He felt the sweat running down from the turban, and realised it was cold, trickling over his greasy forehead like a wet, icy spider. Dreadful bone-chilling fear was setting in. He almost yelped as Dragi thumped him gently on the arm and overrode the rising panic, bringing his wits back into line.
Günaydın. That was his greeting. Good morning. Or should he plump for Selamün aleyküm, being a good Muslim? Why hadn’t he discussed such minutiae with Dragi before they left the house? What would the guards expect of him? How could he hope to survive the Yedikule, when he would mess it all up just getting to the gate? His step faltered again and another light thump from Dragi pulled him back from the edge once more.
He tried not to look up. They were closing on the heavy wooden doors now and four janissaries peered down at them from the battlements above. As they reached an invisible line only Dragi recognised, he stopped and the others fell in beside him. One of the janissaries leaned over the parapet.
‘Name and business.’
Dragi stepped one pace to the side and gestured at their shorter companion. The man scratched his head around the rim of his crimson cap, stepped forward, snorting and snuffling, and held up a rolled paper document covered in scrawled script, as he grinned a grin with more gum than tooth.
‘Lazari,’ the guard noted, gesturing his recognition and then turning his attention to the others. The Romani sailor straightened. ‘I am Dragi Abbas bin Pagoslu, first officer and pilot for the mighty Kemal Reis,’ he then gestured to Skiouros as he continued, ‘accompanying Aydin Reis, captain of the Nizâmiye, to visit a prisoner from our fleet held in the cells.’
Skiouros felt his insides lurch. When he’d asked who he was supposed to be, Dragi had hedged around the question, answering vaguely with some rubbish about a minor functionary. But… the captain of a Turkish kadirga? Was he mad? Skiouros had heard the name of his guise spoken during the voyage from Napoli, and had even seen the man once, upon departure from Crete. Aydin Reis had taken command of the vessel that had formerly been captained by the butcher Etci Hassan, changing its name from Yarim Ay to distance himself from the crimes of his predecessor. He was new to captaincy, yes, and subordinate to Kemal Reis, but still the danger of impersonating an Ottoman citizen had just intensified with the claim that he was, in fact, a reasonably important naval officer. Skiouros felt a long, low nervous fart slip out and hoped it hadn’t been audible from the walls.
The janissary officer was peering at them over the parapet, now with a troublesome mix of suspicion and respect on his face. The more Skiouros dredged up fragmentary memories of Aydin Reis, the more he realised that he and the officer looked nothing alike at all. Hopefully the coat and turban would do the talking for him, though Dragi seemed to be doing a sterling job in that department, anyway.
‘You have documentation?’ the guard called down.
Dragi fished in the bag at his side and held forth another rolled paper, which earned a nod of acceptance from the janissary above. As the man stepped back and his face disappeared from the wall top, Skiouros hissed at Dragi from the corner of his closed mouth.
‘Who forged you official documents?’
Dragi turned an appraising frown on him. ‘Forged? These are entirely authentic, my Reis.’
Skiouros closed his eyes for a moment as a nervous shiver rocked him from top to bottom, and then opened them sharply as a clunk and a creak announced the unbolting of the portal before them. As the heavy wooden door crept open, revealing the dark passageway that led through to a square of light that was the courtyard, Skiouros tried to pull himself up straight as though he were some kind of dignitary and not a complete fraud. It didn’t help that he was sure he was over a foot shorter than Aydin Reis and no amount of stretching himself was going to make up that deficiency.
Mind you, the last time Kemal’s fleet were docked in the city that ship would have been commanded by Etci Hassan, with Aydin having been little more than a pilot or junior officer. The chances of any of the janissaries in the city having even heard of him, let alone seen him, were pretty small.
A party of three more janissaries, including another lesser officer, emerged from the gate and beckoned to the trio outside. As the dusty figure of Lazari stepped forward, he was recognised and admitted without ceremony, the officer thumbing back towards the gate and shaking his head unconcerned as the man proffered his documentation. Clearly Lazari was a regular here. Skiouros wondered in what capacity.
To Dragi, on the other hand, the officer wandered up, clicking his fingers and gesturing for the paperwork. The Romani handed it over and then settled into an attentive stance while the soldier read it. After a pause, the janissary looked up at Skiouros with dark, inscrutable eyes.
‘Merhaba, Aydin Reis.’
Skiouros’s mind exploded with panicked possibilities and he desperately tried to keep the expression on his face from changing. Merhaba? A simple hello? The expected response would be to repeat the word, but somehow it did not sound right. Yes, this man was a janissary officer – perhaps an aşçı, or a lower baş karakullukçu – but Skiouros was the reis of a naval ship. Surely he would outrank this officer? Or were rank comparisons even viable between the two different services? His panic heightened as he realised he was standing dumbstruck while he tried to reason through an impossible question for a Greek street thief.
With a monumental effort of self-control, as the janissary began to regard him more and more oddly, he twisted his expression from what probably appeared as panicked and perplexed to one that he hoped conveyed disdain and disapproval. Hoping his voice would not crack with anxiety, he fixed the soldier with a steely gaze and spoke in a deep Turkish voice, trying to emulate an Anatolian accent on the assumption that the janissary was from one of the Balkan nations, given his service’s recruitment methods.
‘Günaydın,’ he replied in a stern manner. There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Skiouros kept his eyes locked on the janissary and the two men engaged in some battle of wills that the Greek could feel happening even if he didn’t understand it. The tension shattered when Dragi coughed and nodded at the documentation. As the spell broke, the officer looked down at the paper in his hand, ran his eyes across it two or three times, and finally nodded, returning the documentation, stepping back and gesturing towards the gateway.
Dragi started to walk for the gate and then slowed so that Skiouros could pass through first. The Greek tried to keep his back straight and his turbaned head high as he passed the small knot of guards in the passage, and the pair emerged into the daylight once more a moment later. The guard officer’s voice suddenly issued from behind Skiouros and caused him to jump slightly. He hadn’t realised that the man had followed them.
‘Do you know the way, Reis?’
Dragi turned to him. ‘We are fine, thank you.’
The pair walked through the blistering sunshine and Skiouros marvelled at the Yedikule’s interior. As a Greek in the city he had had no cause ever to enter the fortress – nor, of course, any authority to do so. It would be a fair bet that not one resident of the Greek enclave had even passed through this gate… at least not one that emerged intact again.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Perhaps a wide open courtyard with a couple of barrack buildings? A stable? A few civic structures to house the new records office. What he had not been prepared for was a small self-contained city. From the entrance a thoroughfare ran off through the heart of the complex to the ancient Golden Gate at the far end, and from that main road side streets ran off each lined with buildings of many different shapes and sizes. At the heart of the fortress, next to the main road, stood a recent Ottoman mosque, modelled after the more utilitarian Anatolian style than the city’s former Byzantine conversions.
Dragi nudged him and walked on down the main road. Skiouros picked up the pace and fell in alongside him once again, spotting the dusty Lazari hovering at a corner some way down the street. Something nagged at Skiouros’ thoughts, and he addressed Dr
agi in a low voice.
‘I take it we’re not really here to see that prisoner? I mean, we’ve passed the prison tower already.’ He thumbed over his shoulder at the huge stone drum that was the largest of the seven towers and known infamously among the foreign enclaves as the place where those poor souls brought to this fortress languished until the angel of death took them.
‘Oh we shall see one prisoner, and likely several more, albeit briefly. Steel yourself, Skiouros, for the execution chambers,’ Drago said in an off-hand manner, causing Skiouros to shudder. ‘They are kept in the old Byzantine towers. The great tower back there is where the non-Muslim prisoners are kept. Might interest you to know that it’s had fewer residents than the cells of the faithful. Fewer deaths, too.’
‘Charming. Why are we here to watch executions, Dragi? Is this to see Şehzade Selim? Surely you could have found us somewhere a little more forgiving?’
Dragi shook his head. ‘Ahmet arranges clandestine meetings upon which we can eavesdrop, and Korkut fears not to put himself in the public eye, but Selim is more than aware of the dangers this city can hold, and astute enough not to jeopardise himself. Three times he has left his quarters in Tekfur – twice to visit his father at the new palace, both times at the heart of a small army, and now today, to come here. And it is important that you see all three princes, Skiouros.’
The Greek sagged as they closed on Lazari. He didn’t like fighting. He didn’t like death. He didn’t even like taking a life in battle. As for the grisly business of executions…
It was then that he realised what the short, dusty man was – he’d not picked up on the red capped uniform due to the poor condition of it.
‘Lazari’s an executioner?’
Dragi nodded. ‘One of the Bostancı corps. And through a miracle of organisation also one of our community by birth. Despite his allegiances to the imperial family, he still holds faith with his people, so long as there is no direct conflict. I assured him there would not be, so please be careful here.’ He sighed. ‘This was my only means of access to the Şehzade. I could gain us admittance to the Yedikule with permissions requested at the naval offices, but for where prince Selim will be, more surreptitious means were necessary.’
Skiouros tried to equate the figure before him – the man with the easy smile, whom he had watched drinking salep this morning while eyeing up a Romani girl – with the kind of person who could routinely – mechanically even – take a man’s life. It seemed incongruous. Lazari was so harmless, so pleasant. Skiouros had heard of the Bostancı before, and even seen them in the gardens of the more important public complexes, but they had always been impeccably turned out in their red cap and green shirt, and had never been dirty and unkempt. Perhaps Lazari’s state was symptomatic of the conditions in which he worked?
And now the little man was leading them on again, past the small mosque and angling off down one of the southern streets towards the old Byzantine gateway, which was flanked by twin heavy, square, white towers, each of which had been given a new, pointed Ottoman roof. Once, centuries ago, the greatest emperors in the world had ridden through the sealed-up grand arch of this Golden Gate. Now, it seemed, the towers that had watched so many emperors pass between them were witness to a whole new aspect of imperial function.
As they approached the towers, Skiouros felt his blood chilling. The Golden Gate had once been a triple-arched triumphal monument akin to the ancient ones he had seen in Rome, but since the arch had been turned into part of a larger fortification those grand, high, graceful curves had been blocked up with brick and stone, leaving only a small entrance in the central one. The left-hand of the two flanking bastions had been given additional buttressing since the conquest and it was towards this and the small, unobtrusive doorway at its base that Skiouros’ eyes drifted.
‘Must we do this?’
Dragi simply nodded and kept walking for the left-hand of the blocked arches and the doorway that lay just before it. As they neared, Skiouros noted that in addition to the pair of janissaries that flanked the main arch itself, the shadowy gate also held a small knot of soldiers in less ornate and much more business-like kit. Şehzade Selim’s men, he realised, remembering the small units of provincial soldiers who had accompanied the other two crown princes. The men at the gate gestured as the three approached and demanded their papers. Lazari gave his and was directed swiftly and without ceremony to the small doorway. Dragi and Skiouros were looked up and down carefully, but once their documentation was deemed to be in order, they were saluted and admitted, with instructions to make their way to the top floor with haste and not to detour from their route.
The prince’s men gave them a respectful – if suspicious – look as they passed into the gloom of the doorway and entered the main structure. Lazari led them through a larger chamber and then a smaller one, each clearly set up as a guard room though currently deserted, and emerged in a dingy corridor lit by a single blazing torch. Voices in local accents echoed from their right, while the left led up an old flight of stairs into the gloom. A small door in the wall ahead had the appearance of a cell, with a small grilled hatch at eye height, and it was to this that Lazari directed them while he turned and made for the stairs.
As the executioner left them and ascended to some presumably grisly location, Dragi flashed a slightly nervous look – the first one Skiouros had ever seen on this man, and therefore in itself a worrying sight. Skiouros felt his nerves reach new heights as he and Dragi stepped to the door and the Romani reached out and tried it. The wooden portal opened with only a faint squeak on well-oiled hinges, and the room beyond was cast into gloomy, muted illumination.
Here at the lowest tier of the tower, the room was just a little over Skiouros’ height, low enough that a tall man would have to stoop to enter. The floorboards of the room above – presumably that to which Lazari had ascended, creaked and groaned with unseen movement.
The feeble glow of the torch from the corridor outside would do little to permeate the gloom within, but fortunately an extra source of light illuminated the chamber, and continued to do so as Dragi closed the door behind them, putting a finger to his lips to hush his companion.
Skiouros stared at that source of light. A square hole in the ceiling – the floor of the room above – corresponded with what appeared to be a sizeable well in the floor, presumably allowing those in the room above to draw water. Or perhaps not. Skiouros frowned at the lack of ropes and buckets. And yet he could distinctly hear the sounds of running water rising from that hole.
Dragi took a few steps and sank to the floor, crossing his legs, half way between the door and the well. As Skiouros followed suit, his nerves still jumping and a sense of foreboding on the increase, he opened his mouth to speak, but the Romani simply cut him off with a motion to silence. Now, as Skiouros sat quietly, he realised that he could hear voices. Back at the edge of the room, the noises emerging through the hole from above had been drowned out by the sound of the water. Closer, the words could be picked out.
‘…deserters. To my mind, such rough scum should not be executed. Their death is a waste of resources. Not only do we lose three bodies, but the executioner over there gets the pay for three more corpses from the treasury. Deserters should be punished – disciplined severely – but then fed back into the ranks in positions of low trust and low value. I abhor waste, Sefer. It should be a sin. Look at this pathetic trio.’
The voice was an odd mix of quiet grace and husky rawness. A slight scratchy tone pervading an otherwise poetic and eloquent intonation. Like being serenaded by the desiccated remains of a poet.
The sounds of new footsteps cut across the voices as three distinct pairs of bare feet entered the room and tromped across the boards, coming to a halt somewhere near the centre. Skiouros felt slightly sick as he heard one of them in a far-eastern Turkish accent begging for mercy. He turned his troubled gaze on Dragi, whose expression mirrored his distaste, though somewhat overridden with a solid determination.<
br />
A number of strange scraping and groaning sounds issued from the room above, rising to cover the pleading voices, which now made a desperate trio, and then, for a moment, everything fell silent. Skiouros was a little disturbed to hear that husky, poetic voice above humming a tune in a minor key – a Turkish children’s lullaby with which Skiouros was fairly familiar.
His heart almost gave out as a hatch suddenly gave way in the floor and a pair of legs dropped into it, shaking around and shuddering. The plaintive cries above had decreased in number but risen in pitch and desperation. Skiouros watched in horrified fascination as the man’s ragged, stained trousers suddenly soaked through with involuntary urine and filth and the bucking and flailing died away, leaving just a spasmodic twitch in one foot which, in turn, ended in less than a minute.
Dragi’s face was bleak but accepting. Horribly – more horribly even than this first hanging that Skiouros had ever witnessed – the hummed tune above did not seem to falter or skip during the process, and warbled on pleasantly.
Skiouros tried to whisper something but his voice appeared not to want to work and his eyes remained horrified and fascinated, locked on the dangling legs until suddenly they rose a foot or so, shook a little, and then the entire body dropped through the hole to land with an unpleasant wet crunch on the flagged floor in a pool of the poor victim’s own excreta.
He continued to stare in sickened intent at the body and took a while to realise what was going on above as more scraping and thudding was accompanied by a plaintive voice calling out.
‘No! No, no, no, no…’
With a creak, the hatch was pulled back up and latched, deepening the unpleasant gloom of this chamber, which was starting to fill with the combined stink of death and faeces. Skiouros realised that he was listening to the rope being tightened now over the trilling of the last verses of that old lullaby, and turned his eyes away from the hanging site just in time as the clack, thump, scraping and rustling rang out, the gagging noises and the stink of voiding once more assailing his senses. He kept his gaze averted, concentrating on the ancient stonework of the tower’s wall until a wet thump announced that the second sailor had joined the first.
Pasha's Tale Page 13