Arnau and Ramon exchanged glances and nodded, both hurrying to the stairs of the main tower with Sebastian in tow while Constantine began throwing out orders, sending his depleted forces into the best positions around the walls.
Moments later, the Templars emerged onto the main tower’s flat roof, where a catapult sat idle, ten baskets of heavy rocks waiting nearby. The only other figures here were the artillerists, for the tower was surrounded by the curtain wall and backed onto the water. It would only come under attack if the main fortress fell.
Arnau watched nervously as the various units under Stryphnos’s command moved through the streets of Galata, heading for the open ground on the slope below the Crusaders’ hilltop camp. The entire notion was suicidal, clearly. Even spread out as they were on their approach, Arnau could see how small the Byzantine force was compared to the army atop the hill in its sprawling fortifications.
‘Do they stand any chance at all?’ he murmured.
‘No,’ Ramon said wearily. ‘Barring the intervention of the Lord himself, those men are the walking dead. Joshua himself and all the horns in the Israelite army could not turn this into a victory. Stryphnos is clearly determined to see his city fall.’
The older knight turned to the men behind him. ‘If I were you, I would load that catapult. I think its time is nigh.’
Arnau watched, a cold ball of hopelessness and anger settling in the pit of his stomach. In minutes the Byzantine forces were emerging from the far side of the settlement of Galata and forming into a solid block. It would look impressive and strong were it not for the fact that Arnau knew how many men they were arrayed against. Along the wall, Sebastian peered out nervously, sword gripped tight in one hand, icon in the other.
‘You will be safe,’ Arnau said, hoping to sound reassuring. ‘You will not die here, Sebastian.’
‘I know,’ was all the young squire said, a bead of blood forming where the edge of the icon had bitten into his palm.
The Templars’ worst fears were quickly borne out. Even as the infantry force of Byzantium began to march up the hill, horn calls were going out across the Crusader camp. Horses were moving and masses of men forming up. During those first few moments, as the Byzantines covered perhaps a quarter of the distance, sufficient manpower to withstand them was easily gathered.
Half the distance now, the infantry sweating and tiring, marching up the hill. Arnau closed his eyes for a moment as more horns blared and Franks began to issue forth from their camp.
‘Lord of might, look down upon us. May the bright angel Michael bring both sword and shield to aid these men and overcome the aggressor. Jesu have mercy.’
‘I fear the Lord and his angels all have turned their face from this land,’ Ramon said, bleakly.
Arnau opened his eyed and felt his gorge rise at what he saw.
Impressively, the Byzantines continued to stomp resolutely up the slope. Outside the Crusader camp, a force of horsemen had gathered. The gleam from their armour spoke clearly of their individual strength, and in terms of numbers there would near parity. Behind them, infantry were forming up and units of archers were pulling out to the sides and slamming their arrows in a line, point-down into the turf for ease of access.
Stryphnos was insane.
Some call went up from the Byzantine force and the infantry broke into a run. In response horns blared up the slope, and the heavy horse of the Frankish army began to race down the hill to meet them.
Arnau forced himself to continue watching, for all he wanted to turn his face away from this disaster. It came as little surprise when whole Byzantine units faltered and turned, breaking from the force and fleeing. Unlike those cavalry on that first day or the emperor’s army on that same hill, these were not ordered soldiers retreating from the field on the command of their general. These were panicked men routing against orders, yet this was the first time Arnau could understand and even support such an act. To stay would be to die.
He watched, sickened, as the officers led their men against that wall of cavalry flowing down the hill. He closed his eyes in another momentary prayer for mercy, and opened them as the two forces met. The instant carnage and destruction was almost total. The Crusader horse hit the Byzantine infantry like a runaway wagon against a rotten fence. They simply rode down many of the men, churning them under pounding hooves with little need for weapons. Here and there lances would pierce men, lifting them from the ground and transfixing them before the shaft broke and they disappeared, dying in agony beneath the press.
The Byzantine army broke. Fully half their number had perished in that initial charge with no appreciable harm coming to the Franks. The imperial troops were running now, making for the illusory safety of the houses and streets, fleeing for the Galata tower and the ferries. Others peeled off, racing for the coast upstream in the hope they might reach the bridge that would carry them back across the upper reaches of the Golden Horn.
The enemy horse dispersed into a melee, some halting and resting after their charge, others pursuing groups of fleeing Byzantines, intent on slaughter. Arnau’s eyes slid up from the disaster to the hill, and noted with a sinking heart the infantry and archers already moving. As though the Byzantine march had been some kind of trigger for action, the entire Frankish army was on the move now, heading down the slope towards the tower and the water it protected.
‘They’re coming for us now,’ Arnau breathed.
‘Shit flows downhill,’ grunted Constantine Laskaris nearby. Arnau turned and could see that a group of soldiers had arrived with the general. A series of creaks announced the priming of the catapult.
‘Your brother’s banner, I think,’ Ramon said, pointing.
Constantine nodded. ‘He lives to return, though sadly I see nearby the banner of Stryphnos. The architect of insanity returns to us, having set the entire Crusader force moving.’
They watched in bleak horror as the Frankish knights rode down fleeing parties. Sensibly, they did not stray too far from infantry support, and so hundreds of Byzantine soldiers were making it back into the streets. Some ran for the jetties and the boats, others for the tower.
‘Open the gate,’ bellowed Laskaris, ‘but be prepared to close it swiftly.’ Even as the gate creaked wide, fleeing soldiers began to pound through it, pausing to draw painful breaths before their officers directed them to places on walls or towers. Arnau watched the walls slowly filling, bolt throwers on the lesser towers priming, ready to fire.
He turned to Ramon. ‘It seems the Lord might yet have a role for us.’
Ramon nodded. ‘I will fight if I must, but the tower can hold, even against that host.’
They watched as the Byzantine soldiers fled into the gateway, then something caught Arnau’s eye. He peered into a nearby street. Sure enough, he could see Stryphnos’s banner along with those of several of his units. Another street showed Theodoros Laskaris’s banner and more men, but a third was already filling with lightly armed, speedy Frankish men-at-arms.
‘This is going to be close,’ he murmured.
Ramon simply nodded. Realising the danger, Theodoros Laskaris bellowed to his men, and they put on an extra, desperate turn of speed, racing for the gate. Men on the walls began to bellow to their fellows, telling them urgently to run. Arnau watched in astonishment. As Laskaris and his men dropped all pretence of a fighting retreat and simply raced for the gate, Stryphnos was sending his men out to the sides, forming an arc to contain the approaching Frankish infantry.
‘Strategos,’ bellowed Constantine at a volume that almost broke his voice. ‘Withdraw! Withdraw now!’
Soldiers were flooding into the gate, yet Stryphnos had slowed his men, attempting to hold back the Franks emerging from the street.
‘He can’t hold them,’ Arnau breathed. Ramon shook his head and pointed right. More Frankish infantry were closing now, appearing along other streets.
‘You have to close the door,’ Ramon shouted.
‘What?’
�
�Close the gate. The time is up.’
Arnau nodded emphatically. The remaining Byzantines outside were already outnumbered by the men they were trying to contain, and were having to spread out to deal with freshly arrived Crusaders. They would be overrun any moment.
Laskaris uttered a desperate prayer in Greek and shut his eyes for a moment. ‘Close the gate.’
As the call went up, Arnau saw panic fill the men still outside. They were doomed anyway, but now the gates were being closed behind them.
‘No. Open the gates,’ bellowed Stryphnos, turning and rushing for the doorway. Their commander leaving the line was all the prompt his men needed, and the entire force outside the walls broke in a panic and raced for the gate. Howling triumphantly, the Franks butchered many turning men, swords punching into unprotected backs.
Arnau watched, heart thumping, as Stryphnos ran for the gate, men flooding about him. As they converged on the Galata tower, his soldiers were already being overrun by Franks, swords rising and falling accompanied by screams and oaths, blood flying into the air to create a mist that filled Galata. Arnau listened in horror to voices in both French and Greek, all crying out to the Lord to save them from the godless.
‘No, no, no,’ breathed Constantine. He gestured down to the compound below. ‘Bar the gate. Bar the damned gate!’
But Arnau could also hear other voices from outside demanding the gate be held. Disaster was coming, and the Templars could see it unfolding, yet were utterly incapable of stopping it. Already the Franks were in among the fleeing Byzantines. The fight outside had become a mess of routing defenders and desperate attackers, all determined to get to the tower gate first, the former to embrace its safety, the latter to capture it and bring destruction.
He knew in a trice what was about to happen. Behind him, Constantine was bellowing urgent, furious orders to close the gate, and some of his men were attempting to do so, but others were holding it open on the orders of Stryphnos, while desperate, shouting men piled through it.
The first clash came sooner than expected, Frankish men-at-arms having mixed in among the Byzantines in the press. In moments, the arch of the gate became a battleground as desperate defenders tried all too late to close the heavy door as Constantine had been demanding, while the Crusaders fought tooth and nail to hold the gate open as more and more of their fellows approached through the streets of Galata.
‘Fools. Crazed fools,’ breathed Constantine from the tower top. Arnau could see his brother now, leading a small group of defenders in trying to force the Franks back out of the gate, but more of their men were arriving all the time. The place was doomed.
Ramon turned to Constantine.
‘Galata has fallen, Laskaris.’
The general nodded angrily, then hurried over to the parapet. The bolt throwers on the other towers were now at work, loosing into the Frankish crowd outside the walls, pressing for the gate, and even the catapult now released, sending a basket full of rocks over the curtain wall and into the mass, pulverising men in droves. Still there were too many. They were in control of the gate now.
Constantine gestured to his brother below. ‘Theo, we must abandon Galata.’
The second Laskaris brother looked up, blood covering half his face, and nodded. The fighting below had already moved into the wide courtyard, clearly informing all present that the gate had now fallen to the Franks.
‘No,’ bellowed Stryphnos, suddenly visible among his men. ‘No. Hold the tower.’
‘The tower is lost,’ cried Constantine from above.
‘No!’ Stryphnos began issuing desperate orders to bar doors and hold staircases.
‘The fool,’ Constantine snarled. ‘We have to go. He has lost us Galata, but we can still save lives.’ He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘All personnel to the boats. Withdraw to the city!’
Ramon nodded his agreement and the two Templars turned. Sebastian had a tear in his eye, which Arnau could readily understand, though this was not the time to grieve over what was happening. They hurried to the city side of the tower and peered down. The postern gate was open now, and men were fleeing along the shoreline, knee deep in the water, for the jetties where the ferries that had brought them across wallowed. Other soldiers had piled into the boats tied up behind the tower and were now pushing off, heading out into the water. One boat remained there. Soldiers were desperately trying to get aboard, but four men with Laskaris’s banner were holding it for their master.
‘Come. We must go,’ Constantine said, and hurried for the doorway.
The three Templars followed him from the early morning sunlight into the gloom of the tower, where they began to pound their way down the staircase towards ground level and their only hope of escape. As they emerged onto the ground floor, a huge, square room filling most of the tower’s width, the extent of their peril became clear. The enemy had not only control of the gate, but also the courtyard, and therefore very likely much of the curtain wall. A small group of rabid Franks had pushed their way inside and were now fighting to stop Theodoros Laskaris and his bodyguard getting past them into the tower.
Men hurried to the postern and the means of egress, and Arnau shared a look with Ramon, who nodded. ‘Hold the boat,’ the older knight said to Sebastian, drawing his sword. With a cry to the Mother of God, he and Arnau threw themselves at the Franks holding Theodoros back. Despite the ignominy of it, they did not wait for the Crusaders to face them, but drove their blades into backs and hacked at limbs, pushing them aside with their shields. The Franks, caught between Laskaris in the doorway and the Templars behind, fought with desperation now, cut off from their fellows. Arnau took a blow on his shield that left a deep groove and numbed his arm, and another blade thumped into his mailed hip, causing him to yelp even as he returned the compliment, breaking the arm of a raging Frenchman. In moments the small party of Crusaders was down, and Theodoros and his men surged gratefully into the tower.
‘To the boat,’ bellowed Constantine, who had been fighting on the far flank, beyond Ramon. His brother nodded, and the group turned like a wave meeting a sea wall and raced across the room, out to the door and the narrow corridor that emerged on the waterfront.
Arnau was the fifth man aboard the boat, which was likely rated for twenty men and already held thirty-some even as its pilot pushed it out from the jetty. The young Templar looked around. The relief he felt was selfish and brought with it unwanted guilt, but those he cared about most were aboard: Ramon and Sebastian, the former clutching a bleeding arm, and Theodoros and Constantine Laskaris, both similarly bloody.
He watched in bleak horror as they moved out across the water. Boats were departing all along the waterline now, each holding more men than they were meant to. Byzantine soldiers were toppling overboard in the panicked press, disappearing into the water never to reappear, their armour dragging them into the deep. Soldiers were throwing themselves from the walls and towers of the Galata fortress into the water of the Golden Horn. Some hit the shallows and crashed to their death, bones pulverised by the impact. Others made it to deeper water, where their armour dragged them to a grisly death. Few made it to a boat.
Sickened, Arnau watched as in desperation men were trying to climb along the water chain in an attempt to reach one of the ancient skiffs keeping it up. Again, many died in the water there. Few made it more than half a dozen arm-lengths along the chain in the chilly inlet.
It was a disaster. Nothing less.
With a bleak expectation, Arnau watched the chain come loose, unwound at the tower. The Franks had control now, and the one thing that had kept the Venetians out of the Golden Horn and away from the city sank harmlessly into the depths, the attached skiffs floating free and eddying around in the water. Arnau kept a lookout for the Venetians, heart pounding, urging the boats to reach the safety of the city walls before the enemy surged into the waters here and smashed the fleeing ferries.
Those last defenders of Galata were dying now. The Franks had control of it all,
and archers were lining every roof and parapet, loosing arrows into the bodies of the fleeing Byzantines, killing anyone within bowshot. Galata was in the hands of the marauding Crusaders, and the tower along with it. The chain had fallen and the Golden Horn was open to the Venetian fleet.
Constantinople stood alone now, enemies free to range on all sides.
Arnau jumped as Ramon grabbed his shoulder, and followed the older knight’s pointing finger. He was distressed over how little sympathy he felt at the sight of Michael Stryphnos being hoisted above the parapet of the tall Galata tower, though he did wince as the figure fell with a shriek, and even more so as the rope snapped tight, cracking the man’s neck and almost pulling his head clean off. The jerking, shaking form of the man who had lost them Galata bounced twice against the wall he could have held before finally falling still.
‘If you have any faith left in you,’ Constantine Laskaris said quietly, ‘pray now, and pray harder than you have ever prayed. We are besieged.’
Chapter 9: The Unholy Siege
July 12th 1203
Six days. Six days was all it took for the Venetians and Franks to turn a terrible decision by Stryphnos into a full-blown siege of the city. Perhaps it was lucky – perhaps it was not – that Preceptor Bochard happened to return to the city, apparently by chance, in the wake of what had happened at Galata, securing his place in the Blachernae once more just before the enemy set up outside the walls.
Ramon and Arnau had hurried over upon his return to impart all the news to the preceptor, who had brushed it aside as ‘unimportant’. No matter how much they pressed, he seemed utterly uninterested in everything they had been through, labelling it ‘the problems of heretics’ and ‘possibly advantageous to Rome’. Arnau and Ramon had finally broken off the argument, sickened, and left Bochard to whatever nefarious dealings had brought a small mule train back with him and required a guarded escort for several chests to his chamber. They could not be coin, after all, for he’d already brought plenty of that from Outremer.
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