by Dan Davis
Hunyadi’s fleet may have been thrown together but there were some magnificent vessels that were a part of it. His flagship was the biggest of all the ships on the river by far and it poured fire from hand-gunners into the enemies on all sides. His ships were filled to the rails with archers, hand-gunners, and soldiers armed with pikes and halberds and axes but it was not his entire force.
On the southern bank were ten thousand men or more in a great swirling mass. I recognised banners from Transylvania that I knew belonged to horsemen. But most of the men were the peasant crusaders I had heard about, armed with slings, hunting bows, threshers and probably sharpened hoes and pointed sticks. They massed on the banks and shot arrows and slung stones and shot at the Turkish ships that came close to shore.
“The Turks are outmatched!” Osvát shouted in my ear as we approached, grasping my arm and shaking me. He turned to his crew. “Signal the fleet to spread out. We can trap them all. Kill them all. Let none escape! Christ be praised, the Turks are outmatched.”
Their ships were pushed aside by ours and many were forced hard against the banks. There, the crusaders swarmed them and slaughtered them. One was swiftly set on fire and it went up like a demonic candle, burning hot and bright.
Osvát steered our ship into another galley that attempted to flee and crashed into it hard enough to throw us onto our knees. The Turkish galley was stuck with arrows and the side was covered in charred timber and soot where a fire had been put out. Wounded men lay in the bottom of it already but when our hulls ground against each other, they seemed keen enough for a fight.
“With me!” I shouted and led my companions across and down into their galley. My men made short work of the enemy and soon we got back on board our own vessel and looked for more prey.
Osvát cheered us and even Serban had a smile on his face.
We captured or destroyed at least a hundred and fifty of their fleet. By the end, they were burning their own immobilised ships before abandoning them so they would not fall into our hands. The remaining handful fled downstream, being peppered with shots from the walls and towers of Belgrade as they went.
The battle lasted many hours and the men were exhausted but were buoyed by the elation that victory brings. The way was clear now for Hunyadi’s army to be ferried into the city by the docks on the Sava side, protected from the Sultan’s army by the walls and mass of the city itself.
It was a relief of sorts to see my company through the postern gate and finally into Belgrade, where we had hoped to be for so many days.
And yet even while the river battle raged, the enemy cannon had not ceased their bombardment and we knew we would soon have another fight on our hands.
This time it would be a fight to save the city itself.
***
A week after the river battle and the outer walls of Belgrade were crumbling.
Our cannons would fire out at the Turks as often as they could, hoping to destroy an enemy cannon but often as not hitting Turkish earthworks or ploughing a useless furrow into the mud. There had been a giddy moment of joy days earlier when a cannon on the city’s easternmost tower shot and killed the Beylerbey of Rumelia, striking him down, killing him, his horse and at least two of his servants. The damned fool had been inspecting the front lines of the siege within range of our guns, in broad daylight, flying his banners and gesticulating toward us as he no doubt propounded to his men on how the city would fall. It was a lucky shot, to be sure, but many in the city took it to be a sign from God and who was I to argue with that?
We certainly needed the victory, no matter how small it was. The city was as well prepared for a siege as it was possible to be. Indeed, it had been preparing for over a decade, for it was no secret that it would be so assaulted, and there were supplies enough to last months, even with twenty thousand extra mouths to feed with the arrival of Hunyadi’s army and the crusaders. And with the river cleared, it meant more supplies could be brought in at will along with reinforcements. We knew we could therefore survive a siege indefinitely.
And the Sultan would know it, too.
The only way he could take Belgrade now was by direct assault and so we waited, day after day, night after night. Waited for the sudden assault by tens of thousands of veteran infantry on the outer walls of the city. The repairs on both the outer and inner curtain walls went on ceaselessly. Every breach was filled with rubble and shorn up by enormous timbers. When these were blown apart, they were built back up again, stronger than before.
“I made a mistake,” I admitted to Eva as we stood on the steps of a church and watched the repairs from a distance, the air filled with smoke and dust and the shouts of the men rebuilding and the ringing of mallets and hammers. “I should never have brought us here. Especially after Constantinople. I have trapped us once more.”
“Your reasoning was not faulty,” she said. “But I sometimes do wonder…”
“What do you wonder?”
“You often make it so that you will have an impossible victory or death. When instead you would do better to wait and pick another battle. What is it to the likes of us if Hungary falls? Might we not in our long lives see a dozen kingdoms fall and another dozen rise in their place?”
“You sound like Priskos. As if mortal matters mean nothing.”
“Not nothing. And yet we are so much more than they.” She jerked her chin at the men toiling at the walls. The streets near the landward walls of the city were where the crusaders had been quartered, packed in with a dozen in each room and others sleeping huddled on the streets. Some were active in helping with the repairs while others seemed to do little but pray, while others lay slumped in alleys, drunk or sick. Our holy army.
“It is easy to feel contempt for the smallness of their lives,” I said. “At the same time, I feel less than they are. They are natural, living, dying. Raising sons and daughters. While we… endure.”
She lowered her voice and glanced around. “It is not too late to flee. We could go through the castle, down to the river. Take a boat.”
“We cannot.”
“No,” she admitted. “No, we cannot.”
The next day, in the full light of day, the enemy broke through,
The Turks assembled in their tens of thousands and charged the walls in waves. Our brave garrison poured down fire from cannon and the hand-gunners and crossbowmen shot as quickly as they could, and arrows flew into the advancing men but still they came on and assaulted the high breaches and the gates with ladders and ropes while others behind them shot back at our men on the battlements.
“We must stay out of it for as long as possible,” I said to my company in our quarters near to the castle. “The mortals must do their work at the walls. We must save ourselves, where we can, for our true enemy.”
Claudin raised his hand. “We will look like cowards, no?”
“No. We will stay close to Hunyadi and the other commanders. We must have patience. There will be fighting enough for all of us before all is said and done here. Now, bleed your servants and drink while you can.”
Late in the day, the Turks breached the outer walls. The garrison and the mass of crusaders fell back in panic while the professional soldiers attempted to stem the tide in every street and courtyard. But the blind retreat was unstoppable. They swarmed by our position in their hundreds and ran across the drawbridge into the inner fortress where they hoped to be safe. And yet that drawbridge could not be closed before the pursuing Turks reached it. The Janissaries swarmed over the drawbridge into the fortress courtyard and they began slaughtering the crusaders, militia, and soldiers inside.
By the time we rushed to the fortress, the streets were so packed with panicked peasants that we could not get close to the enemies that had broken through.
“We are close to disaster!” Stephen shouted at me. “What do we do, Richard?”
“Guard this position,” I commanded my men. “Walt, with me.”
I pushed forward through the bodyguards and lo
rds crowding Hunyadi, meaning to discover what his plan was. If something drastic was not done, the city would be taken before sunrise the next day.
“We must secure the city walls,” one of the lords shouted at Hunyadi.
“Yes,” another cried. “We must assault the walls, my lord!”
“No,” he shouted. “The Janissaries are enclosed within the inner fortress. We attack their rear, trap them within our fortress, and kill them to a man. They are the Sultan’s best troops and we shall slaughter them all, then retake our outer walls. All of you, with me. Bring every man you can. God be with us.”
I pushed back to my company and told them that we do as Hunyadi commanded.
“Are they the red bastards?” Garcia asked. “These Janissaries?”
“If they are, we will kill them.”
We rushed through the panicked streets to the inner fortress, where there were so many Turkish infantry and white-robed Janissaries that they could not all fit inside the fortress and instead massed on the drawbridge, as if waiting their turn to kill our men. Our assault on their rear took them by surprise and they had no room to manoeuvre. Hunyadi’s men killed them, cutting them down and stepping forward and killing the next man and the next but the approach to the fortress was so dense with enemies and they could not fly through them with ease. The flagstones underfoot ran slick with blood and the air was filled with the smell of it, along with the screams and shouts of the dying Turks.
Holding my company back behind the Hungarians, we finished off any survivors that writhed on the floor.
“No immortals!” Claudin shouted.
“Quiet, you fool,” Walt snapped at him.
Soon, Hunyadi’s men reached the edge of the drawbridge, slaughtering the men who stood shoulder to shoulder now. Beyond the drawbridge, still thousands more Janissaries attacked our men.
“Damn the bastards for this,” I muttered, feeling a desire to throw myself at them.
“A fire!” someone shouted. “They set a fire!”
Smoke billowed up beneath the men on the bridge and then the yellow flames flickered behind and amongst the Janissaries.
“What is happening?” Rob asked.
“The Turks have fired the drawbridge,” I said, raising my voice so my men and allies could hear.
“But they have cut off their means of escape,” Jan said.
“And they kill their own men who stand on the bridge,” Rob said.
The fires grew and many of the Janissaries on the bridge jumped thirty feet down into the dry moat below, breaking their legs and trapping themselves.
“They are burning the bridge so that we cannot save our people within. They trust their reinforcements outside the walls to come in and take the city.”
“There is no other way into the fortress, now,” Stephen said.
“Aye,” Walt said. “Best go to the outer walls instead, Richard?”
“Wait,” I said. “The entrance from the river into the city comes up through the fortress.”
“From the boats?” Stephen said. “That is all very well but how do we get out of the city and reach the river in order to come in through the back door?”
“We shall fight our way clear of the city walls and get down to the river,” I replied. “The defenders within the fortress will hold out long enough for us to do so and—”
“Richard!” Eva said, grabbing me by the armour and yanking me around to face her. Her eyes were wide and angry. “You do not have to do everything yourself. You said the mortals must do their work and we must save ourselves for our true enemy. So tell Hunyadi. He has thousands of men.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “But can anyone do the job but us?”
She pulled my arm and shook it. “And when William’s red Janissaries come marching through the streets, who here can do the job of stopping them?”
“Damn you, woman,” I said. “Where is Hunyadi?”
It was a fight just to get close to the man but when I suggested he send a message to the fleet to assault the fortress from the Sava, he cut me off and began issuing orders for that very thing. Six lords or knights were given the task, along with their retinues and companies, to reach the river by different directions so that one at least would get through.
As they made off, Hunyadi glanced at me. “Something else, Richard?”
His helm was off and his cap beneath was soaked with sweat. Hunyadi looked old, the light of torches, lanterns, and the fire of the burning bridge picking out the deep lines in his grey face.
“Have the red Janissaries been sighted, my lord?” I asked. “Or the banner of Zaganos Pasha?”
He shook his head. “Ask Michael,” he said, jerking his head and turning to command his men for the defence of the city.
Pushing through the soldiers, I made my way toward the banner of Michael Szilágyi, the commander of the fortress of Belgrade, a great lord, and the brother of Hunyadi’s wife.
“My lord,” I said, raising my voice and interrupting the knights speaking to him. “My lord, have the red Janissaries been seen within the walls?”
“Richard?” he looked me up and down. “Last I heard, the red-robed bastards are yet beyond both walls, outside the breaches, guarding the Sultan. I doubt we shall see them anywhere that the Sultan is not. Where is your company?”
“With me.”
“The Turks are within the city walls but they have not broken through everywhere. We are holding them in every quarter. If we act now, we can get behind them and trap them inside before we slaughter them. I will take my men along the Danube wall before attacking their flank. Will you join us?”
If William’s immortals were beyond the breaches, we would do well to keep them there lest they slaughter their way to victory. And Szilágyi’s flanking attack would take me close to the red Janissaries’ position.
“It would be an honour, my lord.”
Szilágyi was a good leader and a competent commander. His lords liked him and the men trusted him and so when he marched off for the walls, he drew hundreds along behind him. A more cautious man would have waited until more precise orders were given and until more men had assembled, but there are times for caution and there are times to throw oneself into danger.
Our numbers overwhelmed the Rumelian infantry on the northern flank and we pushed on through the streets, spreading out where we could. The fighting at each juncture was hard but brief, and the Turks fled, in one company after another. It soon seemed that the battle had swung in our favour, for our men were filled with vigour and high spirits and the Rumelians and Anatolians were crumbling, their morale shattered. No soldier likes to find his enemy has gotten behind him but the Turks were taking to their heels before we could even reach them.
“Is it a ruse?” Stephen asked beside me after catching his breath. We watched two hundred well-armoured Rumelian soldiers pushing each other aside in an effort to get back to the breach in the outer wall. “Will our men be trapped and counter-attacked?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But it is difficult for ordinary soldiers to feign fear so effectively. They expected no resistance. They believed that breaking into the city would be like Constantinople all over again, and all the fighting they would need to do would be over wine jugs and women. Our resistance broke their spirit.”
“The Red Janissaries have not yet engaged?”
“That seems to be the case.”
“Why would he not throw them in now and push on to victory?”
“Even immortals can be killed, especially in narrow streets. Anyway, tonight’s battle for the walls may be over but the enemy is not defeated. They will come again, tomorrow perhaps, and again until one of us is truly broken.”
By sunrise, the fighting was essentially over. The Hungarians and Serbians had forced their way into the fortress and had slaughtered the Janissaries trapped within. After the killing had been going on for some time, Hunyadi and Szilágyi’s men threw down a makeshift bridge over the remnants of the still-smouldering dra
wbridge, crossed the chasm and sent hundreds of heavily armoured men across. Caught between the two Christian forces, the Janissaries died in their thousands. The fortress ran with blood and the dawn air was filled with screams.
Watching from across the bridge, it turned my stomach to see it. The Janissaries were our enemies, it was true. They worshipped the God of the Mohammedans. But they were our own people by blood, our sons and brothers, and they should have been fighting beside us instead of dying beneath our blades.
But the job was done and done well.
It had been a close thing, perhaps, but the Serbian militia, the Hungarian peasant crusaders, the foreign mercenaries like me and my men, and the Hungarian lords and their retinues, had all held fast and so done their duty.
But the task was not yet done.
***
“I had hoped that they would pack up and leave,” Walt said from the top of the city’s inner wall walk when I joined him and the others in the morning. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, squinting at the light. “What did our great lords have to say?”
“As much as always,” I replied as Eva passed me a jug of wine. I drank two great gulps and wished it was blood I was supping. Our squires stood ready with our helms but we were clad in the rest of our armour.
Beyond was the lower outer wall with its crumbling breaches. Outside of that was the enemy siege works and the huge camps themselves. Tens of thousands of men, ready and willing to come back and kill us. The crews for the hundreds of cannons were busy preparing their weapons for the day’s bombardment.
Rob sat in shadow with his knees up and his back to the parapet wall, head back and eyes closed, snoring away like he was in a feather bed.
Walt followed my eyes and smiled. “You made him a knight, Richard, but he’ll always be an archer at heart.”
“What have they decided?” Eva asked.
I shrugged. “Repair the breaches, restock the powder and shot, and pray the Sultan does not come back again tonight.”
Walt sighed and his head drooped. “These people lack boldness.”
