House of War

by Victor Foia

  She’s asked a hundred questions about you.

  Learning about the massacre of Zahra’s family helped Vlad understand that the sadness he’d observed in her came not from her latest suffering, but from the tragedy played out months ago. It also told him she had no one to return to, and that meant she might be staying with Mara indefinitely.

  I will see her again, he thought, suppressing guilt over that selfish reflection.

  So much was his mind taken with Zahra, he didn’t read the first part of Mara’s letter until a month had passed. By then whatever she’d written about the war had to be out of date.

  “War isn’t going well for Murad,” she wrote. “His own son-in-law, Mahmud Bey, has been taken prisoner by Hunyadi.” She went on to write of towns being burned; of massacres perpetrated on the civilian population by the crusaders; of a new way of fighting Hunyadi had perfected.

  “Hunyadi’s equipped heavy wagons with armored shields, harquebuses, and howitzers. They are called ‘wagenburg,’ and he sets many of them in a square joined with iron chains, like a moving fortress. The sultan’s soldiers don’t know how to deal with these newfangled contraptions.”

  Vlad was certain the crusaders couldn’t force the Ottomans out of Europe, no matter how many wagenburgs they had. The resources Murad could marshal dwarfed those of the Christians, and he could exhaust his enemies in endless battles and skirmishes. As Vlad’s father had pointed out once, Murad had more falconers, dog handlers, and grooms in his hunting corps than many a European kingdom had fighting men in its standing army.

  If Murad didn’t defeat the crusaders outright, it was because he’d lost his desire to fight.

  But if the crusaders couldn’t chase Islam from Europe, their partial victories were certain to embolden the jihād party against Murad. To hold Kalıcı Cihad in check, the sultan had to work a miracle, and the time for that was running out.

  The summer passed without further word from Mara. At first, the absence of news rendered Vlad so restless he couldn’t stand still in one place for more than a few moments. He roamed the hills alone from dawn to dusk, seeking to exhaust his body and numb his mind. Yet when night came, sleep shunned him. He invented reasons why she’d stopped writing. She hasn’t received new messages from Murad, so there was nothing for her to report; or she’s ill and not up to writing. But as time went on and still no letter came, those excuses ceased to satisfy. He had to conclude that something drastic had occurred. Perhaps Murad had been deposed and Mara removed from the island.

  If that was the case, Vlad’s interpretation of the lion in the prophecy had been wrong. He’d have to wait for another fork in the road to fulfill his destiny.

  And Zahra … what happened to her?

  She’s asked a hundred questions about you.

  By the end of August, he’d become listless and seldom left his cot anymore.

  63

  ARISTOTLE’S HOMETOWN

  November 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  When fall arrived Vlad was forced to come up with a new explanation for not having received any news: Murad must’ve won; had he lost, the patriarch would’ve sent the good news to the monastic community on Athos.

  With the onset of winter, both Christian and Ottoman armies would be disbanding for lack of forage and to recover from battle fatigue, as they did following each war. Then if Murad failed to strike an agreement with Norbert, a new war would resume in the spring. And so on, year after year.

  “It doesn’t explain why Lady Mara would keep you in the dark,” Gruya pointed out.

  “It does,” Vlad said, “if she was ordered back to Edirne without a chance of sending a farewell note.”

  “Your promise not to leave Athos without Murad’s permission,” Gruya said, “was good for the duration of the war. Since you believe he’s won and yet hasn’t recalled you, your oath is void. You’ve got the chance now to escape his bondage with honor, before he binds you again with a new oath.”

  Vlad couldn’t argue with Gruya’s logic. At Muradiye, Tirendaz had said, “You’ll be confined to the Athos peninsula until the end of the war.” All Vlad had to do, in the interest of preserving his honor, was to interpret Tirendaz’s pronouncement as referring to this year’s war, not to war in general. After all, war in the abstract had no end.

  But something he wasn’t willing to share with Gruya held him back. If he left Athos without Murad’s consent, he’d never see Zahra again. How Gruya would laugh to learn that an encounter with a girl, lasting only a few hours, had marked Vlad so deeply.

  “We’ve got no way of getting off this peninsula,” Vlad said, unconvincing. Never before had he surrendered with such ease to confining circumstances.

  Gruya smirked, inflated with self-confidence. “Oh, but my research shows otherwise.”

  Vlad couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “The word research suits you so well.”

  “Do you think you’re the only scholar in this company of ours?”

  “Sadly, yes.” Vlad dreaded Gruya’s occasional forays into the treacherous waters of scholarship.

  “Well, then tell me how far from here is Aristotle’s birthplace?”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard of the great man and now consider yourself a scholar? Since you can’t read, how did you find out whence he hails?”

  Gruya ignored Vlad’s barb. “Stagira’s the name of Aristotle’s hometown. My good friend Kalimakos has been there in his youth.”

  “You’ve got dealings with that mound of cassock-cloaked ordure?” Vlad cried. “You know he’s stolen my—”

  “He isn’t a bad fellow, once you get past his misogyny.”

  “And this new friend of yours is willing to help us escape?”

  Gruya threw his head back and grinned, triumphant. “I knew you’d be interested.”

  Vlad detested the notion of being associated with Kalimakos in any manner. “What if he’s trying to set us up? He might be angling for a reward from the Turks.”

  “He’s got no love for them,” Gruya said, “so helping us is his way of being subversive. Plus, the three of us are a burden on his larder.”

  “And Aristotle? How’s he part of your plan?”

  “Look at this map,” Gruya said and produced a parchment with squiggly lines drawn in black ink. “Kalimakos has torn it out of the ‘Life of Aristotle,’ by some Roman writer. He told me Stagira’s barely sixty miles from here, if we follow the coastline.”

  “Follow it how?” Vlad said, but he already knew the answer and realized Gruya’s plan was workable.

  “We load the pirates’ tender with supplies, and, if need be, fish on the way. It won’t take us more than a week to reach Stagira.”

  Vlad would’ve liked to point out that winter was near and the sea would be rough. But the weather had been so warm and calm lately that November could’ve been mistaken for May.

  Gruya must’ve taken Vlad’s silence as acquiescence to his plan, for he continued with great zeal. “In Stagira we get on a ship bound for Athens, and we’re free.”

  “Free to beg for our supper?” Vlad said, though he knew the lack of money wouldn’t be an impediment. They had the sultan’s firman that gave them freedom of movement. At first, they’d earn their food as laborers; then, in the spring they’d hire themselves as oarsmen on a commercial galley.

  Gruya puffed up his chest. “Oh, begging isn’t for us. That’s for people without money.”

  “Since when have we been excluded from that select category?”

  Gruya produced a purse and shook it to the clink of silver. “While the monks spent the night thanking the Lord for their victory over the pirates, I collected fifty aspers from the dearly departed.”

  Vlad couldn’t deny the possibility he’d become one of Murad’s forgotten prisoners, like the Catalan wretch he’d met in the Edirne donjon. And his reluctance to escape was indefensible.

  “I’ll give Murad two more weeks to recall me. If he doesn’t I’ll consider myself no longer honor-bo
und to obey him.”

  64

  UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  November 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  With the monks’ help, Gruya and Lash set to work on conditioning the tender for the voyage. They stripped off the old caulking and replaced it with hemp cords steeped in resin. Lash forged new oarlocks, and Cyril replaced a cracked oar with one he carved out of an oak plank. Methodius braided a long rope and attached it to a perforated stone to serve as anchor.

  Kalimakos and the novice gathered together the food supplies: clay pots filled with honey, millet gruel, hazelnuts, pickled turnips, and salted fish. In a display of unexpected solicitude for Gruya’s needs, Kalimakos even placed a wine cask into the boat.

  The reprobate is really bent on seeing us gone, Vlad thought, trying to figure out Kalimakos’s true interest in their departure.

  Vlad observed the preparations with a sinking heart, praying hourly to Theotókos for a letter from Mara that would preempt their departure. No letter came, and Vlad couldn’t help reproaching the Virgin her indifference to his plight. Then two days before his deadline, a ship glided into Maiden’s Drowning at sunrise.

  Cyril and Methodius were the first to notice it and sent the novice to alert Vlad.

  “We’re being attacked again, Prince Vlad,” the novice said, beside himself with fright. “We’ve shut the gate already. Should we ring the bells?”

  Vlad rose and opened the shutters. With a start, he recognized the galley that had brought him and his friends to Athos. This had to be the answer to his prayer. “Yes, ring the bells.”

  Let this ship bring me news of Zahra, Holy Theotókos.

  Gruya had listened to the exchange from his bed. When the youth left he said, reproachful, “See what comes from procrastination?”

  Vlad headed for the door with an athlete’s jaunty step. “Yes, procrastination can be a wonderful thing sometimes.”

  In the courtyard he had to elbow his way through the mass of monks congregated there, all armed and shouting at each other over the din of the bells. He made eye contact with Lash, standing in the kitchen doorway; “false alarm,” Vlad mouthed in answer to his servant’s silent question.

  Lash nodded in return and remained standing in place, stolid.

  Vlad headed for the gate when the novice intercepted him, frantic. “Your weapons, Prince Vlad. You’ve forgotten your sword and spear.”

  Vlad smiled at the youth. “Don’t you believe in the power of prayer?”

  He walked to the edge of the cliff from where he could observe the galley. His gaze drifted to Mara’s island, and anxiety built up inside him. The five-month interval of silence on Mara’s part could mean many things, none favorable to him. What kind of news awaited him now? He dreaded most learning that Zahra had left for her homeland.

  Maybe the ship hadn’t come on his behalf, after all. It might be bringing the monks news from Constantinople.

  A quarter hour passed before he saw movement on the galley. A small rowboat was lowered onto the water, and a single man hopped into it. In about five minutes the boat docked and the man disembarked with the lithe step of a military man. Yet the stranger was dressed as an Italian merchant. Vlad was unable to decide whether he was Venetian or Genovese before the man disappeared from sight under the lip of the cliff.

  Was he a messenger? An assassin?

  Now Vlad regretted not having armed himself with at least a dagger. He thought about dashing back to the safety of the gate, but that would’ve been unbecoming of one who’d just implied his confidence in the power of prayer.

  I can certainly deal with one attacker, even empty-handed.

  “As-salaamu alaikum, Emirzade,” a friendly voice rang out behind him.

  Vlad pivoted around, flooded with hope. “Wa-alaikum salaam, Tirendaz Pasha.”

  Tirendaz had climbed the path to the cliff-top in less than a minute, yet his breathing was that of one in repose.

  “Nice touch, the bells,” Tirendaz said with a pleasant chuckle.

  Vlad laughed with a lightness of heart he hadn’t felt in a long time. “Yes, we greet our visitors here according to the degree of anticipation we have for their news.”

  “Let’s get away from this racket.”

  They walked without talking past the kitchen garden, across a meadow, and finally into the hills west of the monastery. Vlad burned with the urge to ask about Mara, and thus indirectly about Zahra, but didn’t want to reveal his impatience.

  “This is paradise on earth,” Tirendaz said when an hour later, they’d reached the summit. “One day I shall retire here and do nothing but raise bees, practice archery, and read Persian poetry. Insha’Allāh.”

  “You won’t be allowed to bring your harem along,” Vlad said.

  Tirendaz showed his healthy teeth in an impish grin. “More the reason to retire here.”

  From their vantage point they could see both coasts of the peninsula bathed in the turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea. Well-tended vineyards and orchards dotted the landscape. Here and there the walls of a skete or a monastery nestled on the slopes gleamed white through the barren tree branches. At the southern tip of the peninsula, Mount Athos rose steep into the cloudless sky, as if a stepping stone to the mysterious beyond.

  They sat in silence on the remnants of a stone wall for a few minutes, before Tirendaz gave out a deep sigh and resumed speaking.

  “You must be up to date with most of the bad news, I suppose.”

  Vlad’s heart shrank with apprehension, and he shook his head.

  “Lady Mara said she’s written you every two weeks since the beginning of summer.”

  Blood rushed to Vlad’s face and a black curtain blinded him for a moment. “Her Ladyship’s letters must have found their way into someone else’s hands,” he said, feigning calm. “So you’ve seen her?”

  “I had the privilege of spending an hour in her presence last night,” Tirendaz said. “I brought Her Ladyship gifts from the sultan and delivered her clothes for a young girl newly in her service.”

  Instead of being sent away, Zahra’s been adopted into Mara’s retinue. Vlad had all he could do not to hug Tirendaz at this happy thought. He vowed to strangle Kalimakos who’d pilfered his letters.

  Tirendaz related the ebb and flow of the war; the loss of Sofia; the bloody engagements in the mountain passes; the carnage suffered by civilian Muslims at the hands of the crusaders.

  “I’ve heard of Hunyadi’s new weapon, the wagenburg,” Vlad said.

  “Deadly thing on a level field.” Tirendaz paused, lost in thought. “Five thousand Sipahis perished in a single day the first time we encountered it. It was in that battle the sultan’s son-in-law was taken prisoner.”

  “Were there Wallachians among the crusaders?” Vlad asked, when he actually wanted to say, Have you heard if my brother fought in Norbert’s army?

  “Enough to provide grist to your enemies’ mill.”

  “Is fighting still going on this late in the year?”

  Tirendaz’s face darkened. “We’ve suffered the worst loss only two weeks ago, at a place called Niš. Skanderbeg chose that occasion to desert with three hundred Albanian Sipahis.”

  Tirendaz spoke in a flat tone, as if the incident were of no significance. But Vlad knew the general’s betrayal had to be a blow to Murad, who’d looked upon him almost as a brother.

  Vlad remembered the little lecture Skanderbeg had given him in Edirne the year before, when he’d said, “People lose wars through ignorance of their enemies. Know more about them than they know about you, and you’ll win, no matter the balance of forces.”

  Skanderbeg had taken twenty years to learn all there was to know about the Ottomans. Now he’d decided to fight them.

  “The general’s treason should gratify Zaganos,” Vlad said. “He’s always maintained Skanderbeg was a munāfiq.”

  Tirendaz nodded. “This setback has strengthened the jihād party’s hand. When Skanderbeg opens hostilities against us the
jihadists will claim again the empire can’t be made safe except by attacking Dar al-Harb.”

  Vlad’s heartbeat sped up when he said, “Does His Majesty still intend to pursue peace?”

  “The crusaders are now on their way to winter quarters in Hungary. They’re planning to resume their campaign in June next year. The sultan’s determined to prevent that from happening.”

  Tirendaz extracted a cream-colored paper scroll from inside his doublet and handed it to Vlad. “This is the proposal for a ten-year peace treaty you’re to deliver to King Norbert.” He appeared transported, showing he and Murad had set a great store on this initiative. “Read the letter while I take a walk.”

  65

  TEN-YEAR PEACE

  November 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  The sentence blazed in Vlad’s mind. “… you’re to deliver to King Norbert.”

  Those life-changing words unleashed in him a torrent of heady thoughts vying for attention with the clamor of unruly children. Against the odds, Murad was entrusting him with the most critical mission the sultan could’ve conceived. As a result of Vlad’s secret diplomacy, half a dozen Christian armies would be disbanded; a multitude of towns and villages would escape destruction; and thousands of lives would be spared.

  But vastly more importantly, jihād, the lion of the prophesy, would soon to be his to slay.

  He unfurled the scroll with shaky hands to expose Murad’s tuğrâ drawn in gold ink at the top of the sheet. Below the elaborate monogram, the text of the letter flowed in a sober, robust calligraphy.

  Murad’s willingness to surrender several border fortresses he’d conquered in earlier years from the Serbs testified to his determination to secure a long-lasting peace. But what impressed Vlad the most was Murad’s guarantee of safe-conduct across his empire to pilgrims headed for the Holy Land. He further sweetened the deal by promising to buy from the Mameluks protection for the pilgrims while they traveled through Syria and Palestine. These pledges would make Jerusalem a city open to Christians for the first time since the twelfth century, when it fell to the Muslims.