Roman camp, Selymbria
Rainwater dripped into a bowl at the tent pole. Constantine stood over the map without his gloves. Charcoal smeared his fingers. Outside, the camp was in motion, with teams, tools, and men calling out loads as barrels were shifted into the shade.
George Sphrantzes held a wax tablet near the lamp and checked the scratched tallies.
"We've enough for a week," he said finally. "A week of hard firing, anyway, if we're disciplined about it. Andreas isn't going to like the number, but I'd rather tell him now than after we've burned through half of it on the first day."
Constantine ran a nail along the road west. "And Skopje?"
"Niketas has the first barrels packed. They left the day the letter was written — or so he claims; you know Niketas, he wouldn't admit to a delay if the wagons were still in his yard. Three weeks, if the roads hold. Four if the weather turns." George turned the tablet and showed the cleaner tallies on the back. "He says the new powder is finer. Less grit, less waste. That's his claim, at least."
"A few weeks," Constantine repeated. He looked to the corner where the powder chests sat under a tarp, roped down against the damp. "How many barrels?"
"Two hundred and fifty in the first convoy. He thinks he can keep that pace if production holds. He's using the village boys and the old men for the scraping and the donkey work, and keeping the strong ones back for the grinding." George scratched at a mark that had smudged.
Constantine touched the raw patch on his palm. "This won't last long."
"It's more than we had last month," George said."I've already told the gunners: every shot logged, every charge weighed out to the ounce. If Andreas gives you trouble about it, send him to me. I'll walk him through the numbers until he finds something else to want."
Wind shoved the tent wall inward and the lamp flame bent. A laugh sounded outside and died under the noise of the camp.
Andreas came in, ducking the beam. There was ash on his sleeve. He set his helmet on the table, metal hitting wood once, and didn't sit.
"News from the north." He pulled a folded scrap from his belt, creased and sweat-stained from the courier's ride. "Aristos's vanguard reached our pickets at first light. The man had been on his horse since some time yesterday afternoon, by the look of him. Didymoteicho is ours."
Constantine took the note and read it by the lamp.
"He ringed the hill and stopped the sorties first thing," Andreas went on while Constantine read. "Then he ran the Drakos up within sight of the walls and fired a few rounds, more for the noise than anything. After that he waited. Aristos writes that the gates opened on the fourth day. Our losses were light."
Constantine set the paper down and pressed it flat under his palm, and for a moment he only breathed out. "Good. That's about as well as it could have gone."
"He's becoming an asset," Andreas said, watching Constantine's face for how the news landed. "Not just as a sword. He reads ground. You can hand him a position and come back a week later and he'll have it organised, and the locals won't hate him any worse than they did the day he arrived, which is the part most of our captains don't manage."
George made a small sound in his throat and looked at the map again. His stylus resumed its scratching.
Constantine slid the scrap toward Andreas. "You chose well. He's a loyal and capable man."
"A loyal and pious man," Andreas said.
Constantine pointed to the map. "With Didymoteicho taken, the route behind us is secured. When Niketas' wagons come down from Skopje, they come through under our control the whole way."
"George," Andreas said, "you're still counting powder in your sleep?"
George looked up, and a small sour smile came and went. "Somebody has to. If I don't, you'll have to, and you've got a worse head for it than I do."
Andreas huffed a half-laugh, then turned to Constantine, tipping his head toward the far side of the camp where the Serbian fires showed through the morning haze. "Grgur caught me outside. His father's sending another thousand. He'll come and tell you himself at some point today, but he wanted me to get word ahead of him."
George turned his head. "Your father-in-law is putting a lot into this," he said, voice flat. "He'll want payment when the banners are put away. Men don't march to Constantinople for nothing."
Constantine pulled on his gloves. "We take the City first," he said. "Then we deal with any demands."
A shadow crossed the tent flap and a courier stepped in, breath showing in the cold air.
"Majesty," he said, dropping to one knee. He rose when Constantine lifted a hand. "Kyreneia is in harbor. One of Laskaris's officers is here. He asks to see you at once."
George's stylus stopped. Andreas picked up his helmet again.
Constantine nodded once. "Bring him to the citadel hall. Now."
They stepped out into the grey light. The camp ran on a tight rhythm: men hauling fascines, barrels rolled under guard, surgeons' tents open for air. The sea smell moved through the lanes, and gulls wheeled above the harbor mouth.
In Selymbria itself the streets were wet and reeking of fish, a donkey cart piled with firewood clopping past them, and a child stepped aside at the sight of Constantine's cloak. Guards at the inner gate watched the crowd over the butts of their spears.
The hall was clean but still damp from the night's rain, with the inkwells in a row where George's clerks had left them and the brazier low enough that the smoke tasted of bad resin.
Nestor Gregoras stood by the far wall, his cloak too clean for a man who'd just come in from Lampsacus and his boots recently wiped. He held the sealed packet with both hands at about the height of his belt, as if someone had told him exactly how to do it, and when they came in he bowed low. "Basileus."
Constantine motioned him closer. "Rise. You made good time. Now speak."
"The fleet holds the strait, Basileus," he said. The words came out a touch fast, then he steadied. "We've established a base at Lampsacus. There's water, and the rise above the shore is fit for the guns. Only scouts have come near, small parties. They watch for an hour or two and then they pull back."
He hesitated, then, "There are rumours as well."
George looked up from the map. "What rumours?"
"Passing traders," Nestor said. "Small craft that keep to the coast. They say men are gathering in Anatolia, farther inland. Not here yet. They say calls have gone out, and more men are being drawn toward Bursa."
"And you believe traders?" Andreas asked.
"Not on their own, general. But we keep a list of what we've heard and from whom, and when the lines begin to match without anyone being told to match them, I think it counts for something."
Constantine leaned on the table. "Gallipoli," he said. "How many in the garrison?"
Nestor hesitated. "Thousands."
"Based on what?" Constantine asked.
"We watched at dusk," Nestor said. "Too many fires for a small garrison. Watch-calls from more than one post. Boat traffic through the night. Tents visible from the Katarina when the air cleared. It's an estimate."
George gave a small nod. He didn't like the number, but he accepted how Nestor reached it.
Constantine's gaze stayed on Nestor's face. "Any word of my brother—anything since he left you for Galata?"
Nestor's eyes dropped to the seal on the packet and then came back up.
"None, Basileus. He transferred to a Gattilusio galley after Gallipoli and rowed for Galata. No courier has returned to Lampsacus yet."
Andreas's hand closed around his helmet strap until the leather squeaked. "I don't like this," he said.
Constantine didn't answer him at once. He broke the seal on Laskaris's packet, opened it, and scanned the lines quickly. The ink had bled in places. He folded it again and slid it under his palm.
"You've done well," he told Nestor. "Eat something, dry your boots, then back to Kyreneia. Wait for new orders there."
Nestor bowed again. Relief showed in the way his shoulders loosened. He backed out and left. The door shut behind him. George moved at once, pulled the map case closer, and opened it with both hands. The leather was stiff. Andreas stood by the window slit and watched the harbor masts moving with the swell.
"So." George set his fingertip on the narrow line of the straits, then drew it slowly north. "If the rumour holds, and there are men gathering inland, they'll want to cross at some point. We can hold the line tight, or we can pull ships east to feed the siege, but not both at full strength. Not with what we've got in the water now." He let his hand rest. "Or we could go take Gallipoli outright. Lock the crossing on land, not just in the water. Then march on the City without one eye on what's behind us."
Andreas turned from the window. "We can't plan on trader rumors," he said. "It might be true, it might be half true. Either way, we need the fleet for the siege. While we sit, Halil moves food and timber and puts men where he wants them. He'll also have time to work on Galata."
Constantine nodded once. He hadn't slept well; it showed around the eyes.
"I've been thinking the same," he said. "Every day we circle Gallipoli is a day the Podestà counts his options. If he smells weakness, he'll sell it to whoever brings silver."
George's finger slid up the map toward the Golden Horn. He hesitated, then spoke as if testing the taste of the idea. "The siege will last a long time. Clearing every outside threat before we commit has a logic. But Galata could be vital too." His hand hovered over the sea walls. "We could try what the Latins did."
Andreas's face went tight. "Storm the sea walls? Inside the Horn?" He shook his head once. "They're lower walls, yes — I'll grant you that. But we don't have enough ships to land men in weight and keep them alive once they're on the ladders. It becomes a slaughter in an hour. The Latins were lucky, and they had the City cracked from inside."
Constantine looked from the wall line on the map to the window.
"Nobody's committing to anything yet," he said. "First we look at the walls — properly, up close, not from a map in a room. If there's a soft place, we'll see it. If there isn't, we'll know that too." He tapped the table once with the side of his finger. "And if we want more ships, they're in Galata. Katarina's guns and Kyreneia's together could do something no Latin fleet ever had. I'm not saying it's the plan. I'm saying it's not crazy. But I want to see the walls first."
George's eyebrows rose. "And the Podestà hands over his ships just because we ask nicely?"
"We try asking first." Constantine's mouth tightened. "If we can't, we take them. He's good at weighing things up, if he wants his colony still standing a year from now, he'll pick the side that's going to be here."
A shout came up from the yard, teamsters arguing, and a barrel hit stone with a dull thud. The brazier smoke shifted and stung Constantine's nose.
Andreas looked from Constantine to George. "And Thomas?" he asked. "We have nothing from him. You think he stayed in Galata?"
George didn't answer. His gaze stayed on the map, on the narrow strip of water between Galata and the City.
Constantine stood silent long enough to hear the harbor through the slit—rope creaking, water knocking at a hull.
"I don't know," he said at last.
"Then we get eyes," George said. "Send Kyreneia to Galata. Let her count the tower, the men, the ships. Find Thomas." He paused. "I could go myself."
Constantine shook his head. "You stay," he said, and the words came out as an order. "I need you here. Send Kyreneia alone. Let her find what she can and come back fast."
Andreas leaned over the map, finger on the road east. "And we march toward the City while she sails."
"Yes, we march," Constantine said. "Draft the orders now. Kyreneia to Galata: inspect, listen, count. If the colony's gates close, she waits offshore and comes back with that news."
George took paper and ink and wrote the orders. Wax melted at the brazier. Constantine sealed it.
At first light, Kyreneia left the harbor. The oars pulled steadily. Men on the quay watched until she cleared the breakwater and was gone. The wind carried tar smell and wet rope, and the sea swallowed the sound of her strokes.
Four days later, they marched along the Marmara road. The column moved in a long file—ox teams with the Drakos, mules, then infantry. A cart wheel squealed until a teamster greased the axle with tallow. Constantine rode with George beside him, both hunched against the salt wind. The sea was on their right, grey and choppy. Fishermen stepped back from the track as the army passed, nets bundled in their arms.
George looked ahead. "It's been a long time since I've been in the City," he said. His breath showed and vanished. "I think about it more often than I thought I would. I missed it."
Constantine kept his eyes on the road, then looked ahead where the first stone shapes rose out of the haze. "So have I," he said. The words caught in his chest.
The Theodosian walls showed in full a mile later, the land lifting just enough to give them the line—thick stone, towers stepping along it, the scars of old repairs dark in places. The sight made his reins hand close hard, leather biting into the glove seam, and for a beat a picture from another life pushed up through the smell of salt and horse: a man named Constantine dying on those stones with a sword in his hand.
Now he was here to bring cannon to them.
He eased his grip on the reins until the horse stopped fighting the bit. The column moved behind him, steady and loud with wheels and iron.
The wall didn't move.