Mehmet powdered his words with laughter. ‘Well I can’t say I blame him for seeking advice.’ The laughter stopped suddenly and the mocking prince threw him another question. ‘And what have you told him so far then? Anything interesting?’
He looked into the prince’s face. ‘What passes between a soothsayer and his patron must remain unspoken, although I am ready to offer my humble services to his son and heir, if Your Highness should see fit to request them.’
‘I have no need of you, master dervish. I already know both the questions my father asked and the answers you gave him.’ Mehmet sprang from his seat and pulled out a sword, a curved kilij. He carved up the air in swift strokes. ‘He asked if I would take the Golden City instead of him.’
‘Indeed. And what did I tell him?’
‘Nothing I do not already know. And I know I will take the city.’ He shrugged and sidestepped, outwitting an imagined opponent.
Athazaz looked, discreetly, round the room. There were as many servants in it as there were women in a seraglio. Close to the mock swordfight stood a youth of arresting beauty. After a moment of observation, he concluded that the body did not belong to the face; it was the property of the Sultan’s son, who did what he wanted with it. Pity struck him, a rare occurrence in itself, since most people whose charts he had read deserved, to a lesser or greater degree, the good or bad fortune that destiny had assigned to them. Pity did not normally come into it, only merit. Murad, for instance, did not merit the Golden City of Constantinople, and he was also inclined to think that Mehmet his son did not either. Besides which, a person who was certain of his own success was twice as likely to fall upon his own sword and even die by it.
‘I see that you know the future better than I do,’ he replied, watching the edge of the kilij as Mehmet brought it down too close. ‘But then again, air does not strike back, does it?’
Mehmet lowered the sword. ‘Do you dare to mock me, dervish? I hope that you do not, or you will find yourself short of a tongue.’
‘That is regrettable, since I was hoping to put it to work for you.’
At his shoulder, the Vizier listened intently.
‘Halil Pasha, you brought the dervish in. I think I shall hold you responsible for what he says. What do you say to that?’
Athazaz glanced at Halil Pasha, the Grand Vizier. ‘The commander of an army cannot be too vigilant,’ the Vizier said. ‘A blow can come from anywhere.’
Mehmet sheathed his sword.
Athazaz took a breath of courage. Since the Sultan’s son was unwilling to know his chart, the chart would not reveal itself. If he wanted any more, he would have to launch the lure. ‘There is a hostage detained here who goes by the name of Vladislaus Dracula. Do you know of him?’
Strong silence followed. The Vizier breathed heavily behind him. Mehmet did not breathe at all.
‘What is there to know?’ said Mehmet. ‘The son of a vassal is hardly important.’
Athazaz glanced at the youth he had seen earlier. There was something about that face. It was Draculesti, but not Dracula. Was it his brother? He already knew that there were three of them, one was at the head of an army and two were hostages. If it was the younger brother of the family, the trap that had shown itself in the figures of the zij was even deeper than he’d thought.
‘If you permit me to say it, Highness, you are muddying the waters.’
Mehmet moved closer. ‘My father sent you here to spy on me, didn’t he? But you should know, dervish, that just because he did not take Constantinople, that does not make it unconquerable. I will conquer the Greeks. I will do what he could not. Vlad Dracula won’t stop me.’
Words floated in his head. Thoughts terrible to behold filled his mind, and the prophecies of the scrolls gave them form. He touched his brow with his fingers. This royal palace was full of shadows. Whenever he tried to shine a light, something put it out. It was time to start a fire.
‘I regret to be the bearer of bad news, but I do not think you will.’
The Vizier elbowed past him into the air of the corridor. ‘God keep our heads.’
Athazaz looked at him with concern. ‘You are too attached to life, My Lord Pasha; you need to take the fumes.’
‘Oh yes. There will be fumes,’ replied the Vizier vigorously. ‘You shall see.’
‘But you ask me for change, and when I try to deliver it, you are put on edge like a cobra.’
‘The cobra is in the room behind us,’ replied Halil Pasha firmly. ‘And as you rightly mentioned, another is somewhere beyond that courtyard, under guard. For the present.’
‘Then you think he will be released?’
I think it will only be a matter of time until his father capitulates utterly. In which case the Sultan could conceive of his release, and the liberation of his brother Radu.’ The Vizier hesitated. ‘So you believe that Mehmet will not take the Golden City? That is what you said?’
‘I did not say that exactly, My Lord. I said that Mehmet will not conquer the Greeks; it is not the same thing.’
‘Well I would be surprised if the Sultan’s son permits you to stay alive after the announcement you made to him. Mehmet does not like to appear weak, you know, particularly in front of an audience.’
‘Or in front of the son of a vassal?’
The Vizier glanced over his shoulder. ‘You know the identity of the youth in Mehmet’s grip. What else do you know?’ He studied him brusquely. ‘What do you know of Vlad Dracula?’
‘What I have seen of his person and his chart.’
The Vizier’s face changed. ‘And what is that?’
‘Well, I might begin with the words of Mehmet himself. Vlad Dracula will not stop me. A revealing announcement.’
‘Yes, but as you observed, not necessarily the truth.’ The Vizier gave him a guilty look. ‘I do not entirely disagree with the substance of what you say, but you do not know Mehmet. He is capable of much more than you might think. His Highness puts much store in him and believes he is destined for greatness.’
Athazaz smiled at the Vizier and saw the fear of Mehmet graven in his face. ‘But greatness depends on character, and character depends on greatness.’
‘Aristotle?’
Athazaz bowed. ‘The Greeks have always believed that a man must gain victory over himself before he can be victorious over another. If he does not, the victory will be a hollow one.’
‘I could not agree more,’ said the Vizier, ‘but I still say it would be wisest if you left.’
‘I have not yet delivered the Sultan’s prophecy,’ he said firmly.
The Vizier frowned. ‘Even if you give it to him, he will not listen, so you are wasting your time.’
Nevertheless, thought Athazaz, now that he had started out along this path, he needed to reach the end of it. If he did not, he would lose his sight; it would be like the Vizier’s: clouded by regret. The Vizier was a dignified man, but dignity would not save him from Mehmet, and that was a pity, since he was a man of some compassion and understanding. Nor was he wrong in thinking that Murad would be deaf to prophecy; the Sultan had already demonstrated his inability to see beyond the limitations of his own mind. The picture of all the paths of the world had been lost on him. If the scrolls of the Greeks fell into his hands, he would probably peddle them for a patch of desert or a fleet of ships. Quite what his son Mehmet would do with them, Athazaz did not dare imagine, but the arrogance of his replies indicated that it would be either dangerous or unsound. He shook his head; the chasm between the mystic and the neophyte was deep and broad. A dervish spent twelve years listening, but a fool could spend a lifetime trying not to hear.
He watched the Vizier disappear along the corridor on the current of his fear. He would have to find a way to question him further. But first, there was a cobra in the second courtyard, and it needed to be prodded.
Chapter 46<
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Vlad looked curiously at the creature carved on the piece of wood in his hands and thought hard about where he had seen it. He remembered his father’s collar. But the crest on the collar was only one half of the creature, dragon not wolf. Then he thought of something else, a seal that had stood upon the desk in the salon, beside the collection of objects his father kept there for reasons he had always thought related to the bringing of good fortune. He had not seen them for what they really were, talismans, symbols of protection, like the amulet around his neck, which the dervish now returned to him together with the wooden carving he had made. It was a token of his family, the soothsayer said. But despite his gift, the dervish was reluctant to deliver what Vlad knew he was hiding in his head: the Sultan’s prophecy, Mehmet’s future and his, which he now knew were inextricably linked, bound together like the dragon and the wolf on the emblem he was holding.
‘You do not know the story of your family?’
‘My father does not talk about it.’
The dervish nodded. ‘Then he is a prudent man, although I am prone to thinking it is better to look the past in the face than to hide from it. And the amulet, who gave it to you – your father?’
‘My brother.’
‘Better still,’ the dervish observed. ‘Your brother means you well; I think you should remember that.’ He looked around the second courtyard. ‘You are not permitted to leave?’
‘The gate and doors are locked, hakim, although if I wished to, I could open them.’
The dervish smiled. ‘I would not recommend it.’
‘They will not hold me here forever. Soon they will give me my freedom, even if you do not like to predict it. Ask Halil Pasha, the Grand Vizier.’
‘I have already spoken with the pasha,’ muttered the dervish, ‘And I can see that you have done an admirable job of persuading him of your own merits.’
Vlad sat down on the ground beside him and leaned against a cushion in the shade of the porticoes. ‘I said my father does not talk about the past, but I have seen the dragon before, many times. My father wears it on his collar as a token of his oath against the Turks.’
‘And the wolf?’
He turned the emblem over in his hand. The wolf that had called to him on the night of their arrest in the mountains of Thrace had never really gone away. It was there in his head along with everything else: Mircea’s place as regent, Radu’s betrayal and Mehmet. They were as three prongs lodged into his side, and he could not prise them out.
‘The wolf is in my head.’
The soothsayer’s eyes flicked over him. ‘You asked me for a prediction and I have carved it for you. Now I have a question of my own. If you gain your liberty, what will you do with it?’
The sun flashed over the wall of the second courtyard. Vlad did not reply.
‘There will be conditions,’ the dervish warned. ‘The emblem will hold you to them.’
He ran his finger over the wolf in the wood. ‘You have seen Mehmet too, I think?’
The dervish looked up in surprise.
‘The guards tell me most things,’ he explained. ‘The rest I guess myself.’
‘Very perceptive of you. Then I imagine you have already noticed the similarity between yourself and Mehmet Celebi.’
He thought about Mehmet’s confession of the murder of his brother. He wanted to tell the dervish that he was wrong, that he, Vlad Dracula, may be many things but he was not a murderer. He could have killed Mehmet that day at the fortress of Egrigoz. His hands had meant to do it, but his head had stopped him. Or perhaps it was Radu that had stopped him. The death of Mehmet would have certainly meant the death of Radu and himself. Himself he did not care about. Death did not frighten him, not any more. His seizures had banished his old fears and replaced them with new ones. Now that he had survived the hollow space of the seizure with the upyr at the end of it, he felt that even death could not touch him. The dervish asked him about his liberty but his liberty worried him. What would it mean now that so much time had passed? If he were to find a way back home without his younger brother, what kind of reception would he get? And now that Mircea had the regency well and truly in his hand, together with the proof of valour only battle brought, what was there in Wallachia to bring him home at all?
‘I disagree,’ he said. ‘We are very different; Mehmet believes he is a conqueror, and you have predicted he is not.’
‘Again, very perceptive,’ said the dervish, with half a smile. ‘But not altogether correct. I have predicted that he is not the right kind of conqueror.’
‘Because he is a murderer?’
The dervish looked closely at him. ‘What kind of murderer are you speaking of?’
‘One that will stop at nothing to seize his father’s throne, even if it means entering his brother’s chamber by dead of night and stifling his breath.’
The dervish closed his eyes. ‘I see.’
‘His father does not know,’ he said, leaning his head against the pillar, while the sky revealed the first shade of a sunset that the palace walls denied him. ‘Does that complete your prophecy, hakim?’
The dervish nodded slowly, his eyes glistening. ‘Perhaps. But that does not mean that the prophecy will be given.’ He turned his eyes upon Vlad’s face. ‘Caution is necessary, both for a soothsayer and a prince. For myself, truth is dangerous, and should be administered carefully. For you, vengeance is costly, and the emblem of your family name will hold you to its price.’
‘But Mehmet will take the Greek capital, the city of Constantinople?’
The dervish inclined his head.
Vlad leaned forward. ‘And then? Shall he move north; shall he take Wallachia?’
The eyes of the dervish moved upwards from the amulet to his face. ‘The rest, I regret to say, rather depends on you.’
Chapter 47
The guards at the Grand Vizier’s door in the east-wing apartments of the palace stood to attention as Mehmet passed. The Vizier came out to greet him in the salon, looking vexed. He walked to the pasha’s desk, picked up a sheaf of correspondence, and glanced at it quickly before throwing it down again.
‘I will look at those later.’
The flush on the pasha’s face spread to his neck. ‘Your father has seen them already.’
Mehmet glowered. ‘And since I am regent, I will see them a third time.’
He sat on the divan and took a handful of dates from the bowl. ‘Your court fortune-teller has a good deal of wit, doesn’t he?’
The pasha pursed his mouth. ‘It was His Highness the Sultan who requested the presence of the dervish, not I.’
‘Yes, so I hear.’ He paused, chewing. ‘I do not think you realise, My Lord, just how volatile these fortune-tellers can be. They have even been known to predict death,’ he added coolly. ‘Which must be an unpleasant revelation. I was thinking how unfortunate it would be if he were to bring out a prediction you did not like.’
The pasha did not reply. Sensible, thought Mehmet. He wants to keep his head, but he won’t be able to. Not anymore.
‘I have been thinking about the…incident at Egrigoz with Vlad Dracula and his brother,’ he said airily. ‘At first I did not want to inform my father, but I think now that it might better if he knew what kind of hostage he has in his palace. What do you think, My Lord?’
‘I am not sure it would be wise.’ The Vizier moved a step closer, his face tense. ‘If anything were said now, it would be better if it came from me.’
‘So it would,’ said Mehmet, and he smiled. ‘Well, I’ll leave it up to you, My Lord Pasha. We will talk about it again, I’m sure. In the meantime, I think it might be best if you got rid of your fortune-teller before he gives us a prophecy we will both regret.’
The pasha frowned. ‘But your father…’
‘My father ordered his presence? Yes, I know, but I think tha
t as his son and heir, I know what is good for him and what is not.’
The Vizier gripped the edge of his desk. ‘Your father has not abdicated. He is still Sultan.’
‘He won’t be for long. Speaking of which, I had better pay a call on him; he is always impatient to see me.’ He emptied his hand in the bowl. ‘Your dates are going bad.’ He stood up, and brushed down his tunic. ‘You should understand, My Lord, that the dervish doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Christendom is weak and divided; the Greeks won’t last long. By the time I get to them, the Palaiologos brothers will be cowering in their palaces like dogs in kennels. All it will take is a torch.’
The roses were between blooms. Dragonflies hovered, fragile and brittle, above the kiosk fountain and their emerald bodies reminded Murad of a charm, the nazar, against the evil eye. The bazaars, apparently, were full of such things these days. He had noticed Azize’s boy Djem in the hayat of the fourth courtyard the previous day and he had felt drawn to send a compliment to Azize Hatun about how well the boy was growing up; but then, out of nowhere, the ghost of a fear had slipped into his mind. Direct compliments were best avoided. They drew the evil eye, or so people said. Unless a compliment was followed by a prayer or a blessing, it was not even given. Even the Defterdar had mentioned the evil eye of the Draculesti, and he was a man of figures, and not usually given to reflection unless it came in columns on a sheet of paper. They were all susceptible. The whole of Anatolia was susceptible; in all likelihood the whole of Christendom was just as susceptible as they were. Perhaps they did not give credence to the evil eye, but they had their own weaknesses, such as simony. The priests of Christendom had earned a reputation for selling the tokens of their faith, a prophet’s bone here, a shroud of cloth there, and all against a pardon. They thought that they could sweep their appetites, gluttony, greed and lust, underneath the carpet and nobody would see them, not even God. It reminded him of a parable he had heard once; he rubbed his beard, tried to remember it but couldn’t.
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