, many reasonable voices in the court had called for one of the Laskaris brothers to assume overall command, but the emperor had trusted in his long-time supporter instead.
Doukas had called that decision the first nail in Byzantium’s cross. He had also been able to tell them that Stryphnos was to lead a unit of the finest veteran cavalry in the empire to meet the Franks and demand their withdrawal. The way he spoke suggested that sending Stryphnos as an embassy was much the same as the notion of dispatching Bochard on the same task. He had also explained that if they wanted to see what was happening on the far side of the Bosphorus, the walls were not the best vantage point. That was to be found below the victory column on the acropolis hill.
And so now here they were, watching events unfold.
The imperial ships were reaching the far bank now. Far from the great warships and transports the empire had once commanded, these were three fat-bellied merchant vessels commandeered in port for the occasion. They had left Galata on this side of the Golden Horn half an hour ago, having loaded their cargo in the dawn’s half-light and sailed out towards Scutari on the far shore, loaded with men and horses.
Scutari. Apparently the town’s name had something to do with a shield, though it had not provided much protection for the empire. With Chalcedon a burning ruin behind them, the Crusaders and their accompanying Venetian fleet had set off up the coast the next morning, in full view of the watchers in the city. There they had reached the small town of Scutari and repeated their destruction and rapine there. The only saving grace was that many of the town’s occupants had fled during that first night, fearing precisely this. Now the Franks were encamped on the edge of Scutari, directly opposite Galata.
And Stryphnos was on his way with his cavalry to parley.
The two knights stood and peered off up the channel, towards the distant roofs of Scutari just visible around a bulging hilly headland on the far shore. Columns of smoke still rose into the morning sky from the second scene of Crusader violence, and the Venetian fleet lay at anchor over a mile or so of coastline up from the burning town. The camp of the Franks was mostly hidden behind the headland, though the nearest edge crowned the hill below which Stryphnos and his cavalry were even now disembarking.
‘I cannot see the Franks agreeing to turn around and head home now,’ Arnau said with a sigh.
Ramon nodded. ‘Things have advanced too far. They might still be bought off and sent on their way – the Venetians are avaricious, after all – but I am not convinced the emperor would be able to meet their price. After all, they have a pet emperor with them. If they can put him on the throne, they can squeeze him for every gold hyperpyron in the treasury. How can the current emperor top that?’
Arnau grunted. He couldn’t, and they all knew it. What Stryphnos hoped to achieve here he had no idea. Expecting little, they watched the cavalry emerge from the ships and assemble on the far shore, close to the water and at the bottom of the hill. Simultaneously, the camp at the summit burst into life.
An entire tourma of Byzantine horse were gathering – the better part of five hundred cavalry. They were visible at this distance only as a silvery mass moving like a murmuration of birds. No individuals could be made out, much less their leader, though Arnau could see what the cavalry were. During the weeks of wandering the Blachernae and the city walls, he had seen enough of the imperial military to be able to identify these men. They were the kataphraktoi – the heaviest horse upon which the empire could call. Far more dangerous than the lightly armed and armoured skirmishers and horse archers, and heavier even than the mailed koursore heavy cavalry, the kataphraktoi were clad in steel from head to toe, and the same applied to their mounts. Arnau had seen them at practice and had been impressed. He’d certainly not want to meet them on the battlefield.
He fancied he could almost hear the distant honk of horns, and moments later the tourma of steel-clad riders
moved off in formation, stomping off up the slope towards the crest and the nearest edge of the Crusader camp.
The two Templars observed tensely, wondering what the Frankish response would be. Arnau found himself gritting his teeth as he watched that silvery mass flowing up the slope like a waterfall in reverse. His gaze was then drawn upwards and he noted with a catch in his breath figures emerging from the edge of the Crusader camp.
If Stryphnos still held hopes of negotiation, then he was clearly about to have them dashed. These figures were mounted, and they were no Frankish noblemen come to parley. They gleamed, and were gathered into a fighting unit. Again, they were much too far away to make out more than the general size. Arnau put it at perhaps a quarter of the size of Stryphnos’s tourma.
He watched and waited. What would the Franks do? Less than a hundred horse was not enough to threaten the five hundred strong tourma, but with an entire camp of Crusaders behind them and apparently no intent to negotiate…
Arnau blinked. The Franks were on the move. Incredulously, he watched, heart thumping now, as fewer than a hundred Frankish knights began to charge down the slope towards the vastly superior force below.
‘Are they mad?’ Arnau breathed.
‘Fearless and greedy,’ Ramon replied. ‘Much the same thing in the end. Stryphnos actually has a chance here.’
‘He does?’
‘The Crusaders have thus far met no real resistance. They are riding the crest of a wave and because of that they are supporting the insidious designs of the Venetian doge. Stryphnos is at a disadvantage in that he is moving up the slope, but still he outnumbers the Franks by more than four to one. If he can break those Crusaders, it will be the first defeat they have encountered. It will make them think, might make them reconsider. It will certainly make them less sure of themselves. But it has to be decisive. He has to show them that the empire can protect itself.’
Arnau nodded. The weight of numbers certainly should compensate for the terrain, though something about it nagged at him. The Frankish knights were thundering down now, a cascade of steel droplets.
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