House of War

by Victor Foia

  The shrieks that rose from the courtyard and the thud of crashing lumber filled the room. As Vlad lay on the cot in a state of eerie calm, he felt his lungs beginning to sting and close under the assault of the smoke.

  He gripped the hekim’s oversized scissors, and a fresh resentment against God crept into his heart.

  Is this your idea of a choice I must exercise with free will?

  16

  ANGEL JIBRA’IL

  November 1442, Bursa, Ottoman Empire

  Several minutes passed before other people noticed the smoke escaping from the attic. Then, simultaneous shouts of, “Look, look,” rippled through the crowd, and dozens of hands pointed upward. The hidden fire had already spread along three of the four roof sections, and was exhaling a ragged curtain of white smoke that quivered in the breeze.

  This time there was no rush to action. Instead, people stood mouths agape, faces plastered with a terror born of the knowledge a fire like this couldn’t be contained. The horse neighed and sidled, stepping on a boy’s foot. The injured child bawled, and the sudden noise dispelled the apathy that had engulfed the crowd.

  “Ya Wakiilu, Oh, Trustee,” someone shouted, invoking Allah’s attribute as defender from the danger of fire.

  “Ya Wakiilu,” a chorus of anxious voices echoed the call.

  Now everyone seemed determined to get somewhere, fast. The men living on the ground floor rushed into their rooms and emerged laden with bedding, prayer rugs, and cooking utensils they took out to the street. The tenants of the upper floor caught in the courtyard tried to get up the stairs, causing a jam that took fistfights to clear.

  Omar searched for the groom with his eyes and concluded the scoundrel had fled, abandoning the horse. He dashed to the side of the mare and took hold of her reins. She was trembling and dancing in place, poised to stampede.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Omar said in a soothing tone. He patted the horse’s neck then scratched her between the ears. “Come along and I’ll see to it you’re safe.”

  He led the horse into the street and searched the crowd for the two soldiers on guard duty there. He found one of them and assumed the other had gone to summon the Janissaries who doubled as the town’s firemen.

  “Take her back to where she came from,” Omar shouted at the soldier above the noise that now filled the street.

  “I can’t leave my post,” the man replied, indignant. Then seemingly intimidated by the fierceness in Omar’s eyes, he added, “Not without losing my head.”

  “The curse of the Twelve Imams on you, man,” Omar growled, furious. “This horse is worth ten heads like yours. Don’t you know that once the Janissaries get here the first thing they’ll do is demolish the adjoining buildings? That will make a mess worse than the fire. This isn’t a place for a horse to be left on its own.”

  Cowered by Omar’s ire, the soldier walked the horse to the end of the block.

  Satisfied, Omar returned to the yard and was relieved to see the door to his enemies’ room had remained shut.

  You’ll be flushed out any moment now.

  The people on the second floor were tossing their household belongings into the yard, only to see them trampled underfoot by the maddened crowd. The noise had reached a near painful level, with mothers calling out the names of their children, husbands ordering their wives to leave the place, and helpless old people crying for help. To the human noise the fire added its own ghastly voice; popping, crackling, and hissing came from the attic, now engulfed in flames on all four sides.

  “Ya Mumītu, Oh, Creator of Death, help me get hold of my enemies,” Omar prayed fervently. A moment later he observed a section of the roof above the infidels’ room buckling. It was as if a giant trapped underneath was pushing it upward.

  “It’s Angel Jibra’il sent by Allah to help me,” Omar whispered, overcome with gratitude and wonder.

  Around the affected area of the roof, tiles began to tear loose from their battens and slide to the ground, where they shattered with a loud report.

  ‘“Whoever is the enemy of Jibra’il, so surely Allah is his enemy,’” Omar recited, and the partially remembered ayah redoubled his confidence. He was no longer facing the giaours alone.

  Through the smoke that had begun to descend into the courtyard, Omar saw Dracula’s door open to let out the hekim. Almost at the same moment, Jibra’il lifted a beam from the rafters and sent it smashing through the landing in front of the old man. Stunned, the hekim stood flailing his arms for a few seconds. Then he plunged forward and disappeared under a fresh shower of tiles and blazing lumber.

  “Master, master,” a shrill cry surged for an instant above the seething courtyard.

  The cry went unnoticed in the general uproar by all but Omar.

  He recognized the boy who stood on Dracula’s threshold as the apprentice he’d met less than an hour before. Gruya, wearing a white robe and a turban, appeared behind the boy and heaved him onto the unbroken landing. The apprentice scampered down the stairs and melted into the crowd. Gruya clambered into the hole that had swallowed the hekim.

  Omar’s moment had arrived. He dashed across the courtyard, shoving out of his way women with infants at their breasts and men laden with bundles, oblivious to the curses rising in his wake. He took a position three-quarters of the way up the stairs and flattened himself against the wall while crazed tenants flew past him to safety, some with clothes on fire.

  Then, Allah be praised, Dracula appeared at his door. Omar’s heart plunged into a gallop that made his cheeks glow as if brushed by fire. He bowed his head to avoid being recognized, and gripped the hilt of his dagger. Only seconds separated him now from the moment his blade would pierce his enemy’s chest.

  He quivered with anticipation at the ecstatic feeling he was about to experience. His victim’s eyes would soon be turning on him, aware he was lost, cursing his God for abandoning him. This was a scene familiar to Omar from his numerous raids. Whether he’d be stabbing a man to death, or raping a woman, his victims always gave him that forlorn, wretched look that said, “I know this can’t be undone.”

  Dracula wore the same white robe and turban as Gruya. So you both have converted to Islam. If the giaours thought this would absolve them of the deed crying for Omar’s revenge, they were deluding themselves.

  Grim and pained-looking, Dracula craned his head left and right, as if listening for something. Then he leaped over the hole in the landing onto the side away from the stairs.

  Where’re you going? This is the only way down.

  Omar was wondering whether to follow him when Dracula dove into a room two doors away. A few moments later he emerged, an old man in his arms, a swirl of black smoke on his tail.

  Subḥana’llāh! Glory be to Allah!

  That additional encumbrance would make it impossible for Dracula to defend himself against Omar’s ambush.

  This time Dracula headed toward the stairs. When he reached the hole that yawned four feet wide in front of his door, he stopped to lift the tail of his robe. Less than ten feet separated them, and Omar could see Dracula’s eyes tearing from the smoke.

  Dracula took two steps back and was about to jump when their eyes met. Omar saw surprise and alarm on his enemy’s face, but none of the terror he would’ve expected. Instead of hesitating, Dracula half-crouched, to give his jump a better spring. Omar drew his knife and steadied himself for the impact.

  “That’s the man who started the fire,” he heard a thin voice shout from down below.

  As he jerked his head involuntarily toward his accuser, Omar caught with the corner of his eye the blur of a shapeless mass flying in his direction. Something slammed into his back, and threw him headlong down the stairs. He dropped his knife and lost his turban in the fall. When he landed, he took a gash to his scalp. Dazed, lying supine in the dirt, Omar looked on, helpless, as Dracula stepped over him and disappeared in the direction of the gate.

  “Get him, get him,” a gaggle of hysterical voices ass
aulted Omar.

  Angry faces blackened with soot leaned over him, and claw-like fingers tore at his clothes. A woman had retrieved Omar’s knife and was brandishing it close to his eyes, yellow froth on her lips.

  “Haul him to the street,” someone yelled, when a shower of cinders rained over the crowd.

  “Let me go, you fools,” Omar screamed as he was being dragged by the feet toward the gate, the back of his head scraping the ground. “I’ve got to catch the giaour before he—”

  A hard kick to the ribs cut short his lament and brought into focus the direness of his predicament. The store of regret he’d harvested over the years from his victims and treasured like a magic elixir, now flooded his chest. Regret not for his impending demise, but for having failed to avenge his brothers.

  In the street his captors tied his hands and stood him upright. When someone shouted, “Death to the arsonist,” people in the crowd around him dropped their bundles and converged on him with clenched fists and murderous looks.

  “Let me pass,” a sharp scream resounded above the mob’s tumult.

  Omar saw the woman who’d found his knife clawing her way through the crowd, and knew the form of death Allah had chosen for him.

  “My baby’s been burned alive upstairs,” the woman shouted, face hideous with grief. She tore his shirt open and raised the blade above her head.

  The crowd exploded with shouts of, “Kill, kill.”

  “Forgive me, brothers,” Omar whispered and shut his eyes; his bladder voided.

  “Enough,” a stern voice called from close range. Omar opened his eyes to see a Janissary officer wresting the knife out of the woman’s hand. “I’ll deal with this lout the proper way.”

  The mob began to protest and seemed ready to assault the officer, when he gave a whistled signal. Two Janissaries plowed through the crowd, raining blows left and right on people’s backs and heads with the pommels of their kiliçes.

  “Out of the way, vermin,” they shouted. Then upon reaching Omar, they grabbed him by the elbows and dragged him down the street, the officer following closely.

  In passing, Omar noticed that the building adjoining Dracula’s tenement on the left was already engulfed in flames. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew the same thing must’ve happened to the building on the right. The firefighters he could see on this side of the street, about thirty Janissaries stripped to their waists, had given up on saving the structures in this block. Instead they had begun to make a fire break by demolishing the building at the beginning of the next one. The blows of their sledgehammers and axes drowned the noise of the crowd.

  When Omar and his escort crossed the Irgandı Bridge into the Kayhan Quarter, they found the street deserted. The inhabitants had joined the firefight on the east side of Gökdere.

  “Here,” the officer said after they turned the corner into a narrow side street that appeared vaguely familiar to Omar. The Janissaries stopped and the officer knocked on a gate. It opened instantly, as if their arrival had been anticipated. The officer cut Omar’s wrist bindings and the two Janissaries shoved him inside a dark passageway. Then all three took off hurriedly, whispering among themselves.

  I’ll be murdered here, Omar thought as the door shut behind him.

  His eyes, still full of daylight, saw nothing. Would it be a knife across his throat, or a mace blow to his head? His scalp tightened and the gash he’d taken in the fall sent a sharp pain down his nape.

  “Sheik al-Masudi’s disappointed with you,” a stern voice said at his right.

  I’m at the Bektashi tekke, of course.

  The voice belonged to the usher who’d received him upon his arrival in Bursa. That day seemed so impossibly long ago now.

  “I can explain,” Omar said, the understatement in the usher’s pronouncement giving him new hope. But then, as his eyes adjusted to the semi-obscurity of the place, he noticed with alarm the old man held a mallet in one hand and a large iron spike in the other.

  “Does the tekke’s usher serve as the executioner as well?” he said, wishing to sound defiant.

  The old man gave him a puzzled look then chuckled. “I’m Jalāl, the sheik’s khalīfa, successor. I’ll be your murshid, spiritual leader, Insha’Allāh.”

  Jalāl shuffled toward the interior of the tekke, and Omar followed him along a corridor lit by sunlight seeping through latticed shutters. After about fifty feet, they came to a door that opened into a windowless cell. The sheep tallow that burned in a lamp hanging from the ceiling charged the air inside the cell with a heavy, greasy odor. A cot occupied one corner, a Qur’an stand another. In the middle of the room stood a square post supporting the ceiling.

  “I haven’t much strength,” Jalāl said. “You need to help me. Stand straight and place your cheek against the side of the post.” He made a rattling noise in his throat that could pass for laughter. “We used to call this post the ‘Pillar of Reflection’ in the old days. Not much used anymore.”

  The smooth surface of the wood felt pleasantly cool to Omar’s skin. Without waiting to be told, he stretched his right ear over the corner of the beam and shut his eyes. The mallet struck, and the spike pinned his earlobe to the pillar. The pain was sharp, but he welcomed it like the forgiving embrace of a stern father. He would’ve liked to ask how long his trial was supposed to last, but knew it was unseemly to show anxiety at a time like this.

  Instead he said, “What do you command me to reflect upon, dede Jalāl?”

  17

  MUNāFIQ – HYPOCRITE

  November 1442, Bursa, Ottoman Empire

  “How could you do this to me?” Mehmed screamed the moment Vlad entered the governor’s audience hall. The boy detached himself from a group of two dozen men who crowded around him and rushed at Vlad, slamming into his chest. “I’ve saved your hand from being lopped off, and this is how you repay me?” He began to sob as he drummed his fists on Vlad’s chest.

  Vlad immobilized Mehmed’s wrists, wondering what happened in the two hours since they were together at the Friday Mosque to set him off on this violent course. He was struck by the depth of the boy’s anger. Over Mehmed’s head, Vlad observed Zaganos’s grin and Gürani’s glower. The others, advisors, jurists, scholars, all aged men with prune-like faces, beady eyes, and dyed beards, watched Vlad with hostility. Only Tirendaz, standing a bit to the side, showed concern and puzzlement.

  The day had started on an upbeat note, with Mehmed barging into Vlad’s sleeping chamber the moment the muezzin sang the adhān for the Fajr prayer.

  “You’ll remember today for the rest of your life,” Mehmed said, as spirited as if it were high noon, not predawn. “Think, your first time inside a mosque. You’ll see … very different from your Christian churches. No icons, no holy water, no mumbling priest. Just the qibla to show you the direction to Mecca. We’ll be doing our prayers together five times a day for years to come.”

  Mehmed’s need for his companionship moved Vlad, though the prospect of such a close association didn’t appeal to him.

  “You won’t be waking me up every morning,” Vlad said with a chuckle. “Not when I resume having my own quarters in town.”

  “Oh, that’s out of the question for the time being. I’m responsible to my father for your safety, so I can’t let you live on your own until we find the person who set the town on fire and tried to kill you.”

  “I thought you’d have done that already. Gruya saw the arsonist being hauled away by the Janissaries.” Vlad had decided not to tell Mehmed that he’d recognized Omar as the would-be assassin.

  “Lala Zaganos has been told about the arrest and is investigating the matter. It won’t take him long to locate the man. Though, it seems nobody at the Janissaries’ barracks has a record of a suspect having been arrested.”

  The mosque, located in the palace’s third court, was small, with room enough for only about fifty people. By the time Vlad, Gruya, and Mehmed finished their ablution and entered the musalla, prayer hall, there was bar
ely enough space for them in the last row of worshipers. They had to squeeze themselves between kitchen slaves and stable hands who didn’t acknowledge their arrival.

  “I had enough reasons before today for not wanting to be a Muslim,” Gruya hissed, with ill humor unusual for him. The bruises on his face had only just begun to turn from purple to yellow, making him resemble a jaundice victim. “But having to wash my feet in cold water before sunrise tops them all.”

  Vlad believed Gruya’s grumbling had less to do with the rigors of Muslim life than with uneasiness at kneeling among the heathen.

  “Just ape my moves,” Vlad said, “and you’ll fool everybody. Stand when I do, prostrate yourself when I do. Illiterate people like you aren’t expected to recite verses from the Qur’an, so just say Allāhu Akbar whenever you hear me say something in Arabic.” When Gruya grimaced, Vlad added, “Say the Lord’s Prayer in your mind, if that helps you cope.”

  With the corner of his eye Vlad noticed that throughout the ritual, Mehmed kept his attention on him. When the prayer ended, Mehmed faced Vlad with childish joy. “As-Salaam-Alaikum.” Then upon hearing Vlad’s reply, “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” Mehmed threw his arms around him. “Now I can appoint you to any position I want in my army, when I become—”

  “Shouldn’t you be waiting until your prick heals before becoming intimate with the boy?” Gruya said in a sugary tone.

  Mehmed heard Gruya and looked at Vlad, eyes inquisitive.

  “Gruya thanks you for sparing his life,” Vlad said and patted his squire on the shoulder. “He wishes he could be circumcised more than once, to experience the joy of finding the true faith again and again.”

  Mehmed smiled at Gruya. “As your dependent, he too is assured of a great military career in my sultanate.” He laced his arms under Vlad’s and Gruya’s and led them onto the mosque’s porch. “I was going to keep it as a surprise,” he said, and his face acquired a pink sheen, “but I simply can’t. After the Dhuhr prayer today at the Grand Mosque, Mustafa Bey, the governor of Bursa, is going to honor you two for saving lives in yesterday’s fire.”