The city awoke with the sound of engines.
Morning fog clung to the domes of Constantinople, giving the towers and minarets the look of ships adrift on a silver sea. The low thump of water-pumps echoed from the lower quarters. Along the Mese, merchants raised their shutters to let out the stale air of night and let in the new: a morning filled with the metallic pulse of innovation, a day hammered on the anvil of power.
Constantine stood above it all, flanked by Valerius and Marcus, his gaze fixed on the waterfront. Smoke rose in ribbons from the foundries along the Golden Horn. Every line of the harbor was changed: cranes, some built only yesterday, hunched over the piers, swinging loads of timber and granite as easily as a centurion would shoulder a pack. Below, teams of slaves and free men drove piles, constructed slipways, built new hulls under canvas and tarp. The city was becoming what he demanded: a living machine, iron-hearted and tireless.
