Ottoman

by Christopher Nicole

  But he himself had more important business, and he ran across the courtyard, through the reception halls with their brightly painted mosaic tiles, and up the stairs to the harem.

  Here the Kislar Agha barred his way. “Are you mad, young Hawk?”

  “Stand aside,” William said, “or die.”

  The huge black man hesitated, gazing at the drawn scimitar, the determination in the face of the Englishman, the big shoulders, his red hair tumbling from beneath the helmet. Then he stood aside.

  William burst through the curtained doorway, hesitated, surrounded by strange sounds and stranger odours. He had never entered a harem in his life, as he did not own one himself. A chorus of screams broke out, and he realised that although he stood in an apparently empty corridor, he was being watched through the trelliswork walls to either side.

  Not all the screams arose out of fear. Physically, William Hawkwood was a far more attractive man than Prince Djem.

  Seeing a door in the trellis a few feet down the corridor, he ran for it, hurling it open and facing the women inside. All were scantily clad, but not all hastened to cover themselves.

  William seized one of the older women by the shoulder, brandishing his scimitar. “I am Hawkwood,” he said. “My wife and sons were brought here. Take me to them.”

  The woman merely goggled at him.

  “Quickly,” he said. “Or I will cut your throat.”

  She gasped. “The eunuchs took them, my lord. The eunuchs came…”

  William released her and ran back into the corridor. Several eunuchs had gathered there, but they scattered when he approached them. He caught hold of one of them, however, striking him on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword, so that the frightened Negro fell to his knees.

  “The wife of young Hawk,” he snarled. “Take me to her.”

  The eunuch shivered with fear. “It was the orders of the Sultan, young Hawk…”

  “Take me,” William commanded again, though he felt a black cloud descending on his brain.

  The eunuch scrambled to his feet and led William along a corridor towards a locked door.

  “Break it down,” William commanded.

  The eunuch summoned some of his fellows and they broke open the lock. As the door swung wide, William stepped inside, nostrils flaring at the odours within, and his heart sagging at the sight before him.

  There were four in the cell: Sereta, the two young boys, and Henry Hawkwood. Each had their hands tied behind their backs, and the bowstrung coiled round each neck was deeply embedded in the flesh. All of them were dead.

  *

  “Rebels!” said the Sultan, surveying the men grouped before him. Bound and ragged, many of them were frost-bitten after their forced march through the mountains to the Bosphorus in the dead of winter. “Traitors. Scum of the earth.”

  The captives were all of higher rank. Hawk Pasha had executed a few of the common soldiers, primarily as a warning to the others. The officers he had then brought to the vengeance of the Sultan. Now he stood beside them like a huge avenging angel. Yet he had a life to save, if he could.

  The prisoners retained little of their finery. They had been dragged behind the tails of the sipahis’ horses, all the way from Brusa, mile after weary mile, day after endless day. Their armour had been torn away, their tunics were in rags, their faces and knees and legs bled from where they had fallen, their shoulders and backs from where they had been beaten.

  They had paid for the price of failure.

  And they knew that nothing they had suffered so far could be as terrible as the manner in which they were about to suffer now.

  In some, their eyes were dull, as if their brains had collapsed under the strain of their ordeal; they were the lucky ones. Others even tried to muster the courage to gaze at the Sultan. But most stood with bowed heads, staring at the floor. All were trembling.

  Omar Pasha’s head was high, and he stared straight ahead. William Hawkwood stared at his father.

  “Impale them,” Bayazid said. “Impale them all” — he gestured towards them — “as common criminals.”

  There was a gasp from the pashas standing around the throne. Impalement at all was as horrible an execution as man had been able to devise — but at least when inflicted upon enemies taken in battle it left the victim some little last dignity. Common criminals were denied even that. Instead of being made to sit upon sharp wooden poles, the condemned man was held over a high curved saddle, then a stake, perhaps four feet long, was driven into his anus with strokes of wooden mallet until it re-emerged from his body somewhere above the waist. The execution was performed in a public square, and it was at the discretion of the executioner how quickly or slowly he swung his mallet.

  Even Omar’s face blenched. From the moment Hawk Pasha had refused to discuss terms, he had known that he was bound to die, and painfully. But this…

  “You have no right, O Padishah,” he protested. “I am a pasha, and I was taken with arms in my hands.”

  “You are a rebel against the law of the Sultan,” Bayazid spat at him. “Keep him to the last,” he ordered. “And be sure the strokes are slow.”

  The guards began to march the prisoners away.

  Only one remained: William Hawkwood, bound and filthy like the others but separated from them by Hawk Pasha’s orders.

  “I can make no exceptions, Hawk Pasha,” Bayazid said, “great as have been your services to me. All rebellion must be stamped out.”

  “With respect, Padishah,” Anthony said, “my son was no rebel. He was constrained to take the field with the traitor because his wife and family were in custody. As was my other son. He refused to fire the cannon upon your army, Padishah, and was arrested for it. Djem did not murder him then because he wished us to die together after his hoped-for victory. When my son followed the fleeing traitor in an effort to capture him, he found his wife and brother and his sons all murdered. My son now hates the traitor more than any man on earth. It is a hatred I share.”

  Bayazid stroked his beard as he stared at his commander. Then he turned his gaze on William.

  “You did not overtake my brother,” he said. “That is a pity. As long as he lives, he will be as a knife embedded in my side. Your father claims that you hate your one-time friend. Is that true, young Hawk?”

  “Padishah, my soul cries out for vengeance against him. Were he to appear now at your side I would strangle him with my bare hands.”

  “Well said,” Bayazid acknowledged. “Very well then, young Hawk, I will give you that opportunity. I have received information that Djem, after taking ship from Smyrna to Egypt, has fled to Rhodes, to the protection of the Knights of St John. I have sent ambassadors to the Knights, warning them that he must be surrendered or I shall raise an armament against them such as no man has ever seen — an armament greater even than that commanded by my father. And this time I shall not raise the siege.”

  “The Knights will not surrender Prince Djem,” Anthony said.

  “This I know. But I also know that they will not give me cause for war. They will send my brother away. Who can say where they will send him? Back to Egypt? To Italy? France? The ends of the earth?” He threw out his arm, his finger pointing at William Hawkwood. “I make this your commission, young Hawk. Go, and fetch me back my brother. Or slay him with your own hands and bring me proof of it. Follow him down to hell if necessary, but bring me his living body or proof of his death.”

  “Gladly, O Padishah,” William cried. What else did he have to live for now?

  Bayazid smiled. “You have a year, from this day, to accomplish your mission. Remember that. A year from today. If you do not return with my brother, or my brother’s head, within that time, then…” his gaze swept to Anthony Hawkwood who, as always, had his son John at his shoulder. “Then your other brother will die.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then a gasp from the viziers. Anthony Hawkwood stiffened with anger. He was the personal friend of the late Sultan, th
e greatest soldier in the empire. And his eldest son had ridden beside him in defeating the rebellion. Could he possibly be treated now as a slave by this cur who would not even accompany his army to battle?

  Bayazid continued to smile. “Remember my words, young Hawk. Now go — and return with my brother’s head.”

  *

  “He is not a reincarnation of Mahomet, or even of the first Bayazid,” Anthony Hawkwood observed, “yet is he our master. You must never forget that.”

  “I will not forget it, Father,” William said.

  He stood in the selamlik, the private chamber of his father’s house. The palace of Hawk Pasha overlooked the Golden Horn itself, and the crowded shipping at anchor there. Vessels came from all over the world, for as long as their countries were at peace with the Sultan, and paid him tribute where it was due, all merchants were welcome in Constantinople. Venetians rubbed shoulders with Frenchmen, Italians with Germans, Ethiopians with Indians, in the market places of the city. There were also slant-eyed yellow men from the farthest reaches of Asia where, they claimed, there was an empire even greater than that of the Ottomans.

  There were even, on occasion, Englishmen among the throng.

  The wealth they brought in their search for the fine silks, the damascened swords, the soft linens, the magnificent horses, and, above all, the mouth-watering spices which found their way to Constantinople from the East, had made the empire the richest ever seen.

  It was from this wealth that the Conqueror and his pashas had been able to build their palaces. William Hawkwood stood on a marble floor, beneath a marble roof, sustained by huge marble pillars carved after the Greek style known as Corinthian. The windows were shrouded by velvet drapes, and the arches to the inner courtyard of the house by floating, pink-dyed gauze. The house was filled with soft air and distant sound.

  Not being a Muslim, Anthony Hawkwood even had pictures on his walls: a representation of the Virgin and Child, and an ikon with the same theme.

  Only twenty years ago, the site where this palace now stood had been empty ground on the shores of the harbour.

  William had spent too little time here to call it home. Now he must leave it again. For how long?

  “Here is your passport,” his father said, holding out the rolled document. “It describes you as Ambassador for the Porte. It will be honoured in all countries which trade with us, on pain of reprisal. Only in lands ruled by Castile and Aragon, or by the Emperor, will you be treated as an enemy. Avoid them.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “As to your situation when you overtake the fleeing prince, that I cannot foresee. I must leave that to your own good sense and courage.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “You will not fail. You are a Hawkwood. You must not fail. Not merely because of your brother John, but because your future is here. Remember my words, and come back safe to me.”

  “I will return.”

  “Return,” Anthony Hawkwood said, gazing at him, “because you are my son.” His voice was almost soft.

  “I grieve for my brother Harry.”

  “So do I, boy. To die in battle is an honourable end. But to be strangled… Avenge him.”

  “I will.”

  “I have decided, in view of your purpose, that it is best that you travel light. You will be accompanied by one servant only: Hussain. He will care for your every want. He can be trusted with your life — so do not sacrifice him unless you have to. For your other needs, here is a bag of gold coin. Use it well.”

  William took the bag; it was very heavy.

  “Now say farewell to your mother,” Anthony Hawkwood commanded.

  William went into the women’s quarter of the palace, and knelt before Anna’s chair.

  “I ask your blessing, Mother,” he said.

  “My blessing,” Anne said contemptuously. “This business has already cost me a son. Now it will cost me another. Go! I doubt I will see you again.”

  William stood up, disappointed, yet there were tears in his mother’s eyes. He kissed her hand.

  *

  Few Turks knew much of what lay beyond the Danube or the Black Sea. Men like Anthony Hawkwood had led embassies north of the great river, sea captains had taken their ships into the harbours of the Crimean peninsula; they were unanimous in their opinions that while here was a vast granary, fields of waving wheat for as far as the eye could see, it was a country with little to recommend it, entirely lacking in cities, populated by wild and uncultured people, and gripped for six months in every year by blood-chilling cold.

  Anthony Hawkwood could remember England and the coasts of Spain and Italy. Especially he remembered Naples. He could speak of busy seasports and hot-blooded, passionate men and women. The Turks, the most hot-blooded people on earth, smiled at his reminiscences. But even Anthony Hawkwood knew only hearsay about the heart of Europe.

  Those Turkish sea captains who traded with Venice spoke of the wealth and luxury of the great island republic. They spoke too of the land beyond, where mountains far higher than the Taurus rose straight to the sky. Around these mountains were lands even more fertile than the steppes of Russia, so they had been told, marked by large towns of incredible prosperity. They told tales themselves of huge fairs to which people came from miles around, of knights in plate armour, unveiled women in swirling skirts, rich merchants in fine brocades. It was a mouth-watering prospect to a bashi-bazouk who knew only of Constantinople, Adrianople, Brusa and the high Anatolian plateau.

  And of all these towns, with their quaint names such as Munich and Strasbourg, Augsburg and Mainz, Milan and Florence, the greatest, they said, lay far to the west, and it was called Paris.

  *

  William Hawkwood had been taught that his grandfather, serving with Great Harry at Agincourt and after, had visited Paris with that King in his quest for the hand of the daughter of the Dauphin.

  How strange, he thought, that sixty years later I should tread the same path, but with no romantic notions in my head.

  He was ever conscious of haste, for his year of grace was well advanced, and Djem remained beyond his reach.

  As Bayazid had predicted, the Knights of St John, while it was against their principles to surrender a fugitive, had not felt able to contemplate a fresh war with the Ottoman empire, or a fresh siege as damaging as the last. Djem had been hurried on his way as soon as Bayazid’s envoys had delivered their ultimatum.

  He had taken ship, in the first instance, for Venice — hoping to rouse those erstwhile rulers of the eastern Mediterranean once again to arms. William Hawkwood had followed him there.

  Like the Knights, the Doge was not yet prepared to resume opposition to the Ottomans, and Djem had again been sent on his travels, this time to France. William had arrived in Venice a month behind him, somewhat apprehensively. But the Doge had extended the hand of welcome to a young man who travelled as the Sultan’s ambassador, and had entertained him in the official palace.

  Despite her recent defeats, Venice was yet a flourishing, febrile community. Arriving at the beginning of February, after a stormy voyage up the Adriatic Sea, William had found himself required to remain for the great carnival which marked the beginning of the Christian festival of Lent.

  Although not a Muslim, William was hardly a regular Christian. He could remember in his extreme youth his mother attempting to teach him certain dogmas and litanies, but these had quickly been interrupted by his father, as being of the Greek instead of the Roman persuasion. Between these two widely differing interpretations of God’s law, William and his brothers had fallen adrift, unable to make much of either. They had been taken into the Church in Galata to attend mass as very young boys; but once their military training had commenced, this was no longer regarded as necessary. They had, in fact, often enough knelt in prayer towards Mecca, simply because it was in youth’s nature to fit in with the customs of one’s comrades.

  Living in a Muslim country they had, of course, been subject to the rigorous abstin
ence of Ramadan, the month when all true believers spend most of their daylight hours in prayer and fasting, and when it is decreed by the law that so long as a black thread can be distinguished from a grey one, no food may pass the lips. Thus William recognised that Lent was a similar festival, although not so strict.

  What he could not understand were the two days of mayhem permitted before the official commencement of the fasting period.

  “It is good for our people,” the Doge explained, “to be allowed a brief period of licence.” His wrinkled features broke into a cold smile. “It takes them most of the remainder of the year to recover.”

  For two days and nights, then, Venice was given over to every conceivable form of vice and merrymaking. William was astonished to discover that even grave counsellors, members of the Council of Ten, could cast aside their reservations and their morals and sally forth to drink themselves insensible, but not before they had bedded every available woman, married or single. And all the women of Venice seemed to be available during those two days and nights.

  William looked upon it all with sombre eyes. He was not in a mood to enjoy himself; still less was he in the mood to hold a woman in his arms. He had never supposed he had really loved Sereta, and he had not been sure even of his love for his sons — under Sereta’s guidance he knew they were innately different to himself — but they had been all he possessed in the world, and to see them so cruelly strangled was as if a knife had been driven through his heart.

  There were other reasons for his refusal to participate in the general licence. Venice was the first non-Turkish city he had ever visited, and he was shocked by it. The buildings had a beauty not even Constantinople could equal, the canals were romantic…but the place itself was filthy, and so were the people. When, at his lodgings, he requested a bath, he was stared at in amazement. Nobody bathed in February.

  “Truly are we among strangers, young Hawk,” Hussain remarked.