Thracian sea, Early April
The Katarina rode heavily in cold water, the hull groaning. Prince Thomas stood on the quarterdeck with his cloak pinned tight against the wind and watched the formation hold: the Gattilusio galleys pacing them on the left, three smaller Roman ships on the right, and the Kyreneia a little ahead, steady on her long banks of oars.
Admiral Laskaris stood beside him, loose-kneed and easy with the motion, his eyes moving between the waterline and the low sky beyond.
"I left the army with half my heart behind," Thomas said.
Laskaris looked at him this time. "You did what you had to." His voice softened a fraction. "The City takes its due from all of us."
Thomas's left shoulder twitched with the ship's roll. He tightened his grip on the rail until the knuckles showed pale through the wet leather. "Maybe. But I wanted Andrianopolis. I wanted to see the wall go."
"I know," Laskaris said. "You don't like leaving things unfinished." He paused, then added, quieter, "But a man can't be in two places. Not even a prince." His gaze flicked to the way Thomas kept that shoulder tucked. "Keep it so, and you may still have the use of it when this is done."
Thomas let out a breath through his nose.
"Besides, the men are steadier with you here," Laskaris said. "With God's help, Constantine and Andreas will pull it off. Andrianople will open."
Thomas nodded once and crossed himself. "They will."
Laskaris kept his eyes on the sea ahead. "That fight is theirs. Ours will come soon, and with less warning."
Thomas looked along the Katarina's shut gunports. "If I had to be away, better here. I want to see her fight."
"She will," Laskaris said. He tipped his chin toward the blurred line of land ahead. "If Halil means to feed the City from Anatolia, the boats come through there. And if they mean to keep the strait open, their fleet will have to come out and meet us."
Thomas followed his gaze along the coast.
"The wind?" he asked.
"Usually north-east," Laskaris said. "This time of year it wanders. South-east comes often enough. Pray it stays with us."
By midday the weather had turned. The air felt heavier, thunder muttered somewhere behind the cloud, and the wind no longer carried them so much as hit them in uneven blows. Chop slapped at the oars and spoiled their rhythm. The Katarina yawed, her canvas snapping full for a moment and then sagging loose again.
Laskaris studied the sky and said only, "Imbros."
They turned for shelter. Imbros rose out of the weather as a dark lump of hills and wet stone. Soon they were in her lee, anchor down. On shore, a few figures gathered, Gattilusio men and fishermen used to the sea's temper, watching the fleet ride out the squall.
Thomas stayed on deck until his fingers went numb. Each hour at anchor was an hour Halil drew closer to the City, an hour the men inside the walls tightened their hold around Helena's monastery. When he finally went below, he slipped away before anyone could speak to him and shut himself into his cabin.
Dawn came clear. The storm had blown itself out in the night. They weighed anchor and slid out, oars biting, the Katarina taking the wind again with reluctant grace. By midday the straits narrowed ahead; land pressed close enough to show scrub, white stone, a few watch posts. The south-east wind sat on their quarter, steady enough to spare the oars some work. The current twisted in a seam that tugged at hull and rudder.
Nestor stood beside the admiral with both hands braced on the rail. He still smelled of powder from the night's counting, and his face had not quite recovered from the sea, but his eyes stayed fixed on the channel ahead.
A signal fire sprang up on the European shore, then another farther up the ridge.
"They've seen us," Laskaris said in the same level voice. "Hold formation."
The Kyreneia kept the center, with the Katarina close behind her. The Gattilusio galleys stayed level on the left, while the three smaller Roman ships hung back on the right, ready to run in or rake with their stern guns.
Gallipoli revealed itself piece by piece: first the hill, crowned with stone; then the darker notch of the harbor below it; and at the mouth, two towers guarding a narrow entrance.
Then the Ottoman fleet came out to meet them. It moved low and fast, oars flashing in the sun. The decks were crowded with men already in place, bows in hand and shields up.
"Three dozen," Nestor said, still counting. "Maybe four."
Laskaris did not take his eyes off them. "All hands to their places. Now."
The Ottoman line widened toward both shores, trying to close the channel. Fustas slipped out toward the edges, searching for a way around. The distance narrowed until Nestor could hear voices, thin and sharp across the water.
Thomas leaned toward the admiral. "When do you turn?"
Laskaris watched the wind, the set of the current, the Kyreneia's oar-stroke. His jaw worked once. "Any moment."
The gunners crouched behind open ports, matches held back from the powder like men guarding their own blood. On deck, everything tightened.
Laskaris snapped his hand down. "Signal the turn."
Flag and trumpet answered. The Kyreneia began to swing toward the European shore, oars digging hard. The Katarina followed, slower and heavier, until her broadside opened to the oncoming boats. The Gattilusio galleys pulled inward to close the gap; the smaller Roman ships eased outward and held back, bringing their stern guns down the lane.
The Ottoman fustas surged forward. Hooks lifted. Men shouted over each other.
"Fire," Laskaris called.
The first broadside hit with a force Thomas felt through the deck. The Katarina lurched under him, gun carriages slammed back, and smoke burst from the ports and rolled thick across the planks. Through it he caught broken glimpses of the leading fustas: chain shot tearing through their oar banks, men dropping, splinters flying up with blood. One mast shuddered, then came down across the deck below it.
The Kyreneia fired almost at the same moment. The three smaller Roman ships answered with their stern guns, their shots skipping low before striking the hulls that were trying to spread around the flagship. For a few moments the Ottoman line kept coming on momentum alone. Then it broke. Crippled fustas and galleys drifted sideways in the current, their oars hanging loose and broken. Men went into the water with shields still strapped to them and sank quickly, while others clung to planks and wreckage until the strait carried them away.
"Again," Laskaris said.
The gunners worked in hard rhythm—swab, load, ram—boots sliding on the wet deck. The helmsman held her through a slow turn, keeping the bow into the chop while the ports stayed open. The second broadside went out. A fusta vanished behind spray as a ball punched through its bow; another slewed sideways with half its oars gone, the men on deck staring as if they'd been struck deaf.
Thomas had forced himself down among the musketeers. His left shoulder refused him; he braced the Pyrvelos on the rail with his good arm and fired into a crippled craft still drifting toward them, its men lifting hooks. Around him, the musketeers fired in staggered pulses, smoke flattening along the deck and clinging under the rail.
Beyond them, the Gattilusio galleys were already moving among the damaged hulls with hooks out, taking prizes in tow where they could. One captain pushed too far in his eagerness and struck an Ottoman fusta that still had way on it. The crash of it carried even over the guns. Planks split, oars tangled, and the two vessels jammed together. After that, the fighting there turned close and ugly.
On the Anatolian flank, the enemy reached the smaller Roman ships. Four fustas and three galleys pushed in, arrows hissing and clattering off timber. One Roman ship took hooks and lurched as men swarmed her rail. For a breath she vanished under bodies—Ottoman caps and Roman helmets tangled on the planks—and her stern piece fell silent. Beside her, the other two Roman ships backed water and fired, trying to keep their rails clear and their bows free.
Nestor swallowed. "The right flank is under pressure," he said, and even to his own ears his voice sounded thin.
Laskaris glanced that way. "Signal the Gattilusios."
Flag up. Trumpet. Two Gattilusio galleys broke off and drove into the crush, oars biting. Their deck pieces spat scrap-shot into the clustered men; boarders flinched, ducked, lost their footing. On the threatened Roman ship, Pyrveloi rose behind a screen of planks and fired at arm's length. The sound in that cramped gap was brutal—cracks, screams, the wet thud of lead.
The Ottoman push began to weaken. The surviving fustas pulled wider and started to run. The galleys turned back toward Gallipoli, dragging their damaged companions behind them and leaving wreckage and bodies to the current.
"Hold," Laskaris shouted. "Take what floats. Count every hull."
By the time the smoke thinned, two Ottoman galleys were in tow and four fustas with them—too broken for speed. More than twenty hulls lay crippled, burning, or drifting dead in the current. The small Roman ship that had taken the brunt of the boarding came out of the crush with her rail hacked and her steering oar splintered; she kept water out with a man at every seam and a towline on her bow.
Thomas climbed back to the quarterdeck with soot on one cheek and salt dried at his lashes. He was breathing hard. He looked once at the water, then at Laskaris.
"The strait is ours," Thomas said.
Voices rose across the decks, some cheering, some only shouting to be heard over the guns and the sea. Thomas lifted his good arm, and the learned words tore out of him.
"IEROS SKOPOS!"
The cry ran from ship to ship, rough and hungry, half prayer and half battle shout.
Then Thomas turned back toward Gallipoli. "Now we finish them."
Laskaris's eyes stayed on Gallipoli. "Forward," he said. "Slowly. Keep the oars clear of wreckage, and keep the guns ready."
They edged closer, picking their way around wrecks. Gallipoli's defenses sharpened with distance—the entrance towers crowded with men, and across the harbor mouth a dark line rose, iron catching the light. Beyond, the taller tower on the bridge sat over the inner basin, its narrow windows black.
A dull boom rolled from shore. A stone ball struck the sea ahead of the Kyreneia and threw up spray that slapped over her bow. A second skipped closer and rocked a Gattilusio galley hard.
"Back off, out of their range!" Laskaris said.
The fleet obeyed, turning away in a disciplined sweep until the bombard shots fell short. Gallipoli stayed behind them, closed and waiting.
Only then did Laskaris look at Thomas. "We came to close the strait, not to die under their walls."
Thomas's jaw worked. He stared at the walls as if he could pull them down by force. Then his gaze slid east, toward the unseen City.
"It's time to go," he said.
Laskaris nodded once. "Take one of Palamedes' galleys. Keep to the shore and its folds. If patrols show, you turn away."
Soon, Matteo's galley came alongside, oars feathering to match the Katarina's drift. Matteo looked up, face set in the calm of a man who liked clear orders and kept his thoughts to himself.
"My Prince."
Thomas climbed down one-handed. Every rung pulled at his wounded shoulder and made him clench his jaw. When he stepped onto the galley's deck, everything felt different at once: lower to the water, sharper with the smell of wet wood and sweat, the benches crowded with men who looked up at him quickly and then back to their oars.
Matteo barked to his crew. The oars dropped together, and the galley slid away from the Katarina, gathering speed as it skimmed across the strait.
The rest of the fleet crossed to the Anatolian side and took shelter off Lampsacus. The shore there looked gentle—green slope, a few buildings—until men gathered in loose ranks and arrows began to arc out, hissing into water, clattering off hulls.
Laskaris lifted his hand. The ships spread to widen spacing. "Gun two. Low."
The cannon fired. The ball hit earth among the few gathered Ottomans and threw up dirt and stone. Men scattered. A horse reared and fell, legs kicking. A second shot followed, and whatever courage had brought them to the shoreline broke. They ran back toward higher ground, dragging the wounded, leaving the beach empty but for dropped shields and a dark stain in the sand.
Boats were lowered at once. The Romans went first, shields up and pikes forward, with the Gattilusio mercenaries close behind them. They crossed the wet shingle quickly while the ships' guns covered the ridge above. No one waited to see whether another volley of arrows was coming.
They took the strand in a quick rush and pushed to the nearest rise, driving off the last lingerers. A few locals fled inland. A spring was found and guarded. By late afternoon barrels were rolling down to the boats, and carpenters were ashore with spare timber to brace the splintered steering oar and patch torn planking.
When the light began to fail, a line of sentries stood above the beach and a rough barricade of oars and shields marked the limit of their hold. The fleet lay just offshore, guns run out, as if to make the point plain: they weren't merely passing through. They meant to stay.
Author's Note:
In this timeline, the action at Gallipoli marks the first time in recorded naval history that a fleet deliberately fights in a true broadside posture—and it's the Katarina and Kyreneia that debut it. The Ottomans have already had to adjust to Constantine's "new tricks" on land; this is the moment they realize the same revolution has reached the sea, and that their usual assumptions about how ships must fight are no longer safe.
The battle is loosely inspired by the real Battle of Gallipoli (1416). A great story with a similarly sharp, confidence-building triumph for the Venetians. And a fun historical fuct: Lampsacus was attacked and damaged by the Venetians in the battle of 1416, and later the Ottomans tore down what remained of its fortifications rather than risk it falling into Venetian hands...