Anthony stared at the man whose subjects called him ‘the Lawgiver’, although his enemies called him ‘the Magnificent’ — the most powerful single human being on the face of the earth.
And he all but gasped with dismay. Though his mother had never laid eyes on the Sultan, Dragut often had, and had told his protégé sufficient tales of that greatness which had now for nearly thirty years astonished the world.
Anthony knew that Suleiman was sixty-two years old — and that seemed a great enough age to someone nearly forty years younger. But now he found himself staring at a shrunken, wizened figure, suggestive of one far older than that. The shoulders were hunched, the breath short and anxious, the cheeks covered in rouge to give them colour. The hands were tight-skinned, with every blue vein showing beneath the pale flesh.
Yet was the Sultan dressed in the richest of silk robes. Rings of incalculable value gleamed on his fingers, and more jewels studded his turban.
Finally Suleiman spoke. “Harry Hawkwood’s son,” he said. “Come closer, boy, that I may look upon you.”
Anthony advanced towards the divan.
“Harry Hawkwood’s son,” the Sultan repeated. “Your father and I were once friends.”
“This I have heard, O Padishah,” Anthony ventured.
“We were more than friends.” The Sultan appeared to brood. “I loved him like a brother.”
“My father was a fortunate man, O Padishah.”
“And have you also heard that I had your father murdered?” Suleiman asked.
Anthony could think of no reply to that one. How he wished Dragut was there to guide him.
“Yes.” Suleiman understood his silence. “You have been told that, young Hawk.” He sighed. “Do you not suppose that a man, the older he grows, also grows to wish that with a snap of his fingers he might undo at least some of the past, and restore what has been lost? Perhaps he can. See…” he snapped his fingers. “Am I not a magician? Harry Hawkwood once again stands before me. What matter that he has changed his name? He is still the giant with whom I once laughed, and played…and campaigned.”
The Sultan stood up. “Come here, boy.”
Anthony advanced, and to his amazement was embraced.
“If you knew how much I regret the death of your father,” Suleiman said. “No matter…the dead cannot be recalled. We can but make amends to the living.”
Clutching Anthony’s hand, he led him back down the corridor, to the stateroom where Dragut and Sokullu and the other pashas waited. The Sultan walked past them and into the Porte itself, and stood to look out at the crowd waiting there.
Everyone bowed at the sight of their master.
“I present to you Hawk Pasha,” Suleiman announced in a loud, clear voice. “Hawk Pasha has returned.”
Mahomet Sokullu hurried forward with a horsetail wand.
*
Anthony longed to hurry back to Galata and tell his mother his stupendous news, but first he and Dragut had to eat, seated one on either side of the great Sultan. With them sat Sokullu, and also Prince Selim. The Prince was a handsome man in his middle thirties, but Anthony could feel no rapport with him. Selim seldom looked anyone straight in the eye; he only played with his food, and from time to time was overtaken by violent twitching.
If Suleiman was aware of this behaviour, he gave no sign.
“Tell me of young Hawk’s deeds, Admiral,” he said.
Dragut did so. He spoke of raids on Spanish and French coastal towns, of ship-to-ship combat, and of the great battles in which he had been invariably victorious. He spoke of the capture of Tripoli, in 1551, and the flight of the Knights of St John to Malta; that had been Anthony’s first campaign, as a fifteen-year-old. He spoke of the capture of Bastia in Corsica two years later, and of the Turkish expansion along the North African coast in the past three years, which had left the Spaniards in control only of Tunis.
“But Tunis will soon fall as well, O Padishah,” he laughed. “This new King of Spain, this Philip, seems more interested in the Atlantic Ocean than the Mediterranean. He mourns the death of his English wife…some say he hopes to wed the dead Queen’s half-sister and successor, Elizabeth.”
And in all of these encounters, no matter how great or how small, Dragut boasted how Anthony Hawkwood had led in attacks, or, in retreat, had commanded the rearguard. Anthony himself could not but blush as the praise flowed.
“Verily did I fight with Harry Hawkwood often enough.” Dragut said. “I had never supposed there could be another like him. But this boy is even greater than his father.”
“It is well,” the Sultan said finally. “My empire has suffered sorely these last twenty years… You will not return to Algiers, young Hawk. You must remain here in Istanbul. I appoint you flag captain to Ali Monizindade Pasha. Prove your worth to him, and you will have a fleet of your own — this I promise. Dragut, you will have to find yourself a new hero.”
Dragut merely bowed his head, but Anthony could hardly believe his ears.
“You will return to live in the Hawk Palace,” Suleiman instructed. “Now tell me of your wives and children.”
“I have no wife, O Padishah.”
Suleiman frowned at him. “No wife, and you a grown man?”
“It has been the decision of his mother, O Padishah,” Dragut explained. “The Lady Felicity is English.”
“Ah! Yes, I remember this. And she has brought her son up as an Englishman — the most tardy people in the world when it comes to marriage. But we must save you from this cruel dragon of a mother, Hawk Pasha.” Suleiman smiled. “You fear your mother’s wrath. That is good. A man should fear his mother. But I promise you that not even she will be angry with me. I will choose your wife carefully. Your mother has brought you up as an Englishman, and she has refused to let you couple with a Turk. Very well, I will make you a present of a Christian wife. Would that not please you?”
“That would please me, O Padishah.”
“There is a young lady resident here in Istanbul, named Barbara Cornaro. I shall give her to you.”
Anthony stared at him in amazement. “Just like that?”
“Sokullu,” Suleiman said impatiently. “You will acquaint the Signora Cornaro of my determination regarding her daughter.”
The Vizier inclined his head.
“The young lady is of very high birth — virtually a princess.” Suleiman told Anthony. “Her great-aunt was Queen of Cyprus.”
“Will such a personage consent to wed an unknown sailor, O Padishah?” Anthony was puzzled.
Suleiman’s smile widened. “You are not an unknown sailor. You are Hawk Pasha, and, what is more important, you are in the favour of the Sultan. She has no choice, since she is here in Istanbul.”
*
Sokullu later explained it to him.
“Caterina Cornaro was a Venetian of high birth, who was secured in marriage by James II de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, in 1472, in order to achieve a Venetian alliance. He died very shortly afterwards, leaving his wife pregnant. She duly gave birth to a son, James III, but the mother was required to act as regent until he came of age, and so she was accorded the title of Queen. She was but a girl of nineteen, and found the task of ruling such a turbulent community — especially one entirely surrounded by Ottoman territory — beyond her powers. Yet she maintained herself for sixteen years, but within that time her son had died, and thus she abdicated her throne and granted Cyprus to her native Venice. Returning home, she herself took up residence in Treviso, where she was granted an estate, retaining to the day of her death the title of Queen.
“This girl, Barbara, is the granddaughter of one of that Queen’s brothers. Well, when, a few years ago, a new peace treaty was agreed between the Doge and the Padishah — the previous ones having all been broken when the Venetians thought it advantageous to resume the war — we demanded certain hostages. Drawn from the noblest of Venetian families, they came to live in Istanbul as a pledge for their country’s honesty.
�
��A nephew of Barbara Cornaro was one of these. He came with his wife and infant daughter…and has remained here ever since.”
“A prisoner of the Padishah?” Anthony observed.
“That is true in fact, if not in form,” Sokullu conceded. “Pietro Cornaro lives in his own palace and is treated with every mark of respect.”
“Saving only that should the Sultan and Venice ever again go to war he will be strangled.”
Sokullu inclined his head. “But is that not a fate which hangs over every man in the empire, Hawk Pasha — as you should well know? Believe me, I appreciate and respect the sharpness of your mind, but I would advise you to keep your thoughts and actions carefully controlled, at least when in Istanbul. As for the Lady Barbara, I am informed that she is a girl of wondrous beauty, and even more accomplishments. You will not find a better, even were she not commanded to your bed by the Padishah.”
“These things I understand, my lord,” Anthony said humbly. “I shall obey the Padishah in all things.”
Yet was he uneasy. Well as his mother had tried to educate him, his accomplishments in learning were very limited — there had been few books in Algiers for him to read. And much as he felt he had pleased his concubines, he was aware that there had to be the world of difference between being sexually entertained by two young servants and attempting the same with a young woman who would undoubtedly regard herself as his superior.
*
Felicity was even less amused.
“A wife!” she declared. “Just like that!” She snapped her fingers. “A girl I have never even seen.”
“It is commanded by the Padishah,” explained Dragut, who had accompanied Anthony back to Galata.
“Ha!” Felicity commented.
“The lady is, by repute, very beautiful,” Dragut continued. “And her family is known to be wealthy. She will bring with her a large dowry. And live in the Hawk Palace, which the Padishah has now restored to you, lady — for the use of you and your family for the rest of time.”
Felicity could not but be mollified by that, especially when Dragut informed her that she possessed unlimited credit to restore the palace to its former glory. Yet she was not forgiving. “The Padishah assumes he can buy my forgiveness for the murder of my husband,” she remarked.
“I doubt he even considers the matter in that light, lady,” Dragut replied. “He but seeks to restore the Hawks to their former glory.”
*
Felicity was even more pleased when Mahomet Sokullu himself called later at the palace. He surveyed the army of workmen who were busily restoring crumbled plaster and moth-eaten drapes.
“Indeed,” he commented, “this will be a palace fit for a princess. And now Signor and Signorina Cornaro await you.”
“My son is not here,” she said. “He is in the harbour with his ships.”
Sokullu smiled. “I know this, lady. That is why I have come. The Padishah has given instructions that this marriage is to be conducted in accordance with European custom. It is for you to approve her. Hawk Pasha will not see his bride until his wedding night.”
Felicity caught her breath, suddenly nervous. “And for me to be approved by them?”
The Vizier continued to smile. “That approval is already certain. It is the will of the Padishah.”
***
The door opened, and Beatrice Cornaro gazed at her daughter.
“The Englishwoman is here,” she announced, “with the Vizier, no less.”
Barbara rose from her chair. Her heart pounded and she could feel the heat in her cheeks.
“Sit down, girl,” her mother commanded. “Before you fall down. We must keep them waiting, for at a while at least. We may be their prisoners, but we are not yet their slaves.”
Barbara sank back on to the cushion.
Her mother sat down beside her. “Are you afraid?” she asked gently.
“Yes, Mama.”
“Well, so you should be.” Beatrice Cornaro’s strong features — she was a Mocenigo, and there was no older or greater Venetian family — softened. “We are the victims of a great crime. But if it must be your fate to suffer, you will remember at all times to carry yourself with the dignity and stoicism of the family name you bear.”
“Yes, Mama,” Barbara said.
“This lout, this pirate, is a favourite of the Sultan. Heaven knows why. But, then, heaven plays no part in anything Ottoman. It seems the Sultan murdered his father, as he has murdered so many, and now seeks to make amends to the son. It is probably as well that so few of his victims had sons to survive them, else would his conscience lead him to give away half his empire. Now listen to me, girl: he will seek to use your body in the most heathen of ways.”
Barbara was having trouble with her breathing. “Yes, Mama.”
“You will have no choice but to accept it, as the Doge himself has agreed to the match. Just as we have no choice but to accept your husband’s decree — that you shall not be accompanied by your confessor. Can there be anything more barbaric? And he calls himself a Christian. But at least they have agreed to your maids being retained. You will not be entirely alone in that den of iniquity.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Only remember that once you bear this villain a son, he is yours.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Remember, too, that you are the most beautiful woman he can ever have seen.”
“Am I, Mama?”
“There is the glass, girl. Look at yourself.”
Barbara obeyed. Indeed, however much it was condemned by her confessor, looking at herself was now her principal recreation.
She looked first of all at her clothes. As she had been expecting this call, she wore her very best: her dark green velvet gown had a fur trimming, less because it was particularly cold this day than because Mama had elected to show off as much of their wealth as possible; her white underskirt — displayed from her waist to the floor as the gown was pulled back from her hips — was also of velvet, with a floral pattern; her partlet and sleeves were heavily embroidered; and she wore gauze ruffs at neck and wrists.
Both her girdle and her pomander were of gold studded with precious stones, and there was also jewelled gold on her wristbands and cap.
Her stand-up collar concealed the length of her hair, which was carefully tucked out of sight, and drawn back beneath her cap. This was fashionable — however regrettable in the case of someone like Barbara Cornaro, who counted her hair as one of her most attractive features. The colour of mahogany, it was thick and luxuriant with a slight wave, and when loose seemed to make the rest of her irrelevant. When drawn back from her face, however, it left the features exposed, though admirable. Her cheekbones were high, her jawline firm. She had a straight nose and a pointed chin, a wide mouth and wideset amber eyes. Save for the colouring, which was richly pink and white — she never went outside unless concealed by a veil — she might have been some Titian-inspired statue.
Her figure, already mature at sixteen, was no less eye-catching; her costume delineated the slender waist and hips, as well as the swell of her breasts; the positioning of her girdle indicated the unusual length of her legs.
She inhaled, as she stared at herself, and her nostrils flared.
Beatrice clapped her hands. “You are quite lovely, my dear,” she said. “Come, shall we dazzle this Englishwoman with our splendour?”
Once upon a time, Beatrice Mocenigo had looked like that herself.
*
“She is delightful,” Felicity told her son. “She will make you the happiest man on earth.”
“If you are pleased with her, then I am already the happiest man on earth,” Anthony replied.
He was not merely flattering her. These past few weeks, his life had bloomed in a manner he had never expected possible.
He was now Hawk Pasha. When he went abroad with his horsetail wand, men stepped aside for him in the street, and those of sufficient standing in the community were anxious to be seen with him.
He had regained his destiny. Before leaving, Dragut had embraced him, then held him at arms’ length. “Now is Hawk Pasha truly restored,” the admiral had said. “I shall miss you, Anthony, but I know you will bring honour to both your name and mine. Remember always that it is your destiny to serve the Sultan, no matter where that path may lead.”
Those were not words the young Hawkwood ever intended to forget.
*
Anthony encountered the Sultan or the Grand Vizier at least once a week, and was drawn into discussing the great affairs of state. This was a dazzling elevation in his social status, not least because of the suddenness with which he had virtually been adopted by the Padishah, but he was under no illusions. He was intelligent enough to understand that the Sultan was trying to recapture through him the energy, as well as the glories, of his youth — when, with men like Ibrahim and Harry Hawkwood as his commanders, he had ridden constantly from success to success. Thus Anthony Hawkwood was less a man in his own right than a symbol of what had been…and what might be again.
For all his achievements, Suleiman regarded his inability to take the imperial city of Vienna as the crowning failure of a failed life — but one he was determined to rectify before he died. Plans were in hand for yet another campaign.
It would become the responsibility of Ali Monizindade Pasha to keep the eastern Mediterranean peaceful while the Sultan was at war. And in particular to ensure that Venice kept the peace, and did not — as the Republic had done more than once in the past — go to war with them the moment the Doge felt the Ottomans were fully occupied elsewhere.
For this purpose there was the eastern fleet: it mustered some hundred and seventy galleys. Hawkwood had never served with Ali Pasha before, but he quickly recognised him to be a capable admiral, if not perhaps in the class of Dragut or Khair-ed-din Barbarossa or Harry Hawkwood.
Ali Monizindade was also a young man, although several years older. But he had a healthy regard both for Anthony Hawkwood’s reputation as a fighting seaman and the favour in which he stood with the Sultan, and appeared to welcome him as his aide-de-camp, even if he had also to regard him as a possible future rival. The two men quickly became good friends.
Ottoman Page 53