The lamplight flickered low, casting warm gold across the worn hide of the campaign table. Outside, the camp murmured, the low shuffle of sentries, the hiss of wind over dry earth, the distant creak of leather harness and rustle of trees on the slope. Inside the tent, it was quiet but for the occasional scrape of cards across wood.
Constantine frowned at his hand.
"Draw four," George said, placing the card down like a sentence handed down.
"You always draw four," Constantine muttered.
George raised an eyebrow. "Only when it hurts you most."
Constantine sighed and reached for the stack. A card slipped, flipped, landed face-up near the edge of the table. He didn't bother to retrieve it.
Across from him, George smiled, not with smugness, but something warmer, lighter. A rare expression, the kind that smoothed the creases from his brow and made him look, for a moment, younger than he was.
"I do enjoy this game," George said. "It's deceptively simple, but it punishes hesitation. You have to feel the rhythm." He tilted his head, thoughtful. "Like a duel."
"I regret ever teaching it to you," Constantine muttered.
George ignored the comment. "It rewards memory. And spite. That's why the officers love it." He tapped his chin. "Is it really Persian?"
"That's what Iskander claims," Constantine said, almost automatically, the cover story long rehearsed. "He says it comes from the eastern courts, a game played at night between scholars and spies. I made a few… additions."
George gave him a long, amused look. "A few?"
"I added more rules and color in the cards."
"I liked the idea of it," George said after a pause. "A game passed in secret, like a letter no one can quite read. A game of balance, spite wrapped in grace."
George poured more wine into each of their cups. The wine was sharp, sun-warmed, local. "You're good at inventing things with a past," he said.
Constantine glanced at him, one brow lifting.
George smiled again, faintly this time. "You never introduce an idea plainly. Always a myth with it. Some scroll, some lost sage, some distant court in Samarkand."
Bits and scraps from a dozen places. I just gave it a name.
For a while they played in silence. Outside, the wind fluted softly around the ridge. The cards between them were worn now, corners rounded from use. A game born from memory, from another timeline, and now spread through the army like gospel. A small myth everyone believed in.
"I used to win," Constantine said at last.
George set down a yellow skip card. "You used to control the pace."
"And now?"
"You're reacting."
Constantine drank. The wine was bitter, but it warmed his throat. "You always had a better ear for rhythm," he said quietly. "Even in the Morea. Even before the press. You always knew where the edges were."
George gathered the cards in slow, practiced motions. "That's why I have to say something," he said, tone shifting without warning. Serious. Measured.
Constantine stilled.
"It's Thomas."
Outside, the sentry barked an order in the distance. An owl called from the trees above the ravine. In the tent, the candlelight leaned gently over the cards, casting their colors in long shadows.
"It's Thomas," George said again, voice low but clear.
Constantine leaned back slightly, folding his arms. His face didn't change much, the slight narrowing of the eyes, the way his fingers tapped once against his sleeve. But he didn't ask why. That much, George noticed.
"He's getting bold," George continued. "Too bold."
Outside, a horse stamped somewhere in the dark. In the lull between campfires, the world seemed to breathe in.
"He took that village north from here without waiting for orders," George said. "Again. Sent word only after his men had already begun digging in. And he's begun issuing directives to scouts that aren't under his banner." He paused, then added: "He doesn't hide it."
"He says it was a preemptive move," Constantine replied. "A way to stop the garrison slipping further north."
"Perhaps. But he's not acting like your heir. He's acting like your equal."
Constantine reached for the wine, swirled it once, didn't drink. His voice was measured. "He's my brother. He's won victories of his own. His name carries weight with the men."
"And with time," George said, "that weight shifts."
The words hung between them.
After a moment, Constantine said, "You think he's planning something."
George didn't answer right away. Instead, he picked up the scattered deck, began to reorder the cards absently. "I think," he said at last, "he wants to be seen as indispensable. And perhaps he is. But he's not patient."
Constantine smiled faintly, without humor. "He never was."
"He has two sons now," George continued. "And men already speak of them in camp. How they might be raised for the future. How they might be…" he trailed off, then said it plainly, "placed in the line."
Constantine exhaled, long and slow. "I haven't named him heir."
"You haven't named anyone."
There it was.
George laid the deck down gently. The colors of the cards gleamed in the candlelight, absurdly bright in this hushed tent. "You need an heir," he said. "And soon. Before someone else names one for you."
The silence that followed wasn't tense. It was the silence of long friendship, of saying the thing no one else would dare say.
Constantine turned the cup in his hands, the bronze base catching the light. "Agnes is still a child."
"She is."
"There's no question she's a good match. Burgundy's blessing, Papal legitimacy, gold." He said it like a line from a ledger. "But she's eleven."
George nodded. "And you're thirty."
"Twenty-nine."
George gave him a wry look. "So she'll be of age when you're what- Thirty-five? Thirty-six?"
Constantine didn't answer. Instead, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, eyes on the cards. "We have a window. If the crusade holds, if Thessaloniki falls, if we buy ourselves some years…" He stopped, as if the "ifs" had drained the air from his lungs. "Then it's workable."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then I suppose the empire falls with me," Constantine said, too lightly.
George didn't smile.
After a moment, he asked, "You've considered others?"
"I have," Constantine said. "None without... cost."
George nodded, once. The silence that followed wasn't tense, just full.
Then, more quietly, almost to himself: "You've given so much to this world. It deserves someone to inherit more than ashes."
He stood. The movement broke the stillness.
"I'll wake the staff early," he said. "We reach Platamonas tomorrow."
He didn't wait for a reply.
The tent flap stirred, then settled. Constantine sat alone, the cards resting idle in his hands.
He stared at the top one and said nothing.
If I father a child now, he thought, will they be mine?
Not in the sense of law. That part would be easy. The scribes would register the birth, the bishops would bless it, the court would cheer. He could have a child by spring, and another by winter.
But… would they be his?
He had already been a father once. He had held sons. The scent of them, the weight, those things came back now and then, not as memories but as interruptions.
And if he made children here, would he look into their eyes and search for something that couldn't possibly be there?
What are you, he thought, if even your children are foreign to you?
He set the cards aside. Stood. Blew out the lamp.
Dawn came with the smell of salt and stone.
The army moved early, hours before the sun crested the eastern ridge. A low marine haze still clung to the valleys as they wound northward through the passes, following the old Roman road that hugged the foot of Mount Olympus. The air was cool but rising , the kind of morning where even armor didn't chafe yet, where the hooves of the vanguard left clean prints in dew-dark earth.
Platamonas emerged slowly into view, not with grandeur, but with quiet command. First the sea, a sheet of hammered blue steel beyond the scrub hills, then, higher up, the outline of the castle itself: weathered towers and pale stone walls crowning a rocky outcrop that overlooked both land and gulf.
Constantine reined in at the crest of the hill road. The morning light slanted through a break in the clouds, gilding the Thermaic Gulf far below. He could see the masts first, dozens of them, crisp and vertical like lances, then the fleet itself, anchored in calm waters just offshore. Venetian war galleys, Papal supply ships, even a couple squat Genoese hulls. Their banners moved in the wind: red lions, gold keys. It was a forest of allegiance.
George rode up beside him. He followed Constantine's gaze and whistled softly. "There they are," he murmured.
Constantine said nothing. His eyes tracked the movement along the dock below: horses being offloaded by slings, barrels rolled into carts, men in crusader tabards unloading crates with an efficiency that surprised even him. The Venetians, of course, had brought order.
A scout cantered up from the forward outriders. He reined in, saluted with a dust-streaked hand. "The small garrison is gone, Majesty. Local elders say the Turks left two days past. No skirmish. No resistance."
Constantine nodded. "The fleet scared them off."
"Or your name did," George added.
They rode the final stretch in silence, hooves clacking over old paving stones, the road narrowing into the bluff path that led to the gates.
The village of Platamon lay half-drowsing under the fortress walls, little more than a scatter of clay-roofed homes and olive trees, but alive. Locals had begun emerging from cellars and shuttered doorways, watching the approach of imperial banners with wary hope. A priest crossed himself, then knelt in the dust as Constantine passed. A group of children stood barefoot at the roadside, clutching one another and whispering. One boy, perhaps twelve, raised a fist and shouted, "Ieros skopos"
It startled the others into scattered applause.
Constantine gave the boy a nod. No smile, but the boy grinned all the same.
They reached the castle gates by midday. Platamonas, from within, was as humble as it was from afar. The walls were thick and serviceable, its towers built for watchfulness, not glory. Inside: a cistern, two barracks, a wind-worn chapel. Ottoman scrawls still marked the interior of the gatehouse, but the crescent had been stripped from the highest tower. A blank flagpole stood waiting.
"Shall we?" George asked.
Constantine took the imperial banner from his retainer and rode slowly through the inner ward. At the base of the keep's stair, he dismounted. The stone was warm from sun, the air clean with the scent of pine and sea.
He ascended the steps alone.
At the summit, he raised the Palaiologos banner himself.
The double-headed eagle caught the wind and unfurled over the gulf.
The camp below erupted in cheers, not thunderous, not rehearsed, but real. From pike columns to officers, from village streets to chapel thresholds, voices rang out.
Dusk folded slowly over the gulf, the sea darkening from hammered silver to soft iron. In the courtyard of Platamonas Castle, oil lamps sputtered to life one by one, their flames catching on the damp stone and casting long, flickering shadows.
The war council gathered in the old refectory, a plain hall repurposed for strategy. There was no ceremony. Just men, maps, and consequence.
Constantine entered first, cloak damp with salt, his hair still tousled from the ride up the ridge. George Sphrantzes and Andreas followed close behind. Jean de Croÿ was already seated, reviewing a scroll with silent focus.
The sea delegation had arrived earlier from the anchored fleet.
Captain-General Alvise Loredan of Venice stood tall and narrow in the corner, his black cloak beaded with mist, silver-threaded cuffs glinting faintly. His face was angular, his eyes sharp, the sort of man who measured worth by tonnage and wind speed.
Beside him, Cardinal Condulmer, envoy of the Pope, wore a plain red stole over his travel-worn robes. His fingers bore two rings, one for blessing, one for sealing and he used both with discretion. He bowed slightly as Constantine approached.
"Your Majesty," Condulmer said, "Rome prays for you. And listens closely."
"I hope it hears the sound of hooves," Constantine replied, "and not of funeral bells."
There was a brief, brittle smile from the Cardinal. Loredan merely inclined his head.
The meeting was brisk. They had planned this link-up for months. Now that it had arrived, none of them wanted to linger.
George rolled out the latest map. Jean de Croÿ placed markers representing the crusader fleet. Constantine stood behind the table with his arms folded, not resting, but holding something inside.
Loredan spoke first, his Latin clipped and precise. "The Ottoman garrison withdrew from Platamonas two days before we arrived. Likely warned by scouts. We landed unopposed. Local fishermen report they retreated north, possibly toward Thessaloniki, possibly toward Murad."
"And the supplies?" George asked.
"Delivered as agreed."
Condulmer cleared his throat gently. "There's also news from the north," he said, withdrawing a sealed parchment and passing it to Constantine. "Sigismund's army is on the move. He bypassed Niš. Last reports place him nearing Skopje."
He paused, then added, "Murad has begun to move as well and all signs suggest he's marching to intercept. The Sultan means to face Sigismund directly."
Constantine turned the seal over in his hand before setting it aside. "How much time before they meet?"
"Perhaps ten days," Condulmer replied. "Perhaps less. That is unclear."
Jean de Croÿ leaned forward. "Then we move now."
"Yes," Constantine said. "The moment is upon us."
He looked around the table. "We march at first light. The fleet will follow. We make for Thessaloniki without delay."
George began issuing instructions to aides hovering just outside. Loredan rolled up the map. Condulmer crossed himself.
As the commanders filed out into the night, Constantine lingered a moment longer, eyes fixed on the shaded coastline beyond the lamplit window. The wind was rising, tugging at the castle's banners. The sea below was dark now, but full of motion.
The West had arrived. The East had risen.
And between them, history waited.