Casca 53: The Last Defender, page 13
Casca slumped exhausted onto his ass, back to the splintered and half collapsed parapet, gasping for air. “How long was that?” he demanded to anyone who was listening.
“About three hours” a voice answered. Out of the gloom appeared the Emperor, purple cloak billowing behind him, sword in hand. “You have all done magnificently, our Lord God will receive you all into heaven for the valour you have all shown in the defence of His city this evening, I am certain.”
Casca grinned lopsidedly and gasped as he ran an experimental hand along his wound. It still hurt like Hades. He gritted his teeth and used a spear to help himself to his feet. Constantine saw this and came forward, a concerned look on his face. Alongside him were three men who Casca noted were now hardly away from him whenever the Emperor was outside his palace. The first was a Spaniard with dark hair and a ready smile called Francisco who claimed to be a distant cousin. Next to him was the Emperor’s cousin Theophilus who actually commanded a stretch of the walls to the south but who had come during this attack as his stretch was free from the assault; and lastly the Emperor’s personal bodyguard Dalmata. “You are hurt?” the Emperor sounded concerned.
“Not too bad, your Majesty,” Casca grimaced, then grinned to show he was a toughie and such things were of trivial importance, beneath that of the need for a drink or a wench.
Constantine looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, then nodded and turned to Giustianini who had also come up to inspect the damage. Bodies lay all about, some in the stillness of death, others feebly moving or moaning. “What a mess!” the Italian exclaimed, his face a mask of shock.
“Our brave men threw them back, my courageous friend,” Constantine replied with warmth in his voice. He paused and looked down at the body of Rhangabe. “It is sad such men have to die,” he said sadly.
“He died as any brave man would wish to,” Casca said in the silence that followed, “he killed a whole load of them before they got him. He defended his city with the last breath in him.” Constantine glanced at Casca, then noted the solemn nods of the others about him, Greek and Italian as one in their admiration of the dead man.
“He shall be remembered as a brave man” the Emperor said gravely. “Now rest, dress your wounds and bury your dead. The attack is over, and there is much to do to repair the wall before the morning.”
Cattaneo bowed low to the Emperor, having arrived during the conversation. He began assigning tasks to the exhausted men and ordering the badly wounded to be taken to the church nearby for tending by the nuns. Pietro spat in the ground and glanced with hostility at the commander. “I saw little of him during the attack,” he growled.
“He was safely up on the inner wall” Casca muttered, hopping painfully over to a splintered plank, wishing to put it back alongside the others from where it had been dislodged during the attack.
Pietro snorted, then pointed at Casca’s wound. “You sure you’re fine to carry on? That looked a bad wound to me!”
“Don’t worry my friend, it’s a flesh wound and not as bad as it looked. It bled a lot but really it’s not so bad. I’ll be fine in a day or so.”
“He’ll get his woman to tend it!” Martin shouted from a few feet away, prompting laughs from the others.
Casca grinned and set to the repair work with gusto. He knew exhaustion would set in once they stopped, so it was best to get on with the work now. Besides, he knew the Turks would be back. They had tried but they could try much harder than that; he knew it and so did the others. The next time they’d probably throw the lot in at them and if they did that, he doubted even the bravery of the worn out defenders could stop them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GRANT
The next few days saw little action except for the continual bombardment of the land walls. The Emperor toured the walls and made sure everyone was buoyed up. The defenders’ faces were drawn and haggard and exhaustion was not far off. The various commanders met on more than a few occasions to try to raise spirits, and rumours abounded that further supplies and reinforcements were being raised by Venice and the Pope and were en route from Italy.
Casca personally thought this was mere talk, aimed at raising morale, but he went along with it, anything to try to keep the men hopeful. Casca took time off from his spell at the walls and made his way to Helena’s, determined to see her. She was delighted to see him and they spent the afternoon walking and talking, but when Casca broached the subject of leaving he city Helena became stubborn.
“I cannot leave my father, he will not leave and neither can I. It’s as simple as that,” she said.
“And if the Turks break in? Have you wondered what would happen if they came?”
Helena sighed deeply. “We put our trust in God to protect us. If the Turks do win then I will have to trust that they are merciful and leave my father and me alone.”
“You know truly that they won’t, and after being denied for this long they won’t be in any mood to listen to reason! I know what they are like, believe me Helena, I am a soldier and have seen the sack of a city too many times to think this one will be gentle.”
No matter how much he tried she wouldn’t budge, and they parted unable to agree on that point. Casca was in a sour mood as he approached the walls, but then stopped when he caught sight of a knot of people grouped around the wall listening intently to the ground. He recognised the bearded figure of Grant standing amongst them, arms folded, balefully eyeing two of the listeners who were holding their bodies in a rigid manner, ears low to the ground.
“What is going on?” Casca asked Grant.
“Shhhh!” Grant put a finger to his lips. Casca quietened but cocked an ear, wondering what in the name of all the gods they were doing. Grant kicked one of the two listeners. “Well, mon? Can ye hear anything?”
“It’s hard to say,” the man replied. “Too much noise what with cannons and the like, but I don’t think so.” His colleague nodded and glanced up at Grant. “I agree, sir, they’re not digging anywhere near here at present.”
Grant grinned and thumped the solid wall. “Good! Ah well, lets go surprise them with a wee present up along the walls.”
Casca caught him by the arm. “What is it?”
“Ah, Cas! Sorry to keep ye on tenterhooks. Yon Turks are digging underneath the walls and hope to bring them down with a bloody great crash. Their guns haven’t done so yet but they hope to succeed by sapping. We’ve intercepted a few already, but we need to know where new ones are, and listening is one way. We know where they are we’ll counter dig from above and drop in on the buggers.”
Casca had frequently witnessed the effects of sapping and heard of many occasions where he had been either attacking or defending, but he’d never actually seen a sap. His years as a slave in the copper mines of Greece had put him off a life underground and he left such work to those best suited to it. Grant was an engineer and it was his line of work. He had to intercept the Turkish saps or the walls would be undermined and then that would be it.
“Want to see where we’re digging?” Grant asked, a wicked smile on his lips.
Casca’s first impulse was to tell Grant to go away, but the Scot was being friendly and Casca supposed it wouldn’t hurt. He shrugged and went with the three others down a cobbled street to an intersection. Here, on the other side of the street, was Grant’s workshop. Blacksmiths were hammering away making tools and flames shot up as something was put into the furnaces again.
Grant nodded to the north. “Up there near the Blachernae Palace is where they’ve tried to dig in but we found that one and burned the bastards out last week. They were good miners too, unlike the normal Turkish workers. I think they were Serbs. There are some damned good Serbian miners and this lot were bloody good, but we killed them.”
Casca shuddered. Memories of the fall-in whilst he was underground filled his mind for a moment. Poor bastards! “Why up there?” Casca queried. “Surely it’d be better to dig down here where the walls have been weakened by the bombardment.”
Grant grinned. “Ye’re aware of how the walls are built? Well, all along the walls from the south to the Blachernae it’s two walls and the Foss. But at the Blachernae it changes to just the one wall and it bulges out. Okay, its higher ground and harder to get at from the ground, but there its perfect to dig, whereas down here it’s softer and prone to flooding from the Foss. They can’t get at us under the Foss!” He laughed aloud, his head thrown back.
Casca grinned. “So they’re trying near the Palace then?”
“Aye! Right by the Caligarian Gate. I’ve got a lovely surprise too, come see!”
Casca was caught up in the engineer’s enthusiasm and accompanied him with two Greek engineers, given to him by Lucas Notaras the Megadux, one of Constantine’s high officials. The four walked along the streets that ran parallel to the walls northwards, climbing as they approached the Blachernae quarter. Originally outside the walls, the quarter had been incorporated a few hundred years later. Casca recalled Alexius I commencing the building of the palace there to supersede the old Imperial Palace down by the Hippodrome, and the palace walls actually formed the outside defences. It was an obvious weak spot and had received a lot of attention from the Turkish cannons but so far had held.
The Caligarian Gate was further around from the palace where the land began to slope down towards the Golden Horn. They paused a moment to survey the water glittering below, the Christian ships huddled close to the walls and the Turkish ones over by the far shore. Casca glanced to the left and saw where the enemy had constructed a wooden bridge spanning the narrowing banks so that Mehmet could bring troops over in a hurry if he needed to, rather than detour a few miles to the next bridge.
Grant shook his head and sighed before leading the others down to the gate. More troops were here, mercenaries from Genoa under their captains the Bocchiardi brothers who had, as a result of the shame they felt towards their own government not lifting a finger to help, equipped and hired these men themselves. They greeted the arrivals and resumed their vigil, watching for any attack.
A huge pit yawned open a few yards back from the approaches to the gate and Casca peered down into the Stygian depths and was surprised to see flickering flames from torches and vague shapes moving about. He looked up at Grant who nodded.
“Aye this is where we’re digging down to get at these bastards,” Grant said, a hard edge to his voice. “And when we get to their sap we’ll drown the rats!”
“Drown?”
“Aye! I’ve got a reservoir over there,” he pointed at a large stone wall by the roadside, “and we’ll send the bloody lot down this pit. They’ll have nae chance!”
Casca grimaced and straightened. “I wouldn’t have your job for anything,” he said. “I’d rather chance it up on the walls.”
Grant laughed and slapped the mercenary on the back. “That’s what most of ye say! Well, death by drowning or death by cannon, what’s the difference?”
Shouting from the ramparts interrupted their conversation. A guard turned and called down to an officer, one of the Bocchiardis who was standing by the Gate. “Sir! Sir! The Turks are building a great tower down by the Lychus Valley! Look!”
The Genoan scrambled up the stone steps and Casca followed, close behind came Grant as well. Casca reached the top and leaned on the ramparts and craned his head to the left, peering along the undulating line of the wall as it tumbled downhill into the distance. He could see the ruined walls better here as he was on a projecting salient and was shocked at the ruin, but was even more shocked at the sight of a huge tower being assembled close to the walls. Were the Turks about to try to get over the walls? Casca cursed and pushed himself away from the battlemented edge.
“I’ve got to get back, this needs my presence back down there!”
Grant nodded and waved him off. “Good luck!”
“We’ll all need that!” Casca yelled as he bounded down the steps and raced off towards the Blachernae Palace and then round it so to descend into the Lychus Valley. His heart pounded as he raced southwards. Was this the big attack?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EMISSARY
The tower was immense, standing higher than the top of those ramparts that still remained in one piece. It stood like a brooding giant close to the Foss, swarms of Turks and their European vassals massed around it and up the spider-like structure, affixing protective material to the wooden skeleton.
Casca, chest heaving after his exertions, stood peering over the edge of the roughly made timber palisade that made up the defences along the Mesoteichion, and judged these protective items to be skins or hides from animals, probably bulls or something of that order. Carbone stood alongside, his face reflecting the anxiety they all felt. “What now?” he asked.
Casca shrugged, pointing to the ditch that still stood before it. “They can’t roll that thing across until it’s filled in properly. Look, it must weigh a heck of a lot and if the land is uneven it’ll jam or fall over.”
Carbone nodded. “I think I shall fetch Giustianini and let him see for himself. Keep an eye on things here and send a runner to our headquarters if anything happens. I won’t be long, hopefully.”
Casca nodded and clenched his fists. The Turks were certainly trying their damn hardest to get in. So far they’d stopped everything in the six weeks the siege had gone on for but he didn’t know just how much longer they’d be able to hold out. Food was low, morale shaky, the walls crumbling, the allies at each others’ throats, nobody coming to their aid and the Golden Horn had fallen. It was a testimony to the brilliance of Roman engineering that the city had held out, but with only eight thousand against twelve times that number, surely it was a matter of time before the inevitable happened.
Or was there some divine power still watching over them, as many Greeks insisted? Casca felt a tightness in his chest as he allowed the worst case scenario play on his mind; the last vestige of his past heritage was here, and when this went there would be no more Roman Empire. It had been the one constant that continued in all his fourteen centuries of his unnatural life. How would he feel if it were no more?
He thumped the palisade and pushed the thought from his mind. He turned to see Rafael close by and beckoned him alongside. The Italian trotted over, his intelligent face strained with the tiredness they all felt. “Si, sergente?
“That tower will have to go. Once it’s finished they’ll be able to stand above us and shoot crossbows or whatever they have down on us. And if they fill that ditch in they’ll wheel it over here and we won’t be able to stop them getting onto the ramparts.”
“We burn it?”
“Either that or something,” Casca agreed. “It’ll be dark in a few hours and we can use the dark to do no good. We’ve used the dark to our advantage before, remember. How many kegs of powder do we have handy?”
“Powder for the guns?” Rafael’s eyes went wide. “We have perhaps a dozen. You intend throwing them at it?”
“No, something a damn sight sneakier” Casca grinned. “Go to our headquarters and ask captain Carbone if we can have ten casks to blow that tower to Allah.”
Rafael grinned and ran off, leaving Casca to watch the enemy begin filling in the ditch with masonry, stones, earth and brushwood. The Turks were definitely going to try to make a road crossing for the tower. Shouting at his men to use their crossbows, Casca tried to stop or delay the building work. Some of the Ottomans were hit but many were protected by the tower, throwing in the filling from behind the great construction.
Night came swiftly and it was with some relief that the Turkish gunners concentrated elsewhere, not wanting to hit their own tower in the dark. Torches flickered from the enemy picket lines and on the tower as guards patrolled it ceaselessly. They didn’t want any Greek sneaking up and setting fire to it. No matter, any flame would be spotted and the culprit set upon immediately.
Casca knew this which was why he had thought of the gun powder. He’d managed to convince Giustianini of the need for ten of the precious casks, pointing out that they would be no damned good if the Turks captured the walls. The tower had to go. Casca assembled a motley crew made up of Greeks and Genoese - once again - ten of whom held the casks and another ten were there as protection. They all dressed in black or as dark as they could, and gathered by a postern gate close to the shattered tower that had been brought down a week or so ago.
Thanks to the torches on the barricades, the walls and the Turkish picket lines, the gate was shrouded in darkness and the twenty-one men sneaked out, Casca in the lead, sword clutched tightly in his right fist. The ten guards all had crossbows, each one cocked and ready and a bolt in their belts ready to be fitted in an instant. The cask carriers had swords in their belts and hoped that there would be no need for them. Casca, besides his sword, had a flint and match, the latter soaked in oil, contained in a waterproof bag swinging from his belt.
The tower loomed above them like some ugly monstrous nightmare, and they could clearly hear the Ottoman guards walking about its various platforms within the hide protected interior. The occasional guttural voice came floating out across the night air, but nothing indicated suspicion from the Turks.
The ground was treacherous with loose rocks, stones and shattered masonry, and the remains of previous palisades that had been torn down by the attackers during the various assaults that had taken place over the past few weeks. The unmistakable stench of rotting corpses came to them as well, indicative of some unfortunate who hadn’t been buried and lay somewhere underneath the rubble close by.
They reached the Foss and slowly crawled across until they came to the newly filled in section the Turks had put down that day and Casca motioned for the men to pile the casks amongst the fillings there. The edge of the tower was no more than five feet away and the clumping of iron shod boots could be clearly heard. A few times they froze as the footsteps neared, then they relaxed as the sound moved away.
