Master of Shadows (20 page)

29

The sultan did not stay to witness the executions. Instead he departed for his capital at Edirne, three days’ ride to the west of Constantinople. As he turned his back on the Throat Cutter, and while his retinue fussed around him on the road, he smiled as he remembered the flight of the colossal stone ball that had doomed the Venetians and their ship. He had seen the store of ammunition at first hand, like gaming pieces for a giant, and for all that each missile was as fat and big around as the greatest wild boar, the bombard had tossed it across the strait like a pebble. His hand clenched involuntarily into a fist as he considered the power. Just as the hulls of ships would splinter in the face of such weapons, so too would the ancient walls of the city that had defied his forebears, his own father, Murad, Bayezit, and all the rest.

It was late afternoon on the third day of the journey when they reached Edirne, and with the sun hanging low in the sky like a copper coin, he saw the earthbound infernos of Orban’s furnaces. Without a thought of going first to the palace, he hastened towards the crowd of men labouring ceaselessly to add to his steadily growing collection of city-takers.

One of the foremen caught sight of Mehmet’s approach, accompanied by his attendants, and shouted out to the assembled founders, masters and labourers. All turned towards the sultan and as one they stopped what they were doing and dropped to their knees, heads bowed. Nearby were two long, low couches on which the sultan’s most trusted advisers had been seated to observe the massive labours. They too had risen at word of Mehmet’s approach but he waved everyone away – insistent that his arrival should do nothing to interfere with the job at hand.

‘Continue! Continue!’ he shouted, as he reached the casting pit in a specially prepared site outside the city walls and jumped down from Hayed’s back. All leapt to their feet once more and he strode excitedly to towards the commanding figure of Orban, the master founder. Fully a head taller than the sultan, though not as powerfully built, he took care to stoop uncomfortably low.

Mehmet was hungrier for a progress report than any show of deference.

‘Well?’ he asked, eyes wide.

‘You have timed your arrival perfectly, majesty,’ said Orban, straightening and leading the sultan on a quick walk around the perimeter of the pit.

It was itself a colossal creation, as deep as five tall men, and the width of four. Rising from the centre, to ground level, was the rounded top of a huge cylinder of clay that had been mixed with grass and shredded linen to form a robust mould. In fact the mould was in two parts – one inside the other like a sword inside a sheath.

What was visible to Mehmet was the outer shell of clay that had been painstakingly shaped and then lowered into position over the slightly smaller inner mould, leaving a void all around – like the air gap around a finger in a loose-fitting glove. Into this space, several inches wide, would be poured the torrent of molten copper and tin that would form the bombard itself. Packed tightly around the mould was a framework of huge logs and iron rods, which had in turn been surrounded with a fill of earth and stones so that the weight of the bronze might be supported while it cooled in its cavity.

‘We are about to pour a slurry of wet sand down and around the outside of the mould,’ said Orban. ‘It will absorb some of the metal’s heat and prevent the mould from cracking.’

Mehmet nodded. His was no casual interest. Rather he had immersed himself in the lore of metal casting – indeed ever since Orban had offered his services. The founder had told him he had learned his art in Hungary, the land of his birth. He had impressed the sultan with his frankness then, admitting that he had tried first to ply his trade in the Great City. The emperor had been keen enough but lacked the funds to suitably reward his endeavours – and so he had sought out the sultan of the Ottomans instead.

Mehmet had spotted Orban’s value at once and had thrown down a challenge:

‘These weapons you say you can make – will they bring down the walls of the Christians’ city?’ he asked.

Orban had nodded.

‘I am certain of it, sire,’ he said.

Since then the Hungarian had made the guns mounted on the walls of the Throat Cutter – one of which had utterly destroyed the ship of the Venetians. Now he was poised to create his masterwork, the greatest bombard the world had yet seen.

While Mehmet and Orban watched, the labourers piled yet more earth and sand over the top of the pit until only a small hole remained leading into the cavity inside the mould itself.

Content that all was as it should be, Orban had the men turn their attentions then to two huge furnaces built of clay bricks. They had been alight for days, fed continuously with charcoal so that each interior blazed like the sun and roared like the mouth of hell. Orban bade the sultan keep back, but Mehmet needed no instructions to stay many yards from the scorching heat.

His viziers were still on their feet awaiting his pleasure, and he gestured at them to take their seats. He joined them, on a throne raised on a dais set between their couches, and while sweat coursed from every pore on their bodies they watched as the founders and stokers approached the furnaces.

Clad in thick robes, mask-like head-coverings that concealed all but their eyes, heavy leather gauntlets and slippers, the men tended huge crucibles, one within each furnace. With wooden poles as long as the masts of galleys they stirred the molten metal. The hellish soup of copper and tin – spiked now and then with coins of gold and silver for good luck – swelled and bubbled. Noxious fumes rose from the mixture and the observers strained even to keep their eyes open as they gazed upon the spectacle.

All the while the sultan had hastened back from the Rumelihisari, Orban had overseen the preparation of the metal. It had been three days now – the fires fed by air pumped continuously into the flames by sets of bellows worked ceaselessly by rotating teams of workers. Having cast a practised eye over the brew one more time – and contented himself that the soup glowed with precisely the right shade of cherry red – Orban ordered the commencement of the pouring.

Now was the most dangerous and telling moment of the whole exercise, and Mehmet hunched forward on his throne, shielding as much of his face as possible with gloved hands as he struggled to watch. His eyes felt dry as paper, and stung in protest.

The founders started up a rhythmic chant, calling out to God as they used long poles with metal hooks on the ends to reach into each furnace and tip the crucibles forward until their liquid contents poured into carefully positioned gutters of fired clay leading to the hole in the top of the mould.

While the red rivers flowed, the workers ran up and down alongside the channels using yet more long poles to prod and cajole the liquid, easing out air bubbles that might enter the mould and leave a weakness in the casing of the finished bombard. All was measured, deadly serious activity until the mould was completely filled and the overspill flowed across the earth, hissing and throwing up clouds of smoke and steam.

Orban called a halt and almost at once the plug that had formed on the top of the mould began to change colour, fading in brightness until what had seemed like a flow of dragon’s blood turned dark and strangely lifeless.

Unable to contain himself, Mehmet leapt from his seat and rushed towards the master founder. Sensing and seeing the sultan’s approach, Orban turned from the mould and hurried over – anxious that his master should not come too near to the heat. Mehmet said nothing, but his expression carried the question he dared not ask.

‘I am pleased,’ said Orban, nodding. ‘All is well.’

In the thrill of the moment, Mehmet quite forgot himself and slapped his founder on the shoulder with boyish excitement. He shook his head in honest wonder at all he had just witnessed.

‘God is with us,’ he said. ‘He sees to it that I shall have what I need to complete this task.’

Orban bowed his head. Experience had given him the strength to withstand the heat of the furnace, but the intensity of the sultan’s gaze was altogether too much for him to bear.

If the creature’s conception had been a wonder, a breathtaking union of elements, then its birth out of the earth that had cradled it was a clumsy affair of stumbling men and bellowing beasts of burden. By morning, Orban had judged the metal would have cooled enough to permit the excavation of the mould. Hours of heavy labour followed, as the sun rose ever higher in the sky, until the great seed had been wholly unearthed. Ropes and tethers were fixed around its massive bulk and teams of horses were used to haul it up and out of its pit until it lay on its side on the sand.

The sultan had retired to his palace and his bedchamber soon after the completion of the pouring. Orban sent word to invite him to gaze upon the product of a week’s endeavour only once the clay of the mould had been cracked away and knocked clear of the interior. By the time Mehmet arrived with his retinue, the bronze had been buffed to a golden sheen. Supported upon massively stout wooden trestles, it gleamed with a terrifying lustre. It had the scale and appearance of something made not by men but by the almighty.

Mehmet reached out a hand towards the glow of its surface, but such was the reverence he felt, he stopped short of touching it. He walked the length of the cylinder and found it took him a dozen exaggerated paces to travel from its rounded base to its gaping maw. While he rightly decided it was beneath his dignity to do so, he saw there was room enough inside the barrel for a man of his size to crawl comfortably inside and turn around.

He turned to face the master founder and saw that his face was bathed in golden light reflected from the bronze.

‘A blast from this trumpet would have toppled the walls of Jericho,’ he said.

30

With the memory of the bombard gleaming before his eyes, Mehmet returned to the palace and made for his private quarters. His favourite room had windows on three sides and all were open to allow soft breezes to freshen the air.

He crossed to an eastward-facing window and looked down into the courtyard. There, on a tall pole at the centre, ruffled by a breeze, was an elaborate banner with a braided horsetail as its centrepiece. He remembered when, weeks before, he had ordered it set in place. At the sight of the thing, a great cheer had gone up from those passing nearby, and the sound had spread, carried on a sudden wind and infecting all who heard it, until it echoed from one side of the city to the other.

Mehmet turned his back on the courtyard, walked to the centre of the room and cast himself down gratefully upon the cushions and pillows heaped there. Another breeze, and as welcome, came this time from the westward-facing windows and caressed his skin. He imagined his commands carried upon it like the scent of blood, into the most distant reaches of his realm.

Within minutes of the raising of the banner, messengers and heralds had been dispatched far and wide, taking with them the news that their sultan had finally set his eyes upon the greatest prize of all – the Great City.

They would be close to him now. From Edirne he would lead them – professional soldiers and impassioned volunteers alike – to Constantinople.

Soon now, within the hour, he would set himself to the task once more and not rest this time until it was done. The great bombard and city-taker was ready, the final piece in the complex puzzle he had been assembling for many weeks. When he rose again and rejoined his throng, he would be at the centre of a whirlwind of his own creation – shaping and directing it, feeding it like a living thing and coaxing more power from it. There would be no end to his efforts until either the goal was reached or life itself was taken from him. For now, for a few final moments, he was alone with his thoughts. Muhammad himself had foretold that the city raised by Constantine would, in the end, become home to the people of the Faith. He trembled, and wondered whether it was the chill of the breeze that stirred him, or the will and pleasure of God.

There would have been no need of force, he knew, to bring the masses to him from every corner of Anatolia – to have them form his armies and fight for him. Rather they would come like guests to a wedding. The only injustice would be that felt by those left behind, those deemed too crippled, too old or too young. Even they would make the march to the mustering points – as many boys as could shake off the grasping hands of their mothers, as many old men as could drive their old bones over the intervening miles, as many of the halt and the lame as could drag themselves across the unforgiving earth.

They would be lured not only by his command but also by the prospect of glory. For the city of Constantinople – just five days’ ride to the east of his palace at Edirne – dangled in the faces of the faithful like the reddest apple, the sweetest fruit of all. Those blessed with the chance to reach out for it would either taste its flesh or, harvested themselves by the cruel blades of the infidel, rise to the paradise promised only to martyrs.

Mehmet’s breathing had grown shallow and fast with the thrill of it all.

‘They shall be as numerous as the stars,’ he murmured. ‘My armies will flow towards the walls of Constantinople like a river of steel.’

He lay back upon the pillows, luxuriating in the softness and the cool. Once he embarked upon the campaign, comforts would be few and far between. He would spend the necessary weeks and months – however long it took – at the centre of his forces. Young as he was, he had passed enough time among besieging armies to know they made for foul and pestilent company. They would stew in their own juices, basted by misery and hardship, until the Wall of Theodosius itself was finally brought low. Only then, when his river of steel had burst its banks and flowed into the streets of the Great City, would he savour any freshness.

Slowly he became aware of a new sound, building like a thought. He ignored it at first, dismissing it as nothing more than the hubbub of the palace and of the city beyond. But the noise grew steadily in volume and intensity so that it elbowed its way to the forefront of his consciousness. It had something of the ebb and flow of waves upon a shore, a great booming, rhythmical roar that rose and fell with a life of its own. He sat up slowly, realisation dawning. Suddenly flooded with understanding, he leapt to his feet and crossed to the open windows once more. Looking out, beyond the palace walls, he saw men – hundreds, thousands of men, and countless animals besides. His army, his people, had arrived at his city walls at last. In ordered ranks they advanced upon Edirne, banners flying and horns blaring.

‘It is begun,’ he said, and he brought his hands together beneath his bearded chin and raised his eyes to heaven.