The Demons of Constantinople

by Eric Flint

  The space within her boat shell was not an airtight room. It contained a leather bag, and that bag would be compressed by the surrounding water as she sank, so the air pressure would increase as she submerged and decrease as she returned to the surface. By the time she had gotten used to Aurelia, the sun had set. She was lifted onto a cart and carried out to the dock in the dark and lowered into the water.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Aurelia climbed down from the dock, stepped onto Jane’s hull, opened the hatch, and then climbed into the Jane Kraken. It was snug and dark, except for the screens which were glowing with the scenes on either side of the sub. On the port side was the dock. It was filthy and covered with barnacles. On the starboard side was another ship. It too was dirty and almost as covered with barnacles as the dock.

  Then Jane started to sink. She reached her tentacles out to the wood pilings of the dock and pulled herself down into the black water. But Aurelia could still see, for Jane’s “eyes” were the size of dinner plates. It took little light to see with eyes that size.

  It wasn’t like traveling in a boat. Jane scuttled along using her long tentacles as arms and legs and examining the harbor of Constantinople as she moved. Aurelia’s ears popped and she looked over at the pressure gauge. It was a simple device, a thin leather balloon that moved a stick up and down in a glass tube. The air pressure in Jane was now twenty pounds per square inch, which meant they were approximately eleven feet below the surface. About a ninth of what they had guessed was the maximum safe depth. It also meant that they were going to have to come back up slowly when they came back up, but they had at least ten hours of air.

  The air pressure jumped.

  “What was that?” Aurelia asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jane said. “I was getting ready to jet.” The air pressure went back down and Jane shot through the deeps on a jet of expelled water.

  “Well, use your other water tank, not the air tank.” Aurelia said. They weren’t exactly tanks. They were oiled leather bags with pseudo muscles to move them around. In a real sense, Jane was a golem, a made thing imbued with a spirit that made it work. But it was a made thing with its parts specially made to work with the body spirit of the kraken that inhabited it. A tentacle shot out and a fish was grabbed. It was brought to Jane’s “mouth” and eaten.

  So it went. Aurelia spent two hours watching the wonders of the deep as Jane explored the harbor. Then they went back, where Wilber waited to escort her home.

  Before they left she looked at the submarine and said, “Go explore the Bosporus and enjoy yourself. But don’t eat anyone or drown anyone.” She shook a finger at the submarine. “Even if they fall out of a boat on their own. Oh, and don’t destroy any ship or raid fishermen’s nets either. Catch your own fish, don’t steal theirs. And be back here by sunset tomorrow.”

  Jane thought she was being unreasonable, but didn’t have much choice about following the rules.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Wilber was entranced by Aurelia, but he didn’t know how to act. So, as Aurelia spoke animatedly of her adventures in the deep, Wilber kept silent. Not sure what to say, caught between his pride in her accomplishment and his concern for her safety, he said nothing.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  As Aurelia went inside, she could barely contain her fury at the stiff-necked twenty-firster, who wouldn’t deign to so much as talk to a fourteenth-century girl. How dare he? The fact that he was tall and handsome and not paying her any attention played into her resentment, but that wasn’t something she would admit even to herself.

  Location: Magnara, Constantinople

  Time: 2:35 PM, July 15, 1373

  Igor, Wilber’s phone said, “The tower watch reports that the Genoese fleet is in sight.”

  That still left them almost three hours out. But they had made incredibly good time.

  “Igor, call Jane Kraken,” Wilber said.

  “No answer, boss.”

  “Get me Joe then.” Wilber spoke through his phone to his computer, to Pucorl, then to Joe Kraken. “Where is Jane?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t reach her phone,” Joe answered. “I tried to call her an hour ago. Just to chat, you know.” Jane Kraken did have a phone, a crystal set, that was tied into her systems and had a nice big antenna. It had a pentagram link to the operator in Themis’ part of the netherworld. But the calls weren’t going through.

  “It’s because she’s underwater,” said Paul. “In the movies, subs can never talk on the radio when they’re submerged.”

  That was ridiculous. There was a direct link through the pentagram to Themis’ lands. Wilber knew that.

  Then Merlin said, “He may be right.”

  “But, the pentagram—” Wilber started.

  “You’re forgetting that the phones, even the locally-made crystal set phones, are mortal world technology limited by the laws of physics of your world. Yes, the pentagram is a direct link, or almost so, but how many feet of water does it take to block a radio signal?”

  “I have no idea,” Wilber said. It turned out that no one knew for sure and that seawater, because the salt in it made it a decent conductor, was even worse.

  No one had thought of that problem.

  Lakshmi laughed. “Well, I guess Aurelia will get her way after all.” Aurelia was at her parents’ house, waiting for sunset and the return of her submarine. Her parents were assuming that Jane could be controlled by phone, so Aurelia wouldn’t need to be onboard when Jane went out to fight.

  “Funny, right. Except, where is Jane?” Truthfully, Wilber wasn’t thrilled that Aurelia would be in Jane during combat. He knew about fishing with dynamite and didn’t like the idea of Aurelia crushed because one of their clockwork bombs went off early.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roger said. “She isn’t here, and I have to go.” Roger and the rest of the riflemen of the French delegation would be going out on the galleys of Constantinople with their rifles to “disrupt the enemy command structure.” That is, shoot all the officers.

  Location: Sea of Marmara, Near the Bosporus

  Jane Kraken was at that moment about thirty feet under a Genoese galley, wishing she could grab the noisy thing by its oars, flip it over, and then dine on the humans in it. She was enjoying her time off, and Jane wasn’t all that familiar with the political and military situation. It honestly didn’t occur to her that this bunch of ships was of any more concern than any others, so instead of calling anyone she went deep until her internal pressure was at three atmospheres, looking for something to eat.

  Location: Docks, Constantinople

  Time: 3:15 PM, July 15, 1373

  Roger swung off his horse and tossed the reins to a groom. He grabbed his demon-lock rifle out of the scabbard and ran for the boat at the end of the dock.

  He almost took a dip as the boarding ramp bounced and swayed under him, but made it onto the ship. It had three levels of oars and a draft of only a meter. It also had a mast with a crow’s nest and that was what Roger made for. The Saint Theodore only had the one mast and sported a single sail. Maneuvering was done by oar.

  By the time Roger was atop the mast on the little platform that now had a stand for his rifle, the Theo was out to sea and forming up with the other ships. Roger started some practice aiming, then started cursing. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but at this rate Roger was going to get a reputation for being useless in battle. The mast swayed and bounced, and he couldn’t keep a sight picture. It wasn’t that the gun was unsteady. It was the whole ship was unsteady.

  He looked around. There were ten galleys in the Constantinople fleet, and over the last ten days they had, each and every one, been enchanted. It took most of a month to build a containment star big enough to contain a galley and a day for each ship to be enchanted with sea monsters of various types from serpents to whales. The Theo got an orca who was helpful, but not strong enough to row the ship without oarsmen. He did make their lives easier, as they made his easier. The oars of the Theo mo
ved easily and naturally in time with each other, and the Theo seemed to leap across the waves.

  Which only made the shooting situation worse.

  Very carefully, Roger slung his rifle and climbed down. He would shoot from the bow. The angle wouldn’t be as good, but at least he would have a chance of hitting something.

  Each ship had racks of rocket launchers near the bow. They were turnable, but not easy to shift. They were heavy wood coated with leather that would be soaked in water just before the rockets were added, so that the backblast wouldn’t ignite the launching ship.

  Location: Genoese Ship Cyclops

  Time: 4:45 PM, July 15, 1373

  Andronikos IV stood on the bow of the Genoese flagship and watched the pitiful showing his nation was making. That would change once he was on the throne. With the aid of his new allies, he would own the whole Black Sea, and then he would retake the rest of Byzantium from the Turks.

  He looked down into the ship. There were no rowers. No mortal rowers. Instead, each oar was attached to a device of springs and leather that was imbued with the spirit of a demon. They would have used a single demon like Delaflote’s book demanded, but they couldn’t find enough demons powerful enough to power an entire ship. So the Genoese wizards and craft masters had made slave oars. They had no speakers, but they did have microphones to hear with, so they could follow the instructions of the drums. They also had bang plates that did nothing at all except to hurt when hit so that the demons could be punished if they failed to follow the drum. The drum picked up the pace and the ship sped up and turned a bit to starboard. He looked at the demon rowers and then back out at the Byzantine fleet.

  He saw a man climbing down a mast on the lead ship. The Saint Theodore, he thought it was. Curious, Andronikos lifted the new spyglass to his eyes. Another of the things the twenty-firsters had introduced, this one had been made in France and he had bought it in Genoa. It wasn’t enchanted in any way. Only a tube and glass lenses. But when he looked through it he saw Roger McLean and shouted. “There! On the Saint Theodore! It’s the king killer! Sink him and they will break.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Admiral Pietro Campofregoso looked at the shouting idiot on the bow and considered. Personally, he didn’t object to killing kings. He was of the republic of Genoa, not a decadent monarchy like Byzantium. Doges and kings occasionally needed to be deposed, and if that meant they had to die, they had to die. Besides, Philip the Bold hadn’t been the true king of France.

  On the other hand, Roger McLean did have a reputation. And sinking him would do the enemy’s morale no good at all.

  He started giving orders.

  Chapter 19—The Battle of the Bosporus

  Location: Byzantine Ship Saint Theodore

  Time: 4:45 PM, July 15, 1373

  Roger didn’t see Andronikos, but he was on deck in time to hear the crew’s shouts and note that the Genoese were shifting course to head right for them. Roger made his way to the bow, rifle over his shoulder, then got set up to do some sniping. It still wasn’t an optimal position, but it was better than being bounced around. He could see shapes and color at this distance, but his rifle lacked a scope, so he had no real hope of making out faces.

  And even with an enchanted rifle, he had darn little chance of hitting anything but the ship. Still, he took aim at a gaudily dressed figure on the bow and fired.

  He missed. He opened the shotgun-style breach, and pulled one of the rounds from his ammo pouch. These rounds would never work in an ordinary flintlock, because they wouldn’t burn fast enough. That was why flintlocks used corned powder, because a solid slug of black powder would burn too slow. At least, it would if a demon wasn’t speeding things up. So his rounds were a slug with a solid black powder charge behind them, wrapped in a thin sheet of paper that was soaked in saltpeter solution and dried. The little fire demon loved it.

  He slid the round into the breach and closed his rifle, then cocked the hammer and sighted.

  Pulled the trigger.

  CRACK!

  Not the boom of a black powder weapon. The crack of a modern rifle. Not a lot of gunsmoke either. The fire demon combusted it all.

  Another miss. Roger decided to wait a bit.

  Slowly the two fleets approached one another. Constantinople had no cannon, not yet. They were under construction, but not ready. The rockets were completely locally made, but at the same time a new and dangerous technology. He could hear the creaking sound as the heavy rack was shifted and the splashes as buckets of water were dumped over the rack to protect it from fire. He looked back as the rockets were put into the soaking—not damp—rack and they tried to light them. No go.

  “Take the rockets out and dry off the rack,” Roger shouted. “They won’t work if the powder’s wet!”

  Then there was a fusillade of crossbow bolts from the lead ship of the Genoese fleet. It was long range and Roger could see them coming, so he got down behind the bulwark. So did most of the crew, and the rowers were already under cover. But that was enough to convince Roger it was time to start shooting again.

  Load. Cock. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze.

  The crack came as a surprise, like it was supposed to. This time he hit someone. The fanciest-dressed person near the bow of the oncoming ship.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Andronikos felt the shot like a blow. He was wearing polished bronze armor and a helm. He should have been safe. But the bullet was low. It hit him under the breast plate, and ripped through his intestines, cutting the lower intestine in at least three places, and shattering his lower spine.

  He fell to the deck, paralyzed from the waist down. But the nerves in his body were still functioning, and it didn’t take long for the shock to wear off and for Andronikos to start to scream.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  All Admiral Pietro Campofregoso knew about the matter was that someone had shot their pet Byzantine royal, so they weren’t going to have the puppet to put on the throne. Inconvenient, but hardly a disaster.

  This was a conquest at its base, but one made inevitable by the Venetian manipulation of the Byzantines.

  For now, he had a battle to fight. He pointed and his ship shifted. They were going to board, instead of ram. After all, a ship you took was profit. One you sank was loss.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Iason cursed as he pulled the rockets from the tubes. The rack had four heavy wooden tubes. Each tube should have a rocket, and all rockets were to be fired as quickly as they could be lit, in the hope that at least one would hit.

  He wasn’t the one who had overused the water bucket, but he pulled off his tunic and used it to dry the leather at the bottom of the tube. Then he loaded more rockets, as crossbow bolts came down around him. There were no less than three Genoese ships heading straight for them, and Iason had no desire to finish his life as a Genoese galley slave.

  He grabbed more rockets and loaded them into the tubes. He looked, judged, and lit the fuse, then waited as his target rowed out of line while the fuses burned down and the rockets launched with a—

  WHOOMP!

  WHOOMP!

  WHOOMP!

  WHOOMP!

  Only the first rocket hit the Genoese ship and it hit the stern castle, bounced off, and sailed into the sea. The rest just sailed into the sea.

  Other rocketeers on other ships were having better luck, and eight Genoese ships were burning brightly before the two fleets engaged.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Roger continued to fire until the Genoese ship back stroked and dropped their bow ramp onto the bulwark of the Saint Theodore. He dropped the rifle and pulled Themis. Then it was cut and thrust, and blood flying everywhere.

  Themis was a longsword, not really suited for a battle on ship, so his shipmates kept their distance.

  But a sword, even that sword, couldn’t be in two places at once. He managed to stop a crossbow bolt with the sword, which would have saved him, except for the other three that were coming in at the same time. One just scratche
d his arm and one was stopped by his chest plate, which was high carbon steel. But the third one hit him in his left thigh. Luckily, it didn’t cut any major arteries.

  Then there was a shout and everyone backed away. “I call on you to surrender.”

  Grimacing with pain, Roger looked over at a well-dressed man, armed and armored, but not taking part in the fighting.

  “I am Admiral Campofregoso of the Genoese fleet, and I claim this ship by right of conquest. Put down your weapons or die.”

  Roger had already fallen to the deck. Now, he let go of Themis. Then, not looking for a repeat of the events in Vienna, he said, “This is the Sword of Themis, and not the property of any man.”

  The admiral walked over and carefully, using his foot, not his hand, slipped it under Themis behind the guard. Then, with a flick of his leg, he kicked the Sword of Themis into the sea. “Let your demon queen apply to her nephew for the return of her sword. She is no god of mine, or any other Christian.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Themis wasn’t happy as one small aspect of her drifted down to the bottom of the Marmara. She considered shifting it to her lands, but couldn’t, not without Poseidon’s acquiescence. She, or at least her sword, was in his territory or its mortal equivalent, and Poseidon was a god as powerful as she was. She could go to her sword, but that would put her even more in Poseidon’s hands. If it were to be recovered, it would have to be by mortal hands. And Roger was unavailable.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  For the rest of the afternoon the two navies fought. Because of the rockets, the Byzantine fleet made a better showing than anyone on the Genoese side expected, but they lost in the end. As the sun set, the Genoese fleet took position at anchor off the docks of Constantinople.