A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘How many men do you need, you Bulgarian pig-lover?’ Mehmet shouted. ‘How many of my motherless ships will you let sink before you prove you have any balls? Cowards!’

  Hamza allowed himself the minutest shake of the head. He had fought Christians upon the open sea, knew how hard it was to take their ships. The advantages of being on high, of being able to drop, shoot and throw downwards, were immense. Even as he looked, he saw some of the enemy heave a barrel over their carrack’s side. It plunged into the fusta that was grappling it, crushing an archer too slow to scramble aside, smashing through the deck planks. In a moment the ship began to list, the next men already throwing themselves off her – those who could, for slaves were chained to benches and the free men did not have time to loose them, so fast did the fusta go down. Hamza closed his eyes, but could not clear the image of arms waving above the water, snatched away. When he looked again, another ship, despite the fate its crew had just witnessed, was racing to the gap left to renew the attack.

  The sailors had to be aware of their sultan upon the strand behind them. His tug was clearly visible, his figure, at this distance, distinct. But Hamza was grateful that the furious sounds of the battle would keep his words from them. They were anything but cowards, these men. And Baltaoglu, for all his blunt ways and indiscriminate cruelties, was in the forefront of the fight and doing the best he could.

  He glanced to the sun. It set fast and was already low in the sky. Darkness would aid the defenders, making assault all but impossible. And he could see on the other side of the boom – that great linkage of chains that closed off the Golden Horn and so one-third of the city walls to Turkish assault – the gathering of more vessels ready to come to their fellow Christians’ aid. He saw flags of Genoa, of Venice, of Crete, even of Constantinople. They would not risk lowering the boom when Turks could pour in. But under the cover of night?

  Still, there was time. The gallant Turkish fleet continued to attack, fresh ships coming to replace the mauled or sunk. Christian arms had to be tiring. Christian arrows, barrels, stones had to be running out.

  He felt it then, the barest caress on his cheek. Looked to the south, then up to the horsetails upon the sultan’s tug. Did they move? Did he hear the faintest of chimes in the tiny silver bells beneath them?

  ‘Allah, most merciful,’ he prayed, ‘hear the prayer of a humble servant. Send not these unbelievers Your sweet breath.’

  ‘Baltaoglu!’ raged Mehmet. ‘I will find your mother and fuck her!’ He had ridden up to his horse’s middle. The sea was soaking his cloak, the sinking sun striking it, water and light turning the russet cloth a deep and bloody red.

  Gregoras wiped his right hand on the cloth at his neck, then drew the two arrows from his quiver. The bone-tipped one he notched, having drawn its flights through moist lips, steadying it with his finger where shaft met the tortoiseshell guide. The second, its metal head like a miniature turban helmet, he licked too then placed, slanted almost straight down, inside the strap across his chest. Raising the bow, drawing the string back in the same fluid motion, he waited till he felt the ship crest a wave, sighted and shot.

  The arrow flew true, between rope and rigging, and took the partially armoured archer, covering his commander’s right side, in the armpit just as his own bow was rising for a shot. Gregoras did not watch him fall away, his hand pulling the second arrow from his chest, notching it without looking, keeping his eye on Baltaoglu. The Turk, his visor raised for clearer shouting, had turned in shock at his guard’s sudden plucking, at the gap in the wall of flesh and steel that had covered him. Another was already stepping forward to that gap. Gregoras had a moment while the ship rose upon the next wave, to draw, to sight, to expel breath and then release, aware as he did of the slight change in the target, unaware what it was … until he focused again and saw that some instinct had made Baltaoglu flick down his visor at the same moment Gregoras shot.

  A barbed arrow would have shocked but not penetrated. Gregoras had better hopes for the blunter head. But some mischance of angle, some tilt of helmet rim, some shift of sea or touch of wind – for he felt it now, cool on the sweat of his face – made the arrow strike the metal mask, but not straight on. The man’s head jerked back, his feet shot up, Gregoras could almost feel the shudder as the big body hit the deck of the ship to which his vessel was joined. Then the Turk was lost to his protective wall of guards – and Gregoras was distracted by cries from below him. The latest wave of enemies were leaping back over the rail, leaving behind more of their dead and dying.

  ‘Christ’s … bones,’ wheezed Flatenelas, slipping down to kneel on the deck, ‘but I am … old!’ He tipped his head to the rail above him. ‘Do they come again? Look you, someone.’

  Gregoras, from his height, had the best view. He looked – and if he could have found words and a faith long missing, he might have prayed too.

  Baltaoglu’s vessel had already cast off, bearing away the exhausted and the maimed leader. But another was waiting to slip into its place, filled with eager, unbloodied men. Beyond that another, and another, ships circling everywhere in sight, wolves pacing while the prey was weakened for the next assault. He looked to left and right, to the Genoese carracks lashed on either side. As many boats surrounded them. He looked back to his own again, to the Greek bodies among the Turks. How many more could they lose and live? How long could exhausted men go on fighting the rested?

  Grasping a rope, Gregoras slid down onto the deck. ‘Captain …’ he began, stopped, trying to figure out the way to tell such news.

  But Flatenelas was not listening anyway. He had raised his visor, thrust his nose into the air like a hound scenting. He tried to rise. ‘Help me!’ he called. ‘Get me up.’ Three men rushed to his aid, lifting him. He looked all around, licked his finger, thrust it into the air. ‘God’s breath,’ he cried.

  ‘Amen,’ someone answered.

  ‘No, man.’ Flatenelas was grinning now. ‘The wind. It has returned.’ Gregoras turned, to the south, the way they had come. He did not need to raise a wet finger, he felt it on the sweat on his face. The wind that had driven them fast from Chios, that had abandoned them to the enemy within bowshot of their destination, was indeed blowing again. ‘How do we use it, kyr?’ he said, turning to his captain.

  ‘How? Like this?’ Flatenelas shook off the arms that still supported him. He stepped to the front of the aft deck, looking down into the belly of his ship. Cupping hands over his mouth, he bellowed commands. But Gregoras, standing near him, found them hard to hear over the tumult of war, the still pounding drums, the blare of trumpets and the shrieks of fighting men. Flatenelas realised, turned and shouted at his officers, ‘To your men! Get the sailors aloft and every length of canvas flying. Let every man who can use one wield his bow to keep the bastards down.’

  His officers ran. All along the vessel men were tapped on the shoulders, commands shouted, heard, obeyed. Soldiers became sailors again, shedding cumbersome armour the easier to climb. Some men needed to stay, armed upon the rail to guard it, though it appeared that, with their commander felled and the assault on the aft driven off, the Turks were pausing for a moment.

  Gregoras knew that Turks never paused for long. Many were already shooting arrows at the new targets of men scaling up masts. He was tempted to follow and retrieve his bow, but he would impede men about their work – and anyway, his crossbow was still to hand and he could shoot it near as fast. Throwing the quiver over his shoulder, he placed his foot in the stirrup, heaved the string to its notch. A quarrel for its groove and a second for his mouth and he was raising the weapon, sighting on an archer, pulling his trigger. He barely saw the man knocked back, was heaving again, placing, scanning, pulling. It was a flow he was long used to, and he did not think beyond the marksman’s thoughts. Only when he was groping in an empty quiver and found nothing did he pause, his arms and back afire. Noise, which somehow he had not heard despite its volume, returned full force. Yet it had a different feel to it now. Mos
t of the drums had stopped and the trumpets’ blare sounded … sounded somehow desperate to his ear. As did the enemies’ cries. He reached up to wipe sweat from his eyes, raised them to see …

  The sails! They were filled again, almost as one. On either side of the barge, Bastoni and the other Genoan captains had made the same choice as the Greek. Every Christian vessel was under full canvas, and men on each had hacked away the ropes that had bound them into one floating fortress. Separated now, they surged forward. The despair he’d heard in the enemy’s voice redoubled, as their oars were smashed into kindling, their sides stoved, their grappling ropes ripped from hands.

  Gregoras peered over the side. Their ship had caught up with, and was passing, the largest of the triremes. On its deck, raving useless commands, stood Baltaoglu. He had a bandage crosswise round his bare head, and over his eye a second eye had formed, marked in blood. He was passing within a stone’s throw of Gregoras, but the Greek did not move. He had no quarrel left for him, and his arms were suddenly so tired, he was not sure if he could have raised the weapon anyway. Besides, it seemed that fate was not offering him the Turkish admiral’s life. Today, his eye would have to be enough.

  Brushing aside the clinging enemy, tacking, the four vessels passed before Galata, making the turn toward Constantinople. As they did so, in the sudden silence of his enemy’s despair, Gregoras heard another voice raving. He crossed to the far side of the deck, looked to the strand of sand under the Galatan walls. He was close enough to hear, and easily close enough to see, the man on a horse that he was almost forcing to swim. The man wore a silver helmet that made Baltaoglu’s look plain, while spewing forth a stream of obscenities that would have made the abbess of a brothel blush. Behind him on the shore stood a nine-tail tug.

  ‘Mehmet,’ Gregoras breathed, reaching into his quiver again, still finding it empty. It would have been a long shot anyway, with a crosswind. Perhaps a better chance would come.

  A little later, with the sun low upon the horizon and the Turks rowing frantically but failing to catch up with their sailed ships, Flatenelas and an officer found Gregoras staring up at Constantinople’s walls. ‘You will be ashore soon enough,’ the older Greek said. ‘When night falls, the Turks will realise that they cannot entrap us, and a fleet of my countrymen already gather at the boom to lift it and see us safely to shelter.’ He reached out, took Gregoras’s arm. ‘I am glad that my old friend’s son has returned in the hour of his country’s need. We need the strength I feel here. Need the skill I saw you display in the fight. You took that shot at the Turk commander, did you not?’ On Gregoras’s nod, he squeezed, continued. ‘And I will tell all, from the High Council to the lowest courtesan, that what I saw this day were not the actions of a traitor.’

  As eminent a man as Flatenelas could certainly help restore his reputation, and smooth the way to the rescinding of his exile. ‘Well,’ Gregoras nodded, ‘I thank you for that. I am not sure about the Council, but it will be good to have the whores on my side again.’

  Flatenelas laughed, turned away to the running of his ship. His lieutenant did not follow, stepped closer. Gregoras had not noticed what he was holding, saw it now – the bow that he had used and left on the platform above. ‘It was my father’s,’ the man said, ‘but I never had his skill with it. And I most certainly do not have yours.’ He held it, and the quiver, out. ‘I would be honoured if you would take it and use it. For our city.’

  Gregoras looked at the wonderful weapon for a moment, then reached and took it. ‘It is I who am honoured,’ he replied. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Archimedes. My father was Tanos, of Therapia.’

  ‘I remember him – and his skill. I will endeavour to live up to it. And I will return this to you, Archimedes, when we have triumphed. If I live to do so.’

  The lieutenant smiled, nodded, walked away. Gregoras turned to look at the city again. The sinking sun was setting it ablaze, the dome of St Sophia a vivid crimson flash. Our city, he thought. He had fought the Turk for gold and he had fought him for Constantinople, and though he always fought well – for fighting was something he loved – he had rediscovered what truly made his heart strong and his bowstring sing.

  A cause. The cause.

  The ships had bunched again, waiting for the sunset and the lifting of the boom in the darkness. The imperial barge was close to the Stella Mare. Close enough for Gregoras to hear a high-pitched laugh. It was the boy, Bartolomeo, safe after the battle, on the aft deck of the carrack, making his father dance with a scimitar, a spoil of war. And looking at father and son, and holding a weapon that had belonged to a father and a son, he remembered that there were other causes within the walls above him, and that he was, at last, ready to seek them out.

  – TWENTY-ONE –

  Consequences

  The sultan’s otak was hot, for its canvas roof and walls still held the day’s sun, and night was not yet far enough advanced to cool them. But heat radiated from within the huge pavilion as well. Not from the braziers, which remained as yet unlit. This heat came from men, from their fear, sweat running freely inside their gomleks, dripping down their legs within the folds of their silk shalvari.

  Mehmet’s rages were known to be indiscriminate. So all the beys and belerbeys, the pashas, even the imam kept their noses to the floor. Those who had their eyes open could study the intricate patterns of the Izmiri kilims that covered the ground. Most did not even venture so much.

  Their ears they could do nothing about, though most would have preferred not to listen to the obscenities, many deeply sacrilegious, that gushed from their leader’s mouth. Though in some ways they were preferable to the softer-spoken words that followed, that began to chill the rivulets of sweat upon their skin.

  ‘It is not simply your failure, Baltaoglu,’ Mehmet hissed. ‘It is the abject manner of it. There, with all the Christians watching from their walls, there, you failed! Because of your stupidity, because of your cowardice, our men who watched now begin to doubt, to fear Allah’s judgement, to think of all the times the sons of Isaac have attacked this place and failed to take it.’ He bent to the man lying on the ground before him and thrust the bastinado under his chin, using the short wooden stick to pull up his bandaged head. ‘Do you hear them, pig? Do you hear the infidels’ bells tolling their joy?’ He tilted the head still further up, angling it towards the city. All in the tent could hear both Baltaoglu’s groan of agony and the distant, constant, joyous peals. ‘You have given them a gift. Though you outnumbered them ten, twenty to one, your stupidity, your cowardice, has given them the one thing I have tried to take away: hope!’

  He let the head fall. It landed with a thump on the carpet before the sultan’s slippered feet, and Hamza, taking the chance to peer up from the floor, saw fresh blood ooze from the Bulgarian’s bandage. It would have to be changed soon, like three others before it. Something had smashed Baltaoglu’s visor into his eye, and removing the metal had taken the eyeball too.

  Now Mehmet turned to the only other man standing, and his command to him meant that sight was not going to be a worry for long. ‘Execute him,’ Mehmet said softly. ‘I want his head on a spike before my otak so the world sees what happens to those who fail me.’

  The huge man behind Mehmet stepped forward. Hamza had last seen him wielding a trowel in the gardens of the saray at Edirne. But the bostanci, the gardeners of the palace, were also the sultan’s executioners, and he had the tools of this trade about him. It was these that caused him to hesitate, and to speak, the first voice other than Mehmet’s to sound within the otak since the disgraced kapudan pasha had been dragged in.

  ‘The bow or the sword, oh balm of the world?’

  Mehmet stared incredulously at him for a moment, then exploded. ‘I want his head cut off, you fool. Are you going to do that with a horsehair string?’

  ‘Lord of lords.’ The bostanci picked up the huge, heavy-bladed sword behind him, bent and seized the Bulgar by the hair at the back of his neck, elici
ting another groan, a babble of words, ‘mercy’ being one of the only ones that passed the blood clearly.

  ‘Not here, idiot!’ Mehmet struck the man hard on his shoulder with his bastinado. ‘These kilims cost a fortune. Do you think I want them further stained?’ He used the stick to point to the otak’s entrance. ‘Out there! Where my army can witness the fate of traitors.’

  Perhaps it was the word. Baltaoglu was many things – a failure, certainly, though Hamza knew that few would have succeeded that day upon the waters when wind and God intervened – but a traitor he was not. Nor was he a coward. And Hamza was also conscious of the ripple that ran through the tent, the low murmur of protest from men who dared not raise heads or voices. They would feel their cowardice later, at not protesting. They would resent the young sultan, so new upon his throne, who made them feel thus. And Mehmet, for all his rage and certainty, needed these men. He could not take Constantinople without them.

  ‘Asylum of the world,’ Hamza said, coming off his knees, crabbing forward to press his forehead against Mehmet’s curled slipper, ‘I crave a chance to speak before this just act is done.’

  Mehmet glared down. ‘Do not plead for this traitor, Hamza Bey. Only a fool defends a fool.’

  ‘Yes, lord. And I do not plead for him, but for something else of far more import.’ He risked a look up. In the year of preparation, the new sultan had taken his advice more than any other man’s. He saw him hesitate. ‘Come, master,’ he hurried on. ‘Killing a man is thirsty work, and there is sherbet here.’

  He gestured to the latticed section of the tent, where more intimate conferences could be had. Since they had ridden back from the debacle before the walls of Galata, no one had drunk anything, so immediate was the sultan’s anger.