by Neil Oliver
‘And the messenger?’ asked Constantine. ‘He knew nothing more?’
‘It appears Yaminah sent the message through several hands,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The one who brought it to me was the last in a long line. He had not seen her, and neither had the man who passed it to him.’
Constantine threw his head back and laughed aloud.
‘The gall of it,’ he said again. ‘The little bitch has the makings of an empress, I say. And a scheming one at that.’
‘What would you have us do?’ asked Helena.
He stepped in close and placed both hands upon her hips. She pushed forward so that they were pressed together. She smelled of warmth and sweet spice, and he pushed too. He looked into her dark eyes as she considered his evident need with cool detachment. Her hips were saying yes but her face was only a maybe. He leaned in to kiss her but she pulled back. He paused, surprised.
‘Another woman dares to make me wait,’ he said.
‘Would you have me here?’ she said, and she smiled.
He let go of her then and turned away, but the scent of her stayed with him like a doubt.
‘Tell me what must be done,’ she said.
He took half a dozen paces and then turned to face her once more.
‘She will come,’ he said. ‘Her spirit pleases me. Her nerve will serve her well. Our stand-in prince might look the part, but the ruse will work only if it has depth. I do believe Princess Yaminah will play her part better than I had imagined.’
64
John Grant hung ready on the skinner’s frame, naked and tied by his wrists and ankles to wooden beams and poles set deeply into the soft ground. More than anything else, he was aware of his exposed genitals, his testicles so shrunk by anxiety his scrotum felt like half a walnut protruding from between his legs.
Before him, lined up in their hundreds (if not their thousands, it was hard to tell), were serried ranks of the soldiers of the Ottoman army. The next few minutes had clearly been set aside for the edification of the men – and it seemed he was to be the principal teaching tool.
Here at the mercy of all his foes at last was the devil who had moved among them in the tunnels like smoke, killing at will and turning them into human torches. But he was plainly not a devil. He was a man and no more, an infidel, and he had lost and they had won and now he would be made to pay.
While he had been led among the tents, on the way to the sultan’s enclosure, Armstrong had taken the trouble to tell him what lay in store – that he was to be skinned in front of the Turks.
‘I have seen them do it,’ said Armstrong. ‘It is not so much a skinning as an undressing. It is the custom of the Turks to hang the man up and make an incision right around his waist, just below the navel. It is often a woman’s task, and if she knows her trade she cuts through the skin only, leaving the muscles undamaged. As the blood begins to flow, she slides both thumbs into the wound, grabs a handful of the cut skin, and tugs it down towards the fellow’s knees like a pair of breeches. Then she does the same with the top half, hauling the skin of the belly and chest up towards the shoulders like a semmit. He is left then, in the sun. Death comes when it comes, but never quickly. Any minute now, John Grant – and you’ll be singing.’
Between John Grant and the audience stood Sultan Mehmet II himself. He wore long white robes and his hair was wound in a turban. He was powerfully built, and tall – taller than John Grant. While the Scot was lithe and light, the Turk was all heaviness and bulk; thick-necked, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he was set upon the ground like a bull.
In the front row, in a clump towards the right of John Grant’s field of vision, stood Angus Armstrong and Sir Robert Jardine and the rest of the Scots.
‘Hear me now,’ said Mehmet.
He had not needed to shout. His voice was propelled from the great chamber of his chest by all the confidence of a young god and reached the ears of every member of his audience like thoughts conjured into being inside their heads. He held them in his hands and he knew it.
Before him on the ground was a brightly coloured carpet, intricately woven with threads of gold, red, blue and green and designed and made so that it had something of the appearance of a large map. It was square, each side the length of a man, and upon it, at the centre, was a large, ripe red apple.
‘The Greek citizens beyond these walls have a word, poema, which means something that is crafted and made,’ he said. ‘It is a good word. This task we have set ourselves may be accomplished only by the craft and work of our hands. The taking of the Great City, which the Prophet himself has promised us, will be our finest poema, which our people will know by heart and repeat for a thousand generations.
‘Within the Great City, outside their greatest church, is a tall column of stone, and atop it a marble statue stands – a horseman. In his left hand he holds a globe that is the whole world. For as long as the statue remains on its plinth, the Greeks believe their emperor shall be the master of all.
‘I say to you, my brothers – my hawks and my lions – that the whole world is an apple ripe for the picking. It is hanging before us, within our grasp.’
Mehmet looked down at the carpet in front of him and spread his arms wide as he considered the fruit at its centre.
‘Who among you shall show us how this apple – this ripe red apple – is to be picked up without the need to tread upon the carpet?’
In spite of himself, John Grant watched the spectacle. Within the crowd, her face concealed behind a scarf and beneath the hood of her robe, Lẽna watched too.
A ripple of movement ran through the men so that for an instant they had the look of a field of corn moved by a gust of wind. There was a murmur of voices too, and a shuffling of feet, but no one spoke up and none stepped forward to face the challenge.
Mehmet shook his head as he looked out at the faces of his men.
‘Do you not see?’ he asked. ‘Is there none among you able to seize the fruit?’
He paused.
‘So I must do everything for you,’ he said. ‘Now turn around – all of you – until your backs are towards me.’
Mehmet had seen to it that his horde had been assembled on high ground, and when they turned from him they were faced towards the Great City and the Golden Horn – the inlet of the sea that had provided safe anchorage for imperial fleets for more than eleven millennia.
Access to the Horn from the Bosphorus was jealously controlled by the emperor, and in a time of war like this, its entrance was barred completely by a massive steel chain – each link as big as a man – that was raised across its narrow mouth from one side to the other.
The sultan’s army turned, and for a few moments there was only confusion as men babbled among themselves, unsure what might befall them next.
‘Watch now,’ said Mehmet. ‘See what I do for you – see how everything is possible if I so command it.’
As the last of his words soared over their heads – and as John Grant strained to see and Lẽna opened her eyes wide in wonder – the first of a fleet of galleys hove into view on the horizon. Each was crewed by men, and the oars moved in steady rhythm, but there was no water beneath their hulls and it was upon the land that they seemed to float. Mehmet’s army watched in awe, calling out in their amazement and disbelief.
It was wondrous, and yet it was real. One by one the galleys left the waters of the Bosphorus and travelled uphill, over open ground and towards the Golden Horn. A great cheering began, building into a roar as the men realised the significance of what they were seeing. Horns began to blare and drums were beaten in a frenzy as the fleet made its steady, impossible progress over dry land towards the soft belly of their foe.
‘No obstacle shall defy us,’ said Mehmet.
The words were for his own hearing rather than that of his men.
He watched their incomprehension, revelled in it. Without the knowledge of his fighting men – and under the noses of the Christians – he had had his engineers
build a roadway of timber logs greased with animal fat, all the way from the shore of the Bosphorus in the east to the waters of the Golden Horn in the west. Each galley was lifted from the water on a specially built cradle that could be lowered into the water on ropes and positioned beneath the hull. Teams of strong men then bent their backs and used no more than the power of their muscles to haul the vessels on to the rollers and overland until they reached the Horn.
When the first of the galleys splashed into the water – like barracuda let loose in a rock pool filled with plump goldfish – the cheers of the Turks rose to a crescendo, horns blew loudly enough to deafen those standing close by, and drums were pounded until their skins split.
‘Now that I have shown you how our fleet can be made to float upon the dry ground of the infidel, if I so wish it, is there still none among you with the wit to see how this ripe apple might be picked?’
Suddenly remembering the bright carpet and the red fruit upon it, they turned to face Mehmet once more.
‘Whoever solves the riddle shall carve the first cut into the devil’s hide,’ he said, and turned to look at John Grant as though only that moment noticing he was there at all.
He walked over to his captive and, standing to one side of him, grabbed a fistful of John Grant’s hair and pulled back his head so that his face was clear for all to see.
The soldiers jeered and catcalled and John Grant was sure his testicles shrank tighter still, until it seemed they must soon be completely reabsorbed by his body.
Mehmet let go so that John Grant’s head drooped forward – and while it was still on the move downwards, he landed a back-handed slap across the handsome young face with all of his strength. At the sharp sound of the blow the horde fell silent, expectant. John Grant made not a sound, but blood filled his nose and mouth and he spat it upon the ground. The glob of blood and mucus shone in the weak sunlight.
Without raising his head, still gazing at the sheen of it, he began to speak, in a voice clear and strong.
‘Proclaim: in the name of thy Lord who created,’ he said. ‘Who created man from a blood clot.’
He spoke in the tongue of the Ottomans, which he had learned from Badr Khassan. From the soldiers who heard him came shouts of surprise, even disbelief.
Mehmet stepped close to John Grant, but did not lay a hand on him this time.
‘How is it that you know the word of God, infidel?’ he asked.
John Grant ignored him, remaining immobile.
‘Proclaim! And thy Lord is the most generous, who teaches by the pen,’ he said. ‘Teaches man what he knew not.’
‘Tell me, infidel!’ shouted Mehmet. ‘Who taught you these verses?’
There was a pause then, while John Grant spat more blood on to the dirt at the sultan’s feet. Tiny droplets of it bounced upon the dust and turned into a spray that travelled unseen on to the hem of his white garments. John Grant looked at Mehmet from the corners of his hazel eyes, hazel eyes flecked with gold that sparkled like little suns.
‘I learned them from my father, Badr Khassan, who is worth ten thousand of you.’
Mehmet drew back his hand to strike John Grant a second time, but before he had time to unleash the blow, a new voice rose into the sky like a bird.
‘I will take the apple,’ said Lẽna.
There had been a loud hubbub as the men considered the honour of running a blade across the belly of the murderous infidel while the whole army looked on. At the sound of one clear voice cutting through the chatter, like a hand through smoke, every man closed his mouth and craned his neck or rose on his toes in search of the claimant.
‘I will take the apple,’ said Lẽna again, and this time the sultan himself located the owner of the voice. Distracted from the impertinence of his prisoner, he pointed at her where she stood, her identity and gender still concealed by hood and scarf. With a cupping movement of one hand he indicated that it was time to stand before him, before them all, and provide the solution to the puzzle.
John Grant felt a vibration playing upon the outer edge of his senses. It was not the push – rather it was reaching his skin through the timbers of the frame to which he was bound by leather straps.
‘Come, then,’ said Mehmet, and Lẽna began to shoulder her way through the crowd. Reaching the front rank, she emerged into full view of the silent assembled mass and stepped confidently towards the white-robed sultan.
Without a word she began slowly to circle the carpet, her eyes fixed upon the prize at its centre. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Mehmet began to circle too, at the same speed but in the opposite direction, so that his movements were as a mirror to her own. When she was closest to John Grant, and with the sultan opposite and furthest away, his face a mask of concentration as he stared at this most daring of his soldiers, she stopped.
Her face was concealed from the nose downwards, but her eyes were clear of the scarf. She looked at the sultan, held his gaze for a second, and then dropped to her knees.
The assembled horde might have thought she was about to pray towards the east, or simply to beg forgiveness from the sultan for having made too bold a claim. There was a moment of silence then, while no one moved – and then a collective intake of breath as she took one side of the carpet with both hands and began to roll it up. She shuffled forward on her knees as she did so, and as she drew closer and closer to the red apple, understanding travelled among the men, and a sound began and then grew steadily until it was like the hum of a hundred thousand bees.
A moment later and Lẽna had rolled the carpet all the way to the apple. Swiftly she took it in one hand and stood and turned and walked lightly back to the point from which she had started. Without her weight upon it, the carpet unfurled and settled back upon the ground with a soft sound like a sigh.
Lẽna turned and held the red apple high, and sunlight glinted upon its polished skin.
For John Grant alone, blood still dripping from his nose, it was the building vibration that mattered more than the trick with the apple. With so much upon which to focus attention, no one else had noticed – not even the sultan, who was a clever man and who prided himself, among many other things, upon the acuity of his senses.
Suddenly – and to the gasping amazement of all – Lẽna insolently tossed the apple towards the sultan. It seemed her aim was bad, for the fruit sailed high and seemed certain to pass over Mehmet’s head. In the heat of the moment, as surprised as the next man, he forgot himself and his status and let his instincts and reactions take over. He crouched low and then sprang upwards, arms stretched above his head as he aimed to catch the thing.
It was in that moment, while the sultan was in mid-air, his slippered feet flailing, that the vibration John Grant had been monitoring all the while became at once the roar of a descending wave. Mehmet caught the apple in both hands and landed just as the front rank of stampeding oxen burst into view, driving the Turkish tents ahead of them like white foam in front of a tidal surge. The foremost animals, the leaders of the massed herd, had flaming rags tied around their horns. Wide-eyed, maddened by fear and desperate to get away from the fires singeing their ears and cheeks, the oxen understood only that they had to run until the flames were behind them.
Only two people had known to expect their arrival – both of them women – and one of them turned from the sultan and the army and leapt towards John Grant where he hung helpless on his frame. She alone knew who it was that had tied the oil-soaked rags to the horns of a dozen of the oxen as the first light of the dawn came across the land like silvered fingers, and then set them alight and flung wide the gates of their corrals and slapped enough hindquarters to build the momentum of the herd to the point where no man could stop it.
A knife was in Lẽna’s hand as she reached John Grant and with one smooth slashing movement cut the ties at his wrists. Handing him the knife (Angus Armstrong’s knife) and leaving him to free his own feet, she glanced around at the melee.
Confronted by the tim
bers of the palisade surrounding the sultan’s tents, the charging beasts had broken around it, leaving John Grant and Lẽna safely in its lee. Once past the obstruction, however, the animals came together again and ploughed towards and then into the mass of the Turkish army, scattering the soldiers left and right and crushing scores and hundreds beneath pounding hooves.
Mehmet watched, awestruck and aghast – and with all thoughts of ritual torture driven from his mind.
Lẽna had spotted the figure of Sir Robert Jardine; indeed she had sensed him while she waited in the lines and had looked around and glimpsed the back of his head.
As the beasts bore down upon the sultan’s flock, she looked for him again and found his face. While the thousands fled, he stood his ground, his sword gripped tightly in his fist. But it was no warrior that challenged him now, defied his will. Instead a monstrous bull bore down on him, as tall as a man at its shoulder and its horns ablaze from root to tip. Enraged and terrified in equal measure, it sought relief from its ills in the violence of its charge.
There before it, frozen in place and with eyes wide, stood a movable object. Perhaps this two-legged creature was to blame for the pain and the terror. Perhaps its destruction would bring peace. In any event the bull came on, making the earth shake and turning the air around it into a storm of dirt and dust, flecked with white spume from its flaring nostrils.
Framed for an infinitesimal fragment of time within the flaming crescent of the beast’s horns, Sir Robert Jardine, who felt himself owed so much by the world, caught sight of the woman whose death should have delivered it all to him long ago. Her face, her ageless, smiling face, was the image upon which he closed his eyes and swung his sword and felt it land between the flaming horns before he knew no more, and for ever.
Lẽna watched him fall, spread-eagled on his back. One great hoof had landed squarely in the middle of Sir Robert’s face, backed by nearly two tons of beef, and she would have sworn she heard, amid the tumult, the sound of his skull cracking like an egg.