A Place Called Armageddon (63 page)

‘Let us hope. Come,’ Grant said, stepping then suddenly staggering forward. ‘Heh!’

Gregoras had felt something pass his face. Saw it a moment later because it had glanced off the Scotsman’s steel shoulder and lodged in the wooden wall of the house beside them. ‘A quarrel,’ he said, glancing at the feathered shaft, as he pushed his charges over the lip of the hill. ‘Your armour was worth the wine,’ he added.

Like the Greek, the Scot had kept moving. ‘Aye. But I’d rather not give whoever shoots another chance to prove that.’

Gregoras turned to Sofia and Thakos. ‘Ready?’ he said. Breathless, they nodded their reply. ‘Then let us run, before the Venetian ships are filled.’

They ran down a street without curve, leading straight to the harbour. It reminded him of somewhere else, some other time he’d done this … and then it came to him, in the grunting of the Scotsman beside him. They had fled the pirates of Omis together down an alley like this, on the island of Korcula. He’d chosen the straight one, not one that curved, and their pursuers had shot arrows at them …

It was that memory, and instinct too, from a thousand days of combat, that made Gregoras suddenly dart to the side, and shove Sofia. She was running hard, downhill, and the shove knocked her off balance. She yelped in shock, and in pain, as she slipped, crashing into the tent poles that supported the awning outside a shop, bringing it down. ‘Why?’ she gasped, as the others slowed, turned.

‘This is why,’ he said, and snapped the shaft of a crossbow bolt embedded in one of the poles. He pulled her from the wreckage of cloth and timber. ‘Are you well?’ She nodded. ‘Then run. And all of you – weave as you do so.’

They set off, obeying him. He was about to leave the shelter of the wrecked shop and follow when he looked at the quarrel in his hand. Saw how beautifully its flights were fashioned. Not with strips of leather or wood, but with feathers of heron, tipped in blue, with a helix to spin the bolt in flight. Realised he had seen others like it, before. One in Korcula, stuck into John Grant’s leather satchel. One more when he woke up in the warehouse on the docks. Both fashioned by the same hand as the one he held now.

The same bowman was hunting him again. It was incredible, and it was certain, and realising that certainty, he unslung his own bow from his back, and reached for the last arrow in his quiver.

Leilah watched the others flee, saw that Gregoras did not. He was still there, concealed in the tumbled awning. As she shoved her foot into her weapon’s stirrup, bent and smoothly pulled up her bowstring, she mouthed a curse. She had missed him … twice!

Him … or her? That was why – she had not been certain of her target. Fury had misted her sight. She’d wavered between killing the man who had betrayed her and the woman he’d betrayed her for.

Her man of destiny. Hers. She’d thought, as she led her guards through the burning streets, that her excitement was because she was about to achieve her greatest desire, the book of learning of Jabir ibn Hayyan that would make her rich. But when she’d seen Gregoras at their rendezvous, she’d realised: it was him she was excited about. Him. To be reunited with him, to go forward with him, their destinies entwined.

Until she saw the way he held another woman’s hand.

Uncertainty was gone now. The woman was already a long shot, and a target that ducked and wove. Nearer, the man was about to emerge from the tangle of awnings. So Leilah drew out a quarrel, licked the heron’s feathers smooth, dropped it into its groove. She was levelling when Gregoras stepped into the street. He did not run. He was facing her. She sighted on his chest.

He had one arrow left. The last he would shoot in the city. He stepped clear, saw the crossbowman on the hilltop, silhouetted against the open sky. He had already drawn to half-tension. Now he drew past his ear, sighted, and released.

He felt it the same moment he heard it, like the buzz and simultaneous bite of a mosquito at his ear, but he did not reach for the blood that would be there. At the crest of the hill, the black figure crumpled.

The world had gone quiet for him while two shafts flew. Now sounds returned in the hum of many voices, beseeching at the docks, wailing in the streets; closer too, ones he knew, calling him.

He looked back. Sofia, Grant and Thakos were standing before the final descent, beckoning.

He ran up the hill. He had to know if his last target was real, not some demon who would pursue him for ever. Nearing, he saw movement, a hand reaching. Slinging his bow over his head, he drew his dagger.

The man was small, dressed all in black, a turban helmet rolling beside him. A mask hid his face, or most of it. Some had been torn away by Gregoras’s arrow, a jagged line across the forehead, gouting blood.

He reached and ripped the mask away. Then he stared for a long moment before he whispered her name.

Someone was calling her. She tried to blink away the blood. The voice – his voice, she now realised – came muffled through that red mist. She did not know if she was dead. She knew her head had hit the ground hard enough to crack her skull.

Metal on cobbles. Gregoras looked up to see bobbing yellow turbans, armoured men who’d run across a city struggling to run up a final steep ascent. From behind him came the summons of those he loved. Sheathing his dagger, he stooped, grabbed both of Leilah’s arms and lifted her over his shoulder. Then he turned and stumbled down the hill.

–
THIRTY-EIGHT
–

Faith

Constantinople
29 May 1453: noon

Mehmet bent and touched his forehead to the carpet. Glory to my Lord the most high, he said silently. Allah is greater. He pressed his head there for a moment, knowing that when he raised it again his prayers would be almost over and thus so would his solitude. There was much to do, and he was excited about it: commands to give, men to muster again to his will. But for this moment, with his skin pressed into Izmiri weave, it was still just him and God, to whom everything was owed.

He uttered the short prayer for all Muslims, asked that his sins be forgiven. Finally, he lifted his head, looked to left and right, concluding with the salaam. ‘Peace be with you,’ he said softly, ‘and the mercy of Allah.’ Then he looked to the tent’s entrance. ‘Admit them,’ he called, loudly and clearly. Canvas was lifted, men entered, knelt, bowed. His men.

‘Well,’ he said, smiling at Hamza and Zaganos, waving them to their feet. ‘Is all prepared?’

‘All, magnificence.’ Zaganos gestured outside. ‘The jackals gather at your horse’s arse, seeing who can be close enough to lick it.’

Mehmet laughed. ‘And Candarli Halil closest of all, no doubt. Now I have triumphed, he would lay a claim to my victory and pretend he has not spent these months trying to prevent it.’ He shook his head. ‘Well, my grand vizier must take his place, and may ride nearest to me this day. But he will feel the caress of the silken bowstring soon enough. Then you, my truly faithful, will come closer.’ Both men bowed and he continued, ‘What news from the water,
kapudan pasha
?’

Hamza studied Mehmet. He had seen the young man change during the course of the city’s siege. Grow older. Now he saw another change in him, a maturing, a certainty. Coolness where before there had usually been flame. It is perhaps what happens, he thought, when one’s life’s desire is attained.

He spoke. ‘The Latins have broken the boom, and many ships have fled into the Marmara. I think Giustiniani may be amongst them, for I saw his personal banner at the foremast of one carrack.’

‘The lion,’ Mehmet murmured. ‘I would have liked to meet him. Offer him rich rewards for his services. What a warrior!’ He sighed. ‘And others?’

‘Many other Christians have taken refuge in Galata. Still more have been captured and are even now being herded and counted, readied for the slave block.’

Mehmet nodded. ‘And the ones I most seek?’

‘Chosen men search for them, lord. Among the prisoners. Among the dead.’ Hamza licked his lips. ‘I know you most crave news of Constantine. There is none, beyond rumour. Some
azaps
say he fled to the sea walls and they claim to have killed him. But they cannot point to his body. Others say he lies yet at the breach, and men are searching in the piles of the dead. But it a long task, for the slaughter there is great.’

‘Dead, you think?’ Mehmet shook his head. ‘Perhaps that is for the best. For what would I do with an emperor if he lived?’ He looked beyond the canvas walls. As ever, as background to their every moment, there came the faint buzz of men, shouting. Tens of thousands of men. ‘Do any still resist?’

‘In a few places, lord. I have had reports of a company of Cretans who hold three towers and refuse to surrender them. They would rather die, they say, than live as slaves.’

Mehmet considered for a moment. ‘There has been enough death – on both sides. Let them live … as free men,’ he said. ‘Order that they be accompanied to their ships and sent away with their weapons and flags.’ Hamza nodded, and he continued, ‘And the sack? It yet continues, I hear.’

‘It does, lord.’ Zaganos stepped forward. ‘Three days was the
irade
you issued. But I have been in the city a little ways. From what I have seen, such wealth as remained was stripped from it in the first three hours.’

‘But the places I ordered made safe? The libraries? The churches?’

Hamza frowned. ‘Some, majesty. Your squads secured many. Perhaps not all.’

‘It is to be expected, if pitied.’ He sighed, then looked again beyond the
otak’s
walls. Musical notes were coming from there, musicians tuning their instruments. A drum was struck lightly, its voice deep. ‘It is time,’ Mehmet said.

Both men nodded, bowed. The sultan clapped his hands, and servants rushed in. He spread his arms wide and a cloak of deepest crimson, trimmed in ermine’s fur, was passed over them. His sword was buckled on, and, lastly, his gilt-inlaid silver helmet was placed upon his head. ‘How do I look?’ he asked.

Both men knelt. ‘Like a conqueror, lord,’ Hamza replied.

Mehmet smiled. ‘Then let us see what it is that I have conquered.’

He stepped from the tent. Immediately he was spotted a roar came, spreading from the troops of his guards, the
solaks
and the
peyk
, down through the massed ranks of the janissaries grouped before the gate, all crying the title of Conqueror in their own tongue.

‘Fatih! Fatih! Fatih!’

He took the acclaim, arms raised. Then he strode to his white stallion, mounted it with an easy leap, gentled it swiftly with reins and soft words. When he was ready, he nodded. The
mehter
band struck up a march and, with
kos
drums sounding, trumpets blaring and banners dancing, Mehmet rode through what had been the gate of Charisius and now was to be called the Edirne
kapi
, into Constantinople.

It was the Meze, the widest road in, and so Hamza was able to ride close to the sultan but to his side, leaving the viziers and
belerbeys
, the most senior men of the court, to jostle for position at the white stallion’s rump. Yet he was still close enough to see Mehmet’s expression change, from the justifiable pride of the conqueror to something darker, angrier. He knew what that was. The city they rode through was not the magnificence of legend. Broken-down houses were surrounded by fields untended in years. Churches stood ruined that had not been despoiled by his army. Though indeed, as they got closer to the centre of the town, as they passed through the Forum of Theodosius and then beneath the great Column of Constantine, his army’s work could be clearly seen. His stallion’s hooves crunched the shattered remnants of ikon and offertory. Men had ropes on statues, and horses attached to them, tugging forgotten heroes down to where men fell on them with hammers.

Hamza watched his sultan’s expression lighten, as they reined in before the building all had talked about, though few of their faith had seen. The greatest building in the world perhaps. When Hamza had first seen it, on an early embassy, he had had just such an expression on his face as Mehmet had now. The dome of the Hagia Sophia seemed to reach to the very heavens.

And then the look on Mehmet’s face clouded again and he was off his horse and striding angrily through the great shattered doors. Men who had glanced up when the Conqueror arrived had returned to their task of gouging pieces of coloured stone from the mosaic floor. ‘What do you do there, fool?’ Mehmet roared at one man, who yelped, then prostrated himself on the ground.

‘Lord,’ he gasped, ‘it is only the house of the infidel.’

‘It is my house!’ Mehmet shouted, drawing his great sword. The blade fell and all there winced, until they saw that it was the flat of the blade he brought down upon the man’s shoulder and back. ‘Mine! I gave you the contents of the city. But its buildings are mine!’ The squealing man crabbed backwards and Mehmet did not pursue him, stood breathing heavily before turning to shout at the officers behind him. ‘Give the order – the sack is to cease immediately. The army is to take such booty and slaves as it already has and withdraw to the camp. See it is done! If I witness one more man pillaging, it will not be the flat of my sword he feels!’

Men dashed away. Those who remained watched Mehmet as he sheathed his sword then turned to the interior of the building. His gaze rose to its heights, unparalleled anywhere in the world. Then he looked to its end, where the altar and altar screen had been thrown down. A man stood there in simple dark robes, a holy man who had been sent ahead for this purpose. Mehmet nodded at him and the man ascended the pulpit that only twelve hours before had been occupied by an archbishop.

‘
Allahu akbar
!’ Aksemseddin intoned, as soldiers poured into the space, into what was now a mosque, and, imitating the Conqueror, flung themselves to the ground.

‘God is great! God is great! God is great!’