A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  And in his hands. He had never truly mastered the weapon, despite his desire. He was not a warrior; Gregoras could tell that it was not his nature. That he was too gentle. And he was only seven years old. Gregoras shook his head. A city that needed seven-year-olds to fight for it was a place in its last agony. ‘No. Save your stones for later.’

  The boy swallowed. ‘When will they attack?’

  It was no secret. The Turks had been proclaiming the hour in their camp all the long day. ‘Soon after midnight,’ he replied.

  ‘And where?’

  He looked down the length of the valley, along the long line of flame. ‘Everywhere,’ he murmured.

  Somewhere this side of that line was his emperor. Constantine, on his return from mass at the Hagia Sophia, had ridden out immediately to visit each bastion, to inspire his troops, to show that he was undaunted and so should they be by the enemy’s fire and noise. But he would return here ere long, for all knew that even if the attack was to be general and encompass all the walls of both land and sea, it would, as ever, be most concentrated here. It was why the imperial tent was pitched right there, just behind the walls – a long bowshot from Mehmet’s tent, set up on the brow of the hill opposite, above his great guns. Here, at the Fifth Military gate, known by most as the St Romanus for the civil gate of that name it was near, where the Turks had destroyed the outer wall and where the Greeks had built a stockade to replace it. Here, where the great Giustiniani stood with his Genoans. Here would be the crisis, all knew. So Constantine would return here, and soon.

  The only order he’d given before he departed was that the Commander must cease his unending supervision of the defence and rest. Giustiniani had reluctantly agreed to sleep for a couple of hours, but only if his two deputies – Enzo the Sicilian and Gregoras, formerly Zoran Rhinometus – saw that all that could be done was. And it had been. Enzo was down at the stauroma still, shoving last barrows of mud between the timber and the stones. But Gregoras had retired to the inner wall, to the crumbling bastion where he had placed his armour and from which he would shoot his great bow.

  The music directly opposite them slackened, so that a single voice could be heard above it, crying out. ‘Another call to prayers, Uncle?’ Thakos asked.

  Gregoras listened, shook his head. ‘Another reminder of what their sultan has promised them. A swift journey to a martyr’s paradise or three days of pillage once the city falls.’

  ‘What’s pillage?’

  Gregoras opened his mouth to answer, only to close it again. What could he say to a boy about the horrors he’d witnessed? That he’d taken part in, for Christian nations pillaged cities of the Turk and of other Christian nations too. It was what a mercenary lived for, the opportunity for booty. He’d looted enough to buy that piece of land in Ragusa. And if he had not taken part in other aspects of pillage … well, he still knew what would befall Constantinople’s people if that fragile stockade was toppled. Slaughter for the men who resisted, rape for their women, enslavement for all. The boy might be seeing it all too soon. He did not need to see it in Gregoras’s words now.

  He thought of him as ‘the boy’. He found it hard to call him his son, despite what Sofia had revealed. Yet they were soon to part – despite his fear, his gentleness, Thakos was determined to fight, and Gregoras was equally determined to get him away from the battle. Should they leave one another, and Thakos never truly know the man he called uncle and who, more than likely, had died in the final battle for the city? Should Gregoras not be remembered as something more than a noseless curiosity?

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that, Uncle?’

  ‘Thakos—’ Gregoras began.

  And then the boy interrupted him by leaping up. ‘Look! It’s Mother. Mother!’ he called.

  Gregoras pulled the youth down, as an arrow flew over. Then he peered between the crenels, to the outer wall. A party of women were just dropping earth and timber onto it. One was looking up, bucket in hand.

  Sofia.

  Gregoras leaned into the gap. ‘Behind this bastion,’ he called. Then, stooping to pick up his bow and quiver, he dragged Thakos to the archway, crouching low.

  She met them at the bottom of the stair. ‘My son,’ she cried, and he rushed into her arms, stayed there, until he remembered he was meant to be a soldier and a man and pulled away.

  ‘Here,’ Gregoras said, holding out the slingshot he’d also picked up, ‘take this and find some more good stones. Practise. I need to speak to your mother.’

  Thakos nodded, snatched the rope weapon, ran off. ‘Not far,’ they both called, and laughed when they realised they had. A silence came then, as each looked at the other.

  Sofia broke it. ‘I have not … not seen you,’ she said at last.

  ‘No. I have been … busy.’

  ‘As have I.’

  Silence again, more awkward than the first. Then both spoke at once.

  ‘I was looking for—’

  ‘I found him wandering—’

  They stopped, laughed again. Gregoras raised a hand. ‘He was lurking by the wall. I thought it was safer to have him near me.’

  ‘We had arranged a meeting point nearby. But the Turkish fires must have lured him.’ She looked up. The flames cast a weird, flickering glow onto the low clouds that pressed down on the land, turning them reddish brown; moved too over the white sides of Constantine’s command tent a hundred paces away. ‘The world burns,’ she added on a whisper.

  ‘It does.’ He looked at her, most of her face in shadow, what he could see shifting in the strange light. There was a little pulse in her neck that he had not noticed in all their recent meetings, since his return. But he remembered it now from their time before, when they and the world had still been young. He did not think. He just did, bending into her, kissing that pulse. ‘Sofia,’ he whispered.

  Her arms fell around him and she was stumbling back. His head lowered, her face rose, they kissed. Kissed until she pulled away, held out a hand to stop him coming closer. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Our son.’

  Thakos was standing perhaps fifty paces away, looking around nervously because they’d disappeared into the shadows. She pushed herself off the wall, into the light-spill. ‘Here, love,’ she called, waving.

  He waved too, then resumed his scouring of the ground. ‘Don’t come close,’ she whispered, keeping her back to Gregoras, ‘and say what you need to say.’

  Need? he thought. Which one shall I speak of? But then he saw, beyond Thakos, the blur of approaching horsemen, heard the jingle of their harness a moment later. The emperor was returning, time was about to end or begin, and there was only one need now. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, his voice low and urgent. ‘If the Turks break us here this night, if they storm this city, you know what will happen.’

  ‘I have heard …’

  ‘I have a place that might be safe. Might, if valour, stars and saints and all your prayers unite in our cause. It is a chance anyway, if doom befalls us.’

  Her voice came faintly, still turned away from him. ‘What place?’

  ‘One you love. St Maria of the Mongols.’ He heard her gasp, rode over it. ‘Go there now. Take those you love and seek shelter behind its strong walls. I have arranged …’ He hesitated. ‘I have arranged for the storm to pass it by.’

  ‘How?’

  He remembered then what the other had said, the one he’d loved, did love in some strange way he only just realised at that moment, yet loved so differently from the one before him. He repeated that other’s words. ‘The how is unimportant.’

  ‘But it is important.’ Her voice came stronger now, anger in it. ‘Are you telling me that you have “arranged” this safety with the enemy? Are you a traitor too?’

  ‘No! I …’ He stepped forward then, so he could see at least the side of her face. ‘I am a soldier. A soldier always keeps open a line of retreat. I will fight as hard as I can for our victory. But if we fail, and I somehow live …’ he reached out, took her arm, turne
d her, ‘I want to live with those I love.’

  She looked down at his hand. ‘Another held me thus, not two hours since, telling me what a man must do. Arranging something with an enemy. Not a soldier, but a politician.’

  He dropped her arm. ‘Theon.’

  ‘Yes.’ She stared at him, hurt clear in her eyes. ‘Perhaps the twins are not so different after all.’

  She stepped out further into the fractured light, opened her mouth to call. Beyond her, reining up at his tent, was Constantine.

  Gregoras did not reach, did not grab. ‘Sofia, if you ever, ever loved me,’ he whispered, ‘listen before you go.’ She froze, and he went on, ‘Whatever happens tonight, whether this city stands or falls, the world has changed, changed utterly. And whoever is the victor this night, if I live through it, know this: I will come for you. For you and our son.’

  She did not move. He watched her staring at Thakos, then watched that pulse again in her neck. ‘And for my daughter?’ she said at last, the harshness gone. ‘Another man’s daughter?’

  He felt the relief, did not let it come into his voice. ‘For her too. For the only people I love.’

  She turned to him, stepped closer. ‘Then come,’ she said, and kissed him, swiftly, fleetingly, achingly, before stepping away. ‘But Thakos will try to stay here,’ she said.

  ‘I will not let him.’ He looked to the tent, men dismounting there, others already being dispatched. ‘Call him.’

  ‘Thakos!’

  He stepped up beside her, as the boy ran towards them. ‘A last thing,’ he said. ‘If I do not come … if … In St Maria’s, wedged behind the ikon of St Demetrios, you will find a leather case. It contains what will keep you safe. Give it to … to the woman who will come and ask for it.’

  ‘The woman?’ She stared at him a moment, questions in her eyes. Yet she knew she had no time for them. So she simply nodded, as the boy ran up. ‘Thakos, come. We leave.’

  ‘Leave?’ He looked at the man he thought of as his uncle. ‘No. I stay. I fight.’

  ‘Listen to me, lad,’ Gregoras said, stepping closer, putting an arm around the boy. ‘You have become good with the slingshot. Very good. But slingers are no use in this bastion, the wall before it too far to hit with any accuracy. Only archers can do that.’ Thakos made to interrupt, but Gregoras continued, ‘But if the Turks break through, then, then you will have your time. Running across the rooftops. Raining down your stones.’ He nodded. ‘The emperor has appointed the younger sons of our city as the second line of defence. If we fail here, at the wall, it will be your duty, you and the other young men, to drive the infidel from the city. And you will be the one protecting the women of our family.’

  Thakos’s eyes contained different things – pride at the words, doubt too. Finally a look of pure relief, swiftly suppressed. ‘Then I will go … and do my duty,’ he said, trying to make his voice deeper. ‘Come, Mother.’

  As he tried to step away, Gregoras held him. Stooping, he put the other arm around him, pulled him close, felt the small heart racing, as he had felt his mother’s pulse. ‘My boy,’ he said softly.

  ‘Uncle.’ Embarrassed, Thakos pulled away, took Sofia’s hand. With one last look, she turned and they began to walk away.

  Gregoras took a step after them. ‘Pray for me this night. Pray for us all,’ he called.

  They stopped, turned, their faces lit by flickering Turkish light. His breath caught as he saw her, whom he’d always loved. Saw them both in the boy beside her.

  ‘Come for us,’ she said.

  And then they were gone, threading through the troops of soldiers assembling for the fight. He watched them till they were lost among the spears and shields, then picked up his bow. Hefting it, he headed towards Constantine’s tent.

  ‘You have done everything that Christian knights could be asked to do. More, for never did any knight face the adversity that you have faced and none have borne it so bravely. I know that there have been divisions amongst us, between Genoan and Venetian, between Roman and Orthodox, between the Greeks who call this city theirs and those from other lands who have come here for profit. But that is all forgotten now. This night all divisions are put aside. This night unites us in a brotherhood of arms … and gives us an opportunity few Christian gentlemen have ever had – to defeat a monstrous and infidel enemy, more numerous than daisies in a spring meadow. If the odds against us seem great, how much greater then shall our victory taste? Remember our history! How many times have our generals and emperors triumphed over numberless foes? Think of Belisarius and his tiny army driving the Vandals from Africa. Of Narses retaking Rome, then the whole of Italy, from the all-conquering Goths. Of Basil crushing the vast forces of the Bulgars. These heroes’ blood is in our veins. Whatever happens, whatever fortune comes to us this night, the least we shall do is write our names under theirs in the book of legend.’

  Constantine paused, looking down from the low platform on which he stood, at the upturned faces of every man of rank, of Church and trade and State, of every nation. A hundred men crammed before him into his command tent, with only his closest companions behind – Sphrantzes, the aged Don Francisco of Toledo, John of Dalmata. Theodore of Karystenos, the captain of his guard. And Gregoras, for the old archer had beckoned him up and they stood there, either side of the emperor, just as a sultan’s guards would stand, bows in hand, arrows notched.

  ‘And yet, are the odds truly so great?’ Constantine continued. ‘They have many men, yes. But we have seen how they attack, screaming like animals, without skill or true courage. We have repelled them again and again, in every place they have assaulted us. They have laid our walls low with their cannon and still have they failed to breach them. They will fail so again this night.’ His voice lowered. ‘We know that this is their final attack. We know that so many of the enemy, most perhaps, despair. They know our city has never fallen to siege, that slave armies have broken themselves on our walls for a thousand years. Twenty years ago I saw an army greater than this one, led by a greater leader, Murad Han, fail in his repeated attacks. His callow son will fail this night.’ He raised his voice, his eyes, looking all about him. ‘For see who he sends his slaves to fight. The flower of Christian nobility from all the lands of the world. Greek gentlemen, with names that have resounded in this city since its foundation. Notaras, Cantacuzenus, Lascaris, countless others. Dauntless Minotto, baillie of Venice, who along with the three intrepid Bocciardi brothers of his state defends my palace; while his countrymen – Diedo, Contarini and the rest – stand deep at every other rampart. Men of many other nations – Catalonia, Crete. Even, as I have learned,’ a slight smile came, ‘my loyal engineer, John Grant of Scotland.’ He paused. ‘And though I do not exalt him and his countrymen above any other, perhaps no one will grudge that I mention this name last. The lion of our defence, the bulwark over which no single Turk has managed to sweep, the foremost warrior of great Genoa – Giovanni Giustiniani Longo.’ He stepped to the edge of the platform, bent to lay his hand on the Genoan’s shoulder. ‘Shall we triumph this night, my friend?’

  ‘Beyond doubt, lord,’ the Commander growled. ‘By the morning your Turkish daisies will lie scythed beneath our blades. For the honour of God and for all Christendom.’

  ‘Yes.’ Constantine straightened. ‘For the honour of God. Let us not forget the last, the greatest of those who fight for us this day. Christ and all the archangels raise their swords beside us. The Holy Mother shines her light on us. Almighty God breathes in us.’

  Amens were being called all over the tent now, the sign of the cross made, each according to his faith – the crossbar left to right for the Catholics, right to left for the Orthodox, the dividing difference at last unnoticed by all. Except perhaps by the emperor, who stepped off the platform now, the crowd hushing with his descent. ‘And let me go into this night with all your blessings. If there is any man I have offended here, I ask his pardon.’ He turned to Giustiniani, embraced him. ‘Forgive me.’

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nbsp; ‘I do,’ replied the tall Genoan, ‘and ask to be forgiven in my turn. Of you, basileus …’ he came out of the embrace and turned, ‘and of you, Minotto of Venice. Our countries are often in conflict, and you and I have crossed blades more than once. Perhaps we will again. But this night you are my brother in arms. I will die for you if God calls me to. And I ask your forgiveness for any wrong I have done you.’

  The Venetian’s face flushed red with emotion. ‘Mother of God,’ he cried, ‘and I will die for you, General, and for any gentleman of Genoa.’

  He fell into the Commander’s huge arms. They hugged, breastplate clanking on breastplate, which sound spread rapidly throughout the tent. Genoan and Venetian, Catalan and Cretan, priest of either faith, Greeks of every stripe, embraced, asked forgiveness. Tears fell on steel, smiles split beards.

  ‘And have you a hug for me, brother?’

  Gregoras turned sharply. ‘Do you want one, Theon?’ he replied, easing his finger’s grip on his bowstring.

  ‘I do not know.’ The politician looked long at the soldier. ‘I wonder what it would settle.’

  Gregoras shrugged. ‘Nothing, for the future. You and I still must have a reckoning one day. For this.’ He reached up, tapped his ivory nose. ‘For many things.’ He looked back at the still embracing crowd. ‘But if a Venetian can hug a Genoan, if a Notaras can embrace a Palaiologos, then perhaps the Lascaris can put aside their enmity for this one night. It might help us to do all we can for that which we love.’

  Theon smiled. ‘“That”?’ he said. ‘Are you speaking of our city now?’

  ‘Our city, and some of those within it. Those we love.’

  ‘To do all we can for those we love,’ echoed Theon. ‘Well, for that I can put aside enmity. For this one night.’

  Gregoras took the arrow from the bowstring, lowered the weapon. The two brothers embraced, held for a moment, parted. ‘Well,’ was all they both said, before turning swiftly away.

  A soldier had come in the back of the tent. He was looking around and Gregoras saw him spot Theodore, move to him, whisper. The old archer nodded, and moved straight to Constantine, whispering in his turn. Immediately the emperor climbed back upon the dais, raising his arms for a silence that swiftly came. ‘Listen,’ he said, pointing through canvas walls to the stone ones beyond.