Read Shooting Stars for Free Online Page A

the help they promised. A few galleys, a few hundred soldiers are indeed sent, but then the city is abandoned to its fate.
THE WAR BEGINS
    Despots preparing for war speak at length of peace before they are fully armed. Mahomet himself, on ascending the throne, received the envoys of Emperor Constantine with the friendliest and most reassuring of words, swearing publicly and solemnly by God and his prophets, by the angels and the Koran, that he will most faithfully observe the treaties with the Basileus. At the same time, however, the wily Sultanis concluding an agreement of mutual neutrality with the Hungarians and the Serbs for a period of three years—within which time he intends to take possession of the city at his leisure. Only then, after Mahomet has promised peace and sworn to keep it for long enough, will he provoke a war by breaking the peace.
    So far only the Asian bank of the Bosporus has belonged to the Turks, and ships have been able to pass unhindered from Byzantium through the strait to the Black Sea and the granaries that supply their grain. Now Mahomet cuts off that access (without so much as troubling to find any justification) by ordering a fortress to be built at Rumili Hisari, at the narrowest point of the strait, where the bold Xerxes crossed it in the days of the ancient Persians. Overnight thousands—no, tens of thousands—of labourers go over to the European bank, where fortifications are forbidden by treaty (but what do treaties matter to men of violence?), and to maintain themselves they not only plunder the nearby fields and tear down houses, they also demolish the famous old church of St Michael to get stone for their stronghold; the Sultan in person directs the building work, never resting by day or night, and Byzantium has to watch helplessly as its free access to the Black Sea is cut off, in defiance of law and the treaties. Already the first ships trying to pass the sea that has been free until now come under fire in the middle of peacetime, and after this first successful trial of strength any further pretence is superfluous . In August 1452 Mahomet calls together all his agas and pashas, and openly tells them of his intention to attack and take Byzantium. The announcement is soon followed by thedeed itself; heralds are sent out through the whole Turkish Empire, men capable of bearing arms are summoned, and on 5th April 1453 a vast Ottoman army, like a storm tide suddenly rising, surges over the plain of Byzantium to just outside the city walls.
    The Sultan, in magnificent robes, rides at the head of his troops to pitch his tent opposite the Lykas Gate. But before he can let the standard of his headquarters fly free in the wind, he orders a prayer mat to be unrolled on the ground. Barefoot, he steps on it, he bows three times, his face to Mecca, his forehead touching the ground, and behind him—a fine spectacle—the many thousands of his army bow in the same direction, offering the same prayer to Allah in the same rhythm, asking him to lend them strength and victory. Only then does the Sultan rise. He is no longer humble, he is challenging once more, the servant of God has become the commander and soldier, and his “tellals” or public criers hurry through the whole camp, announcing to the beating of drums and the blowing of trumpets that “The siege of the city has begun.”
THE WALLS AND THE CANNON
    Byzantium has only one strength left: its walls. Nothing is left of its once world-embracing past but this legacy of a greater and happier time. The triangle of the city is protected by a triple shield. Lower but still-mighty stone walls divide the two flanks of the city from the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn, but the defences known as the Theodosian walls andfacing the open land are massive. Constantine, recognizing future danger, had already surrounded Byzantium with blocks of stone, and Justinian had further extended and fortified the walls. However, it was Theodosius who created