by Victor Foia
The guest room was built against the outer wall on the sea side, and suffered from the same neglect as the rest of the monastery. The plastered walls, once white, were covered now with the soot of tallow lamps that had illuminated the pilgrims’ nights over many centuries. And the floor planks hadn’t been scrubbed since the time lustful shepherdesses were still roaming the Athos pastures.
The one feature that mitigated the dreariness of this hovel was a shuttered opening that looked upon Maiden’s Drowning. From this vantage point, the sea-foam at the foot of the cliffs resembled a lace collar fringing the cove’s turquoise water. Beyond Maiden’s Teeth, Mara’s island glowed with a reddish hue under the rays of the setting sun.
53
MARA’S LETTER
April 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire
“Lasting peace with Christendom is on its way!”
While Gruya and Lash slept, Vlad reread Mara’s letter, now savoring details that had escaped him on the first reading. Her near girlish enthusiasm infected him as she related Murad’s secret plan to outfox the jihād party and strike a peace agreement with Dar al Harb.
Before leaving Edirne in January, Murad had broached the idea of peace with Christendom in his Imperial Council. Khalil Pasha endorsed the notion, but Fazullah Pasha raised strong objections. “The Janissaries will not bow to Dar al-Harb, My Sultan,” Mara quoted him in as saying. “When they learn you’re asking the infidels for peace, they’ll revolt and massacre all of us.” The members of the ulema in attendance agreed with Fazullah and warned the sultan not to provoke a crisis that might bring the empire to ruin.
To make things worse, the sultan’s spies uncovered circumstantial evidence that Fazullah was in touch with the Mameluk Sultan in Cairo. She wrote, “Fazullah plans to eliminate my husband and invite the Mameluks to form an alliance with the empire. That would give Fazullah and his cohorts a free hand to pursue the perpetual jihād they desire.”
More news: Following Aladdin’s death, the sultan retired to Muradiye to meditate on what to do. Should he arrest Fazullah on the scant evidence of treason he had? That, the sultan feared, might unleash the very Janissaries’ revolt he needed to avoid. Or should he abandon his quest for peace and let war run its course? He fasted for three days and three nights, with nothing but water to sustain him; then he had a vision. His murshid visited him in a dream and said, “Why do you torment yourself, My Sultan, when the answer to your problem is clearly given in the Qur’an, sūrah 4, ayah 90?”
Vlad couldn’t remember that verse, and Mara didn’t seem to know it either.
“The next day my husband sent a secret emissary to King Norbert.”
It stroked Vlad’s vanity that his suggestion prompted Murad to reach out to Hungary’s king.
“The moment I learn of the envoy’s arrival in Buda I’ll notify you,” Mara wrote in conclusion.
The lamp went out, and Vlad let his mind wander to scenes of his native land, where he’d soon return. But gradually, nagging thoughts marred his pleasant reverie. If Murad’s letter fell into the hands of Kalıcı Cihad, they’d use it to incite the army to revolt and topple him. Then Fazullah would assume power, and all peace prospects would be lost. And even if the letter reached Norbert, how was Murad going to appease his troops when news came out of Buda that he’d asked Dar al-Harb for peace?
54
THE POWER OF TRADITION
April – May 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire
“Take stock of the tools in the monks’ workshop,” Vlad ordered Lash the next morning. The Gypsy had just entered the room carrying a water basin and a towel. “We’re going to rebuild the gate.”
“Oh, no,” Gruya moaned from under his cover. “I thought we’ve come here to meditate on spiritual matters, not work ourselves to the bone needlessly.”
“Add the monastery to the list of charitable causes you can brag about,” Vlad said, relishing Gruya’s annoyance.
“I’ve already checked out the tools,” Lash said. “There is all we need for carpentry and working iron. Though nobody’s used the workshop for years, so the tools need scouring and sharpening.”
Vlad stripped to his waist and dipped his face into the frigid water. Then he rubbed his arms and torso with a wetted corner of the towel until his skin felt afire. “We’ll also need charcoal for the smithy. Go into the hills and make us a few hundred pounds, while Gruya and I scout Athos for planks and iron scraps.”
“I need a hearty meal first,” Gruya cried. “Even our Savior had a memorable dinner before he went on to face His Calvary.”
“What you and I need,” Vlad said, “is a priest to confess us, so we might receive absolution for our multitude of sins.”
They found Kalimakos in the kitchen, stoking the fire with twigs handed him by a young novice.
“Oh, none of us monks is an ordained priest. Only the abbot may confess you, but he’s ill at the moment.”
The news brightened Gruya’s mood. “We obviously can’t rebuild the gate in our state of sin. It would be bad luck for the monastery.”
“Rebuild the gate?” Kalimakos cried. “What for, in the Lord’s name? A new gate would only persuade the pirates we have valuable things to hide in here.”
Vlad laughed. “And they’d be right. The next time they come you’ll be fighting them, instead of taking your treasure to the hills.”
Kalimakos waved his hands in dismissal. “We know nothing about defending ourselves from armed men. You’re wasting your time and labor.”
I’ll have to teach you. “Consider the new gate the first installment of my father’s donation to Theotókos.”
“Don’t expect us to send him the relic of the Cross in installments,” the monk jeered.
The hills around the monastery were dotted with abandoned sketes, monastic settlements, that yielded the oak planks and scrap iron needed for the gate’s restoration. Over the next three weeks, Vlad and Gruya hauled the materials to the monastery, sometimes from a distance of more than ten miles.
On his daily outings Vlad found himself glancing frequently at She-Devil’s Island, like a lover at his beloved’s unreachable balcony. Only his pining wasn’t for love, but for news of Murad’s peace plan. Vlad liked to imagine the sultan’s messenger arriving in Buda, having escaped the traps set for him by Kalıcı Cihad. He envisioned one of the Ottoman spies in Hungary immediately sending a pigeon to inform Murad of the event. In turn, the sultan would send a pigeon to Lady Mara. And she’d pass the good news on to Vlad through the monks supplying her fish and produce. Later, when Norbert announced his acceptance of the treaty, the news would reach Vlad in but a few days.
Then Murad would let him return home.
When a storm front moved in and brought heavy rains, Vlad was forced to suspend his forays into the hills. He realized with some anguish bad weather meant no deliveries to Lady Mara for some time. If she received the anticipated news at this time, she’d have no way of sharing it with him.
With rain beating down ceaselessly upon the monastery, he stood dejected for hours every day in front of his window. When, in the murky light, he would now and then catch a glimpse of She-Devil’s Island, his spirits would revive. Then a fresh curtain of rain and fog would close in upon that image and he’d sink back into melancholy.
In the afternoon of the fifth day, the clouds parted enough to let through a shaft of sunlight. While Vlad was scanning the horizon, he noticed a merchantman bobbing on the waves about three miles offshore. With broken masts and tangled sails, the ship was drifting on the current toward She-Devil’s Island. Ten minutes later a fresh rain torrent erupted and smothered the already waning light. When the weather finally cleared, just before the sunset, there was no trace of the distressed ship.
The next morning a pilgrim arriving from the south informed Kalimakos that a dozen bodies had washed onto a beach two miles south of Theotókos. Kalimakos ordered the monks to fetch shovels and follow him there. They all walked with great purpose, holdi
ng the hems of their black robes above their knees, chattering in excited tones.
“Give the monks bodies to bury,” Gruya sneered, “and they come alive with purpose, like mushrooms after the rain. But ask them to fight for their own freedom, and they shit their holy cassocks.”
“Since they don’t need our help on this occasion,” Vlad said, “let’s take care of our business.”
The path Vlad and Gruya took to reach the hills followed the edge of the cliff above the beach, where the monks were now swarming in great agitation. In passing, Vlad saw corpses lying in various macabre poses, some half buried in the sand, others covered in seaweed.
“Move all bodies over there,” he heard Kalimakos shout. The monk was pointing to the foot of the cliff.
Four monks were digging holes there. The remainder formed teams of two and began to drag the corpses to the graves.
Vlad turned to leave when a sharp cry from below checked him.
“This one’s alive, Brother Kalimakos,” one of the monks shouted.
There was a booming chorus of, “Blessed be Theotókos.”
Vlad saw the live body for only a moment, an inert form lying facedown, before the monks mobbed it with joyous shouts. Then there was a strange sound, as if all the men had drawn breath simultaneously in a collective gasp of disbelief.
“This is Satan’s work,” Kalimakos cried, and the monks fell back hurriedly, as if scorched by the flaring of a grease fire.
The body came into view again, this time face-up, torso exposed through a torn shirt.
Gruya slapped his thighs. “What? The lone survivor’s a woman?”
The castaway turned sideways and, with sluggish movements, raised herself to her knees. Then as if weighed down by her pendulous breasts, she rested on her knuckles. Long and matted hair draped her face, so Vlad couldn’t ascertain her age.
Kalimakos raised his hands to the sky and hollered, “This woman’s presence here is a blasphemy for which the Good Book has only one command: ‘She that blasphemeth shall be put to death, and all the congregation shall stone her.’”
He picked up a fist-sized stone at his feet and intoned, “‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’” Then he cast the stone at the woman, hitting her in the ear. Her arms crumpled and she fell forward.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Gruya screamed.
Vlad clambered over the edge of the cliff and let himself slide on his belly over the steep rocky slope that stretched for about fifty feet. Now and then he managed to slow his vertiginous descent by grabbing onto an occasional tuft of grass growing from a crack in the rock.
“‘Lead us not into temptation,’” he heard the monks shout in unison below him.
The thud of their stones hitting the woman followed.
Gruya had also precipitated himself down the slope. Losing control of his slide, he caught up with Vlad, and the two of them crashed onto the ground together.
Vlad scrambled to his feet and charged Kalimakos, fists raised. “How could you do this to a helpless creature?” he screamed into the monk’s face.
Kalimakos straightened his body and hissed in a venomous tone, “It is written—”
Vlad’s fist shot forward, and the rest of Kalimakos’s pronouncement drowned behinds his smashed lips as he tumbled backward. The other monks watched the scene, mouths agape.
Vlad approached the woman and found her lifeless.
“Are these the people you want to save from the pirates?” Gruya said in Romanian.
Vlad turned to see Gruya’s left shoulder drenched in blood. “Your wound’s opened up.”
Gruya glanced at the bloodstain, clutched his shoulder, and winced. “You’re pretty messed up as well.”
Vlad inspected himself and saw the raw flesh of his knees through the torn fabric of his trousers. He’d broken all his nails on the way down the cliff and his right hand’s knuckles bore fresh tooth marks.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “We were meant to spend our time on Cock Island meditating on spiritual matters, not playing Good Samaritans to these craven hypocrites.”
He bathed his hands in the surf then began to trudge up the path to the monastery with a heavy heart.
Vlad spent the rest of the day pacing his sleeping chamber and brooding over the incident at the beach. Gruya tossed and turned in bed with fever, now and then mumbling fierce curses directed at the monks. After bringing Vlad and Gruya supper of cold fish and beets, Lash departed for the hills, where the charcoal kiln required his attention.
When the semantron announced the Midnight Office, Vlad’s restlessness peaked, and he felt stifled in the small chamber. He descended into the courtyard and found his way in the dark to the church, whence the sound of the monks’ chanting poured out with surprising energy.
The church vestibule was cold and gloomy in the stingy flicker of the icons’ lamps. Through the door to the nave, watched over by two saints with silver halos, he saw the altar suffused in a warm amber candlelight. He felt an overwhelming desire to step across the threshold, prostrate himself on the hallowed ground, and let the grace of God wash away from his soul the accumulated layers of guilt. But the saints checked him with reproachful stares from beneath severe eyebrows. “How dare you, unrepentant apostate and fornicator,” they seemed to say, “ask for God’s grace in your state of sinfulness?”
He resolved to visit the abbot in the morning and confess his sins, even if the old man had to give him absolution from his own deathbed.
When the monks fell silent, he turned to leave. But that moment they resumed chanting a psalm, and he felt trapped in its mellifluous melody like an ant in the resin of a pine tree.
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.
“His love endures forever.”
How could these men, who only hours ago had murdered a woman, sing with such devotion and sincerity? He glanced at the saints for an explanation, but all he got was a frown.
Perhaps I’m not the one to judge.
At least, these simple, ignorant men were faithful to their creed, as brutal and primitive as it might be. He, on the other hand, a prince of royal blood, had betrayed the faith in whose defense thousands of his own people had died.
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord
“Than to trust in humans.
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord
“Than to trust in princes.”
The last verse scalded him like melting wax. It’s true: I no longer deserve people’s trust.
The damning, inescapable admission shamed him as if he’d committed a disgraceful act in public. He dashed out of the church and returned to his room. There, he discovered Gruya’s bed was empty. Too exhausted to be concerned with his friend’s whereabouts, he threw himself fully dressed on his bed and succumbed to sleep.
55
ABSOLUTION
May 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire
When Vlad awoke at the sound of Gruya’s snoring, the sun was already sending shafts of fire through cracks in the shutters. Gruya’s clothes, wet, bloodied, and caked in mud, were piled on the floor at the foot of his cot.
Vlad shook him by the elbow. “What’s your answer when Kalimakos asks about your clothes?”
Gruya turned slowly onto his back and rubbed his eyes. “Anything to eat?”
“If you don’t want the monks to undo your work, go wash up this mess at the stream.”
“They’ll never know I’ve buried her in their consecrated ground,” Gruya said. “I’ve planted an ancient cross on her tomb, to deceive them.”
Vlad was about to point out the dead woman might not have been a Christian, when he heard steps approaching in the hallway. He cracked the door just enough to see who it was.
“The abbot has sent for you, Prince Vlad,” said the novice who worked in the kitchen.
The summons startled Vlad. What a coincidence.
Vlad followed the young man down a long flight of steps that led deep into the bowels of t
he monastery. At the bottom of the stairs, the place opened into a storeroom where the novice shone his lantern upon large clay pots crowding the shelves.
“Olive oil,” the novice said.
The next room was a cellar crammed with wine barrels ranged in tidy rows.
“Before the Turks conquered Thessaloniki, we could sell our wine there. “Now it’s sitting here, useless, while the monastery’s languishing for want of funds.”
I know where I’ll find Gruya after his confession, Vlad thought.
A narrow corridor followed, barely tall enough for Vlad’s stature. They passed several cells whose openings had been bricked over and arrived at an open door.
“Come in, Son,” the abbot said in a croaking voice when he noticed Vlad standing on the threshold. Then he coughed a few times into a bloodstained rag.
Vlad feared the abbot had heard of his conversion to Islam and would give him a harsh reception. Instead, the old man spoke with a kindness that made Vlad’s eyes mist. There was something familiar in his voice, yet Vlad was certain they’d never met.
The chamber was lit by two candles whose smoke made the air hard to breathe. A white, powdery matter covered the unplastered brick walls: the efflorescence typical of damp caverns.
A monk attending the old man propped up his pillow, kissed his hand, then left the chamber.
“I’ll wait outside,” the novice said, and he too left, closing the door.
Vlad knelt by the abbot’s cot and kissed his hand.
“Your heart’s heavy with sin, my child.”
The abbot’s eyes were sunken in their sockets and the skin of his face stretched over prominent cheekbones. A mustache resembling a frayed hemp rope draped over his mouth and a tangled beard rested on his breast, nesting the crumbs of his last meal. Wispy white hair radiated from his skull, like the rays of light that adorned saints’ heads in some icons. His hand, when he placed it on Vlad’s head, it had the weight of a silkworm cocoon.
“I yearn for absolution, Very Reverend Abbot.”