And when we were attacked by Turks upon those walls, he helped me drive them off!
Kinda.
What happened was this. We were trying to walk a pretty deteriorated part of the walls, not far from the Golden Gate. There was waste ground behind, some run-down houses across the way. Suddenly, a pack of kids were running across, about ten of them, the eldest maybe twelve. They were in school uniform and they were demanding first cigarettes, then cash.
They were young, but we were seriously outnumbered, as the defenders had been in 1453. They blocked our way. With hands raised and smiling, we pushed through. They muttered but didn’t lay hands on us – until I felt what could have been a shove in my back. I turned, glared, retreated. We made the road and safety. It was only later, back at the hotel, when I was emptying my backpack, that I realised what the ‘shove’ was – when a lump of jagged masonry fell out. The boy had thrown a rock at me. Not only that – it was a piece of the fabled wall. Had probably been created by his ancestors’ cannon balls striking the stones in 1453. My backpack had been open and he’d lobbed it in.
I had taken Turkish fire upon the Theodosian walls!
The lump sits on my desk as I write this. It always makes me smile.
There are so many people to thank in the creation of a novel. Briefly, and in no order of importance … John Waller, my fight mentor at drama school years ago, retired Director of Interpretations at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, who knows more about medieval weaponry and life than probably any man on the planet and who kindly showed me how to shoot (‘For Chrissake, don’t say “Fire!”’) a crossbow one afternoon in his garden in North Yorkshire. My Turkish publisher, Tahir Malkoç, who took me to the walls when the conquest ceremony was on – for I’d timed my visit for 29 May, the anniversary of the fall. His assistant editor, Celen Çalik, and the aforementioned warrior Murad Sağlam, for their tour guiding, the book signing … and all that raki after it! Hasmet Konsiz, now living in Vancouver, a poet who shared his poetic visions of the city of his birth. My wife, Aletha, always acute with her advice and who let me wander off to be attacked by Turks! While my six-year-old son, Reith, helped me make a new slingshot when my old one fell apart and inspired so much of the father–son stuff in the novel. And also my tabby cat, Dickon, who has the ‘M’ on his forehead and so inspired Ulvikul.
There’s my agent, Simon Trewin at United Agents who somehow keeps my career from careening! And my team at Orion is extraordinary. Rachel Leyshon, who always observes kindly and keenly; Jade Chandler, who has a sharp eye for the art of editing, for character, structure … and the odd excess (I think she may have kept me out of the Bad Sex Writing Awards!). And of course, and ultimately, the man who commissioned the book and guided it all the way with his shrewd notes and bolstering enthusiasm, my editor, Jon Wood. Behind these talents lies an array of others, in design, marketing, publicity and management, too numerous to name in an author’s note. You know who you are and I thank you.
I have named the many great sources in the bibliography that follows. But if I had to single out one influence beyond words and people it would have to be, again, the city itself. If Gregoras is right – that ‘a room with a good view is a surer possession than virtue’ – then perhaps one day I’ll trade in my few virtues and seek one there. To spend the hours watching the sun run down the line of the Bosphorus, gilding the pink-petalled Judas trees, shining on the domes and monuments, on the crumbled walls … and on the people, descendants of both Greek and Turk, as the laughing dove calls.
C.C. Humphreys
July 2011
BIBLIOGRAPHY
My bookshelves sag with books about the siege and fall of Constantinople, and the peoples who fought it. My brain is filled with images from so many great websites I cannot begin to list them.
Perhaps the single biggest influence was the spectacularly detailed The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks. It was written by Edwin Pears and published in 1908. This man spent years in research, both at the city and in the libraries of England. He compares and contrasts the various ‘eyewitness’ accounts to reach likely conclusions, and he lays out the ground brilliantly – completely exposing, for example, the misnaming of the ‘civil’ St Romanus gate, which the Turks still believe was the one referred to and where the city finally fell! (He lays out why this is not so in exhaustive detail, and you only have to walk the walls and see the destruction to know that the military gate of St Romanus is about half a mile over!) If he suffers a little from the prejudices of the time against the ‘infidel’ (he was a Knight of the Greek Order of the Saviour, after all!), he is still generous as to their ingenuity and courage. His was my bible and I could not have written my book without his.
I skimmed both Runciman and Crowley (see opposite), but knew I could not refer back too deeply – their writing is so good, I would have been tempted to borrow!
Here, then, is a by no-means-complete list:
THE SIEGE
The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks: Edwin Pears
Constantinople: Roger Crowley
The Fall of Constantinople: Steven Runciman
Constantinople 1453: David Nicolle
GENERAL HISTORY
Byzantium: John Julius Norwich
Forgotten Power – Byzantium: Roger Michael Keen
The Late Byzantine Army: Mark C. Bartusis
The Janissaries: Godfrey Goodwin
The Mirror of Alchemy: Gareth Roberts
ISTANBUL/CONSTANTINOPLE
Istanbul – Imperial City: John Freely
WEAPONS
Medieval Combat: Hans Talhoffer
Medieval Arms and Armour: J.H. Hefner-Alteneck
FAITH
The Orthodox Bible
The Holy Qur’an
Eyewitness Islam: Philip Wilkinson
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2011 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Chris Humphreys 2011
The right of Chris Humphreys to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 1488 8
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Dedication
Praise for C.C. Humphreys
Dramatis Personae
To the Reader
Map of the City Walls
Map of Constantinople
Prologus
Part One: Alpha
One: Prophecy
Two: Prayers
Three: Rhinometus
Four: Beloved Of Muhammad
Five: Masks
Six: The Rescue
Seven: Rendezvous
Eight: Yaya
Nine: Persuasion
Ten: City Of Ghosts
Eleven: Walls
Twelve: Old Friends
Thirteen: The L
ove Of Two Brothers
Fourteen: Gone
Fifteen: The Laughing Dove
Part Two: Kappa
Sixteen: Shipwreck
Seventeen: The Standard
Eighteen: Exile’S Return
Nineteen: Before A Dying Wind
Twenty: God’S Breath
Twenty-One: Consequences
Twenty-Two: Ultimatum
Twenty-Three: Reunions
Twenty-Four: Into The Dark
Twenty-Five: ‘Give Me Mine’
Twenty-Six: Hades
Twenty-Seven: The Tower
Part Three: Omega
Twenty-Eight: Messages
Twenty-Nine: Thunder
Thirty: Signs And Portents
Thirty-One: The Cursed City
Thirty-Two: ‘It Is Written’
Thirty-Three: Forgiveness
Twenty-Four: A Place Called Armageddon
Thirty-Five: Aftermath
Thirty-Six: The Sack Of Constantinople
Thirty-Seven: Inshallah
Thirty-Eight: Faith
Epilogus: ‘A Surer Possession Than Virtue’
Historical Note
Glossary
Author’s Note
Bibliography
Copyright