The Emperor and the Unbroken

The Breach of Constantinople, 1453

The first night was over.

The sun came up gray and cold over the walls, and the guns had not spoken since dawn. The breach lay silent, filled with the dead, and the smoke hung over the rubble like a held breath. Constantine stood on the wall above the gap and looked down at what was left of the first wave, and he knew what it meant.

He knew the guns had not spoken because they were being loaded.

He knew the silence meant preparation.

He knew that Mehmed had stopped sending men through the breach because the breach was too small—because a narrow gap is a gift to the defender, and Mehmed was not a man who wasted gifts. He was widening the hole. He was bringing up the great bombard again. He was preparing a barrage that would open the wall wide enough for the whole Ottoman army to walk through, and then he would come, and there would be nothing left to stop him.

Constantine turned away from the breach.

He walked along the wall to where his men were gathered—the household troops, the Varangians, the Genoese, the Venetians, the survivors of the first night—and he stood in front of them.

Then he took off his crown.

It was a heavy thing—the diadem of the Caesars, of Constantine the Great, of Justinian, of every Roman emperor who had ever worn it. It was gold and silver and precious stones. It was the symbol of an empire that had lasted a thousand years, that had stretched from Britain to Babylon, that had been the greatest thing the world had ever seen.

He looked at it for a moment. Then he threw it to the ground.

The crown rang on the stones and rolled to a stop against a fallen block of masonry. Nobody picked it up.

Constantine looked at his men.

Then he looked at Kiros.

---

Kiros was standing at the edge of the line with his sword in his hand and blood on his face.

The blood was not his. It was the blood of the men who had come through the breach the day before—the looters, the vagabonds, the azabs, the men Mehmed had sent to die. Kiros had killed them by the dozen. He had killed them until his arm ached and his blade was dull. He had killed them until the pile of bodies in the gap was so high that the next man had to climb over it. He had killed them until the sun went down and the guns fell silent and the last of the survivors fled back through the hole.

He had killed them all night.

And now he was standing at the edge of the line, in the early gray light, covered in blood that was not his, and he looked like a gladiator again—the way he had looked in the blood pits, the way he had looked in the arena, the way he had looked in the breach of every wall he had ever defended.

Constantine walked toward him.

The Emperor of Rome—the last Emperor of Rome—stood in front of the gladiator, and looked at him.

"Why did you come back?"

Kiros looked at him.

"I saw you in the pit," Constantine said. "I saw you in the sand. You could have run. You could have taken a ship. You could have gone east, to the Turks, and they would have paid you a fortune. You could have gone west, to the Italians, and they would have given you a villa. You could have gone anywhere in the world. You owe Rome nothing. You owe me nothing. Why did you come back?"

Kiros was silent for a moment.

Then he spoke.

"A long time ago," he said, "in the Blood Pits, you saw me as a man. You came down onto the sand and you took my arm like an equal. You did not look at me like a slave. You did not look at me like a gladiator. You looked at me like a man."

He looked at the Emperor.

"That is the only thing I have ever wanted in my life. Not freedom. Not glory. Not gold. To be looked at like a man."

He turned and looked out over the wall—at the Ottoman camp, at the tents and the banners and the guns, at the host that was waiting on the other side of the plain.

"Today I fight for that," he said. "Today I fight because you saw me as a man, and today I see you as a man fighting for what he believes in, just as much as I am fighting for what I can."

He looked at his own hands—the hands that had killed so many men, the hands that were covered in blood, the hands that were still strong.

"I will never truly be free if I put it behind these walls," he said. "I will be free because I am going to send them all to hell with me. I am going to kill every man I can, until they kill me, and then I am going to go to the feast that has been prepared for me, and I am going to sit down and laugh at the greatest fight that I ever fought."

He looked at Constantine.

"We killed the first wave," he said. "We will kill the second. I am pretty sure that Mehmed is sending his looters through that hole first—his thieves, his vagabonds, his men who have been promised fortune but will only find death. We killed a lot of them yesterday. We will kill the rest today."

He looked at the blood on his hands.

"I was a child once," he said. "I was kidnapped and thrown into the Blood Pits as a slave. I remember what it was like to be behind a wall that could not protect me. I remember what it was like to be a woman or a child who knew that when the wall fell, they would be raped, or beaten, or killed, for no other reason than being on the wrong side of the wall."

He raised his sword.

"Today I am going to give them a chance," he said. "Not a good chance. Not a fair chance. But a chance. And I am going to kill every man who tries to take that chance away from them. I am going to give them the death they came for—a beautiful death, a glorious death, a death that will send them to their gods with their heads high and their honor intact."

He looked at Constantine.

"I am going to kill them until my sword falls from my hand. And when it falls, I am going to pick it up and kill more. And when the goddess comes—when Aerintha comes to take me home—I am going to go with her. Because I have finished what I came here to do. I have fought for my friend. I have fought for the men beside me. I have fought for the women and children behind this wall. And I have fought for myself."

He smiled.

It was a terrible smile. It was the smile of a man who had killed a hundred men and was going to kill a hundred more. It was the smile of a man who had made peace with his death. It was the smile of a man who was already, in some sense, gone.

"Today," he said, "I am a free man. Whatever free means. I will die a free man. I will die fighting for a friend—for a man who saw me as a man, who saved me from an unholy justice. And I will give my enemies a beautiful death."

He turned back to the wall.

"They will prepare the table for me," he said. "They will have the wine ready for me when I get there. And together, we will laugh. We will laugh at the greatest fight that we ever fought."

He raised his sword.

"Constantine," he said, "let us go and give them their feast."

---

The Emperor of Rome looked at the gladiator.

He looked at the blood on his face. He looked at the blade in his hand. He looked at the man who had come back—who had come back when he did not have to, who had come back when there was nothing to gain, who had come back because he had been seen as a man and wanted to be one.

Constantine nodded.

"Let us go," he said.

He picked up his own sword. He left the crown on the ground. He walked toward the breach.

And behind him, the men of Constantinople—the Greeks, the Genoese, the Venetians, the Varangians, the gladiators, the slaves, the free men, the condemned—followed him.

Kiros walked beside him.

The blood on his hands was not his.

But the death he was about to give was his to give.

---

"Why did you come back?"

—Constantine XI Palaiologos

"A long time ago, in the Blood Pits, you saw me as a man. You came down onto the sand and you took my arm like an equal. That is the only thing I have ever wanted in my life. Not freedom. Not glory. Not gold. To be looked at like a man."

—Kiros, the Unbroken

"Today I am a free man. Whatever free means. I will die a free man. I will die fighting for a friend."

—Kiros

"They will prepare the table for me. They will have the wine ready for me when I get there. And together, we will laugh. We will laugh at the greatest fight that we ever fought."

—Kiros

"Let us go and give them their feast."

—Kiros, to Constantine, at the breach