Giustiniani shouted for Radu. “Cut the ropes! Throw down the hooks!”
Radu ran back and forth, hacking at ropes, dislodging hooks. Every man under Giustiniani followed his commands without hesitation or question. Radu could not see or hear Constantine, but he was certain that section of the wall was the same. Two men to hold back an empire.
Radu stopped, sitting with his back against a barrel and watching. All the men around him were Italians, Giustiniani’s men. They were as good as the Janissaries, and they had the high ground. What could he do? Even if he stopped helping, stopped throwing down hooks and ropes, he would do nothing to turn the tide.
A man jumped over the wall next to Radu. Radu looked up at him in surprise, seeing Lazar’s face under the Janissary cap.
No. Lazar was dead. Radu had killed him to save Mehmed. Radu pushed himself up, stabbing the Janissary and letting his body fall. But there were more. Janissaries leapt over this section of the wall, led by a giant of a man. He towered over everyone, the white of his cap gleaming above the mass of bodies. He held a broadsword. Unusual for an Ottoman, but fitting for his size. The man swung the sword from side to side, cutting down everyone who came at him with eerily silent efficiency. Protected by his fury, more and more Janissaries climbed onto the wall.
“With me!” Giustiniani slashed his way through to the giant. Radu followed in his wake, protecting his back. Not even Giustiniani could take the giant in hand-to-hand combat, though. As he got close, the man swung his sword. At the last moment, Giustiniani dropped to his knees. He swung his own sword with all the strength he had in him. The giant stopped, looking down in surprise. Then he slid to the ground, both his legs cut off at the knees.
The Janissaries around them stopped in shock. Giustiniani stood, raising his sword in triumph. And this time, when he knew what Lada would do, Radu did not hesitate. He swept his sword across the backs of Giustiniani’s legs. Straight through the muscles and tendons. One swift cut to turn the tide.
Giustiniani fell. Radu caught him. “Giustiniani!” he shouted. “He is wounded! Help!”
The Italian’s men rushed to them with all the energy they had left. The Janissaries remaining on the wall were quickly overwhelmed.
“What should we do?” one of the Italian soldiers asked, tears streaming down his face as he looked at the man he had followed in defense of a foreign city.
“We have to get him to the boats!” Radu stood, grasping Giustiniani under the arms.
“No,” Giustiniani moaned, shaking his head. He was white with shock and blood loss, eyes wild. “We cannot open the gate.”
“We have to! To save him!” Radu nodded to the crying soldier, who carefully took Giustiniani’s ruined legs. They maneuvered him down from the wall with the help of the rest of the Italians, passing him from one man to the other. Giustiniani groaned and cried out in pain, all the while telling them to stop.
They rushed across the open stretch, dodging arrows and cannonballs. All the Italians had followed, more than a hundred men this section of the wall could not afford to lose.
“The key!” Radu shouted. “Who has the key?”
“Giustiniani does!”
Radu heard shouting over everything else. On top of the wall, Constantine stood, gesturing. He was frantic, waving his hands and shaking his head. If that gate opened and men went through, it would be a mortal wound to the city. Too many would choose to flee if given the option. Men ran toward them to stop them, swords drawn.
“If they keep us here, Giustiniani will die!” Radu shouted.
The Italians, ever loyal to Giustiniani, drew their swords against the soldiers they had fought shoulder to shoulder with all these long weeks. Everyone stopped, waiting to see what would happen.
Radu reached into Giustiniani’s blood-splattered vest and pulled out a heavy iron key. Giustiniani grabbed his hand. “Please,” he said. His face was pa
le and bathed in sweat, but his eyes were lucid. “Do not do this.”
Radu looked up at the wall. Constantine stood silhouetted against the glowing night sky. His shoulders drooped. Then he took off his cloak, throwing it off the wall. His helmet, with a metal circlet on it, followed. He turned and joined the fight at the wall as one of the men he had lived with. As one of the men he would die with.
“It is the only thing I can do,” Radu whispered. He tugged his hand free, then opened the gate. As soon as he was through, he ran toward Blachernae Palace. If any of Giustiniani’s men noticed he did not stay with them, they were too busy saving themselves to stop him.
There were not many men left at the palace. Just a handful to guard the Circus Gate. And, in a stroke of luck or providence, they were all Italians. “Giustiniani has been wounded!” Radu shouted. “His only chance is to get to the boats! They need your help!”
The men stood still for a few seconds, then ran. The gate was his alone. Radu walked to it, his feet dragging. The bar across the door carried the weight of a thousand betrayals. He managed to lift it, and left the door open. He had chosen this one because it was the most poorly guarded, but it was not big enough to let a whole army in. He needed something more. If anyone could still claim victory in the midst of this, it was Constantine. Radu needed to break the defenders’ spirits. If he did, the city would fall. He climbed back along the wall to the palace itself, where Nazira was waiting with a cloth-wrapped bundle.
She threw her arms around him, pressing her face into his shoulder. “I feared you were dead.”
“Not yet.” He pulled out the Ottoman flags they had stolen from Orhan’s tower. They ran through the echoing palace, climbing and climbing until they reached the top. From there they heard the sounds of dying, the clash of metal, the screams of fury.
They tore down the emperor’s flag, and in its place they hung the flag of the Ottoman Empire. Splitting up, they found every place they could hang a flag where the combatants would see it, finally meeting back on the wall above the gate that Radu had left open. He waved the last flag he had, before draping it over the wall above the way in.
He looked, then, at where Constantine stood between his city and destruction. Though it was too dark and Radu knew it was not possible, he felt as though they locked eyes one last time. A cry went up among the men; the desperate push at the gate to the city intensified. They thought the Ottomans were inside, and would abandon all to go save their families, or die alongside them.
Radu turned away. He had done his part. The pendulum had swung in Mehmed’s favor and would never return to the defenders’. He had managed to kill Constantine after all. But too late to be merciful to any of them.