A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  Theon stood and listened to the sounds of the gate being bolted, the heavy barrels shifted into place. One man can move one barrel, he thought, then turned and walked rapidly back down the avenue of Judas trees. The wind gusted, dislodging clouds of damp pink petals. Some settled on his clothes, but he did not try to wipe them off. There were so many, there didn’t seem much point.

  – TWENTY-THREE –

  Reunions

  Back in the emperor’s chamber, the Council’s debate had been distracted by the disappearance of one brother and the almost immediate appearance of another.

  Theodore of Karystenos had met Gregoras at the door, brought him in, knelt, with some cracking of limbs, beside him before the throne. The aged captain of archers had insisted, when Gregoras had sought him out after the battle at sea, that he would not have the younger man lurk, unnoticed, on the battlements in the fight ahead. ‘Your place is in plain view, lad, where the prowess of your bow will be an inspiration to all,’ he’d said, adding, ‘And for the same reason you will have to remove that mask.’ When Gregoras had protested at this, Theodore cut him off. ‘You cannot go masked to see the emperor. We are not Turks! Besides, who will care? War disfigures men, and there are plenty in service uglier than you. Besides that,’ he’d concluded, taking Gregoras’s face and turning it roughly side to side as he studied it, ‘this one improves you. The nose of the Lascari was ever overlarge. Look at your grandfather. Your father. Look, Christ take pity on him, at your brother.’ He’d dropped his hand, laughing.

  And so, unmasked, Gregoras knelt before the throne, his head bent, his false nose displayed. Concealed outside, he had watched the councillors entering the palace, seen some new Greek faces but mostly the old – Loukas Notaras, George Sphrantzes and their ilk – along with his commander, Giustiniani, shadowed as ever by Enzo the Sicilian and Amir the Syrian. Churchmen came too, whom he did not recognise.

  It was the Greeks who gasped now at his appearance, who looked to the guards for the immediate seizure of the exile, instant death the punishment for being discovered within the city walls. Only one was not surprised, for Constantine had been forewarned by his captain of archers. And it was the emperor who spoke.

  ‘It is always a fortune when the prodigal returns. What did Our Lord say in the parable?’ He raised his hand, smiling, as the two prelates both leaned forward to speak. ‘Gentlemen, it is a rhetorical question. I hazard I know my gospels near as well as you. Forgive me, Archbishop Leonard, that I only know them in the Greek and not the Latin as our blessed father the Pope would have it now.’ He closed his eyes. ‘“I have recklessly forgotten your glory, O Father.” Is that not so?’ He turned, still smiling, to the kneeling men before him. ‘And let all witness that I welcome our prodigal son back to his mother, the city, as well as to another father in myself.’ He looked down, gesturing to the marred face. ‘I had always hoped to find you and make amends for … hasty justice. But word came that you were dead. Yet by God’s good grace, here you are, restored to us. Prodigal and Lazarus both.’ He rose from his throne and descended the few steps to lift Gregoras to his feet. ‘And with this kiss, I remove the attainder and restore to you your name, Gregoras Lascaris.’ He bent, kissed the younger man on each cheek and on the forehead.

  There was not much that could daunt Gregoras, on burning decks or in a breach. For years he had maintained that Gregoras was the name of a dead man, Lascaris an accident of birth. So he was surprised now at the water that surged into his eyes and burst their bounds. Constantine, moving back from his kiss, was still close enough to see all. He smiled, squeezed the younger man’s arms. ‘You have returned to us, as you know, in a good time. A time for heroes. You were second only to my good captain, your tutor Theodore, in your skill with the bow. Now you will set an example again to all others. Just as I have heard, from our gallant countryman Flatenelas, that you did upon the deck of his ship in our recent victory.’ He turned. ‘And my good Giustiniani, most renowned of warriors, tells me that under the name of Zoran the Ragusan, you have become not merely a soldier but a fine leader of men. Is that not right, noble Genoan?’

  ‘It is, lord,’ Giustiniani said, stepping forward. ‘And my company is bereft without his skills. If you would have me where the fight is hottest, then I would have him still at my side, if it pleases you.’

  Constantine turned back. ‘Does it please you, “Zoran”?’

  ‘Majesty …’ Gregoras hesitated, then continued, ‘Since you have restored my name to me, sire, I would own it again … and my home. I am Zoran no more, but Gregoras of the Lascari. And I will fight for it and you, wherever I can serve you best. Beneath the red cross of Genoa or the double eagle of Constantinople.’

  ‘Well,’ said the emperor, looking around at the other men, ‘perhaps there is a way to serve me and your old comrades.’ He turned back to Gregoras. ‘You are aware of the new threat to us, the Turkish ships in the Horn?’

  ‘I saw them, my lord. Like everyone else, I could not believe the sight.’

  ‘It is a threat that must be dealt with, and swiftly,’ Constantine said, speaking now to the assembly, all his smiles gone. ‘The enemy’s guns have caused the land walls so much damage that we have been forced to erect, in places, a stockade of timbers and barrels. This is harder to defend and we need every man to do it. We cannot afford to divert men to the sea walls, yet already the Turks, sheltered by their new fleet, have begun construction of a bridge across the Horn to reach land, just here, near our palace.’ He waved to the north. ‘If they can assault us there too, the consequences could be fatal to our hopes.’ He shook his head. ‘No, indeed. We must drive their ships from our water. Our Venetian friends – their safe harbours as threatened as our city by these developments – are proposing some sort of secret action, and as soon as tomorrow. I go to the Church of St Maria in their quarter, to hear their plans, even now.’ He opened his hand to include Giustiniani. ‘Though he is of their rival, even they of Venice acknowledge our commander’s great mastery in the arts of war. They will admit him to the conference. But if, as I suspect, they propose to use only their own countrymen, I will insist that we Greeks are represented too.’ He smiled at Gregoras. ‘You have already displayed your valour once upon the water, young Lascaris. Would you do so again, for your city’s honour?’

  Gregoras’s stomach tightened. He had not thought to fight again so soon. The cut he’d taken on his hip was inflamed, and he was not moving so well. Also, he’d always much preferred to stand upon battlements than a deck. But he had won his reputation back with his actions in the last sea battle. And if this was a sort of test of his determination, he must not fail it.

  ‘For my city’s honour, for yours, basileus, and for my own,’ he replied, bowing.

  ‘Good. Then let us few away to the Venetian church and see what they propose.’ He raised his head to look above Gregoras’s. ‘But let us first bear joyful witness to the reunion of brothers, our own Castor and Pollux!’

  Gregoras stiffened, turned. Cain and Abel, he thought, seeing Theon caught in the doorway, watching shock pass so briefly over his face before a mask as impenetrable as the one Gregoras had discarded dropped back into place. Theon smiled broadly, came forward, arms spread wide. The rumour of Gregoras’s return and his actions upon the imperial ship must have also reached him. But perhaps he had not expected his twin, younger by a moment, to be so swiftly welcomed back into the emperor’s presence. ‘I heard you had arrived, brother,’ he said, putting his arms around Gregoras, kissing both his cheeks, ‘and I rejoice both in your life and in the restoration of your – our – name.’

  ‘Brother,’ was all Gregoras said, could say. For now.

  Perhaps Constantine, still standing so close, sensed what was unspoken. As the brothers broke apart, he changed the subject. ‘And what, Theon, did Mehmet’s emissary make of our response?’

  Theon turned, relieved to be able to look away from Gregoras’s challenging stare. ‘He took our lack of civility ill, lord. An
d he fears that the answer we sent will rouse his master to fury.’

  ‘Something to which he is prone, so it is said.’ Constantine turned, beckoned his servants, who came forward, girded him in a riding cloak, fixed spurs to his boots. ‘Well, shall we see if we can send him something else, and goad him into an apoplexy that will burst his heart?’

  With that, he swept from the room, his entourage following. Giustiniani squeezed Gregoras’s arm as he passed. His shadow, Amir, smiled and tapped his own nose. Soon all had left, leaving just the two brothers.

  For silent moments, both men stared at the open door. Finally, without looking, Theon murmured, ‘Our family house is open to you, brother, of course, should you choose to stay there.’

  The offer was just a form of words, made without meaning. Gregoras turned. ‘After what was said there last time, Theon? After what your … your son …’ he paused, ‘after what Thakos called me? How could you allow a traitor to sleep under your roof?’

  Theon turned too, the two brothers face to face. ‘He will learn that what he always thought was true isn’t. He will learn a different story now. Now that the emperor and the city have taken you again into their hearts.’

  Gregoras noted the taint of bitterness in the words, and could not help his smile. ‘Our emperor did not quote the rest of the Bible story,’ he said, ‘and I cannot remember the words. But I do recall that the prodigal’s brother was as unhappy about his return as you are about mine.’

  For the years he’d believed Gregoras to be dead, Theon had scarce considered him. Now he was alive, he discovered that his twin still had the power to rouse fury in him as no other man. ‘Perhaps you should ask my godly wife,’ he hissed, ‘for she will quote you chapter and verse.’

  Unblinking, Gregoras stared back. Saw his brother’s anger – but saw his fear too. And another’s fear was what a soldier used, a weakness to be probed. ‘Oh, trust me, Theon,’ he replied softly, ‘I will ask Sofia many things.’

  Eyes so like his own narrowed still more. Then a voice at a door prevented further words. ‘The Commander calls for you, Zoran … Ach, I shall have to stop thinking of you like that, won’t I?’

  Slowly, the brothers took their gazes from each other. Amir stood in the doorway, looking at each of them in turn, sensing what he could not know.

  Gregoras came forward, and took his friend’s arm. ‘Then lead me to him,’ he said. They left the room, and Gregoras never looked back to see Theon brushing pink petals from his sleeve.

  28 April

  Gregoras sat on a tumbled pillar, letting the strong afternoon sunlight work upon his wound. It was the way he’d healed many, as his bare torso bore testimony, a map folded in half and filled with rivers, clefts inked by bone tip, bullet and blade. His back was the worst, for it had taken the whips of slavers when he was chained before the mast. The new wound, curving like the scimitar that made it round his hip, would link the two surfaces and tell the journey of his life.

  This latest was healing well, cleaned by an old family physician, the catgut stitching no longer an itching curse. And the delay of five days for what was meant to be the instant action to destroy the Turkish fleet in the Horn – decided upon at that night meeting – had given him the respite he needed to move freely again. He could pull his bow without pain. He could wield his falchion.

  He twisted from the waist, felt a slight ache, nothing more serious. The frown came from the knowledge of what else the delay had brought – too many people becoming involved in the operation. An instant raid that first night, accomplished by the Venetians alone – and the odd Greek, for the honour of the city – would have had some chance of success. But once the other Genoese had demanded honour’s share too – not Giustiniani, who was all for letting the Venetians take the losses and the glory if they relieved the threat – the chances of success diminished with every person told. Spies were everywhere, both sides of the wall. And Italians boasted more than any other nation of the earth. It would be a miracle if Mehmet had not heard of his danger, and arranged to counter it.

  There was nothing Gregoras could say. His reputation, newly restored, was still fragile. He would join them in the darkness and sail out into the Horn. But he would not wear his fine armour, reclaimed from the mercenary company, just a few of his mismatched items, easily shed. He would not take his bow. He feared he would be swimming again before the light returned.

  The thought made him shiver, despite the sun, the memory of his recent shipwreck still fresh. It would be good to stay in the wonderful late April sunshine, return again on the morrow, and bask, like the lizards that lived in the ruins of what had once been a fine house. Perhaps he would. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps he would have the chance also to continue doing what he had never, in a lifetime of experience, done before.

  Watch his son play.

  Though ‘play’ was not quite right. When he and Theon, Sofia and others had escaped to waste ground such as this, the rare times their tutors freed them, they had done similar things to the boys before him now. Like these they had made slingshots and used them, in competition at targets, or to hunt birds – though Sofia wept the few times they’d actually killed one. But theirs had been play, children’s games, full of shrieks and laughter. The six boys before him now, who ranged in age perhaps from seven to ten, were quiet, solemn. When the great Turkish gun fired and the earth, even this far back into the city, shook, they paused, looked up in sudden terror. The youngest cried once, till he was teased out of his tears. But all set more grimly to their work, which was not about targets, nor hunting sparrows.

  They were learning to kill men.

  The slingshot was the most ancient and the most simple of weapons, Gregoras knew. It needed little fashioning. A piece of rope, a patch of leather, a stone. It did not require the years of crafted strength required to pull back a bowstring. Even a boy with the littlest muscle in his arm and a lot of luck could kill a man with it … at, say, twenty paces. And since the city’s strength was so small, the Council had ordered that boys be armed and practise with this simple weapon. If the Turks ran through the streets, maybe one or two more could be killed.

  Gregoras shook his head. Once for the sadness of boys forced to be warriors before their time. And once for their ineptitude. The weapon may have been simple, but there was still a trick to it, and the boys before him had little clue what that was. Turks and sparrows would remain safe from them.

  Suddenly most of the boys seemed to agree with him, for all at once five of them ran off. The sixth yelled at them to return. When they did not, the boy stood alone in the middle of the waste ground and lowered his head.

  ‘Thakos,’ Gregoras called softly.

  The head came up. Thakos looked. He had seen his uncle from the moment he arrived to lie in the sun. It had caused a certain amount of whispering, some curious glances. But he had not ventured near. Now, when Gregoras called a second time, he did, stopping at the base of the pillar, gazing unashamedly at the map of scars. ‘Uncle,’ he said.

  Gregoras looked down. The boy’s light brown hair, his freckled face, it did not remind him of … either of Thakos’s parents, but of his own mother. The left eye was larger than the right by enough to make it noticeable, both wider now in their study. His mother had possessed a wonderful laugh, rough and coarse, that would echo round their house and of which his father would feign disapproval. He wondered if the boy had inherited that as well. He hadn’t noticed much childish laughter on the streets of a city at war. It was as if the big gun had blasted it away.

  He slid down the pillar to stand beside the boy. They had not spoken, since the night they’d first met and Thakos had called him traitor. He would have been told of the change in Gregoras’s status – at least as far as his treason. All knew of the prodigal’s return, the news broadcast widely in the city, a little light in the darkness that had settled after the Turks appeared in the Horn. But he would know nothing more and it was not up to Gregoras to tell him.

&nb
sp; They stood staring at each other, Gregoras as uneasy. When had he ever had time for dealings with boys? His own childhood had been dissolved by harsh experience. More, he had no idea how to be a father. Yet an uncle had to have some advantages. ‘May I see it?’ he said, pointing to the slingshot.

  ‘This?’ Thakos looked down as if surprised at what he held. ‘Of course.’

  Gregoras took it, turned it into the light, turned it over and around, grunted. It was the simplest of weapons, but there were still rules to its construction. ‘The rope’s too long for you,’ he said. ‘It should be a little shorter than the length of your arm. It’s why you are having some troubles. And this …’ he pointed to one end of the rope, ‘should have a loop in it.’

  ‘Really, kyr? Why?’ Thakos peered at what Gregoras showed him. ‘Can it be fixed?’

  ‘Yes, it can. If you will let me?’ At the boy’s nod, he held the rope up to Thakos’s arm, took a measurement, then drew his dagger and cut a length from each end of the rope. He crouched, untwined one end into its four separate strands, twisted them apart two by two, held the tension while he formed a loop the length of three fingers, tied knots below and above it. The other end, he tied off with three tight knots to form one larger. He put his thumb in the leather cup, pulled the ropes together and tight with the other hand. ‘Better,’ he murmured, offering it.

  The boy took it. ‘Shall I try it, kyr?’ he asked excitedly. He reached into a pouch at his side that clinked.

  ‘Wait.’ Gregoras rose and moved into the open ground before the tumbled walls. ‘Before we risk our lives with wayward stones, let us see how you use it without them.’

  Thakos came forward. Gregoras stood beside him. ‘This loop is for your first two fingers, see? It is like … like the bow on my crossbow. It gives tension to the rope when you grip the other end, its knot so.’ He pulled the knotted end up to press it against the loop. ‘Now, push your thumb into the cup. Feel the pull? That’s what a rock will feel like. Now, keep the tension … and fling it round!’