Sure enough, the clacking of arrows stopped, lest the Venetians accidentally hit one of their own, and Arnau rose next to Ramon, the three Warings and half a dozen Byzantine infantry crowding to help.
The first man up the gantry in a cote of burgundy and mustard-yellow looked desperate. Perhaps he had seen what had happened to other attacks on the wall. Indeed, as Arnau rose before him he saw the man flinch, likely half expecting to see a dreadful steel tube pointed at him. It said much about the terror of the Greek fire that when it turned out to be a heavily armoured trained killer with a sword awaiting him, Arnau could read the relief on his face.
The Venetian reached the wall top and Arnau bit down on notions of brotherhood. These were men excommunicated by the Pope, who had engineered a war against an innocent city. They were wicked, and they deserved what was coming.
Appropriately steeled against the attack and murmuring words of praise and prayer even as he swung, Arnau delivered the first blow against the crew of the Venetian warship La Simitecola. His sword came down in an overhand chop with immense force.
The man screamed as he failed to raise his shield high enough in time, and the sword struck his upper arm a few inches below the shoulder. The chain shirt once again prevented a true cut, but the arm was shattered in several places and almost severed entire, the shield dropping, its weight stretching the arm where it was now held together only with muscle and flesh.
The screaming man was far from dead, but effectively blocked the gantry for his comrades, and Byzantine archers from a nearby tower were now raining arrows on them along the canvas length. In desperation, two of the beleaguered men on the gantry reached forward and unceremoniously pitched their screaming comrade with the broken arm over the side to fall to his death below. Ramon made the first of them regret that. Barely was the screaming man out of the way before Ramon’s slice, coming with full force, took the man behind in the elbow. The damage was appalling, striking below the end of the short mailed sleeve, where only his bulky linen arming jacket protected him. The arm smashed and came free, sword, hand and forearm all crashing to the canvas and wood floor beneath him. The man howled in shock and agony and the Venetian behind him tried to push past until an arrow from the tower took him in the neck.
A cry from their left suggested trouble and, given moments of grace now, Arnau looked that way. A surge of men up the gantry had managed to secure a foothold where a lucky blow or two had removed the two spearmen keeping them at bay. There were Venetians on the wall top. Ramon was already running to help and Arnau considered joining him, but the same was now happening here. The bridge being fully in place, men were swarming up it, bent low against arrows and running to engage the men on the wall top.
Arnau parried a vicious blow and struck back, sword thudding against a raised shield. The man tried again and Arnau parried a second time. He drew back his blade to strike, but never got the chance as the next Venetian shoved the one in front, who staggered forward and fell against Arnau, the two of them falling to the timber walkway in a tangle.
Struggling to free himself, Arnau saw the Venetian draw his head back, unable to bring any other weapon to bear in the tangle, preparing to butt him. Sensing space open to his left, Arnau waited for just a fraction of a second and then threw himself as best he could in that direction. He was rewarded with a thud and a cry of pain as the man, already committed to the head-butt, smashed his helmet instead into the timber floor, knocking the sense from himself. Before he could recover, a Waring axe buried itself in his back, smashing through the chain shirt with disturbing ease.
The Templar struggled and managed to rise only with the aid of Octa. His sword had gone in the fall, and a tiny thrill of panic ran through him. Another Venetian on the wall top came at him, and Arnau did the only thing he could. He smashed out at the man with his shield, hard. The Venetian tottered back and wobbled for a moment, crying out.
Arnau lowered his shield in time to see the man he had punched with his shield fall backwards across the wall top. Miraculously, the man succeeded in arresting his deadly plunge, with one hand, gripping his mace, wedging in the timber and holding him up.
With a satisfied and very unnerving smile, Arnau reached down with his free hand. His fingers wrapped around the heavy iron flanges of the mace just as his boot pressed down on the man’s own desperate grip.
‘Mine,’ he said with malice as the Venetian’s fingers broke, one by one, until finally he lost his grip and fell with a scream. Arnau lifted the mace with relish. It had been years since he’d wielded his old mace, since the German knight had trained him in swordsmanship, eschewing the blunt weapon.
He rose to find himself surrounded by Warings. Granted a moment’s reprieve from the fight, he looked this way and that. The sights he caught were more than a little encouraging. For the first time since this entire conflict had begun, the Byzantines were truly ascendant. The Venetians were unable to get more than the tiniest foothold on the walls, and when they did, swiftly had it ripped away from them once more. Over where there was a visible shoreline below the walls, the various covers and rams and machines the Franks had brought across were almost universally broken or swathed in sheets of flame. Whole areas of the ground burned, and in places the sea was even alight. Men down there still struggled on, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that they were not going to overthrow Alexios the Fifth today.
With renewed spirit and vigour, Arnau launched back into the fight, mace swinging with precision and strength, voice raised in Latin song that would almost certainly confuse the Italian warriors racing to take the walls.
He smashed and hammered, crushed and battered, Warings at his side, holding back a tide of Venetians and singing songs of battle.
It was, for the first time in months, a good day.
Chapter 20: The Venetian Fury
April 13th 1204
The city breathed. For days now, the city had breathed. The Venetians had swiftly abandoned their attack, taking the Frankish army with them, fleeing back across the Golden Horn to lick their wounds in Galata. Songs of thanksgiving had rung out in Greek from every church that afternoon and evening. For the first time in a year, Byzantium had struck a blow against the invaders and had done so with vim. Some said the Venetians and Franks would leave, that they would have had enough.
Arnau and Ramon, and those in command too, knew differently.
Many of the Crusaders were perhaps having second thoughts. Maybe some Venetians too. But Montferrat and the leaders of the Franks would be angry, pushing to avenge their losses. And the Venetians? Well, it was the considered opinion of anyone in the know that the Doge Dandolo would flay himself and throw his own peeled body into the ocean before he would give up Constantinople.
This was just a lull. A time for the enemy to rethink their tactics.
Still, given the unexpected moment of peace, Preceptor Bochard had redoubled his efforts to acquire those two last great treasures he felt needed removing from the city. Ramon and Arnau had argued over them in the privacy of their room. Arnau felt that, no matter the value of those relics, the time had come. They faced a stark decision.
Arnau knew in his heart that whatever the preceptor ordered, if they stayed and the enemy came again, then he and Ramon would not be able to stand back with swords sheathed. They would have to fight. And he could not drag his conscience around to fighting for the Crusaders. He felt certain that God would favour the Byzantines in this. He knew what was expedient and what was expected of him, and what his orders were, but they were all immaterial, because he also knew what was right. If he stayed, he would have to fight the Franks, and that would most certainly destroy any goodwill or guarantees they had with Bochard for the Templars’ security. So Arnau knew he had to defy Bochard one way or another. He would have to leave against orders, or take the fight to the Franks. Certainly there was little chance now of Sebastian doing anything other than standing with his countrymen on the wall.
Thus it was that they
had spent their days out of the apartments watching the enemy across the water, keeping clear of Bochard in an effort not to be restrained further. Thus it was, too, that they came this morning to be standing on the wall top above a minor gate that gave out onto a small narrow foreshore at the foot of the burned-out hill below the imperial camp and the church where it had been centred. Of all the gates in the stretch, it was one of the lesser ones, yet it stood at an angle where the wall bulged out slightly into the inlet and therefore gave an unparalleled view both across the Golden Horn and along the wall to either side.
The gate was under the command of a tourmarch, who seemed to Arnau a little young for his role, yet gave out his commands with admirable authority and confidence. Under his command three dozen men held the gate, including four archers atop the wall, two small artillery crews on the flanking towers – a bolt thrower left and a catapult right – and sundry infantry with spears, swords and axes. The only Warings in evidence here were the three who had come with them, including Octa.
‘Are they moving?’ Arnau breathed. ‘I think they’re moving.’
‘Aye, Roman,’ called a soldier from the tower to their right, just a few steps higher than the walls, ‘they come.’
Arnau uttered a silent prayer beneath his breath, glancing to either side at his companions as he did so. Ramon was likewise engaged in prayer. Sebastian stood with his head bowed, clutching his battered and worn icon of the Holy Mother. Arnau frowned. He’d not realised the boy was shaking. In truth, and somewhat to his chagrin, he had been rather self-absorbed this morning, anticipating what was to come, and had paid little attention to the young squire. Regretting that, he reached out.
‘There is no need to fear.’
When the squire looked up, Arnau almost recoiled at the mix of despair and fury in the lad’s face, tears on his cheeks.
‘Sebastian?’
‘I die today, Brother Vallbona.’
‘What?’ Arnau frowned, and the squire thrust the icon out. His tears had soaked the painting, darkening the ancient wood.
‘The Theotokos cries for me this day as she did for my parents.’
‘Sebastian, those are your own tears.’
‘No, no they aren’t. But I’m not afraid. I shall die. But I shall sell my life dearly to those unholy bastards out there.’
Arnau continued to shake his head. ‘Try not to put yourself in danger. They are just your own tears, Sebastian. We will see this day out, all of us.’
Sebastian simply gave him a sad, fatalistic smile and turned back to the enemy, icon gripped tight once more. Someone nearby shouted that the enemy were approaching.
Arnau felt his heart pick up pace as he watched the Venetian ships putting out to the water once more. Four days had passed since their failure and flight, but finally it appeared that they felt confident enough for a second try.
There was not a breath of wind this morning, nor had there been in the hours since the knights had risen from their beds, and the enemy were forced to rely upon oars rather than sails. Arnau watched as the ships slowly set forth. He had to grant once more that the Venetians, for all their faults, were clearly consummate seamen. Their ships moved in precise formation.
Their tactics had clearly changed, though. Instead of transports interspersed with war galleys, this time the galleys alone formed the front lines, transports towing rafts behind them. Apparently, the Venetians meant to secure a bridgehead now before landing the Franks. They had clearly learned their lessons after the burning of so many knights and their siege engines on the shoreline.
One thing became clear as they pulled out into open water. Venetian ingenuity had struck again. In several places, two war galleys had been tightly bound together, forming more or less a twin-hulled ship, one using their port oars, the other their starboard. Due to the doubled weight they pulled by oar, these vessels were necessarily slow and set the sluggish pace for the entire fleet. Yet they came.
‘Why the twin ships?’ Arnau murmured.
‘The enemy are devious,’ replied the tourmarch nearby. ‘Who can read the minds of such devils?’
Arnau simply nodded, gripping his mace. He had managed to retrieve his sword in the aftermath of the fight, but had kept the mace, his long-favoured weapon. It felt comfortable in his grip.
He couldn’t help but feel that the Venetians were making straight for him. With a sidelong glance at Sebastian and his icon, the notion occurred that perhaps it was the lad they were coming for, but he quickly dismissed it. If one looked along the fleet’s line, the centre was more or less opposite. Of course, logic suggested that the reason for that was the imperial camp which lay atop this very stretch of hillside. Arnau wondered whether perhaps they had been unwise in choosing as their vantage point the more or less central position on a direct line between the enemy force and the emperor himself.
Ramon began to pray very quietly. Oddly, though he did so in Latin, the devout look of the man began to infect all those around him and, in moments, the Byzantines all around the gate and towers were also praying, Sebastian with them. Ramon looked up as their voices picked up volume, falling in together in one great song of praise, drowning out the Templar in their midst.
Arnau was rather surprised to find that his Greek, shaky upon arrival at the city, had so improved over the year that he was translating the words of the singers without effort. He listened as his eyes remained locked on the approaching ships.
‘Blessed is the man who has not walked by the counsel of the ungodly, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly shall perish. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling. Blessed are all who put their trust in Him. Arise, O Lord: save me, O my God. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.’
Those atop the towers and wall punctuated the prayer with three shouted ‘Alleluias’.
Arnau nodded his approval. Had he retained one iota of doubt about their course and the godly nature of these Easterners, it evaporated in the face of their piety. Whatever dogma kept them from the Church of Rome some might consider a great rift, but to Arnau their brotherhood was clear, while those vicious Franks out there with their eyes set solely on murder and pillage were no more godly than the pagan raiders of old.
The Templars were in the right place, doing what was right.
The prayer died away now and in the strange stillness the lack of breeze created, three sounds wove a tapestry of tension: the constant cawing of seabirds above, the sounds of armour and creaking of timber along the walls, and the distant splash and groan of the ships closing on them.
Arnau heaved in a breath. He felt the tiniest relief as the ships closed, that the one facing him directly was just a single warship, unlike the twin-hulled monstrosities to either side. He heard the tourmarch issuing his final orders and moments later the artillery began to loose, finding their range, ammunition plopping into the water only twenty paces ahead of the ships.
‘One hundred and fifty paces,’ a lookout called.
Artillery was adjusted.
‘One hundred and twenty.’
A second barrage. More shots could be heard from the other tower tops now. All along the walls, the defenders were finding their range. The second release was better. The stone splashed into the water close enough to a hull to throw water up onto the side. The bolt smashed into the prow, sending flying splinters through the air, flensing any crew nearby.
‘Ninety paces.’
‘Prepare. Weapons ready,’ called the tourmarch. Arnau needed no urging to brace his shield and test his grip on the mace.
A third barrage and this time the huge stone smashed into the deck of one of the twin hulls off to their right, causing alarm and chaos, though not enough to slow the vessel. The next bolt took a crewman directly, plucking him from the deck and carrying him overboard into the water to die in the deeps.
‘Sixty paces.’
Arnau could see thei
r faces now. And finally, at this close distance, he could see why the ships had been bound together. Those same wood and canvas gantries were hauled out from the masts, but there was none of the dangerous swinging and dipping they had seen a few days ago. The twin hulls had provided a much more stable base, and allowed for a greater length to be added to the walkways.
He watched in dismay as the first of these swung out forward, so long that there was no hope of it falling short before the walls. The Venetians had prepared once more in response to Byzantine success.
This wall top, he realised, was going to be under only a little pressure. The worst trouble was going to strike either side, and then perhaps on the foreshore below the gate. Readying himself, he waited. At another command, the archers dipped arrows into the braziers and loosed them at ships.
‘No Greek fire to spare this time?’ he said over his shoulder.
Octa rumbled. ‘Very little fuel. Laskaris only had one season to gather the resin required, and even that in secret. We used much in the last assault.’
‘This will have to be won the hard way, then,’ Ramon said. He glanced over at Arnau. ‘Sebastian is his own man today. Do not fret so much over him that you lower your own guard.’
‘Thirty paces,’ bellowed the lookout. The artillery was firing at will now, as were the archers. The single warship struck the ground on the foreshore directly in front of the gate and men were leaping from it already, racing for the walls. Behind, the transport and raft it towed were now coming alongside to disgorge their own cargo. There would be time before they were massed enough to present a threat, especially with archers loosing down at them and men dropping rocks and bricks gathered in small piles. The real danger lay to either side.
He looked right and could see that at least the Venetians were having difficulty there. The shoreline continued along the foot of the walls that way, and though it was narrow, little more than fifteen paces out, it was almost as long as the reach of the enemy’s gantry. The one to the left was in no such difficulty, the water almost lapping the wall’s base.
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