Shadow of God

by Anthony Goodman

  Suleiman inclined his head toward Ibrahim, who smiled and nodded. The Sultan turned back to the Steward and said, “Very well. Let us see what the House of Osman has, after so many years, stored for us.”

  The Steward bowed from the waist, and led the way from the Sultan’s quarters. The small group left the Sultan’s Privy Chamber, where the Janissary guard immediately formed their protective human wall around the Sultan. They left the royal quarters and walked directly to the Treasury.

  The guards remained in formation at the entryway as the three men entered the multi-domed stone building. When they reached the store rooms themselves, Suleiman felt for the first time an uneasiness at the weight of the responsibility of his office. He could feel an almost physical mass pressing him into the stone floor. Ibrahim noted the look on the Sultan’s face, but said nothing.

  “First, Majesty, we should see the emblem of your power.” He reached into one of the shelves and removed an obviously heavy bundle. He carried it with both arms to a wooden table, and set the package down. Then, he carefully untied the silk cords and unwrapped the brocade cover. He spread the cloths out on the table and stepped back, revealing to Suleiman the sword of Suleiman’s great-grandfather, Mehmet, Fatih. The great jeweled weapon was massive in its bulk, and Suleiman realized that only a man of immense power could wield such a weapon in battle. The blade had a very slight curve, less than that of the traditional scimitars of the Janissaries. The great sword represented the power of one of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

  Suleiman began to sweat in the small room. He stepped forward and placed his hand on the carved hilt of his great-grandfather’s weapon. The flickering light of the oil lamps bounced off the jewels and the shining metal blade inscribed in Arabic.

  “I Place My Faith in Allah,” Suleiman read aloud.

  The Steward and Ibrahim waited for the Sultan to take the sword in his two hands, and heft the mighty symbol of the Empire. But, Suleiman merely ran his hand lightly over the surface of the weapon and then turned away. He nodded to Ibrahim, and then signaled the Steward to move on.

  The Steward rewrapped the sword and placed it back in its niche in the wall. At the next station, the Steward said, “Here, Majesty, are some of the garments worn by your ancestors. The great Sultan, Murad, adorned his turbans with these herons’ plumes, and these golden robes and caftans. Your own father wore these robes hanging here.” He pointed to several robes displayed on wooden dummies. “They are of the finest gold filaments that can be found anywhere. Selim wore all these at one time or another,” and he pointed to rows and rows of splendid clothing of every color and description. It was not uncommon for the Sultan to wear one of these priceless garments only a single time.

  The men moved slowly among the treasures, as the Steward pointed out gifts to the Ottoman Emperors from the monarchs of Europe; clocks in gold and ivory; swords and knives encrusted with precious stones; finely tooled and bejeweled leather saddles with silver stirrups; chests of gold paid as tribute from foreign princes; a ruby-covered flyswatter; porcelains from as far off as China; a carved ivory belt buckle.

  “It seems a pity that these treasures should remain here in the darkness,” Suleiman commented to Ibrahim. He turned to the Steward and said, “See that these dishes are brought to the Palace and used. Make a list of anything of practical use, and see that it finds its way to my quarters. And the gold ducats from Venice, have them counted and shipped to the arsenal at Tophane. I want that sum to go to the cost of building the cannons that will arm the ships.”

  The Steward bowed, acknowledging his orders, then led Suleiman and Ibrahim to a deeper recess in the Hazine. The room was darker than the rest, lighted only by two small oil lamps. In a corner were hung several garments on simple wooden racks. Each was made of heavy white felt, trimmed in rough black lambskin. They were a far cry from the opulence and grandeur of the robes of Murad, Mehmet, and Selim. Even the casual lounging clothing that Suleiman was wearing seemed a stark contrast to the simplicity of the garments on the rack.

  “These are…?” Suleiman asked.

  “These, Majesty, are the clothes of the very founders of the Ottoman Empire: Osman, himself, and Ertoghrul.”

  A silence of deepest respect filled the room, as Suleiman and Ibrahim stared at the clothing. The Steward dared not speak, but waited for the two men to inquire about the history of the clothing. Surely they must have heard the story a thousand times before, as had every child growing up in the empire of the Osmanlis. Their families would have told them how more than two centuries earlier, the warrior chieftain, Ertoghrul, wandered with his tribes over the vast plains and mountains of Asia Minor. Hoards of nomadic peoples had traveled from the steppe of Asia, driven west before the armies of Mongols.

  Suleiman would have been taught the history of the tribes led by Ertoghrul; of the years of starvation and decimation; of their wanderings and their pain. He would have learned how Ertoghrul kept his people together and alive through all the hardship. Suleiman’s mother had told him the great legend of the founder of the Osmanli clan. In a bedtime ritual when he was young, Hafiza had recounted over and over again how one day Ertoghrul witnessed a battle raging in the nearby plains. A large force of horsemen seemed to be on the verge of destruction when, for his own reasons, Ertoghrul led his people down into the valley to the aid of the nearly defeated horsemen.

  When the battle was over, Ertoghrul learned that he had rescued the Sultan Kaikhosru, leader of the Seljuk Turks, who was about to be defeated by still another Mongol invasion.

  The Seljuk Sultan rewarded Ertoghrul with a small parcel of land in central Anatolia, which became the first step in building the Osmanli fortune; this was the beginning of a warrior tribe that fought for whatever army they chose to aid, sometimes the Seljuks, sometime the Byzantines; an army stopped by no hardship that fate could put in its way; an army that ultimately would dominate the entire mass of Asia Minor, and culminate under Mehmet Fatih with the conquest of Constantinople, seat of the Byzantine Empire. This small tribe of nomads would rise to an unimaginable power, and extend their realm even into the heart of Europe. This was the beginning of the Ottoman Empire.

  But, the Steward did not have to repeat any of this to the Sultan. Suleiman was well aware of every detail of the story. He knew that he was the tenth in a line of extraordinary leaders. He was the tenth Sultan of the House of Osman. None had ever faltered before the tasks necessary to perpetuate, strengthen, and enlarge the Empire. Suleiman stood before the crude robes of his forebears, and wondered if he would have the resolve and the skill to extend his empire through still one more generation of Sultans.

  Ertoghrul wore these robes almost fresh from the bodies of the animals that bore them, he thought, while Selim’s tailors spun gold into garments. Each of my ancestors has had the strength to move forward, and each had weaknesses that could have brought down their kingdoms. Murad had been wildly reckless in his conquests. Yet he succeeded in building an army hitherto never seen on the face of the Earth; my father, Selim, was cruel beyond belief, yet he prevailed to conquer territories on the scale of Alexander; the unbroken theme of conquest and expansion of our empire lived through the strength—not the weaknesses—of my ancestors. Where will I fit in this fabric of history? What will my son think when he is brought here by the Steward of the Hazine? Will he remember a father who fought to extend the Empire? Will I closet myself in the Palace as did Bayazid? How will they remember me? The Warrior? The Lawgiver? The Lover? The Goldsmith? The Poet? Can I be all of these? Any of them?

  Ibrahim waited quietly as his master pondered the future of the Empire. The Steward kept his eyes downcast, waiting for the Sultan to stir. Finally, Suleiman raised his eyes once again to the felt and sheepskin clothing hanging before him. He touched the garments lightly, feeling the age-hardened felt and the still soft wool. He nodded, then turned on his heels and left the Hazine.

  By 1521, life in the New Palace was reaching a grandeur and splendor under Sul
eiman that had not been imagined by his predecessors. What had been Constantinople—the City of Constantine—under the Byzantines of the thirteenth century, was now Istanbul, home of the Ottoman Sultans. Though the city had acquired different names from the many people who lived there—some 100,000 in all—the one most commonly accepted now that the city was in Muslim hands again, was a Turkish version of the Greek words eis teen polin: “into the City.” For the citizens of Turkey it was, indeed, the City. Their City. Istanbul.

  This was the most multinational capital city in Europe. Its streets resounded with the sounds of Greek, Italian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Albanian, French, English, and many more current languages of trade and commerce.

  Shortly after capturing Istanbul from the Byzantines in the mid-fifteenth century, Mehmet built the Palace of the Cannon Gate, what would later be called the Topkapi Palace. But the citizens of Istanbul would still call it the New Palace for many decades to come. Selim had expanded the city’s role as the center of the Islamic world. But, the pomp and ceremony that surrounded the Sultan had been secondary to the issues of religion and war. Suleiman knew well the words of the Prophet: “Do not drink in vessels of gold or silver, and do not dress in silks and brocade, for they belong to the Infidel in this world and to you in the next.”

  But, when he ascended to the throne, religious as he was, the words of the Prophet were forgotten. The Shadow of God on Earth began to live a life of riches that would eclipse most of the treasure houses of the world.

  The Palace was an enormous walled city in itself. It sat overlooking the Bosporus, perched on a hillside with gardens sweeping down to the sea. The windows of the Palace were described as the Eyes of the Sultan, through which he could see the outside world.

  There were stables for four thousand horses. A hospital was located there, and kiosks where professional letter writers were paid to write petitions for people with grievances to submit to the Sultan or his Viziers. There, too, the Sultan’s decrees were written and circulated among the people. The First Court was the starting place for the many processions that were so popular among the Ottomans. At the funeral of Mehmet II, a guard of 25,000 mounted soldiers and two hundred personal pages lined up to accompany the dead Sultan to his grave. Yet this enormous crowd did not fill the First Court. The atmosphere was always charged and exciting. It would not have been out of the ordinary to see an elephant or a leopard being walked by a keeper. Suleiman’s accession celebration included a parade of elephants and giraffes.

  To the left, in the Second Court, was the Kubbealti, the Imperial Divan. This was the meeting place of the Viziers and high officers of state. Four times each week, after morning prayers, the Viziers would meet and debate public policy. There, too, they would hear the complaints and lawsuits proffered by the citizens of the state. Every Turk was said to have access to this system of justice. The system was fast and decisive. Disputes were settled and judgments handed down on the spot, without further deliberation or appeal.

  The Tower of Justice was a small room above the Divan, curtained from view. The Sultan could sit there secretly and listen to the deliberations of his advisors and his judges. The beauty of it was that those below never knew if the Sultan was listening or not. But, when displeased, he could sentence a person to death by stamping his foot, or merely opening a latticed window directly above the Divan chambers. The victim would be immediately led away to be strangled, beheaded, or stabbed to death at the Executioner’s Fountain, just to the left of the Middle Gate.

  Nor were women exempted from the Sultan’s wrath. They would be spared the violence of strangulation. Instead, they would be tied into a sack weighted with stones and thrown into the Bosporus to drown. Their bodies would wash out to sea with the tide.

  Even the Viziers, themselves, did not know when the Sultan might be listening. They, too, could be subject to his wrath if they behaved badly. Viziers were in constant danger, no matter how high their rank. Very few died of old age, and even fewer survived to retire from office. If they displeased the Sultan, their heads were cut off and displayed upon white marble columns in the First Court for all to see. Often, the written charges against them were displayed beneath the severed head, the execution order signed in the handwriting of the beheaded Vizier, himself. If there were no more room for severed heads, smaller organs such as noses or ears of the less exalted were displayed instead.

  Behind the Imperial Divan was the entrance to the Royal Harem, where the quarters for the Sultan’s women were situated. At one time, there were over four hundred rooms in the harem. The population varied between two hundred women in Suleiman’s time to over nine hundred during the reign of some of his ancestors.

  Suleiman’s quarters were extensive, and were directly adjacent to the harem. This allowed him easy and unobserved access through a secret passageway to his mother, Hafiza, whose room was immediately adjacent to his on the other side of the harem walls.

  Within the many rooms of the Sultan’s quarters were numerous fountains bubbling day and night with tumbling cascades of water. These were placed as much for the purpose of preventing eavesdroppers from listening to the conversations of the Sultan as for their esthetic effect.

  Suleiman’s bedroom served as his sleeping quarters at night, and was converted into the Royal Throne Room during the day. When the Sultan was ready to retire, fifteen chamberlains would precede him to prepare the way.

  In the morning, the bedding and canopy were folded away in the corner of the room, and the throne occupied the place of honor. In the Throne Room, protocol was at its strictest. The Sultan, alone, was permitted to sit, while all others in attendance, no matter what rank, remained standing motionless with hands folded in front of them. Emissaries were led by armed guards into the presence of the Sultan, where they made three prostrations. Then, they might be allowed to kiss the Sultan’s hand or, more likely, the hem of the Sultan’s caftan. Lower-ranking supplicants, their foreheads still pressed to the floor, might reach up and place the Sultan’s booted foot on top of their proffered neck as a sign of submission before retreating.

  Suleiman finished eating his fruit and began to pace. Ibrahim could see his master grow restless, and did not finish his thoughts about the war aloud. There would be time for that when the Sultan called for a Divan.

  “We have been trapped within these walls too long, Ibrahim. Arrange for us to go out and ride north to Edirne for a hunt. Near the Maritza River, I think. A small party of Janissaries and bearers. We will camp there for a few nights, and stay as long as the hunting is good.”

  Ibrahim bowed, and made his way from the residence.

  As soon as Ibrahim was gone, the servant appeared. He pressed his head to the floor and knelt before the Sultan. “I have done as you have ordered, Majesty. The Sipahi you sent for is here now,” he signed. A few minutes later, the Sipahi was announced and entered the room. He, too, pressed his head to the floor, and waited for instructions to rise before moving.

  “You may kneel,” Suleiman said. They spoke with words, as only the household servants had been taught to use Suleiman’s sign language. “So, you have proved the faith that my Grand Vizier placed in you. Piri Pasha told me that he picked you to deliver the message of my father’s death because he knew you would be stopped by nothing short of your own death. And you did well. He also told me that you accounted yourself bravely at Belgrade. This is good. You bring honor to your colleagues and to the Sultan.”

  Abdullah said nothing. He looked toward his Sultan’s feet, and was afraid to raise his eyes. He barely breathed.

  Suleiman looked at the young man and was struck by his physical beauty. Now dressed in the clean-pressed uniform of a Sipahi, he was a far cry from the muddied, exhausted lad that had shown up at the caravanserai at Manisa. Suleiman continued, “I have another mission for you. But, this must always remain a secret between the two of us. No matter what the outcome, you will speak to nobody about it, and you will carry out the task completel
y alone.”

  The boy still did not look up, but merely nodded.

  “My Captain of the Inner House, Ibrahim…you know of whom I speak?”

  “I know Ibrahim, Majesty.”

  “Yes, I am sure you do. Then you will have no trouble recognizing him when he leaves the Palace?”

  “No, Majesty.”

  “He has been seen leaving the Palace at odd times about once a week. Late at night, when everyone else is long asleep. He can do this because of his position as Captain of the Inner House. But, still I have been told of this.” Suleiman moved from the divan and began to pace. The Sipahi remained motionless. “I want you to wait at the Palace entrance every night, until you see him leave the Inner House. Then follow him, but take care that he does not see you. Do not underestimate Ibrahim for his fancy clothes and high position. He is a powerful man, and could kill you before you knew what struck. In any case, follow his every move. Find out what he is doing in these secret outings. Then report back to me. Do not confront him under any conditions. And, if you are found out, you will say nothing to anyone. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Good. Then be off, and do not return until you have completed the task.”

  Abdullah pressed his head to the floor again and backed out of the chamber. Suleiman remained standing, deep in troubled thought.

  The Sultan could not sleep. Long into the night, his thoughts were disturbed by the possibility that his closest adviser—his closest friend—might be a spy. Ibrahim was, after all, Greek by birth. Was it not possible that after all these years he was a spy for the Greeks? Worse yet, could he be a spy for the Knights of Rhodes? It seems I have not a true friend in the world, Suleiman mused. Anyone close to me could be there for the profit they might gain. Any friendship can be tainted by the possibility that it is my power and wealth that attracts. The curse of the Emperor!