It was a masterful work of planning and he knew it. It was sure and weatherproof. The fuse start was at a good distance from its end, and even though he knew little of explosives - given the number of kegs stored in that place it was very unlikely that anything would live through the blast.
Barely slowing, he smiled grimly to himself as he neared the far end of the garden and reached for the flint and steel he'd left on a small ledge for this very moment. Turning, he glanced back at the brooding bulk of the Nea Ekklasia, grey against the purple black of the night sky, as he began to flick the flint and steel above the small packed pile of tinder that formed the start of the long fuse.
"Sorry, Lord."
It was a shame, even with the church long out of use, to resort to its destruction just to remove a spy and a traitor, but Skiouros was no warrior. When fighting was not an option, you used your wits and whatever God put in your hands. Today, the Lord seemed to have put the entire New Church of the Byzantine Emperor Basil I square into his hands.
The tinder caught and there was a fraction of a second only for Skiouros to panic that he'd been sold defective match cord before it began to flare white with a smoky, cloying vapour. Skiouros stepped back a few more paces to stand next to the broken door that led out to the street, sheltered from the constant battering rain by the colonnaded portico.
With vicious, grim satisfaction, he watched the white blaze move down the covered side wall of the garden, eating up yard after yard of fuse as it approached the centuries-old church and its enormous stock of black powder.
His heart almost leapt from his chest as the figure of one of the Mamluk soldiers stepped into the doorway from inside the church. The man held his crossbow primed but instead of trying to target Skiouros, he simply threw it, unheeded, to the floor.
Skiouros stared in astonishment for a moment until he realised what had happened. The soldier had not spotted the Greek lurking in the shadows at the far end of the garden. Perhaps the dark of the night had hidden him; perhaps it had been the sheets of rain lashing down. One thing was clear: the man had cast aside his crossbow because he had spotted the white flare and suddenly needed his hands.
The thief watched with sinking spirits and near panic as the darker-skinned Egyptian swiftly unhooked a curved knife from his belt and snicked a section out of the fuse over a foot long. The approaching white flare fizzled and winked out as it reached the gap. The plan had failed! Only moments from completion, Skiouros had been foiled by a foreign thug's almost coincidental arrival on the scene. Had he been half a minute longer in discovering the door…
Nothing remained now but to flee and hope he made it away from the city before his details were spread through every harbour.
Secure in the knowledge that the man would not have time to reach for and ready his crossbow before the target was out of sight, Skiouros stepped to one side, pulling open the garden's ruined exterior gate just as a deep, low, threatening rumble of thunder rolled across the city, seemingly directly above him.
"Yes. Thanks a bundle, Lord" he snapped, his eyes rising to the black, veined marble sky before he stepped out of the garden.
It was only the fact that he cast his eyes heavenwards that allowed him to view the flash that followed the build-up rumble only a fraction of a second later.
The white lance of lightning, jagged and forked, stabbed down out of the ebony sky, searing Skiouros' retinas with its brilliance. Before he blinked in the green-purple blot that was all that he could process, he heard the crash of glass and stone join the bang of the thunder.
His eyesight returned as the flash vanished again into blackness, leaving a jagged streak burned across his vision. He realised even before he heard the noise where that line of white had terminated.
The Nea Ekklasia.
The first bang was surprisingly subdued - more of a deep, vibrating 'whooomp', as though it had occurred in some subterranean chamber.
The Mamluk guard in the doorway had frozen in position and was turning to the church's interior when the first external sign of the detonation occurred, molten black furnace flames blooming from every aperture in the building.
Fragments of the foreign soldier showered the garden along with rubble from the church, passing Skiouros and clattering against the wall - pieces of bone and chunks of armour and weapons. All that remained of the doorway was a billowing deep-red fireball, trimmed with black. Glass was flying from windows and pieces of brick hurtled across the garden.
Skiouros stared, stunned. Something throbbed in his arm, and he looked down to find a piece of bone jutting from his flesh. Not his own, but part of the Mamluk who had been standing in the doorway and which had struck him as much power as any crossbow bolt.
Even as he watched, Skiouros frowned to see the fireball suddenly retreat, sucked inwards like a blazing tide, back into the doorway, leaving an eerie darkness.
He had witnessed enough fires in this mostly wooden city in the past eight years to spot the danger well in advance. A retreating blaze was merely a lull between the first, smaller explosion and the second, much greater one.
Panic suddenly washed through him.
Within moments he was through the broken door, heedless of the wound in his arm, running up the slippery street, the water washing around his ankles, things bouncing from his feet, rain hammering at him like a thousand workmen with tiny hammers, the whole city bathed in an eerie dark glow.
He slipped and fell twice.
The first time was swift and he was instantly back up and running. The second coincided with the main detonation. He didn't pause to look back; he didn't need to. There was no need to confirm the death of the men inside. He had perhaps underestimated the explosive power of so much black powder - but then he wasn't a soldier; he'd never had call to use firearms. The total obliteration of the building and its occupants was elegantly announced by the debris that rained down over the streets of almost a quarter of the city.
He may not know cannon and gunpowder, but he did know the architecture of the churches he'd been climbing these past years. The pieces that were falling from the sky were not just roof tiles and pieces of window. They were half-columns and whole floor slabs, ancient foundation blocks and sections of wall still with the detached bricks held together with mortar.
Some of the falling rubble was the size of Skiouros. Some was larger - frighteningly larger. As he ran, praying fervently and desperately to a God of whom he was suddenly finding it very hard to deny the existence, pieces of the Nea Ekklasia's foundations and superstructure came down among the houses at the sides of the street, smashing through the roofs and passing through two or three floors, demolishing entire buildings.
The whole event, though he saw none of it directly, was lit weirdly by the sooty orange glow from behind him.
It was the brightest light the city had seen since before the storm began and bloomed at its darkest point.
Skiouros did not stop running until he reached the highest point of the road. Ahead, it descended a gentle slope towards the walls of the Sultan's great Topkapi palace. Off to the left, on a higher terrace, stood the great Aya Sofya and the ruins of what was once a Roman palace. To the right was the channel of the Bosporus, seething as the rain pelted its surface, with Asia ravaged beyond.
And behind…
Skiouros finally turned and looked back down towards the Nea Ekklasia.
The rubble had stopped falling and the glow had died away to a gloomy red.
The Nea Ekklasia had gone.
Not only, in fact, had the Nea Ekklasia gone, but many of the surrounding buildings had come down due to the explosion or possibly to the heavy masonry debris thrown at them by the blast. A wide swathe of black destruction stood near the Bucoleon palace, marking the 'resting place' - if you could call it such - of a Mamluk spy and a Janissary traitor.
A slow smile broke out across Skiouros' face even as the population began to take to the streets, braving the torrential rain and the appalling winds to
peer in astonishment down at the wide crater with its shattered piles of stone, twisted, writhing columns of rising smoke and small, dotted fires gradually burning out in the downpour.
Apparently God had not disapproved of Skiouros' plan.
Perhaps God was even a little too annoyed at the recent purpose to which his grand house had been turned.
Laughing lightly to himself in a slightly manic fashion, Skiouros sank to his knees in the rushing water and then sat back on his ankles, watching the last glows of orange fires blacking out in the rain.
It was over.
Despite everything, it was actually over.
"We did it, brother."
Five miles south, a band of lighter sky heralded the end of the storm approaching across Anatolia, twinkling stars beyond bathing the empire with a myriad of possibilities for the future.
Epilogos
* Istanbul - Capital of the Ottoman Empire.
Year of Our Lord Fourteen Hundred and Ninety.
Autumn.
Sali (Tuesday) *
It was hard to even imagine this was even the same world, let alone the same city as the one through which Skiouros had fled in dark and rain, amid the death and destruction that had heralded not the end of the world, but the preservation of it.
The sun shone cold, but far still from freezing, in a sky marred only by a few white horses' tails of cloud. The streets were still coated with debris - some of the worst sort imaginable - but most of the water had gone, drained away from the hills of the city into the Golden Horn, the Propontis or the Bosporos that surrounded the headland on three sides. Barely a house remained fully intact, with shutters torn off, roofs completely stripped away, walls collapsed and worse in some cases. Those older wooden houses that suffered weak foundations had collapsed altogether. Somehow, despite the constant torrential downpour, a conflagration had managed to start in the area of the Monastery of Saint John of Studios, demolishing several neighbourhoods before the rain and public effort combined had succeeded in stopping it.
Nothing, of course, came close to the destruction wreaked by the freakish lightning strike that had detonated the powder store of the Nea Ekklasia and destroyed a wide swathe of some of the more ancient and impressive structures in the city. The more ruinous building of the former palace of the Bucoleon, recently inhabited by some rather unfortunate waifs and strays, had been one of the more important structures to collapse in the blast, and the Pharos tower had taken enough of a knocking that it may soon go the same way.
From a doorway in the Greek enclave a sprightly figure stepped, his whole bearing announcing his pleasure, relief and satisfaction to the world. It would take a careful watcher to spot the haunted look in the eyes that spoke of loss and pain, but even that already had a light veil of acceptance over it that would thicken with time.
Skiouros adjusted the cloak, pulling it close against the chill, and then paused. With a smile, he unfastened the clasp and swept the garment from his shoulders, tossing it to one of the homeless beggars lining the street, who grabbed it and hurriedly tucked it into his bag, eyeing his peers at the roadside suspiciously.
The former thief paused in the cold but clear air, the glorious sunshine glinting from glass and small puddles that remained in the deeper ruts. He'd not appreciated how glorious the cold bright weather had been until the great storm had swept across it. Skiouros stretched and threw his arms wide, turning slowly.
This was his city.
He had been baptised into the church in Hadrianople, but he had been 'baptised' in Istanbul more than once. For that was something he realised now in a way that he'd never been able to before: it mattered not how long the Greeks grumbled and moaned in their enclave, or how long the Jews clung to the old ways here; this was no longer Constantinople. It was not the city of Constantine and never would be again. It was Istanbul - the capital of the Ottoman world and the seat of the Sultan Bayezid the Just.
And that was fine. It was right. It felt right.
After all, he - a Christian and a Greek - had been instrumental above any other force in keeping this culture in control here in the past week.
Funny, really. For the first time, he had seen it as a Turkish city with Greek inhabitants and not as a Greek city living under a conqueror, and yet at that same moment, for the first time in his life he had felt truly at home here. It was his city. The city that had claimed his family and where a part of Lykaion's spirit would forever remain, whatever happened to his head. It was the city that had taken a young farm boy and forged him first into a thief and then into a tool of vengeance and justice.
And as much as his view of the city had changed, so had his view of himself. Skiouros was no longer the young thief who had stolen apples in the market or cut purses to survive. Somehow, subtly, he had changed in that single week.
And now he would leave, despite being finally at peace with this great city.
The ports had opened by order of the vizier; the first ships would sail today and Skiouros would be on board one of them. He was no longer running away - there was nothing here to run away from any more. He had no ties and no debts. He had a purse of monies in several currencies and was a virtual unknown. The world was a blank parchment on which he could map out his future.
As he finished his slow circle and peered down the street towards the Lycus valley and the harbour of Theodosius, he smiled. Somehow he doubted this was the last time his booted feet would tread the stones of Istanbul. The place had become home.
But before he could ever settle into it, there were things he must do. One cloud still hung over the horizon, forever threatening and very much out of reach: Cem Sultan. The brother of the Sultan Bayezid, who had conspired to capture the throne and had been part of all this from the plan's conception remained alive, if in captivity, to plot anew. Somehow - though Skiouros could not navigate the possibilities in the eddies of his thoughts - one day he would see Prince Cem face justice for what he had done.
But that was for the future, and Skiouros was still a young man with many summers ahead. Lykaion had wanted him to quit the thieving, and so he would, but that left a hole in his life that needed to be filled with something. He would find out soon enough what that was, but one of the first plans that had struck him in the night was that he needed to learn his letters, whether that be in Greek, Turkish, Latin or even Saxon. Crete would be his melting pot and his starting block. From there he would just have to see what transpired.
With a business-like squaring of the shoulders, Skiouros began to stride down the street. There would be more than one vessel in the port that he could try for. He would like to throw in his lot with captain Parmenio. Something about the slightly dishevelled trader had struck a chord with him and he felt a strange pull towards the man - a kindred spirit? - but that may not be practical. The good captain would be expecting a Turkish boy, not a pale Greek. Would he be able to approach the merchant as a different passenger entirely and book a cabin? Somehow he suspected that despite the change in colouring, Parmenio would recognise him instantly. The questions that might arise then would be uncomfortable at the very least.
Anyway, now that he and Lykaion were no longer the focus of the Janissaries - who were currently engaged in trying to put the city back together and hold back the small riots and looting that threatened to break out all over the place in the wake of the storm - now that he was no longer their focus, he could safely approach any captain for passage.
"The storm has passed."
Skiouros turned and slowed as he passed the Romani woman, his face registering not an ounce of surprise. Strangely, he felt almost glad to see her.
"Perceptive as always, old witch."
The woman narrowed one eye and cocked her head, giving her the disconcerting appearance of a raven as the corvid bones clicked in her hair.
"Farewell to you, thief, priest and assassin. We shall not meet again."
For a moment, as he came to a complete stop, Skiouros considered enquiring as to he
r meaning but, knowing it would be futile and lead only to further enigmas, he shrugged. "I will return, but not soon, and you are old. Go to your rest well, old woman."
The witch cackled and rubbed her hands together.
"Remember that wherever you voyage, what you are is only what you are. It is not who you are."
"Sound advice, I expect" he laughed.
"Have you not forgotten anything?"
Skiouros frowned and then raised an eyebrow. "Lykaion, you mean? I will come back for him, eventually - when the time is right."
"Brothers should travel together. With the sons of Anatolia ruling the city, the head of a fallen Christian will not be treated with respect. Remember my words: Tu Petros, sa-phal Theodoros - You Petros, your brother Theodoros."
"I swear that the longer I stand listening to you, the less sure I am of anything" Skiouros laughed, though his eyes had clouded slightly. "Fare you well old witch."
"Travel well and to good ends, young thief."
Turning his back on her, Skiouros strode on down the street. As his feet skipped lightly across the paving, the young man found himself picturing that plain, unadorned wooden box that contained the head of a noble soldier being broken and abused by Ottoman construction workers. His step slowed more with every flash of the image and by the time he had reached the next major junction, he had already decided on a new course of action, no longer with the heart to curse the witch for her advice and her prophecies.
The slope up towards the walls and the former church of Saint Saviour was gentle and he had hardly broken a sweat by the time he arrived at its entrance. His pulse quickened as he realised that the door was open.
Hurrying and starting to fret, he ducked in through the door, wondering whether to announce his presence. Three hairy, dirty men were lugging sacks and shouldering hods, making their way to the centre of the church. Work was beginning again. In mere months this might be a mosque.
Grateful for his light step - the men had not noticed his arrival as they scraped and crashed around with their loads - he ducked off to the left and ran into the north chapel, where he hurriedly retrieved the box he sought from the altar.
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