Siege (48 page)

‘Bring forth the mantelets!’ Longo yelled to the men who stood in reserve behind the wall. ‘Fill that gap!’ Men took up two of the mobile wooden walls and moved them into place. The mantelets were hardly in place, however, before another cannonball hit one of them dead on. It exploded in a shower of splinters, leaving several men down and screaming in pain. More men rushed forward to drag them to safety, while another mantelet was brought forward.

‘We can’t take much more of this!’ Tristo shouted over the boom of the cannons.

‘You’re right,’ Longo agreed. ‘Take all of the men off the wall save for the cannon crews. Have them take shelter at the base of the wall.’ Tristo nodded and hurried away. Within a few minutes the top of the wall around Longo was empty. He sat alone, huddled behind the low stone barrier while the wall shook beneath him. Finally, the Turkish cannons fell silent.

Longo stood immediately and peered out into the darkness. He saw nothing, but as his ears recovered from the sound of the bombardment, he heard the rumble of thousands of marching feet. ‘Back to the wall!’ he shouted to the men below him. ‘Here they come!’ He had no sooner spoken than a wave of noise burst forth from the darkness: the ululating scream of ‘
Allah
!
Allah
!
Allah
!’ mixed with the sound of drums and wailing bagpipes. The noise grew louder and louder, yet still Longo saw nothing. A nervous cannoneer down the line touched off his cannon, sending shot flying into the darkness. ‘Hold your fire, damn it!’ Tristo roared. ‘Wait until they’re in range!’

The sound of the onrushing Turks grew deafening. Finally,
a solid wave of Turks emerged from the darkness, only some forty yards from the walls. They ran in no formation and wore a hotchpotch of old armour. Some carried swords and spears, while others were armed with scythes or pitchforks. Longo recognized them as the bazibozouks, untrained peasants who formed the bulk of the Turkish army. What they lacked in training, they made up for in fanatical bravery. There were thousands of them.

‘Archers!’ Longo turned and shouted. ‘Now!’ From behind him, he heard the twang of hundreds of bows and the hiss of the arrows as they flew overhead. Bazibozouks began to fall by the dozens. Longo saw an arrow fly clean through the chest of one Turk and lodge in the groin of the man behind. He saw a huge mountain of a man whose bellowing war cry was cut short by an arrow through his throat. The screaming howl of the bazibozouks was now peppered with the anguished cry of men in pain, but the Turkish charge did not falter. They were close enough now that Longo could see individual faces: a white-haired, wild-eyed man, his face disfigured by countless battle scars; a bare-chested farmer waving his pitchfork, an arrow protruding from his shoulder; a child no older than twelve, lugging a sword he could hardly carry. The first bazibozouks had reached the wall and were pressing against the mantelets that filled the gaps. Christians from atop the wall on either side of the gaps stabbed down with spears, and a pile of dead began to mount before the mantelets.

The main wave of attackers reached the wall where Longo stood and began to raise ladders. Longo shoved one of the ladders back, and the Turks climbing it fell backwards and were crushed under the press of their comrades. Longo glanced down the wall to either side. Everywhere the walls were crawling with Turks. ‘The cannons!’ he yelled. ‘Fire!’

All along the top of the wall the Christian cannons fired, spraying chunks of stone directly into the mass of Turks before them. The carnage was both exhilarating and appalling. Stones
blasted through shields and ripped through armour as if it were cloth. Longo saw a Turk’s sword broken in half by a fist-sized rock, just before another stone took his head clean off. The space before the walls was transformed into a hellish scene of mangled bodies thrashing on the blood-soaked ground. The Turkish charge slowed as the bazibozouks closest to the walls turned and tried to retreat, but the press of their comrades behind them pushed them forward into the teeth of the cannons. Wave after wave of bazibozouks continued to surge towards the walls, struggling over the bodies of their fallen comrades, only to be cut down in turn. Finally, after an hour of slaughter, the Turkish attack began to falter. Longo struck down a Turk who had managed to mount the wall, pushed over a last ladder and paused. There were no more ladders to topple, no more Turks to fight. The last of the bazibozouks were in full retreat, leaving the field behind them littered with the bloody bodies of thousands of their comrades. The Christian troops cheered. Longo saw Constantine approaching along the top of the wall.

‘We did it!’ Constantine shouted. ‘They’re retreating!’

‘That was only the first wave, to test the walls,’ Longo replied. ‘They’ll be back.’ He turned to Tristo, who stood a few feet away, wiping blood from his axe. ‘How many men have we lost?’

‘Less than fifty,’ Tristo replied.

‘So few!’ Constantine rejoiced. ‘And look, they’ve lost thousands.’

‘Aye,’ Tristo grunted. ‘But that’s only the half of it. We’re out of powder. There’ll be no more cannons to hold them off.’ As if to emphasize his point, there was a tremendous boom as one of the Turkish cannons fired. The wall shook as the cannonball slammed into it. The Turkish bombardment had started again.

Gennadius had ordered Eugenius to the walls when the bells rang to signal the impending Turkish attack. Now, dressed in chainmail, Eugenius marched through the city, followed by a dozen hired thieves, similarly dressed. He stopped before a tall,
round tower that sat where the double wall met the single Blachernae wall. Inside the tower, Eugenius knew, was the Kerkoporta – a small sally port that led outside the wall.

Eugenius entered to find the ground floor of the tower empty and dark. There were no other doors, nor any windows. On one side of the tower a staircase curved up to the floor above. On the other side, another staircase ran down into the floor. ‘Follow me,’ he said, leading the way down.

The lower level was crowded with a dozen soldiers. They were grouped around a thick, wooden door that was studded with iron supports – the Kerkoporta. Three huge beams of wood lay across it, barring it against attack, and a tall, well-muscled man stood leaning against it. All the soldiers were Greeks, which was a good thing. They would be easier to handle than the Latins.

‘Who is in command here?’ Eugenius asked.

‘I am,’ the man leaning against the door answered.

‘Your men are needed at the Mesoteichion,’ Eugenius told him.

‘We were told by the emperor himself to stay here and guard the Kerkoporta.’

‘My men and I have been sent to hold the door,’ Eugenius responded. ‘We were manning the cannons but ran out of powder. We are not well armoured and are of no use at the Mesoteichion. They need brave men in strong armour.’

The Greek leader looked sceptically at the unsavoury lot with Eugenius, but finally he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will go where we are needed. Guard the door well, and if there is trouble, send for help. Whatever you do, do not let the Turks inside the walls.’

‘We will fight to the death,’ Eugenius told him. The Greek captain led his men up the stairs and when the last of them had left, Eugenius turned to the thieves. ‘Help me unbar the door.’

‘But the captain said to let no one through,’ a thin thief with a pock-marked face replied.

‘You are not being paid to think,’ Eugenius snapped. ‘If you
want the money I promised you, then you will do as you are told.’ The thieves nodded and set to work, helping Eugenius slide the heavy wooden beams that barred the door from their supports. Then Eugenius unbolted the door and pulled it open. In the dim twilight he saw the wall stretching before him down towards the sea. Turkish dead and wounded littered the ground. The fighting appeared to have momentarily stopped, but Eugenius could hear the loud roar of Turkish cannons. He closed the door but did not bolt it.

‘It is time to go,’ he told the thieves. ‘To the cistern, where you will be paid.’

‘But we can’t leave the door unbarred,’ the pock-marked thief said. The others nodded their agreement.

‘You will do as you are told,’ Eugenius ordered.

‘I will not betray my emperor or my city,’ the pock-marked thief said defiantly.

‘Very well,’ Eugenius replied. In a blur of motion, he drew his sword and slashed through the pock-marked thief’s throat before the unfortunate man’s weapon was halfway out of its scabbard. The thief dropped to the ground, gasping and twitching as his blood pooled on the stone floor. The other thieves drew their weapons. ‘If you fight me, then he will not be the last of you to die,’ Eugenius told them. ‘And what will the emperor give you for your heroism? Nothing. But if you do as I say, then you will be both alive and well paid. Which will it be?’

The thieves looked one to another, then one by one sheathed their daggers and swords. ‘You have chosen wisely,’ Eugenius told them. ‘Now come. Let us go and see that you receive your reward.’

The sun had yet to rise, but the sky had lightened enough so that Longo could just see the Turkish cannons on the distant ramparts. The cannons had been firing without pause for half an hour, and the wall trembled beneath him with every cannonball that struck it. Longo turned and watched the men below. They were placing
mantelets in a long line, using the mobile wooden barriers to create a third wall in the space between the inner and outer walls. ‘Move those mantelets closer together!’ Longo ordered.

Tristo approached along the wall. ‘The lancers are ready. If the cavalry breaks through, then they know what to do.’

Longo nodded. ‘And the emperor? He is safe?’

‘As safe as can be. He’s behind the wall of mantelets, along with Dalmata and the Varangian guard.’

‘Good.’ Longo turned to shout more orders to his men when he felt the ground beneath his feet shift violently. He and Tristo just had time to leap off the wall before it collapsed, spilling earth, stones and wooden supports outwards towards the Turkish cannons.

Longo landed on his stomach and rolled over. As the dust settled around him, he could see that a section of the wall some twenty yards wide had collapsed. Through the gap he caught sight of the Anatolian cavalry, who had poured out from behind the Turkish lines and were charging hard for the break in the Christian defences. They would be on him in seconds. He felt himself grabbed by the shoulders and hauled to his feet. He turned to find Tristo standing beside him. ‘Come on! Run!’

They turned and sprinted for the line of mantelets. Behind him, Longo could hear the rumble of hooves coming closer. As Longo and Tristo ran, a line of Christian lancers stepped out in front of the mantelets and braced the butts of their long spears against the ground, creating a wall of spears. Longo ran hard for the line of lancers. The thunder of hooves was deafening, and he could almost feel the point of a Turkish spear in his back. And then he was through the Christian line to safety.

A second later, the charging Turkish cavalry reached the wall of spears. The better riders managed to turn their horses aside. Others were thrown as their horses stopped short before the spears and reared up in protest. Still others fell victim to the lancers. Within seconds the Turkish charge had been reduced to a chaos of frightened, riderless horses and trampled men. A cheer went up from the Christian lines.

‘Steady men!’ Longo yelled. ‘They’ll be back!’ Sure enough, the Anatolian cavalry quickly regrouped as more and more horsemen flooded into the space between the walls. They advanced more slowly this time, firing arrows as they approached. More and more lancers fell under the rain of arrows, and the Anatolians surged into the gaps. ‘Behind the mantelets!’ Longo yelled. ‘Retreat! Retreat!’

The lancers fell back through the spaces between the mantelets and the Turkish cavalry surged forward. ‘Now!’ Longo yelled. ‘Light them!’ He himself took a torch and touched it to the nearest mantelet, which burst instantly into flames. All of the mantelets had been covered with Greek fire, and now as they were lit one after another, they formed a semicircular wall of towering flames. Faced with the wall of fire, the Turkish horses panicked. Riders were thrown as their horses backed and reared, refusing to approach the inferno. The Anatolian ranks were thrown into chaos.

‘Now, men!’ Longo yelled. ‘Charge!’ Longo led the Christians out from behind the flaming mantelets and into the mass of struggling horsemen. He pulled the first Turk he came to from his saddle, finished him, and then mounted the horse. He rode into the confused crowd of Turks, striking out to either side. Behind him, the lancers were progressing through the Turkish ranks, spearing Turk after Turk off their frightened horses. The Turks gave ground, slowly at first and then faster until they were in full retreat. The Christians surged after them, pushing the Anatolians out past the gap in the walls.

Longo reigned in his horse in the gap. Before him, the Anatolian cavalry were retreating across the plain, lit by the rays of the rising sun. ‘Halt, men!’ Longo yelled to the Christian forces around him. ‘Let them run! Prepare to hold the gap against the next attack!’

‘Well done, signor!’ Constantine said as he rode up beside Longo. ‘The sun rises and the city still stands. They have failed again. This day will be a glorious one in our history.’

Longo shook his head. ‘Something is not right. They attacked with small numbers and retreated too easily. It is almost as if they expected the cavalry to fail, as if they were only trying to distract us.’

While the bulk of his men were busy attacking the Mesoteichion, Ishak Pasha led a select group of three hundred Anatolian cavalry further north. As he galloped towards the Kerkoporta, grapefruit-sized stones joined the arrows that were raining down from the wall ahead. One struck the rider to his right, crushing his skull and killing him instantly. Ishak spurred his horse on, pushing it towards the narrow crevice where the sea wall ran behind the last great tower of the double wall. The Kerkoporta was still not visible, and Ishak was beginning to think that he had been sent on a fool’s errand. Then he saw the door, set into the wall of the tower, far back in the narrow space.