The Alchemist's Revenge

by Martin Archer

  In contrast, they did not hate the Latin Empire’s Empress, they just disliked her despite her efforts to keep the Venetians out in order to protect them, mostly because she prayed with the help of Latin-gobbling priests and looked to the Pope to tell her what God wanted her to do instead of the Patriarch. But at least she and the emperor before her had left her Orthodox subjects and their churches alone.

  In essence, the thought George had planted in the minds of the Orthodox bishops about the Venetians helping Theodore in exchange for being allowed to return to Constantinople and re-take some of their old churches had struck home. That King Theodore of Epirus would take some of their churches and give them to the Venetians in exchange for the Venetian’s assistance in his becoming the emperor was entirely believable to the Orthodox bishops and their priests. Theodore was, after all, a Greek king.

  Similarly, losing some of their churches to the Latin-gobbling priests of the Venetians and the French was also entirely believable to the Orthodox priests and bishops—because they themselves had done the very same thing by taking over the Venetian churches after the “Massacre of the Latins” thirty-seven years earlier in the spring of 1192. Now, or so it seemed, they would have to give them back if the Empress was defeated.

  Indeed, it was the massacre of the Latins, many of whom were Venetians, resulting from the previous Patriarch’s call that led the vengeance-seeking Venetians to encourage the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade to sack the city.

  That sacking, in turn, caused the Patriarch and the then-emperor, a Greek, to flee—and in the chaos and confusion Cornwall’s Company of Archers had somehow ended up with the gold and silver coins in the emperor’s treasury and many of the Orthodox Church’s priceless relics and icons.

  Now everyone’s role was reversed. The Venetians were attempting to return to Constantinople with the help of the Orthodox Patriarch. They, the Venetians that is, were helping their once-hated enemies.

  The Venetians were now helping the Greeks because the emperor installed by crusaders, and now the empress who followed him, had refused to let the Venetians and their Latin-gobbling priests return to their previous dominance in order not to upset their many Orthodox subjects in the city and its empire.

  It was all very confusing and everything was uncertain—which meant it was a splendid opportunity for the Company during that inevitable tender moment when coins and power are changing hands and no one has a firm grip on them.

  In essence, and despite all the bad blood between the Venetians and the Orthodox Church in the recent past and the generosity of the Empress, the Patriarch had ordered his bishops and priests to support the Orthodox army and the would-be emperor’s deal that would allow the Venetian merchants and priests to return so long as the Patriarch was allowed to return to his cathedral and splendid residence.

  So what did the city’s Orthodox bishops and priests tell their followers that God wanted them do?

  It was an easy decision for them to make. They were traditional churchmen. So they carried out their Patriarch’s order by dutifully informing their flocks of parishioners that God wanted them to rise against the Empress and her supporters. They were encouraged to do so by the Patriarch’s trusted assistants who quietly passed the word to the churchmen that the Venetians would be dealt with once again after the Patriarch and the Church hierarchy were safely back in the city.

  All the archers could do in response to everything that was happening in the city was to thank God for the city’s Greeks getting the dates wrong so the city did not rise against the Empress on the day the Greek army arrived, and pray for heavy rains that would keep everyone inside instead of rioting in the streets and attacking them in the rear.

  ****** Commander George Courtenay.

  Work on improving the city’s defences did not stop when the Orthodox army began arriving and setting up its siege camp outside the city’s landward outer wall. If anything, it increased with many of the full-time wall workers being re-assigned to help the men and women who had already been hard at work for several months making additional arrows.

  Almost all of the archers on limited duty due to their wounds and poxes were assigned to be sergeants over the arrow makers. And, of course, additional bales o arrows continued to pour in from Cyprus, the Company’s shipping posts, and the many merchants everywhere with whom we had placed orders. There was no one with whom we were unwilling to deal when it came to getting more arrows for our longbows, even the Moors.

  Even my father did his part. He got some of the Company’s sailors who were carpenters off Harold and began buying wood in the city’s markets and using it to make catapults. He even accepted my suggestion as to where they should be located.

  “Initially place them in the enclosure of the states’ forces, and spread the word that they have been placed there to protect the states’ forces from a Greek attack. That is a reasonable thing to say since that is where the Greeks are most likely to attack because the gate in the outer wall is still usable.”

  In fact, I was not sure we would need catapults anywhere unless the Greeks settled in for a long siege and began building siege towers. But building and placing them would keep him out of my hair. In any event, they turned out to be quite useful for another reason entirely.

  Similarly, the training intensified both for the foot archers and their auxiliaries, and for the state forces that had come in to stand with the Empress. The latter were very mixed in that the princes and kings of three of the more distant states had come in with their armies, such as they were, whereas those of the other four states of the Latin Empire had merely sent token forces with various and sundry excuses whose only common theme was that they needed to stay at home to defend their own lands.

  Only the Latin state of Trebizond on the Black Sea was excused from sending its army to help defend Constantinople. It had gotten a pass from both the Empress and the Patriarch because of the fact that it was completely surrounded by the lands of the Islamic state of the Seljuks. In essence, its Christians were uniquely united by the fact that they feared the Moslems who surrounded them even more than they hated each other for making the sign of the cross incorrectly.

  The three Latin states which sent only token forces, according to my father, would have new kings on their thrones as soon as the Orthodox army was defeated. He was rather emphatic about the fact that the Empress was seriously pissed at the no-shows and intended to separate them from their thrones and heads as soon as possible. Her intentions were something my father would know being as he had been a particularly close personal friend of the widowed Empress when he had been a young man. More importantly, their friendship had resumed, some said reignited, when he and the Company’s other retirees came to Constantinople to help the Company defend it.

  What was not mixed was the quality of the state forces. With the exception of the Bulgarians, they had all arrived with very poor weapons and uniformly unready to do anything except eat and foul their campsite. The same was true of their princely commanders and nobles except that they had better swords and very shiny armour.

  As a result of the poor quality of the state forces, Henry and my father had vetted them carefully for me, and even sent some of the states’ men and camp followers home as hopeless mouths to feed who could not be made useful in any employment.

  The rest of the state forces were camped out and being learnt to fight all along the newly enclosed road whose roadway and walls ran for some miles—all the way between the one remaining usable gate in the city’s outer defensive wall to the one remaining usable gate in its inner defensive wall.

  As you might imagine, the resulting long and narrow enclosure, Constantinople’s largest by far, soon became quite foul. On the other hand, it had something very few of the archers had to make up for it—direct access to the delights and markets of the city without having to climb over a moat or wall.

  The princely commanders of the state forces fared much better than their men and did not bide with the men t
hey commanded. Each already had an elegant palace in the city’s Latin Quarter and, with the exception of the prince who commanded the Bulgarians, was rarely seen except at court—which was a blessing both for their men and for George and his lieutenants as it spared them of their insipid chatter and foolish suggestions. They did, however, according the Empress’s daughter, wear fine clothes and bow most elegantly.

  On the other hand, there had also been a number of bright spots for the Company. Among them was the arrival of the initial Greek forces after the uprising in the city instead of at the same time, the fact that the main force of the Greek army was still a week or two away from arriving, and the success of the horse archers’ attacks on the army’s stragglers and foragers. Taken together, they greatly encouraged everyone who supported the Empress or was considering it.

  The Greek army’s unexpectedly late arrival also suggested that its commander would have to quickly launch a massive initial attack as soon as the main body of the army arrived. He would have to do so, it was commonly thought, so his army’s men would not starve as a result of not being able to forage in the countryside for food and so they could return to their homes in time to harvest their crops as they had been promised. That was somewhat encouraging because it suggested the Greek army’s attacks might begin without adequate preparation.

  Another somewhat bright spot for the city’s defenders had to do with the leadership of the state forces. After much discussion and several shouting matches in the presence of the Empress, Henry had been assigned to command all of the state forces except the Bulgarians.

  Some of the lords who were the state commanders and captains had been pissed off by the decision to let Henry command their soldiers and threatened to leave. But they soon came around when their choices were quietly explained to them by the Empress’s new chamberlain—allow your men to be learnt to fight on the walls and in sorties, and do whatever the archer Henry Soldier tells them to do, or the Empress will not let you leave the city alive and you and your family will be replaced as the lords over your lands.

  The state commanders, being both experienced statesmen and reasonable men, instantly agreed with that Henry was indeed a fine fellow and should be the one to give orders to their men.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We launch a sally.

  We stood together on the wall and watched as the Orthodox army continued setting up its camp right in front of us in the dust and glaring sun. There were men and women walking around everywhere. It looked like an overturned ant hill and from the walls we could periodically hear snatches of distant voices.

  The main part of the would-be emperor’s army carried by the Venetians had begun arriving yesterday morning, and now its tents and wagons filled the area beyond the moat in front of the city’s outer wall for as far as the eye could see. The huge camp appeared to be totally disorganized and a dark haze of dust and smoke constantly hung over it.

  The Greeks also appeared to be unaware of the distance a longbow arrow could carry. Some of them had begun setting up their tents next to the moat that ran in front of the outer wall on which we were standing. It was as if the Greeks thought that having the wall and its moat between us and them would protect them from harm.

  “That is a piss pot full of men,” said Michael Oremus quietly. “And there are many more to come.”

  “It is a pity we closed off so many of the wall gates. This would be a good time to make a sally whilst they are so disorganized and defenceless,” Richard suggested wryly.

  And then he added a suggestion.

  “We could send some of our men sallying out of the one gate that was left to be usable. And the others could go over the walls and then over the moat on the ladders they use to get over the city’s inner wall and its moat.”

  Everyone nodded their agreement and smiled a pleased and satisfied smile at Richard’s suggestion—because how and when to launch just such a sortie had already been extensively discussed and planned whilst he and his horse archers were off fighting in the mountains. It was one of the reasons why the state forces were camped where they were camped and the moats had been drained and worked on earlier in the summer.

  But Richard was certainly right that the disorganized chaos we were looking at was too good of an opportunity to pass up. A few minutes later I began giving orders and messengers began galloping off to deliver them.

  Our plan was to fall upon the Greeks and take them by surprise.

  The two hundred or so horsemen of the state forces, mainly knights carrying swords and old-fashioned tournament lances, would start the sortie and lead the way. They would come charging out of the city’s one remaining usable gate in the outer wall, immediately cross the only remaining moat bridge which was in front of the gate, and gallop all the way through the disorganized Orthodox camp causing as much death and destruction as they could manage. The states’ horsemen would be followed out of the gate and over the bridge by all of the states’ foot soldiers who would fall upon the Greek encampment and attempt to do the same.

  If all went well, the states’ riders would spread out and ride through the entire length of the Orthodox camp, and then turn around and make another pass back through the entire length of a different section the camp until they were back at the one remaining usable gate. At some point the riders would meet their foot soldiers, who would then turn around and join the riders to ravage and loot their way back to the gate where the sally began.

  What neither the states forces nor our own men had been told, was that when our lookouts on the city’s outer wall saw the men of the states’ forces charging out of the gate, they would pass a signal along the wall from company to company and all the available foot archers, those stationed in the narrow enclosures that stretched between the city’s outer defensive wall and its inner defensive wall, would also attack.

  Our men would come over the wall on the long ladders they used to come and go from their enclosures, wade across the moat on the narrow causeway that had been installed in front of each galley company’s enclosure when the moat was drained “for repairs and deepening.”

  The foot archers would advance only as far beyond the moat as they needed to go in order to push their arrows at the men and animals in the Orthodox camp. They would not have to advance far, if at all, because the edge of the Orthodox camp began at the far side of the moat.

  Launching a sortie large enough to do substantial damage to the Greek army was doable, but it would not be easy. For one thing, in order to keep our ability to launch such a sortie from being known to the Greek spies, the archers and their auxiliaries had never practiced going over the outer wall on their ladders, nor ever even tried to cross the moat in front of it. They had all, however, much experience using their ladders to get over the inner wall and its moat.

  What was important was that the archers did not need to use their ladders to cross the foul, black water of the slightly wider outer moat, at least not in the way they used their ladders to cross the inner moat in front of the city’s inner wall in order to enter the city. They would, instead, wade across on the narrow under-water causeway we had built into the moat in front of each enclosure for that very purpose.

  Each causeway was several feet under the moat’s foul and dark water, and was only wide enough for one man. We had built them by stacking up dirt and rocks when the moat was emptied for deepening.

  Only the captain and lieutenant of the galley company in each enclosure knew exactly where his enclosure’s causeway was located a few feet under the moat’s foul waters—and even they had not been told why they needed to know where it was located, only that they must know and at all times have a rope available that was twice as long as the moat was wide. They would lead their men as they waded over their enclosure’s causeway to participate in the attack, and then lead them back when they ran out of arrows.

  The forces that had come in from the Empress’s vassal states were another matter entirely, particularly in terms of sortieing out to do s
ubstantial damage to the Greeks. They would do so by coming directly out of their camp on the road that ran through it.

  The road along which they were camped ran from the one still-usable gate and moat-bridge in the city’s outer wall to the one remaining usable gate and moat in the city’s inner wall. They were the two gates closest to the river estuary called the Golden Horn that flowed with fresh water just outside the city wall.

  Work was still going on to finish the new interior walls that would run along both sides of what had already become the only usable road into the city, the road along which the states’ forces were camped. When the new walls were finished in the next few days, they would run on both sides of the roadway all the way from the city’s great outer defensive wall to its equally formidable inner defensive wall.

  In other words, the states’ forces, like the galley companies of the archers, would be camped in a walled enclosure of which every inch of ground could be reached by an arrow pushed out of a longbow by an archer standing on one of the walls that surrounded it. That all of the new interior walls had been installed with that in mind was a fact known only to me and a handful of my senior lieutenants.

  Soldiers of the state armies were permanently camped in tents and wagons all along both sides of the road with their women, horses, and supplies. As a result, an enemy or traveller or anyone else who came through the gate in the outer wall would immediately find himself in the middle of several thousand soldiers, soldiers who would have to fight if the intruder were an enemy because the new walls that now ran along both sides of the road meant they had no place to run.

  In essence, if the soldiers of the Greek-led Orthodox army somehow got through the Farmers Gate, the one still-usable gate in the city’s outer wall, they would have to fight their way through the men of the states’ armies camped all along both sides of the road to get to the Farmers Gate in the city’s inner defensive wall which, hopefully, would be closed and strongly defended behind its moat.