The Medieval Marine - Cauldron Simmering
Copyright© 2025 by somethin fishy
Chapter 19: Nova Roma
“If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.” – Napoleon Bonaparte.
Constantinople, Byzantine Empire. January 1079
The inside of the city was even more impressive than the walls. Luke walked the streets, looking like a cat with a laser pointer. All four women thought it was the funniest thing ever, but Luke was having a blast. There were so many buildings he had heard of, and now he would get to see them up close. From a purely architectural viewpoint, one of his favorites was the Hagia Sophia. It was far more impressive without the modern buildings nearby, and to see it before it was plundered several times was a treat for Luke.
When the group got to the Bosporus, a series of winter storms kept them on the Asia Minor side of the straight for almost a week. During that time, the group got to know Anna better, and they liked her much more than Fatma. Anna was a kind woman of 17 years who had seen too much death and destruction in her short time on Earth and only wanted to settle down with a good man to raise a family. When Luke and his women were entertaining themselves, Anna would sit to the side and masturbate, and although she refused any offers of help, she did accept a deer antler dildo Luke had carved. She loved that, and it quickly became one of her favorite possessions.
The day before Christmas, the group could finally cross, and Luke felt a wave of relief when he set foot on European soil again. It didn’t take long to find a stable for their horses and to sell their extras. Within a few hours, Luke had sold all the extra weaponry and found a moneychanger to exchange some of their Seljuk currency for Byzantine currency. Luke knew the Byzantine currency wasn’t worth much, thanks to the low gold content.
Luke would have exchanged more currency but strongly suspected the moneychanger was shorting him. When Luke protested, the money changer began cursing and refused to talk anymore. To Luke, that was a good indication of guilt, and he mentally marked the man’s home for later revenge.
In the meantime, Luke found a merchant who was traveling east. They were able to exchange currency, and Luke was thrilled when he discovered that the merchant mostly used British pounds. Luke exchanged all the merchant’s British currency for a corresponding amount of Seljuk currency. Although Luke hadn’t been able to get rid of even a quarter of his Seljuk currency, he now had a currency accepted all over Europe.
The women gawked at the British money, especially the portrait of Marion on the front of the coins and the British Lion on the reverse. No more impressive were all the little details, such as the raised edges and crisp lines.
While Luke exchanged some of his money for British coinage, Anna exchanged her money for Byzantine coinage. She intended to stay in Constantinople and raise a family. Luke offered to take her to Britain with him, but she refused. Anna knew she was a jealous woman, and Luke was spoken for. If she fell in love with him, she would want him to leave the other women for her, and she was smart enough to know Luke wouldn’t do that.
Anna explained her feelings to Luke, and he understood them. He had seen the same thing all too often and wouldn’t like to share any of his women with another man. Morvarid and the twins found Anna’s honesty refreshing, especially when compared to Fatma. Everyone agreed that Anna could stay with them until she found someone, and in a city of roughly half a million people, Anna would have a good chance of finding someone special.
Since Anna wanted to stay in Constantinople and it was winter in Europe, Luke and the women decided it would probably be best to stay put for a few months. This would also give Luke a chance to make contact with any British merchants in the area. The trip home, when going by land, would be a couple of months, while the same trip at sea would be a couple of weeks at most, especially if the ship was British-designed.
Luke decided to rent a small house for a few months since they planned to stay in the city. When he was looking for a good location, Morvarid insisted it be near the Imperial Library so everyone could study the texts. Luke didn’t have a problem with that since having the chance to study so many ancient texts was worthy of having a mental orgasm. He only hoped Marion would send scholars to Constantinople to copy the texts before the city was plundered the next time. With his throwing a massive wrench into the course of history, Luke couldn’t guess when this might happen.
As long as he could get away with it, Luke wouldn’t be helping the Byzantines. He saw how the new emperor, Nikephoros III Botaneiates, was spending money like water in an attempt to buy his legitimacy. Still, like countless rulers before him, Luke knew the effort was doomed to fail, especially since Nikephoros was already 76 years old. As long as things stayed stable until the group left, Luke didn’t care too much.
It was remarkable how politicians throughout history have been so careless with money. One would think that after thousands of years, politicians would learn that you can’t spend more than you receive via taxes. The more money you put into circulation, i.e., spend, the less that money is worth, no matter what the government says it should be. The rich will always find a way to dodge taxes because it’s their friends in the government who write and enforce the tax code. Even when one or two politicians manage to address the issues, they will likely arise again once a different politician takes over.
While Luke and Morvarid were busy reading, Guzal and Tuija had to learn Greek before they could read most of the texts. While they were intelligent women and could read Arabic, nobody had ever taught them Greek or Latin. Luke could read, write, and speak Greek, while Morvarid could do the same in Greek and Latin. Having lived in Northern Europe for the past 13 years, Luke mainly spoke European languages, although he could barely make heads or tails out of Latin.
With Luke and his women out of the house so much, Anna worked hard to find someone for herself. Upon Luke’s suggestion, Anna made a short list of what she wanted so she would know where to look. Anna was looking for a man with good potential for future earnings and wouldn’t squander the money she would bring to the union. Luke suggested she look for apprentices who were close to finishing their training. Anna could then invest some of her money to help her husband’s business grow faster, providing for her and her family for the rest of their lives.
When Luke returned to the house after studying, he taught Anna the basics of running a business, with one of the most important lessons being to only withdraw money when necessary and reinvest the rest in the business. Although Luke refused to tell her about his past beyond his time in Britain, he did hint at having some business interests in Britain. Luke also taught Anna the double-entry system for accounting and how to code her books to conceal the amount of money she had.
Whenever Luke wasn’t learning or teaching, he made ammunition for his pistol. While he thought about trying to make another firearm, he didn’t want to risk the tools or knowledge falling into Byzantine hands because if it fell into their hands, they could use it against Egypt, or it would be leaked to growing Muslim powers.
Luke was thrilled to learn that Egypt was recovering quickly and was already a serious player in the Eastern Mediterranean. While they didn’t have capital ships, the Egyptian Navy had several steam-powered cutters for sea patrol work and steam-driven patrol boats for work on the Nile. Even though they were not as powerful as British destroyers, the cutters were still more powerful than anything else in the Med.
The group was barely in town for two weeks when the emperor made a move that made Luke nervous. News of Malik’s death had spread wide and threatened to trigger a civil war in the Seljuk Empire. Luke thought the war might go as far as ripping the empire apart, especially since civil wars have a nasty habit of not stopping at national borders, thus dragging in neighboring powers.
Nikephoros saw the coming civil war, plus the surprise destruction of the Sultanate of Rûm, and figured it was a good time to try pushing the Muslims back out of Anatolia. Instead of waiting to build his army, Nikephoros decided to use his smaller army to try and regain ground while the Muslim powers were leaderless and disorganized.
To that end, he suddenly stopped giving money away and used it to hire soldiers. Luke was sure he would resort to mercenaries or conscription to fill the army. Based on what Luke saw during their travels, he thought the Byzantine Army could retake control of Anatolia if they were smart and didn’t get too greedy.
Unfortunately, the Byzantine Army of the era wasn’t known for intelligent commanders. Emperors didn’t like intelligent commanders because successful battlefield commanders had a habit of staging coups. After all, this was partly how Nikephoros came to power. The total disregard for any long-term consequences made Luke shake his head. The main vulnerability of the Byzantine Empire was the political situation in Constantinople.
Regardless, Nikephoros threw his army into Anatolia, determined to drive the Muslims out once and for all. To launch his offensive, he only had 6,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. He did have a couple of advantages, though. The Sultanate of Rûm had been virtually destroyed when Luke attacked and killed Suleiman ibn Qutalmish. The fire he set afterward killed the remaining members of his family, so there were no political figures to fill the void. It didn’t help that the Sultanate was only two years old, so it didn’t have the depth of leadership that an older state would have.
Another advantage was that Nikephoros had reaffirmed the peace treaty with Italy, thus protecting his western flank. To the north, the Hungarians had to contend with the fallout from the revolt in the Holy Roman Empire and the empire’s war in Poland. Then there were the steppe tribes, but Nikephoros gambled they would be too busy with their own affairs to bother him, especially since most of the power of the Kyivan Rus had been destroyed in Poland by the Germans.
Part of the peace treaty with Italy was that Italy would share its technology for cannon and musket construction. In exchange, the Byzantines provided the Italians with the knowledge and silkworms to produce silk. Nikephoros figured what they would lose in silk sales, they would make up for in selling arms. The advanced arms would also aid the Byzantine Army in reconquering land from the Muslims.
So, although Luke didn’t provide the Byzantines with British gun technology, they obtained gun-making technology from the Italians. While the Byzantines possessed the knowledge of gun making, it would be some time before they could reequip their military with muskets and cannons. Nikephoros tried to buy enough muskets and cannons from the Italians, but they wouldn’t sell them to him, claiming they didn’t have the extra to sell for the time being.
While Nikephoros was negotiating with the Italians for firearms, other diplomats were in Egypt, assuring Simon that the Byzantines had no territorial ambitions in Egypt. The last thing Nikephoros needed was a war with a power that not only had firearms but knew how to use them. Not only that, but Egypt was also allied with Britain, and a war with Egypt would effectively mean a war with Britain.
Not everyone in Nikephoros’s court favored a military offensive, with some citing weak military power and others wishing to see Nikephoros fall flat on his face. Nikephoros listened to their concerns but was solidly in favor of his generals, who were eager to regain territory lost since the humiliating defeat in the Battle of Manzikert. By striking while the Muslims were distracted, the Byzantines could recapture territory and exterminate the Muslims by taking and selling them for slaves. To replace the population, Bulgarians would be forcibly relocated, thus making it harder for them to revolt. In their place, Greek settlers would move into Bulgaria.
The offensive began almost immediately and met with victory after victory. With the Muslim power vacuum, many settlements simply opened their gates to the Byzantine army, knowing they would receive no aid. For their part, the Byzantine commanders kept their troops on a tight leash and only allowed looting when a settlement didn’t surrender. Since there were still plenty of those, the troops were content.
Luke kept track of the offensive through merchants and thought the Byzantine Army was doing about as good as could be expected. From rumors leaked from the palace, Luke knew the emperor wasn’t planning on attacking Egypt and was, in fact, trying to come to an agreement with Simon.
Anna finally found herself a man six weeks after they arrived in the city. Following Luke’s suggestions, she found a young man almost ready to graduate from his apprenticeship; unfortunately, the apprenticeship was as a shipwright. However, they wouldn’t get married until he finished his apprenticeship. Being that the Byzantines were primarily a trading empire, this could be a good job. Luke didn’t think steelmaking would reach this part of the world for many years. One evening, he sat down to talk with Anna. The group would be leaving soon, and there were things he wanted to say.
“You do realize that Constantinople’s days as a trading empire are nearing an end?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where do the goods that the Byzantines trade come from? They come from the Silk Road, but with British control of the seas, they can transport goods from the Far East for a fraction of the price and time. Before I left Britain, ships directly from China and India were docking every month. Additionally, it only took those ships a couple of months to travel from Britain to China and back. When the Egyptians finish the Suez Canal, it will take almost a month off the total time.”
“So, what should I do? I already promised Eulogius that I would marry him.”
“Go ahead and marry him, but always have an escape route planned, especially when war closes in.” Anna nodded. “Another thing you can do is encourage your husband to start his own shipyard specializing in fishing boats. If I were you, I would use some money to buy advanced tooling from Britain or Italy, as I’ve heard the Italians are building decent wooden ships. This will enable your husband to build vessels quicker and cheaper. If the threat of war gets too close, leave and head to Britain. There, you are safe from war since the Navy controls the sea.”
“I will, Luke. I will miss you,” she said as a single tear ran down her cheek.
“I’ll miss you too. Thank you for getting us out of Nicaea.”
“You are welcome, although I should be thanking you for your aid.”
Luke smiled and kissed her forehead, causing Anna to blush.
Luke and Morvarid continued studying while Guzal and Tuija made notes. By this time, they knew they would have to take the land route because British merchants were forbidden to trade in Constantinople. The local merchants had seen what happened to merchants in other cities and didn’t want the same to happen to their trade monopolies. They failed to realize that competition made everyone stronger because it weeded out the bad players and forced the remaining players to adapt.
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