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  Few soldiers, even military geniuses like Henry V or his brother the Duke of Bedford, understood about guns. They thought of them as huge, unwieldy, expensive, noisy, smelly and immobile encumbrances. In particular the nobles who commanded the armies disliked them. A knight in armour expected to be faced by another knight in armour, lance or sword in hand, with victory going to the one with greater strength and skill. And when that victory was assured, he expected the certainty of a rich ransom from the vanquished foe. No knight would kill a wealthy opponent if it could be avoided, and no knight, in all the glory of mounted panoply, could be brought down by a peasant with a spear, if he knew his business. On those simple premises had an entire aristocracy been created.

  In England the knights had even opposed the use of the longbow, until they had discovered it would enable them to win battles at great odds and earn them the reputation of being the most formidable soldiers in Europe. They had reconciled themselves to the change in their status; the longbow meant that the charging knight was no longer indestructible, but could be picked out of his saddle like a ripe apple from a low branch. Expert use of the new weapon demanded hours, years, of practice, and it was an art confined to the English and Welsh yeomen, who at least knew their place and touched their caps to their betters.

  Artillerists might be yeomen, but their weapon was hardly skilled. It killed, blindly and indiscriminately, hurling huge stone balls through the air with utter carelessness. It was a weapon of the devil.

  John Hawkwood was not enough of a theologian to argue the last point. But as he had been born into a profession, however unpopular, he had made the best of it. He was that type of man, and had brought up his sons and daughter to hold the same points of view. He had an inquiring mind. His father had been a Lollard, a follower of John Wycliffe, who held that God belonged to humanity and not merely to a handful of priests. Anthony Hawkwood the elder had had the sense to keep his opinions to himself; heresy could take a man to the stake and several minutes of agony before death. But he had bequeathed many of his views to his son, less on religion than on learning. John Hawkwood could read and write, Latin as well as English. This art, too, he had imparted to his sons, with the result that they had found it easy enough to learn passable Italian during the long voyage through the Mediterranean.

  But, above all, John Hawkwood had thought about his profession and the tools of his trade. Cannon were everything that outraged nobility claimed…at the moment. But they also encompassed the most destructive power ever to appear on earth. If that power could be harnessed, aimed, and made more mobile, then the general that commanded it would rule the earth.

  He had sought, as a young man, to convince his superiors, but the time had not been right. Indeed, the time could never have been more wrong. For Great Harry had died in 1422, followed only a few years later by his equally talented brother, John of Bedford. England had been given over to the rule of a sickly babe and a quarrelling regency. The army which had terrorised France had begun to lose battles, even when faced by a peasant girl called Joan of Arc. Defeated and disgruntled, it had been withdrawn to England save for a few garrisons. The martial age was over. No doubt Edward III, and his son the Black Prince, and Great Harry himself were turning in their graves. Their veterans found themselves starving. For the archer or the man-at-arms employment was still available, in the private armies that were springing up like mushrooms as the country degenerated into anarchy. But no private lord could afford artillery, or would have known what to do with it if he could.

  For John Hawkwood the end of his dreams had been shattering. He was not of noble birth, yet he had no profession save that of arms. For an artillerist to arm himself with breastplate and pike and trudge with the common herd was an insult to his forebears. Yet with three small children and a wife to support, he had had no choice. For nearly twenty years he had served and suffered, and watched his beloved England drifting ever nearer to civil war, until it was beloved no longer. Then, in his despair, he had heard a rumour, drifting across the Channel. A man, a prince, was come from the East, the cradle of civilisation, where great things were afoot, seeking soldiers.

  John Hawkwood had, of course, heard of Constantinople — it was the capital of the once-great Byzantine Empire, and it remained the greatest city in the world. But it was a world apart. Four hundred years before, the Pope in Rome and the Patriarch in Constantinople had differed on various points of dogma, and the Christian church had been split down the middle. Indeed, in 1204 the Pope had even diverted a crusade to the capture of the city rather than send the crusaders against the Saracens. Then for fifty years a Latin Patriarch had sat upon the throne of the emperors.

  That horrifying event was ancient history, but Constantinople had never recovered. How low it had sunk no man was prepared to believe. But this prince, this Constantine Dragases Paleologus, was touring the West, seeking fighting men to aid his brother the Emperor to resist a horde which had come out of Asia and was, he claimed, threatening Europe itself.

  What he was seeking had sounded very much like a latter-day crusade, and John Hawkwood had felt in the mood for a crusade. When one of these Byzantines had come to England, Hawkwood had gone to listen, and been intrigued. “We need fighting men,” the Greek had said. “Men of courage and resolution. To them we will open all the splendours of the Golden Horn. Come to Constantinople and fight with us, and we will give you a home, money, fame and fortune.”

  These were words which John Hawkwood had not heard for a long time, but there was more yet to tempt him.

  “Particularly we need artillerists,” the envoy had said. “Men who know guns. We have guns in Constantinople — we need the men to fire them.”

  John Hawkwood the younger had promptly offered his skills.

  *

  “It is my great opportunity,” he had explained. “This is my destiny.”

  His wife Mary had been horror-struck. “You will go off to the ends of the earth and leave me here to starve with the children?”

  “No,” John said, “I will take you with me. The Greeks have given me sufficient money for us all.” He did not immediately tell his wife he had also promised the envoy that he could supply two sturdy sons for the cause.

  Mary had seemed even more alarmed. “You wish me to accompany you to a heretic and heathen land?”

  “Their heresy is a matter of doctrine,” John said. “But, if it will relieve your mind, I can tell you that His Holiness the Pope has given his special blessing to any man who joins the Byzantine army. I am no knight-errant, my sweet; it is simply a matter of necessity. Here is a chance to make my name and earn the keep of my old age. I cannot leave you here; your parents are dead, your brother is a rascal. You will come with me because you must.”

  “And the children?”

  “They, too, of course. William and Anthony will help serve the guns. It is an honourable profession.”

  “And Catherine, poor girl?”

  John kissed his wife. “Catherine, I have no doubt, will marry a Greek prince.”

  *

  And now they were here. Anthony Hawkwood could hardly believe it. But then, he had hardly been able to believe any of it. He had been born in Lord Monteagle’s barracks; had grown up there. He had been taught the use of the pike and the sword by his father, as well as the pen. Father had also talked about bombards, and what they could do, but Anthony had never seen one. His future had seemed assured. He would march behind Lord Monteagle’s banner, and, if need be, he would die beneath it. Hopefully, on that so-narrow journey through life, he would experience the comfort of a woman’s arms and the joy of gazing at his own son. But he had counted on nothing more…until Father had so suddenly led them away from the lord’s castle.

  They had sailed from Southampton, out of the calm Solent and into the turbulent waters of the English Channel, every man on deck searching for sight of a sail which might mean the French privateers were out of Dunkirk or St Malo. They had seen nothing hostile, and had found them
selves plunging across the Bay of Biscay in an easterly gale. Cape Finisterre had loomed, huge and threatening, half-lost in low cloud, as they had scudded down the Portuguese coast, the distant land disappearing every few minutes as the carrack slid down the big Atlantic swell. But the wind had abated and their first port of call, Lisbon, had brought them their first taste of the climes for which they were heading. Anchored in Cascais Roads, sheltered by headland and sandbank from the ocean, the sun had shone; it had been hot enough to cause the tar to bubble in the decks. And they had seen their first palm tree.

  From Lisbon they had rounded Cape St Vincent for Cadiz, a rocky promontory in a wind-torn gulf, and thence to Cartagena, tucked away behind its myriad headlands. With the whole of the Iberian peninsula reclaimed for Christianity — save for the tiny Moorish kingdom of Granada in the south of Spain — the voyage till then had been a safe one, apart from the weather. But Anthony had not even been seasick, so consumed had he been with wonder at what was unfolding before his eyes, at the skill of the Spanish sailors, the most experienced and daring seamen in the world.

  From Cartagena they had coasted to Alicante, nestling beneath its huge castle of St Barbara, and thence crossed the broad Mediterranean to Genoa, a city of splendid palaces and hardly less famous seamen; the Genoese were the only nation of Western Europe bold enough to continue direct trading with Byzantium, braving the wrath of the Turks. In Genoa the Hawkwood family had embarked upon the last leg of their journey, under the flag of the famous republic.

  The voyage had taken several months. It had been an education even for John Hawkwood himself, Anthony knew, and he had campaigned the length and breadth of France. For his children it had been an exploration of a world they had not suspected to exist: lands where it was always at least warm, more often than not hot; seas which were calm for days on end and yet could be torn apart by fierce winds arising from a cloudless sky; mountains reaching upwards until they seemed to touch the firmament; men with black hair and beards and flashing dark eyes; women with unimaginable grace, whose eyes flashed even more alluringly: Anthony was already a man. John Hawkwood had been more afraid for Catherine, and had kept her close by his side whenever they were ashore.

  They had seen men fighting bulls to the death, palaces which made the best manor house in England look like a hovel, clothes which had a brightness, quality and a freedom entirely lacking in the chilly north. This brightness extended to the way of life in the Mediterranean, where whole communities would down tools for days on end to enjoy a fiesta, drinking and laughing and loving — often illicitly — and parading in the name of some friendly saint.

  “It is a paradise,” William had declared.

  There are serpents, even in paradise,” his father had warned him. For he could discern that, beneath the excellent manners and the unremitting gaiety, there were rivers of deep and unforgiving pride.

  All the time Anthony had stared at it all open-mouthed.

  *

  From Genoa the new ship had taken them to Naples and Otranto, and then the Piraeus, before sail had been set for the Dardanelles.

  Anthony would never forget Naples. The weather had been bad, and they had lain for a week alongside the Mole, where the Neapolitans paraded in their finery, and from where it was possible to look up at the forbidding walls of the Castel Nuovo, for so long the home of the foreign Angevin kings and queens who had brought so much misery to this sunny land.

  Like the Genoese or the Spaniards, the Neapolitans had laughed and enjoyed their fiestas, but they too had dark streaks behind their smiles, a combination of pride and eroticism which was as fascinating as it was dangerous. Naples in September was the hottest place Anthony had ever known.

  Confinement on board the ship in such conditions was impossible. When Catherine had wanted to stretch her legs, Anthony had been deputed to act as her bodyguard.

  He had felt suitably proud to walk beside so striking a woman, even if she was his sister. They had always been close; she had mothered him from an early age. Now she tucked her arm through his as if they had been lovers.

  They attracted attention, of course, both by virtue of their size and colouring and by their clothes, which were shabby and poor compared with the brilliance around them. Anthony would have cared nothing for that, but Catherine was embarrassed, and suddenly decided to return to the ship, preferring a side street to the main thoroughfare where she felt they had been laughed at. He willingly agreed, and they had sought the shadows — to find themselves surrounded by several young men with evilly smiling faces, hardly older than Anthony himself but dressed in a finery he had seldom seen.

  They pointed at the strange pair, and came closer. Anthony and his sister were still in the process of learning Italian and could make little of what was said, but the little they understood was insulting even if it was rudely complimentary to Catherine’s figure.

  “Begone with you,” Anthony had said, waving his arm, and had then found himself standing against a wall with the point of a sword at his throat, while the other men held Catherine’s arms. One had released the strings at her bodice to expose her breasts. There was beauty which had taken their breaths away — even Anthony’s. Now one of the wretches was actually fondling the glowing white flesh, while another clutched the girl’s throat to prevent her from screaming, pushing her hard against the wall. A third now gathered her skirts and raised them round her waist, exposing not only her splendid legs but her every feminine secret; and he was clearly about to enjoy these himself as he fumbled at his hose.

  Anthony’s anger suddenly exploded. The sword confining him was so thin it might have been a reed. A sweep of his gloved hand had turned it aside, and in a moment his own weapon was drawn from its scabbard. Anthony Hawkwood wore no rapier, but rather a broadsword which had been his grandfather’s. The would-be rapists stared at the huge, vengeful, red-haired apparition in dismay. One boldly presented his rapier — and had the blade cut in half by a two-handed sweep. In a flash they had all taken to their heels.

  With remarkable composure Catherine straightened her skirts and re-tied her bodice. “We’ll not tell Father of this adventure,” she said, and squeezed her brother’s hand. “But I could have asked for no better protector. You are my very own perfect knight, dear Anthony.”

  He treasured these words more than the easy victory. But he also treasured what had happened. He had not suspected his sister to be so beautiful…or so calm. If he had loved her before, now he worshipped her.

  *

  But all of those experiences had been as if a prologue, before being allowed to enjoy the play itself. For now they were at last rounding the promontory, and could see the beginning of the narrow passage beyond the Bosphorus. John Hawkwood’s heartbeat quickened. But as he waited for his first sight of the legendary city he heard a sound: the dismal tolling of a bell.

  “What a dirge,” his wife Mary commented.

  Hawkwood looked up at the captain, who was standing above them at the break of the poop.

  “That is the bell of St Sophia,” the captain remarked, and crossed himself. “There has been some catastrophe.”

  The Hawkwoods continued to crowd the bulwark as the carrack swept slowly round the headland. Then they caught their breaths. On their right the coast of Asia was suddenly again close at hand, tall cypresses lining the cliff tops. They also beheld another castle, much larger and stouter in appearance than that which had aroused their earlier interest. It too flew the green flag of the Turks. But to their left, on the European shore — and straight ahead, as the ship turned to the north-east — they gazed at Constantinople itself. And they were prepared, at first sight, to concede that here was indeed the greatest city in the world.

  Walls surrounded it on every side, even where they overlooked the water; high and thick, crenelated and forbidding, they were the strongest fortifications John Hawkwood had ever seen. Beyond rose the rooftops of houses and palaces. Above these again rose the campaniles of innumerable churches, and above
them all towered the spires of the huge cathedral whence the mournful dirge was sounding.

  But it was not so much the houses, the architecture, the defences that took the breath away, as the sheer size of the city. John Hawkwood’s practised eye, used to judging distances, realised that the city could hardly be less than three miles across. Three miles enclosed within one set of walls! And it was at least as broad again, at its landward end

  “How many people might live within those fortifications?” he wondered aloud.

  “Not less than a hundred thousand,” the captain informed him.

  Hawkwood stroked his beard; once he had thought London teeming. But if he could not yet see inside the city’s walls, there was life enough down on the water, where a fleet of small boats cast their nets. Others, having identified her flags, surrounded the carrack with shouts of greeting.

  As the carrack proceeded on its way, and the Hawkwoods gaped at the churches and palaces on the acropolis of the city — the north-eastern corner spreading over the seven hills which had encouraged Constantine the Great to make ancient Byzantium the site of his new Rome — the harbour slowly came into view: a wide inlet which formed the northern border of the city. Hawkwood gazed in wonder at a huge iron chain which stretched all across the mouth of the channel, just short of half a mile in width.

  The captain pointed. “The Golden Horn.”

  “Why so called?”

  The captain shrugged. “It has been so called for centuries. Because it is shaped like the horn of a ram…and because to it come all the riches of the earth.”

  Beyond the boom chain rose the masts of many ships, while to the right of the harbour rose another walled town, only a fraction the size of the main city, but nonetheless clearly a bustling place.