“My eunuch!” I heard him say as I was shown in. “By Allah, that’s the last thing I need right now!”
Still, he invited me to sit down, and tried to be polite in response to my deep, supplicating bow. “How are you?” His voice grew in sharpness through the speech. “How is your lady?”
“My lady rejoices at your safe return, my lord Pasha, and wishes me to ask ...” I still stood, feeling three layers of rugs beneath my muddy boots and wooden planking beneath them.
“No. I know what you want to ask, and the answer is no. I admire your devotion, Abdullah, but the answer is still no. Now, you’ve ridden a long way today and you must be tired. Why don’t you let my orderly find you a place where you can rest for a few hours? But I want you on that road long before the army’s up and on the move tomorrow.”
“Sir, may I ask why?”
“By Allah, I’d forgotten what civilian life is like. Everybody has to have a reason for everything. And you Venetians are the worst of all. Yes, how well I remember! If you must know, it’s because our new Sultan, Allah help me, is a tenth of the man at forty-five that his father Suleiman—may he rest in peace—was at seventy when his bad heart confined him to a carriage.”
“What do you mean, sir?” I asked. My amazement to hear these words from a man of duty would not let me remain silent.
“I mean that Selim, the son of Suleiman—yes, my dear wife’s own dear father—is a roaring drunkard.”
“Surely not. Alcohol is against the laws of Muhammed the Prophet.”
“Yes, isn’t it, though? And for good reason. But that doesn’t stop Selim. Selim, the Sot, the army calls him—his own army, by Allah. Drunkenness and a strong taste for women and for boys (yes, there’s that as well)—well, the army could live with that. They might even praise him for it, and ‘the Sot’ become something like the epithet they called his great ancestor Muhammed, ‘the Conqueror.’ The Turkish army is not full of scrupulous sissies, no. But worse than all of this—Selim is a coward. Do you know that in Belgrade—when we had to break Suleiman’s death to the men—he refused to pass beneath their swords? Now, perhaps to a Venetian such as yourself, this custom has little meaning, just some quaint relic from the past. These Turks, you know—it’s not so very long since they came riding wild off the steppes. Allah, the smell is still on them! Don’t I know, I, who as Grand Vizier must be followed everywhere I go by a standard bearing the tails lopped off seven horses, never minding the flies it attracts.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I admitted, “but I don’t know what it means to pass under their swords.”
As I would not sit, Sokolli Pasha did, amidst a rainbow arc of pillows which, save for a low table draped in correspondence and a cloak hung on a peg from the center pole, were the tent’s only furnishings.
“Every new Sultan,” he said, “must, upon his ascension, pass under a tunnel made of the crossed, naked swords of all the army. If any soldier does not approve of the new commander, this is his chance to let his displeasure be known. He has only to let his sword grow heavy in his hand, and drop when the pretender is beneath the blade. It’s the perfect solution for a small nomadic tribe in the steppe which must move and fight as one man. Suleiman submitted to that ordeal and had the supreme devotion of all his men ever since. And he knew he could trust them, too. There were no daggers poised in the dark for him—he’d already given them their chance. Of course, that was fifty years ago, and no one in the army today was there. Still, they remember. The Muslim army never forgets its privileges, even if it forgets the difference between a left-face and a right.
“Selim refused to pass. He had already consolidated his power in Constantinople, he said. He had received the kiss of submission from the Serai staff and from the eunuchs of the harem. Well, there is the harem, and then there is the army. Selim knows very well that the janissaries have no love for him. He is Sultan only because of the death of his two brothers. The men loved Mustafa—perhaps more, even, than they loved Suleiman. And loved Bayazid because he was like Mustafa. It is for Khurrem’s sake that these two favorites were killed, and her son, Selim, is a poor replacement. Well indeed might he fear the naked swords of his troops, many of whom have brothers or dear friends who died fighting on Bayazid’s side at Amasia. But if he’d shown courage and respect for them, they probably would have forgiven him. To simply say, ‘It does not suit the dignity of my majesty...!’
“If one is to rule these people, one cannot go calling such customs outdated, barbaric, or undignified, or ever—ever—put the harem before the soldiers. That is one sure way to get oneself called soft, city-poisoned, and a first-class coward, and the Ottomans did not come to be masters of this great Empire by being any of those.”
“Do they say so, my lord?”
“That is exactly what they’re saying and, by Allah, they are right. You know, Selim had the nerve to ask that his army show their obedience to him by coming to his tent and kissing his foot, one by one, as if they were a harem full of ladies. ‘Let him come and kiss our asses,’ the army said.
“I tell you, I had a time of it to keep them all from deserting then and there. Even with our dead master’s coffin right before their eyes, they didn’t care. I had to promise them a gift of two thousand aspers when we get home.”
“Two thousand each?” I was astounded.
“Two thousand aspers apiece to every cutthroat and rascal among them. I wouldn’t be surprised if soldiers we never knew we had turn up for this payday, and, Allah knows, I bargained them down every way I could. But that is how edgy they are.”
“Has the Sultan Selim agreed to this price?”
“Yes, Selim agreed. Well, he had to or he would walk back home seven hundred miles by himself with an ambush set at every corner. It will all but break the treasury, but what good is a treasury if you have no soldiers to guard it? He had to make another concession, too.”
“What was that?”
“A group of the more pious men thought of this, and the rest went along in demanding it because it was such a supreme slap in the face of our supreme majesty. By royal decree, it suddenly became punishable by death to drink alcohol. If this caused hardship to any of the troops, they bore it gladly to think of the agony their sot of a Sultan was suffering.
“This delight got the army to their feet again, but, there we were, marching through some of the finest vineyards in the world in Eastern Serbia—and the vintage just in! Within two days the Sultan had exiled the troublesome holy men, repealed the law, and gone on a binge that saw him unable to mount a horse in the morning. He had to usurp his father’s carriage as if he were about to die himself.”
“But the army is here now, my lord, almost within sight of Constantinople’s walls.”
“Yes, they’ve kept going, muttering at every turn, ‘Beware the hay cart, O high and mighty. There are many, many hay carts on the roads these days.’ “
“‘The hay cart’? I do not understand.”
“Another ancient, time-honored Turkish custom. Whenever the army has serious grievances on the road, it contrives to find a hay cart, overturned and blocking passage. The soldiers cannot go forward, will not help clear the route, and so the impasse remains until their demands are met.”
“Surely an overturned hay cart is a common occurrence in farmlands in the late fall,” I remarked. “As I overheard some of the men saying, ‘There are many, many hay carts on the roads…’”
“Yes. Not a good sign, that,” my master said with a weary wipe at his brows, then continued.
“Farmers know well enough to keep the roads clear when the army’s coming through. And if such an accident were to occur, the farmer and his family would have the road cleared in no time, or face the wrath of the whole army, when that army is in the mood to get where they’re going. The hay cart is no farmer’s accident, I assure you. It is carefully planned by some party in the ranks: they have stolen it, they have knocked it over, and no one can ever say who is to blame. The hay cart means
neither more nor less than open rebellion. Needless to say, I have put all the hay and anything even vaguely resembling a cart under guard I can trust here on my lands.”
“Praise Allah, my lord, that you are a careful man and that you are almost home without the rebellion you fear.”
“We are not home yet, Abdullah,” the Vizier said.
“Then, master, the news I bring may not be so difficult for you to believe.” I brought the vetro a filigrana vial out of my sleeve and showed it, interpreting the message for him.
With the fingers of his right hand, Sokolli Pasha shoved the flesh of his sharp nose up into his eyes, a gesture of extreme exhaustion. The nose appeared much less hooked and daunting for a moment. “Abdullah, I cannot think of such things now.”
“But this puts backbone to the spurts of rebellion you have seen. Murad is intended to replace his father.”
“He would in any case.”
“Sooner rather than later. According to the note—tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Prince is already on his way from Magnesia.”
“You think a harem woman is orchestrating the business?”
“I know it.”
“How does she do it?”
“I’m not sure. She does have a eunuch. A monster.”
“Forgive me, Abdullah. A khadim? And a harem woman?”
“He’s a Hungarian.” I was desperate.
Sokolli Pasha stopped in mid-eye rub. “And what is she?”
“Venetian, my lord.”
“You know this woman? You believe her capable of such things?”
I considered. My lady and his own mother were the only women this man knew. He knew that the new Sultan’s heir had sired an heir. Who the mother was, he didn’t know. And didn’t care. He certainly didn’t know Safiye Baffo. But he ought to know. This was a serious weakness in Muslim life.
“My lord, she is capable. Of this—and more.”
Sokolli Pasha seemed to digest this information with a thoughtful movement inside his mouth. “Hungarian,” he said, as if with a mouthful. “To move with ease among raw Hungarian troops, still restive because of the damage my late lord—may Allah receive him-—wracked among them. It is the Hungarians who are most uneasy, and I thought it was no more than this. And a Venetian. That explains the reports I hear of a Venetian fleet lying just off the Dardanelles.”
“My lord, I don’t think she could go so far as to...” But I stopped to keep from contradicting myself. She is capable. Of this—and more. And perhaps, I swallowed. I am partly to blame. If Selim was as my master described him, perhaps it would take an extraordinary amount of muscle to keep him balanced on his throne. But Sokolli Pasha had, for better or worse, thrown his lot with him. Selim was my lady’s father. And Safiye opposed him. My course was determined as well.
“So, master,” I prompted. There had been silence in the tent for some time. “You will cancel the triumphal procession?”
“It’s too late,” was his final conclusion. “To back out of the procession now would seem like one more gesture of cowardice, a bad omen at the start of a reign. And we’ve had too many of them already.
“But you just watch the men as you pass their campfires on your return. You will see the time for praising Allah is not yet. We must still be pleading for His tender mercy.”
There was indeed a sort of tension in the silence of the soldiers as if my passing were a handful of dirt to dowse their smoldering embers. But the dramatic retelling of old battle tales could just as easily cause so slight an edginess. I don’t think I would have noticed had my master not told me to look for it. My ever-increasing ability to read human nature held good for affairs of the harem only. My master was the authority when it came to men.
Over and over again I recalled his final words to me: “We must allow Allah to give mankind what He wills tomorrow.”
Things are different, however, for womankind.
XXXII
“Had he no message for me?” my lady asked.
Beyond the news that he couldn’t see her until the morrow, there was none. And my head had been so full of his male view of things until that moment that I’d failed to manufacture something to suit her concerns. I lied now. I told her he had asked her specifically to stay away from the procession tomorrow, to spend the day enclosed safely with her Aunt Mihrimah in the swaddle of the Koran’s drone. That, I hoped, would cover for him. In reality he hadn’t given her that much thought at all.
But while covering for the greater neglect, I couldn’t shield her from the lesser. Esmikhan’s face ashed with disappointment. She sucked the breath into her mouth with little clicks of the tongue in an attempt to keep back the tears. I cannot say what grieved her the most, missing the procession and the sociability at her cousin’s, or realizing that after a seven-month reprieve, she was still in fact married to a man who gave orders like he followed them—without explanation, without a word of endearment.
I flushed with guilt for my own part in this. But I didn’t dare divulge the first part of what I knew to her so I suggested, “He cannot mean it.”
“Oh, he means it, all right,” Esmikhan said. “You know very well my husband always means what he says. He hasn’t a joking bone in his body.”
“Lady, surely if he realizes that this is your own father we are greeting...”
“You think he doesn’t realize that? Abdullah, why else in the name of the Almighty did he marry me if it wasn’t because my father is who he is? It’s quite clear love had nothing to do with it.” Her tears had broken free now and were flowing bitterly.
“Lady, Lady,” I crooned, taking her plump little hands in one of mine and stroking her fine dark curls until she slept.
And in the morning, after prayers, I was relieved to find her in much better spirits. Beyond no concern to miss the procession, she even expressed a desire not to go even so far as Lady Mihrimah’s that day. As little more than an afterthought she said, “But you are free to go, Abdullah, to either place, and be my eyes if you wish.” I felt she was doing me a favor, not giving me an order. Her mind was elsewhere.
Perhaps her cheer had something to do with the squadron of soldiers that had appeared at our front door during the night. I met one of them in the yard. They were under Sokolli’s orders, he told me, the Grand Vizier’s most trusted elite, sent there, “Just in case.” If Esmikhan took their presence as a decent substitute for a letter or other sign of her husband’s care, who was I to contradict her?
There was so little fuss about my going that I had more than enough time to find a good seat at the cousin’s near Yedi Kule. And since I didn’t have my lady to accompany, I could avoid the harem and take my chances with the rest of mankind in the street below.
A high stone wall just at the first bend after the Golden Gate served me well. I watched an hour’s worth of hurried preparations as carpets, flower petals, and palm branches were strewn across the roadway for the conquering heroes and their new Sultan to tread upon.
“They come! They come!” The news ran, and then, I, too, could hear the cheers and the music—the pound of drums, the squeal of horns, and the jarring rattle of the bell standards and the cymbals—keeping time to the march of a million soldiers’ feet, and the reined tripping of the cavalry. A great shout went up and we knew the first rank had reached the Golden Gate.
All eyes were straining up the road with such intensity that not a soul noticed until the crash, and then none could escape it. It looked so innocent and accidental, something that one might see any day of the week in the streets of Constantinople. But this was not any day, and it was no accident. There it was, not twenty paces in front of me, a cart spilling its mountainous yellow contents so carefully, so perfectly, in an ambush clear across the path of carpets and rose petals.
By God, I thought, startled into Italian. They’ve put off their rebellion until they’re actually within the city walls. They mean to shake the Empire to its very roots. Even with such a thought, it was difficult to
do more than simply sit and grin at the perfection of the performance.
I saw a pair of figures elbow their way through the crowd to escape the scene of their crime, but they wore heavy black cloaks so it was impossible to distinguish uniform or rank. I could not imagine how any two soldiers could have dropped out of their perfect rows what with hundreds of cheering citizens watching them. I was tempted to believe that what I saw was just a part of a general exodus that began away from the street side: children and the more prudent men drifted indoors in answer to the nervous whispers of their women.
The rest of us shifted uneasily, but stayed to see what would happen—more from indecision, I think, than from any sort of civic interest. I wished briefly that Sokolli Pasha had ordered me to stay home, too, but as it was, there was really no time to think the matter out, else more of us would have had the sense to follow the women and children behind walls. Almost immediately, the first rank of the army, lead by a row of janissaries in feathered turbans and carrying bell standards, turned the corner and stopped in their tracks.
“Upon my word!” I heard one fellow exclaim with a very broad grin. His surprise was sarcastic and rehearsed. “If it isn’t a hay cart.”
“Hay cart! Hay cart!” the cry sped back through the halted troops. Somehow, by the same means, I suppose, the message was relayed forward that Selim and his guard had been halted most tantalizingly just before the Golden Gate, that portal which had stood as a triumphal arch for centuries of his predecessors, Greek and Turk alike, in the Great City. The army gave themselves quite a hearty congratulation and laughed, imagining how the Sultan’s horse must be stumbling and circling anxiously, and his majesty’s great red face sweating under his royal turban like raw meat.
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