Constantinople, Late night
They came in through a door meant for barrels. The monk on the latch opened it a hand's breadth, checked the lane in both directions, then pulled them inside one by one. Thomas ducked under the lintel and stone scraped his cap. Salt had dried in patches on his cloak, and the wet wool hung heavy off his shoulders.
Kallergis shut the door behind them, catching the iron ring in his palm before it could clack against the wood. A third man stood with his back against the door and breathed through his nose for a long moment. Water ran from his hem and darkened the floor.
The room was low-ceilinged and warm from a brazier banked under ash, and a single lamp burned on the table with cheap oil that smelled of sour wick. A shelf along one wall held jars with waxed lids gone tacky in the heat. Thomas's left shoulder burned under the bandage, a dull heat that sharpened whenever he shifted his weight to find the wound.
Two monks waited by a table. One was young and broad, hands roughened by work. The other had a grey beard and watchful eyes.
"You speak low in here," the older one said, "and you don't open the shutters for any reason. Not even a crack."
He set down a loaf already cut into rough pieces, then a small dish of olives and a clay jug of water. The knife he'd used to cut the bread tore more than it sliced, leaving pale ragged edges. The young monk pushed a folded bundle of clothes across the table: plain tunics, two belts, a pair of caps.
Kallergis crossed to the shutters and checked the bar with his fingertips, then tried the back bolt and came back to sit at the table facing the door, his hands resting open on his knees. Thomas drank. The water tasted faintly of clay from the jug. He ate because his mouth had gone dry on the boat over and the salt was still in his throat, and the olives were soft, the brine sharp on his tongue.
The older monk leaned in. "When the patrol comes at first light," he said, "you stay in this room. Don't open the shutters. Don't speak."
Kallergis didn't look away from the door. "They come every day?"
"Yes," the monk said. "That's how it's been the last few days. Most of them are from the new vanguard; they are unfamiliar with the city. But they bring Greeks with them too, men who know where to look."
Boots passed in the corridor, then the sound moved on. Somewhere in the courtyard, a bucket scraped and stopped.
A knock came at the inner door — two taps, a pause, one. The older monk crossed the room and opened it, bowing his head as he did.
Isidoros stepped in with his hood down. There was more grey in the abbot's beard than Thomas remembered, and he stopped just inside the threshold when he saw who was at the table.
"My prince." The bow was quick, a half-step short of formal. "You came in yourself."
"Isidoros."
"It's been a long time." The abbot moved closer. "Since the Morea."
Thomas nodded. His shoulder pulsed against the wrappings. "Since Echinades."
"I'm here for my mother."
Isidoros's gaze moved over Kallergis, then the third man. "How did you get through?" he said. "Since the vanguard came, patrols have tightened. They patrol the sea walls. They watch the monasteries. At dawn, they take our names and count heads. I've been thinking these last days about leaving the city myself, and you chose this night to come in."
"I chose it because she's still inside."
Isidoros set a small wooden cross on the table with a soft thud. "Helena is at Kyra Martha. They've been keeping her in the inner cells for some weeks now."
Thomas's fingers tightened on the table edge until the grain bit into his skin.
"We have people there now," Isidoros added, quieter. "Trusted ones." His eyes flicked to the door and stayed there a beat. "With the Turks inside, Demetrios won't be the hand over her door for long. His men will step back, or be pushed back. I heard this afternoon a rumor, but from mouths that count, that the Ottomans have him under guard. They've taken Blachernae for Halil and for the Sultan's rooms."
Kallergis looked at Thomas, the glance sharp and quick.
"Send your monks out," Thomas said.
Isidoros waved them away. The younger gathered the cups and jug; the older took the spare clothes.
Thomas leaned forward and the pain stabbed through his shoulder. He took a breath before he spoke.
"Demetrios is dead."
Isidoros's palm went flat on the table. The lamp flame shivered. "Dead?"
"In Galata. I killed him."
For a beat Isidoros didn't move. Then he crossed himself, quick and tight.
"Galata?" he said. "What was he doing in Galata?"
Thomas looked at Isidoros. "Because of what you just told me," he said. "The Turks coming for him. He heard it and ran."
"And the Podestà?" Isidoros asked. "How did he take it?"
"He didn't like it," Thomas said. "He wanted us off his streets. But he took coin and silence. He'll stay neutral as long as it profits him."
"And Constantine?" Isidoros asked.
Thomas gave him the essentials: Constantine in Thrace; the straits held after Gallipoli; Halil and the boy Sultan had abandoned Adrianople. When he finished, Isidoros breathed out slowly. The room smelled of lamp smoke and damp wool.
"Our net inside the city is thin," the abbot said after a moment. "Thinner than it was. Demetrios made sure of that — men taken from beds and from workshops these last months, and after the riots people learned to keep their heads down and their doors barred. But I still have brothers who carry messages, and they answer to Constantine."
Thomas looked at the cracked cross on the table, pitch in the repair.
"Then we take her out," he said. "And anyone else you can move without drawing steel."
"Her first," Isidoros said. "Others after, if there is an after." He sat and drew his robe in.
"How soon?" Kallergis asked.
"A day, perhaps two," Isidoros said. "First I need fresh eyes on Kyra Martha at dawn. Helena may be under extra watch. The guard at the service door may have changed." He hesitated. "When the Sultan arrives, the streets will fill. The noise will cover us."
"No, before he arrives," Thomas said.
Isidoros held his gaze. "He could be here tomorrow. If we rush blindly, we meet a patrol that recognizes her." He nodded toward Kallergis. "Do you have coin for doors?"
"Some," Thomas said, and glanced once.
Kallergis drew a pouch from under his tunic and set it on the table. The leather was dark with sweat. It made a small, heavy sound.
"Use it where it opens a door," Thomas said.
Isidoros slid the pouch up his sleeve. "At first light I'll have eyes on the door and on the man beside it." At the threshold he paused with his hand on the latch. "And cut the beard. The hair too. There are still men in this city who remember your face."
Thomas nodded .
When the abbot was gone, Kallergis put their man in the corner by the door and told him to take first watch. Thomas lay back on the pallet with his boots still on and the shoulder throbbing under the cloth, and after a while he slept.
The next night the monastery stayed quiet. Thomas watched from the shutter seam. Kallergis sat facing the door. Rain tapped the tiles overhead in a slow, irregular pattern, picking up and falling off again.
A shape moved across the lane outside—two monks in dark hoods—and between them a nun with her head bowed. They didn't slow at the door. They kept walking, one block further on, in the direction of the fountain lane.
Then a lantern swung into view and halted them.
Thomas pressed his eye harder to the crack in the shutter. The light showed three Ottoman soldiers and a Greek interpreter standing a half-pace behind. The leader held his spear sideways across the lane to bar the way.
The older monk bowed and spoke first, his voice level and unhurried. "From Kyra Martha. We're taking Sister Thekla to the Monastery of Anastasis. Her brother is dying and she's to sit with him through the prayers tonight."
The interpreter repeated it in Turkish. The patrol leader listened, then spoke fast. The interpreter turned it into Greek.
"Which street did you leave by? Which gate? What street do you take now?"
The monk answered with the steadiness of a man reciting a psalm: the service door by the herb garden; the lane past the tanner; the turn at the cistern; then straight to Anastasis back court. The second monk kept his eyes down and held the nun by the elbow.
The patrol leader stepped closer and hooked two fingers under the nun's veil. He pushed it back.
Helena's face caught the lantern: pale, hair tucked tight, a line of wax on one cheek from a candle that had dripped on her hood. Her mouth stayed closed.
Thomas's hand slid under his cloak to the hilt and eased the blade out a thumb's breadth.
Kallergis closed hard on his wrist. "Wait," he whispered.
The patrol leader stared a moment, then snorted. He said something that brought a laugh from the others. The interpreter grinned and translated, careless.
"Ugly old nun," he said. "Move."
As they started past, the patrol leader called after them. The interpreter lifted his chin to throw the words back.
"I'll remember your faces," he said. "Don't wander twice in one night."
Thomas held his breath until his chest burned. Kallergis touched his sleeve once, a quick signal, then took his hand away.
The monks and Helena passed the door again, still without stopping, and went on to the next corner. A minute later they vanished into the darker lanes.
A few minutes after that, the agreed knock came at the back door, softer than the first time — two taps, a pause, one. Kallergis opened and pulled them in fast, all three of them, and shut the door and threw the bolt before any of them had stopped moving.
Rain beaded on Helena's veil. She held a bundle of cloth under her arm, folded into a neat rectangle. Her steps were careful, protective of her knees. The monks came in behind her and shut the door. Thomas stood. Pain jumped in his shoulder and he ignored it. Helena lifted her head and the lamp caught her eyes.
"Mother," he said.
She came one step closer and put her hand to his jaw. Her palm was cool and dry. She traced the line where his beard had been, and her thumb paused at a small cut near his chin.
"Thomas, my son," she said, and the name shook once.
"I've come for you," he said.
Her hand dropped to his sleeve and gripped the wool there, hard enough to wrinkle it. She looked past him, taking in the barred shutters and the brazier ash in one glance.
"You look tired."
"Not now."
She studied him a moment. "Where is Demetrios?"
Thomas reached for the cup on the shelf and held it without drinking. The clay was cool against his palm.
Kallergis cleared his throat once and turned to the door.
By midday the rain had stopped, but damp stayed in the stone.
Isidoros came with mud on his hem and a folded paper tucked in his sleeve. He set it on the table and held it down with two fingers.
"Kyra Martha thinks she's gone out to pray for the sick at one of the houses. They'll search for her. Slow at first, then harder once the prioress understands."
Kallergis leaned over the paper but didn't touch it. " And the gates?"
"Watched," Isidoros said. "Sea walls too. Since yesterday the patrols changed again. Turkish commands in the lane, and the Greek men who used to walk with them now keep their distance, which tells you something." He glanced at Thomas, who was sitting against the wall with his shoulder freshly wrapped. "Did you tell her about Demetrios?"
Thomas looked at the cup in his hand. "Not yet. Later."
The abbot nodded once, neither agreeing nor arguing. "We can move her by water. Some of the fishermen still go out at night, and one of them owes me a favour from before the riots."
"Getting her out will be harder than getting in," Kallergis said.
"It will."
A horn sounded in the distance, low and long, and another answered from somewhere closer, and then a third, until the notes were stepping over each other and settling into a rhythm that put a faint vibration into the walls.
Kallergis's hand went to his belt without him seeming to know he'd moved it.
Isidoros closed his eyes for a breath and opened them again.
"The Sultan," he said. "At the gates."
Author note: The events in this chapter occur days before Constantine arrives at Selymbria. When I revise this into a full book, I'll probably reorder some chapters to strengthen the chronology and escalation.
Isidoros is Isidore of Kiev, a prominent pro-union abbot with real political weight, so embedding him in the Ieros Skopos network within Constantinople felt like the most natural use of the character. In this alternate timeline, John VIII's early death and Demetrios's ascendancy redirect his career and alliances, even if the underlying pressures, union politics, factional fear, institutional survival, stay recognizably the same.
Regarding the Genoese and the fallout from Demetrios's killing: the story will return to those consequences in later chapters. For now, I aimed for a response that fits both history and the internal logic of the setting. Under these circumstances, it didn't feel credible that the Podestà would imprison Thomas; transactional neutrality, accepting coin, minimizing exposure, and pushing the problem off Genoese territory, seemed more plausible.
Either way, the siege is almost here!