The Tournament

by Matthew Reilly

  ‘You say he returned here to dine with you in private but then departed—or was abducted—before you arrived. It is conceivable that he did not make it back here at all. An examination of his room might give us some clue as to his actions when he returned, if indeed he did.’

  Cardinal Cardoza seemed to consider this.

  ‘All right,’ he said slowly.

  The cardinal ushered us up the stairs. His manservant, Sinon, followed behind us, an eerie shadow.

  Cardoza said, ‘Cardinal Farnese was sleeping in my personal bedchamber, as his rank required. I am sleeping in a common monk’s nook for the first time in years.’

  We came to the top of the stairs and entered the cardinal’s bedchamber.

  A breathtaking room greeted us. It featured an enormous bed dressed in gorgeous blue satin sheets. White gauze curtains swayed with the breeze coming off the sea, veiling the windows in the same way a bride’s veil covers her face. It was clear that Cardinal Cardoza usually slept in great luxury. My teacher surveyed the room and even if the others could not sense it, I could feel his disapproval. It was too well appointed, too luxurious for his practical mind.

  A leather trunk sat at the foot of the bed; it bore a small golden crucifix on its lid.

  ‘Cardinal Farnese’s travelling trunk?’ my teacher inquired.

  ‘Yes.’

  Watched by Cardinal Cardoza, Mr Ascham opened the trunk. Inside it were the dead cardinal’s things: travelling clothes, some books, a satchel, and a flyswatter just like Cardinal Cardoza’s with a multicoloured horsehair tail, only this one was smaller, with fewer tails.

  My teacher picked up two of the books: Dante’s Commedia and the Bible. He glanced around the room. ‘Everything appears to be in perfect order . . .’

  ‘As one would expect,’ the cardinal said tersely. ‘Which would make coming to see the dead man’s sleeping quarters altogether unnecessary, sir.’

  ‘Quite the contrary, it was very necessary. Indeed, it has been very helpful,’ my teacher said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because it tells us that the visiting cardinal did not disturb any assassin when he returned here. There are no signs of a scuffle or fight. If someone waylaid the cardinal, then they disturbed absolutely nothing in the doing.’

  Cardinal Cardoza took a second glance around the room, now seeing my teacher’s conclusion. ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘I have seen all I need to see,’ Mr Ascham said. We all returned to the atrium downstairs, where Mr Ascham stopped suddenly. ‘His meal,’ he said, looking around.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Cardinal Farnese’s meal. The one that had been delivered here. Was it touched? Had he eaten any of it?’ My teacher looked about the atrium as if the meal might still be here, but it had long since been taken away.

  Cardinal Cardoza shrugged. ‘Why, yes. As I recall, it had been eaten, while the other plate lay untouched. When I did not arrive in a timely manner, he must have commenced his meal.’

  ‘Which means he did make it back here before he vanished,’ my teacher said.

  Then, most casually, he turned to Cardinal Cardoza: ‘Your Grace, were you aware of Cardinal Farnese’s opium habit?’

  The cardinal’s face went instantly cold. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I said, were you aware that Cardinal Farnese was a very frequent user of an opium pipe?’ Mr Ascham said innocently.

  I got the distinct impression that my teacher did not like Cardinal Cardoza—his haughty manner, his ostentatious displays of wealth—and I wondered if he was trying to provoke the cardinal in some way by making such an allegation.

  ‘No. I was not so aware.’ The cardinal’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am also, I have to say, somewhat surprised that you might know this about my friend given you only became acquainted with him after his death.’

  ‘The dead sometimes tell tales,’ Mr Ascham said.

  ‘Communing with the dead is a sin against God, Mr Ascham. You do not partake in witchcraft or sorcery, do you?’

  ‘I do not. Nor did I commune with the dead cardinal,’ my teacher said. ‘I simply looked under his tongue. Do many cardinals of Rome indulge in such exotic pleasures?’

  Cardinal Cardoza visibly hardened. ‘Even priests are men, Mr Ascham, men who are sometimes prone to weakness and temptation. In my experience, an opium habit is not the worst of human vices.’

  ‘This is true.’ Mr Ascham glanced at Latif and nodded to indicate that he was done. He turned back to the cardinal. ‘Thank you for your time, Your Grace.’

  ‘Not at all. I wish you God’s speed and wisdom in your investigations.’

  We left.

  Mr Ascham strode quickly across the lawn outside the Catholic embassy, heading back toward the Third Courtyard. He moved so fast, Latif and I struggled to keep up with him.

  ‘God save me from cardinals and religion,’ he muttered. ‘“Even priests are men.” Balderdash. If priests truly had the Holy Spirit in them then they would not need opiates or other sins of the flesh. The cardinal knew something and he wasn’t telling us.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘For one thing, he didn’t want us examining Farnese’s sleeping quarters,’ my teacher said.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want Protestants like us seeing the luxury in which he is accustomed to sleeping each night,’ I suggested.

  ‘No, there is something he doesn’t want us to know, and I would like to discover what that is.’

  I stopped walking. ‘You don’t think that Cardinal Cardoza might have been involved in the death of the visiting cardinal?’ I whispered.

  My teacher also stopped and bit his lip in thought. ‘If he was involved, he is a most remarkably calculating fellow to stand there before us and lie to our faces. I wonder if he has his own suspicions about who might have killed Farnese. In any case, now we are back where we started. We still face the original question: why would someone want to kill the visiting cardinal and disguise the crime? We need to find someone with intimate knowledge of Cardinal Farnese and the schemers and plotters of Rome, and I think I know just who to ask. Come, the tournament is about to begin and we will find him there.’

  THE TOURNAMENT DRAW

  IT WAS NEARING MID-MORNING when we returned to our rooms to collect Mr Giles and Elsie and depart for the tournament.

  The matches were to be held in the largest hall in the world: the nave of the Hagia Sophia. The mighty mosque stood just outside the palace walls and was the only venue in the city capable of accommodating the enormous crowds the tournament was expected to draw.

  As it turned out, even it wasn’t big enough.

  A vast crowd of at least ten thousand people massed around the entrances to the great building, pushing and shouting, all trying to force their way in to see the draw for the tournament and the first match.

  Since we were escorting a player, we were permitted to enter the Hagia Sophia via the Sultan’s rear door. A short queue of similarly favoured guests was lined up at that entrance when we arrived there. We spied Michelangelo chatting with some people in the line.

  My teacher approached him. ‘Michel, a private word, if I may?’

  Michelangelo excused himself from his conversation and joined my teacher and me off to the side. ‘What is it, Roger?’

  ‘You know of last night’s incident, do you not?’

  ‘All I know is that the Sultan himself came to my rooms to inquire about your skills as a solver of mysteries,’ Michelangelo said. ‘I said there was no-one I knew more capable at such things.’

  ‘That is all you know?’

  ‘There are whispers going around. Something about Cardinal Farnese falling victim to the fiend terrorising the city. And no-one has seen him this morning. Is it true? Is Farnese dead?’

  ‘Yes, he is dead, but no, he was not a victim of the fiend. He was a victim of foul play. And now, based on your recommendation, the Sultan has asked me to investigate the matter.’

  Michelangelo said, ‘So
rry, Roger. Although in my defence the Sultan seemed well aware of your talents before he asked me about them.’

  ‘Tell me about Cardinal Farnese,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘I know of his harsh views on the Moslem faith. Was he a marked man in Rome?’

  ‘Not at all. He was actually more liked than his brother the Pope. Farnese was known for avoiding plots and intrigues. I would be most surprised if someone came all the way from Rome to kill him here.’

  ‘He indulged in opium use.’

  ‘He was not alone in that, Roger,’ Michelangelo said. ‘They are priests, not angels. Opium use was the least of the good cardinal’s diversions.’

  ‘The least of his diversions?’ My teacher’s brow furrowed. ‘Are you saying Farnese was a . . . sodomite?’

  Michelangelo gave a single nod.

  ‘Men or boys?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Here in Constantinople?’

  Michelangelo nodded again.

  Mr Ascham took this all in. ‘One more thing. What of Cardinal Cardoza? Might he have had a reason for doing away with Cardinal Farnese?’

  ‘I would be shocked if that were so,’ Michelangelo said. ‘Cardoza and Farnese were boyhood friends and Cardoza owes his rise within the Church almost solely to Farnese’s influence. They were brothers in all but name. Whoever did this, it certainly wasn’t Cardoza.’

  ‘Thank you, Michel, these are things I need to know. It gives me a wider context for my inquiries.’

  ‘Good luck, Roger. And be careful. Do not let your inquisitiveness be the death of you.’

  We resumed our places in the queue and shortly after, entered the great cathedral-mosque.

  If the Hagia Sophia was magnificent when viewed from the outside, then its interior offered a whole new level of splendour and wonder.

  Its nave soared skyward, its immense lofty dome mounted atop a series of smaller semi-circular domes. Once upon a time those domes had contained intricate mosaics of Christian saints but they had been crudely scraped off by the heathen Moslems. A few remained, including the centrepiece of the nave, a superb mosaic of the Virgin and Child, since the Moslems venerate the virgin Mary and Christ himself. They just do not accept Christ as the son of God.

  We emerged from our private entry tunnel onto a stage facing the stupendous nave. Seats had been prepared for us on this stage not far from the Sultan’s huge throne.

  Set up on a smaller platform out in the exact centre of the hall was a square table at which sat two chairs facing each other. This was the playing stage—and right now, a great throng of spectators swarmed around it, a heaving ocean of humanity, the noise of their collective murmuring echoing in the vast space.

  If the crowd outside was large, then this was its leading edge: five thousand fortunate citizens who had managed to shove their way inside. They pressed around the playing stage, gathered under the Sultan’s private prayer balcony (an elevated lattice-shrouded platform) and leaned out from the Hagia Sophia’s lofty balconies one hundred and fifty feet in the air. Prime positions on those balconies, however, were occupied by the Sultan’s favoured courtiers and the high-born families of Constantinople.

  We were informed that at that moment, servants of the Sultan were erecting large wooden displays that resembled chessboards (complete with moveable pieces) outside the great building, so that the vast overflow of people out there could watch the progress of an ongoing match.

  I imagined that not since the chariot races in Constantinople’s long-lost Hippodrome had such a mass gathering been held in that ancient city. It was awe-inspiring.

  More players and their entourages filed into the hall from the rear entrance and took their places on the Sultan’s stage.

  Suddenly trumpets flared and all fell silent as the Sultan himself entered the hall. His retinue followed behind him while at his right hand walked Michelangelo, bearing a wide irregularly-shaped object in his hands, covered with a sheet of shining gold satin.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ the Sultan intoned. ‘Behold, the chess set on which the championship will be played!’

  With a flourish, he whipped the satin sheet off the object in Michelangelo’s hands to reveal one of the two chess sets the great artist had created for the event.

  The assembled crowd gasped at the sight of it, myself among them.

  It was astonishing in its beauty.

  The board on its own was a work of the most supreme artistry, bearing squares of silver and gold that glinted with a radiance I had never seen before.

  And then there were the pieces. One side was of gold, the other silver. Assembled in their ranks, glittering and sparkling in the sunlight that streamed through the dome’s high windows, they looked like a treasure beyond compare, a prize beyond value.

  I heard a voice behind me say in Spanish, ‘This sultan has some nerve. He makes his chess set from the gold and silver his pirates plunder from our galleons returning from the New World.’

  A surreptitious glance revealed the speaker to be the ambassador from the House of Castile.

  Michelangelo strode out through the hushed crowd (flanked by four palace guards who I suspected were protecting the priceless chess set rather than the priceless artist) and ascended the playing platform. With great ceremony, he placed the chess set on the table. The four guards remained on the playing stage, where they would remain for each match of the tournament.

  The sadrazam then brought forward a beautiful glass jar of substantial size in which one could see sixteen round stones, each the size of an apple and smoothed to a spherical shape.

  He called in Turkish then Greek: ‘It is time for the tournament draw! Inscribed on the stones inside this jar are the names of the sixteen players in the tournament. Your Majesty, if you would do us the honour?’

  The Sultan stepped over to the jar, dipped his hand into it and stirred the rocks around playfully.

  The crowd leaned forward.

  The Sultan shuffled the rocks some more, smiling for his subjects, enjoying the tension he was creating. They laughed.

  Then he grabbed one stone and held it aloft, reading the name on it: ‘Zaman of Constantinople!’

  The crowd cheered. It was one of the two local heroes, the royal cousin and aliyat.

  The Sultan dipped his hand into the big glass jar again and once again swirled his hand around theatrically before extracting another stone and reading the name on it:

  ‘Maximilian of Vienna!’ A chorus of boos and hisses came from the crowd as the Habsburg player’s name was called. All were aware of the sharp-edged relationship between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs.

  ‘This is a good match for Zaman,’ Mr Giles whispered to my teacher. ‘Maximilian is one of the weaker players here. An aliyat like Zaman should make short work of him.’

  The rest of the draw took place in similar style, with great theatricality from the Sultan and enthusiastic responses from the crowd. As each match was drawn, the players’ names were put up on a large scoreboard not unlike those seen at jousts (I later learned that identical scoreboards had been erected for the crowds outside) and as he drew them, the Sultan placed the drawn stones in a row on a bench near the scoreboard.

  Mr Giles drew a very tough opponent in his first-round match. He would play Talib, the aged librarian from Baghdad.

  The Pope’s man, Brother Raul, drew Brother Eduardo of Syracuse, while the Muscovite, Vladimir, drew a wily little Egyptian from Cairo. The brutish Wallachian, Dragan of Brasov, drew the Venetian representative, who was not, those around me commented, regarded as a strong player.

  But the greatest cheer of all arose when the name of the peasant champion, Ibrahim of Constantinople, was called. The crowd’s cheers dissipated somewhat, however, when his opponent was called: the formidable young Prussian, Wilhelm of Königsberg. That would be a demanding match for both parties.

  When the ceremony was over, the tournament draw filled the large scoreboard. It read:

  The sadrazam announced, ‘The first match�
�between Zaman of Constantinople and Maximilian of Vienna—will commence exactly one hour from now! A single afternoon match will follow. Tomorrow, the remaining six matches of the first round will be played on two boards here in this hall. Now, honour your Sultan!’

  The massive crowd fell as one to their knees as the Sultan swept out through the rear door. Once he was gone, they rose again and started murmuring about the draw and the matches.

  Many of the players and their entourages also left the hall, their presence no longer required. The crowd, however, stayed exactly where they were: positions inside the Hagia Sophia were highly prized and would not be given up lightly.

  ‘What say you, Giles?’ Mr Ascham said. ‘Would you like to watch the first match or would you prefer to retire to our rooms?’

  ‘I think I should like to get used to the mood of this hall,’ Mr Giles said. ‘It is a large space and the crowd is lively. I am also interested to see Zaman play.’

  ‘Splendid. I myself would be most pleased to sit still for a while and watch some good chess.’ He smiled at me and glanced at Elsie (who was studiously examining her fingernails).

  Then he stood and strolled over to the bench by the scoreboard, the one on which the Sultan had placed the drawn stones. I followed him.

  Mr Ascham picked up a few of the smoothed stones and rolled them around in his hand, marvelling at their artistry.

  I came up beside him. ‘The Sultan certainly knows how to put on a spectacle.’

  ‘He does indeed,’ Mr Ascham said as he inspected one stone closely before putting it down. ‘He also knows how to rig a draw.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t make any outward reaction, Bess, just feel this stone. It is the one marked with Zaman’s name.’ Mr Ascham handed me the rock.

  It was warm.

  ‘Don’t react,’ he whispered sharply. ‘The stone for Maximilian of Vienna is also warm while the stones for Ibrahim of Constantinople and the Prussian are both cold, as if they have been kept in snow. The rest are all of normal temperature.’

  I was shocked. ‘Are you saying that a draw that just took place in front of five thousand people was fixed? That the Sultan knew which stones to select?’