Thessaloniki, dawn.
The imperial army moved out at first light, steady and disciplined, the spine of a growing thunder of wagons, animals, and shouting men. Thousands of boots struck earth in a steady rhythm, pike-butts thudding on the packed road like a somber drumbeat. Wagon wheels groaned under the weight of cannons and supplies.
A haze of dust clung to the column; the Pyrvelos muskets on the soldiers' shoulders gleamed in the early sun, a line of cold, ordered light amid the murk. Horses snorted and tossed their heads, flecks of foam on their bits as they strained to haul the field guns.
Thessaloniki was already awake to watch them go. Traders paused beside half-open shutters, bread-sellers stood with baskets on their hips, and children craned from doorways, bare feet on stone. Women crossed themselves as the standards passed; old men leaned on canes at the roadside, squinting through the dust. From upper windows, shutters creaked open, and the murmur of the waking city—prayers, wagers, blessings, and the occasional rough curse—wove between the ranks marching past.
Behind the infantry came the logistical heart of the host, a spectacle in its own right. A long line of camels, several hundred seized from the Ottomans and now serving under imperial colors, padded forward in loose, swaying rhythm.
Their long legs and cushioned feet handled the rough paving more easily than horses. Drivers prodded them with hooked staves, calling out to keep the column tight. Each animal carried towering packs: barley sacks, canvas-wrapped tools, crates of iron fittings, and tightly lashed barrels.
Logistics officers paced beside them, tallying loads on wax tablets, shouting to make sure no camel or cargo went unrecorded. Among them strode Antonios, one of the first men pulled from the new military school, board in hand, calling out weights and marks with the steady precision of a man determined not to squander his chance.
Thousands of mules and oxen added to the din. Teams dragged heavy wagons piled with grain, timber, tallow, and rope. A pair of oxen strained against a gun carriage, thick necks bowed under the yoke, while carpenters checked the coarse hemp ropes binding a cannon to its transport sledge. Along the ditch, drovers urged a flock of sheep onward, bleating, stumbling, destined for stewpots within the week.
Behind them, the regulated train of merchants and craftsmen fell into place under officers handpicked by George Sphrantzes. These were no random opportunists but summoned members of Thessaloniki's guilds, men chosen for stamina and craft. A guild-master baker argued heatedly with a clerk over how many sacks of flour he was permitted to take. A barber checked the edge of his razor with a thumb's quick test, then secured it in a kit strapped to a mule burdened with soap, lye, and towels.
A blacksmith gave the last nails in a horse's shoe a few quick taps with a light hammer, then slung his tools onto a cart before it rolled on.
Candlemakers cinched bundles of tallow-dipped tapers to their wagons; butchers fastened cleavers and hooks inside wooden chests; launderers tied down their basins and washing paddles; tailors lashed rolls of cloth so they wouldn't shift on the road. Officers stalked between the wagons, counting yet again, because each additional cart slowed the column and stretched the line thin.
Mixed into the baggage train among the craftspeople pressed the inevitable non-combatants: widows seeking work, grey-bearded veterans perched atop sacks, and women in bright scarves calling to soldiers with familiar ease. The marching ranks muttered about the crowding and the delays it would cause, but no one tried to drive them away.
No song was sung; only creaking leather, the bellow of oxen, the grunt of camel drivers, and the rattle of wheels over cobbles disturbed the morning hush as the imperial host wound out of Thessaloniki and onto the long road north.
Far ahead of the main body, Thomas rode with the cavalry screen, a splash of restless movement against the steady tide behind him. His mail shirt was as battered as any veteran's, but he sat the saddle like a man born to it, helmet pushed back as he traded quick jests with the riders around him. Laughter flared now and then—short, rough, swallowed when sergeants glanced back, but real. Thomas clapped a horseman on the shoulder, leaned over to tighten a loose strap himself, and pointed out a half-collapsed watchtower ahead with a promise of shade that drew snorts from the men. Whatever he felt about the campaign, he carried it as bright energy, and even the horses seemed to answer him.
Constantine rode the flank at an easy pace. He gave nods as he passed the files, stopping now and then when a familiar face caught his eye. A veteran of Edessa lifted his spear in salute; Constantine reined in just long enough for a brief clasp of forearms and a dry remark about the man's miraculous ability to avoid arrows. Further on, a Domokos pikeman grinned through a new scar, and Constantine returned the smile with a few quiet words. Not speeches, just the small exchanges that steadied men better than rhetoric.
Their ranks were seasoned, not weary. These were soldiers who had marched with him before and expected to do so again: pikes held straight, muskets carried with care, the rhythm of discipline more natural now than ceremony. Ieros Skopos ran beneath their silence like a taut string, felt rather than declared.
At the head of the host, the double-headed eagle and cross snapped once in the rising breeze as Thessaloniki's walls fell away behind them. Behind them lay safety and certainty; ahead, the long river-road north and the first hinge of the campaign.
By midday, the army made camp on the flat below Aetos, tents rising in orderly rows while the cooks set their fires and the cannon teams unhitched their sweating mules. Constantine and George rode up the short slope with a small cavalry detachment toward the little fort that overlooked the plain. Aetos was hardly more than a square of stone and a drill yard, but it watched the road well enough.
As soon as Constantine appeared in the archway, Arethas stepped forward and bowed sharply.
"Majesty. Aetos stands ready. Supplies laid out as ordered. No movement on the north road. It is an honor to receive you here."
Only after Constantine returned the nod did Arethas's gaze flick toward George, a flash of recognition, sharper and more human.
"Master Sphrantzes," he said with a contained smile, "good to see you upright. Thought the ink-pots would have swallowed you by now."
George snorted. "And I see the school hasn't beaten the arrogance out of you."
Constantine glanced between them. "You know each other well, then?"
George shifted his reins lightly.
"Arethas was one of the first graduates of the academy at Thessaloniki. Worked harder than most. Argued more than all. Became a friend before he became a lieutenant."
Arethas's ears reddened beneath the dust. "The academy gave us our standards, Majesty. George taught us how to keep them."
Constantine allowed the faintest trace of a smile. "Good. Then tell me, why hold this post instead of riding with us?"
Arethas straightened, jaw tightening. "A fall, Majesty. Few weeks past. A horse bolted during drill, I landed poorly. The surgeon says a cracked rib. It mends, but…" He kept his gaze steady. "A long march in armor would tear it open again. Here I can serve without slowing your advance."
George muttered, "He couldn't breathe for a week, but swore he could fight Turks on the second day."
Arethas shot him a withering look before facing Constantine again. "I'm fit for duty, Majesty. Just not for distance in the saddle. Until I'm whole, this post lets me keep the lines clean."
Constantine nodded once, recognition, not pity. "Then mend it fully. We'll need officers who can ride hard when the time comes."
Arethas bowed. "I will be ready, Majesty."
He stepped aside and gestured toward a narrow doorway beneath the inner tower. "If you'll follow me, the office is prepared. Reports from the road, supply tallies, and well records are in order."
Inside, the office proved little more than a single room with a table and a narrow window, but every item lay arranged with exacting care: wax tablets, tally-sticks, a rolled map of the north road, a jug of clean water with a few cups. Outside, the fort hummed with the low sounds of work—mules, voices, the settling of the camp below.
As Constantine and George stepped inside, three of the Emperor's officers followed, men from the staff column who had ridden up with them. They ducked through the doorway in sequence, carrying case rolls and slates, their armor dusty from the march. At a gesture from Constantine they drew close, arranging themselves around the cramped table as best they could.
The room tightened but did not grow noisy, just the subdued murmur of logistics: wagon counts, fodder allotments, mule rotation, distances to the next water point. Arethas added his figures without hesitation, George corrected a column, one officer compared tallies, another adjusted the map.
It was a small room, but for that hour it served as a command post, Constantine at its center, his officers bent over maps and tallies, shaping the next stretch of the road north. At first light they broke camp and pushed on, the Vardar plain opening before them under a hard August sun.
By early afternoon of the second day, the imperial vanguard reached the outskirts of Polykastro.
The settlement lay low against the river, mud-brick houses, a few tiled roofs, and a thin plume of hearth smoke rising into the August glare. A small imperial garrison stood waiting by the road, spears grounded, armor sun-dull and tidy. Behind them, villagers gathered in loose clusters, shading their eyes as the army approached.
The garrison commander, a stocky officer with a trimmed beard and the posture of a man determined not to embarrass himself, stepped forward and saluted sharply.
"Majesty," he said. "Polykastro stands ready for your passage. All remains orderly. Stores are counted, the well is clean, and no Ottoman riders have crossed this stretch all summer."
Constantine returned the salute with a small nod. "Your diligence shows," he said, glancing over the neat rows of the small barracks yard. "You've kept the town steady."
The commander bowed again, relief flickering across his face. "If it pleases Your Majesty, I can show you the town. Such as it is."
Constantine dismounted, leaving George to follow. Together they walked through the compact lanes, children peering from behind doorways, elders murmuring blessings, the scent of dust and late fruit drifting on the warm air. Polykastro was no mere town but a tidy border outpost along the Vardar, its roofs sound, its storehouses neat, and its fields worked with the quiet discipline of people who had lived under imperial order since the Treaty of Serres.
It felt steady, accustomed to garrisons and messengers, a place where soldiers were part of the landscape rather than a shock to it.
At the northern edge, a squat domed building caught Constantine's eye, stone walls pale under the sun, its archway half in shadow. The masonry was finer than anything around it.
"What's that?" Constantine asked, pausing.
The commander followed his gaze. "A bathhouse, Majesty. Ottoman-built, from their first years here. Their masons repaired it again before the last war. They kept a small detachment in the village then. We've kept it serviceable since the town returned to our hands."
George lifted an eyebrow. "Serviceable?"
"Aye," the commander said, straightening. "The furnace works, the pipes draw clean enough water. If Your Majesty desires—" he hesitated, clearly uncertain whether the offer overstepped protocol "—we can have it heated at once."
Constantine studied the building a heartbeat longer.
"Yes," he said at last. "Have it prepared. The men will appreciate it as much as I will."
The commander bowed with crisp pride. "At once, Majesty."
As the army began to settle on the open ground south of Polykastro, tents rising, horses watered, the first thin line of cookfires curling smoke into the heat, Constantine and George made for the bathhouse, its door already open, attendants hurrying to stoke the furnace. Even this, an Ottoman-built room reclaimed for Roman use, felt like its own quiet victory.
Constantine eased himself into the main basin of warm water at the center of the chamber, clad only in a linen waist-wrap. Heat seeped into travel-sore muscles, drawing a quiet groan of relief from his throat. Across from him, George sank in more gingerly, sighing as the water reached his shoulders. For a time, neither man spoke. The bath chamber was dim and quiet, filled only with swirling steam and the faint crackle of the furnace.
After a long silence, George spoke softly. "It won't get easier."
Constantine nodded, eyes half-closed as the steam wreathed them. "No. The valley narrows further. The Demir Kapija pass is ahead, a true bottleneck."
George grimaced. "A throat that could swallow an army. It did once." They both remembered Emperor Sigismund's crusaders, broken in that very gorge two years ago.
"We won't repeat that mistake," Constantine said quietly. "We'll send scouts to the heights, space out the march, stay alert. I'll not have us caught in a blind trap."
George gave a firm nod. "I'd be surprised if the Ottomans have any serious force this far north."
"Indeed," Constantine murmured. A low breath of laughter escaped him, not humor so much as release, and the heat of the water did the rest.
An attendant entered to pour hot water over the stones. A new cloud of steam billowed up, carrying a sharp scent of mint. Constantine inhaled. The herbal fragrance instantly carried him to Katarina's garden at Glarentza, where she would press a fresh sprig of mint into his hand with a laugh. The memory flashed and was gone, leaving a tender ache behind.
He blinked as George shifted beside him, unaware of the thought that had passed.
"They keep this bath in good order," George said softly, nodding at the rising steam.
"Yes," Constantine said, smoothing the moment away with a faint smile. "If only all things were as easily managed."
A soft scuff of boots echoed from the doorway.
Thomas appeared through the steam, hair damp with sweat, tunic half-unlaced, grinning like a man who had just found a well in a dry land.
"Well now," he said, hands on his hips as he surveyed the room, "if I'd known you two were hiding this up here, I'd have ridden twice as fast."
George snorted. "You? You'd have fallen into the basin fully dressed."
Thomas only laughed, stepping inside as an attendant scrambled to fetch another jug of hot water.
"God's mercy, that's hot. Shift over a little, will you? I've been baked in my saddle since dawn."
Constantine gestured for him to join them. "Come, before you turn to salt."
Thomas eased himself into the basin with a sharp breath, then let out a long, helpless sigh as the heat climbed his spine.
"If the whole march were like this," he murmured, sinking to his shoulders, "I'd swear we were already in paradise."
A faint smile tugged at Constantine's mouth; George shook his head, but without reproof.
For a short while, the three rested in companionable quiet as the steam curled around them and the furnace hummed softly in the stone.
A few historical and continuity notes:
• Camels:
Obviously, camels weren't common in the Balkans, but Murad did bring notable numbers of them on major campaigns, not in the thousands, but enough to be remarked upon in the sources. So the animals present here are simply part of the baggage and spoils circulating since Edessa and earlier clashes.
• Antonios and Arethas:
Both characters first appeared back in Chapter 40 of Book Two.
• Aetos:
Aetos was a minor fort-outpost north of Thessaloniki, near the Gallikos River. In this chapter, it serves as one of the planned logistical points for the campaign, marking the spot where the army leaves the Gallikos and turns northwest toward the Vardar River.
• Polykastro:
Polykastro functioned as a small trade stop along the Vardar and had an Ottoman bathhouse built in the late 14th–early 15th century.