Pasha's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  He sat straight and rocked gently back and forth. His news had poured out in a torrent with no form, and while his mind was still sharp enough, sometimes his memory seemed as fragile as his thigh, which had never been the same since Dimo’s knife, and he had to run through the years in his head to see if he’d missed anything. He smiled suddenly.

  ‘I have a wife, Lykaion. Naime. She is a convert originally from Sofya in Bulgar-land, less than two hundred miles from Father’s farm, if you could believe it. And we have two sons, both of whom are serving under Barbarossa across the north of Africa. Hamza is the pilot of a kadirga, and will likely make reis by this time next year. We named him that – steadfast – after Parmenio, you know, since that’s what my Genoese friend’s name means in old Greek. But Kurt was named for you – the wolf. Kurt is a janissary in one of the naval ortas. I tried to get him assigned to the shipyard, but he refused. He wanted to be out there on the waves.’

  He chuckled. ‘So far removed from their father in so many ways. They both remind me more of you: all duty and for the glory of the empire. But then I am not the sneak thief you knew once, Lykaion. It’s odd, really. Once upon a time I lived in fear of ships. I’d spent a journey to Crete having to make myself sick on one. I’d been captured in battle from one and been a slave on another. I’d narrowly avoided being shot on one and sailed off into the unknown on another, drinking my own urine for survival and watching my shipmates dropping from disease. And in the end here am I, personally overseeing the construction of the navy and regularly taking ship back and forth to places like İzmit and Gelibolu.’

  He sighed. A lifetime in an hour. He rose waveringly, his hip causing him a little difficulty, and hovered for a moment, steadying himself. Even with such little movement, he could feel that pulling sensation deep in his chest that reminded him that the sand was still running through his personal hourglass on its last turn. Still, he hadn’t done badly for a peasant thief on the city streets. He’d done his part more than once to bring a little civilization and humanity to this corner of the earth and, under the great Süleyman it would continue in the same vein, he was sure. A thought suddenly struck him and, with some difficulty, he removed his coat and vest-jacket, and then shrugged out of his silky shirt. Was it against the law to stand half-naked in a mosque? The great Süleyman codified a dozen laws a day in his efforts to tighten the madly-sprawling legal system of the empire. What was law today might not be tomorrow, and vice versa.

  Despite his age, his skin was still well-toned, if not muscular, and the tattoos his wife had long since given up trying to understand were as vivid as the day he had had them inked upon his body on a mysterious western island, by a strange tribe who had opened his eyes to the divine more than anything else in his life.

  ‘I never got to show you these. They lay incomplete for a long time. The snarling face in the lower circle is the guayza – he was to represent your living spirit while I hunted Cem Sultan in the belief that somehow I’d be avenging you when I killed him. In the year following the pretender prince’s death, I came to realise that your spirit had never really been restless and my revenge was just self-indulgence to mask my own problems. I think on some level I was always aware that the guayza was actually me – unsettled, unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Only when Skiouros disappeared and I became Sincabı did I finally realise how to finish the tattoo. My Romani friends completed the designs for me on the night of the festival.’

  He looked down at his arm. Between the snarling demon in the lowest circle and the dreadful fire spirit that climbed his neck, the circle that had lain empty for three years, rather than bearing the opia that would be Lykaion at rest, instead held in a delicate calligraphic hand:

  سلام

  ‘Salām,’ Skiouros explained, somewhat unnecessarily. 'Peace. It came at last, to the empire and to me, as well as to you.’ With a sad smile, he began to pull his shirt back on and then drape his vest and coat over the top. ‘And that’s about it,’ he added. ‘I can feel my heart decaying with each passing hour, and I doubt I will have the strength to come again, so I felt I needed to say everything at once. But if the imams are right – and the old Greek priest I sometimes visit on the sly too – then I’ll see you soon enough… and perhaps in the next world we won’t argue.’

  With that same sad smile, Skiouros walked up to the white-painted apse with the Arabic script in delicate lettering across it and reached out, brushing his hand across the heavy indentations in the plaster. It no longer said Lykaion, since Şehzade Ahmed had scratched it out for its connection to his brother the Wolf of Trabzon, but the fact remained that this was the only memorial to his brother. ‘Farewell, Lykaion. In the end, I suspect we were far more alike than we were ever different.’

  Straightening and blinking away a tear, Skiouros – who had been Sincabı-Paşa for three decades now – turned and wandered through the mosque without looking back, passing through the door into the steely sunlight, limping slightly on his bad leg, his janissaries rushing to aid him.

  In the white-clad chapels of the church-turned-mosque, a faint breeze rippled through the air and if a man had been there to hear it, he might have sworn he heard a cracked and ancient voice whisper ‘farewell, Skiouros.’

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Where does one start with the contents of The Paşa’s Tale? Well, since, ignoring Skiouros and his friends’ personal journeys, it is a tale of the Ottoman succession, that seems a good place to begin. Throughout history there have been many methods of succession to a throne. Most common, of course, is dynastic, from the world of Ancient Egypt (and even before!) right the way up to the modern British monarchy. The eldest son takes on the role from his deceased father. Of course, gender sometimes changes, and daughters inherit before younger brothers and so on, but the principle is the same. A hierarchical dynastic approach. Most empires have advanced this way.

  Occasionally it has come to a selection process, such as that adopted by the Ulpian and Antonine emperors in Rome, choosing their successor and adopting an heir appropriately. And then there is the republican and democratic method: a leader is voted in by the people (or more often by the privileged classes among that people.) There are very odd ones, where Gods are asked to choose, and similar wackiness, but the one overriding factor they all share is that there is a system in place.

  Which is what makes the Ottoman Empire in this period so fascinating. Essentially, the throne was achieved through survival of the fittest. Only certain candidates could try for it, of course. Mustafa Bloggs the fishmonger was never in the running. But no son of a sultan had precedence. Relative age made no difference. In the later years of their father’s reign (most sultans lived ‘til around 50) their sons would begin to manoeuvre for position. One of the most important factors in the race for the throne was location. Whoever reached the city of Constantinople (the Ottoman nobles mostly still used the ancient name, while the low-born began to adopt ‘Istanbul’) stood a very good chance of keeping the throne, for they then had control of the shipyards, the palaces, and had immediate access to the elite janissary units. It was not a given, but likely the son who got there first would be the next sultan. And since all princes served their time as governors of provincial ‘sanjaks’ under their father’s reign, the location of their governorship could easily dictate their chance of succession. Thus sons would inveigle their way into their father’s good books in attempts to achieve governorships that were close to the city, giving them the edge.

  But political alliances and military strength also played a part. It was not good enough to reach the city and claim the throne if none of the officers and Paşas owed you any allegiance and the military had thrown their support behind your brother. And so you can see the sort of mess the succession became. It often consisted of up to a decade of jostling for position and securing power and alliances. This is what drew me to the succession as the basis for the Paşa’s Tale plot. There could be few milieu in which there was more po
tential. And, of course, given Skiouros’ prior role in keeping the sultan on the throne, it was destined to play a part in the story.

  Then, of course, there are the three sons of Bayezid. My portrayals of Korkut and Ahmed are largely works of fiction. Since they failed to succeed to the throne, evidence for them is sparse. Selim, on the other hand, is well documented. He was a strong man, hard and unyielding, but undeniably good for the empire, for he expanded it and removed two of the three greatest threats it faced (the Safavids in Persia and the Mamluks in Egypt.) Like Trajan for the Romans or Alexander for the Macedonians, Selim was a conqueror who left the empire, after just a short reign, far greater and stronger than he found it. He has been somewhat damned by history for his persecution of the central Anatolian Alevi, which I have gone some way to including in the story. Indeed, extrapolating from it, it formed the backbone of the tale. But despite Selim’s conquests and his strength, the greatest gift he gave the empire was his son: Süleyman ‘the Magnificent’. Under Süleyman’s reign, the empire reached a golden age hitherto undreamed-of and, sadly, never to be seen again.

  So from here, it seems right to tackle the troublesome subject of religion. It might seem that during these four books I have rather wickedly attacked all religions. I hope it is evident that this is not so. I have endeavoured, especially in this last volume, to decry extremism in any religion, and to vaunt the ethics and morals that are the basis for them. In doing so I have made Skiouros somewhat heretical, in that he has encountered the very best and worst in all the great Abrahamic faiths, and has consequently eschewed them all as set creeds and lives with a private dogma born of them all. This is something I have seen time and again being practised, and so seems as reasonable to apply to someone in that era as in our own. And given Skiouros’ outsider’s viewpoint as a child born of the Greek Orthodox Church, he has a slightly more objective viewpoint than many of his contemporaries.

  There is a sad tendency in the modern western world to view Islam as evil and Christianity as good. This is, of course, a rather blinkered view. I have met as many pious, peaceful and friendly Muslims and Jews as I have Christians and equally it is quite easy to find examples of viciousness, hatred and extremism in all of them. People are people, no matter what their faith. There will always be good people and bad people.

  But at this time in the world, the roles I mentioned above are very much reversed. The Islamic nations at this time are conquering, yes, but on the whole, they are busy conquering each other. It is a political expansion rather than a religious crusade. For over a hundred years the Ottoman military concentrated on overwhelming their opposition in Persia, Egypt, and all along North Africa. Yes, there were wars in the Balkans and against Venice, and particularly Rhodes and the eastern islands, but again this was largely a political, territorial push. In fact, Christians and Jews living in the empire enjoyed relative stability. They were heavily taxed and disadvantaged in comparison with their Muslim neighbours, of course, but religious intolerance-based troubles were rare.

  Compare, if you will, the Papacy at this time, run by the Borgia family, which interferes in national politics, dabbles in assassinations and all manner of wickedness. The Pope himself was a womaniser with numerous mistresses. Usury was at an all-time high and almost anything was for sale if the Borgia pope gained from it. This was, in my opinion, the very lowest moment for the Catholic Church. But add to this the newly-blossoming Inquisition led by the Spaniard Tomas de Torquemada, and you’re talking about a Church that is not only corrupt and wicked, but even actively deadly and murderous. Religion is always a thorny subject, but hopefully I have treated all the faiths with the objectivity of the historian, shot through with the personal opinions of my fictional character.

  So what of the Romani?

  Again, perhaps I might be challenged over my portrayal of them, though only the Alevi faction have been vilified, and that purely for the advancement of the plot. Indeed, they have not been turned into a wicked sect, but more of a misguided group, and even then not for their religious beliefs so much as for their own sense of self-preservation. The Romani were very much a thriving community in the empire, and in more regions than just Sulukule and Ayvansaray as mentioned in the text. They were culturally diverse and, though they had traditions that went back centuries to long before they settled in the empire, they had long been practising Muslims (just as those Romani living in Western Europe became practising Christians.) The Romani have always been an adaptable people. It is in their nature. I have attempted to make them understandable and credible in this tale, despite their active role in such a complex plot. The Romani community continues even now to thrive in Istanbul, and in the very same places they lived half a millennium ago.

  In contrast to the so-human Romani, I have given the Knights Hospitaller a much harsher treatment. I have at least a passing interest in the crusading orders, though my focus is on the more obscure orders (Knights of Calatrava, Knights Teuton, etc…) I have laboured long under the impression that the Templars were victims of their own success, becoming too rich and avaricious to avoid the inevitable conflict with the State. But I had always seen the Hospitallers as more of a pious order, focusing on looking after the wellbeing of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Of course, my earlier reading focused more on the days of the high medieval period, and this is very late in the day for the crusading orders. But still I was astounded that the more I read of the Hospitallers in the eastern Mediterranean over this period, the more unpleasantness I came across. In 1530 the Ottoman navy kicked the knights out of Rhodes and they were given Malta as a new home. For centuries afterwards, Malta became a centre of slave trading as attested by numerous writers of the time. The knights were, at the very least, rather indiscriminate as to who they sank and captured on the seas. Many of those captives ended their days at the oars of the Hospitaller ships, and many more were sold at the markets. The knights only lost their position to the French in 1798, which means that their home was one of the last refuges of the slave trade in Europe.

  Given the role of the knights in the previous book and the fact that they had been sent east by the pope, their involvement in any Ottoman successional crisis seemed a given, and they would apparently not baulk at dealing with non-Muslims who got in their way.

  Much of this story revolves around the Ottoman navy, its ships and its personnel. This era was the great time of growth for the navy, which would soon pit them against Venice once more in a series of wars that only ended in the 18th century. By the time of the dreadful battle of Lepanto in 1571 the Ottoman navy seemed indestructible. Their defeat at Lepanto at the hands of a league of 8 states(!) was the first sign of naval expansion slowing.

  Ottoman naval vessels were, at this time, powered by both oars and sails, and the navy was formed of the traditional galleys that still plied the seas. The great Göke was a tremendous vessel, but of as much value as new ships were the changes in organisation. Prior to Selim’s reign, the centre of Ottoman naval power was still officially Gelibolu (Gallipoli), though already under Bayezid the Galata shipyards were growing in both size and importance. And over the reigns of Bayezid, Selim and Süleyman, the whole thing truly stepped up a notch. Gelibolu began to take second place and all naval functions moved to Galata, where the complex of naval headquarters, prisons, shipyards and so on stretched from the Galata walls a vast distance up the inlet’s shore. It came to be known as Tersâne-i mire – the Imperial Arsenal – and rivalled that of Venice, which was famous in its own right.

  And so onto my last topic for this note, which is ‘locations’. We are very lucky that many of the locations I have used in The Paşa’s Tale still exist and I have had the opportunity to visit them on my research trips. The walls still exist, in a bad state in many places, and with some none-too-careful reconstruction in others. But their presence makes it possible to imagine them in the late 15th century. The Tekfur palace is similar. When I first visited in 2008 it was a picturesque ruin. When I last visited in 2014, it had b
een glazed and reroofed and given an overhaul. It is now usable as a building in some form, but has sadly lost much of its character.

  The district around it, though – Ayvansaray – is one of the most fascinating in the city. It is largely untouched by modern Turkey and bears a remarkable resemblance in some places to the region I have described in the book. It is still an overgrown area with large patches of wasteland, ancient crumbling ruins jutting out of side streets and, most interestingly, in places the very same timber shanty-houses that still belong to a Romani community. If you have an interest in experiencing this strange place, I urge you to go, and soon, for there is every chance it will soon disappear.

  I had hoped to visit Sulukule and experience the Romani life there, but even in 2008 I had just missed it. This once thriving Romani district that had been famous for hospitality and dances and music, full of ramshackle timber Roma housing, had gone. In 2008 it was busy being bulldozed in its entirety. The best part of a mile of historic community had gone, leaving a dirt wasteland. Now it is full of modern, hygienic housing, in which the Romani have been resettled. The reasons are many and largely revolve around health and safety – with which even I could not in conscience argue – and I’m sure many of the resettled community are happy with their new life. But with the change died the spirit of Romani Sulukule and despite the sense in the move, viewing it in 2014 almost broke my heart. It felt the same as the clean, rebuilt Tekfur palace.

  Conversely, the church of Saint Saviour (now known as the Chora church or Kariye Camii) has been beautifully preserved, as it is one of the city’s greatest tourist draws, behind the Aya Sofya. Over the last century the mosque was decommissioned and converted to a museum. The plaster was carefully stripped to reveal the paintings and mosaics beneath, in their great glory. It is restored and visitable. If you should go, you will see it as a Byzantine church and your breath will be taken away. I would then recommend visiting Küçük Ayasofya Camii in the heart of the old city, which is an early Byzantine church that is now an active mosque. It is astoundingly beautiful and will allow you to imagine how the church of Saint Saviour might have looked after its conversion to a mosque.