A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘Ya daim. Ya daim. Ya daim,’ Achmed chanted as he grabbed a hand’s grasp of wheat stalks, brought his sickle cleanly through them, let them fall, grabbed and cut again. He moved steadily through this last patch, laying low the summer’s gold, the gold he would rake up tomorrow, load upon his ox cart, take to the threshing floor, sort chaff from the wheat to be carried in bags to the miller – the only gold he would ever possess. The day of the milling would be a good day, with nothing to do but sit, wait his turn, talk with the other men. Or listen, at least, catch up with the doings of the villages nearby and a little of the world beyond them.

  He chanted and reached … and realised there was nothing left to grab. So he stood, stretching out his back, and especially his grabbing arm, for it always got stiff in the place where an arrow had gone through it. And perhaps it was that, or the feeling of an ending in the gold at his feet, or perhaps the curving blade in his hand and the tiredness in his body, that made him do what he almost never did, at least when he was awake – think about Constantinople. Seeing men scythed, not wheat stalks, and, in the last flash of the setting sun, a man aflame, plunging like a comet through a wooden tower.

  He closed his eyes to the sights, opened them again … and she was there, crossing from the trees. She had a stone jar on her shoulder and a frown on her face. ‘My mother says you are to come,’ she called while still a ways away. ‘She says she is tired of eating cold meat when all the other wives have theirs hot.’

  Achmed took the water jar from her, drank deep. ‘I come, Abal. I come. I just needed to …’

  His daughter grunted, bent and snatched up the sickle, took his hand, pulled. He was big, yet she moved him, and he wondered how that was, that the little girl was starting to turn into a woman.

  When they reached the track, she slowed a little, as he hoped she would, and he could walk while resting his aching arm on her shoulder. She often came to fetch him, because she liked to have him to herself; in their home, with three sons and two other daughters, there was no time to talk. Though in truth, as ever, he talked little now, content to listen to the happenings of the day – which goat had not produced milk; which gelin had been caught crying again, unhappy in her new husband’s house; which brother had been cruel, which kind. He loved to listen to her sweet voice, especially as there had been a time, when he’d brought her back from the war, when she had not talked at all. The silence lasted a year, until one day she just began, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Since that day, she had barely ever stopped.

  Yet today as he walked he found he only half listened, the last memories he’d had in the field still clinging to him. And so he did again what he rarely did. Thought of his two Abals as separate, when usually he only thought of them as one. He knew they were two, and he knew that he loved them both the same. The one was with Allah in paradise. The other he had his arm around, while she made of his life a little paradise, right there.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The siege of Constantinople was one of the greatest battles ever fought, and its full history fills volumes. I have got as many of the details in as I felt I could, from towers to tunnels, from ship fights to close-quarter combat, from the divisions that nearly pulled the city apart to the love that bound all in the end. There are the large truths of that last all-night assault that I discovered I had to write in one chapter. There are smaller ones, such as the cry of Turks to braid their Greek enemies’ long beards into dog leashes … to Mehmet’s written order to preserve the tiny jewel of St Maria of the Mongols. As a novelist, in the end I weave a fiction into the facts. Though I believe I have covered a lot of ground, there are many, many other extraordinary stories of 1453 that, alas, I have had to leave out. Read the histories. You will be dazzled.

  My fictional characters have gone on to live their various lives … yet my historical ones did as well.

  Giovanni Giustiniani Longo was carried to his ship by his faithful soldiers. But his wound was indeed mortal and his great heart gave out within a few days, either on his ship or on the island of Chios.

  John Grant – ‘Johannes’ as he was known in all the chronicles – disappeared back into history and perhaps to Craigelachie, happy at last to be with people who knew he wasn’t a bloody German.

  The body of Constantine, last emperor of Byzantium, was never found. Some say he lies in a secret cave beneath the city, awaiting his chance to rise again and make it a Christian capital once more.

  For the remaining twenty-eight years of his life, Mehmet Fatih, the Conqueror, was restlessly, constantly at war in both the East and the West. There were many further successes, though perhaps none matched in glory his taking of Constantinople at the age of twenty-one. He never conquered Rome, though he always planned to, and in 1480, an army of his held the seaport of Otranto, on the Italian mainland, for nearly a year. But there were defeats too. In 1456, the White Knight of Hungary, Janos Hunyadi, beat him at Belgrade and Mehmet nearly crossed the bridge of Al-Sirat and achieved the martyrdom he sought, charging into the city scimitar in hand, only just escaping with a serious wound to his thigh. He died, some say poisoned on the orders of his son, setting out for another campaign in 1481, at the age of fifty.

  The tanner’s son from Laz, Hamza Pasha, continued his rise as Mehmet’s trusted servant. But in 1462, when sent to apprehend the rebel vassal Vlad Dracula of Wallachia, he was captured, imprisoned and later impaled on the Field of the Ravens before the gates of Targoviste. (See my novel Vlad: The Last Confession.) Dracula was known as ‘the Dragon’s Son’, so the sorceress’s prophecy was fulfilled: Hamza would die upon a tree, where a forest had never been, looking down upon a dragon.

  Perhaps the character that has had the most extraordinary life after the conquest is the city itself. Though Gregoras wept for it, Constantinople was not dead. More, it thrived, even as its name changed. Mehmet made it his capital, repopulating it from all parts of his empire, bringing back its former inhabitants, allowing religious tolerance, encouraging trade. He also built, including his palace, the luxuriant saray Topkapi; while his successors added buildings that dazzle to this day, rivalling even the still brilliant Aya Sophia. The Blue Mosque and the Suleiman Mosque are just two. The city remains fabulous, and it is made so by the descendants of those who fought either side of that stockade. It is still a crossroads of the world where Asia and Europe meet, where all races mingle and trade. And if the scars of 1453 are yet clear upon Theodosius’s still standing walls, so is the glory, the extraordinary courage shown by men and women of all races, fighting for what they believed in. Attackers and defenders blended now by the years and all citizens of fabled Istanbul.

  GLOSSARY

  NOTE ON LANGUAGE

  ‘Osmanlica’ was the language of the House of Osman, and spoken throughout the land. It was largely Turkish but with many borrowings from Arabic and Persian. For simplicity, I have rendered it without its many accents – cedillas, umlauts, etc.

  ‘Greek’ means men of Constantinople. They were not referred to as ‘Byzantines’ at this time.

  agha – senior teacher

  alem – signpost or standard

  alembic – neck of glass vessel

  al-iksir – elixir

  al-kohl – liquor, alcohol

  Al-Sirat – martyr’s bridge to paradise

  Allahu akbar – ‘God is great’

  anafor – choppy waters before the city

  archon – high ranking officer of no fixed function

  azap – turkish infantry, often on ships

  baillie – chief Italian official in city

  barbuta – type of helmet

  basmala – inscribed prayers

  basileus – older military title for war leader and emperor

  bashibazouk – irregular warrior

  bastard sword – also known as ‘a hand and a half’

  bastinado – stick

  Bektashi – branch of dervish Muslims

  belerbey – provincial governor


  bey – lord

  bevor – armoured neck guard

  bireme – Turkish vessel with two rows of oars

  bolukbasi – captain of guard

  bostanci – gardener/janissary/executioner

  boza – fermented barley

  buckler – small round shield

  bura – cold easterly wind

  cakircibas – chief falconer

  cami – mosque

  chaouse – whip-bearing guard

  crannequin – winding mechanism for large crossbow

  dayi – godfathers

  deli – madman

  devsirme – levy of Christian youths

  enderun kolej – inner school

  effendi – gentleman, master

  enkolpia – religious amulet

  falchion – wide-bladed short sword

  Fatih – the Conqueror

  fosse – ditch

  fusta(e) – smallest Turkish vessel

  gazi – holy warrior

  galliot – small galley

  gelin – new bride

  gomlek – wool tunic

  Gulyabani – fierce Turkish giant

  haditha – sayings of the Prophet

  histodoke – central gangway of Turkish galley

  houri – beautiful young woman in paradise

  hyperpyron – gold coin

  inshallah – ‘as God wills it’

  imam – Muslim priest and teacher

  irade – sultan’s order

  janissary – elite soldier of Turkish army; former Christian slave

  jelabi – long woollen shirt

  jihad – holy war

  Kabbalah – Jewish mystical study

  kalafat – elaborate headdress

  kapi – gate

  kapudan pasha – Turkish high admiral

  kavallarios – knight or high-ranking assistant to the emperor

  kilim – small carpet

  kolibrina – type of musket

  kyr – title of respect, like ‘sir’

  kyra – lady

  lodos – a south-westerly wind

  megas archon – highest-ranking imperial servant

  megas doux – grand duke

  megas primikerios – high-ranking civil servant, originally master of ceremonies

  megas stratopedarches – high-ranking military officer

  mehter – Turkish military band

  Musselman – other term for Muslim

  muezzin – calls the faithful to prayer

  ney – Turkish flute

  oikeios – familiar, kin

  orta – janissary company; school class

  oriflamme – war standard

  Osmanlica – language of Turks

  otak – canvas pavilion

  pasha – highest-ranking Turkish official

  peyk – halberdier of the guard, with spleen removed

  podesta – governor of Galata

  ragazzo – rowdy youth

  Rhinometus – Noseless One

  sallet – helmet

  sabaton – foot armour

  saray(i) – palace

  serdengecti – suicide warrior

  sevre – musical instrument

  shalvari – Turkish baggy trousers

  sipahi – armoured cavalryman

  solak – archer of the guard

  stauroma – stockade

  Switzer – Swiss soldier

  tavla/tavli – backgammon

  trireme – Turkish vessel with three rows of oars

  tug – horsetail war standard

  tugra – inscribed symbol, brand or seal

  ulica – Korculan street

  vizier – high official

  xebec – ship of the eastern Mediterranean

  yaya – peasant recruits

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For me to write, a sense of place is vital. Unless I have been, there exists a chasm that imagination, however much I prize it, cannot fill.

  This has never been more true than in this book.

  I was fortunate to go to Istanbul twice, in three years. The first time, in April 2007, I was in Romania, researching my novel Vlad: The Last Confession. Istanbul was a short plane hop across the edge of the Black Sea.

  This novel was not even a nag in my brain then. Though I am always interested in battles, and I visited the Theodosian walls, it was the post-conquest and modern city that captivated me. I did the full tourist thing, was suitably awed by the Hagia Sophia, the luxuriant Topkapi and dazzled by the Blue Mosque. Took my boat across the Golden Horn and up the Bosphorus. Played backgammon in alleys in Pera. Bought a rug in the grand bazaar and smoked narghile filled with apple tobacco in a place just beside it. Ate it, drank it, smoked it. Loved it … and left.

  Three years later I returned, this time for a purpose besides pleasure. I was there to research my novel about the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I knew the city much better by then – from books. But I needed questions answered about the place – and especially its people. I’d already decided to tell the tale from both sides of the walls, defenders and attackers, Greek and Turk. Now I had to meet their descendants.

  I have always been a lucky traveller. I think it’s because I expect good things to happen, so they usually do. In all my travels – and in some quite dodgy situations – I have always been fine … and had my knowledge expanded. It was serendipity that in this case, I’d gone to explore one of history’s truly great battles – and kept meeting warriors.

  Murad Sağlam was one of the editor-translators into Turkish of my last novel, Vlad – which, in another example of Humphreys’ Luck, had just been published in Constantinople. (Signing copies of one of my novels in a bookshop there was one of the thrills of my life!) He very kindly took me around, to the walls, out onto the Bosphorus (I needed to feel the anafor, the famous chop where three waters meet, for myself). He generously shared his knowledge on all subjects, especially on Islam and his own faith and philosophy of Sufism. And he was the first of the warriors – a former member of Turkey’s national judo team.

  The second fighter was Suliman. Undoubtedly ‘magnificent’, he joined me over a narghile to practise his English. And he was a national karate champion, a huge man with a smile to match. The model for many I would write about.

  I was there for warriors – and for places. I wrote in Vlad how there is a resonance in stone, a vibration that can be picked up if you allow it to come. It did, upon the still fantastic Theodosian walls. I stood on them, gazed up at them, walked along them, sat and time-travelled upon them and wondered at the will it took to both attack and defend them. And I found a different vibe at a place I’d read about that was not on the tourist’s beaten path: the tiny church of St Maria of the Mongols. It was hard to locate, tucked away in the working-class neighbourhood and steep, narrow roads of Fener. Somehow my publishers found it. It was locked. But twenty bucks to the caretaker opened it and bought us some time in its whitewashed vaults, before its gilded ikons. It had survived the fall, was still a church, a living echo of Byzantine Constantinople. How it was spared the sacking that destroyed so many intrigued, and its beauty inspired. I knew I’d have to write about it, make it central to my characters’ lives. So I did.

  What I gained most from this second, targeted, still too brief visit was a sense of the people. I talked with citizens, from warriors to publishers to concierges. With a man I’d met over a pipe before, the gentle philosopher Akay, disciple of Omar Khayyam. I soon realised that my ambitions had shifted. If I’d ever conceived this as a story between good guys and bad, between gallant, outnumbered Christian defenders and hordes of fanatical Muslims, that attitude swiftly changed. The people I talked to had ancestors who had fought either side of the walls. And they were united now in their love of what they’d fought for. My attitude even changed towards Mehmet, ‘the Conqueror’, whom I’d depicted as so evil in Vlad. He was still prone to blinding rage, as the chronicles tell, but he grew in my story from selfish youth to a man who was fi
ghting for something other than pure self-glory. For a cause. For a history. For a most fabulous place.

  There is one man whom I have not yet mentioned, who had a huge effect on the writing of this book, and to whom it is dedicated – Mr Allan Eastman. Allan optioned my first novel, The French Executioner, and most generously invited me to write the screenplay of it with him in Dubrovnik in the summer of 2002. He still lives close to that (other) fabulous city, hence the part of the tale from there; and from Korcula, whose curving/straight alleys – and the choice they presented to a fleeing man – I was always determined to get into a novel!

  Both times I went to Istanbul I was in his company and benefited hugely from his advice. Allan is a film-maker, a history buff, a time-traveller, a lover of life, a warrior too. We talked and talked the battle, standing in the very places where it happened, sharing the resonances that came from the stones. Over pipes, apple tea and bottles of raki, his director’s visual eye pointed out details I wouldn’t have noted, while his sense of story, of character, of driving narrative helped to shape mine.