On the city’s sea-bound North side was the Golden Horn, one of the world’s greatest natural harbours, and the city’s jewel and gateway to the world’s trade, but recently closed to all sea-bound traffic by a great chain or ‘boom’ across its gaping mouth. On the city’s water-bound East and South sides, the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara respectively had already changed their colours to those dictated by the Ottoman fleet. The city was surrounded on all sides.
The city’s legendary defences would normally have inspired terror in the hearts and minds of any enemy imprudently considering an opportunistic attack. The city was considered impregnable and countless attempts over the last one thousand years from Arabs to Seltzouk Turks to scale its walls and capture its riches had failed.
The fall of 1204 A.D. to the crusaders was a blip, an aberration, and not the result of a proper siege. The crusader ships bound for the ‘Holy Land’ would not even had entered the waters of the Aegean let alone approach the city had it not been for the invitation and warm welcome into the city as a result of rivalry for the throne. Easy spoils were impossible to resist.
On my way to the city I had come across masses of people fleeing the besieged city and stopped to talk to them. It was like pulling teeth. It was like trying to talk to the walking dead, sporting the fashionable look of the lost souls of Hades. It was eight weeks now since the siege had begun.
The Ottoman blockade of Constantinople now in place had one consequence, beneficial in one sense, sad in another. It stopped any more people from leaving the city. There were now more defenders, but that meant that there were also more people at risk of losing their lives not just defending the city, but in the aftermath of its fall.
The mass exodus from Constantinople had begun months ago as rumours were swirling that the Ottoman army was approaching the city on all sides. Many were in no mood to wait and get caught naked in the middle of that particular carnage.
A caravan of people with their few precious belongings stretched for miles from the city and heading west, as far away from the advancing Ottoman armies and the centre of the Ottoman Empire as they could.
It was a sad spectacle. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked around. All forlorn faces stared dead ahead with the fear of death in their eyes. Their eyes betrayed the fact that they had witnessed death too. Luck was with them as it had not rained for weeks and progress was easier through the rough terrain.
The advancing Ottoman armies simply watched, indifferent to this sad human column. It was the Sultan’s orders that dictated that they should be left undisturbed. Nobody was to be harmed or looted; mostly that was because there was nothing worth taking there.
The city was the prize. No distractions would let them deviate from this single purpose. And there was another reason. The more people left the city the fewer would be there to defend it. Of course, depending on what those people were carrying, the less would be the loot when the city fell. So the Ottomans would stop and check people’s belongings, but would otherwise leave them in peace with no harm or physical violence befalling them.
The Ottoman’s indifference to this mass of rudderless human specimens was not enough incentive to those still in the city to flout their sense of duty and their posts and flee. The exodus declined to a mere trickle and then it abruptly ceased.
The air was heavy and it was difficult to breathe. But then my nostrils protested and flared up; the culprit was a putrid smell hanging in the air, the stink of rotting flesh, the leftovers of the most recent battle.
The two sides had engaged and had drawn blood. The city still seemed from afar to have remained untouched. The Ottomans could taste blood and were taking small bites and retreating, wearing down the city’s defenders to break their spirit.
Inside the city they knew their days were numbered. They resorted to prayer to a God that, surely, would not desert them in their dourest hour. But even as they prayed and hoped for salvation, they felt the flesh falling away, until for some only their bones were left and unable to stand on their own two feet and eaten away by hunger, they came crashing down, sinking into the sand and becoming one with their beloved soil.
Maybe those were the lucky ones, the ones not to have to suffer the ravishing and humiliation of the rape of the city or their imprisonment away from their homes. The city’s defenders felt as if a bird of prey kept lunging at them, biting chunks off them. They were waiting for the final assault that would spell their doom, the end of one thousand years of glorious history and the dawn of a new chapter for the East.
God, today though, was nowhere to be found. God forgot or decided not to show up for work on this inauspicious day and to take a long-overdue and well-deserved rest from the exciting entertainment of watching people’s squabbles. And yet the defenders prayed. They prayed that God did not crave their company just yet.
I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve. The humid air was weighing me down. I felt as if I was going to melt; clothes, flesh, bones, horse and all, and seep into the ground. My horse was suffering too. I could feel it through her fur that hang limp from her glorious form. But she would not fail me. She never had before.
I had a mission to complete. History would not be forgiving if I failed. I made a final push towards the city careful to avoid the Ottoman blockade. The darkness offered me good cover. It had been a long time since I last saw the Emperor and I wondered how I would be received, in view of past conflicts between the Order of Vlacharnae and successive Imperial dynasties. I ached for a warm welcome.
The horse sensed my urgency and accelerated at my command with no further prodding. I saw the Western Gates growing ever closer and I was blinded at times by the reflection of the moonlight on the metal that gleamed and led my way like a beacon. Upon reaching the towering Western Gate complex, I suddenly felt tiny and overwhelmed by the walls rising high above me.
I looked up for signs of the guards on the posts above the gates. Nothing, not even the normal gleam of light emanating from a torch. I had to gain entry to the city. I called for the gates to open. But the gates remained steadfastly closed and the city shut to me; so close and yet so far out of reach. I did not want to camp outside for the night and wait till morning. I had to find another way in.
Then I suddenly caught a glimpse of a faint light coming from some point near the walls at ground level. Was it friend or foe? I decided to take a chance. I reluctantly went closer. I nearly missed the shadow silhouetted against the walls and almost merging with the shadows around it.
But then I smelled its foul breath and its radiating warmth hit me like a slap even in the heat around me. I could just about make out the silhouette of a person. I wondered whether it was an illusion, a play of the shadows thrown by the moonlight. I blinked, in case my eyes were deceiving me.
Yet there it was; a hooded figure was standing in front of me. I tried to say something. I thought I said something, but as my ears registered nothing, I soon realised that it was all in my head and any words I wanted to say died on my lips, my vocal chords shuddering to a grinding halt; or had the hooded figure magically removed them?
And then, as suddenly as I saw the figure, a voice came out of that dark blotch against the sky blocking my way.
‘My name is Ioannis. We have been expecting you. His Majesty has sent me to escort you to the palace. Please, follow me.’
I could not see his face and did not know whether I could trust him, but his voice had authority and, involuntarily, I instantly became his slave and would follow him anywhere like a dutiful lamb. I was tired from my long journey and following this stranger seemed an attractive and easy option to my predicament of how to enter the city.