The recruits ran the boundary of the training ground twice every morning before the sun was over the hills, and by the third lap the dust was coming up behind the file. The barracks stood half built between Castle Clermont and Glarentza, and the carpenters on the roof of the long dormitory had started with the light, so that the hammering carried across the field and kept a rough time for the running. Marcus ran at the head of the file. He was the youngest man in it and the fastest, and he had opened five paces on the man behind him when they came round the east turn, where the field ran up against the wattle fence of the range.
A crack went off beyond the fence, and a lump of white smoke stood up over it and hung in the still air. Marcus checked his stride and looked.
"You hear that?" Alexios said at his shoulder.
"Hard to miss," Marcus replied between breaths.
There was a second crack before either of them could say more, and the smoke of it drifted along the fence toward them. The file behind slowed and bunched and then stopped altogether, thirty men standing in the dust with their hands on their hips and their faces turned to the fence.
Captain Andreas came across from the barracks gate at a walk and told them that nobody had given the order to halt and that they had four laps to finish before they ate.
"Captain, what is that?" Marcus said.
Andreas looked at the fence and back at them. "The Despot's business. Run."
They ran, and every lap their heads turned at the east end.
"Tubes," one of the hill men said behind Marcus, when they had breath for it. "They throw lead with fire, I've heard."
"They'll not give those to us," the man behind him said.
"If the Despot wills it they will," Marcus said, and put his head down and opened the five paces again.
Constantine came through the gate of the barracks a little after the recruits had gone in to eat. The gate was two posts and a lintel with no doors hung on it yet, the kitchen at the far end of the yard had its chimney up and no roof over it, and the whole place smelled of cut pine. George Sphrantzes met him inside with a tablet under his arm.
"The captains are at the racks, Despot, as you asked."
In the middle of the yard three ranks of men were on their hands and toes in the dirt, pressing themselves up and letting themselves down on the count of a sergeant who walked along the front rank, and beyond them another file was finishing its laps. The morning exercise had been daily since the barracks opened. The officers ran it themselves, each with his own company. The men were paid by the month and kept the year round, and what Constantine wanted out of the yard was a force that did not go home at the harvest and could stand in the open in front of Turks or Venetians or whoever came. He stood at the edge of it and counted the front rank, and got thirty-one, and one man flat on his belly who did not come up again until the sergeant put a boot under his ribs.
When the count was done the companies formed on the yard, and he walked the front of them. He stopped at a recruit in the second company, a man with a shaved head who had come up off the dirt on every count with his arms steady, and had him step out, and put a small silver token in his hand.
"Your dedication has not gone unnoticed," Constantine said.
The recruit looked at the token and closed his hand on it and stepped back into his rank. Constantine said a few words to the companies after that, about the pike and the drill and what he wanted them to be by the spring, and kept it short, and the sergeants marched them off to their bread.
After the men had gone to their bread Constantine turned to the captains. The sun was still low enough to lay their shadows across the yard, and it showed the lines in their faces, most of them from hard campaigns. Andreas stood among them, a veteran captain with a jagged scar that ran from his temple to his jawline, his arms folded.
"Captains," Constantine said. "We are at a turning. We adapt, or we are finished."
He motioned toward the pikes, which stood in a rack against the wall of the yard, twice the length of a spear, with a hand of iron on the end of each and the ash still pale where the bark had been taken off.
"We will adopt a new formation. Men in tight ranks, pikes leveled, a barrier against anything that advances on it."
There was a murmur among the captains. Andreas looked at the rack.
"My Despot. Our soldiers are accustomed to the sword and shield, to the spear and bow. These poles are unwieldy. In the heat of battle they may hinder more than help."
"A wall of pikes is an obstacle that neither horse nor man breaks easily," Constantine said.
Andreas shifted his weight and the leather of his coat creaked. "With respect, Despot, I have stood on fields where nothing holds. Orders go nowhere and men fall back on instinct. Asking them to keep such a formation is a gamble."
A silence settled over the group. Across the yard a cart of new shafts was being unloaded at the far rack, and the captains watched that while they waited for the Despot to answer.
"I do not deny the risk," Constantine said. "I am asking for a line that moves as one and holds when the horse come in."
"I fought beside my father when I was scarcely more than a boy," Andreas said. "He spoke of the old phalanxes, of men who trusted each other. Those days are long past."
"The days are past, but trust and discipline can be drilled back into men."
Andreas's eyes went back to the pikes, and his fingers went to the scar. "Training men to fight in such a manner will not be easy. It will take time, and patience."
"Then it is yours to lead, Captain. Will you take it?"
Andreas gave a short nod. "Very well. I will train the men. But if they stab themselves before the enemy gets the chance, the fault is yours."
There was laughter among the captains, and when it had gone Constantine said, "Accepted. And should they stand firm, the honor will be yours."
When the group had dispersed to its tasks Andreas lingered by the pikes. He took one out of the rack and hefted it, found the weight of it, and ran a thumb along the grain of the wood.
"Perhaps not so unwieldy after all," he said.
George had come across the yard behind him. "I never took you for a man to take up new methods so readily."
"I am not as stubborn as you think. If this gives our men a fighting chance, I will see it done."
"The Despot thought you would refuse."
"Experience is hard won, and it comes at a price." Andreas put the pike back in the rack butt first. "Let us hope this pays its due."
The first squad was coming across the yard toward them, a dozen recruits with their bread still in their hands. Andreas went out to meet them.
"Listen. These are not toys for poking haystacks. Treat them well and they might save your lives. Two men to a pike. Pick them up by the middle."
Constantine watched from a distance while the first pair got a pike out of the rack and nearly took a man's eye out with the butt of it, and Andreas said something short to them that did not carry, and they tried again.
"Speaking of weapons," George said, "I believe it is time you saw the Pyrvelos (1)."
"I have been eager to see them in action," Constantine said. "Let us proceed."
They went further into the camp to the ground set aside for testing the firearms. It was clear of bystanders, with targets set up at the far end for the demonstration. Two soldiers wheeled over a small cart and took the cloth off a row of long firearms, rough pieces that had been more than a year in the making, slow and costly, and were only now beginning to show promise. Two more stepped forward with a Pyrvelos each.
"We have had difficulties," George said, as the two men made ready. "Misfires, mostly from badly kept flint or embers left in the barrel."
The first soldier fired, and the crack went across the range and came back off the barracks wall, and the smoke sat in front of him. He began reloading while the second soldier took aim, and the second shot went off as sharp as the first.
"They can manage two shots in the time it takes to count to sixty," George said. "That comes from the paper cartridge, from your sketch, Despot. One of my craftsmen then put the shot in with the powder, so that the whole charge goes down in one."
The first soldier ran a damp cloth down his barrel before he loaded again.
"Loading and firing at that pace raises the risk of the charge going off early," George went on. "A pass with the cloth after each shot clears the embers, but in the heat of battle there is no time for it."
Constantine watched the soldiers reload. "A handful of Pyrvelos will not suffice. We must equip an entire company, no fewer than a hundred, before they can turn a battle."
George sighed. "A hundred? At our present pace we may have thirty by the year's end. Crafting them is slow and costly."
"Then we must find ways to speed it," Constantine said. "More artisans, or a simpler pattern."
"We will try every way of it, Despot."
The two soldiers had fired again and were loading, one ramming while the other took aim.
"Now," Constantine said, looking back toward the training field, "suppose our firemen stood in ranks. The front rank fires and steps back to reload while the second comes forward and fires, and then the third behind it. The enemy is never out from under the shot."
"It would take the hurry out of the reloading," George said. "Each rank would have its count."
"Then let us begin training them in this new dance of war."
George wrote on his tablet, and they walked on down the range past the handcart, where the two soldiers were wiping down their pieces and laying them back under the cloth.
"As for the cannon, my Despot, sixteen pieces are ready. Six are mounted on the Kyrenia, two on the new trade ship you purchased, and eight are here at Clermont."
He led Constantine further out along the range, where a crew was loading one of the cannon. The shot going in was grape, a cluster of small balls tied up in canvas, in place of the ball.
"This was another of your ideas, Despot," George said. "It took time. The first attempts burst a cannon outright. We had to strengthen the canvas several times before it held."
The cannon fired and the wooden target went to splinters. "That is what we needed," Constantine said. "It will tear through cavalry or infantry alike."
"It is ready for battle."
The crew were swabbing the gun out behind them, and the smoke went off along the range and thinned over the boards. Constantine's mind went to the Hexamilion, the wall across the Isthmus of Corinth, which was the Morea's whole defense on the land side and a long road east from where he stood. "Some of these cannon go to the Hexamilion without delay," he said. "The defenses there must be strengthened."
"Thomas has pleaded for reinforcements," George said. "Theodore seems reluctant to act."
"I am aware of Theodore's hesitations. If he continues to delay we shall take matters into our own hands. The wall cannot be left undefended."
George wrote it down, and then, still writing, said, "There is one more matter, Despot. The local men have come forward in numbers. Beyond the four hundred we planned, another two hundred wish to enlist."
"Such eagerness is not to be wasted," Constantine said. "I set four hundred for the pay. We will take the extra men. I will speak with Petros about the money. And see that we make pikes enough to arm a militia at need. We may have to call on the townsmen and the villages at a moment's notice."
"I will begin the enlistment tomorrow, Despot."
They walked back through the fence together, where the first squad had got six pikes level at last and Andreas was walking down the front of them with his hand on each shaft in turn.
(1) Pyrvelos (Greek: Πύρβελος)
The Pyrvelos was a groundbreaking musket developed in the mid-15th century within the Roman Despotate of Morea under Despot Constantine Palaiologos. As one of the earliest firearms equipped with a flintlock mechanism, it marked a significant advancement over the existing hand cannons of the time. The flintlock design improved firing reliability and reduced misfires, enabling soldiers to discharge rounds more rapidly and with greater confidence during combat.
The introduction of the Pyrvelos revolutionized medieval warfare by enhancing the effectiveness of infantry units against traditional cavalry and armored opponents. Its capacity to deliver sustained volleys made it a formidable weapon on the battlefield, contributing to a shift in military tactics from close-quarter combat to ranged engagements. The widespread adoption of the Pyrvelos is often credited with altering the balance of power in Europe and laying the groundwork for future advancements in firearm technology.