Mehmet stared at his father’s face. It looked steady, as though what was behind it could not be altered. He hesitated, his mind searching for another route.
‘There will be no entertainment,’ said his father suddenly. ‘No bathing houses and no eunuchs.’
Mehmet felt the blood creep up to his face. He shrugged. ‘What makes you think I need them?’
Now it was his father’s turn to pause. ‘Very well. And now the second condition. When you return from Egrigoz you will take a wife.’
The gatekeeper shifted his feet at the door. Mehmet’s head began to throb with pain. He looked at the double doors of his father’s apartments. It was well thought-out, his father’s scheme. He nodded. ‘I will give it some thought.’
‘And in the meantime, we will think about your plans for the Golden City,’ said his father, and smiled.
Mehmet looked at him with curious interest. He had never seen his father smile. He wanted suddenly to ask him whether he understood the look on his mother’s face, the one that she wore every day in the fourth courtyard, and whether he had planted it there, or if that was just how women were. But of course he didn’t.
He prepared to leave, but his father hadn’t finished with him.
‘I forgot to mention that Halil Pasha will be there to assist you and it is important that you listen to what he has to say. His experience will be of great value to you. I have asked him to instruct you all he can. Now you may leave.’
Mehmet yielded up his bent brow against his father’s hand in farewell, and left the salon of his father’s apartments without another word. He wondered which was the greater insult, sending him off into the back country with the sons of vassals, or the idea that Halil Pasha knew more about strategy than the future conqueror of Constantinople.
Chapter 21
The journey to Egrigoz fortress was over. Vlad’s feeling had been right; they had travelled south to Anatolia. Edirne seemed far away from the hills of Egrigoz, and Wallachia further still. As for the fortress itself, it squatted on a hill like a warlord’s lair, with the standard of the sultanate, the crescent and the star, flying from its ramparts. They entered the courtyard over a narrow bridge with a large iron gate beyond it.
The Grand Vizier had the air of a bishop. His face was grave and learned. It was the face of a man who would have felt at home in his father’s basement room. He also looked put out, as though he were even more displeased to see them than they were to be there.
The shadow of a smile crossed his mouth. ‘I do not think it useful for you to be here. But here you are, so I suppose we will have to make the best of it. I will take you to your rooms and you can make yourselves at home.’
‘We are not at home,’ he said. ‘And we will not stay long. Soon my father will release us.’
‘Really?’ said the Vizier, leading the way on. ‘Let us hope so, but I think you will find that it is the Sultan who decides when you are released, not your father. If your father is a reasonable man, perhaps you will be. But you know him better than I do.’
‘The Sultan tricked us; he tricked my father; that is why we are here.’
‘Tricked you?’ The Vizier hesitated. ‘His Highness the Sultan does not play tricks.’ He frowned down at them. ‘You have misunderstood the situation.’
Vlad opened his mouth to say more, but the Vizier walked on ahead. Radu stood expectantly beside him, waiting for his lead. He swallowed his words, and followed.
They entered a chamber at the base of one of the towers. Daylight jutted through a narrow window slit and showed a large room furnished with divan beds, a desk and low seating that chased around the edges of the room and was piled with cushions in crushed velvet. Their packs had got there before them and had already been opened, their contents strewn over the divan. The Vizier picked up a small package wrapped in hide. For a moment, Vlad wondered what it was. Then he remembered the day in the basement, and the Book of Job that his father had given him instead of the sword. Somehow it had found its way into his pack. But how had his pack found its way here?
‘Your father gave us your packs,’ said the Vizier, seeing the question on his face. ‘I took the liberty of opening your bag, and I must say I was surprised at the contents.’
Vlad looked at his belongings; already they seemed as relics from another time. Their father must have handed them over to the Sultan once he and Radu had been removed. There was Radu’s pack too, with his blankets and clothes. He stared at them in disbelief.
The Vizier looked at him. ‘Something is missing?’
He shook his head.
The Vizier took the book out of its cover, and glanced at the first page. ‘It will be better for you and your brother if you work with us rather than against us. You must know that, I think. You seem to be sharp enough.’
Seeing that he did not take the book, the Vizier dropped it back into Vlad’s bag.
Radu came up beside him. ‘My brother is better than sharp; he can do anything he wants to.’
The Vizier lifted his nose into the air and frowned down at Radu. ‘Then he must be quite exceptional. I do believe that the Treasurer found as much himself.’ He went to a table, pulled open a drawer and brought out paper, best Egyptian papyrus, a quill and ink. ‘While you are here you may write letters. I will receive them for you. You may write one straightaway if you like. I will see it is delivered. You will take your meals every evening in the dining hall with the rest of the court. For that you will be called at sundown. Soon it will be the fasting season, but Professor Gurani will tell you all you need to know about our customs. He will also tutor you in the Turkish language. In the meantime, please make yourselves comfortable.’
Later, when the Vizier had gone, Vlad picked up the quill. The Vizier wanted him to write, but why? He stared at the paper. If the Turks wanted words, he would give them words. But not the ones they were expecting. He dipped the quill in ink. Father, he began, I hope this letter finds you well. Have no fears for our safety since we are alive and well… But try as he might, his hand stopped there. He forced it on, but all he could think about was that their father had given the Turks their packs. Given them.
Darkness hollowed into the corners of his mind. He stood up from the desk; the quill shook, so he let it fall. He looked around the chamber. The walls, solid though they surely were, began to bend and slide. A wintry chill crossed his face and settled on his skin. Reaching out with one hand, he found the bed and lay on it. Radu had gone out onto the ramparts to look at the Ottomans’ mountains. He turned his face to the door and saw that it was floating. He had a confused thought about mountains, another about letters, then no thought at all.
There was struggling. Hands pushed on his shoulders; breath was on his face.
‘Hold him. Keep his arms still. Hold him, I said!’
Noise brought him back. He shivered violently then he did not move at all. Could not. He tried to remember his hands, but they lay at his sides like claws. He shook his head, or was it shaking in spite of him? The corners of his mouth were dripping wet. He wanted to wipe his mouth, but the claws would not obey. He wrenched them up. More shouts. Backing off. He sat up suddenly. The space around him cleared. His eyes cleared. He saw.
The voices fell silent. A face stared into his. He recognised it vaguely. He had seen it somewhere, but where? He looked around the chamber he was sitting in, terrified that it made no sense.
‘How do you feel?’
A small face in a corner was weeping quietly. With a wave of relief, he knew it. ‘Very well. I am very well.’
‘Good.’ The hands that had held him down fetched water from a jug. Understanding that he smelled like a pigsty, Vlad took the cup with trembling hands. He tried to drink cleanly, but the water spilled on his lap. He returned the cup, suddenly shamed. His mind seemed to hold only dark, empty space. Horrified by the strangeness of it, he looked around ag
ain. Through a narrow window on the opposite wall, the last rays of the evening sun assailed him. The man he now recognised as his captor dismissed two guards at the threshold of the chamber, who were watching him in silence. Determined to stand, he pinned his feet to the floor. His mouth was bitter with a new taste – metal, earth or wood. He wiped it on the back of his doublet sleeve.
The Vizier shut the door. ‘You would do better to lie down again. You are fortunate that I have a little knowledge of the work of Galen the physician. When the servant called you, there was no reply, so he came to find me. When I came in, you were lying there, on the floor. Your brother was quite terrified,’ continued the Vizier, glancing at the guards. He refilled the cup and returned to his side. ‘That is hardly surprising; when someone falls into seizure, most people are terrified because they do not understand.’
His hands had regained their grip. The claws stretched out. ‘I was asleep, nothing more,’ he said. He wondered what seizure was, but he did not want to ask.
‘You do not understand?’ said the Vizier, his brow raised in surprise. ‘That is interesting. And yet, they say that those who fall into these…states are filled with visions and thoughts. Were you aware of nothing?’
He thought of the hollowed darkness, which the Vizier called seizure and he called sleep. He had not been alone in that darkness. Someone or something had been there beside him. But who it was and what it wanted, he did not know. He searched around for something to say, and found it. ‘You are right; I did have visions.’
‘Did you? What kind?’ The Vizier moved closer.
‘I saw wolves, many of them.’
‘Really. And what did the wolves want?’
‘They spoke to me.’
The Vizier smiled nervously. ‘And what did they say?’
‘They said I would raise an army large enough to kill every Turk this side of the Danube River.’
‘And you agreed with them, of course.’
‘Is there any reason I should not?’
Radu stood up. He had stopped crying and was listening quietly.
‘Go away for a while,’ he said to Radu, his eyes on the Vizier. ‘I’ll join you in a moment.’
The Vizier’s eyes bored into him. ‘You should know that your father was anything but tricked. He took you to Edirne of his own accord. Furthermore, the Sultan seems to think that you could be more useful than your father has so far proven to be, though I would question that judgement. Your brother is loyal, but I doubt the same is true of you.’
His strength was coming back. Gratefully, he felt it surge through his body, and he flexed his fingers. ‘Of course Radu is loyal; he is family.’
The Vizier grimaced. ‘Even family can be driven away by the sight of a seizure, Vlad Dracula. Most believe that only a demon can bring on such things. But that should come as no surprise to a Rumani. That is how I know you are lying. Or if you are not lying, then you do not even know what is happening to you. And that, I doubt.’
His heart started to thump in his chest. He tried to slow it down but couldn’t.
‘I know what is happening to me. I and my brother have been taken against our will, and against the will of our father.’ He looked straight at the Vizier. ‘And if you think I am lying, you are wrong. I never lie. Only weak people lie. I have no need of lies.’
The Vizier paused, looked down at the script of his letter, and up again at him. ‘Really. Then I will see you in the dining hall.’
Chapter 22
Murad had visited the weeping rock of Manisa. He made the visit every time he came there; it had become something of a habit, almost a pilgrimage. He would ride up early, sit beside the river where Niobe had nursed her sorrows in the verses of the Greeks, and reflect. At Edirne he had no time to reflect. There was always something: a dignitary, a vizier or a battle, sometimes all three at once. Only at Manisa Palace, which he had built for himself, could he find the peace he needed. He had planted out the gardens with irises and tulips, cypress trees and willow. Irises for the scent, tulips for the softness, and willow for the shade. The cypress trees had come later. He had read somewhere, probably in a treatise written by a Greek, that the cypress was a cure for grief, and he had asked for several to be planted around the buttressed walls of the palace gardens. They stood there now like the line of a guard, watching his snatched moments of pleasure with grave examination.
He crossed the first courtyard and entered the second through the arched gate. There were only two courtyards at Manisa Palace. The seraglio too was smaller, which meant that the problems were smaller. There was not the Kizlar to bother him thrice daily with demands and discord; the problem of Mehmet was resolved – for the present moment at least, and when he returned to Edirne, things would change for the better. The south side of the Danube, now theirs at Giurgiu, was secured from any Catholic advance. The Hungarians were busy trying to find themselves a king from the weak stock of the Habsburgs, and their minion Hunyadi was wasting his efforts on the wind. Dracul had been dealt with. He had had the good sense to sacrifice his children for his throne. Now he would have to cooperate. Durad Brankovic had not had the courage to come with his sons as Dracul had. He had given his daughter, but a female never had the same worth. The ambassador would have to go there and set him before a choice of proper consequence, though according to reports, Brankovic’s boys were nothing to speak of: two weaklings in the hands of a wet nurse. They might serve the immediate purpose of keeping Brankovic in line, but they would not have the Draculesti spirit. And spirit there certainly was. Murad reflected again on that ferocity of a reception the Prince of Wallachia had given him in the Chamber of Stone. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen Dracul fight. He had not even seen him come close to it, apart from then. On the battlefield he was known to be present, as all princes were present, but there were no accounts of hand-to-hand combat in the manner of old Caesar – Dracul sent his men in, but he did not lead them in. And yet he clearly had courage enough. What was he afraid of, death or failure?
Satisfied with either of these, he turned his thoughts back to Mehmet. He must by now have made the last pass to Egrigoz. Before the season was over, his son would understand that it was not so easy to be at the head of an empire. He would be forced to look to the Grand Vizier for guidance. Then he would see that the sultanate had an order to it, that one man’s view could not always be right.
He looked up to see Mara Brankovic being escorted from the seraglio gate. There she was, lovely as ever. He had given her half the day to recover from the journey. The rest she owed to him.
‘Are you rested? Have you all you need?’
He looked at her neck. If only she would let him cover it with a jewel. Pity, when it was so white. He moved closer. Would it be conversation again this time, or was she ready for something more engaging?
She sat demurely down, and turned her face towards him.
‘My father says that you want the Golden City. Is it true?’
He paused, wondering what kind of question this was. Women and war did not mix. ‘The Golden City?’
‘Constantinople. Do you want it?’
He could hardly deny that he did.
‘And do you think you will succeed?’
He sat back and looked at her. ‘I do.’
‘I suppose a sultan thinks he can always have what he wants.’
He laughed. She was teasing him. It was a good sign. It was what women did to increase the pleasure of capitulation. ‘My dear,’ he said as gently as he could, ‘a sultan does always have what he wants.’
To his astonishment, she went on. ‘But if the gods were against it, then he could not.’
‘I suppose you are talking about the gods of the Greeks?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and smiled at last.
He watched how the smile changed her mouth. He had thought right from the start that she ha
d the face of a goddess, and it struck him for a moment how everything he admired was, in one way or another, of Greek extraction. Even when he was with Mehmet he saw Telemachus, the son of Odysseus. When Odysseus left his island, his son was a boy; by the time he returned home, the boy was a man and the two were brought to harmony. Even that was the reflection of a Greek. He found, before he could stop himself, that he had told her how much he enjoyed Homer. The Odyssey was a favourite of his. Homer’s hero searched for his father and his father was returned to him.
‘Odysseus longed for his homeland,’ she said. ‘As I do.’
‘I disagree. He was a mariner; he longed to travel.’ He thought of the sirens, the beauties that sang to the ships, and a line came into his head unbidden. I asked my men to set me free. He wrapped his hand behind her throat and brushed her skin with his lips. She was thinking of homeland, and family. Pity she did not see her father for what he was, a coward and a traitor who did not even dare set foot in his palace. What girl in her right mind would want family like that? Still, if she really insisted on it, perhaps he could concede her brothers. It would be a generous gesture. The remuneration would not be negligible either: two sappy weaklings in return for days of satisfaction. It would be more than worth it. In any event, he thought, as he pressed his fingers under the edge of her bodice, words cost nothing. But then he was reminded of the story of the hare that called upon the fox to wage war with the eagle. Weigh the cost: examine the risk. Without hostages, Durad Brankovic would prime his armies. He could not make concessions. It was unthinkable. He cursed his love of parables and withdrew his hand.
‘But Odysseus told his captor Kalypso of his sadness and she released him.’
He drew back. ‘Kalypso was a woman.’
She looked at him. ‘What difference does that make? The circumstance is the same.’
He called for service and ordered refreshments. Coffee. Something strong.
‘In any case, it was the gods who imposed their will upon Kalypso. So you see, in the end she had no choice.’
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