by Dan Davis
Or perhaps they could.
Unseen beyond the walls, the Turks were busy. They reinforced Byzantine bridges and cut down Byzantine forests for timber.
All the men in my company had stayed with me and had not deserted. I called a meeting in order to give them a chance to leave with their honour intact and I did not lie to them about our chances.
“It does not look hopeful,” I said, looking over the sea of their faces.
We were crammed into the main chamber of a tavern near our quarters and every man had a cup of wine in his hand.
“What do you mean, my lord?” Claudin called out. “We not getting paid?”
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “We will not get paid, Claudin, because we will all be dead.” That jolted them and they muttered unhappily.
“Is it truly so bad?” Jan the Czech asked. “There is no hope?”
The muttering died down as they waited for my answer.
“We are certain to be vastly outnumbered. The Turks are crossing the straits and massing to the west. We were expecting more soldiers to come. Many more.”
“Perhaps they will yet come here,” Garcia said. “Perhaps there are tens of thousands of soldiers on their way in this moment.”
“It may be so. Yet, it seems unlikely they will be here before the Turks close the trap.”
“So there is hope?” Claudin said, gesturing so vigorously with his cup of wine that he splashed it on himself. “Hope that help may come?”
“I am giving you all a chance to leave,” I said. “The Emperor has forbidden it but I have spoken to a merchant captain who is willing to take any and all of us in his ships, for a price I have agreed per head.”
They fell silent.
“What will you do, my lord?” Jan asked.
“I am staying. Black Walter, Robert, Stephen, and Eva are all staying, as are our servants. But I will not hold you to your contracts. You came here to save this city in the name of God, not to die here in a battle we could never win. I will pay each of you your due before you depart.”
Again, they fell silent. Some looked at each other, while others looked at the floor or the ceiling above. Outside, a seabird screeched overhead.
“God knows, I do not favour their Church,” Jan said. “But I came here to fight for Christ against the heathens. If I run now, I could not be at peace with myself for the rest of my days.”
Heads around the room nodded.
“I had a feeling I would die here,” Garcia said. “So be it.”
Claudin raised a hand. “Could we get our coin paid out now anyway, Richard? If I am to die, I think I will spend my last days drunk as a lord in the brothel house by the Gate of the Neorion.”
Not one of them chose to leave. I was touched beyond words but also filled with sadness. It seemed likely they would all die.
Soon after, the first Turkish troops arrived on the horizon and began clearing trees, bushes, and vineyards so that their cannons would have a clear shot at the walls, and so that their horsemen could roam quickly across the peninsula.
Turks set up camps and began digging trenches, banks, and other groundworks. It was early spring 1453 when they brought their massive guns up and systematically took the last remaining fortresses outside the walls.
At the start of April, the great chain was drawn across the Golden Horn, closing it off to ships.
Before the chain was drawn, however, a Genoese captain named Giovanni Giustiniani Longo sailed into the Golden Horn with two enormous war galleys and seven hundred excellent troops. The soldiers were young and enthusiastic and it raised the spirits of all inside the walls to see them. I half hoped that it presaged a sudden deluge of Christian soldiers but in fact, Longo and his men were the last to arrive.
Longo was well known as an expert in siege warfare and his fame was such that he was swiftly given the rank of protostrator, made overall commander of all forces in Constantinople, and gifted the island of Lemnos for payment. It was a token, of course, for he would have to save the city in order to take possession of it and perhaps it spoke of Emperor Constantine’s desperation more than anything. But Longo seemed a sharp and capable man who knew his business. He treated me with respect and gratitude and gave me clear instructions about what he expected from my company. I liked him.
I do not know when or where it started but there soon spread an excited report that Hunyadi had personally led a great seaborne campaign to outflank the Turks. It soon turned out to be no more than a rumour. I was bitterly disappointed in Hunyadi and irritated at the hope I had felt when I believed it to be true.
Gradually, it dawned on each and every one of us that Christendom was not coming. The mighty kingdoms of Europe, from the Atlantic coast, to Spain and Italy, to the Holy Roman Emperor, Poland, and to the Balkan kingdoms who were already engaged in a war of destruction against the Turks, decided for their own reasons, to abandon Constantinople to her fate. Perhaps some believed that she would not fall, that her walls would prove too strong. Others no doubt expected that the rest of Christendom would act and so they would not need to. Others, I am certain, felt that the city was a lost cause. All were, of course, engaged in their own local struggles against some other kingdom or against over-mighty lords or other rebellions within their own lands. But whatever their reasons, by their actions, a withered, shadow form of Constantinople would stand alone against the mightiest empire in the world.
Turkish troops filled the peninsula beyond the walls day after day until they covered the plain from the waters of the Golden Horn in the north, to the coast of the Sea of Marmara in the south, all the way to the horizon.
Their ships surrounded the city in their hundreds while those allied to us were safe within the Golden Horn. While thousands of us watched from the walls, the Turkish fleet attacked the great chain but they failed to make headway against our superior ships. They tried again three days later but were also thrown back. We rejoiced but we did not yet appreciate their cunning, nor their determination, or the resources that they could bring to bear. For they were building a wooden slipway behind the Genoese town of Galata that nestled in the promontory, unseen behind the hills. This would create an overland link between the waters of the Bosporus to the waters of the Golden Horn at a point behind the great chain, bypassing it entirely.
We did not know but we would discover it soon enough.
A few days after their attack on the chain, they made a sudden night attack on the walls.
We had expected their great guns to spend weeks or even months reducing the walls before they attempted an assault and so we were almost caught off-guard.
Almost.
Our Genoese protostrator Giovanni Giustiniani Longo was no fool. He had ensured the walls were manned at all hours and when the Turks attacked, signals were lit and trumpets blared. Walter shook me awake and I sat up to see Eva in her undershirt clambering up the ladder to the roof over our house.
“Assemble the men,” I ordered Walt.
He nodded, grim faced. “Rob’s already at it.”
I climbed the ladder and joined Eva on the roof. She was looking west to the Great Wall, where signal fires were flaring. “False alarm, perhaps?” I said to her. “The militia are a jumpy lot.”
“Their families are here,” she said, not looking at me. The moonlight softened her features and I watched her face rather than the distant walls. “It is no wonder they are fearful.”
“By the time we get there, order will have been restored and we will return to our bed. Perhaps we will have an hour or two of night which we may spend together.”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “If it is a real attack, it may work.”
I scoffed, placing a hand on her shoulder. “The moat alone would stop them. Then the walls. They have no hope.”
She shrugged my hand from her. “Imagine fifty thousand soldiers advancing on the walls. How might it be done?” she said to herself. “Five thousand in ten divisions, each assaulting a different section. Migh
t they not bring up boats, or rafts, with which to cross the moat? Ladders to scale the first wall and the second? If they are unopposed, might it not be done in half a night?”
“God damn them.”
“Such a combination of daring and disregard for the lives of his men would be reminiscent of someone we know, would it not?”
I looked out at the distant wall and listened to the shouts and footsteps of the men running through the streets toward it. “The Catalans are quartered just behind the wall. They will hold them.”
“Come on,” Eva said, returning to the hatch. “We must hurry.”
It was more than a mile from our quarters on the northern side of the city to the closest point of the Great Wall and once I was in my armour and had gathered my men, most of the fighting was over. When we reached the walls along with thousands of other soldiers, we found the Turks fleeing in the night.
It had not been a massed attack in force, as Eva had feared, but a probing attack intended to take us by surprise and perhaps take a gate and hold it open for others to come through. But our soldiers manning the walls had moved into action, both the city’s professional soldiers and the militia, as well as the Catalans who had snapped into action rapidly. The arrows, gunfire and cannons had been enough to send the Turks fleeing without much of a fight.
“Your tactic would probably have been successful,” I said to Eva on the wall as the sun rose behind us.
“What tactic?” Stephen asked, his helm tucked under his arm.
“Never mind,” I said. “We should find quarters closer to the wall. Can you see to it? And we must find more horses.”
Stephen shook his head. “New quarters are not a problem. But each horse in the city is worth a fortune.”
“Then we must pay it.”
He lowered his voice. “I would rather us retain enough gold and silver to pay our way out of here, should things turn bad.”
I sighed. “Damn you, Stephen, but you are right enough about that. Well, do what you can. Even a donkey or two would help.”
It was that very morning when their mangonels began their work on the walls. Later in the day, the first Turkish cannon fired. It was a sound we all had dreaded hearing and there it was, splitting the air with its blast. Soon it was joined by a dozen and then scores of others. Before long, the cannonballs were making their mark, blasting holes in the outer surfaces of the walls and towers and working their way inward.
Out of the dozens of guns, a handful were enormous. But there was one beast mightier than them all. The work of that traitorous gunsmith Urban, it was truly enormous. We knew from prisoners taken that it was called Basilisk and the Sultan and Zaganos Pasha were very proud of it. Every time it fired, the very air shook, the walls cracked, and the people grew more afraid.
It was less than a week after the night assault on the walls that the Turkish ships suddenly appeared within the Golden Horn, brought there by the slipway. People were confused for hours and then, when they understood that their indestructible chain had simply been bypassed, they grew to wailing and despair. It was almost as if they could not comprehend it. The commanders at least worked quickly to transfer soldiers from the walls and other places to defend the sea wall facing Galata.
But we were surrounded now on all sides.
Because so many Turkish ships had been taken from the Bosporus, it meant there were fewer guarding the actual straits themselves. It was an opportunity to strike back at the Turks and so one night at the end of April, fire ships were deployed. Two big transports were packed with cotton and wool and oil and were sent with the tide and the wind toward the Turkish fleet at anchor out in the straits.
Although the Turkish fleet scattered in terror, our fire ships were sunk before they could inflict any damage. Still, it had been a good idea and one I made sure to remember for the future.
The first breach of the walls was made at the gate of Saint Romanus on 30th April. The militia repaired the breach as well as they could with stones and timber prepared for such an eventuality.
Another new type of gun was brought up. This invention was a long-range mortar that fired up and over the walls, to fall within the city, wreaking great destruction. The first to fall prey to this monster was a Genoese merchant ship which sank like a stone in the harbour.
“Our lads are getting nervous,” Rob said as we watched the fires burning.
I smiled. “I’m getting bloody nervous.”
Rob laughed. “Couple of them came to me yesterday.”
“Oh?”
Rob scratched his stump. “They said they know what we are.”
“They what?”
He sighed. “They know we take strength from the blood of our servants. Everyone in the company knows.”
“Do they, by God? For how long?”
Rob shrugged. “You know what rumours are like.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I didn’t know what they were on about.”
“What did they want?”
“They wanted to become like us. Wanted our strength.”
“Who was it?”
“I promised not to say.”
I looked at him. “Rob.”
“It was Claudin, Garcia, and Jan.”
“Truly? Those three are friends?”
Rob pursed his lips. “I reckon they came representing their friends. Jan spoke for the Czechs and Germans, Garcia the Castilians and that lot, Claudin for the French and for the idiots.”
I sighed. “What do you think?”
“I think we need all the help we can get,” he said. “And if they decided to betray our trust, they would not be able to flee from us. And I think that most of them will die anyway. So why not gain a few immortals? What if it is enough to swing the balance in our favour?”
“It will take more than a few immortal soldiers to save this God-forsaken place. But let us discuss it with the others.”
“We must do it,” Stephen said at once. We had assembled in my new bedchamber which was close enough to the walls to hear the booming of the cannonballs striking them all day long. I considered moving away again lest a giant cannonball fall through my ceiling at night but sometimes one must simply live with danger. And besides, it was a remarkable old building, with many chambers on two storeys above and a long hall below where we could all assemble to eat as a company. “With an entire company of immortals, we stand a better chance of surviving whatever comes.”
“Eva?”
“They would have to take our oath and join the Order. They will have to understand it would be a lifetime commitment to serve you and that if they survive this place, they will have to follow you for centuries. What if they then decline? We will have dozens of mortals aware of our existence and our purpose. It could be a greater danger than leaving them as they are.”
“That is true. I do not know that I trust all of these men. Where is their loyalty? They are from a dozen or more kingdoms. Some have already betrayed pervious masters. One or two are certainly criminals.”
Walt, leaning by the window, turned and straightened up. “Ain’t they already proved themselves loyal, Richard? Some of these lads have been with us for almost ten years, now. You forget how long that is for a mortal. We’ve seen some of these fellows join us as little more than boys and grow into men under our command. Whatever some of them once may have been, they see themselves as serving you. They’re proud of it, have you not noticed? You gave them a chance to flee before coming here and the ones that didn’t fancy it, they left. Then you gave these lads the truth about our chances and offered to pay for their passage and send them off with their purses full. They stayed. Every bloody one of the stupid bastards. I reckon they’ve proved themselves loyal, don’t you?”
Eva pursed her lips and shrugged. Rob nodded to himself.
“I had not seen it that way,” I admitted. “It is as you say. Ten years passes almost without me noticing sometimes and I often cannot easily recall how this year or that has bee
n spent.”
“They’ll be giving up their chance to be fathers,” Rob said. “Though some of them have bastards, none have proper wives. They need to understand that, at least.”
“And some may well die if your blood does not take,” Eva pointed out.
“We’ll have to bleed more of the servants, and all,” Walt said. “Soon as our lads are made immortal, we’ll be committed to feeding them regular.”
“We will assemble the men only,” I said. “No squires or servants. And we will lay everything out as clearly as we can.”
“And those that decline?” Eva asked. “Perhaps we should wait before taking action.”
“Perhaps.”
“We are out of time!” Stephen said, advancing on me. “We need them. Have you forgotten William’s army of red-robed immortals? They are out there, right now. And they will be coming here. How can we hope to stop them if not with an army of our own? If we had any sense we would use your blood to turn the entire garrison. Imagine if we had five thousand immortals, Richard, we could stream out and defeat the Turks in a single blow. We could take their entire empire!”
I stared at him. We all did.
“Would I get a say in this grand plan of yours, Stephen?” I asked.
He sighed and sank down to sit on the top of a closed chest. “Turn our company, at least. What Walt says is true. They are loyal to you now. They will be loyal in this.”
“Assemble the men,” I said to Rob.
After they filed out, Eva came to me and took my hands in hers. “I know that you do not wish to do this. It is not too late to change your mind. Who knows how they might turn on us or who they might tell? But Stephen is right that we need to consider William’s army.”
I leaned down to rest my forehead on hers. “If they betray me, I may have to kill them.”
“You will have to,” she said, softly.
I straightened up. “Do you think it was Stephen who started the rumours amongst the men? Suggested they come to Rob?”
“It is his nature to do these things.”
“Damn him.”
“It may be what saves us. It may be what helps you to fulfil your oath.”