Emperor's Winding Sheet (16 page)

Five times a day the enemy prayed, and seven times a day they fired their monstrous gun, and all day, every day, the citizens manned the walls, and stood in sun and rain, waiting and afraid. The defenders at Blachernae, Vrethiki noticed—riding with the Emperor on his daily round of the walls—and those at the Golden Gate, could see at least a prospect of the City behind them. At the Golden Gate the whole peninsular of domes and roofs and columns could be seen; at the northern end the defenders had behind them the courts and gardens of the Imperial palace; but all the way in between, the rise of the land behind the wall cut off the view.
Even in the Lycus valley, where the men atop the wall could see farther, there was nothing in sight but gardens and open fields, and one or two churches. It was as though they were defending some lonely and remote frontier, winding through desolate country, rather than the circuit of a City.

And all day, every day, the smell of the enemy reeked across the wall. There was a stench of human sweat and excrement, of the sweat and excrement of horses, of campfire smoke, of the rotting detritus of meals, the sulfurous reek of guns. When the wind blew west or north, it suffocated the defenders, and they prayed for the clean cool air that flowed from the Marmara shore.

 

WHEN THE LONG-AWAITED ATTACK CAME, IT CAME NOT AT
dawn but two hours after nightfall, when the defenders were fewer, and tired from a long day's watch. Opposite the broken stretch of wall the enemy encampment was abruptly lit up by thousands of flaring torches; in the lurid pool of sudden light there were fiery men marching in a racket of cymbals and drums, and a great rhythmic howling of Allallallallallaaa! They rushed screeching at the stockade, leaping light-footed over the loose rubble that filled the moat; they brought torches to fire the stockade, and hooks to pull down the earth barrels, and spears and arrows to thin the ranks of the Romans. For a few moments there was chaos among the sleepy defenders; then Justiniani was there, shouting encouragement, mustering men and cheering them. By the light of the Turkish flares they saw scaling ladders being brought up, and little groups crouched ready for them, waiting till the ladder was loaded with climbing men, then stepping from hiding, and pushing it off with a pole, and watching it topple, men and all.

The Emperor and his escort were at prayer in the Church
of the Holy Apostles when the messengers came for him. But seeing the scale of the attack, and seeing Justiniani already there, he went at once to rouse and warn his captains all along the wall, riding from post to post with the news that he feared a general attack was beginning. But everywhere except the Lycus valley was quiet: the camp fires burned as usual in the enemy camps; there was no sound or sign of unusual movement among them. The Emperor made quite sure, riding all the way to the Golden Gate and back, with Vrethiki riding a pace or two behind him, trembling with cold or excitement so that the fittings on his pony's bridle jingled like little bells.

They returned to the Lycus valley to find that the palisade had been torn down. It had been broken, not burned. But instead of letting the enemy in, it had allowed the Genoese and the Varangians to surge out, and drive the Turks back across the fosse, killing a good number before they were put to flight. As the Emperor returned, the Turkish trumpets were sounding the recall, and the attack was over. The enemy retreated and the light went too as they carried their torches away with them. Wearily in the darkness the Christians began to repair their stockade.

At dawn Justiniani reported two hundred enemy dead lying in the fosse. No Christian dead; some wounded. The stockade repaired again.

“How is this possible?” said the Emperor. “God must indeed be with us!”

“God, and some other things,” said Justiniani. “They had only a hundred yards of broken wall and filled-in fosse to attack over. They couldn't make use of their numbers. And man to man they are not so heavily armed as we are. Besides, it's only a Sultan they fight for; your people fight for you, and for wives and children too. They fight like lions, Sire.”

“Sit and eat with me, Prince of Lions,” said the Emperor, smiling, “and then we will ride out among them, and praise them.”

So, by and by, they went out into a cool clear rain-washed morning, side by side, with Vrethiki and Stephanos, and Justiniani's two dapper swaggering page boys just behind them. On the wall, and in the gardens, and all over the dusty ruins on the stony wastes of the City, flowers crept and bloomed. In hopeless cracks and crevices they had taken root, and in the mild April weather fanned or trumpeted or starred their delicate petals. And between those two brave men riding, between Stephanos and Vrethiki following, taking root on as unpromising a ground, a wild hope grew: an improbable, fragile hope, unspoken, but bravely flaunted in smiling eyes. The Emperor was almost gay that morning. He dismounted, and moved among his dusty soldiers, their garments grimed with smoke, and gray dust from falling masonry, from crumbled mortar. He gave his hand to be kissed; he talked to them, and thanked them; he visited the wounded who lay in one of the great vaulted chambers in the thickness of the walls, and told them that their blood had purchased victory, and then gave the doctor gold to buy eggs and wine and bandages.

That evening he called all his captains and councilors to dine with him in his palace, and made them all sit down around the board. “This is a soldier's table as much as an Emperor's now,” he said. And indeed all the talk was of devices of war, chiefly how to clear the fosse again. With Manuel gone, it was Vrethiki who poured the wine, and that gave him plenty of chances to gaze adoringly at Justiniani, as he hovered behind the great man's chair, making sure his cup was not for a moment dry.

N
ext morning the same sweet south wind blew. Neither the Emperor nor his servants had slept well, for the Turks had brought up guns to batter the walls round the Blachernae Palace. The rooms that had belonged to the Empress Helena had been devastated by a cannon ball dropping through the roof, and everywhere tiles had slipped and windows cracked. Phrantzes was with the Emperor early, telling him that in common prudence he must move his personal quarters to a place of better safety. But as they talked a messenger arrived. The Emperor's face lit up as he heard the news; even Phrantzes, who always had a harassed brow, looked hopeful, and rising at once they went down to the courtyard, calling for horses.

“What is it, Stephanos?” asked Vrethiki, as they followed.

“Ships sighted,” said Stephanos, “on a south wind, coming here.”

There were four ships, big galleys with poop and forecastle, all with full sail set, beating up the wind off the Marmara. The streets of the City were full of people hastening to see them, for the news had traveled fast. The Emperor went to the southeastern end of the sea walls. His party strained their eyes into the luminous seascape to make out the nationality of the
newcomers, but it was an hour or more before they were sure. Looking up at the slopes and terraces behind him, Vrethiki saw a great mass of people like a swarm on a tree, clustering on the arches and walls of the Hippodrome, crowding the ruins of the old palace sloping up behind the walls, thronging the slopes and heights of the citadel. Every viewpoint and high spot was occupied by a clinging anxious watcher.

After an hour they could make out the banners and insignia of the approaching ships. One of them flew the Imperial purple—that, Stephanos said, was a galley of the Emperor's own, commanded by Phlatanelas, that had gone to fetch supplies of corn from Sicily. The other three were flying Papal colors—at last, at last, the long-awaited and dearly bought help from the West!

Anxiously the watchers scanned the horizon for more ships, for the great fleet that was to come and rescue them. But no more could be seen. Meantime an agitated message arrived from Cardinal Isadore, who was in command on the walls below the Acropolis as far as the boom: he could see signs of activity at the Turkish naval station and ships putting out and marshaling there. The Turks too had seen the newcomers.

The Sultan's ships swept down the Bosporus, sounding horns, and beating drums, the oars of their galleys creaking and frothing. They came without sails, for the wind was blowing briskly against them, but they came on steadily under oars. They had lashed shields and bucklers round the decks of their boats to make a defensive breastwork against arrows and spears. They had some of the Sultan's best men of arms on their decks, and small cannon and culverins too. They bore down on the Christian vessels under the eyes of the onlookers on the walls, shouting gleefully, triumphantly—a hundred and forty ships against four.

It was about noon, just under the lighthouse on the walls, that the Turkish armada came up with the four ships. The Emperor rode along the catwalk on the walls, moving as the ships moved, to keep up with them. They could hear the Turkish admiral shouting to Phlatanelas to lower sail; with the wind behind them the Christian ships swept on. Swiftly the four were among the enemy vessels, and surrounded. A hail of arrows and spears cascaded round them, but, as it had done before, the greater height of the Christian ships gave them the advantage. Frantically the Turks tried to board, scrambling up the tall sides of the Western ships—axes and boathooks awaited them when they reached the gunwales. And all the time—while the whole stretch of water was seething with struggling shipping, the oarsmen contending with current which flowed strongly one way while the wind blew strongly the other—all the time the great galleys were still under way, dragging their assailants with them, moving inexorably toward the Golden Horn. And all the vast crowd that watched them from the shore hardly murmured. Only now and then when they could see some new attack they gasped, or groaned, and then fell silent again, tensely watching.

Vrethiki was reminded of a hunt—the ships like four great stags, with the running pack bobbing round them, tearing at their flanks … And now the struggling ships had all but rounded the point of the City. They were not a stone's throw offshore, under the slopes of the Citadel, when suddenly the wind dropped. The great sails sagged and flapped, the bravely fluttering banners sank, and dangled limply from the mastheads. The vessels lay helplessly becalmed in the midst of their enemies.

Groaning and wringing their hands, the people of Byzantium called out to the sailors, so near, and yet so far from help. Vrethiki looked instinctively at the Emperor's
hand, and saw him twisting his ring … “I'm thirsty,” he said. Vrethiki opened the wine flask that hung with the chained cup on his belt, and offered his master a drink. His own throat was dry, but it was not thirst that made it so.

The Turkish admiral was marshaling his vessels. They stood off a little way, jostling and maneuvering till they had entirely surrounded the galleys, and then began to fire off their guns, and let fly a storm of fire arrows and spears. But for all the shudders of horror that this sent through the watching crowd, it did very little harm. The guns were discharged at the level, and most of the balls fell short, and dropped into the sea. There seemed to be plenty of water barrels and hands ready to put out fires on deck.

Then with a blast of trumpets the Turkish galleys moved in. The galley bearing the enemy admiral rammed the prow of the Imperial galley, and hung on to her, while, all around, ships pressed up with grappling irons, or hooked themselves onto anchor chains or anything they could find to grip by, in frantic attempts to climb up and board. And all the while the ships were drifting, slowly drifting, away from the City, and toward Pera or beyond, where the Sultan could be seen, watching with his courtiers on the shore. At first the citizens could see the Genoese sailors on the Papal galley chopping hands and heads as they fought the boarders, and on the decks of the Imperial galley could distinguish the person of Phlatanelas, swinging his sword, and fighting bravely. But as the ships drifted farther off it became impossible to see what was happening, except in outline.

They could see the Imperial galley using clay pots of Greek fire. They could see Turkish ships falling back from her, mauled and broken, though nothing dislodged the admiral's ship. And however many Turkish vessels with drew, there were
always fresh ones pressing up to replace them, to confront the Christian fighters with gang after gang of eager unwearied men. In a while the Imperial galley seemed to be in trouble, and hard-pressed though they were themselves, the other three came to her aid, and managed to maneuver up beside her. The four ships lashed themselves together, and stood out above the swarming enemy like a four-towered fortress. Flotsam and jetsam and discharged weapons and broken spars and oars so clogged the curdled sea now that the oars could not be properly worked; and so smashed were some of the attacking vessels, so laden with bleeding and dying men, that they could not retire and make room for others.

The afternoon wore on, and the light softened. Bodies floated in the heaving wreckage on the water. On the walls of the City the voices of the citizens were raised in prayer. “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,” they muttered to heaven. The setting sun was gilding the water, and the Turks were marshaling yet another wave of vessels for the attack.

And then suddenly the wind returned. A great gust filled the idle sails, and the galleys began to move again. They crashed through their tangled opponents, clearing a path for themselves. They put about, and sailed toward the boom, and took refuge beneath the friendly walls of the City. Darkness was falling fast.

After darkness, blowing trumpets enough for three times as many vessels, and making as much noise as they could, to seem like many, four ships put out through the boom, and escorted the newcomers safely in. The Emperor would not go home till he had himself welcomed his new captains; so they lingered in streets full of excited talk and laughter, with men coming and going carrying torches to gossip gleefully with neighbors. Good news came with their sup per baskets to the
cold cramped men who had kept the land walls all day. They sang round their little fire baskets, clapped each other on the back, and spoke of more help coming from the West, and how the Turks could not stop it getting through.