The Walls of Byzantium tmc-1

by James Heneage

  ‘There is an hour before it is light enough to move,’ he said gruffly. ‘Sleep, if you can. Then I have something to show you.’

  Of course Luke didn’t sleep. He lay on the soft pelt in wet clothes and watched the dawn light creep slowly into the shadows around. The sky through the leaves was grey and without colour, as if uncertain what to do. Then, gradually, it turned into blue, a blue pregnant with the promise of sunshine held just below the horizon. Rain dripped from the branches.

  He turned his head towards the sound of footsteps. The man was approaching; his companions had stayed sitting around the fire. They were talking in whispers and poking the embers with branches. The man knelt on one knee beside him.

  ‘You are Luke Magoris,’ he said, ‘and I am Yakub, chief of the Germiyan tribe.’ His face was dark and worn by sun and wind and his heavy beard was streaked with grey. He looked old but was probably no more than forty. ‘You will want to know who I am and whom I rescued you from.’

  Yakub swept away some debris with his palm and sat, lifting his sword to rest across his legs. ‘I am a gazi, a gazi from the Germiyan lands in Anatolia.’ he said. ‘That means that I have even less love for Bayezid than you Greeks because I have already lost my lands to him.’ He paused. ‘The men following you were from Venice. I don’t know why they want you.’

  From Venice. Luke frowned. Why would Venetians be so close to the Ottoman camp unless they were supposed to be there? Had they been waiting for him?

  ‘You were meant to escape,’ said Yakub as if Luke’s question had materialised before him. ‘The wagon’s axle was sawn through so that one hard pull would dislodge it. In the end they had to send a half-drugged dog to persuade you.’

  Luke found his voice. ‘Why?’

  But before the word was out, he knew the answer. He thought about the unlikely generosity of the sipahi knight, of how he’d attached himself to him and brought them both to ride just behind Suleyman as they’d come down to Tarnovo. He thought about some information he’d been meant to overhear.

  As if to himself, Luke murmured, ‘The Serbians will be in the front line.’

  ‘My guess is that the Venetians were to take you to the crusader commanders so that you could tell them that.’ Yakub picked up a twig and began prodding the ground. ‘The Turks want the crusader knights to charge first. They know that they’ll like nothing better than charging other knights. It’s a trap.’

  He paused and looked up. ‘There won’t be knights in our front line but hyenas. The akincis are like hyenas, snapping and snapping until you go mad. We use them to lure you in, to tire you out with pretend charges and waves of arrows. Then we pounce.’

  Luke turned this over in his mind. He’d seen the akincis as they’d marched away from Constantinople. He’d seen their small, fast horses and little bows that could fire an arrow every three seconds. But there was still a question to be answered.

  ‘Why should I trust you? You are a gazi from the same tribes that gave us Bayezid. Why should I trust you?’

  Yakub looked again at the ground. He picked up a leaf and examined it, turning it in the gathering light. ‘This will be the first time that the armies of Christendom have met the Ottomans in battle. If they lose, there will be nothing to stop Bayezid watering his horse in Rome. You have heard this boast?’

  Luke nodded.

  ‘And there will certainly be no chance of the Germiyan tribe regaining its freedom.’ He ran his finger along the central spine of the leaf. ‘So you see, Luke Magoris, that much depends on the battle’s outcome. Both of our freedoms depend on it very much.’

  Yakub watched Luke carefully while he put fingers into the cowl of his cloak and stretched it away from the thick trunk of his neck, turning his head to left and right. He threw away the leaf and picked up his sword.

  The gazi rose to his feet. ‘I will show you,’ he said. ‘Now get up. We don’t have much time.’

  It took less than five minutes for Luke to change into gazi dress and remount his horse, which had been given a saddle and harness. It took another ten minutes for Yakub to lead him to a partially wooded ravine that lay to the front of the Sultan’s army. With their four companions they were, to any onlooker, an akinci scouting party. They rode out to the front line.

  There were no signs of Serbian heavy cavalry.

  All Luke could see were line upon line of akincis, their bows slung low over their skins and their quivers crammed with arrows. They kept no sort of order and instead rode up and down, shouting to each other. Scouting parties were galloping in from the flanks and they rode up to Yakub and made their reports before rejoining the seething mass of horsemen.

  Luke stopped and looked around him. On one side, the ground fell away into the ravine to the army’s front. There was a wood there that screened any view beyond. To the east, the ground rose gently to another wood. There were no signs of any sipahis, either Rumelian or Anatolian, on either flank, but the wood could hide a regiment at least. Luke looked down the hill fronting the army.

  The Frankish Knights will come through the wood and see the ravine. By then it will be too late.

  Yakub had ridden up beside him. ‘Come! We don’t have time to stop.’

  As they rode into it, the thick, screening mass of the akincis parted. The soldiers greeted Yakub but hardly glanced at Luke who, like his companions, was wearing a nose-guard and earpieces so that most of his face was obscured.

  Then they were through the ranks of horsemen and Luke’s heart almost stopped.

  There, like the teeth of some open-jawed dragon, stood line upon line of sharpened stakes. There were hundreds of them, certainly enough to stop a cavalry charge of any weight, and they looked well dug in.

  It is a trap.

  Yakub was riding close to him. ‘Don’t look so surprised! Remember, you know they’re there. Come!’

  They rode along the back of the akincis in the direction of the hill and the wood at its crest. Yakub reined in his horse halfway up so that they were able to look down upon the army.

  ‘Now look behind the stakes,’ said Yakub. ‘Janissary archers with all the time in the world to bring down the knights as they try to get through the stakes.’ He glanced at Luke. ‘Remember what I said. My akincis are no match for your Frankish knights. They’re not meant to be. They are the hyenas which will send them mad with their snapping.’

  He let his words sink in. Then he said, ‘But this is not the main trap. It gets much worse.’

  Yakub spurred his horse forward up the hill and then turned south so that they were skirting the end of the janissaries. It was now that Luke saw that the ground fell away behind the janissary lines, a feature invisible to anyone approaching from the front. And, as they approached the crest and were able to see behind, Luke reined in his horse and let out a groan.

  There, hidden from view, was the main army.

  There were the élite Kapikulu heavy cavalry and, beside them, rank upon rank of Serbian knights, thousands of them.

  Suddenly Luke recognised the genius of the trap. By the time this cavalry charged, the crusader army, or what was left of it, would be too exhausted to fight. It was terrifying.

  ‘Prince Yakub!’

  Yakub wheeled his horse around. ‘Prince Suleyman.’ He bowed stiffly from the saddle. ‘I was on my way to you with my scouting party. They report no movement from the crusaders yet. The two armies have formed up and seem to be deciding what to do.’

  Suleyman was with a small guard of Kapikulu cavalry and had the Grand Vizier with him. He didn’t answer immediately; instead looking up into the heavens. The sun was now rising in a cloudless sky and the day was getting hotter. He pushed his helmet back from his brow and put the cold mail of his hand against it.

  ‘Deciding what to do?’ he asked. ‘They’ve already decided what to do, I think, or will do quite shortly. If it weren’t forbidden, I’d wager good money that your akincis will feel the weight of the Frankish knights before noon. Are they prepared?’
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  ‘As always, lord.’

  Luke was facing away from Suleyman, pretending to calm his horse and with his head low to the animal’s ear.

  ‘Good. Now, you must send your scouts out again. We need to know the minute this crusader army moves.’

  Yakub gave the order and the akincis, Luke included, kicked their horses and cantered away.

  They rode fast to the wooded summit of the hill and saw the ranks of Suleyman’s Rumelian sipahis standing in eerie silence beneath the trees with their lance tips wrapped in hessian to prevent them catching the sun. They cantered around the back of the wood and north towards the Danube, crossing the ravine where it was shallower and where a muddy brook pooled at its centre. They came to a smaller valley and rode down it until they reached the banks of the river. Then they turned left and rode to the prow of a hill from which they could see the fortress of Nicopolis about a mile to the west.

  The two Christian armies had struck camp and were formed up in two blocks, side by side, about a hundred yards apart. The Burgundian army’s ranks were ablaze with colour and its front line was in constant movement as gorgeously dressed knights and their pages walked destriers up and down to calm them before the charge. It seemed as if every Christian king west of the Danube had emptied his coffers to send his nobility east to fight.

  There was a patch of white at the back that Luke guessed must be the Hospitallers. He could see perhaps three hundred knights and sergeants gathered beneath a white flag bearing a giant crusader cross. He saw that they were more ordered than the rest, sitting astride their horses and waiting patiently for their grand master’s command. Behind them were the archers and crossbowmen, most of them mercenaries and some holding the deadly English longbow.

  The Hungarian army had fewer knights. It was largely made up of horse archers, many of whom were little different from Yakub’s gazi cavalry. Here were Kipchaks and Pechenegs, Vlachs and Wallachians and they were mounted on smaller, swarthier horses and had skins beneath their saddles and curved bows by their sides. These were the tough and fearless men of the Hungarian steppe and an obvious match for the akincis at the front of Bayezid’s army.

  The akincis stayed with Luke awhile, watching the scene to their front. Then one of them said something and they turned their horses and rode away. He looked down at the armies before him and wondered how he was to get to their commanders. He was dressed as a gazi and would be shot on sight if he simply rode down to them. He remembered his hair and removed his helmet so that his long fair hair tumbled down to his shoulders. Then he took off the leather armour from his upper half. Beneath was the simple white tunic that he’d worn on the journey from Constantinople. He ripped an arm from the tunic and tied it to the whip he found attached to his saddle and held it aloft.

  The white flag of parley. Would it work?

  Luke kicked his horse. He had a few hundred yards to ride but he knew that there were thousands of eyes watching him, the eyes of men stirred into a frenzy of blood lust.

  What language was he to use? He knew Greek, Italian and some Latin. But these men would most likely be French. He tried to remember the few French words Fiorenza had taught him.

  ‘Attendez!’ he yelled, waving his white flag and riding hard. ‘Je suis ami! Je suis chrétien!’

  He saw heads turn and arms point. He saw swords drawn as if he might be the vanguard of something bigger. Then he saw a single knight detach himself from the army and ride forward, a mace swinging languidly from his mailed arm. The rider cantered some distance from the army and stopped. He was dressed in silver armour so polished that it caught the sun in dazzling ignition. His horse was caparisoned in gold fleur-de-lis and it trailed the ground. His visor was lowered and he looked unlikely to want to parley.

  Luke slowed his horse and halted. ‘Je parle avec vos commandants!’ he shouted. ‘C’est important!’

  It sounded lame and the knight remained impassive. His mace continued to swing and he looked at Luke through a snout of pointed steel.

  Luke considered his options. He could try to outride this fool but that would just bring others keen to spill the first blood. He raised himself in the saddle and yelled above the head of the man in front of him.

  ‘I am Serbian!’ he screamed in Greek. ‘I am a deserter!’

  For the first time the knight looked back from where he’d come. Luke could see some discussion in the front rank and there was a shouted command. A second rider emerged from the ranks, this time a squire in Burgundian household livery. He rode up to Luke.

  ‘Venez.’

  Luke followed him at the gallop. As the space between the armies emerged, he could see that a pavilion had been erected between them and that several expensively caparisoned horses were being led up and down outside it. Men-at-arms held the standards of Burgundy and Hungary and other kingdoms. Clearly this was the place where the plan of attack was being discussed. Luke would be able to tell them what he knew.

  Another knight, middle-aged, had arrived from the direction of the Hungarian army moments before. He had dismounted and was handing his reins to a page and looked up as Luke approached.

  ‘Qui est?’ Luke whispered to his companion.

  ‘That is the Constable of the Kingdom of Hungary, Lord de Gara,’ answered the page in Greek and bowed from the saddle as they rode up to him.

  The Constable was looking at Luke curiously.

  ‘I am Luke Magoris, lord,’ Luke said in Greek. ‘I bring news of the Turk army.’

  The man looked over his shoulder at the entrance to the tent from where raised voices and even laughter could be heard. He took Luke’s arm. ‘You’ve seen it?’

  ‘Yes, lord. All of it. It’s not as it seems.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  Luke told him and, as he listened, de Gara began to nod his head.

  ‘Have you told anyone of this?’ he asked at last.

  ‘No, lord. Only you.’

  ‘Good. Come with me.’

  He turned and walked towards the small tent, lifting aside the flaps to reveal a space crowded with heavily armoured men, some holding helmets with tall plumes, some goblets of wine. In the centre was a table with a hand-drawn map on it. Sitting before it, looking intently at the coloured squares of wood that represented the armies, was a young man in his early twenties with a long nose and weak chin. His hair was cut short, like a tonsure, and sat between two prominent ears. His complexion suggested recent drinking.

  The Comte de Nevers.

  Next to him stood a man in his fifties with a shock of white hair and a broad, rubicund face lined by weather and, perhaps, experience. He looked heated and was pounding the table. ‘Sire, on my sortie yesterday, we saw no sign of the Serbs. It is their irregulars that front their army. We cannot waste our knights against them!’ The language was Latin.

  ‘But, de Coucy,’ said a younger man on the other side of the Count, ‘are you suggesting that his highness will not lead the avant-garde? When we have come all this way? When Burgundy has all but paid for this crusade?’ This man had a goblet in his hand and waved it as he spoke. Luke wondered if he was drunk.

  The older man addressed de Nevers directly. ‘Lord, no one doubts the Comte d’Eu’s courage but we must consider our enemy. Listen to the Admiral de Vienne. He was part of the Count of Savoy’s expedition in ’66. He knows how these Ottomans fight.’

  ‘Like hyenas.’

  There was silence and everyone looked at Luke. The Admiral had not spoken.

  Had he spoken?

  The young Count looked up last and his eyes travelled, without enthusiasm, down Luke’s mud-caked tunic. ‘And you are?’ he asked.

  Luke quickly marshalled his thoughts. He glanced at the other men in the room, most of whom were regarding him with a mixture of surprise and distaste.

  ‘Highness,’ he said, ‘I have claimed to be a Serbian deserter to persuade them to bring me to you. In fact I’m Greek. I have ridden direct from the Turkish lines. I have seen how they ar
e deployed and I know their battle plan. They would have you believe that the Serbian knights are in their front line. But it is their akincis that are there and they are there to mask sharpened stakes and, behind them, janissary archers. They mean to lure your knights into a killing ground and then attack them with their sipahi cavalry from the flanks. Then they will unleash the rest of the army, which is hidden behind the hill. It is a trap.’

  There was silence in the tent as Luke’s words were acknowledged. A gruff laugh came from a short, muscular man to his right. De Nevers looked at him.

  ‘Marshal Boucicaut? You have something to say?’

  ‘I am wondering, highness,’ said the man, ‘why we are wasting time by listening to someone none of us recognises and who might, for all we know, have been sent to misinform us.’ He looked at Luke. ‘You said you were Greek?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Ah … well then,’ said the Marshal, and looked away. Others in the tent laughed.

  Luke felt the blood rush to his face. ‘Your meaning, my lord?’

  Boucicaut arched an eyebrow. ‘Meaning, you insolent young pup, that you are not to be trusted. Meaning that your Orthodox ways do not invite trust!’

  There was an awkward silence in the tent.

  ‘Or mine?’ asked a voice from the other side of the tent. ‘Are my Orthodox ways not to be trusted either?’

  The voice came from a big, heavily bearded man dressed from head to foot in a coat of mail. He wore a loose hauberk on which was emblazoned a black raven with a cross behind it: the arms of Wallachia. Under his arm was a helmet with a crown around it.

  ‘Is that why your crusade has seen fit to rape and plunder its way down the Danube?’ he asked. ‘Because people of the Orthodox faith are not to be trusted?’

  He paused and walked slowly up to Boucicaut. He stood very close, looking down at him. He was breathing hard. ‘Why fight with us, then, if we cannot be trusted? Perhaps we should go home? We, the Transylvanians, the Hungarians — should we all go home?’

  The silence was now oppressive. A centuries-old emnity was alive in this tent, an emnity that made these men unhappy allies, that seemed as great as their hatred of the Turk.