SERAGLIO

by Colin Falconer

  'Someone will die.'

  'And if you do not?'

  'A person will has caused great suffering will go unpunished.'

  'Then if it were me, I would keep my silence. But there is more to it than that, isn't there? Who is this person? Do you love him?' Is it Ludovici? she thought. Is it me?

  'I should love him, but I cannot. That is why there is something bad in me.'

  You are talking in riddles. There is nothing bad in you, Julia. You are kind and you are gentle.'

  'You're wrong,' Julia said. She lay her head on Sirhane's lap. Sirhane stroked her hair. It was never spoken of again.

  Pera

  Gonzaga informed only the bailo of his meeting with Dragut. Ludovici had impressed on him that the fewer who knew about it in advance the better. He omitted Ludovici's role in the arrangements. Gonzaga was prepared to protect him while he was still of possible future use.

  A messenger arrived that afternoon at the bailo's residence with a sealed missive for Gonzaga. It informed him that Dragut would be on the galleot Barbarossa, moored in the harbor at Galata. Gonzaga was to meet him there at midnight and he was to come alone.

  That night he left Pera in a coach. The bailo wished him luck and waved him farewell. He disappeared down the hill towards the inky bowels of Galata.

  Chapter 33

  A pink glow lit the sky from the nearby foundries. A carriage clattered out of one of the yokush, a violently steep alley that finished right there on the deserted waterfront. Abbas watched from the shadows as a man stepped out. The driver handed him a lighted lamp. He was wearing the robes and a bareta of a togato.

  He passed close to the doorway where Abbas stood, and he saw his face clearly illuminated by the lamp. A decade rolled back. He was in the hold of a stinking privateer and he felt the terror overwhelm him yet again.

  ***

  There had been three of them, a knifer and two assistants. It came back to him as if it were yesterday, scalded on his memory. He remembered the large raised birthmark on the knifer's temple, at the hairline; in the lamplight it looked like a large raisin. The knifer had a high pitched voice like a choirboy. He had laughed the whole time. It was almost as if he were playing some schoolboy prank.

  They had tied a white bandage round his lower belly and thighs to slow the bleeding. This operation had taken a long time because he had kicked and struggled so fiercely. The knifer had sworn at him but they let him exhaust himself before they set to work. When he was finally subdued they bathed his penis and testicles with hot pepper water. He had screamed at the scalding pain and the knifer laughed again and told him he would rinse them in cold water as soon as they were off and cool them down for him.

  Abbas had struggled with all the strength he possessed. But against three men, his hands tied behind his back, it had been useless. He sobbed and pleaded with them to name their price, anything, just don't do this!

  That only made the knifer laugh even harder.

  He screamed so loudly when they did it that his voice was hoarse for a week afterwards. Then they cauterized the wound with boiling pitch and he vomited and passed out.

  When he came round they were still binding the wound using paper that had been saturated in cold water. They put a spigot in an opening in the bandages to restrict the flow of urine and blood.

  He started screaming again but the screams seemed to come from outside himself. Another voice inside him was quite calm and told him not to worry, that he would soon bleed to death and then it would all be over.

  The knifer's assistant dragged him to his feet and began to walk him around the hold. One circuit took in the blue lolling head of Julia's duenna, whom they had murdered earlier that night; another a pool of blood-stained bilge, a coil of tarred rope, some sacking, a broken winch cable. Then it began again.

  They walked round and round the hold for hours. What horrified him was the way the two men talked to him continually, encouraging him, recalling other operations they had seen and telling him everything would be all right. You have to walk, they said, it stops you going into shock, and then you'll die. Come on, we'll help you. You're doing well. You're a brave one, a tough one, we'll get through this. It was as if they were friends come to rescue him instead of his tormentors.

  What was even worse, he felt his hatred of them slipping away. He sobbed and thanked them when they finally eased him back onto the floor, half crazed with pain and barely conscious.

  He had no idea how long he lay there. Someone lit a fire inside his body and he started to burn with fever. But they would not let him drink and his tongue swelled in his mouth until it almost choked him and his lips cracked and he could not speak.

  One day the men came back into the hold and bent down to examine the wound. They removed the bandages and nodded to each other, apparently satisfied. When they released the spigot a flow of urine spurted across the hold like a fountain.

  'Well done,' one of them men said and patted him on the shoulder. 'You're going to be all right.'

  All right? What was 'all right'? A few weeks later they sold him in the market square at Algiers. From there he was brought to the seraglio, to suffer in glorious splendour, to live the rest of his days as a besilked freak.

  He envied the other eunuchs. Most had never known sexual maturity. He was one of the few who had survived such an operation when it was done so late in life. As he grew accustomed to life in the Harem he watched the rest of his body change, turning soft, then running to fat. Food became his only pleasure.

  And every day he cursed the name of Antonio Gonzaga.

  ***

  The memory passed in just a few seconds; soon he was alert again. He watched Gonzaga head towards the Barbarossa, lamp swinging. The galleot's outline was silhouetted by the glow from the arsenal at Top Hane. He looked back up the hill. Two men slipped into the shadows. Of course, he trusted that Gonzaga would not be so foolish as to come alone. Well, that did not matter. His own men would take care of that.

  He moved out of the doorway and followed Gonzaga towards the Barbarossa.

  Pera

  Julia knelt in her private chapel and stared at the wooden crucifix above the altar. She had come here to ask for forgiveness, to pray for absolution and the strength to fight her weakness. Instead she felt only anger.

  What sort of God had allowed a boy like Abbas to suffer so much and a man like her father to prosper?

  Her father's God.

  She rose from her knees. She would find her solace elsewhere.

  Chapter 34

  Galata

  Gonzaga sensed that someone was behind him before he heard the footsteps. He turned and peered into the shadows.

  'Che Xiè?'

  No answer.

  But there was someone there, he was sure of it. If it was one of Dragut's men, surely he would have shown himself? Perhaps it was one of his own men further along the wharf. He turned and hurried towards the gangway of the Barbarossa.

  The galleot was deserted. The lamps that burned on the fore and main masts threw long shadows across the deck. There was no night watch and no sound from below.

  He heard someone on the dock and spun around. Something was wrong. He drew his sword. Four shapes melted out of the shadows, blocking the way back. He composed himself. They must be Dragut's men.

  'Which one of you is Dragut?' he said.

  'Dragut is not here,' a falsetto voice replied in faultless Venetian dialect.

  'Where is he then? I demand to see him.''

  'He is getting drunk in Üsküdar. Now drop your sword or we will be forced to take it from you.'

  Gonzaga heard the rasp of steel as swords were drawn from their scabbards. 'Who are you?'

  'Drop your sword. You don't know how to use it anyway. I assure you these men here are expert.' He uttered a sob of fear and the blade clattered onto the cobbles at his feet. He shouted for his body guards. No answer. He dropped the oil lamp and ran.

  Two more men appeared from the darkness and
grabbed him before he had gone even five paces. They wrestled him to the ground. 'Tie him up,' the falsetto said.

  His hands were pinioned behind his back and tied with rough hemp. He screamed again for help so they stuffed a foul rag in his mouth. One of the men lashed out with his boot, kicking him in the ribs, then rolled him over onto his back.

  The falsetto picked up the oil lamp that he had dropped and came over. Gonzaga found himself staring at one of the ugliest men he had ever seen, a fat Moor with one eye, half his face mutilated by some ancient injury. In the lamp light he looked like a devil from hell.

  'Antonio Gonzaga,' he said. 'Do you remember me?'

  Remember him? His mind reeled. What was he talking about?

  He squinted up at this apparition in panicked confusion. He was a Moor, yes, but not wharfside scum like the others. He wore a sable-lined pelisse, embroidered with pearls and silver and he had on soft yellow leather boots. There was a large round pearl in his ear. He crouched down, and removed the sodden rag from Gonzaga's mouth. 'You really don't remember, do you?'

  'Of course I don't remember you! I've never met you!'

  'No, we never met. But you did know me, and I knew your daughter.'

  'My daughter's dead, she was murdered by pirates!'

  'Perhaps.'

  'Who are you? Corpo di Dio, I have money. Do you want money? Tell me what you want.'

  'What do I want? I want you to remember, that's all. I want you to think about your daughter, the most beautiful woman I ever saw, that I ever will see. I want you to send your mind back twelve years, to the son of the Captain General of the Republic of Venice.'

  Gonzaga remembered then, and wet himself. The monster holding the lamp shook his head. 'Yes, I did the same. It's terrifying knowing that you are utterly helpless, isn't it?' He stood up. 'Take him aboard!'

  Gonzaga screamed but one of the men quickly shoved the rag back in his mouth. They lifted him easily, hands and feet, and carried him onto the Barbarossa and down into the hold.

  Perfect justice, Abbas thought.

  Belowships, in a privateer in some filthy dock. That was how it all started for me.

  Chapter 35

  Abbas hung the lamp on a hook fixed to one of the beams and leaned against the bulwark as the men deposited their whimpering cargo in a lapping pool of tar and seawater. His eyes were starting from their sockets and he was trying to say something through the gag.

  Abbas waited until they were alone, then he said: 'I will take the rag out of your mouth now. But if you scream, I shall replace it. Is that clear?'

  Gonzaga nodded.

  'There.'

  The words came bubbling out in a torrent. Like when they pulled that spigot out of me, he thought. ' … I didn't know what was done to you, I swear, I only ordered them to beat you, to discourage you, that's all, if I have wronged you I swear that I will make it up to you, I am a rich man, I have much I can offer you, I am a Consig-'

  Abbas stuffed the gag back in his mouth. He's like a dog trying to vomit up its breakfast, he thought. Still I understand how he feels. It was like that for me once.

  'I might have known that all I would hear from you is lies and vanities. What can you offer me, Consigliatore? Money? I have more than I shall ever need. The Sultan and his lady pay all my expenses. I have fine clothes and more diamond than even you could fit in your long pockets. No, what I desire is only what every man is granted at his birth. And you took it away. You cannot give it back.'

  Abbas drew a short killiç from the sash at his waist. He held it close to Gonzaga's face, turning it in his fist so that the blade caught the reflection of the lamp. 'Look at this, Excellency. A simple instrument. You can cut bread with it or you can ruin a man's life. It depends on the intention. What is my intention, Excellency? Can you guess?'

  He pulled up Gonzaga's robe, exposing his thighs and lower belly. He gripped Gonzaga's testicles in his fist, squeezing. Gonzaga's face suffused with blood as he tried to scream through the gag.

  'Can you imagine what this is like? Did you imagine it when you ordered it done?'

  Gonzaga shook his head violently. Abbas touched the knife to Gonzaga's flesh, drawing a thin line of blood. Gonzaga thrashed on the floor like a beached fish. Abbas jumped up and slumped against the bulwark, sweating. He put the knife back into the sash at his waist.

  'No Consigliatore, I would not wish such a horror on even my worst enemy, and you are that, and more. I cannot do it, not even to you. I would never stain my own soul with such a sin.'

  Gonzaga curled his knees into his chest and rolled onto his side. He started to weep.

  'I will show you the mercy you never showed to me. I will give you your life, such as it is worth. Every second that remains of it is yours to savour. In the morning Dragut sails for Algiers. I have instructed him to sell you in the market place in Algiers as a galley slave. When you are chained to a bench, awash in your own filth, working eighteen hours a day at the oars you can think about what you did to me and to your daughter. You will have plenty of time for reflection. Some men survive five years of it before their strength gives out.' Abbas went to the companionway. 'If only you had shown me such consideration! I would have thought it the greatest mercy compared to the future you chose for me! Go with God, Excellency.'

  He saluted the Ambassador of the Illustrious Signory of Venice then took the lamp from its hook and left Antonio Gonzaga to the darkness and his dreams.

  Pera

  The moon had fallen below the seven hills when Ludovici returned. Julia was still awake. She sat by the window staring into the candle.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. 'It is done,' he whispered.

  He felt the answering pressure from her fingers but she did not reply. After a while he left here there and went to bed, knowing he would not sleep.

  The Topkapi Saraya

  Abbas selected his own key from the hundreds on the key ring stuffed in his sash. The former Kapi Aga was the last of the white eunuchs to be given the responsibility of the keys. Now the Sultan only entrusted a complete rasé with the responsibility.

  He slumped onto his cot. The cat jumped onto his lap, purring, and he petted her absently, his mind drawn inside, to the shadow play deep within his own mind. He removed his turban and put his head in his hands.

  Revenge did not taste particularly sweet. It had left an emptiness inside him. What would he do with his suffering now that he could no longer dream of the sweet lure of vengeance? Now his score was settled he must live out the rest of his days knowing that this was really as good as it would ever be.

  Nothing could change what had been done.

  ***

  The full moon shimmered on the cupolas and minarets of the Harem like a frost making the plane trees in the courtyards appeared ghostly. The eunuchs guarding the iron-studded doors stood like mahogany statues.

  Far above them a woman stared across the Horn, imagining the waving grasses of the Georgian steppe; in the window below a eunuch looked over the Marmara Deniz and thought of the sun-dappled canals of Venice. Abbas and Hürrem both paced the night, souls eroded by loss and longing, each of them a tiny outpost of hell in one man's Paradise on earth.

  PART 4

  The Dangerous Window

  Chapter 36

  Topkapi Saraya, 1553

  Suleiman had lived nearly fifty nine years and age gnawed at his bones. He spent more and more time now closeted with the sheyhülislam reading his Qu'ran.

  He had gout, his elbow and knees occasionally becoming swollen and so tender he could not stand the slightest touch and these attacks sometimes lasted as long as a week. He had also developed an edema and had taken to wearing rouge to hide the sickly pallor of his skin. He ate little, usually just some baby goat washed down with iced sherbet.

  Hürrem grew more afraid. Suleiman mortality reminded her of her own fragile tenure on life.

  She had been patient for so long. Now she was afraid that time was no longer on her side. If something
was to be done about Mustapha then it would have to be done very soon.

  ***

  For over a decade now the executioner's sword had been poised over his children's heads. There was nothing even the King of Kings could do to protect his own children after death because his own great grandfather, the Faith, conqueror of Stamboul, had made this bloody kanun:

  The ulema have declared it allowable that whoever among my illustrious children and grandchildren may come to the throne should, for securing the peace of the world, order his brothers to be executed. Let them hereafter act accordingly.

  As the years drew on Suleiman was troubled by his own mortality, and the gnawing of doubt. We will never be a great people, he thought, unless we put aside this savagery.

  Hürrem, as always, had given voice to his innermost fears. 'I am so afraid,' she whispered to him one night as she lay in his arms.

  'Afraid? Of what my russelana?'

  'Not for me, for my sons.' She laid her head on his bare, smooth chest. 'My Lord, when you die - may that day never dawn! - my life shall longer be worth living so I fear nothing on my own account. But when Mustapha attains the throne the Kanun of the Fatih tells him he may execute all his brothers, even poor Çehangir ..'

  'We have gone beyond such barbarity.'

  'It is not Mustapha I fear. He has a good heart.'

  'What then?'

  'When he comes green to the throne and discovers his own voice, he will be surrounded by those not as well disposed. We know Mustapha shall be Sultan but who will be his Vizier? Would a dried up prune like Lütfi Pasha show any compassion for poor Çehangir? Could even the astrologers in the House of Time foretell what plans the Aga of the Yeniçeris might hatch against Selim, because he cannot ride? What traps might a jealous pasha lay for Bayezid because he is so able?'