A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  Gregoras was about to snap again, to bid silence. But he knew it would do little good. If sight had been taken away from them, it seemed that sound had too. There was no noise in the city, apart from Scottish prattling. Even the Turkish guns were silent, as if the enemy also thought that the Horned One had the world beneath his cape and should not be disturbed. ‘Not you too, Grant,’ sighed Gregoras, pressing his back into the wall of what he still hoped was their destination. ‘Do you believe this is another curse upon our city?’

  ‘Well, I am more a man of science, ye ken. But this cannot be good, can it? Has the city ever had a fog this late in May before?’

  ‘Not in a thousand years, that I heard. And together with the fall of the Virgin yesterday, the lunar eclipse and the strange light that played on St Sophia …’ He shivered. ‘It would be hard not to believe in ill omens.’

  ‘Well, let people believe what they will. You and I are soldiers and we know that, omens or no omens, there are things we can be doing for the defence. Things I should be doing now, if it weren’t for this mole’s game.’ Gregoras heard the sound of a beard being scratched hard. ‘Or are you telling me that this secrecy we are about is for that defence?’

  ‘Yes. It is,’ Gregoras lied, feeling bad, but for a moment. He needed the alchemist here, not the engineer. Besides, Grant owed him. The Scotchman would not be here, defending, if it weren’t for him. Despite the mist around them, Gregoras’s knowledge of the city had got them from the walls the few hundred paces to what he hoped was their destination. But he couldn’t be sure until …

  ‘Shh!’ he said again, not because he was listening for his desire again but because he thought he’d heard it. And there it was … plainsong, a score of voices raised in prayer. Close by, if the grey muffling did not deceive him. ‘Come,’ he said, groping for an arm, finding it. ‘We are here. Come!’

  Grant rose with him. ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘The monastery of Manuel.’

  ‘Bugger a virgin!’ the Scotsman exclaimed, jerking his arm free. ‘Why have you brought me back here?’

  Gregoras halted. ‘Back? You know it.’

  ‘It has one of the finest libraries of alchemical texts in God’s wide world,’ Grant replied. ‘Not to mention some interesting treatises on explosives … which of course is linked to alchemy. You think I would not consult them?’

  ‘So you know your way around the library?’ Gregoras’s heart was beating a little faster as he once more reached and pulled the other man forward.

  ‘Aye. Is that what we are here to visit?’

  ‘It is.’ Gregoras was running his free hand along the stonework. As it hit wood, the chanting grew a little clearer. ‘And this is the gate.’

  ‘Shall I knock upon it?’ grunted the Scot.

  ‘Better not.’ Gregoras was feeling the wall beside the gate. He seemed to remember … ‘Yes,’ he said, feeling vegetation, the thickness of vine. He guided the other’s hand to it. ‘Better to climb.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Grant said, not moving. ‘To enter unannounced, like … thieves, perhaps? Are you planning on stealing something?’

  ‘Borrowing it. Borrowing to protect it. Just in case the omens are correct.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the Scotsman said again, and there was a long pause during which Gregoras’s heart beat all the faster. He did not know what he would do if the other man baulked. ‘Right-ho,’ Grant suddenly said, pulling away, beginning to climb.

  Gregoras peered into the mist. ‘You’ll help me?’

  ‘I will. Anything for a comrade. Besides,’ he called down, ‘since I am here, there are a few texts I intend to protect too, ye ken.’

  Gregoras reached for holds, hoisted himself up, soon encountered a hand that grasped his and tugged. Both men straddled the wall, though further reaching found no more vines. ‘Ach, come, it can’t be a long drop,’ whispered the Scot, and launched himself into the mist.

  It wasn’t, though both men stumbled. Then they were up, Grant leading, long arm waving ahead, finally scraping on another wall. ‘I think the door is this way,’ he hissed, ‘but might there not be fellows about?’

  ‘With fortune they will all be at their prayers for a while yet.’ Gregoras turned his ear to listen to the swell of plainsong. ‘A little while. Make haste.’

  The Scot groped up the stairs, turned the latch, opened the door … and though it only had a few oil lamps in it, the light in the hall dazzled them. ‘This way,’ Grant whispered, striding away from the now much louder sound of chanting that came through a chapel door, half ajar. They moved down a corridor, to another oaken door at its far end. This had a symbol on it, a strange arrow with a circle in place of flights. Grant paused. ‘And what knowledge is it that you seek within, adept?’ he said, his tone suddenly deep.

  In answer, Gregoras reached in his pouch and pulled out the copy that Leilah had given him of the front piece. He held it up, and Grant squinted, then whistled. ‘Geber?’ he said. ‘They have that here?’

  ‘So I am told.’

  ‘By the one you are protecting it for?’ The Greek nodded. ‘Aye, well, I’ll find it for ye, if I can. But if I do, you may have to give me a wee look at it myself. For the knowledge it contains is beyond price.’

  And with that, the Scot pushed open the door.

  The library was well lit. It revealed to Gregoras a large room, a scriptorium filled with the writing lecterns of the monks, lined in shelves that reached from the floor to a high ceiling, and these filled with wooden boxes, great vellum-bound tomes, leather canisters. Seeing them, Gregoras groaned, aware of the plainsong in the distance. It had been a while since he had heard a liturgy through. But the notes seemed to be heading towards a climax.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, lad,’ Grant said, heading to the south wall. ‘It is a library, and there is an order to such places.’

  ‘Can I also look?’

  ‘Aye, ye can,’ Grant called. ‘On the west wall there is where the alchemical texts are found. I believe they are stacked according to country. Spain, France, the German states. The Byzantines. Seek the ones with Arab sigils on the spine. Do so while I delve in chemicals … Ah, here!’

  Gregoras stood before the walls, stared. At first the symbols all bled together, but, focusing, he soon began to sort the familiar from the strange. The majority of the texts were in ancient Greek and Latin, both of which he could read. Soon, on a lower shelf, he spied first the cursive script of the Persians, then the Arabs. But there were so many, he began to chew his lip, repeatedly looking down at the symbol on the paper he’d been given, looking up and losing it in the variety before him.

  Despairing, he turned to call … and Grant was at his elbow, rolling several sheets of paper into a cone. ‘There …’ he gestured to the lower shelf, ‘that is all Jabir ibn Hayyan. Do you not see his tugra?’

  Gregoras did not … and then he did, the same one that was on his paper. He crouched, stared at several tubes before him. Grant knelt beside him. ‘Let me see, it could be …’ he peered, ‘any one of these.’

  Gregoras looked back, to the door. Only silence came through it now. ‘Swiftly,’ he said. ‘The monks have finished chanting.’

  ‘Aye, so they have,’ Grant replied distractedly, scratching his beard. Then he shook his head. ‘You know, it is not here.’

  ‘What?’ Gregoras exclaimed, rising with the Scot. ‘It must be.’

  ‘It’s not …’ Grant looked around the room. ‘It’s not, because it’s … there.’

  He pointed, then crossed the room to one of the lecterns. As they got near, Gregoras saw a wax seal hanging down, dangling at the end of a blue ribbon. It spun slightly as they approached, and he saw the same symbol that was on his paper. ‘Aye,’ said Grant, stepping close. ‘Geber for sure.’ He peered closer, then whistled. ‘Man, you never told me it was an original. Mind that …’ he hissed, as Gregoras moved round and reached. ‘That paper will be fragile.’

  ‘It cannot be helped.’ Gregoras rolled th
e crackling pages as swiftly and as carefully as time allowed. Which was none. Not with footsteps in the corridor, voices getting nearer.

  ‘I am a scholar,’ said the Scot, stepping forward. ‘Let me talk our way out.’

  ‘I am a soldier,’ replied the Greek, cramming the papers into a leather canister before yelling, ‘Retreat!’

  There were five men in the corridor. But the two thieves were tall and burly and the suddenness of their bursting out of the door did not leave the monks much time to react. By the time they had, screaming to their brothers to bar the gate, Grant and Gregoras were already through it and the mist that had shrouded their arrival swallowed them again, hiding them swiftly from all pursuit.

  They halted after a time, crouched in the portico of a church. The fog appeared to be lifting a little, for faces had come clearer. Grant looked into Gregoras’s. ‘And where might you be taking that now?’ He pointed at the canister under the Greek’s arm. ‘I doubt there’s the gold left to buy it in all Constantinople.’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’ Gregoras hesitated, unused to confidences. He did not know the value of the scroll he held. A fortune, Leilah had said and the Scot had just confirmed. All he did know was that in the days to come, death could take him in a hundred ways. It would be a shame if the location of something so precious should die with him. ‘There’s … there’s a church,’ he said softly. ‘St Maria of the Mongols. A last refuge perhaps, and …’ He hesitated. He hadn’t thought much beyond the taking of the text. He’d supposed that he’d find a place to hide it there. But where?

  A memory came, something he’d loved as a child, and seen again when he’d followed Sofia. ‘There’s an ikon of St Demetrios. There is a small gap behind, between the painting and the altar screen …’

  Grant studied him for a moment, then stood. In the time they’d talked, the mist had cleared considerably. Wisps clung to stone eaves, but they could see across the small square. ‘You are thinking you might not live to reclaim it?’ He shook the papers he held. ‘Well, this will be in my cave, with all the rest of them. It might not fetch as much as yours, but it’s still worth a bag or two of gold. Enough to build you that house you’re always talking about, anyway.’

  The fog was lifting elsewhere too, judging by the sound that came then – the crack and smash of a large cannon. ‘Come then,’ said Gregoras, rising too. ‘There are Turks to fight.’

  ‘Aye. Hordes of the bastards. And by their recent preparations, I think they’ll be coming all at once.’ He nodded. ‘Where do you face them?’

  ‘I do not know. I am an imperial archer again. But Giustiniani likes me near, so …’ He shrugged. ‘And you?’

  ‘The palace. Turks are still burrowing near it.’

  A silence came. They looked at each other. Each knew that he had bequeathed the other the little he had.

  After a moment, Gregoras nodded. ‘Well then …’

  ‘Aye.’

  And then they were moving opposite ways. Gregoras was at the edge of the square when the soft call came. ‘I’ve something else in that cave – a batch of aqua vitae on the go. I think it could be my finest brew yet. We could taste it … och, in about five days, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Then I will come and judge it … in five days.’ Gregoras turned the corner, kept moving. Five days, he thought. What will this world look like then?

  – THIRTY-TWO –

  ‘It Is Written’

  26 May: fiftieth day of the siege

  It was time.

  Carefully lifting the paper, Leilah blew the fine golden sand across its surface, most falling in a shimmer through the air, what remained glinting in the etched black lines, at the conjunction of virgin and lion, in the bowls of the scales, in the stingers of the scorpion.

  She turned the paper into the shaft of sunlight from the open flap of her tent, studied the horoscope. She was pleased to see how little it differed from the one she’d cast for Mehmet a year and a few weeks before at Edirne. The timing was a little different, a moon not waxing but waning. The Greeks and their allies had fought better than anyone could have predicted, soldier or seer. But the result was the same: in three days’ time, if Mehmet was resolute, Constantinople should fall.

  She frowned, staring at that ‘if’ in gilded black lines on her chart. One man was there, one who would dictate the outcome. His rise and fall. She’d assumed it was Mehmet, since it was for him the chart was drawn. Yet she saw now that the person came from the tenth house, the house of ambition. Controlled by Pisces. Ruled by Neptune. Someone else, someone who would influence the outcome as greatly as the sultan himself.

  She bit her lip, suddenly not as certain as she’d been. Tasted blood, leaned forward, waited, until a drop fell upon the paper. It slid down the lines of black and glimmering gold, pooled in that tenth house. Mehmet and someone else then, at a moment of crisis. A decision made, changing everything.

  But which way? She shivered. It was unlike her to be so uncertain. And then she heard it, the called command to clear a path, the rhythmic steps, the clink of sword harness. They were coming to bring her to Mehmet. Certainty would once again have to be faked.

  She knelt, rolled the paper, slipped a ribbon over it. Then she rose, drew the scarlet cloak over her shoulders, donned the headdress, letting the veil fall over her face. As the marching stopped on a command, and a man’s shadow, made long by the evening sun, spilled onto her carpet, she reached up under the silk to rub the blood into her lips. It reminded her of other tastes there, of her and Gregoras conjoined like planets, and what they had planned. It reminded her too that there were always things in the stars that were unknowable, however skilled the sorceress. And that all she could do was concentrate on her will, her desire, which was Mehmet’s desire too. To achieve it, the city must be stormed. If wielding her crossbow would accomplish that, she would happily take her place in the siege lines. However, it was her other skills she needed now. Skills of enchantment. Skills of persuasion.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  She recognised the voice. Hamza, the sultan’s shadow. The new kapudan pasha. The risen man. She knew he was wary of her, wary perhaps of the influence she had, that he could not control. He had prevented her reaching Mehmet before. But now he was there to take her to him. ‘I am ready,’ she said, picking up the horoscope, stepping into the sunlight.

  Hamza had bent to call. Now he straightened to study. She was more hidden than she had ever been before, except behind the screen in Edirne, the first time he’d encountered her, in her robe now and a headdress of so many layers her face was only visible by its features pressing the silk out. It made him uneasy, the unreadable face. He wanted to see her, to be able to gauge if what she would say to Mehmet was what they both wanted to hear. The lord of lords wanted to be told that the stars still foretold his victory. Hamza wanted to be told it too. But there were many in the army, especially those of the highest rank like Candarli Halil, who did not. Who would delight in hearing that the sultan’s favourite sorceress was doubtful of success. Mehmet, for all his growing skills, was still a young man. And when greybeards carped … Hamza could not see her. He could not gauge by her look. But he would find a way to ask, and tell it in her voice, in the short walk back to the sultan’s otak.

  He bowed, gestured with his arm. She stepped forward, and he followed, into the gap between two bodies of the household guard, their halberds at port across their chests. ‘Forward,’ he called.

  They fell into step. Despite the urgency, he did not know how to begin. ‘Does Allah, most mighty, show His blessings to you?’ he asked, formally.

  ‘He does.’

  She smiled beneath her veil at the silence that followed his first words. She could sense the energy in the man, the questions that filled him. She would answer if she chose, or not. The only man that truly concerned her waited ahead. Through layers of silk she looked to either side, saw what she had been hearing for some time now in her tent. Men celebrating. And it brought a questio
n of her own, though she hid it in a statement. ‘The army is happy.’

  Hamza, who had been about to speak, nodded. ‘Irade has been commanded. Two days of feast and one of fasting. To prepare.’

  ‘For what, lord?’

  ‘For a great attack. The greatest yet. If … if the sultan commands it.’

  ‘If?’ She let the word hang a moment, continued. ‘The final one?’

  ‘Perhaps. Inshallah.’

  ‘Does God will it?’

  ‘The imam, Aksemseddin, most revered, believes he does. Most in the army do, though …’ he hesitated, went on, ‘though many do not.’ Hamza sucked in a deep breath. ‘Do the stars?’

  She smiled. It was the question of questions for him, she who was skilled in guessing men’s desires could tell. But she had learned that words were most powerful when uttered for the first time. So she did not answer him. ‘I do not see many here who doubt of its success,’ she said.

  ‘No. The doubters are elsewhere. Waiting for the sultan’s command. To advance to God’s glory or … or to strike their tents. Return to their farms. Some are close to him.’

  ‘You, Hamza Pasha?’

  ‘Not I,’ he said, too firmly, then looked about him, at the soldiers gathered around fires where whole sheep were revolving on spits, goatskin sacks being passed from hand to hand, squirted into mouths. And he, who never drank al-kohl, suddenly craved it, for his dry throat, for his doubting mind.

  She sensed his doubt. It reminded her of her own, back in the tent. Yet she knew their doubt would not be resolved anywhere but in the very heart of the breached walls … and perhaps at one moment of destiny. And she found there were words she could give only to him. ‘I see you, master, with great wealth, with many wives, many children, one of the most eminent men in the land. Will that happen if Constantinople does not fall?’

  Hamza thought of the doubters ahead, Candarli Halil, Ishak Pasha and the rest, the old Anatolian nobility. Their grip on the throne would be hugely strengthened by failure here, failure they’d always foreseen. The throne itself would have a new occupant soon after that failure, he was certain; and the new, ignoble men that Mehmet had raised would disappear like him, the mark of a silken bowstring on their necks. He shook his head. ‘It will not.’