The road ran straight through low Thracian fields, then broke into ruts where wagons had gone through. Constantine rode with George Sphrantzes beside him, the column stretched behind them in mud and noise: ox teams, mules, men carrying pikes any way they could to spare their shoulders. When the wind shifted, it brought salt off the Marmara and the smell of wet hides.
Fences were down where hooves had cut across wet ground. In the low places where village smoke should have been, there was nothing, just cold air and a crow calling from a bare poplar.
They found a burned wagon in a ditch. The frame was charred and sagged in on itself. One axle had snapped clean, the wood split at the break. Grain from a torn sack had spilled out and been trampled into the road until it was a grey paste in the hoofprints. A harness strap hung from a scorched peg, stiff with damp.
A mule lay half off the road, legs bent under it, one flank torn open to the bone. Two dogs stood ten paces away in the wet, ribs showing, and watched the column pass.
One of the officers reined in and swung down. He went to the ditch and the burned wagon, boots slipping once in the wet. He bent over the frame, lifted the hanging strap with two fingers, then let it drop. He nudged the snapped axle with his toe and looked up the road.
Constantine kept his horse at a walk, eyes moving from the broken strap to the mule's hooves. The smell of leather from his own tack mixed with damp grain.
"How long," Constantine asked, "since they passed?"
"Ten days, more or less, Basileus," the officer said. "The marks are still soft in the low places."
"He moved fast," George said. "Left the weight behind. Took what he needed as he went." He paused. "He's desperate."
"He stripped the road, no doubt," Constantine said. His left hand stayed low on the reins; the glove seam bit into the web of his thumb where it had rubbed raw.
George shifted as if the thought sat wrong on him. "The countryside won't recover this year. Too much grain taken, too much seed lost. People will go hungry." He glanced toward the dogs, then away. "We've taken burned ground before in this campaign. This strip will join it."
"I want to see what he left at Selymbria," Constantine said. "Not ash, if we're lucky."
George's eyes stayed on the road ahead. "The fields, yes," he said. "If the town kept its gates shut, Halil wouldn't waste time on a siege. He wants the City."
The road rose gently and the air shifted with it. The salt smell came cleaner. Ahead, a pale strip of sea showed between the folds of land, with haze lying low over the Marmara.
Selymbria came into view in parts: first the walls, then the higher stone of the citadel on the hill. Roofs sat packed beneath it, red and grey, with smoke from a few chimneys. A gull crossed above the slope and dropped behind the battlements.
An officer from the vanguard galloped back toward them, cloak flapping. He pulled up hard, throwing clods of wet earth. The horse sidestepped once.
"Majesty," the man said, breathless. "The town has opened its gates."
They went down the slope with the vanguard fanning out, men jogging to keep the front tight. The ground outside the walls was scorched—black stubble, fence posts burned down, fields left patchy and bare where they'd been stripped and trampled.
At the gate, a herald stepped out with two spearmen. He held up a sealed token wrapped in cloth. His eyes caught the purple edge of Constantine's cloak and slipped away, then came back.
"My lord," he called, forcing his voice to carry. "Welcome. The gate is opened to the true Emperor."
Up on the gatehouse the elders stood packed along the parapet with a priest among them, hands raised. Someone rang a bell too hard, iron clanging against stone until it settled into a rhythm.
The gates rolled back with a groan of wood and iron. A cheer rose from inside, uneven at first, then stronger as people pressed forward.
Two tagmata went in ahead of him, moving in a line with spears up. They took the mouth of the street and set men along the walls, clearing space with open hands and short commands. Only then did Constantine ride through, his guards close around him. The column followed, filling the gate in a slow, steady stream.
Faces crowded at the edges, women in rough scarves, boys too thin for their tunics, men with flour on their sleeves, watching him as he passed.
"Constantine!" someone shouted.
"Ieros Skopos!" another voice answered, and the words carried down the lane.
A child found a gap and ran alongside the horse until a soldier caught him by the collar. Constantine saw the man push the boy back into the crowd.
The road inside the walls climbed. The smell changed as they went, fish waste from an alley, damp stone, the sour stink of a latrine bucket carried too late. The column filled the lane, and the wagons behind began to echo in the tight streets.
Just inside the inner gate to the citadel, the local governor waited with a small group of elders and a priest between them. The priest held a cross upright, his fingers tight on the wood. The governor's robe sat well enough, but sweat had darkened it under the arms, and his eyes kept going to the soldiers' hands.
"Majesty," he began, bowing low. "We were expecting you, my lord—the liberator of Andrianople, the true Emperor to free us from the Ottomans and the traitorous Demetrios." The words came out practiced, stacked one on another like coins.
Constantine dismounted. The courtyard held puddles in old cracks, and his boot sank a little. He handed the reins to a groom and kept his gloves on.
"You kept the town," he said. "That matters."
The governor's relief showed at once. "We did, my lord. We did." He gestured toward the stairs. "Please. A room is prepared."
They went up into a chamber that smelled of old plaster and tallow smoke. A table had been scrubbed and covered with a cloth, still damp in the folds. The governor poured wine himself from a jug with a chipped lip and set the cup in front of Constantine with both hands.
"Majesty… a galley arrived three days ago. From your fleet," the governor said, leaning forward. "A great victory near Gallipoli. They said the straits are in your hands." He fumbled in a chest and brought out a letter, sealed and folded twice. "They left this for you. They said another ship will come again, any day now."
Constantine took the letter. The wax had been pressed hard; the seal's edges were sharp under his thumb. He broke it with a nail and opened the sheet carefully so the creases didn't tear. The ink smelled faintly of salt.
His eyes moved over the lines. He kept his face still, but his chest tightened. Ottoman fleet broken off. Gallipoli still in Ottoman hands, but the strait held. Thomas on to Galata. He read the letter, folded it, and set it down.
The governor watched him too closely. "My lord," he said, "is it—"
Constantine lifted a hand and the governor stopped. "You did well to hold your walls," Constantine said. "Now tell me about the Ottomans."
The governor's throat worked. He reached for the jug, poured again though the cup was half full, and spilled a little onto the tablecloth. "They passed ten days ago," he said. "They demanded supplies. Grain, animals, oil. We gave what we must. We kept the gates shut."
"How many?" Constantine asked.
"A river of men, my lord." The governor worked at his sleeve cuff. "There was a caravan with them too—carts, pack animals. More than I've seen in years. They took what we put out and moved on. They left patrols for two days, maybe three—riders in the fields. Then they went east."
A shout rose from the courtyard below, teamsters arguing over space, an ox bellowing when its yoke shifted. The governor flinched, then kept going. "If you intend to make Selymbria your base, we will provide—"
"Inventory first," Constantine said. The governor stopped. "You will show my quartermasters your stores. You will provide lists of households and able men. My clerks will sit in your hall." He tapped the letter once with two fingers. "You will wait for further orders. Leave us now."
The governor bowed again, deeper than the first, and backed toward the door. He went out with his sandals whispering on the stone.
When the door shut, Constantine told George what the letter said.
George breathed out through his nose, eyes steady. "That is all it says?"
Constantine passed him the letter.
"I thought there'd be more on Thomas. But it is enough to shape today," Constantine said. He stood, joints stiff from saddle hours, and crossed to the narrow window. Outside, a strip of sea showed beyond the roofs and gulls turned over the harbor mouth.
George shifted on the bench. "So Halil has the City to himself for a week, at least. The straits being held is good news. But we need more than that. Galata. Thomas. We need to know who holds what by the hour."
"With the straits held, they're boxed in," Constantine said. "So they'll do what boxed men do." He set the letter down and flattened it with his palm.
"Our people will pay a heavy price," George said.
Constantine didn't answer at once. His thumb worried the paper's edge until the fold went soft. He looked at George, the words coming out too fast. "And what am I supposed to do?"
He caught himself, drew a slow breath through his nose, and pressed his hand flat on the letter. "They pay either way," he said.
No one spoke for a moment.
George's mouth pulled sideways. "And the governor. I know him," he said. "He changed colors for Demetrios when it suited him. He'll change colors for you with the same speed."
"I saw a man trying to survive," Constantine said. He turned from the window and slid the letter into his breast under the armor, where it would stay flat. "You know him. I don't."
George leaned closer, voice low. "If you leave him in place, give him a shadow. Someone who counts his keys."
"He keeps the city running," Constantine said. "For now." He straightened and reached for the letter again. "Put a man in his rooms. And I want a second set of ledgers, ours."
They went out into the citadel yard. The air smelled of sweat, horse piss, and wet straw from bedding thrown in a heap. Constantine's guards moved with him through the press of men. A clerk had set a board across two barrels as a desk, and the first sheets were being held down with stones against the wind.
By midday the citadel was all work. Quartermasters went through the stores with wax tablets and chalk, calling out numbers while soldiers stood at the doors. Barrels were rolled out and struck to judge how full they were. Salt fish were laid out on boards. In one room, sacks of grain were opened and checked.
A sergeant brought Constantine a short report, speaking in the flat cadence of men used to bad news. "Two hundred measures of wheat in the lower store, Basileus. Forty barrels of oil. Beans enough for a week's rations for five hundred men. The Ottomans took most of the cattle."
Constantine took the tablet, thumbed the wax edge, and handed it back. "Mark what remains under seal," he said. "Post a guard at the salt sheds."
George stood with him under an arch and watched the carts come in: onions in baskets, few thin sheep, bundles of firewood tied with vine.
In the afternoon, Constantine called the town's elders and leading men into the citadel hall. They arrived in a careful cluster, hats in hands. The governor stood to the side, smiling without his eyes.
A long table had been dragged under the high window. George's clerks laid out paper and inkpots. A brazier burned low at one end for sealing wax, smoke thin in the air. Constantine sat at the center and rested his forearms on the wood, armor cold through the cloth.
He let them settle and then spoke without raising his voice. "Selymbria opens its gates to me today. That choice brings men into your streets." He watched one elder swallow and press his thumb into the edge of his cap. "My army will buy supplies when coin can reach them. When coin runs short, you will receive written drafts with my seal and they will be honored."
A murmur moved through the hall, half relief, half suspicion at the idea of paper replacing silver. George's clerk dipped his pen and waited.
"The town will be under oversight," Constantine continued. "An officer and a small detachment will remain in the citadel. The gates will be watched in my name. No private messages go east without my knowledge."
The governor cleared his throat as if to speak, then stopped when George's eyes moved to him.
Constantine turned his head slightly. "You will continue to administer the town's daily matters," he said to the governor. "You will do it with open books. If anyone brings you a demand in Demetrios' name, you will send them to my officer with the paper in hand."
He shifted in the chair, leather creaking, and nodded toward a priest. "You will take an oath before the clergy, in writing."
George's clerk slid the first sheet forward. The priest stepped up, set a cross down on the table with a small thud, and placed a Bible beside it.
One by one, the elders came forward. Some could write their names in a careful hand; others made a mark while the clerk wrote the name for them. Each put two fingers to the Bible, then to the cross, and spoke the words the priest gave them in a low voice.
When it was the governor's turn, he held the pen like a tool he had used too many times. The ink blotched on the first stroke. He glanced up at Constantine, searching for a face that would reassure him, and found only attention. He finished his name and stepped back, wiping his fingers on his sleeve.
George took the seal from a small pouch and held it over the brazier to warm the wax. The purple cord was smudged with road grime. He dripped wax onto each sheet and pressed the seal down hard until the eagle stamped clean. The wax cooled with a sharp smell, and the hall fell quiet.