The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi

by Jacqueline Park

  More than anything, the doctor missed his bed. After years of service to kings and popes and sultans, he was still not at his ease in military camps. Nor was he secure on the back of a horse. Judah del Medigo was a scholar and a healer. To him, the killing field had always been alien. Yet, with the single exception of a wonderfully sedentary general in Venice, every one of his celebrated masters had insisted that he accompany them on campaign. Understandable. The battlefield was, after all, the place of greatest peril for the leader, the place where he most needed his body physician.

  Now Judah del Medigo’s lifelong ordeal was over. He had the Sultan’s word on it. When, after a hellish thirty-day siege, the Ottomans finally defeated a stray remnant of the Austrian army at Guns, the Sultan asked his physician to name his reward for service rendered beyond the call of duty. Send me home, Judah longed to ask. But his pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he simply requested relief from field duty in all future campaigns. This was the second time he had been engaged at the Sultan’s side in a lengthy, unsuccessful siege of Vienna, and he honestly believed that one more rain-soaked summer campaign besieging the emperor’s capital would kill him.

  Anyone with eyes could tell at a glance that over the past three months, the doctor had deteriorated from a vigorous specimen — remarkably robust for a man in his sixties — to a pale shade with cloudy eyes, hanging flesh, and a tremor in the limbs. He is an old man, the Sultan thought. And sick. It was a rare moment of recognition for that remote being who tended to regard those close to him purely as extensions of himself.

  The doctor’s request was granted. Questions of compassion and gratitude aside, Judah del Medigo’s dilapidated state suggested that the time had come for the Padishah’s Chief Body Physician to make way for a younger man. So the long trek home along the Danube was Judah’s last campaign march. From now on, he would remain in residence in the house the Sultan had given him in the Third Court. But today, the Sultan insisted that his physician must take his place in the triumphal procession from Üsküdar into the capital. Suleiman had been groomed for high heroism. He knew that a true hero enhanced his glory by sharing it.

  “Your son will be so proud of you,” he assured the doctor. “To see you enter the city borne on a litter in my train like a prince, that is a sight he will cherish all his life.”

  And what about the sight of his aging and aching parent dying on his own doorstep? Judah asked silently. But he was well enough acquainted with his master to know when the man had made up his mind. So here he was, being bounced up and down on the cobblestones, his back crying out for relief, as he fulfilled the demands of royal honor. By now, both sides of the parade route were packed with the Sultan’s subjects, four or even sometimes five deep. In this crush, the bearers of the doctor’s litter were forced to swerve one way, then another, to avoid harming the bodies pressing against the litter on both sides.

  Seen through Judah’s fevered eyes, the crowd took on the aspect of a pack of howling wolves. It was a hallucination. This was not an unruly mob. Not even a boisterous one. But with many thousands of pairs of feet milling in the narrow streets, there was bound to be the odd jostle or collision. And much more noise than was usually tolerated in this strictly regulated city. Because today, every citizen of the capital who was not lame or at death’s door had turned out to celebrate the Sultan’s victory at Guns over the king of Spain, acknowledged in Europe as Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman emperor.

  Of course, the Turks never referred to Charles the Fifth as the emperor. For them, there was only one emperor, one Padishah, their Padishah, known to the world as Suleiman the Magnificent. And today he would appear before them in his most traditional and exalted role: the Warrior of God against the Infidel, the Ghazi, Son of Ghazis, and Sultan of Ghazis.

  It was in defense of the faith that the Ghazi Sultan set out every spring on campaign, as his forefathers did. That he returned laden with booty and prisoners and conquered ever more territory on three continents was proof that Allah smiled on his endeavors. So the intoxication of the citizens was tempered by their awe at Allah’s beneficence. And the doctor’s pain was tempered by knowing that at every crossing, he was that much closer to his home, to his bed and to his son, Danilo.

  The Sultan had sent word ahead that the doctor’s son was to be given a place behind a velvet rope in the First Court of Topkapi Palace, a place where the page should get an excellent view of his father being borne into the palace in the Sultan’s train. But when the long procession began its ascent of Palace Point, Danilo del Medigo was not on his way to take his place behind the velvet rope in the First Court of Topkapi Palace. He had not bathed. He was not shaved. He was nowhere near the First Court. He was, in fact, stretched out beside his horse in a stall in the Sultan’s private stables, fast asleep.

  14

  IN THE STABLE

  Still adrift in that blurred terrain between sleeping and waking, Danilo heard at a distance the strains of “The Sultan’s March” played by a military band. Drowsy, more asleep than awake, he set it aside as part of his dream, a terrible, foul-smelling dream of dodging a snorting, bucking horse that kept kicking out at him. He felt his nose twitch and instinctively raised his hand to remove the source of the tickle — a straw. Then came a familiar odor — horse manure — but mixed with something else, something less familiar. Something fetid, rank, and evil-smelling.

  Still clinging to the last vestiges of sleep, he rolled over to one side, closer to the bad smell, sniffing. All at once he was fully alert. Before he even opened his eyes, he knew where he was. He was in the stall of his horse, Bucephalus.

  The sound of the animal’s labored breathing brought back his memory of the previous night. Of being wakened in his dormitory bed by Abdul, the stable boy.

  “Wake up, sir, you must come to the stable. Your horse is sick. Very sick.”

  “Bucephalus? Sick?” The horse had been in perfect health when he left him a few hours earlier.

  “He cries. He moans. And now, his belly swells.”

  “Did you call the horse doctor?” Danilo asked, throwing on some clothes haphazardly.

  “The Master of the Horse is in Üsküdar with the parade horses, sir.” Of course, the Sultan’s horse doctor would be in Üsküdar preparing the Sultan’s horses to appear in the procession.

  One last yank at his girdle and Danilo was off, followed by the stable boy, both barefooted, dashing past the long hall of the School for Pages, ducking into a small corridor, skirting the big barn, now empty, and finally reaching the stall of his ailing horse Bucephalus, his pride, his joy, the love of his life, the Sultan’s gift to him. Oh, God, don’t let it be the colic, he thought.

  Even before Abdul swung open the gate of the paddock, they could hear the mournful neighing of the suffering horse. In the stall, the animal lay cramped, the way he lay in his mother’s womb, head rolling from side to side. Unmindful of the muck, Danilo threw himself onto the straw beside the horse, stroking the sweaty brow, heedless of the foul breath issuing from the open mouth.

  “Danilo is here, Bucephalus. Danilo will make you better,” he whispered. In fact, Danilo had no idea how to cure a sick horse.

  “Abdul, you must get to the staging area.” He reached for the pouch that hung from his girdle. “Take this money.” He held out a handful of coins. “Run to the harbor. Get one of those louts to ferry you across the Bosphorus. Pay him what he asks. Find the horse doctor. Tell him he must come. Bucephalus is very sick.”

  And the groom was gone, leaving Danilo and his horse to weather what was left of the night together.

  In the hour before sunrise the muezzin’s voice was heard, calling the faithful to the first of the day’s prayers. As if in response, Bucephalus shook himself to his feet, sweat pouring down into his blood-red eyes, stood still for a moment, and then expelled a huge bubble of gas. Then he began to thrash wildly, kicking out against the paneled wall of the s
tall. Blind instinct led his terrified master to a guide rope hanging on the wall. Bobbing and weaving to avoid being butted by the pain-maddened animal, he looped the rope and made a desperate attempt to throw it over the horse’s head.

  With great patience, he tugged the animal out of the stall, coaxing, pulling, smacking, anything to prevent the poor beast from laming himself as he kicked at the paddock wall. Of course, there was no contest between a man and a horse eight times his weight. But somewhere beneath the fever, the much loved animal responded to his master’s will and was slowly eased out of the stall.

  Not knowing what else to do, Danilo began to walk the sweaty horse back and forth along the length of the stable, the way he had done so often, cooling him down after a race. Up and back, over and over, always keeping a firm hand on the rope that the poor beast continued to yank at every so often, as if in a spasm.

  Finally, by the first light of dawn, the loud neighing subsided into a soft moan and Bucephalus, after emitting a terrifying series of loud, smelly farts, walked back into his stall of his own accord and lay down in the straw. Is my horse — Danilo could not bring himself even to think the word — dying?

  He reached for a sponge and proceeded to wipe the sweat very gently from the horse’s head. Then, settling himself down on the straw, he whispered into the velvety ear, “Live, Bucephalus. Live. Please don’t die.”

  And there they lay, face to face, master and horse, the master weeping unashamedly, his tears mixed with the sweat of the horse. Now, for the first time, the thought came to him that a rider without a mount cannot compete in the gerit. The thought was too painful to face. He closed his eyes to shut out the world and allowed himself to drift into a nap. Only for a few minutes, he told himself. Just until Abdul comes back from Üsküdar with the Master of the Horse.

  But when he awakened, the sun was shining bright through the slots of the stall and there was no horse doctor. And no groom.

  “Abdul!” he shouted. “Abdul!”

  After three shouts, the groom came limping in from the barn, carrying a pail and favoring his right leg as he tended to do when feeling put-upon or ill-used.

  “Where have you been? Where is the horse doctor?”

  “He would not come, master.”

  “Did you tell him that Bucephalus was very sick?”

  “He was attending to the Sultan’s own horse. The white horse; the stallion that the horse doctor himself chose to lead the procession.”

  The procession. Oh, God. Did I miss it?

  “What time is it?” Realizing as he asked that the groom had no way of knowing the time, he rephrased the question. “Has the muezzin called out the third prayer?”

  The groom could not remember. His religion did not demand that he keep track of the daily prayer schedule. The muezzin did that with his call to prayer. All the boy had to do was fall to his knees five times a day, face Mecca, touch his forehead to the ground, and intone, Allahu Akbar.

  “What about the music? Have you heard the music for the third prayer?” Danilo pressed.

  “I think I heard the muezzin on the way to Üsküdar.” Abdul wrinkled his forehead in an effort to remember the events of a few hours ago. “Yes, I think so. How else did I get my knees wet?” He smiled, pleased by his own cleverness. “Yes, I knelt down on the deck on the way to Üsküdar.” A pause. “Or was it on the way back that I prayed?”

  Hopeless. But Danilo gave it one last try. “Tell me what happened at Üsküdar. Did you see the parade horses leave the camp on a barge?”

  “Oh, yes, I crossed with them. Otherwise I would still be back in Üsküdar. You didn’t give me enough money. I had to pay it all to the boatman on the way over. And even so, I had to walk to the camp from the dock. You should have given me more money, master. My feet are very sore.”

  “Sorry.” Danilo knew when he was beaten. “I will make it up. Now, tell me, had the procession begun when you landed back in the city? Did you see the sipahis? The Janissaries?”

  “Sipahis, yes. Janissaries, no. Lucky for me. You know what they’re like on a feast day.”

  “Thank you, Abdul.” May you rot in hell, Abdul. As this curse rose in him, he heard again the strains of “The Sultan’s March,” louder this time, unmistakably real. So the music was not a dream, simply far off, which meant that the procession was at the very beginning of the long climb up to Palace Point. If he ran all the way, he might still be able to take his place behind the velvet rope in time. For him not to appear after receiving a personal invitation from the Sultan would be unforgivably disloyal. In the crowd of hundreds he would be the only one present to honor the doctor, a widower with no other living relatives than his only son. Absentmindedly, Danilo picked at the wisps of straw clinging to his caftan. What’s this? A lump of manure was stuck to his girdle. He couldn’t possibly appear behind the velvet rope in the state he was in. To appear dirty and disheveled would bring shame on the Sultan.

  What a mess. He would never get out of this scrape. His father would never forgive him. His horse would never be well. He would never compete in the gerit at the hippodrome. Any bad thing he had ever lived through paled in significance beside the events of this cursed day.

  But whatever black marks Danilo had picked up in the Aga’s grading book, nowhere had anyone marked him as faint-hearted. Stubborn, yes. Stiff-necked, yes. But all agreed that Danilo del Medigo was one who, as the Albanian riding master put it, always got back on the horse. He had one dim hope left: forget the velvet rope and simply be at the door of his father’s house to greet the doctor when he arrived home.

  As the faint music of the procession got louder, the boy’s backbone began to stiffen. By the time he was on his feet he had begun to concoct a scenario to account for missing the procession. A sudden earache . . . toothache . . . headache. But by the time he had brushed himself off and called for Abdul, he had discarded these ideas as feeble. No matter. Something better would occur to him. Meanwhile, his immediate task was to beat the doctor home to his own door.

  “Here is what I want you to do, Abdul. I want you to stay with Bucephalus. I am going to my father’s house to make my peace with him. Don’t leave the horse for any reason. And don’t feed him. Or water him.” These were tips he had picked up from frequenting stables. “If the horse doctor comes . . .”

  No time for ifs. He was off at a run. The fastest route would be to take the Eunuch’s Path to the Third Court. As he was running, he reviewed in his mind what he would say to pacify his father. He knew himself to be an atrocious liar, sure to give himself away by stammering or blushing. Better to tell the truth. That he stayed up all night waiting for the Master of the Horse and then fell asleep. A lame excuse, he thought. A lame horse made for a lame excuse. Bad joke. But having thought it cheered him up nevertheless.

  Now, he was back in his dormitory where this miserable day began. From here on, everything depended on Fortuna. There was a back door past the classrooms, which was often kept slightly ajar by a small, triangular piece of wood. If he was in luck, one of the pages would have put it in place today for the holiday outing, and Danilo could make the dash around the entire circumference of the palace without being questioned or held up — if his luck held. Thank God for the Eunuch’s Path. Thank God for the old fruit ladder. Pray God that the last user had the decency to replace it against the dead tree trunk outside the wall. He spat on his forefingers and rubbed them on his forehead, muttering some fragment of a prayer in Hebrew and, for extra protection, adding a plea to the goddess Fortuna. A born and bred Italian, Danilo continued to turn to the old pagan dame for help when he was in serious trouble, on the off chance that she was still doling out her whimsical favors.

  15

  THE SULTAN ARRIVES

  It had been a long, hot wait for the ladies at the top of the Diwan Tower. Noon had come and gone. After the climb up the tight little staircase of the tower came hours of pomp
and spectacle. But still no sign of the Sultan on his white horse. And sherbets and cakes and melons and soft pillows and cooling poultices for the eyes could only assuage so much discomfort.

  By now, Princess Saida was beginning to wilt in the unseasonable heat. The hours in the tower had reduced her perception of the event to a whirling blur of banners and animals and uniforms and weaponry. She had been exhorted by the Lady Hürrem to applaud the Sultan’s cavalry, to revere his cadre of Islamic judges, to cheer his hundreds of camels and thousands of caparisoned horses, and to wonder at a weird gaggle of muffled Bedouins atop the battle wagons that hauled the celebrated Ottoman cannons along the parade route.

  No doubt about it, the procession provided a prodigious feast for the eyes, which was not to say that the other senses had been neglected. Between courses, the spectators were served up a series of auditory delights, such as was provided this afternoon by the Anatolian Seljuks, each of these mini-parades accompanied by its own band. And all of this accompanied by a constant unrelieved cacophony of cheering, shouting, and blaring horns.

  Attuned to the serenity of the harem, where the loudest sound to be heard was the twittering of birds, Princess Saida was overwhelmed by the bombardment of sights and sounds. In the two years since her brothers had left the Harem School, her life had slowed down to the daily pace of the harem, where a visit to the hamam baths could take an entire afternoon and a complete depilation (undertaken at the first sign of a hair anywhere on the body or in its crevices) easily occupied the better part of several hours. It was not surprising the headache that had begun early in the day now held her temples in a vise-like grip. Even the shining prospect of witnessing tomorrow’s gerit match at the hippodrome dimmed under the barrage of heat and noise. Barely fifteen years old, the princess was no match for the Second Kadin, whose early years as a peasant girl in Russia had given her the staying power of an ox. At heart, Lady Hürrem was still a farm girl, as awed by the trappings of royalty as any other peasant, and so captivated by the pageantry unfolding below them that she barely noticed the discomfort, much less the exhaustion of the girl beside her.