Shadow of God

by Anthony Goodman

  “Shalom Alechem, Doctor Hamon,” Piri replied in Hebrew.

  Hamon smiled at Piri’s courtesy in using the Hebrew, rather than the Arabic greeting. He motioned to the cushions, and the two men sat down. A servant brought in a tray of fruit and two goblets of wine. Piri waved away the wine, and instead took a bunch of grapes from the tray. Hamon dismissed the servant with a wave of his hand.

  “How is the Sultan today, Piri Pasha?”

  “The same. No. Worse, I think. He does not wake now. I cannot get him up to eat or drink. I think the end is very near.”

  “His sleep is a kindness. The tincture of opium is a blessing to those who suffer from the terrible pain of cancer. But, I think you may be right. If the Sultan stops eating and drinking, then he cannot live very long.”

  “Come with me, please, Doctor. I need you to assure me that he will be comfortable. And I need you to tell me when the end comes. You have served my Sultan well. As did your father, Joseph.”

  Hamon nodded his thanks, but he said nothing. He could sense that Piri had more to say. The silence lasted several minutes, and the men filled the time nibbling at the fruit. Finally, Piri said, “Doctor Hamon, I trust your discretion as I trust almost no one else. The Hamons have never betrayed their position in our household, and have always given us the best of care.”

  Hamon nodded again, and still he waited.

  “So, I must ask you to bear a burden for me.”

  Hamon smiled. “But, you, Piri Pasha, are the ‘Bearer of the Burden,’ are you not? I have heard the Sultan call you that many times.”

  “Yes, I am, Doctor,” Piri acknowledged with a smile. “But, I am old; and for now, I must share this heavy weight. Only you can be trusted to help me.”

  “Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”

  “First, you must wait with the Sultan until life has left his body.”

  “This, I can do. This is my job. My duty.”

  “But, you must tell only me, when he is dead. Nobody else must know for ten days. We must make the pretense that he lives, until I can bring his only son, Suleiman, back to Istanbul. Right now, Suleiman is in Manisa, where he governs. It will take me two or three days to get word to him, and then another five days for him to return to the capital. I must make sure that the succession is unopposed, and that there will be no obstruction to his taking the throne.”

  “I understand, Piri Pasha. You can rely on me.”

  “I know I can, Doctor. Let us go directly to the tent of Selim. I will tell you more when we have seen to the Sultan.”

  The two men rose, and left together.

  The last months had been so difficult for Piri Pasha. Selim had been sick for years, but toward the end, the pain had intensified his anger and wrath, and many of those close to him had suffered because of it. Piri tried to intervene when his master dispensed cruel and unreasonable punishment upon his subjects. He had been able to prevent a few death sentences from being carried out. But, he could not push too far without risking his own life.

  Piri knew there was nothing the doctor could do for his master. Hamon might be able to bring a little comfort to the Sultan dying in his tent. Piri and Hamon entered the tent, while the young Janissary guards remained outside. Piri led him to Selim’s bedside, stepping back into the dimness to wait. Hamon kneeled on the carpet and examined Selim. He felt for the pulses, and carefully lifted each lid to gaze into the eyes. Then, he gestured for the oil lamp to be brought nearer, as he looked carefully at Selim’s pupils, which were tightly constricted from the opium.

  When the doctor first touched the Sultan, Piri’s hand went instinctively to his sword. He had to restrain himself when anyone touched his master, for he was always at the ready to protect the Sultan’s person. So many years as the nearest sword to Selim had made it Piri’s instinct that nobody should get within a sword’s length of his Lord without Piri’s express permission. There was a line in space that no one dared to cross, and it was Piri who defined and defended that line.

  Hamon examined the Sultan for what seemed like a very long time. He pressed his palms against Selim’s chest, and felt inside his robes for the beat of his heart. Then, Hamon placed a thin sheet of silk over the bare breastbone of the Sultan, and laid his ear to Selim’s chest. He listened for the sounds of the heartbeat, the silk preventing his ear from actually touching his Sultan’s skin. He touched the neck and the wrist through the silk as well, and the angle of his jaw trying to find a sign of the blood flowing through the royal vessels. Though understanding of the circulation of the blood would not reach the West for a long time to come, it was already well understood throughout the Arab world.

  Next, he laid a hand upon the skin of Selim’s abdomen, trying to determine a decrease in his body temperature. He lifted the Sultan’s lids again. An expression of shock passed across his face. Now the Sultan’s pupils were fixed and dilated. He turned to Piri Pasha, with resignation in his eyes.

  Piri moved toward the bed and knelt down upon a cushion. “Well?”

  The doctor cast his eyes to the ground. “I am sorry, my Lord, but our Sultan is dead.”

  “You’re certain?” His voice was flat; devoid of emotion.

  “I am, my Lord.”

  Piri rose so suddenly that Hamon reflexively backed away. For a second, he thought that the Grand Vizier was going to draw his long scimitar and strike him dead for bearing this terrible news.

  But, Piri Pasha merely stood over him, his fists clenched. His body and his face were entirely calm. He knew exactly what had to be done, and was relieved that he could now begin. His Emperor’s suffering was over, and now there wasn’t a minute to lose.

  “Stay with the body of the Sultan. Do not allow anybody to enter the tent, nor even view the body from the doorway.” He spoke now as if to an underling; as master to servant. Hamon listened impassively. Piri went on. “Help me to put out the fire, and move the brazier away from the body, so the light of the oil lamp will be the only light in the tent.”

  Piri poured sand into the brazier. Hamon crouched, struggling with the heavy brazier and its still-hot cargo of coals. Together the two men dragged it to the side, away from the body. Piri looked around the tent, and moved several small articles of clothing. He arranged Selim’s personal effects, so that the tent would appear as if all were in order; that Selim were alive and merely resting.

  “I will leave orders for your food to be brought here by the Sultan’s own Janissaries. They will leave it for you outside the tent flap. Nobody must know that our Sultan is dead. Nobody! Not for ten full days! Do you understand?”

  Hamon nodded, but said nothing. His position as the respected physician in the service of the Sultan had given way to little more than that of a watch dog. He had grown used to restraining his anger, for he knew how precarious a place the Jew had in the Muslim court, and how important his position of influence was to the Jews of the Ottoman Empire.

  Piri went to the side of the tent where the possessions of the Sultan Selim were stored in ornately carved wooden chests. Each was sealed with the tura, the royal crest. Breaking one seal, he carefully opened a long, slim box, and placed the cover on the carpet. Next, he unwrapped the silk cloth that swathed the Sword of the House of Osman. The weapon was encased in a silver scabbard encrusted with precious jewels. The smallest of these could keep a man and his family living in luxury for several lifetimes. He pulled the sword partially from its sheath, and held it aloft. The red glow from the lamp caught the polished steel blade and reflected the color onto the walls of the tent. Piri resheathed the sword with a loud snap, then polished the silver scabbard with a piece of silk. Here is the power and the authority of the Empire, he thought. Who wears this sword at his side, rules the world.

  Piri carefully wrapped the sword again, and tied the cloth tightly with the woven silk cords. He closed the box and stood, placing the sword into his waistband, covering it with his outer robes. The Sword of the House of Osman would not leave his side until he had d
elivered it to Selim’s only living son and heir to the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman.

  Piri left Doctor Hamon in the tent and walked out through the door flap. He stopped to speak with the two Janissaries guarding the door. Both men snapped to rigid attention, and stared straight ahead. Neither looked at Piri Pasha.

  “The Sultan sleeps. The tabip will stay with him and feed him.” He had used the Arabic term, tabip, for “doctor.” He did not refer to Hamon by name in front of the soldiers. “The tabip will give the Sultan the medicine he needs for his pain. See that food is brought to the tent for our master and for the tabip. Leave the food outside the serai, and call the tabip to fetch it. Nobody is to enter the tent except I. Not even you. No one! Do you understand me?”

  The Janissaries saluted their reply and resumed their position on guard. Each of these heavily armed young men would give his life for his Sultan without a thought. Nowhere on earth was there a more loyal personal guard than the Janissaries of the Ottoman Emperor.

  Piri Pasha walked through the encampment, past the tents of his men. He spoke with his servants briefly. “The Sultan is asleep now, Allah be praised, and I am going to get some rest myself. He is well guarded, and I do not want his rest disturbed. Make that known amongst you.”

  Finally, he reached the perimeter of the camp, where the horses were tethered, and guarded by the Sipahis, the Sultan’s elite cavalry. These were the finest mounted troops in the world. Three hundred years earlier, Genghis Khan had conquered the earth from China to the shores of the Black Sea. His Mongol troops had ridden to the edge of Europe, and showed the western world a war machine the likes of which had never been seen before. The Khan’s mounted troops would ride two hundred eighty miles over rugged terrain in less than three days. When they arrived at their destination, without further rest, they were ready to fight. While riding at full gallop astride their powerful ponies, they could fire their armor-piercing arrows with deadly accuracy at two hundred meters. Mere rumors of the arrival of the Khan’s armies were enough to send their enemies scattering in panic before them.

  Now the Sipahis would ride into battle as had the troops of the Khan. They, too, inspired such fear in their enemies that some battles were won at the news of their approach. Whole armies fled when they heard that the Sultan Selim’s Janissaries and Sipahis were marching in their direction.

  Two Sipahis had been waiting for word from the Pasha for several days. During that time, they never left their post, nor did they sleep for more than an hour at a time. Their food was brought to them on Piri Pasha’s orders, and they were ready to move at his word.

  Piri moved through the camp, appearing to refresh himself in the brisk mountain air. He showed no sign of the terrible events of this day. More than ten thousand Janissaries and Sipahis were gathered in this camp outside the city of Edirne. The night was peaceful with the low noises and stirrings of a great orderly encampment. Water carts rumbled by, and night soil was removed from the latrines. Everywhere in the camp there was complete order. Tents were lined up in perfect rows; not a scrap of garbage ever hit the ground.

  Cooking fires crackled under giant copper pots. Piri could hear the quiet murmur of men talking in respectfully low voices, lest they disturb the sleep of their Sultan. Nowhere was laughter heard, for this might incite the wrath of the Pasha at this terrible moment in his Sultan’s reign. Smoke drifted through the trees, and among the tents. The wind carried the smoke away from the camp, down along the fading green hills of that early autumn evening. There was a softness in the air that would soon be replaced with the cold, wet winds of winter.

  Piri approached the camp of the Sipahis, and settled himself near a trough where two of the horsemen were silently gambling with wooden dice by the light of their dying cooking fire. He stood a while and watched. In their uniforms and the settling darkness, all the soldiers looked alike. The two men had been handpicked by the Pasha. One Sipahi, Abdullah, was a young sword bearer. He was the best rider in his corps, and his was the best mounted corps on Earth. The other was not a Sipahi at all. He was Achmed Agha, Commander of the Army. Achmed had pulled a cape over his uniform, and looked for all the world like an older version of the Sipahi with whom he gambled.

  Piri waited a few minutes longer. He was an old man now, and felt every year of it. He never thought that this job would fall to him, for he believed that he would have died long before Selim. But, the cancer that ate at the Sultan’s organs cared nothing for age, taking Selim’s life when he was still in his forties.

  Piri sighed in the darkness, and stretched his aching shoulders. How he longed for the peaceful life. How he wanted to return to his home and his treasured tulips. He saw himself tending his garden, perhaps adding some more roses to it this year. He wanted to see again the wonderful view of Istanbul across the waters of the Golden Horn. But, there was a job to do first. He, and only he, could protect the succession. Only he could assure the survival of the empire.

  He moved toward the two soldiers. “It is much too late an hour for gambling such as this!” Piri spat out the word sa’at, hour. This was the prearranged signal that the time had come, that the Sultan was dead. The two soldiers stopped immediately. Abdullah wrapped the wooden dice in a leather sack, which he stuffed into his robes. Then Achmed Agha bowed his head and whispered, “May Allah smile upon his soul…and upon you, Piri Pasha, and upon all of us.”

  This high-ranking officer knew the great dangers of the next few days.

  Piri took a piece of paper upon which was scrawled a few words in his own hand. Then he said, loudly enough to be overheard by the nearby horsemen, “See that the Kabarda Horses are accounted for and correct!” There was contempt in his voice. The other soldiers who overheard him believed that the Sipahis were being punished for gambling while the Sultan was so sick. This was the excuse for the men to go to their horses and leave the camp.

  The two men stood up and leaped upon their waiting mounts. Nobody had noticed that their saddles were already loaded, the saddle bags packed with food and water. The two sped from the camp at full gallop. Achmed Agha would head east for Istanbul, one hundred fifty miles away. His duty was to maintain the peace and take command of the Palace Janissaries at all costs until Piri Pasha could arrive. The two would ride together for a while, and then Abdullah would turn and ride directly south across the Dardanelles at its narrowest point and into Asia to find and deliver the news to his new master, Suleiman.

  Piri Pasha could not stop thinking of his years as Grand Vizier to Selim. Selim had always been so difficult. Always. The life of the Grand Vizier was not easy and often short. He might well be the second most powerful man in the world, but the price was so high. Though he was only in his early sixties, he was weary beyond those years. Seven Grand Viziers had served Selim before Piri, and all had been quickly beheaded in fits of anger. There was a death curse heard in Turkey in the reign of the Sultan Selim that said, “Mayest thou become Selim’s Vizier!”

  One Vizier had come before the Sultan and asked to know the date of his own execution. He said, “My Sultan, I need to know when you plan to kill me so that I may put my affairs in order and bid my family farewell.”

  Selim had laughed and said, “I have been thinking for some time about having you killed. But, at the moment I have nobody in mind to replace you. Otherwise I would willingly oblige.”

  The long wars had taken a great toll upon Piri, and his body now obeyed his commands only with great reluctance. Selim’s military campaigns had taken the two of them to the farthest reaches of the Empire. During those years, Piri was always at Selim’s side. That empire now reached from the waters of the Nile, north to the Danube; from Asia to Europe; from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

  Now Selim was dead. It was up to Piri Pasha to assure a peaceful succession. He must carry out the pretense that the Sultan was still alive. He needed ten full days for Suleiman to learn the news, and return to Istanbul. The new Sultan must be girded with the Sword of the House of Osman at the
Tomb of Ayyüb just outside the city walls. Abu Ayyüb al-Ansari had been the Standard Bearer for Mohammed, the Prophet–the Messenger of Allah. Ayyüb was slain in Islam’s first siege of Constantinople in the seventh century. His tomb outside the walls of Istanbul was among the most sacred places for Muslims of the Ottoman Empire. To be seen by the people and the Janissaries to be the Sultan, Suleiman needed to be girded with the sword at Ayyüb’s Tomb.

  Piri Pasha passed the next five days making his rounds among the men, but staying as close to Selim’s serai as he could. He paid careful attention to the gossip around the camp, for he knew it was critical that he keep control of the Janissaries and the Sipahis. He recalled so vividly the day that Selim had returned to Istanbul. Bayazid’s Janissaries had turned against the old Sultan in a minute, and pledged their allegiance to Selim. They knew that he would lead them back into battle, and reward them with purses of gold and treasure looted during his conquests.

  But, as the days wore on, it became apparent to Piri that tension was growing in the camp. Rumors began to spread among the men. Piri Pasha did not want the Janissaries to find out for themselves that Selim was dead. They must not hear it from anyone but the Grand Vizier. They must not feel they had been deceived. Ten thousand armed and disciplined soldiers deserved respect.

  Before dawn on the fifth morning, Piri Pasha told his servants to bring him his military uniform. He would dress in the uniform of the Janissaries. He would be one of them. He washed and dressed in his own tent, and then went into the tent of Selim. He pushed aside the flaps, and saw Hamon sitting quietly by the small oil lamp reading. The air in the tent had become rank. Selim’s body had begun the inevitable decay that must afflict even a Sultan’s flesh. Piri moved into the tent and sat on the carpet next to Hamon. He was respectful when he spoke. Hamon could almost, but not quite, detect some conciliation in Piri’s voice.