Thief's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  He was, however, anticipating rather different events to those being awaited by the bustling crowd. They mourned the passing - centuries ago - of the great Hussein Ibn Ali, while he came instead to watch the passing of another renowned Muslim leader.

  Pushing on, he passed the great ruined walls of the Kathisma - the imperial box from which those men who had once ruled the Roman world had watched the Blues race the Greens; the Whites race the Reds. He remembered hearing the stories of those halcyon days from the ageing tale-spinners in the taverns of the Greek enclave; men who remembered the Byzantine realm and the last emperor - Constantine Palaiologos, the eleventh man to bear that great name and the man who lost the city of his famous namesake to the Turk.

  He remembered the story of the night the people rose up against their master in this very hippodrome. He couldn't remember the reasons in the long and involved tale, but the master storyteller had vividly described the explosion of violence in this great elongated arena, the fleeing of the emperor to his palace, the burning, looting and pillaging in which the people of Constantinople almost destroyed their own city, the siege of the palace and finally the arrival of the army under its generals. The soldiers of Byzantium had marched - again into this very hippodrome - and executed every living thing that stood before them until the riots had ended in a sea of blood.

  Did history repeat itself?

  Skiouros could hardly claim to know the mindset of the Ottoman people, but he very much suspected that the reaction of the gathered multitude to the murder of their sultan before their very eyes would mirror the great riots that had shaken Constantinople those eons ago. If they were to discover that the death blow had come from a Mamluk no foreigner would be safe within reach of the city; but if they were to discover it was at the behest of a Janissary commander? Then the city would tear itself apart.

  Whatever happened in the next few hours, the prospects for the survival of a poor Greek thief looked bleak.

  Slowly he closed on the great Aya Sofya - the greatest mosque in the Ottoman world and once the greatest church in the Christian one. It remained largely unchanged in form since the days it had housed crosses and images of the saints. A golden crescent had risen from its great dome upon the city's fall, and a few years ago a slender wooden minaret had risen from the corner closest the palace, but that was the sum total of the visible changes to the building's exterior. The enormous, beautiful bulk of the Aya Sofya rose from the sea of excitable citizens like a giant tortoise.

  Behind the great church where the mourning rites for the holy day would be held before the Sultan and his viziers, Skiouros could just see the towers and walls of the Topkapi palace where the court resided.

  The closer he made it to the gate in that wall, the more densely packed the crowd would become. Concentrating, Skiouros peered at the Aya Sofya. He had been to its doors more than once and had even slipped inside on a particular occasion a few years ago, though only very briefly. To be caught in the Ottomans' most sacred holy building would not go well for him.

  He contemplated whether he could get inside today to watch the proceedings but, even before he remembered that the Sultan was unlikely to even reach the building, he had decided against that course of action. Death would await a Greek Christian caught loitering in that place, but to be discovered within as a Greek Christian disguised as one of their own? Every conceivable torture would be visited upon his stained pale frame before he was allowed to die. No. It would not be worth the risk.

  Anyway, nothing would happen inside.

  It was between that forbidding door and the nearby palace gate that the murder would be carried out.

  He found himself wondering how it would be done.

  It could not be carried out with a hand weapon. Apart from the fact that escape for the assassin would be impossible and that the blame would then be irrevocably tied to the Mamluks, there was no guarantee that the Janissaries guarding the Sultan would let him past. Even if they were of Bin Murad's own orta of guards, could the conspirators really plan all of this and allow for even the possibility that the guards might have a sudden flash of conscience and save the Sultan?

  No.

  It would be done with some sort of missile. A dart would never reach him, surely? A gun would be the best for the distance, but they were not entirely reliable - certainly not enough for a professional assassin. Especially with the atmosphere as damp as it was. Several times the Ottoman musket brigades had been laid low by wet powder.

  A bow, then. Even though wet weather played havoc with a bow string, it would survive better than the gunpowder required for a musket, and the bow could be sheathed until the last minute. Either a crossbow or a recurve sinew and horn affair; both would be perfectly suited to the shot. A poisoned arrow, too - just in case the initial blow was not a direct kill. And a poison that would most likely be traced to the Greek populace, too - laying the blame squarely away from both Mamluk and Ottoman. Not something clearly Arabic in origin.

  So how would a man be able to get a clear shot? On the few occasions that Bayezid had graced the streets of the Ottoman city with his presence, he had ridden proudly on his great white mare, every inch the conquering hero like his father. A shot would still be difficult from among the crowd.

  He would have trouble, unless he could find a high place.

  Skiouros' eyes were drawn up to the undulating roofline of the Aya Sofya, and then beyond that to the tall, narrow wooden minaret.

  Would he really choose such a place? There would be no easy escape from a minaret if he was seen taking the shot, and that was a distinct possibility in such a high visibility location. The roof might be better, with more places to fire from and plenty of cover and escape routes.

  But the minaret would give him the best clear shot.

  Despite the knowledge that he was really powerless to do anything about the coming disaster, Skiouros found that he was moving forward with ever-increasing urgency, as though trying to reach the killer before the shot could be taken.

  As he reached the walls of the great mosque, he moved along them, squeezing past hopeful watchers and avoiding the thrown detritus of half a dozen small children sitting high on the window sills. At the corner, he stepped onto an old Roman block that had had an iron ring driven into it for tethering beasts. Standing now a head above the crowd, he had a clearer view of the minaret.

  Looking somewhat rickety, the narrow wooden tower with its balcony and roof at the top was only wide enough to contain one tight spiral stair that ran down to the upper floor of the great former church, where it met an opening in the wall. That doorway, Skiouros knew, led on to an interior staircase which gave access to the main church or the upper galleries. From there escape would be easy, blending into the crowd.

  Yes, it was the best possible place for an assassin to shoot from, and once the man was down the minaret and into the bulk of the church, he would be free, but that journey from the high balcony to the interior would be risky. If he was seen too soon, he could find his escape route sealed and himself trapped in the tower.

  The great Bab i Humayun - the massive and monumental gate in the walls that sealed in the grounds of the Topkapi palace and was little over a decade old, stood sealed tight, brooding at the great church perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from the minaret.

  This was almost certainly where it was going to happen.

  A deep, ear-splitting boom rang out across the crowd and, startled and shaken, Skiouros spun round in a panic, suddenly convinced that somehow the assassination had already happened. Could they really have used a cannon?

  The reactions of the people packed around him were almost identical, the crowd surging in a panic at the sudden explosion. But there was no smoke; no damage.

  Confusion reigned for a silent and eerie second.

  And then the rain came.

  The deafening crack had been the Anatolian storm finally opening up above the Bosporos and the sky was becoming noticeably darker with every heartbeat. Th
ere had been no cannon - no explosion. The storm that had wreaked havoc on the southern reaches of the Ottoman Empire had finally reached its heart.

  Skiouros shuddered at the apparent symbolism of the timing.

  Once, during a bad storm back in Hadrianople, father Simonides had recounted a tale of the end of days when four riders would appear, bringing Armageddon in their wake. Skiouros had scoffed at the tale, even within earshot of the old priest - an impious move that had earned him three hours' work scrubbing the church's tiled floor - but Lykaion had sat transfixed by the story, drinking in every word with wide, terrified eyes.

  And now, as the sky went from mid-grey through purple and finally to almost black, the rain pounding down so hard it hurt the head with every droplet and felt like a blow from a plank of wood and the air chilled and rent with deafening crashes, that unbelievable tale was suddenly all too credible. Skiouros found his eyes swinging up to the sky, looking for those four riders on the roiling crest of the storm.

  He was alone in his panic. The sea of Muslim watchers around him heeded no such tale for their end of days. They were instead either looking around in confusion or ignored the violence of the storm, concentrating on the gate through which Bayezid the Just would emerge to the acclaim of his people and the shot that would snatch away his life.

  It was then, as Skiouros scoured the boiling black sky, that a movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. His gaze was drawn to the top of the wooden minaret.

  A figure!

  The assassin - for it had to be him - moved in the shadow of the minaret's doorway, barely visible but for that single moment when he had leaned out of the shade to take in the view of the ground below with its seething masses. Skiouros' breath caught in his throat and his eyes returned to the level. It was almost impossible to see anything other than a writhing sea of heads and arms. Even the trees and the walls and ruins of various buildings were somewhat indistinct behind the crowd.

  There were soldiers.

  Some of them were Dervishes from the city's Bektashi monastery in their finery, bearing ornamental pole-arms. Others were low-level yaya infantry: unarmed, but resplendent in their uniforms nonetheless. Others still were Janissaries, both on- and off-duty. Even if any of them could do anything, they would be unlikely to listen to a word said by a peasant and might well simply arrest him, or even beat him. But there was little chance of reaching them through the crowds anyway, so that fact was moot.

  What could he do?

  Nothing.

  The Imam of the great Aya Sofya would have to climb that minaret, of course, to issue the call to prayer, but it would be too late by then. The Sultan would be in position within the mosque before the call went out so that the crowd followed him to prayer, rather than vice-versa.

  And he would be dead by then.

  At this point, the Imam would still be in his chambers in the mosque, while the killer stood on the minaret, waiting.

  Watching.

  The world was about to end. Skiouros' world, and that of the peaceable Ottoman Empire.

  It surprised him the extent to which he was able to view these events with a certain detachment. He had never been as invested as his brother in this affair anyway, but the death of Lykaion and his own inability to affect the outcome in any way - or even to flee the scene effectively - had lent him the final tool with which to sever his connection with the matter.

  He was an observer of the End of Days and nothing more.

  Another crash of thunder rang out and a brilliant white flash lit up the sky, creating a strange pattern in the clouds like the veins in dark marble. It looked for all the world as though a great slab of black stone was descending from the heavens to crush the city.

  It might as well be.

  Skiouros reached back for his hood to pull it over his head and take some of the pounding pressure of the rain, but paused and dropped his arms to his sides once again. Somehow the battering of the heavy droplets felt like a massage on his scalp, leaving him not enough space to think clearly, which was comforting and simple. His hood fell back again, sodden and unused.

  A sense of calm acceptance had suffused him at last - a feeling that had been building all morning, and indeed ever since his weird night time conversation with his brother's shade.

  It was with this sense of peace, his face upturned - not so that he could see the assassin, but rather to savour the cool calming effect of the lashing rain - that he realised something was happening. Almost regretfully, he lowered his gaze to the crowd once more and opened his eyes, allowing conscious thought back in.

  The great gate to the Topkapi palace had opened, the gap widening as the Janissaries heaved on the heavy doors. Figures had appeared on the battlemented walkway at the top of the gate.

  From his position on the ancient block, some way back among the masses and at the corner of the great mosque, Skiouros had a good all-round view over the heads of the crowd. He could easily see the minaret and the gate, his eyes flicking back and forth between the faint, vague humanoid shadow in the tower and the figures atop the gate, his eyes straining in the gloom and the downpour.

  But for all his clear vision, he could not quite tell what was happening; the seething crowd and the hammering rain and cracks of thunder drowned out all sound. Something was happening at the front. It was not the Sultan's arrival, though.

  When Bayezid emerged from the gate it would be on horseback, surrounded by mounted aides and guards, with Janissaries forcing back the sea of people and opening up a path ahead of him.

  Clearly that was not happening as the crowd remained immobile, intent on the gate.

  A red and white robed figure had appeared on the walkway among the Janissaries there. As Skiouros squinted into the gloom and the sheets of water pouring from the sky, he could see that the finely-robed man - not the Sultan, surely - was addressing the crowd.

  Whatever he was saying was totally lost in the distance, but it had apparently not gone down well with the masses. From ahead, near the gate and the minaret, angry and disappointed shouts and cries were rising. Interspersed among them were wails of anguish and sobbing. Suddenly the whole crowd seemed to be distressed.

  It was not the mourning sound Skiouros expected on the day of Ashura. He had witnessed the annual holy day before. A rhythmic beating of the chest was more expected; not this sudden distressed shouting.

  His heart fell.

  The shadowy figure at the minaret's top could be the Imam after all, and not the assassin. Had the Mamluk already struck? Perhaps he'd found some method of ingress to the Topkapi palace, poisoning Bayezid in the same manner in which his colleague had dispatched the Janissary agha?

  It was over, then.

  Not with a great, earth-shaking event, but with a speech. Even from his detached and impassive viewpoint, Skiouros could feel it as something of a disappointment. Such a calamitous happening with such far-reaching effects should be heralded with more than a downpour and a few words.

  A well dressed man in front of Skiouros muttered something about waste and turned, looking up at the sky angrily.

  The thief frowned as their gazes met, his diminutive stature negated by the stone block on which he stood.

  "What was that all about?" he asked dispassionately, his Turkish barely marred by an accent these days.

  The man lowered his gaze to Skiouros, his nostrils flaring. "The Sultan!"

  "Yes?"

  "He is not coming out because of the rain!"

  Skiouros stared at the man.

  "Can you believe it?" The Turk snapped in angry disbelief. "A man who has fought off the Mamluk Sultanate for a decade! A man who commands an army of thousands and rules the greatest empire the world has ever known, and he's not leaving his palace because of a storm!"

  Skiouros continued to stare at the indignant nobleman for a long moment and then suddenly exploded in helpless laughter.

  The nearest members of the crowd, seething angrily at the Sultan, irritated by
the rain and this betrayal of their enthusiasm, turned to regard this giggling imbecile with surprise.

  For a long time, Skiouros laughed, unable to stop. He had not laughed so loud and free for years. In the past week, he and Lykaion had faced dangers galore. They had wracked their brains and put their lives on the line, sneaking around the city and spying, fighting off killers to prevent an assassination and they had failed in the end, only to discover that the weather had done their job for them!

  Bayezid the Just was alive.

  Alive because of the rain.

  It was almost too beautiful to believe.

  He was crying, of course, at the now-needless death of Lykaion, but the tears mingling with the endless streaming, life-saving rain, were as much of relief as frustration and grief.

  The world would not end today, despite the storm.

  God had sent the tempest not to cloak his four apocalyptic riders, but rather to shield the Sultan against his enemies. What did that mean?

  It meant that Skiouros could yet leave the city and go to Crete with Captain Parmenio, so long as he could find finance for the passage.

  Such a thing should be easy enough for a thief.

  But as he thought of the picking of purses, he realised that the past days had changed something in him. In a moment of epiphany, he suddenly knew that he was not the conscience-free thief had had been these recent years. He had thieved to survive in the city and he had done that only in order to be there for Lykaion when he was needed. Lykaion no longer needed him, and now he could leave the city. And that meant that his days of cutting purse strings might well be over.

  If he could only afford the journey.

  Perhaps God, if he existed, was giving him a chance? Perhaps it was Lykaion. Whatever it was, the world had not ended, and he couldn't help but feel there was a reason for it.

  A flash of lightning drew his eyes skywards again and he caught a momentary movement on the minaret: the swirl of a cloak.