A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  He licked his lips. He was tall and could see over many of his fellows, above the forest of spear tips, up to a hill. It seemed to be the only place where there was movement, men scrambling down into a wood-lined hole and back out again. There had been talk about a fire-mouthed dragon there, that some called a basilisk. Perhaps the wooden structure was its cage. Perhaps they would unleash it, let it tear the walls apart with its claws before he had to climb them.

  The cry came again. Six notes, the third emphasised. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ went the bird. Achmed turned and looked at the walls once more. I’ll laugh too, he thought, when I am over them.

  It is good to be about my trade, Hamza thought, as he dismounted and moved towards the covered wagon. Good to be out and hunting on a day that feels, at long last, like spring. It made him almost forget everything else, all that awaited him beyond the crest of the hill, all his other roles and duties. For now, he was only cakircibas – chief falconer to the sultan.

  Only. Hamza smiled. As a boy in his father’s dingy warehouse in Laz, tanning hides all day, he had dreamed of being free in the sun, chasing game across sun-blessed valleys. He could never have dreamed that he would be doing it while holding one of the most important ranks in the empire. But his skills with birds had been noticed by none other than Murad Han, Sultan of Rum. As had his intelligence. As had his beauty. And somehow he had managed to survive the old sultan’s death and retain his position with his heir, his son, Mehmet.

  The smile left him. He glanced back, at the sultan astride his horse, in the middle of his belerbeys and pashas. No one was smiling there, no one talking, though he was sure they had all mumbled their complaints – out of Mehmet’s hearing – as to why today, now, he had chosen to go hawking. They wanted to be with their clans, with their soldiers on the other side of the hill. Now they were finally there, and any choice was over, they wanted to be fighting.

  Hamza knew why they were not. His master, for all his education in science, religion and philosophy, believed absolutely in signs and prophecies. One year ago on this day, a sorceress in Edirne had told him that if he fired his first shot on this day, at this hour, success would be his. The closer it came, the slower that hour had approached – and Mehmet wanted to show his army that he had no cares. So he had called for horses and hawks.

  Hamza halted by the wagon. It was beautifully crafted, black leather stretched over bent willow wands, divided into compartments. Inside each one, separated from his rivals, a bird perched. A groom was just putting one away, hooded now, a saker called Aisha who had flown from the sultan’s fist and returned to it unblooded. It was the latest of three birds to do so. It partly accounted for the frown on Mehmet’s face. All knew that with a foraging army camped nearby, any game would be swiftly netted, trapped, shot. Still, Mehmet was a man for signs and portents. At the start of a lot of killing, a kill would be propitious.

  Hamza studied the leather compartments before him. He knew the bird in each one, had trained most of them himself in the happy days of leisure. Each had its skill, each was more suited to a particular terrain and type of game. In this land, with most of the wood cover chopped down to build the stockade that faced the city, he had thought sakers would have the best chance. But each had failed. It was time for something different.

  ‘This one,’ he said, pointing, and as the groom hurried to part the leather straps, Hamza pulled on his glove. It had never ceased to give him pleasure, the feeling as his fingers slipped into the supple leather, his eyes pleasured too by the craft of the glove and, more, the words carefully stitched onto it in gold thread. He murmured them now. ‘“I am trapped. Held in this cage of flesh. And yet I claim to be a hawk flying free.”’ When he had taught at the enderun kolej, a student of his had made the glove for him as a gift. An exceptional student, a prince no less. Vlad Dracula. They had been … fond of each other, for a brief time. But that Dracula was lost now, either already dead or dodging assassins in Hungarian alleys, no doubt, having failed to hold his throne of Wallachia. While his younger brother, Radu the Handsome, was one of the men clustered around Mehmet, still the sultan’s occasional lover, still his confidant.

  The straps were undone. The groom stepped back. Hamza called softly, ‘Easy, my beauty. Easy.’ Then, moving the flap aside, reaching in, he placed his hand beside the bird called Baz Nama.

  The goshawk struck immediately, and even through the thickness of the glove, Hamza felt its piercing strength on his thumb. He moved his hands under the perch, took the tresses in his fingers, pulled, and the bird, without relinquishing his beak’s grip, stepped onto Hamza’s hand.

  He was well named ‘the king of birds’. A gift from the Khan of the Muscovites, he had been born in some snowy northern country and was of the same near-blinding whiteness as that land. His eyes were red, though they had not been at birth. It was said of goshawks that as they aged, their eyes reddened from the blood of all their victims. For, unlike other hawks, they did not kill just to feed and stop when that was achieved. They killed because they liked to, and stopped when they could no longer fly.

  Yes, Hamza thought, crooning till the goshawk lifted its head so he could stroke between its red eyes, you are the one for this flight.

  He turned, walked back to the mounted men, halting at his sultan’s stirrup. The frown on his face was gone, replaced by a big smile. ‘Baz Nama!’ Mehmet shouted. ‘Yes, Hamza. Yes! You are right.’

  He bent, so his falconer could transfer the bird. It moved, settled, bit down as it had bitten before. ‘Aiee!’ Mehmet cried. ‘He is keen for the kill, as ever.’ He looked around at his noblemen. ‘As am I. ’Tis almost the hour. Let us ride.’

  Hamza mounted. Setting heels to flanks, Mehmet led the way up the hill. They crested it and saw before them the slight valley filled with soldiers and the next rise crowned with more. Beyond them, the walls of Constantinople loomed. For tens of thousands of men, the order of silence was strikingly obeyed. They could all hear the snap of banners upon the battlements, the snort of horses, even the faint chime of the silver bells upon the tug set before the sultan’s command tent to their left.

  And Hamza, who was scanning the clear sky, not the crowded land, heard something else – the faint but clear sound of a laugh. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ it went, and he realised it wasn’t human, just as he saw what had made it, rising over the ranks on the hill opposite. ‘There, effendi,’ he yelled, in his excitement forgetting all of the sultan’s more august titles. ‘There!’

  ‘I see it,’ Mehmet yelled back. Standing in his stirrups, he flung the bird from his hand. It dipped low towards the ground, then rose fast, powerful wings bearing it swiftly up, powerful eyes already fixed upon its prey.

  ‘It’s some kind of pigeon, master.’ Hamza leaned in, laying his gloved hand on Mehmet’s, lost in the hunt. ‘Look at its swoops.’

  ‘Yes. But it is not weaving yet,’ came the reply. ‘Has it not seen my king?’

  The laughing dove was flying straight along the line. Sunlight sparkled on the helmets below, a thousand points of light, a brilliant dazzle. Only at the last, when a flash of white appeared just beneath him, did he focus. By then it was too late.

  The men watched the familiar goshawk kill. Five beats and then a glide, and then, because it was a pigeon, Baz Nama flipped onto his back to come at it from beneath. At the last, the dove made a desperate lurch to the left, but not fast enough to escape the claws that caught, held. For a moment it seemed they were frozen in air. Then the birds descended in a slow spiral towards the ground.

  Hamza and Mehmet still clutched each other as they watched the descent. Then a slight cough from beside them broke the spell. They looked down. One of the sultan’s scribes was at his stirrup. ‘It is the hour?’ Mehmet said, refocusing. The man nodded. Mehmet removed his hand from Hamza’s. ‘Fetch the bird, cakircibas,’ he said. ‘And bring it to me there.’

  With that, he spurred his horse down the slight slope, through a gap in the troops, and up the other h
ill.

  Hamza went to the hawk. He had only just begun to tear at his prey so was easily distracted with fresh chick flesh and lured from his kill onto Hamza’s glove. Putting the dove into a pouch at his side, he rode the short distance to the wagon, replacing the goshawk on its perch, making sure the groom placed plenty of meat beside it. It was time that Baz Nama had a good gorge. Hamza suspected they would not be flying him again for a while.

  He joined the leaders of the army on the other hilltop. As at Edirne three months before, they were all dismounted and gathered around a large scoop in the ground. In the base of it, wedged in with barrels filled with earth and upon wooden rollers, lay the basilisk. Though Hamza had seen the great gun many times before, it had lost nothing in its monstrosity by the familiarity. Whatever was needed to be done had been. Only one man was down in the pit with the monster – the Transylvanian gunner, Urban, as besmirched with mud and soot as ever. His eyes shone from their black surround, matching the head of the taper he blew on, keeping the red glow alive.

  Hamza walked up beside his master. ‘Balm of the world,’ he said, and offered the dead dove.

  Mehmet took it, looked at it a moment, then held it up so all could see. ‘A good omen,’ he said in a loud, clear voice. ‘The first kill. But not the last. And the next comes fast upon it.’ He stretched out his hand, still with the bird in it, and pointed straight ahead. ‘There, right there before us, is the imperial palace. It stands within the Rome of the East. The Red Apple. Fabled Byzantium. Now is the time to fulfil the prophecies of Muhammad, praise him!’ A murmur came, praising. ‘Now is the hour appointed by Allah, all merciful, and prepared for with such care. Never have so many sons of Isaac gathered before these walls. Never have they brought with them such means to turn those walls to dust beneath their feet.’ He gestured down to the cannon below him. ‘Let no man falter, let no sword be sheathed, until the banner of the Prophet, all glory unto him, flies from the highest tower. Until the muezzin calls us to prayer from the minaret we shall plant in the heart of the Hagia Sophia.’

  Reaching to the scabbard at his side, he drew his sword, lifted it high. ‘Let Constantinople fall,’ he shouted. ‘Allahu akbar!’

  He swept the sword down. It was the signal the gunner had been waiting for. Urban touched his glowing taper to the breech, made sure that it flared there, before scrambling from the hole. All moved back a pace, all except Mehmet, who stood unmoving, with sword raised once more. And then the sound came, in a flash of flame and a cloud of thick black smoke, a roar such as few men had ever heard, a sound that, if anything could, could have woken the dead.

  Sofia heard it, a mile away in her house, knew what it was, even as she clutched her startled daughter to her, palms to little ears, too late to keep out the terror. The men before the walls heard it, and there was not one in the whole vast army, from elite janissary to wild-eyed yaya, and however fierce a warrior, who did not duck in the sudden shock. The men upon the palace walls heard it but had no time to duck before they were fighting for balance as the great ball slammed into the outer walls and the ground shook.

  It was a sound perhaps to wake the dead. But the first man to die in Constantinople was torn apart by flying masonry and so beyond recall. While the laughing dove, still resting in a sultan’s hand, did not stir.

  – PART TWO –

  Kappa

  See me, Turk.

  See where I stand. Upon walls that have defied every assault for a thousand years. You claim they will be reduced to sand by your monstrous guns. You cry that once they are, your army, innumerable as pebbles on the strand, will sweep away the weak few who would keep you out.

  Shall I tell you what you cannot see? You cannot see into my heart. You cannot … because it is armoured better than I am. Steeled with a certainty no weapon can penetrate.

  You doubt? Then let me tell you of that certainty, of what material it is made. Like the mortar that binds these walls, compounded of lime, sand and water, my certainty is made of three things. History. Faith. Love.

  History is not our burden. It is our eagle standard, and when we gather beneath it, an army a hundred times greater than yours gathers too. Then we are not the impoverished few you deride. We are legion. A good word – for it was the legions who marched from Rome to the conquest of the wide world. And when they were done, the first emperor to recognise the glory of Christ Risen came here. Came with the first Rome’s glorious past – and saw its future. Constantine gave the city his name. But he could have called it New Rome.

  It is said your sultan wishes to be Caesar, but does he not see that Julius stands with us? It is also said that Mehmet wishes to conquer all that Alexander did, and at as young an age, but does he not know that Alexander was Greek? As are we. Greek and Roman, both.

  If you could see through these walls, what glory would you behold? Not simply in stone, though the city is formed around its towering columns and splendid forums, its life-giving aqueducts and purple-walled palaces. Not only in art – golden trees filled with golden birds that sing … bejewelled silver ikons that grace both home and church … a ten-thousand-piece glass chandelier that holds the very light of heaven.

  For there is another glory – that of our words. Texts translated from every language in the world, including your own. Ancient and new, alchemy and love poems, history and medicine, philosophy and geometry, copied in the coloured inks and the beautiful script of monks and scholars. Knowledge discovered and rediscovered on every subject that concerns man. Laws codified as they were on the orders of the Emperor Theodosius nine hundred years ago and used to this day wherever man is civilised.

  Words are God’s intention, made plain by His chosen people. Yet perhaps the true reason He chose us was that He knew that only we, of all the world, could build Him a house worthy of His majesty.

  So know this. Even if you do manage to lay these walls low and reach God’s dwelling, you will go no farther. For at the very height of your triumph, you will be brought low, by the Archangel Michael wielding his fiery sword at the head of the heavenly host. If you are fortunate, in the moment before He casts you into damnation, perhaps you will glimpse His glory on earth. See the immeasurable dome entirely covered in mosaic of infinite variety and colour. Hear the thousands who can fit beneath it sing the perfect harmonies of His praise. Smell the sweet scent of a thousand years of richest incense, impregnated in every stone.

  This is the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Divine Wisdom. God lives here, and He will not let you drive Him out.

  I know you cannot see this. All you see are walls to knock down, and too few men in impoverished armour. So let me tell you of the last thing you cannot see. What it is that makes this city unconquerable.

  You cannot see my love for it.

  It is not solid, like stone. It is not rousing, as history is, nor sustaining as only God’s words can be. My love is made of air itself, of the breath I take from east and west and the scents they bring in each season. Of the sun I watch pass directly over me down the line of the Bosphorus, setting the dome of Divine Wisdom afire, falling on every column that marks our history, transforming the waters that surround and sustain us from the blue smelted steel of our swords to the green of an empress’s eye. In its daily course the sun casts an even light upon the whole city, lingers like a lover reluctant to part … then flees suddenly, unable to look back, anxious to swiftly return, as it always does.

  As shall I. If I am too tired to lift my sword, I will lay my body in the breach to trip your foot; and if my sacrifice is not worthy enough to mitigate my sins, perhaps it will yet be enough for God to grant one prayer: that I spend purgatory as a stone in Constantinople. Under that light, breathing those scents, part of that history. Part of the greatest city on earth. As was. Is. For ever will be.

  I am Constantine Palaiologos, emperor, son of Caesars. I am a baker, a ropewright, a fisherman, a monk, a merchant. I am a soldier. I am Roman. I am Greek. I am two thousand years old. I was born in freedom only yesterd
ay.

  This is my city, Turk. Take it if you can.

  – SIXTEEN –

  Shipwreck

  And Gregoras thought …

  A noseless man drowns faster than any other.

  He had assumed it would be so. Here, at the end of life, he had proved it. Where man had maimed him, there the waters gushed in. A last consequence of the violation that had destroyed his life. He tasted the sea, even as he drowned in it, an equal mix of salt and gall.

  He, who once had loved to swim, had avoided it for seven years. Yet he had courted death in so many other ways. If there was a petard to be laid at a gate, he would lay it, as the fuse spluttered. A breach held by some vast Turk, he would challenge him, fell him, lead the charge in. Wrapped in darkness, he would steal into the enemy’s camp, to learn the secrets spoken at their fires. His body was ringed in scars, worms of raised flesh from sword cuts, pits made by ball, the jagged line of arrowheads. Any one of these could have brought his quietus.

  He saw them all as he drowned. Something else proved – for Theodore, who had commanded an imperial galley, had told him many fantastical tales of the sea; among them, that every event one had lived returned as one slipped beneath the waves. So the old archer had been right. It was one part of Gregoras’s last, most bitter thoughts. That, and this: having sought to avoid a death upon the walls of doomed Constantinople, he had found one fleeing them.

  The water closed over his head, filled his ears as it had filled the rest of him. In the sudden silence he heard a laugh. He wondered what dryad was darting through the waves to steal him. Until he recognised the laugh. Sofia’s. He had stolen a parrot for her. The bird had bitten him. She had laughed. And now she’d come to laugh at him again, this noseless man, drowning fast.

  These were to be his last thoughts, then. This, his unmarked end.