To the west, the rapacious barons and rebellious dukes of Europe offered ample evidence that aristocracies of blood were breeding grounds for corruption and insurrection. So there would be nothing like a hereditary caste of nobles in the new Ottoman Empire, except for the heirs of the Sultan, the new title adopted for the former tribal chief.
The very idea of a republic was completely alien to their tribal tradition. But Egypt provided a useful exemplar. The Egyptians had bought themselves an entire army in the slave markets of the Mediterranean, had trained them to the highest levels, and had gone on to win battles with them. Why not take this practice a step further? Why not expand the role of the slave caste beyond the military to cover service in the civil arm of government as well?
Of course, certain small adjustments became necessary. The slave markets could and did supply soldiers and gardeners and grooms and hangmen, but they did not offer the superior types — boys of the highest intelligence and ability — who could be trained to run a world empire. For those candidates, the Ottoman Empire builders needed to cast their nets wider than the slave markets. As observant Muslims, they were prohibited from enslaving other Muslims. But the Koran had nothing to say about enslaving infidels.
Tax levies are as old as time. All over the world, farmers give up a portion of their crops as fiefs. The church exacts tithes from its followers. It is an old idea. But the Ottomans bent it in a new direction. Their ingenious invention, the devshirme, was an impost not of taxes or crops but of manpower, specifically a levy of one son out of every thirty born to the conquered Christian families in the Ottoman Empire. Of the judges sent abroad to harvest this human crop, it was said that they were more skilled in judging boys than trained horse dealers were in judging colts.
Out of each draft of the devshirme, the most physically perfect, the most intelligent, and the most promising boys in every respect were set aside for the Sultan’s personal service. They became members of his cul. Once selected, these “tribute boys” were immediately converted to Islam. But these slaves rarely severed their Christian roots completely. Deep inside them, there often ran a tendency toward drunkenness and whoring (for which, with typical Ottoman bureaucratic efficiency, a provision had been made in the form of the semi-annual Bayram outings during which all rules of behavior were suspended).
Once they were certified as loyal Muslims, the pages of the cul were assigned to one of the Sultan’s personally supervised schools, which also served as training grounds for his sons and nephews. There the brainiest became bureaucrats, the brawniest became officers, and from them all the highest posts in the land were commissioned. Once selected, all were treated equally — prince or slave, it made no difference.
Not surprisingly the Europeans were shocked when they discovered that this formidable new Turkish Empire was not actually ruled by the Turks themselves but by a Christian-born slave caste. It cut clean across the hereditary principle they held so dear. Equally incredible were the reports that in many poor areas, Christian families vied for the chance to send their sons into Muslim slavery, seeing opportunity where any right-thinking Christian could see only shame. But some perceptive European observers were impressed by the invention of the devshirme. One of them, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbucq, the Flemish ambassador to Istanbul, described the cul system as a “ruthless meritocracy.”
“Their ideas are not our ideas,” he wrote. “They care for men as we care for our horses,” he explained to his masters. “With us birth is the standard for everything. There is no opening left for merit. The prestige of birth is the sole key to advancement in the public service, whereas among the Turks no distinction is attached to birth. Each man in Turkey carries in his own hand his ancestry and his position in life, to make or mar as he will. Those so-called slaves who receive the highest offices from the Sultan are most often the sons of shepherds and herdsmen, and far from being ashamed of their parentage they actually glory in it. Nor do they believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary but, rather, the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal. So honors, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service. And if a man be dishonest or lazy or careless, he remains at the bottom of the ladder.”
In the pages’ schools continuous thought and care were devoted to training worthy boys for leadership. As the ever-astute Busbecq pointed out to his civilized Belgian patrons, with no little irony, “In Europe, if we find a good dog or hawk or horse we spare nothing to bring it to the greatest perfection of its kind. But if a young man happens to possess an extraordinary disposition, we do not take like pains. And we receive much pleasure and many kinds of service from the well-trained dog, horse, and hawk, but the Turks receive much more from a well-educated man.”
Nowhere was the painstaking care that Busbecq noticed more lavish than in the Sultan’s own Palace School. There, not only were the pages guided carefully through their curriculum of study and sport, they were also monitored in the more mundane aspects of their daily lives — deportment, posture, diet, grooming, hygiene, to mention a few.
Nothing was left to chance. In setting up a schedule for the boys, care had been taken to calculate the exact point at which a group of constantly monitored, tightly controlled young men of high spirits and good health would need a release from discipline. How often should they be given a refreshing break from their rigid routine? Once a year? Twice a year? Twice a year seemed about right. That was the point at which it must have occurred to some long-dead vizier that, by a happy coincidence, the widely celebrated Bayram festivals could serve a useful, double purpose since they too occurred twice a year. And ever since, the Palace School dedicated each Bayram to both religious observance and pleasure. So it was that twice a year the pages were set free, as it were, to loosen up their tight muscles, soothe their raw nerves, and banish anxious thoughts from their minds.
Perhaps it was the ultimate measure of the control exercised over these boys that even their freedom was doled out in measured doses at regular intervals like medicine. And, just in case twice a year was not quite enough of a tonic to restore good humor and willing obedience, the Sultan by decree proclaimed his own festivals to celebrate royal weddings, circumcisions, and military victories — additional opportunities for the pages to run wild for four days.
By the time his first Bayram rolled around, Danilo del Medigo was more than ready for it. He was already beginning to chafe at the unvarying routine and the constant surveillance. But unlike his fellow pages, who talked longingly of getting drunk and raising hell in Galata, he found himself nursing thoughts of stretching out on the rock ledge at Palace Point looking seaward to what his mother called “the wine-dark sea.” Many nights he dreamed of being carried over the waves back to Italy in a sleek, black caique, often waking up with traces of tears on his face.
Even the new horse that he had renamed Bucephalus didn’t bring him much in the way of comfort. He knew he ought to be happy. He had everything he always wanted. His wishes had been granted. And his father’s oft-quoted warning often came to mind. “Be careful what you wish for. You may get your wish.”
In his Book of Pages, the Chief White Eunuch had recorded only one black mark against the name Danilo del Medigo in his first quarter. The offense noted was Occasional Inattention. Not General Inattention, simply Occasional Inattention. The Aga had recorded that during lessons the doctor’s son showed a tendency to drift off as if to another country and needed to be jarred back to attention with a stick.
The Aga further reported that the page was observed adrift in this strange mental state during the reading of one of the Sultan’s own poems. (Suleiman, a great admirer of many Persian things, wrote poems in that tongue under the pseudonym Muhabbi or He Who Loves.)
It was the opinion of his teacher that abstraction eluded del Medigo. The boy had a mind only for the practical, such as the calculation a gerit player must make, weighing speed against balance
, to choose the precise moment for the thrust. His body, the teacher wrote, was more intelligent than his mind. But it is worth noting that this teacher was himself a Persian poet and thus inclined to value poetry over horsemanship.
The page’s riding instructor, an Albanian who therefore took horses seriously, had awarded del Medigo the highest mark in horsemanship. This page was destined to engage in a tournament at the hippodrome, he reported. Pleading the case of his star student, the Albanian pointed out to his fellow lalas that the boy was the youngest member of the Sultan’s team and that, while he was a pupil in the Harem School, he became accustomed to living at home. Dormitory life was a big change for him. Further, because the annual military campaign got a late start that year, the page’s father, the Sultan’s Chief Body Physician, had not yet returned home for the winter. Perhaps the page missed his father. He was, after all, a motherless boy far from his homeland. Maybe that was where his mind wandered — to far-off Italy or to his mother who had perished at sea while bringing him to Istanbul. Then, because no human being, no matter how understanding, is not completely lacking in prejudice, he added, “The boy is, after all, a Jew. A special case.”
Although he did not acknowledge it to his colleagues, the Albanian riding master was beginning to have his own reservations about his protégé. Of late, del Medigo had become careless in the riding ring, rushing the jumps, his balance slightly off. He seemed almost to be courting danger for its own sake, a serious shortcoming in a young rider. But there was one point on which all the teachers agreed: if anything could cure del Medigo of his malaise, it was the coming Bayram break. A few nights in the fleshpots of Galata were all he needed to bring him back to his old self.
And indeed, when Danilo returned to his class after his first taste of Bayram, he was a changed person: attentive in his classes, meticulous in his riding style, convivial with his mates. Bayram had done the trick. But not for the reasons that his teachers thought.
Danilo did not go off to Galata with his teammates on the eve of his first Bayram break. After attending the Sultan’s baisemain with them, he excused himself with a lame explanation about some Jewish obligation. Hell-bent on reaching the inns of Galata before dark, his mates left him to his own devices and he set off at sundown for the rocky ledge overlooking the Grand Vizier’s dock. There, he spent two hours shivering from cold and nerves, reaching into his sash every so often for the note, by now well-thumbed, that he had found tucked into his blanket that morning.
Written in red chalk, wrapped around a cinnamon stick, and tied with a silken ribbon, it read, “If you are still my paladin, be on the ledge above the water after the last prayer. Fortune favors the bold. Burn this.” At the bottom, two dots and two dashes. No signature. No need for one.
Of course he did not burn the note. He had kept it nestled under his sash, next to his skin throughout the day, except for the times he took it out and rubbed it between his fingers in anticipation. As he wiled away the hours waiting on the ledge, the feel of it in his hands warmed his fingers. But, at the same time, the message itself chilled his heart.
During their days in the Harem School, he and his princess had been seen as children and their escapades in the woods of Kinali as pranks. But now, Princess Saida was officially the Sultan’s marriageable daughter. And Danilo del Medigo was one of the Sultan’s chosen pages for whom a hint of betrayal such as a dalliance with the Sultan’s daughter meant instant death. Hence the shiver that came over him when he reached into his sash to touch the note that was left under his pillow that morning.
When the shadow of the Sultan’s caique finally appeared around the cove, he hardly dared peer out. Then he heard a whistle that seemed to issue from the caique — two long, two short. Gathering his courage, he placed his fingers on his lips and imitated the code. All this whistling was bound to attract attention. But wasn’t that the idea?
Footsteps. Too late now to make a run for it. If this meeting had been found out, if these were the Sultan’s men coming to get him, he was as good as dead anyhow. He straightened his shoulders and walked out into the darkness to meet his fate, a fate that presented itself in the shape of a fat, black eunuch looming up in the darkness and beckoning him silently onto the craft moored at the dock. It was a sleek skiff resembling a Venetian gondola with an upturned prow painted white with gold markings and a green border along its length. In the center there was a canopied seat spread with embroidered velvet cushions. Behind it a flag emblazoned with the Sultan’s personal tugra fluttered in the breeze.
The trip to the island of Kinali was made in perfect silence. Coming ashore for the first time since he left the Princes School, Danilo hardly recognized the little island that served as a childhood playground for him and his princess. Months had passed since he said goodbye to everything it symbolized. But, once ashore, his feet found their way through the underbrush to the familiar clearing and there stood the ruined mosque, roofless but with its walls still intact, the rusty portal, the half-hinged gate.
“Is that my paladin returned from the foreign wars and come to rescue me from this cave?” a sweet voice crooned in the dark.
He pushed through the gate into the moonlit mosque and found his princess reclining on a bed of dried leaves, supported all around by pillows; her long, black hair loose, her eyes blazing, an ethereal vision in some diaphanous stuff that made her seem suspended in a cloud. This was a side of his princess he had never seen before.
“Are you still my paladin?” Her voice emerged low and husky from the cloud.
“I am, Princess.” He slid easily into the old familiar game.
“And will you love me faithfully as long as we live?”
“I will, Princess.”
Then, in a move quite new to the game, she emerged from her bed of leaves like one of Raphaello’s angels rising up to heaven, held out her arms, and commanded him, “Embrace me.”
The coup de foudre struck them both at once with the suddenness of a thunderbolt on a cloudless summer day, and they clung to each other with an intensity that surprised them both. At that moment, Danilo was not quite sure whether he was the Sultan’s page embracing the Princess Saida or Zerbino embracing Princess Isabella.
Hours later, in the deep night when he was lying in his own bed, he tried to recapture the evening in memory. But it eluded him like a half-remembered dream. No, not a dream. More as if Aphrodite had descended from on high, clad in her magic girdle, and bestowed on him a gift from the gods. None of it was anything like his experience with the generous whore at Ostia who had promised to take him on a trip to heaven. Making love to a princess whose virginity was inviolate turned out to be quite different from making love to a whore.
His night with the whore — appreciated and never to be forgotten — had been an adventure of the senses: arousal and satisfaction. With the princess, there was never a question in his mind that he would satisfy himself at the expense of her virginity. In the Sultan’s eyes, his daughter’s hymen was his jewel, to be bestowed by him on a husband of his choosing. And any man who aimed to take possession of that jewel was a dead man. But, his own pleasure aside, Danilo would never have allowed himself to expose Saida to the risk of punishment that was bound to fall on her if she were to dishonor her father by losing her virginity before marriage. Nevertheless, when he cupped her naked breasts he felt he had the world in his hands. For that reward, holding himself back from the act of possession was a small price to pay.
By the time the next Bayram holiday rolled around he was prepared for the black eunuch on the Sultan’s caique. And the princess’s explanation that Narcissus (the name given to the eunuch slave when he was cut) was her grandmother’s steward and acted with the Valide’s authority, went a long way toward explaining how a black slave was able, in defiance of both law and custom, to transport a princess and a page in one of the Sultan’s own fleet of caiques to a tryst on the Princes’ Islands. If the Valide’s facto
tum made a request in her name, only a fool would question it, much less refuse to honor it. As to how the princess had managed to slip in and out of the Sultan’s harem after dark — it being the second-most carefully guarded enclave in the entire empire (the Sultan’s selamlik was, of course, the first) — Danilo had only a single clue: a request the princess made of him casually when their first rendezvous came to a close. How difficult would it be, she inquired, for him to come by a medicine from his father’s pharmacy without the doctor’s knowledge?
“Not at all difficult,” he allowed. “Name your poison.”
She shuddered. “No, not a poison. What I need is a strong sleeping draft that can be brewed in a pot of tea and will keep the person who drinks it fast asleep all night long. But not,” she quickly added, “something that would do the person any harm.”
He arrived at their next meeting bearing a flacon which, he assured her, contained enough calming medicine to put an entire army to sleep, doled out at the rate of five drops per cup. She thanked him prettily with a curtsy as if he had presented her with a bouquet of posies, and the matter was never discussed between them again.
After that first rendezvous they met secretly every Bayram, and whatever festivals cropped up in between, on the little island of Kinali and made love — chaste love. For Danilo, the magic of her never went away. The sweetness of her breath, the taste of her skin, never lost their savor, spiced as they were by the risk, the danger, and even by the very infrequency of their meetings. And, as one Bayram followed another, those meetings became more and more like journeys to a different country, in a time out of mind.
The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi Page 7