A Place Called Armageddon (58 page)

‘Cannon!’ he screamed, even as he leapt sideways, throwing his whole weight into it so that he could take down the armoured bulk of Giustiniani. As they tumbled, many men around him reacted to the call, fell as they did. Those who did not were swept away as the great ball smashed into the stockade.

The Commander was up in a moment, Enzo and Gregoras with him. There was no time for thanks, as foul-smelling smoke engulfed them, the enemy’s cries within it as if devils rode it. Those cries had to be answered, those devils fought. ‘For the emperor. For the city. For Christ,’ roared the Commander, and hundreds of men took up the cry, doing as they had always done – rolling barrels to replace the ones the cannon had torn away, timbers and branches borne in to fill the gap. And then, as the smoke shredded, more sounds came from within it and men were screaming, ‘Down!’

There had been few moments when arrows and bullets had not fallen onto them. But what passed before had been a spring shower to this storm, for the great mob of men who’d preceded the janissaries – archers and other men of the sultan’s guard, gunners from every part of the army – now charged forward, shooting bows and crossbows, firing the smaller
kolibrina
, the longer-barrelled culverin. Projectiles fell, many glancing off fluted breastplate or hastily snapped-down visor, their sheer number meaning that some found their way into the gaps between pieces of steel or punctured what was less well forged. Men fell back, silently or with screams, blood pouring from a wound suddenly opened or feebly plucking at a shaft as if to remove it quickly was to deny its entry.

Crouching, face bent toward the ground, Gregoras listened to the whistle, the ricochet, the strike, his body tensed for intrusion … that didn’t come. After an age, the metal falling ceased as suddenly as the halting of a hailstorm. Silence followed – and lasted for the eternity of ten heartbeats. He knew it in the thumps against his breastplate, saw it pass in the eyes of the man crouched next to him. They had been there before, he and Giustiniani, alone in the waiting silence. Yet as his heart counted down the moment, Gregoras knew something else: he had never been in a fight like this one, the stakes never as high as the ending of the world.

Then with the tenth heartbeat came an end to the silence in a different thump – the strike of one huge drum.

And the janissaries came.

Gregoras was up in a moment. ‘To arms,’ he cried, one of hundreds. He looked both ways along the lines of the stockade, that narrow, fragile gap between the points where the outer wall still stood – after a fashion, for at no place were the stones undamaged. Saw the surge all along it as scores of men rushed forward to its defence. To his right, perhaps a hundred paces along, he saw the banner of Constantine and of the city, the double-headed eagle swooping to the forefront of the fight. Turning forward again, he peered over the lip of his shield.

The janissaries marched, as much in step with their martial music as the shattered ground, a carnage of discarded weapons and broken bodies, allowed. Their standards waved and Gregoras, who had fought them enough, from the Hexamilion and afterwards, saw the symbols upon them and remembered some. Each
orta
, the cohorts of the force, had its mark. Against red and yellow backgrounds, camels walked, elephants trumpeted, lions roared. He looked for but did not see the red and gold of the household janissaries, elite of the elite. They would be further back, held till the very last. Yet Gregoras knew, as he drew his mace from the sling at his side, that he would be seeing them soon enough. If he lived.

A ladder slapped into the gap beside the barrel he sheltered behind, and into every gap. He could hear few single sounds within a din comprised of so many – the roar of men on each side calling upon God; the shouts of defiance meeting defiance; the ring of blade on blade, blade on helm, blade on breastplate and shield; the scream of death defied, accepted. If the
mehter
band sent the Turks’ challenge in drum and trumpet, the Greek trumpets answered them, while their water organs wheezed and their bells tolled, deep or shrill, from every holy place.

The ladder top cut into the earth with the weight of the men climbing it. Several, for one would come hard upon the other’s heels. He waited for the first, clenching the leather grip of the mace, and then, when the janissary appeared, his bearded face beneath his turban helmet split by his yelled challenge, Gregoras stepped into the gap and smashed his shield into that yell. The man tottered, somehow did not fall, struck back, his scimitar rising in a great arc behind him, falling with all the weight of the weapon’s folded perfection. Gregoras jumped close, halting the fall with his thrust-out shield before it became unstoppable, swinging his mace sideways into the space above the Turk’s own shield that the man just failed to close. The fluted weapon bit, the man fell. Another man rose.

His blow had taken him close to the edge. Drawing back, readying to strike again, Gregoras heard a cry. ‘Aside,’ Enzo yelled, shoving forward a man, a Greek by his long beard, who held a great slab of stone in his hand. The man raised it high, threw it straight down over the wall, along the ladder. He ducked aside as the Sicilian ordered two other men forward. They held a short, stout ash pole between them, tipped in a forked iron hook. Slamming it into the ladder’s top rung, they heaved. The rung snapped, so they hooked the ladder’s edge and, with Enzo joining them, shoved the ladder, slowly at first then faster as it reached its equilibrium, up and over.

The janissaries came and they came again and there was no pause in their coming, despite the fury unleashed upon them, the terrible toll of their dying. They came like the lions they were, over the piles of their dead, in the presence of their sultan and in the ever-presence of their God, twin names on their lips, shouted even as they died. And Gregoras wondered at them, that relentless courage, even as he killed them, stepping into breaches when another did not, striking at helmet, at turban, at snarling face. All the noises, of trumpet, bell and bullet, of steel on steel, of roars, challenge, defiance, prayer, all resolved for him into one continuous shriek. Within it, his arm rose and fell and murdered, until he could no longer feel it, his arm and the weapon at the end of it one solid club, which he managed to lift and let fall, lift again, let fall again. Somehow the weapon in it changed, he had no memory of how, the mace gone, his wide-bladed falchion in its place, used in its different way, to the same effect. Turks died, he had no idea how many, some on the ladders as they climbed, others who crested the rampart or were pulled behind it to be slaughtered on ground churned by feet, slickened by blood.

He did it, he saw it done. Saw comrades die because they were too tired to lift a shield or sword, lowering their heads like oxen under a butcher’s maul.

There was no time. There was only the killing, and it went on and on.

And then he felt it, even as he ducked beneath a scimitar swept sideways at his head, as he punched the point of his sword into another neck, just between the mail shirt and the chin. Felt it as he had before with the Anatolians, the slight giving, the slightest hesitation, the thought manifesting in one mind perhaps, spreading to many. Men, instinctive as birds, suddenly doubting as one.

His throat would not let him express it, his voice lost to smoke, shouting and blood. Crouching, he turned each way along the ramparts, saw the
ortas
’ banners thrown back, ladders toppling, the eagle still aloft. And he wondered, allowed himself to think the unthinkable.

Have we won? Despite it all … have we saved the city?

He turned to the stockade. Another wave was sweeping in. Was it only his hope, or did they yell with less fervour?

He raised his shield, peered over its lip. A few more to kill and then … a vow never to kill again.

This would be enough. Merciful father in heaven, let this be enough.

He had only lately mastered the art, for art it partly was. Selected for his accuracy with the crossbow, the young janissary had been thought to have an eye suitable for a different weapon. Not to load it, that was another man’s skill, his partner in the two-man team. Till the other had done, the janissary could only wait, lying flat in the shelter of the shallow trench over which Greek arrows still sometimes passed.

The powder had been crammed down within its leaf pouch. More had been applied to the breech. Now was the time. The little stone ball was placed at the barrel’s end, released, and even though he could not hear it above the terrible noise, the young man still thought he did, like a trickle of water, the roll of smoothed stone down metal. The wadding was poked down after, the padded stick plied and withdrawn.

It was his time. Rising over the lip of the trench, his partner drove the short forked stick into the earth there. The young janissary took a deep breath then lifted the culverin, a feat of strength in itself, for the metal barrel was long and thick. He did it swiftly, wanted to join his companion now sprawled face down in the mud. He sighted above the heads of his charging comrades, into a gap that suddenly opened. An arm rose there. It held a sword. Sighting just below and to the side of it, he brought the glowing end of rope down into the pan, breathed out as he did, closed his eyes, lowered his head …

… and sent the ball that changed history into the body of Giovanni Giustiniani Longo.

‘They weaken! They fail! Once more for God. Once more for Constantine. Once more for Genoa!’

In the tumult, only those nearest him could hear. But Gregoras was one, watching the Commander raise his sword above his head. It gave him the strength to raise his. Giustiniani had sensed what he had – the attack was weakening.

‘Once more,’ Gregoras cried, stepping towards the Genoan, to be at his right shoulder, just as Enzo stepped to his left, the ghost of Amir in his saffron cloak completing the trinity to guard his leader’s back.

Then everything changed. Giustiniani’s sword slipped from his hands. His fierce smile vanished, the battle light passed from his eyes, his whole face contracting into puzzlement, into a question, his huge body folding in on itself, knees crumpling. Only because they were so close did Gregoras and Enzo prevent the Commander crashing to the ground. With huge effort they held him up, slipping shoulders under the man’s arms. The sudden weight pulled them close, their heads conjoined like conspirators, whispering some treason.

Which Giustiniani did. ‘Holy Mother,’ he croaked, ‘but I am hit.’ Then he hissed, ‘Bear me up. Do not let them see me fall.’

Men were already turning. Gregoras and Enzo, their shoulders under Giustiniani’s arms, lifted him onto his feet – and the Genoan let out a terrible groan. ‘Ah, Christ! Back! Bear me back.’

They bore him away, the short distance to the little patch of clear ground before the ditch, under the inner wall, lowered him there. Behind them, the next wave of Turks smashed against the ramparts, up and down its line. Enzo ran into the crowd, seeking, while Gregoras knelt and tried to untie the laces that bound the front and back breastplates together. But they were slick with blood, livid and bright, so he used his dagger, slashed them. By the time he was done and was lifting the armour off, to Giustiniani’s constant groans, Enzo was back, dragging a long-bearded Greek, who knelt too, cut away the arming doublet and shirt beneath, reached to seek by touch, for sight was lost to the red flood that pooled in the Commander’s armpit.

‘I … I cannot find …’ The surgeon probed, then raised his voice above the moans. ‘A bullet, I think, still within.’

A silence amongst them within the uproar, as each looked at the other, helplessly. Then one voice broke it. It did not sound like him, the voice high, the tone piteous. ‘Fetch the key. Open the gate,’ Giustiniani cried. ‘I must go.’

A gasp from all there. Gregoras looked at Enzo, who shook his head. Both knew, all knew, what it would mean. One of the reasons the defenders fought as hard as they did was that there was no other choice, no avenue for escape. The gate was locked. They would triumph or die. But if it was opened … more, if the man who in so many ways
was
the defence fled through it … ‘Master,’ said Gregoras, leaning close, ‘if we do that …’

And then he did not have to make the argument, for someone else arrived who would. ‘What is happening? What?’

Men parted and the emperor came through them, stopping dead when he saw who was sprawled on the ground, kneeling by him a moment later. ‘My friend! What is wrong?’

‘I am hit,
basileus
. It is bad. I …’ His voice rose as a vibration of agony shook him. ‘I must go. To my own surgeon. The other side of this gate.’

Constantine’s eyes went wide. ‘My friend … do not do this.’

Giustiniani reached up, grabbing Constantine by the gorget at his throat, tugging him down. Two of the imperial guard stepped rapidly forward, but the emperor waved them off. ‘I will leave you my men,’ the Genoan hissed, ‘but I will go. I will return when my wounds are dressed.’

‘Brother, do not!’ Constantine wrapped his own mailed hand around the other’s bloodied one, spoke as softly as the battle noise allowed. ‘The crisis is upon us. You are the rock to which our ship is moored. If you leave, men will know and weaken, here at the last when we need them to be their strongest. Here, in the very heart of it.’ He leaned closer, his lips beside the other’s ear. ‘Stay. Stand. Men will bear you up. Let all see the lion lives. For one more attack. Just one more!’

Giustiniani opened his eyes. There was terror in them, in eyes that had never held it, and all who saw took terror in their turn. ‘No,’ he spluttered, through the blood on his lips. ‘I cannot. I have done enough. Ah, Christ save me, the pain!’ He groaned, and as his gaze and grip moved to Enzo and Gregoras, his voice hardened. ‘I order you to bear me away. Bring the key.’

The Sicilian looked across at Gregoras … who shrugged, rose, turned towards the bastion. A hand grabbed his arm, jerked him round. ‘Where do you go?’ Constantine said. ‘Do not …’

‘Majesty, I cannot disobey my leader’s command.’ He glanced back, shuddered. ‘His last, perhaps.’