From the time she lay back on the pillows, right up until that moment, Mara Hatun had kept her eyes turned to the ceiling. Now, sucking in an involuntary breath through her teeth, she fixed her glare upon him like the talons of a hawk.
‘I do apologise,’ Yakub stammered and made to remove himself but before he could, her hand clamped over his wrist.
‘If you behave like a clumsy bath-boy, Hekim Yakub, I shall treat you as one. Now, continue and don’t stop until I let you know I am well satisfied.’
‘Mara Hatun, please,’ said Yakub. He was shivering with discomfort and began to fear he would be physically sick. For her part, he could see no lust in the lady’s eyes, only cruelty.
He was saved by the sound of voices in the adjoining chamber coming through the thin-timbered partition screen. The rare sight of genuine alarm rippled over Mara Hatun’s face.
There was a sudden girlish giggle, followed by the quick stamp of stumbling feet and the solid thump of a body bumping against the wooden screen. Mara Hatun placed a warning finger over her lips and disengaged herself from the doctor’s hand. Hekim Yakub might as well have been a statue. He dared not even breathe. The giggle came again, and a small part of Yakub began to hope that it might mean he was not on the verge of arrest and execution.
‘Gentle!’ a female voice scolded. ‘You almost ripped it.’
It became clear from the look on Mara Hatun’s face that this voice was familiar to her, although it remained a mystery to Hekim Yakub. He wiped his hand on the corner of the divan and tried to keep his heart from tearing free of his ribs.
Mara Hatun crossed to the partition with the soft tread of a cat and pressed her eye to a crack. With her attention firmly on whatever lay beyond, Yakub began to wonder if now was the moment to try and steal away. He stood up carefully and dabbed a toe on the next floorboard to test it for sound. He was about to take a tentative step when Mara Hatun’s arm reached out and beckoned him to join her at the partition.
Curiosity had already begun to dampen his fear. The summoning hand tipped the scales. Dutifully, Hekim Yakub crept across to join Mara Hatun, who wore a smile of deep satisfaction as she moved aside to let him peak through the crack.
He could make out another bedchamber, very similar in appointment to the one he was in, with a man standing before another silk covered divan, half-blocking Yakub’s view of the woman spread across it.
The man was quite young – not yet twenty - with broad, muscled shoulders and a thick mane of dark hair. He was stepping out of the shelled pod of his clothing when Yakub first put his eye to the crack. The doctor had come across most of the palace’s male contingent naked - one way or another - in this first year of service there, but he did not recognise these delectably taut buttocks less than three steps from his reach. An outsider. A wedding guest most likely. But that made this a quite shocking violation of the harem, beyond even his own trespass here.
He felt Mara Hatun’s hand pull at his shoulder, but he did not wish to yield his position just yet. He resisted for a moment and moved his attention, half-reluctantly, onto the woman. She was younger, sixteen perhaps, and still semi-dressed. Her clothing was off kilter, the right breast spilled up over the neckline, the nipple rouged from her lover’s attentions.
Hekim Yakub was less familiar with the palace women. He could not identify this one, but the richness of her clothes told him this was a concubine and not merely a serving odalisque. Feeling his shoulder pulled once again, he yielded his spot, just as the two bodies came together.
The next few minutes felt to Hekim Yakub like an eternity. Mara Hatun did not move aside from the crack, but Yakub could tell quite clearly what progress was being made beyond the screen. As he judged the crescendo must be nearing its peak, Mara Hatun finally stepped back and silently indicated that they should depart.
‘Well, Hekim Yakub,’ she said once they had moved a staircase and more from the bedchambers, ‘now we both know entirely too much for our health.’
‘Did you recognise either of them?’ said Yakub. ‘I confess I am ignorant of both.’
‘Let’s return to the festivities,’ she replied. ‘Such a joyous occasion, don’t you think? And yet not every face is happy.’
Hekim Yakub had noted this habit of Sultan Murad’s youngest wife, to speak in an oblique manner, twisting and turning a conversation to keep others off-balance. A random thought, he was sure, had never invaded her head.
‘The groom is unhappy,’ Hekim Yakub deduced. ‘Şehzade Mehmed did not get to select his bride.’
‘A small blow to his pride,’ said Mara Hatun as they slipped through a courtyard gate and out into the palace gardens. Ahead, the tall canopy of a tent marked the centre of the entertainments. ‘He is permitted four wives. Sitti Hatun is only his second. His was not the longest face this morning.’
‘One of the court ladies then? Someone who felt she has been passed over?’
Mara Hatun nodded. ‘A correct diagnosis, doctor. The harem makes for a steep and slippery pyramid. The numberless, nameless odalisques dream of becoming a favourite gözde, the several gözde hope to be named among the ikbal and those felicitous few ikbal, so long as there are not already four living wives, aspire to a day like today.’
‘So the girl just now was one of Mehmed’s ikbal who had hoped to be elevated to hatun?’
‘Yes,’ said Mara Hatun. ‘You see, once Mehmed is Sultan, diplomatic need will most likely determine all further elevations. Outsiders will take those last two spots. The ikbal of Şehzade Mehmed must be raised to hatun before Sultan Murad passes away, or they shall rise no further.’
‘And after today it will be years until he takes another wife – too late for the remaining ikbals,’ said Hakim Yakub.
‘Unless,’ Mara Hatun said with a smile like an aqueduct, ‘unless an enterprising ikbal were to swiftly bear Mehmed a beautiful, virile son. Then I suppose she might still be raised to the rank of hatun, if Mehmed believed the boy to be his most worthy heir.’
‘That would take some calculation for a young concubine to come up with,’ said the doctor. ‘Did you select the stallion for this studding as well?’
Mara Hatun laughed with delight. ‘You approved of my choice?’
‘From another stable, if I am not mistaken, but as I said before, I could not put a name to him – or her - even under the question.’
‘Oh Hekim Yakub, if you think that makes you any safer, allow me to disabuse you. The ikbal’s name is Gulsah. She was understandably aggrieved at being overlooked today, Şehzade Mehmed loves her dearly. He has tried hard to get a child on her. That would have pleased him greatly, but I have no need to tell a physician that sometimes God deems two individuals incompatible for the engendering of life’s greatest miracle.’
‘And if instead God blesses her womb today?’ said Hekim Yakub. ‘Whose cuckoo son would be the apple of Mehmed’s unwitting eye?’
‘No one of importance,’ said Mara Hatun. ‘The criteria was quite narrow. Someone young, virile and reckless. Certainly not from the palace, and all the better if they should likely be dead before a child was announced. Fortunately, the party sent by Moldavia included just such a man. He is actually a Vlach. An exile. Speaks perfect Turkish, which made things easier. Vlad. You can tell the torturer that his name was Vlad.’
Knowing what I know, thought Hekim Yakub, only a fool would ever allow me to see the questioner’s rack. And you are no fool. I wonder what accident you have planned for me.
The silence grew uncomfortable. Finally, Hekim Yakub said, ‘I am grateful to you, Mara Hatun. Being so new to the palace, it was kind of you to take me under your wing. I feel I understand much more about the imperial harem now. It is something alien to a Jew such as I.’
‘It is alien to a Christian too,’ said Mara Hatun. ‘It is alien to almost every woman who ever enters it; and then, one day, it is not. That is a sad day indeed, I can tell you.’
‘You spoke before about the dreams of every girl. Th
e odalisque wishing to become a gözde and they an iqbal and they a hatun. But what does a hatun, such as yourself, dream of?’
He thought she might say home or freedom; escape even. Instead Mara Hatun’s eyes flashed. ‘Why, the pyramid’s pinnacle of course. We all ultimately hope to become the Valide.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Hekim Yakub. They were closing in on the pavilion entrance and whilst the sight of the royal physician in consultation with a palace woman was not by itself controversial, it had already grown suspiciously long.
It’s now or never, Jacopo, he told himself. Time to play your cards. Glancing quickly about to ensure no one was looking too closely, he stopped the Sultan’s youngest hatun in her tracks with a touch on her wrist. He kept his voice very low as he said, ‘But, Mara Hatun, to become Valide requires a hatun produce an heir. Yet you have meticulously killed every seed Sultan Murad ever put in you. I thought at first you did it out of anger. I could understand it. I could justify it to God. I pitied you. I pitied all the harem women.’
‘And what do you feel now, Hekim Yakub?’ she said. Her tone had grown very cold.
‘I think you have moved beyond anger for Sultan Murad. I do not think you pay him much thought at all. The other women do not see you as a rival, so long as you remain seemingly barren. They trust you. They listen to you - like poor Gülşah. And not just the women. Prince Mehmed trusts you too. He also doesn’t see you as a threat because you won’t bear any half-brother rivals.’
‘Is there a point to this, Hekim Yakub? I have already missed too much of my stepson’s joyous day.’
‘Of course, Mara Hatun. I shall not keep you. Şehzade Mehmed is bound to want you at his side. Such a pity that his own mother did not get to see this celebration. Do you know, Mara Hatun, my predecessor as court physician was also a Jew? Ishak Pasha kept all his notes in Hebrew. Quite narrative, actually. More of a diary than a medical journal. I may be the only soul at court who can read them. The notes from last year in Bursa were quite extraordinary, but then it was quite an extraordinary time. It must have put a great strain on the court physician - to lose a Sultan’s mother and favourite hatun in quick succession like that and without any hint otherwise of epidemic.’
‘Baffling,’ said Mara Hatun. He could tell she had his meaning.
‘No wonder the man took his own life,’ Yakub added. ‘Professional shame perhaps.’
‘It happens. Did they not warn you?’
‘I like to think myself more capable than Ishak Pasha,’ he said. ‘I am certainly more circumspect in my note taking. Discretion in all matters is incumbent on a court physician - we see too much for it to be otherwise.’
For once Mara Hatun chose to be direct. ‘What do you want, Hekim Yakub?’
‘A patron, Mara Hatun. Someone who will recognise my talents and keep my path clear of accidents. The old Sultan is ailing. Mehmed will be Sultan soon enough and - lacking his real mother - he will surely appoint you Valide in her stead. I believe I could prove very useful to you in the years to come.’
The stone face warmed just a degree. Mara Hatun said, ‘You’ve a scalpel mind, Hekim Yakub. I believe you could certainly prove useful. But if you ever cross me, or try to blackmail me again, I will make your last thought one of utmost regret.’
He didn’t doubt her ability to make good on that. It had not required his dead predecessor’s notes to understand the fact Mara Hatun was not a woman to be taken lightly. But hailing from Gaeta, Yakub understood something of the sea. The safest small fishes, he knew, were those that cleaned the teeth of the largest sharks.
Turning from the tent portal, he walked back through another of the palace courtyards and was surprised to see a youth clinging to the upper branches of an ornamental cherry tree.
Blessed with the face of a Cavallini mosaic saint, Yakub had noticed this adolescent palace page on previous occasions. Now the angelic features wore a look of deep concern as they scanned the ground below and fell upon the physician pacing across the titles to the foot of the tree. Hakim Yakub turned his own face upwards with a kindly smile. ‘It is Radu, isn’t it? What are you doing up there, boy? Has one of the guests discovered a sudden desire for cherries and sent you to pick a bowl of them?’
The boy gave a snort, as if some hollow joke had occurred to him at that moment. ‘It was the groom who had the sudden appetite,’ he called down. ‘But not for fruit.’
‘Is he drunk then?’ said Yakub. He had seen Prince Mehmed drinking before Mara Hatun summoned him from the celebrations. It was forbidden, of course, but Sultan Murad had a weakness for alcohol and was increasingly less discrete about it. His heir was more devout in that regard, but such piety only made Mehmed the more prone to drunkenness on the rare occasions he joined in his father’s sin.
Radu nodded in answer. ‘He reduced the bride to tears and insulted her father. He said she had the same face as the goose which I had just brought to the table. I was carving it for them, and Mehmed kept mocking her. “Now you sound like the goose too with all that honking and sobbing. I like pretty things, not ugly things. I like handsome things.” Then I felt his hand grasp my buttock.’
Listening, Hakim Yakub was not shocked by the story. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘What could I do? I kept cutting the meat off the bird and tried to ignore it, but when his hand moved around front, I flinched. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean any malice, it was instinctive.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Yakub. ‘You warded his arm away?’
‘Yes,’ said Radu. ‘It might sound ridiculous, but I had half-forgotten there was a carving knife in that hand.’
‘Did you strike him?’ said Yakub, growing suddenly fearful. If Prince Mehmed had died, or was even maimed in his absence, it would cost the royal physician his head, regardless the reason for his disappearance.
‘I think I might have grazed his arm,’ said Radu. ‘I let go of the knife as soon as I realised what I’d done.’
‘And then?’ said Yakub.
‘I ran and hid up here,’ said the boy. ‘Are they going to kill me?’
The doctor beckoned him down with one hand and said, ‘They will if you destroy their best cherries. Sultan Murad is a man of mercy. He will understand your heart was not black. Come, let us go there together and see if we cannot put the matter right.’
‘Alright,’ said young Radu. Then with care he picked his way back down through the tangle of branches.
19.
Wallachia, June 1462
The moon had mounted its scaffold to peer down upon the night’s work of men. ‘It’s time,’ said the Captain and pointed down from the battlements. The first group of Vlach raiders, formed up in the land’s shallow dent behind the ridge line, had begun to move. From the tower rooftop, Anna peered into the darkness and tried to make out the riders as they galloped, hallooing, past the walls of Targoviste and down towards the enemy camp. She felt the earth shaking up through the tower foundations and heard the hoof beats rumble like a summer storm. Then the dull, monotonous thunder disappeared away into the night.
A string of lambent pearls flickered into life as the riders lit their brands. Then the column separated into a wider rank and picked up speed and the floodplain danced with fiery pinpricks as if a swarm of candle flies were descending upon the Turks.
Anna’s gaze travelled up from the glinting flecks of the brands to the vast speckled arch of the firmament. The stars felt like the reflected dreams of the thousands gathered beneath them on the Danubian floodplain; each man’s ambition a tiny, fragile, flickering glow amid the fathomless darkness of existence. Some dreams, she supposed, were more than just a faint light. Some were an inferno, capable of consuming in their firestorm the frailer flames of a hundred thousand others. How many flames, she wondered, would gutter out that night amid the inferno of Mehmed’s ambition; how many amid her own?
Now it was the turn of Vlad and his raiding party to ride past the base of the tower. In place of the janissary costume he
had put on his best armour, a dragon’s snout engraved across the visor. No others among his men had a full steel harness, but most had better protection than those in the initial wave.
The son of the dragon sat motionless for a while, straining his ears into the night. Then from Anna’s elevated vantage she saw a flash, and moments later the roar of that initial Wallachian charge came drifting across in the air. The distant candle flies were gone, replaced by the firmer light from gouts of fire. A saw-tooth silhouette of tent ridgepoles was now faintly discernible and the faint clang of steel against steel. When Anna next glanced down, she saw that Vlad and his men had vanished.
Not all his men had vanished. There were still Vlach sentries gathered by the entrance to the tower staircase. There was still the crowd of armed peasants and the mounted contingent who were to make the third and final attack to cover Vlad’s retreat. It was clear to Anna that the men Vlad had left to guard the tower were as much her jailers as protectors. Any attempt she might make to leave the tower’s summit would be firmly denied. It was a problem, but not one she intended to tackle just then.
Nikolaos was still holding the Byzantine flag ramrod at her shoulder. She saw Sphrantzes glance up at it and then dab at the corners of his eyes. He caught her staring. ‘It’s more than a thousand years since the Vlachs fought for that flag,’ he said. ‘Not since Constantine the Great. And now there they go, riding for you.’
‘They’re not riding for me,’ said Anna. ‘Or Byzantium. They’re fighting for their homes and their families.’
He wagged his finger. ‘But they are fighting, aren’t they; not running. Not cowering. And they are only doing so because of the belief you instilled in them through their leader.’
She thought of the mountains they had come through. All those tunnels and caves. As inaccessible to a pursuing army as the Mani peninsula of the Morea had proven to be. You could hide up there forever. You could avoid the sacrifice or death and perhaps salvage some manner of free existence that way. ‘My father would think them mad,’ said Anna. ‘I bet your Constantine would approve.’
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