The sea lay flat as hammered glass beneath a milk-grey sky. Not calm, just still, as if holding its breath. Even the gulls moved quietly, circling in slow, wide loops.
Captain-General Alvise Loredan stood at the prow of his flagship, one boot braced against the rail, cloak stiff with salt. His knee ached from the old Treviso fall, but he ignored it. Behind him, the Papal and Venetian banners stirred faintly, pale streaks of red, gold, and white against the rising light. Ahead: Thessaloniki.
It wasn't smoke they saw, yet. Just the faint silhouette of high walls, broken only by minarets and towers. Watch posts. The old Venetian docks. A city that had once been theirs.
Beside him, his first officer, a lean man with a scar across his brow, squinted toward the skyline. "Four years ago, I was in that harbor," he murmured. "We held out till the last sail. We thought they'd negotiate."
Loredan didn't answer.
"They didn't," the man went on, voice low and flat. "We pulled out under cover of fog. The last merchantman got hit before it cleared the pier.. I was on it."
Still, Loredan said nothing. His fingers drummed once, then stopped.
Now the city watched them again, but not in hope. The banners on the ramparts were Ottoman. Yellow with the crescent. No parley this time.
"She's better garrisoned," the officer said. "They've reinforced since the fall."
Loredan nodded once. "Good. Means they don't think we're weak."
The officer glanced at him, lips tight. "Venice won't forget this place. She bled for it. If it's retaken"
"It will be retaken," Loredan said.
A beat.
"Then Venice will have a stake in what's restored."
That earned a glance. Cool, unreadable. "We'll see who pays the butcher's bill," Loredan said quietly. "Then we'll speak of ownership."
Another silence. The gulls above turned wider arcs now, as if even they sensed the tension stretching below.
The officer scanned the northern horizon. "No enemy cutters. Not even a fishing boat. That's what troubles me."
"Too quiet?" Loredan asked.
"Aye. From Negroponte to this very coast, we've seen nothing Ottoman, not a patrol galley, not a coastal sloop. The whole crossing, we sailed in silence." He glanced sidelong at Loredan, lowering his voice slightly. "That's not caution. That's absence. They're holding back."
Loredan's eyes narrowed, tracking the line of their own ships strung out across the gulf, banners snapping faintly in the morning haze.
"Let them come," Loredan said quietly, but not without weight. "We've steel to meet them. And canvas to chase."
The officer tilted his head toward a vessel riding low amid their line, a two-masted galley, dark-hulled, her silhouette harder than the rest. The Kyreneia.
"She'll tear holes in anything the Turks throw," the officer said. "Four cannons. Thick timber. Floating fort."
Loredan said nothing for a moment. His eyes stayed on the ship, watching how she held her line, not just heavy, but balanced, deliberate. Then he turned back toward the horizon.
"They've changed," he said at last. His voice was low, but edged. "I've heard what they're building now, an arsenal in Glarentza. Not a forge. Not a dockyard. A whole system. Like our own at the Arsenale."
The officer tilted his head. Loredan went on, quieter now, almost to himself.
"They're pumping out cannons, firearms, too. They call them pyrvelos, I'm told." He tapped the rail lightly, the motion like punctuation. "They're not rebuilding an empire, they're assembling a war machine."
The officer frowned. "They've never had the gold for that before."
"No," Loredan agreed. "But now they've got coin, and purpose, and someone willing to use both without waiting for a council vote. And that" he nodded toward the fleet, toward the distant walls"is the part that worries me."
A gust stirred the banners behind them, salt-thick and wet. Far off, from the harbor mouth, a bell clanged, once. Then again. Then silence.
Loredan straightened.
"Signal the line," he barked. "Form full crescent. Loosen anchor, but hold position. Let them see the forest."
Below, sailors jumped to the order. Flags snapped up the mainmast. Red lions. Gold keys. The crest of Saint Mark. A visual wall, ship after ship unfurling sail, hulls gleaming like pewter in the morning haze.
On the walls of Thessaloniki, the watchers still did not move. But now they knew.
The fleet had arrived.
And with it, the reckoning.
Constantine's Army Reaches Thessaloniki
The sun was just cresting the ridge when they saw it. Thessaloniki, long and wide beneath the pale sky, the towers catching firelight from hundreds of cooking fires. The city did not sleep. It watched.
Constantine reined in at the ridge's summit, his horse breathing slow beneath him. Behind, the marching columns clattered to a halt, officers calling for order in low tones. The wind was faint but dry. Below, on the southern walls, Ottoman standards snapped: yellow silk, red crescents, a handful of banners unfamiliar to him but all arrayed with purpose. Men moved along the battlements. Not in panic. In readiness.
George Sphrantzes pulled up beside him. "No parley. No volley. Just waiting."
"Then they're sure we're not bluffing," Constantine said.
A rider broke from the left flank, breathless and dusty, bearing a folded strip of parchment. He saluted from the saddle. "From the fleet, Majesty. Venetian command signals: anchored and in position. They await your word."
Constantine read it in a glance, passed it back to George without comment. George nodded.
"We've arrived first," Sphrantzes murmured. "No sign of Sigismund."
"We were always expected to," Constantine said.
George nodded, but didn't look up. "Still… I hoped."
Behind them, the last of the supply train groaned into view. Dust clung to everything. Even the standards drooped. The army needed rest, but there was no illusion of safety here.
They came down from the low hills just after dawn. Below them, the flatland west of Thessaloniki stretched wide and wary, furrowed by old streambeds and dotted with scorched olive groves. The city's walls loomed to the east, indifferent and high, banners stirring faintly in the morning haze. No movement. No messengers.
By midmorning, the first lines of campfires rose, thin and pale, over a ridge of turned soil. Constantine called council beside the spine of a half-built palisade. The wood was raw, the nails still shining. A cracked wine crate served as a table. Over it, a sun-bleached map, pinned at the corners with tile shards from some looted estate.
Andreas leaned on one knee. George stood arms folded, squinting toward the city. Jean de Croÿ muttered a quick prayer in Burgundian French. Thomas wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.
"The fleet holds the gulf. We anchor the southwest," Constantine began, voice low, even. "The Turks see us. They do not strike. That tells me they're waiting."
"Murad?" Jean asked.
"Or Sigismund," George replied. "Possibly neither. Possibly both."
Constantine gestured at the map with a wooden stick. "Earthworks here. And here. Defensive lines only. No provocation. Forward guns to the north, I want them three hundred paces from the main gate. Not closer."
He paused, gaze fixed on the tile's edge. "Scouts in wide arcs. Especially north. I want warning at least three days before Murad crosses into view."
Thomas nodded, lips moving silently as he tallied names and captains.
"And the fleet?" George asked.
"No Ottoman crossings. Not even a skiff," Constantine said. "If they try to reinforce from the sea, I want the wreckage left visible."
George frowned. "Every day we dig and wait, the men will wonder if they've been sent to build graves instead of walls."
"Let them wonder," Andreas muttered. "Better shovels now than swords too late. But if you want to strike, I'll lead the charge."
"You'll hold until I say otherwise," Constantine said, calm but cold enough.
Jean exhaled slowly, arms folded. "I understand the caution. I do. But the men have marched far, and they're hungry for more than barley and mud. They need to believe this wasn't just another parade to the walls."
He looked to Constantine. "It's not just the Turks who are watching. Our own men need to believe we came to strike, not just to stare at stone."
Constantine looked up slowly. His expression didn't change, but something behind the eyes shifted, not fear, not fatigue, but the weight of another unspoken clock.
"I understand, Jean" he said quietly. "But men remember victory. And they remember what earned it." He reached across the map and tapped the marked lines of Domokos. "We held there because we built wisely. Because the ground was ours before the first shot was fired."
He glanced toward the tent flap, where fog still clung like gauze. "If we charge too soon, we give them what they want, haste, chaos, broken lines. But if we shape the field first… then when the moment comes, it's theirs to fear."
He folded the map carefully, tile shards scraping wood.
"We keep building. This city will fall," he added, not loudly. "But not to impatience. If it falls, it will be because the ground beneath it was already lost."
Four days had passed since the fleet anchored and the banners were raised. The siege lines crept forward like vines. Trenches carved into muddy soil. Watch fires. Cannon emplacements dug and redrawn. Still no assault. Still no word from the north.
A soft mist curled in through the flap of the mess tent. The fire had gone out hours ago, leaving the place sharp with the tang of damp wood and ash. Constantine sat hunched over a battered tin cup, nursing the last of yesterday's broth. Across the table, Andreas was cracking black olives open with his teeth, spitting the pits into a chipped saucer. George, bleary-eyed, was carefully folding a wax-sealed letter and tucking it into his folio.
Silence stretched. Then Constantine, without looking up:
"You know, George... enough with the talk of who I'll marry. What about you? You ought to find a woman."
George didn't blink. "Didn't realize recruitment was that desperate."
"I mean it." Constantine swirled the dregs of his cup. "Someone to go home to. Or pretend to."
Andreas grunted. "What home?"
Constantine waved a hand vaguely. "After. When this is done. I'll be your best man."
That earned him a look. "You planning to live that long?" George asked.
"I'm planning," Constantine said, "to leave behind more than letters. I've had one wife and one failed affair in the last few years. Both gone. One dead, one... vanished." He glanced at the tent flap, then back to George. "You? You've had none."
George dipped bread into his cold wine. "I had one. Briefly. She liked a man who made things with his hands."
"Hah, good taste," Andreas muttered.
George ignored him. "She said I was already married. To the empire. She wasn't wrong."
Constantine tilted his head. "Still. You don't have to die alone with your folios."
George said nothing. He looked at the olive saucer, the half-empty skins, then at Andreas. "What about you, Captain? You ever plan to remarry your sword?"
Andreas leaned back, chewing. "My sword's faithful. Doesn't talk during supper. Doesn't cry when the legions pull out." A pause. "And she… she did what she could. No blame in it." After that, I kept to horses and campaigns. Safer."
The silence thickened.
Constantine set his cup down. "So that's it, then? Three men of the empire, each brilliant in his own field"
"Field?" Andreas said.
"Figure of speech," George muttered.
"Three men," Constantine resumed, "with no children, no wives, no sweethearts. Just olives, battle plans, and" he flicked a finger at George's folio, "unread letters."
George smiled faintly. "It's a noble tradition. Dying brilliant and unloved."
"Speak for yourself," Andreas said, reaching for another olive. "I'm well-loved. By my dog."
George leaned back, studying them both. "Maybe when this is over, if we're still standing, we build something more than walls and weapons. A household. A table. Women who don't flinch at cannon fire."
Constantine nodded slowly. "We'll toast to that. With better wine."
"War first," Andreas said, standing. "Then your bloody weddings."
He stomped out into the fog.
George stayed seated. "You'd really be my best man?"
Constantine looked over. "Only if you promise to marry someone who can argue back."
George smiled, tired and quiet. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
The tent flap jerked open. A scout stumbled in, mud-streaked and panting.
"Majesty." he gasped "Thomas's riders. The Sultan's coming. North of the city. Two days. Maybe less.
Constantine stood slowly. The broth forgotten.
"Wake the command."
The fog didn't lift. It thickened.