Someone pulled the heavy doors shut, and the head cardinal, clothed in gold and crimson, began to speak in Latin.
Val didn’t listen; instead let his gaze wander out across the congregation, noting their somber faces. Today, this ceremony, marked the official union of the churches in Constantinople. No more Schism, no more war between the two factions of Christians within the city walls.
From the top of this very cathedral, you could see Mehmet’s impossible fortress, a slumbering dragon, waiting only for the spring thaw, and then it would strike. This union of church and church was necessary.
But Val didn’t know that it would be enough.
~*~
That was winter.
And now it was spring, and they were settling in the Throat Cutter.
And Val was very, very afraid that he couldn’t save Constantinople.
But he would try.
33
BATTALION
They camped in a lightly-forested plain at a midpoint between the Throat-Cutter and the Bosporus, Constantinople drawing all eyes like a beacon. Enough timber to be cleared and used as firewood, and enough grass for the horses. An ideal location.
Night had fallen by the time the royal tent was habitable, and Val sank gratefully into a chair with a cup of mixed wine and blood.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Mehmet told him, accepting his own cup, and perching on the chair opposite. Slaves still bustled about, dressing the bed, and unfolding nightshirts, but the table was set up, and Mehmet reached immediately for a rolled parchment.
“Why ever not?” Val asked on a sigh. His first sip hit his tongue too richly, and he suppressed a grimace.
“We need to talk of your battalion.”
Val choked and set his cup down. “My what?”
“Battalion.” Mehmet unrolled the parchment and weighted it at either end with their heavy gold cups. On it, a scribe had drawn a diagram of army companies, names labeled in an elegant hand. “Here. These are your men. I’m giving you a company of janissaries, and the rest are shock troops. You’ll be behind one of the gun crews, on the land wall side, and you’ll be intercepting whatever Roman forces come out to attack the guns. We’ll undoubtedly lose some of Orban’s big ones to explosion, but they can’t risk a true shot. You will–”
“Mehmet.” Val had been trying to catch his attention for the entirety of his explanation, growing frantic. When the sultan lifted his head, Val said, “Why in heaven’s name are you putting me in charge of an entire battalion?”
Mehmet blinked at him a moment, surprised by the question. Then he grinned. “It’s high time you earned your keep, Radu. You’re a knight, with all the training and education of a proper prince. Everyone here” – a sweeping gesture seemed to indicate the entire camp – “is well-acquainted with you. How could I ask them to fight while you sit in total comfort inside a tent? You’re a prince, yes, as I said, and you should act the part. You will lead a battalion for me. I think you’ll do quite well with it.”
It was Val’s turn to blink, blank-faced a moment, before that grin made sense. “Oh,” he said, unpleasant prickling sensation crawling across his skin. When he swallowed, he felt his silver collar press at his throat. “I see.”
Mehmet’s smile froze; doubt touched his eyes. “You do?”
“Yes. You think if I lead troops into battle, I won’t look quite so much like your favorite concubine.”
The sultan’s expression hardened. “That isn’t what I said.”
“But it’s what you meant.” Val reached for his cup, and drained it off, though his stomach rolled at first. The parchment rolled, too, satisfyingly; it snapped up with a crisp sound, hiding the battalion from view. “Your men are loyal, but they do talk, you know. You can have as many wives as you want, but everyone knows who shares your bed every night. What better way to make me look more like a man, and a valuable one at that, than to put a sword in my hand and throw me at your enemy.”
Mehmet stared at him a moment, uncharacteristically closed-off and hard to read, then eased back in his chair. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “they do talk. It’s unavoidable, I’m afraid. But I am their sultan, and they obey me. You, on the other hand.” He pointed at Val. “You are foreign, and golden, and my favorite besides, yes. Do you think their talking bothers me? Or does it bother you?”
Again, Val was struck by the sense of being wrong-footed. He was too tired, he guessed, from the day’s long march.
“I don’t care what they think,” he said, aiming for haughty, offering a little wave for emphasis. “They aren’t my people, after all.”
“No? And who are your people?”
Val found he couldn’t look at his face, that satisfied upward tick at the corners of his mouth, so he didn’t; let his gaze land somewhere along the canvas wall of the tent. He shrugged. “Who could know? I’ve been nothing but a bedwarmer my entire life.”
“And a talented one at that,” Mehmet agreed easily. Sometimes he was led to provocation with the slightest comment, and sometimes, like now, he was maddeningly calm. “But, as I’ve said, you’re also a knight, and a scholar trained in the art of ruling.”
“Which I will never do.”
“I have to put someone on your brother’s throne after I kill him. It might as well be an actual Wallachian prince.”
Val looked back to him, unbidden, and felt his lips part. Shock pushed the breath out of him. “What?”
Mehmet lifted his cup. “What exactly did you think I intended to do with you?”
A dozen possibilities came to mind, none of them worth speaking aloud.
“Vlad was supposed to go and be a good little vassal,” Mehmet said, finally, rolling his eyes. “But, as usual, he fucked everything up. That leaves you, my golden one. You’re intelligent, crafty, loyal, and beautiful enough to make anyone fall in love with you. You’ll do far better than your brother could ever hope to. So, yes, you will rule someday. You will rule for me.” The last he stressed heavily. “So it’s time you gained a reputation for something besides lolling about and eating fruit lasciviously, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Val said faintly. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Besides,” Mehmet added, winking, “I shall so enjoy throwing a Western prince at the walls of Constantinople.”
The truth, at last.
Val caught the eye of one of the slaves. “More wine, please,” he requested through a dry throat.
Mehmet chuckled.
~*~
The next morning, Arslan dressed him in armor, and Val emerged from his tent to find two janissaries awaiting him, his mare already saddled, pawing at the ground impatiently.
“We’re to take you to your men, your grace,” one of the janissaries informed him.
“Alright.” He couldn’t seem to swallow, hands shaking as he took the reins and swung up into the saddle. His mare danced beneath him, reading his nerves, and he couldn’t soothe her as he normally did, with a few strokes along her arched neck.
The janissaries walked just ahead of him on foot, so that he was forced to keep a tight rein not to run them over, and led him through a camp bustling with activity. The sun flirted along the tree tops, its first rosy blush painting the undulating line of the Theodosian walls in stripes of ivory and crimson, so that it already looked blood-drenched. Val didn’t need to ask where they were going: he saw the men, arranged already, with sharp-tipped lances, in perfect company formation; and, ahead of them, the gun.
It was an ugly, unwieldy war machine. Cast of bronze, and drug all the way from Edirne on overtaxed wagons pulled by teams of mules, horses, oxen, and men, it dwarfed the regular Ottoman cannons, at least five times the size of the typical guns. Its designer, Orban, had gone first to Constantine, and, when denied a commission, had come all the way to the palace at Edirne, where Mehmet had gladly heaped gold upon his head.
Val’s breakfast curdled in his stomach as he laid eyes upon the beastly thing now. It had been propped u
p on boulders and wooden blocks, a team of operators bustling about, fussing with the preparation. If the thing blew – and there was every chance it would – it would kill anyone within a dozen yards of it, and the shrapnel would reach farther.
But if it didn’t blow. And if its massive ball reached its target of the wall…
Val swallowed and closed his eyes a moment, willing his stomach to settle.
“Your grace.”
His horse pulled up, and he opened his eyes to find his core knot of janissaries standing at attention, awaiting instruction.
“I shall so enjoy throwing a Western prince at the walls of Constantinople.”
Mehmet had kissed him that morning, only minutes ago; shoved his tongue into his mouth, and nipped his lower lip until Val tasted his own blood. Heated and thrilled for battle. Make me proud, Radu.
Val looked up at the walls, and watched the colors shift and bleed like the patterns of sand at a river bottom, as the sun climbed, higher every moment. He saw the snapping pennants, and the archers along the wall-top, and the men in polished helmets awaiting their siege towers.
I am Radu, he thought. If I ride against that wall, and put Roman blood on my sword, then I am Prince Radu, and not Valerian at all.
He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. The most pressing matter is to protect the gun,” he said, projecting his voice.
A murmur of assent went up from them all. They looked up at him, most of them blank-faced in a way that he read as careful; but a few sneered. Probably they thought he couldn’t see.
He was, after all, a hostage. A Western prince, and not of their blood, nor did he worship their god. And he shared the sultan’s bed; bore the marks of his teeth even now on his throat. A foreigner, and, worse, a whore. Doubtless they hated him.
Just as the archers waiting along the wall hated him. They didn’t know his name, or his lineage, nor care how many times the sultan had fucked him. He was merely an enemy captain, leading a host against them, standing on the wrong side of a gun built to blast their walls to bits.
It struck him, then; left him breathless. He was a villain on both sides of this war.
34
SIEGE
The smoke of the cannons blotted out the sun, the stink acrid in Val’s lungs. He dodged the flashing silver blade that fell through the haze toward him, turned it away with his own sword, and brought his leg up; kicked the Roman soldier hard in the hip, and sent him sprawling. Before he could gather himself, Val clapped him hard on the side of the helm with the flat of his blade; it rang like a gong, and the soldier lay still.
“Fall back!” Val shouted to his troops. “Fall back, and make way for the siege towers!” He could already hear the creak and groan of their approach somewhere behind him, the huffing breaths of the men who pushed them. “Fall back!”
Another Roman came barreling toward him, and he side-stepped him easily. Drove him to his knees with another well-placed kick, and left him unconscious, but not dead. He’d found that if he stayed hydrated, and well-fed, he could use his superior physical strength to great advantage; he didn’t have to spill blood, only show a good example for his men, and exert himself appropriately.
Though why he bothered, he couldn’t really say. Most days he wished that he wouldn’t wake up at all, and could lie quietly in some sort of coma until the siege at last ended.
It had to end at some point, didn’t it?
The siege towers rumbled up, slip-sliding on ground gone muddy from the soaking-in of blood. The city walls had been cracked in a dozen places; gaps showed through, giving glimpses of the inner walls, and the moats. Sappers had dug beneath and set fires, collapsing small portions at intervals. Still, the city remained unconquered.
Thankfully.
He dream-walked when he could, going to provide an increasingly-harried Constantine with intelligence on troop movements and numbers. He’d given advance warning of Mehmet’s – admittedly – ingenious plan to subvert the boom that stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn. On that visit, as on all his others since being handed control of a battalion, Val had been careful to project an image of himself in his usual foppish finery, silk, and soft slippers, and jewels, without a bit of armor in sight.
“He’s taking them overland?” Constantine had asked, brows at his hairline.
“His carpenters have built a series of – of tracks,” he said, still not quite believing it himself. “There are wheels, and ropes, and pulleys, and – yes, suffice to say he’s in the process of moving the majority of his fleet up through the pass and plans to drop them into your harbor.”
He’d told them about it, and still Mehmet had succeeded. He had too many men, so many that no amount of naval battles, ships lost to cannon shot and Greek fire, could dim their chances.
The Romans fell back, too, fleeing to the berms they’d built up at the base of the wall, where they could duck down, and take some water, and catch their breath before they launched their inevitable assaults upon the siege towers, while their fellows on the wall-top poured Greek fire on their Ottoman assailants.
A runner appeared, a skinny, breathless boy, bearing a bucket of water and a ladle. It was warm, and fetid-tasting, but Val forced himself to drink deep, droplets running down his chin and throat, over the silver collar that dragged at his energy, always. “I need blood,” he told the boy, who nodded, and scampered away.
“Your grace, take from me,” one of his foot soldiers said, appearing beside him, and pushed up his sleeve to offer a sweaty, dirt-smeared wrist.
Ordinarily, he would have resisted, but he couldn’t afford to, now. He caught the soldier’s wrist in his hand and brought it to his mouth; bit fast, and hard, and sure, and drank a small amount of blood. It hit him like a drug, fairly vibrating through his veins, and he let go before he latched on for good, licking his lips clean.
The soldier looked glassy-eyed and dazed. “Go.” Vlad gave his shoulder a shove. “Fall in.”
With a low, resonant thump, the siege towers landed against the wall, and a new kind of battle began.
Val had strict orders not to go harrying up the ladders to the top of a tower until the defenders on the wall had been completely overrun, and there was no chance Val would end up with a face full of Greek fire. “Afraid I’ll damage my pretty face?” Val had asked, flipping his hair.
Mehmet had not taken that as a joke. “It’s an order, Radu.”
And, truthfully, Val wanted nothing to do with that kind of death. So he’d obeyed, waiting, biding his time for the moment when the wall was won, and he could get over it, and never come back out.
His men rallied around the great wheeled base of the tower, swords and lances lifting to engage with the Roman soldiers – dirty and bloody and exhausted – who came running, screaming, to meet them from the wall’s shadow. Above, the would-be-wall-takers screamed; Val smelled hot oil, and scorched flesh.
He parried a stroke aimed for his head, ducked, spun, and struck.
The boiling oil hit the wooden base of the tower, and sent up a rolling cloud of steam. It wafted in front of him, veiling the man he fought. But Val could still hear him, and smell him; feel him. He struck again, two quick strikes, and when the cloud passed, he saw that he’d killed the Roman, his throat red and open.
He turned to meet the next attacker, thrumming with energy from the blood he’d taken; he felt too big and too strong for his skin, restless even as he cut down the next man.
It was so easy. That was what frightened him, the ease with which he cut men down. The way he almost…almost enjoyed it. Men died too quickly; and he was so much stronger, in every sense. He–
The discordant shouts from above, the hisses and curses of men being burned by boiling oil, changed, suddenly. A high, collective scream of panic.
Val tipped his head back just in time to see the brilliant-white gout of Greek fire, and to hear the sizzle and crack of the tower’s joints giving way.
“Fuck,” he murmured, and tried to run, as
the whole thing came crashing down.
Pain blossomed, swift and overwhelming, and then it was black.
~*~
Val woke slowly, one eye at a time, to a splitting headache, and the royal tent swimming around him.
Arslan’s face popped into view first, expression plainly relieved. “Your grace, are you well?”
He was dragged back, eyes going wide, and then Mehmet hovered over him. “Do you have any wits left?”
Val closed his eyes with a groan. “Fuck off.” His mouth and throat felt desert-dry; it hurt to swallow, and his eyes ached, so badly he thought they might burst.
Mehmet chuckled. “He’ll live.”
He did, unfortunately, and a few hours later, shadows long across the floor, muted evening light coming in through the open tent flap, he managed to sit upright, with Arslan’s help. He’d drunk a full cup of fresh horse blood, and his headache had dulled to a low pounding, keeping time with his pulse. When he reached back along his head, he found a sizable lump, and the crustiness of dried blood.
Mehmet awaited him at the table, and he hobbled there, and all but fell into a chair. When Mehmet slid a cup of wine toward him, he accepted it gladly.
“What happened?”
“What do you remember?”
He winced. He didn’t want to remember. “Greek fire. It destroyed the tower.”
“Yes, and then it collapsed on top of you. Killed five mortals,” Mehmet said, absently, plucking grapes from a gold dish and popping them one-by-one into his mouth. “You were lucky.”
“No. I’m a vampire.” Val closed his eyes and rested his head against a folded hand.
“Your men are worried – asking after you. And impressed, besides. No one else beneath the debris survived.”
“Hooray.”
“This is a good thing,” Mehmet said, patient, as if speaking to a child. “Your reputation will be–”
“I don’t care about my reputation.” After this statement, nearly shouted, it was silent so long that he finally cracked his eyes open a fraction.
Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3) Page 50