A Place Called Armageddon (32 page)

The lieutenant smiled, nodded, walked away. Gregoras turned to look at the city again. The sinking sun was setting it ablaze, the dome of St Sophia a vivid crimson flash. Our city, he thought. He had fought the Turk for gold and he had fought him for Constantinople, and though he always fought well – for fighting was something he loved – he had rediscovered what truly made his heart strong and his bowstring sing.

A cause.
The
cause.

The ships had bunched again, waiting for the sunset and the lifting of the boom in the darkness. The imperial barge was close to the
Stella Mare
. Close enough for Gregoras to hear a high-pitched laugh. It was the boy, Bartolomeo, safe after the battle, on the aft deck of the carrack, making his father dance with a scimitar, a spoil of war. And looking at father and son, and holding a weapon that had belonged to a father and a son, he remembered that there were other causes within the walls above him, and that he was, at last, ready to seek them out.

–
TWENTY-ONE
–
Consequences

The sultan’s
otak
was hot, for its canvas roof and walls still held the day’s sun, and night was not yet far enough advanced to cool them. But heat radiated from within the huge pavilion as well. Not from the braziers, which remained as yet unlit. This heat came from men, from their fear, sweat running freely inside their
gomleks
, dripping down their legs within the folds of their silk
shalvari
.

Mehmet’s rages were known to be indiscriminate. So all the
beys
and
belerbeys
, the pashas, even the imam kept their noses to the floor. Those who had their eyes open could study the intricate patterns of the Izmiri kilims that covered the ground. Most did not even venture so much.

Their ears they could do nothing about, though most would have preferred not to listen to the obscenities, many deeply sacrilegious, that gushed from their leader’s mouth. Though in some ways they were preferable to the softer-spoken words that followed, that began to chill the rivulets of sweat upon their skin.

‘It is not simply your failure, Baltaoglu,’ Mehmet hissed. ‘It is the abject manner of it. There, with all the Christians watching from their walls, there, you failed! Because of your stupidity, because of your cowardice, our men who watched now begin to doubt, to fear Allah’s judgement, to think of all the times the sons of Isaac have attacked this place and failed to take it.’ He bent to the man lying on the ground before him and thrust the
bastinado
under his chin, using the short wooden stick to pull up his bandaged head. ‘Do you hear them, pig? Do you hear the infidels’ bells tolling their joy?’ He tilted the head still further up, angling it towards the city. All in the tent could hear both Baltaoglu’s groan of agony and the distant, constant, joyous peals. ‘You have given them a gift. Though you outnumbered them ten, twenty to one, your stupidity, your cowardice, has given them the one thing I have tried to take away: hope!’

He let the head fall. It landed with a thump on the carpet before the sultan’s slippered feet, and Hamza, taking the chance to peer up from the floor, saw fresh blood ooze from the Bulgarian’s bandage. It would have to be changed soon, like three others before it. Something had smashed Baltaoglu’s visor into his eye, and removing the metal had taken the eyeball too.

Now Mehmet turned to the only other man standing, and his command to him meant that sight was not going to be a worry for long. ‘Execute him,’ Mehmet said softly. ‘I want his head on a spike before my
otak
so the world sees what happens to those who fail me.’

The huge man behind Mehmet stepped forward. Hamza had last seen him wielding a trowel in the gardens of the
saray
at Edirne. But the
bostanci
, the gardeners of the palace, were also the sultan’s executioners, and he had the tools of this trade about him. It was these that caused him to hesitate, and to speak, the first voice other than Mehmet’s to sound within the
otak
since the disgraced
kapudan pasha
had been dragged in.

‘The bow or the sword, oh balm of the world?’

Mehmet stared incredulously at him for a moment, then exploded. ‘I want his head cut off, you fool. Are you going to do that with a horsehair string?’

‘Lord of lords.’ The
bostanci
picked up the huge, heavy-bladed sword behind him, bent and seized the Bulgar by the hair at the back of his neck, eliciting another groan, a babble of words, ‘mercy’ being one of the only ones that passed the blood clearly.

‘Not here, idiot!’ Mehmet struck the man hard on his shoulder with his
bastinado
. ‘These kilims cost a fortune. Do you think I want them further stained?’ He used the stick to point to the
otak’
s entrance. ‘Out there! Where my army can witness the fate of traitors.’

Perhaps it was the word. Baltaoglu was many things – a failure, certainly, though Hamza knew that few would have succeeded that day upon the waters when wind and God intervened – but a traitor he was not. Nor was he a coward. And Hamza was also conscious of the ripple that ran through the tent, the low murmur of protest from men who dared not raise heads or voices. They would feel
their
cowardice later, at not protesting. They would resent the young sultan, so new upon his throne, who made them feel thus. And Mehmet, for all his rage and certainty, needed these men. He could not take Constantinople without them.

‘Asylum of the world,’ Hamza said, coming off his knees, crabbing forward to press his forehead against Mehmet’s curled slipper, ‘I crave a chance to speak before this just act is done.’

Mehmet glared down. ‘Do not plead for this traitor, Hamza Bey. Only a fool defends a fool.’

‘Yes, lord. And I do not plead for him, but for something else of far more import.’ He risked a look up. In the year of preparation, the new sultan had taken his advice more than any other man’s. He saw him hesitate. ‘Come, master,’ he hurried on. ‘Killing a man is thirsty work, and there is sherbet here.’

He gestured to the latticed section of the tent, where more intimate conferences could be had. Since they had ridden back from the debacle before the walls of Galata, no one had drunk anything, so immediate was the sultan’s anger.

Mehmet scowled, looking along the rows of backs before him. ‘Well, that makes sense. Come.’ He gestured to the executioner. ‘Lay your blade upon this wretch’s neck, so he feels death’s approach.’ He turned, and strode behind the screen.

Hamza took a deep breath, rose and followed. A servant was already pouring from a jug, and both men sipped the sweetened, frothy juices before Hamza spoke again, carefully. ‘The fool deserves to die.’

‘He does.’ Mehmet nodded vigorously.

‘He failed you, lord. He blundered about the sea and let the prize slip away.’

‘You would have done things differently, Hamza. I would. Anyone but a fool would.’

‘Indeed, master.’ Hamza was not sure how, but proving Baltaoglu unlucky was not his goal. He was happy to see the cruel Bulgar fall; it cleared the space around the young sultan for abler men such as himself. However, he had recognised the mood in the
otak
. Divisions had existed from the beginning over this project, this dream of conquest, and half the men out there had had to be compelled to assist in it – and needed that compulsion still. There was already dispirited talk amongst them, barely two weeks into the siege, the walls battered yet standing, and the Greeks still obdurate. The party that had always opposed the war, led by the grand vizier Candarli Halil, seized on rumour and expanded on it – the Pope had organised a crusade, Hunyadi and the Hungarians had torn up the treaty and were marching overland to join it, the Italian states were sending a fleet. Even these four ships would be used as evidence that once again the nation of Islam should retreat from the place that had always defeated them.

But Hamza was not of that party. His continued success, his rise from tanner’s son to
bey
, could only be sustained, he knew, if Mehmet sat on the throne. And he would not sit on it long if he abandoned this dream. Conquer, and he would have the success that had eluded the Prophet’s followers for eight hundred years. Fail, and he would be gone, and Hamza with him.

Little things could change everything. War was cruel, and cruelty was necessary on occasion. But it was like training hawks. Sometimes you had to sit out in the freezing rain for one whole night to bind a proud bird to the fist. But you did not sit out two. You did not kill what would bring success.

‘Master,’ Hamza went on, softly, ‘you have every right to take this fool’s life. But I ask you, what would that achieve?’

‘Achieve?’ Mehmet’s eyes flared. But his voice lowered too. ‘It would achieve my satisfaction.’

‘Undoubtedly, lord. But would it achieve your desire? Would it bring you nearer to tearing down the cross on the Hagia Sophia and raising a minaret?’ It never harmed to remind the sultan of the holiness of what they were about. Seeing his eyes widen, he pressed on. ‘It seems a little thing, master, to kill a fool. But many would think that though he was foolish, he was not afraid. He pressed the attack from the front. He has a bad wound to prove it. Not in his back, where cowards are struck. In his eye, which was fixed upon the enemy.’

Mehmet took another sip. ‘Go on.’

‘Make an example of him, master. Disgrace him. Strip him of rank. Expel him from your presence. But do not kill him. Alive, he would for ever be an example of both your wrath and your mercy, a goad to others to serve you better. Dead …’ Hamza shrugged.

‘Dead, he would have other fools rally about his corpse.’ Mehmet nodded. The high colour had left his cheeks, cooled by sherbet and soft words. ‘That is what you are saying?’

Hamza nodded. The sultan’s voice was calm now. For all his sudden choler, Mehmet was also a thinker, a planner, considering even the minutest effect an action might have. Sometimes he agonised too much and slept too little.

Hamza watched as the young man turned to the table behind him, to maps and papers there. Laying down his goblet, he picked up a map, held it to the light. ‘You know what we need to do, Hamza Bey?’ he said calmly.

‘What, master?’

‘We need to make those bells cease their ringing.’ He gestured towards the city beyond the canvas, its insistent tolling. ‘The Christians think that these four ships mean rescue. That their triumph in this fight means that more triumph will come. We need to act now, immediately, to take away this little hope.’ He looked up and, for the first time in an age, he smiled. ‘Their despair tomorrow will be all the greater if it is contrasted with their joy today.’

Hamza stepped nearer. He had done what he needed to do. Now he must listen. For all his closeness to Mehmet, he was only one of several. The sultan would consult one, and not tell another. He delighted in secrets and surprise.

‘Hold this,’ the sultan said, handing over a map. Hamza saw that it was a close drawing of the cities, Galata and Constantinople, that faced each other across the Golden Horn. Mehmet pointed to a line that linked the two. ‘Their accursed boom,’ he said. ‘Another failure of Baltaoglu’s, for he tried and failed to force it. But it stops our ships entering the Horn, and so all these walls …’ he ran his finger along the line of towers and battlements marked on the water’s edge, ‘need not be defended. They can put their few troops all here …’ he tapped, ‘on the land walls.’ He looked up. ‘Did you hear that our great bombard destroyed one of the towers, here, tonight, at the gate they call Romanus?’

‘I did, lord. All praise to you for moving it there and our gunners for their skills.’

‘But I was not there to order a general assault, because of that fool out there. And now the Greeks have filled the wall with rubble and barrels and all sorts of muck. And because they have the men, they can crowd a breach. But if they had to take men away from there, and guard these …’ he tapped the sea walls again, ‘our men would push through their weakness.’ He looked at Hamza over the papers. ‘We have to get our ships into the Golden Horn.’

Hamza looked down. ‘The boom? A bigger assault?’

‘I am not confident any would succeed. Remember also, the boom is as much part of Galata as of Constantinople. Those damned Genoese complain every time we attack it. They say they are neutral, but we know they supply their fellow Christians, while others of their country fight beside them.’

Hamza nodded. It was a constant problem. In fairness, the Genoese in Galata also supplied the Turks, making a great profit by the war from both sides. But their sympathies were clear. It was less to do with religion. The Catholic Italians had hated the Orthodox Greeks for centuries. But small Galata would not stay free for long once mighty Constantinople fell. Yet Mehmet needed them neutral, could not risk bringing an open war and a larger Genoese fleet than had already arrived.

Hamza frowned. It was a riddle he could find no answer to. ‘I do not see, lord. How do we sail our ships into the Horn without breaking the boom and risking Genoese wrath?’

Mehmet was smiling now. All trace of the raging tyrant was gone. He looked like what he still, at least partly, was – a very tall and excited young man. ‘We sail over the land, Hamza Bey. We sail
over
the land.’

Hamza, looking for traces of madness in the smile, found none. ‘Lord?’

Mehmet placed a finger on the map. ‘Here lies our fleet, at the Double Columns, behind Galata. But only the city and the foreshore belong to the Genoese. The rest is ours. And there is a path that runs from the columns, up this ridge and down the other side, along what the Greeks call the Valley of the Springs. That valley ends in the waters of the Golden Horn.’

Too many questions came into Hamza’s head. He blurted one. ‘A path? It would be wide enough for goats, no doubt …’

‘I have caused it to be widened.’ Mehmet’s teeth gleamed in the lamplight. ‘My loyal Zaganos, who commands my armies on the Anatolian shore, has been working at night, with soldiers making sure any curious Galatans have … accidents. Zagan has done well. And he sends me word this night that all is in readiness.’