Siege

by Jack Hight

  Sofia laughed, thinking of the boorish Metochites and drunk Archbishop Leonard. 'Fortunately, no,' she said. 'I am engaged to Megadux Lucas Notaras.'

  'He is a lucky man,' Longo said. He took a step towards her, so that no more than a foot remained between them. Sofia's heart began to pound in her chest and her breathing quickened. 'I wished to speak with you about Corsica,' Longo said. 'I have thought much about that night.'

  'As have I,' Sofia replied.

  'Ahem!' It was Notaras, stepping into the hallway behind them. Longo and Sofia stepped quickly apart. 'Signor Giustiniani, I see that you have met my betrothed, the Princess Sofia. I am the megadux, Lucas Notaras, the commander of the emperor's forces.'

  'I am most pleased to meet you, Megadux,' Longo told him, and the two men clasped hands. 'The Princess Sofia spoke well of you.'

  'Did she?' Notaras said. 'I was not aware that you two were on familiar terms.'

  'We met briefly, in Italy,' Longo explained.

  'Ah, very interesting,' Notaras said. 'You will have to tell me all about it, Sofia. Come. I will take you to your quarters. It is not proper for a young princess to walk the halls unescorted.' He took Sofia by the arm. 'Signor Giustiniani, good night.' The emperor greeted Longo as soon as he stepped back into the great hall. 'Signor Giustiniani,' Constantine said, 'I need to speak with you alone. Come with me.' Constantine led Longo through the passageway behind the hall and out into an interior garden. The garden was quiet, the many flowers silver in the moonlight, the air filled with their heady perfume. The emperor picked a rose blossom as they walked and examined it. 'It is wonderful, is it not, that flowers know neither peace nor war, only sunshine and rain. An enviable state, no? This rose bush blooms as it has every spring. It would bloom just as beautifully for a sultan as for an emperor.' In the distance, they could hear the occasional boom of Turkish cannons. The emperor dropped the flower and turned to face Longo. 'I have asked you here so that we may talk freely.'

  'And what is it that you wish to speak of, Emperor?'

  'First, I wish to thank you, man to man, for coming to our aid. The endless bombardment and this infernal waiting have been driving us mad. The soldiers quarrel daily. The Venetians and the Genoese cannot abide one another, and many of my Roman troops refuse to fight beside either of them. Your victory today has lightened our spirits and inspired us all. Romans, Venetians and Genoese were all united in celebration of your arrival. It is truly a blessing.'

  'I told you long ago that my sword was at your service should you ever have need of it,' Longo said. 'I am a man of my word. I would not leave you to fight this battle alone.'

  'I am glad that you have come, for I do indeed have need of your sword, and your wisdom too, Signor Giustiniani,' Constantine said. 'I understand that you have experience with siege warfare.'

  'I was at the siege of Belgrade in 1440, where we held off the armies of the sultan. If you need counsel, then I will be happy to offer it.'

  'I need more than your counsel, Signor. I need your leadership. None of my men knows the Turks as you do, nor can they rally men as you did today. I want you to take command of the defence.'

  'But My Lord, for all that I love Constantinople, I am foreign to these lands,' Longo protested. 'Surely your people would be more willing to follow one of their own. If none of your men are able, then you should lead them. It is your right and duty as their emperor.'

  Constantine shook his head. 'I am a soldier, Longo, but I am no strategist. I will take my place on the wall and lead my men in battle. I will die defending this city if I must. But I am not the one to organize its defence. The one siege that I led was a disaster. My men were slaughtered and I barely escaped with my life. I do not wish to see the same happen to Constantinople.'

  'And what of the megadux, Lucas Notaras?' Longo asked.

  'Ah yes, Notaras,' Constantine sighed. 'He is brave, it is true, but also rash and headstrong. I fear he would sacrifice this city if it meant saving his own honour.'

  'I too am a man of honour, Emperor.'

  'Yes, I know,' Constantine said. 'But you understand that sometimes true honour requires sacrificing one's pride for a greater good. I am not sure that Notaras does. And besides, he bears little love for the Latins. They will never follow him the way that they would follow you. You, Longo, are our best hope. God has sent you to us for a reason.'

  'If it is truly your will, then I accept,' Longo said.

  'It is settled then.' Constantine clapped Longo on the back. 'You will stay nearby, close to the walls. One of the Venetian merchants who fled the city left a fine house. You shall have it. And once we are victorious, you shall have the island of Lesbos as your reward.'

  'Thank you, Emperor.'

  'Now come. Let us introduce my people to the new commander of Constantinople.'

  Chapter 15

  TUESDAY 17 APRIL 1453, CONSTANTINOPLE: DAY 17 OF THE SIEGE

  Mehmed stood outside his tent, watching the artillery flash in the pre-dawn light as he did each morning. He saw a cannonball strike the base of a tower along the Mesoteichion. The tower shook, then toppled forward, and Mehmed smiled. He had been to look at the walls the previous day, and the amount of damage was even greater than he had hoped. The outer wall along the Mesoteichion had been almost entirely reduced to rubble. The time to strike had come.

  'Your Excellency seems pleased,' Halil remarked, stifling a yawn as he joined Mehmed. 'Is it good news, then, that you wish to discuss with me at this ungodly hour?'

  'Very good news, Halil. Tomorrow night, under the cover of darkness, we will attack. You will distribute ladders and torches and make sure that the men have everything they need.'

  'Do you think an attack wise, Your Excellency? Perhaps another week of bombardment, as we had agreed, would make success more certain. Patience is, after all, the principal virtue in siege warfare.'

  'Patience will not feed my men, Halil,' Mehmed said. 'You know better than anyone how difficult it is to keep an army of this size in the field. I had thought that you would be happy to finish the siege early. It will mean an end to your ceaseless search for supplies.'

  'I would be only too happy, your Excellency. But the walls of Constantinople, even weakened, will not be easy to take. We must be patient and allow your other plans to bear fruit. After all, think of what a defeat now might do to the morale of the army.'

  'There will be no defeat,' Mehmed said curtly. 'I am not a fool or a child who you need lecture, Halil. The walls of Constantinople are only lightly manned at night. We will strike quickly, sending the bazibozouks north and south to distract the defence while the janissaries focus their attack near the Lycus, where the walls are weakest. They will overrun the defenders before they are able to rally more troops, and Constantinople will be ours.'

  'I was here when your father besieged the city. The walls of Constantinople will not fall so easily, I fear,' Halil said. Then, after a long pause, he bowed and added: 'But may it be as you say, great Sultan. I defer to your greater wisdom.'

  Mehmed frowned. He did not like Halil's tone, nor did he understand why his grand vizier was so eager to delay the attack.

  'Excuse me, Sultan,' Ulu said as he appeared at Mehmed's side. 'Zaganos has come from the mines.'

  'Very good, Ulu. Bring him to me.' Zaganos was Mehmed's chief miner. He appeared a few seconds later, his face and clothes black with dirt.

  'We found something, Sultan,' Zaganos said. 'A tunnel near the gate of Caligaria, where you directed us to focus our efforts. It leads towards the walls, but it hits a dead end before it reaches them. It appears to have been filled in.'

  'Take me to it,' Mehmed ordered. 'I shall see for myself.'

  He followed Zaganos towards the rear of camp. Mehmed had ordered the tunnels to be started here, far out of sight of the walls of Constantinople. It had meant a long, laborious dig, but the tunnels were finally nearing the moat beyond the Blachernae walls. Still passing underneath the moat and walls would take several more weeks. It wo
uld be much easier if they could find one of the passages that Mehmed had read about in the Russian's description of Constantinople.

  They reached the tunnel's entrance — a hole some five feet high, braced with wood and dug into a hillside. 'Are you sure you want to enter?' Zaganos asked. 'The mines aren't entirely stable.'

  'I want to see,' Mehmed insisted.

  'Very well. Mind your head, Sultan,' Zaganos said as he led the way into the tunnel. The passage was narrow, only slightly broader than Mehmed's shoulders. Frequent wooden braces held up the ceiling, and lamps hanging from some of the braces offered a weak, flickering light. The ceiling was black dirt, as were the walls halfway down. Below that, the rest of the walls and the floor were made of fine grey clay. As they walked, the ceiling grew lower until Mehmed had to walk bent at the waist. Zaganos, a powerfully built but short man, only had to duck his head.

  'The tunnel we discovered was beneath where we have been digging,' Zaganos explained as they walked. 'That is why we didn't find it earlier.' He pointed to a side tunnel as they passed. 'We've run side tunnels like this out to either side of the main tunnel, but we were digging too high. It was only luck that led us to the tunnel. One of our diggers was pushing a cart full of clay through one of these side tunnels when he fell through the floor, and into another tunnel below.' Zaganos stopped before a dark side passage. 'This is it.'

  Zaganos took a lamp from the wall and led them into the side tunnel. After about fifteen feet there was an irregular hole in the floor, with a ladder leading down. 'I'll go first to light the way, Your Excellency,' Zaganos said. He clambered down the ladder, and Mehmed followed. When he reached the bottom, Mehmed found that he could stand up straight. The tunnel was at least seven feet tall. The walls were of stone, leading up to an arched ceiling, also of stone. The floor was dirt. The tunnel that the Russian had described was made entirely of stone — ceiling, walls and floor. This must be a different tunnel.

  'This way towards the walls,' Zaganos said. They followed the tunnel for some thirty feet before it ended suddenly in a pile of rubble.

  'Perhaps this is just a cave-in,' Mehmed suggested. 'Have you tried to dig around it?'

  'We have, Your Excellency,' Zaganos said. 'There's no way through. The tunnel has been collapsed for as far as we can see.'

  'And what about the other direction? Where does it lead?'

  'The tunnel is collapsed in that direction, too. My guess is that somebody used charges to bring the tunnel down. Somehow, the section that we're standing in escaped the destruction.'

  'Well then, let us take advantage of our good fortune,' Mehmed said. 'There are other tunnels here, and we are going to find them. You will have as many men as you need, Zaganos. I want you to dig side passages off this tunnel, stretching the length of the walls if need be, until you find something.'

  'I understand, Sultan.'

  'Good. Start digging.' Sofia held an old, tattered book in one hand and a candle in the other as she descended the steps from the palace kitchen to the storerooms below. She had come straight from the library after she had come across a book, written hundreds of years ago by a Russian named Alexandre. He wrote of tunnels beneath the walls, built when the new wall surrounding the Blachernae quarter had been put up in the seventh century. Even more intriguing, the Russian insisted that he himself had passed through one. He said that during the Latin conquest, the emperor had used a tunnel to escape from the city. For a small price, a cook who had served in the Imperial Palace during the conquest had shown the Russian the tunnel. The entrance, Alexandre wrote, was beneath the imperial palace itself.

  At the rear of the storerooms she found a stairway leading down into the palace dungeons. She descended the steps, her candle shedding a feeble light in the subterranean gloom. The staircase opened into a large underground room. The floor glistened with what looked like guano. Sofia thought that she could hear the titter of bats overhead, but the light of her candle did not reach to the ceiling. Other than the bats, the dungeon was silent. No prisoners had been kept here for centuries.

  Three passages led from the room, and after consulting the book, she took the one on the furthest right. It led through a series of low rooms, and then to a staircase, which led down to a lower level of the dungeon. At the bottom, the stairs opened on to a long hallway. The air was colder here and the walls glistened with moisture. A large rat, startled by the sudden light, scurried away from beneath Sofia's feet, and she inhaled sharply. As she exhaled, she could see her breath in the cold, heavy air.

  She pulled her robe more closely around her and walked down the hallway. To her left and right were a series of old prison cells, their doors open. Sofia peered into them as she passed. Manacles hung from the walls, and in one cell she saw an old skeleton. Other than that, the rooms were empty. At the end of the hallway, past the cells, was a large door.

  Sofia consulted the book again and then pushed the door open. It swung slowly inward, groaning on rusty hinges, and she stepped into a room cluttered with various instruments of torture, all covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Set in the wall to her right was a fire pit, and next to it hung branding irons and pincers. On her left was a rack, a device for slowly pulling victims apart until they would confess to anything. Other implements were scattered about: restraints, spikes and wicked-looking knives. She shuddered.

  A large tapestry depicting the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1203 hung on the far wall. Various scenes from the siege ran around the edges of the tapestry, framing a larger image that depicted the Latin knights breaking through the sea walls and overrunning the city, looting churches and burning homes. There was no door leading from the room. She had reached a dead end.

  Sofia moved closer to the tapestry. At the bottom was a series of scenes depicting the emperor's escape. There was the emperor, walking through the palace dungeon, then passing through a long tunnel and finally emerging on a hillside, with Constantinople burning in the distance. Sofia stepped back and paused to consider. Who would hang a tapestry in a torture chamber? She grabbed it and pulled the rotting cloth aside. Behind it was a door. Sofia pulled hard, but it did not budge. She set the book and her candle down and tried again. Nothing. She took one of the branding irons from the wall and wedged its head into the tiny space between the door and the jamb. With all her weight, she pushed on the handle of the iron, using it as a lever, and with a loud crack the door swung open. A cold draught of fresh air rushed from the dark tunnel beyond. The candle guttered and then grew steady again, burning brighter in the fresh air. Sofia picked it up and stepped into the dark passage.

  The floor and walls were of rough-hewn stone, damp with moisture. Ahead of Sofia, the tunnel sloped gently downward, stretching away into blackness. She moved slowly forward, and as she walked the draught grew stronger. She had been walking for a few minutes when a particularly strong gust of air blew the candle out. Sofia passed her hand in front of her face and saw nothing; the darkness was absolute.

  Panic rose up inside her and she had to force herself to breathe. The passage was straight; she could not get lost. All she had to do was turn and follow the wall, and it would lead her back to the dungeon. But first, she needed to find out where this tunnel led. For if it did indeed lead out of the city, then the Turks could just as easily use it to enter. Sofia took a deep breath and reached out to touch the wall. The stones were cold and slimy. She stepped forward, running her hand along the wall as she continued down the passage.

  Eventually, the passage stopped descending and levelled out. Shortly after that, the wall she had been following disappeared from under her hand. She reached in front of her but felt nothing, only empty space. She moved back and found the corner where the wall turned sharply to the right. She turned and followed the wall, running her hand along the cold stones. The wall had begun to curve away from her to the right, and after only a few more steps, it again vanished. She stepped forward a few feet and the wall resumed. She had discovered a side passage.
A few feet later, she found another, and then another after that. With excitement, she realized that she knew where she was. The Russian had written about this place: a sort of hub, a round room with passages leading in all directions. According to him, the hub lay halfway between the palace and the exit on the far side of the wall. One of these passages, then, should lead beyond the walls. But which one?

  Sofia turned around and counted until she was back to the passage that she had come down. It would be easy to get lost: she imagined herself stumbling about from passage to passage in this darkness, alone, until she died. She wanted to press on, but first she needed to think. She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind, when she heard a sound: a distant clank, as of metal banging against metal. Then nothing, only her breathing and the loud beating of her heart. Her every instinct told her to turn and run back to the palace, but she would be a fool, she told herself, to run because of a mere sound. Besides, if the Turks were there somewhere in the darkness, they would no doubt have torches, and their eyes would not be adjusted to the darkness. She would see them long before they saw her.

  She bent down and placed the book at the mouth of the passage, with her candle on top of it. Then she turned and again followed the curving wall. She paused at every side passage she came to, listening hard for any sound, but heard nothing. The room was immense, and she quickly lost count of the number of side passages. She had begun to fear that she was moving in circles, when finally, she stopped before the mouth of a passage and felt a warm wind ruffle her hair. The draught of fresh air was steady. Somewhere ahead, this passage led to the outside world.

  She had only gone a few feet down the tunnel when she heard the clanking again, louder and closer this time. She froze as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Sofia listened, holding her breath to hear better. The noise did not repeat itself, and she continued on her way.