By the morning of October 27, Zlatitsa was behind them. A week of mud, stalled carts, and sickness that still clung to the column in axle-grease and wet wool. Too many men coughed as they rode.
It was cold, but the descent had taken the edge off it. The mountain no longer punished them for breathing.
The Rose Valley lay below in a long, shallow bowl, enclosed by dark mountains. Late autumn had taken most of the colour, but hedges still held dull berries. In the lower plots, rose-bushes had been cut back, and when the wind turned you could smell a faint sweetness in the damp. Not perfume, just the sharp, green smell of broken stems.
Constantine rode with George ahead of the column. His gloves were wet, and the seam where mail met cloth bit cold against his skin.
Behind them the army kept its shape: pikes upright, Drakos teams spaced wide so one broken axle wouldn't block the road. Somewhere back in the file, a driver swore at a mule.
By noon, the Monastery of Sveti Spas rose on a wooded spur: a small chapel and a few outbuildings, limewashed walls stained by rain. A bell rang once. Below it, tents and carts crowded the slope, animals picketed, smoke hanging low over the fires.
Fruzhin's army, more a knot of men than a host.
Two thousand, Constantine judged, give or take. Enough to fill a slope, not enough to hold open ground for long. Around the edges rode a thin line of horse, slow as if to be seen—some in mail, most in patched leather and cloth, helmets that didn't match. Men living off raids and requisitioned grain, not a treasury.
George shaded his eyes. "He's come a long way with very little."
"Or he's made very little look like more than it is," Constantine replied. "Either way, it took nerve."
George's mouth tightened. "Tarnovo and Silistre—and he rides to us with two thousand men. Either he's lying about what he holds, or the Ottomans stripped the north."
"They did," Constantine said. "They've pulled their strength south. They're gathering to face us. When we meet their main force, it won't be in a pass."
As they drew nearer, Bulgarian sentries straightened around the camp. A small body of riders eased out to meet them, not rushing, but set and watchful. One figure detached and came forward at a trot.
Fruzhin.
He rode straight-backed, but stiff through the waist. When he smiled, it pulled more on one side than the other, as if the muscles there had learned the shape and never quite forgotten it. His eyes stayed on Constantine, watchful.
Behind him, his riders fanned and halted in a clean line. No flourish, just wet hooves and mail settling.
Fruzhin dismounted with care that looked like courtesy until Constantine caught the brief strain in his jaw. The Iron Gate still lived in him.
He bowed, deep enough for purple, shallow enough to preserve his claim. "Basileus Constantine," he said, Greek thickened but precise. "We meet at last, and you do what emperors should: you move forward."
Constantine returned the bow with a single inclination.
"Prince Fruzhin," he said. "You've held the north when others fled."
His gaze dropped, briefly, to the stiffness at Fruzhin's waist, the way the older man protected his middle without seeming to.
Something flickered across Fruzhin's face at the word prince—acceptance, irritation, calculation—gone before it could settle.
"You've broken the Turk's grip," Fruzhin said, his eyes moving over the column: guns, banners, files keeping step. "They speak of Edessa even in Tarnovo. Of your guns, as if they were saints."
"They answer powder and drill," Constantine said. "Not prayer."
Fruzhin's mouth twitched. "Men pray for signs. You've given them one they can touch."
"I also know what you paid at Demir Kapija," Constantine said. "You were there when Sigismund fell. Few walked away from that basin with anything but scars and bitterness. When we passed the Iron Gate at the start of our march, we raised a small cross there—for the men who never came out."
Fruzhin's eyes did not drop, but a muscle tightened in his cheek. "A shaft took me under the ribs," he said. "I bled until I thought the river had moved into my chest. When Hunyadi gathered the survivors to limp south and seek you, I couldn't sit a horse or hold a sword without shaking."
Constantine nodded once. "Then I'm glad the wound didn't finish its work," he said. "We have much to discuss."
He turned toward the monastery gate. Fruzhin matched him step for step.
The monks were waiting at the threshold. One stepped forward and bowed, awkward but sincere, fingers brushing the hem of his robe as if unsure whether to kneel. Another pressed an icon into his hands and then, startled by his own boldness, crossed himself quickly and stepped back.
The courtyard smelled of wet stone, old incense, and boiled cabbage. A novice was setting benches straight, glancing up in disbelief each time the imperial banner passed.
In the low guest hall, a table had been cleared. A jug of Bulgarian wine waited between three cups, dark and resin-sharp, rough going down.
Constantine took the central stool. George sat at his right. Fruzhin took the left without waiting to be offered. Chairs creaked under wet wool and mail.
"You've ridden hard to reach me," Constantine said. "Tell me what you hold."
"I hold Tarnovo," he said. "And Silistre. The river towns answer to me, and the land north of the Stara Planina is mine in fact, if not yet in title. The Ottomans still have pockets, minor garrisons that haven't accepted the change, but there's no field army left up there. They've pulled their strength south."
Constantine watched Fruzhin's face for the tell of exaggeration and found only a man stating a ledger.
Fruzhin held his gaze. "Make it lawful," he said. "Acknowledge me as the rightful king—not a rebel. If you do, you gain an Orthodox crown that stands with you, and a north that won't become a corridor for the Turk again."
For a moment no one spoke. Outside, muffled voices from two camps mingled, Greek commands, Bulgarian murmurs, the occasional bray of an ox.
Constantine took a slow sip.
"You're asking for a crown," he said. "That isn't something I can simply hand over. It only matters if there's force behind it."
Fruzhin's mouth tightened. "I know what it costs."
"You have," Constantine agreed, letting the Iron Gate stand between them without pity. "And you've held ground. That matters."
Fruzhin waited, eyes hard.
Constantine didn't soften it. "But I'm not here to make kings while the Turk still has breath. If I name you today, it changes the talk, not the facts. Tomorrow they test you the same as they would without my words."
Fruzhin's jaw worked once. "If you say it, men rally."
Constantine's shoulders rose a fraction. "Some. Others will wait. They always do."
George looked from Fruzhin to Constantine before speaking, choosing his words with care. "His Majesty has praised your work. He has not refused the future. He refuses haste."
"So you'll take my towns and my river and call me useful, but not legitimate," Fruzhin said.
Constantine kept his tone even. "I offer a working alliance. March with me now. Strike with me now. When the season's work is done and the map has changed, we speak again, and we put it in writing."
Fruzhin exhaled once through his nose, a man conceding a point without conceding appetite. "You keep doors half-open."
"I keep them only as wide as I can hold," Constantine said. "The work in front of us is still the Turk. When he's driven back properly, we'll speak of crowns and oaths. I'm not closing the door to an Orthodox neighbour north of the mountains—"
He let the sentence harden. "—but I will not open it so wide that it swings in the wind."
Fruzhin shifted, the stiffness in his waist betraying the old wound. He did not argue.
George cleared his throat. "There is another edge we should name. Wallachia."
Constantine nodded. "Alexandru."
Fruzhin's eyes narrowed a fraction. "He waits, with no troops against me and none against you, watching which way the river will run. If the Ottomans collapse, he won't mourn them. He'll count what he can take."
George let out a soft breath. "Good. Then we don't have another knife while we march."
"Knives are always in the dark," Fruzhin said mildly. "The question is whose hand holds them."
"Your men attach to my army today," Constantine said. "Keep your banners and your officers by all means, but understand this: the march is mine, the discipline is mine, and anyone who breaks it answers to me."
Fruzhin's head dipped a fraction. "As you command. My captains will hear it from my mouth."
Constantine rose. "Then come. My nobles and captains are gathering for council."
Fruzhin moved to follow, then paused.
"And one more thing," he said.
Constantine stopped.
"In Silistre there was a man. A rebel preacher, a scholar, call him what you like. He called himself Iskander."
George's eyes flicked to Constantine.
"He spoke of the world turned upside down," Fruzhin went on, contempt thickening his tone. "No dues. No lords. No priest above the ploughman. The kind of tongue that makes peasants bold and boyars sleepless." His gaze held Constantine. "He claimed he knew you."
Constantine let a pause fall, long enough to look like skepticism rather than shock. "I don't know him."
"Many men claim my name when it suits them," he added, almost weary. "What did he say—exactly?"
"He expected help," Fruzhin said. "Not from God. From you. Weapons, perhaps. Protection. He gathered peasants and Muslims and called it righteousness." Fruzhin tapped the table once. "We put the worst of them to the sword. The rest scattered."
"And that man Iskander?" Constantine asked, tone light enough to be disinterested.
Fruzhin shrugged. "If he lived, he ran. Either way, his kind doesn't build kingdoms. It burns them."
Constantine nodded once. He could feel George's attention on him like heat, waiting for a crack. None came.
"We all have men we cannot afford," Constantine said, and reached for his cup.
Three days later, Thrace opened into space north of Philippopolis. The sky was clearer, the cold sharper. Constantine rode in the center of his host. Grgur rode close at his right, exchanging low words with George on the left. Fruzhin kept a half-length back, too proud for subordination, too careful to drift.
Near midday, messengers came at a hard gallop, horses lathered, faces bright with urgency. One bore Thomas's mark.
"Majesty," he said, reins yanked too hard, "the vanguard has sighted them. A large Ottoman host—on the road to Philippopolis."
The words moved through the small circle around Constantine like cold wind. Grgur's jaw tightened. George went still. Fruzhin's fingers flexed once on the reins.
"Give me a count," Constantine said.
The rider swallowed, still fighting for breath. "More than we can tally cleanly at a glance, few thousands, at least."
Constantine drew one slow breath and looked ahead, toward the invisible line where the enemy stood on the same earth and claimed the same cold air.
"Then this is where it's decided," he said.
Author note:
The campaign is entering its final phase. Constantine's army has reached Thrace, and plans that only Hunyadi dared attempt in OTL are now unfolding here. The Ottomans are forced to face a host uncomfortably close to their capital.
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