The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire

by Linda Lafferty

  “I wish to speak to you in private, doctor,” said the Princess. “Guard, see that all my court stands at least ten paces from my closed door. Fatiya—close the windows and latch them. Then let the water run to all the fountains.”

  The doctor watched the handmaiden hurry from one window to another, shuttering the audience room.

  “Bezm-i Alem. Stay at my side. The rest of you, out of my bedchamber,” said Esma Sultan.

  When the door had closed behind them, Esma Sultan addressed the doctor.

  “You told me that if I were a Christian of your Church, I would need to seek confession and absolution from a priest.”

  The old man sighed, closing his eyes in resignation. “Yes, Your Highness. But you rebuked me for my error. You are of course of the Holy Muslim faith. I was foolish to mention—”

  “No,” said the Princess, waving her hand. “I am interested. Your faith and the prophet Jesus was a step towards the perfect word of Mohammed.” She cleared her throat and reached for a glass of lemon-scented barley water.

  “We value the primitive but crucial stepping stones you placed before us to pave the road to the True Faith. Jesus was a valuable prophet and earns high regard in the Koran. But I am curious about your priests. Does it really soothe the worshippers tormented by demons, these confessions to a stranger?”

  “In most cases, the priest is known to the worshipper. But it is true that a Christian can go to a priest he does not know and confess in order to obtain absolution. A cleansing of sins is extended by the power of the Church and Jesus Christ.”

  The water began to trickle through the nickel pipes and spill into the fountains.

  The Princess nodded, considering.

  “And there is relief in speaking of such things that worry the soul?”

  The old man nodded. “Yes. Absolutely.” The doctor’s watery eyes studied her as she contemplated her fingertips. He dared not speak too hastily.

  “Doctor, I shall consider these things you have told me.”

  “Princess,” began the doctor, “if I can help you in any way, perhaps bring the Prelate of the Ecumenical Church here—”

  “Silence!” screamed the Princess, her hands flying to her neck. She darted a look at the door. “Old man! Do you really presume I would let the leader of the infidels attend me?”

  “Forgive me,” stuttered the doctor. “I thought—”

  The Princess’s eyes bulged and she began to gag.

  “It’s that stench again.”

  The doctor remained silent, observing her.

  “You are dismissed, doctor. I shall consider your prescription. But never mention your pagan church in my presence again!”

  “Your Highness,” he said, and he rose to leave her chamber and return to his warm bed at Topkapi.

  The Greek physician’s words ran through Bezm-i Alem’s mind all night. In a dream she saw the clarity of his counsel, the depths of his reason. To speak aloud of the atrocities, those that weighed so heavy on her mistress’s mind and kept her hostage from sleep, this might indeed be the cure for her illness. God or her Allah or simply the clear night air would hear the words she spoke and chase away the djinns of the dead, may their tormented souls rest in peace at last.

  Esma Sultan would rather slash her wrists and rinse her wounds in vinegar than speak a word of confession to any priest. But what if it were not a priest at all, but the only man who shared and understood the horror of the murders himself who listened to the Sultane’s sufferings? Not a man of the cloth or a mullah, or Imam, but an ordinary man, even the man whose very hand had committed the murders in the name of the Ottoman Empire?

  Bezm-i Alem sighed. If she were to make this suggestion Esma Sultan would suspect it was because the harem girl longed to see the drowning guard, feel his presence and hear his voice. All of the harem stood transfixed behind the porphory grille when the giant entered her palace. She knew Esma Sultan could feel the women pressing close to the perforations, not daring to blink as they spied on Ahmed Kadir.

  No, thought Bezm-i Alem. I have never given her bad counsel. She knows I am worthy of her deepest trust.

  Yet Bezm-i Alem feared that even in her illness and desperate search for a cure, Esma Sultan would balk at speaking of the condemned men, her used lovers. Such a stain on her soul would not be so easily coaxed into the light, no matter how it tormented her.

  Bezm-i Alem decided to approach her after Nazip and the harem women had bathed her. She waited until the opium had cast its spell knowing that all things were possible then, especially with the help of the eunuch Saffron.

  In her desperation, she will know he is the only one she can speak to, the only one who shares her burden. She will listen. I know she will. She must.

  As long as the treacherous white eunuch Emerald does not interfere, all things are possible.

  By the next night, Bezm-i Alem had convinced her sick mistress of her plan, for there was no closer confidante to Esma Sultan than the harem woman.

  “I am dying, Bezm-i Alem. The nightmares eat my soul, the stench suffocates me. Soon there will be no air left for me to breathe.”

  “Let me send for the one who knows best of the drowning men, O Sultaness,” said Bezm-i Alem. “He alone can understand. And like you, he is Muslim.”

  “I can speak to no one of these men. Can you not understand?” said Esma Sultan. Her hand reached for the silver pail to retch. Bezm-i Alem took it from her, holding it.

  There was nothing more to bring up. Esma Sultan lay back white-faced against the cushions.

  “Please, Esma Sultan… just speak to him. Of anything! I will not see you die, my friend and mistress. Grant me this one wish.”

  Esma Sultan opened her eyes, staring at her beloved friend. She nodded her head, weak as a kitten.

  Ivan Postivich’s eyes were still swollen with sleep when he arrived at the palace.

  “Ahmed Kadir,” said Head Eunuch Saffron, obscured in the shadows just beyond the gate. “The Sultaness requires a private audience with you immediately. I will supervise your cleansing.”

  The Solak took a step back to allow Postivich to pass.

  “Another audience?”

  “Yes.” Saffron studied the janissary. “You have heard that the Princess is very ill.”

  “There has been rumor of it in Et Meydan.”

  “Solak!” commanded Saffron over his shoulder. “Return to your post. If I see you eavesdropping on us again, I’ll have you suspended from duty and scrubbing dirty tiles of the hamam with your damnable beard!”

  The guard bowed and began walking back to the great doors of the audience room. Saffron watched him carefully until he was well out of hearing range.

  “Odors that no one can smell and sights no one can see,” said Saffron carefully. “She is left gasping and cannot draw breath.”

  The janissary walked with the eunuch to the communal fountain. He cupped his hands and splashed water onto his face. The water, icy cold from the enormous ancient cistern under the palace, chased away the sleep, stinging his face.

  “I don’t understand,” said Postivich. “If she sees visions and smells imaginary odors, what can I do? I can fend off intruders, kill thieves, and protect her harem, but my sword is powerless against the ghosts that haunt her.”

  “Be careful what you say, janissary,” said Saffron, black eyes glittering in the lantern light. “Your tongue can save you or destroy you. Your prudence and wit will determine which. If she speaks, listen, and you will profit. Don’t underestimate her influence over her brother, the Sultan,” he added, quietly. “You may ride in the cirit games yet, Corbaci. But first you must learn to indulge Esma Sultan.”

  Saffron did not stop to hear the janissary’s response but made a sharp, hissing sound through his teeth that brought two pages scurrying to him for orders.

  Postivich removed his shoes and washed his feet in silence. When he was finished with his ablutions, the eunuch gave him a fresh pair of silken slippers and a launder
ed tunic. He helped wind a new turban around his head. Postivich could feel the strong fingers of the enormous man gently creasing the fabric and adjusting the fit. He had not felt the hands of another dress him since he was a young boy in the northern country. The gesture seemed oddly familiar and comforting.

  “It is your duty to serve the Ottoman Empire,” said Saffron, accompanying Postivich to the doorway of the audience chamber. “That service includes protecting the health of the Sultan and his family. I trust you will do everything in your power to see that the Princess’s health flourishes once more. For this, you will be richly rewarded.”

  Saffron’s eyes locked fiercely with the janissary’s, an intensity in the stare that Ivan Postivich had seen in men’s eyes on the battlefield. Saffron nodded to the guards to announce their arrival to the Princess.

  Chapter 4

  The Princess reclined on a blue silk divan, her eyelids swollen and heavy. She barely raised her head to watch her Head Eunuch and the janissary enter the room. She waved the eunuch away, and, without a word, he disappeared down a corridor.

  Postivich could see silver hairs mixed in with the Princess’s dark auburn tresses; her face was dry as thin parchment. Knowing the Ottoman loathing for grey hair—even warrior Sultans would color their beards—Ivan Postivich knew she must not have been out of this inner sanctum in days.

  “Nazip,” she called, her voice a whisper. “We must have the utmost privacy. See that no one lurks.” She motioned to the janissary. “Sit.”

  Ivan Postivich looked down at the finely woven Egyptian mat that lined the room. “If the Princess does not object, I prefer to stand.”

  “The Sultan’s sister insists you lower yourself at once!” snapped Esma Sultan, her voice regaining strength. “Your freakish height disgusts me.” She coughed and coughed, then spat into her linen handkerchief. Her handmaiden rushed to her with a cup of mint tea on an ebony tray. The slave looked up at the soldier, her eyebrows raised. Her wide hazel eyes implored the giant to sit.

  Ivan settled down on the mat, sitting cross-legged in front of the gasping Princess. He prayed that she would gag on her own spittle and die on the spot. It would be justice for the Ottoman witch. He wanted to see her bones settle on the floor of the sea, picked clean and white by the fish of the Bosphorus.

  “Do not test my patience again, janissary,” warned the Princess. He returned her stony gaze for a second before dropping his eyes. He could smell the secret sweetness of the ancient pharaohs in the delicate weave of the mat. Egypt, too, was subject to the Ottoman dynasty.

  The water filled the fountain and flowed into the bowl beneath. As the water wept over the rim and the room filled with the echoes of its plashing, the Princess began to speak, her words clear only to the keen ears of the janissary, and not any others who might be listening, unseen.

  “I have been ill for over a week now,” said the Princess. “I have a sensation that someone is watching me. One or many.” She looked at the janissary who still studied the matted floor.

  “I smell a foul odor, more hideous than can be imagined,” she said and then hesitated. “The smell of rotting flesh.” She turned her head and looked over her shoulder, as if she expected to see someone there. “I dream of legions of men with dead eyes staring up at my palace from the water below my palace walls, their eyes clouded with death. Out of their backs sprout the wings of angels, but their flesh is too foul with rot to lift from the waves and the beautiful wings tear loose from their shoulders and fly away on their own, leaving the corpses to be picked clean by the scuttling pinchers of crabs.”

  Ivan Postivich turned away in disgust, thinking of the men he had drowned in sacks, fodder for the creatures of the seafloor.

  “My visions displease you, Corbaci,” she said, accepting a damp cloth wrung in cool cistern water from a handmaiden she had summoned with a gesture, then banished with a wave of her hand.

  “It is not for me to judge an Ottoman princess’s thoughts,” he answered. “You say you are ill. It is the fever that delivers these nightmares.”

  “They come without fever, even without sleep. My brother’s own doctor has come to study my symptoms,” she said and then fell briefly silent. “He has treated the ambassadors of Europe and the Court of the Topkapi. My Angel brother has pronounced him expert in the realm of medicine.”

  “What has the doctor determined?” ventured the janissary.

  “He has given me curious advice. He believes there is something diseased in my spirit,” said the Princess, her fingers stroking her temples. “Even the most erudite of Greeks still cling to their pagan beliefs. He told me that were he experiencing the same symptoms, he would go to a priest.”

  A priest! Ivan Postivich thought. You who have murdered your Christian lovers would confess to a priest of the Holy Byzantine Church? Surely he had heard wrong, her words obscured by the waters of the fountain.

  “I told him that his infidel ramblings would not be tolerated in my presence,” she added quickly. “But because this doctor is known throughout the Empire as having the power to cure, I have decided to pursue his suggestion… on my own terms.”

  “What terms are those, may I ask, Sultane?”

  “I want you to bear witness to my story; you to hear my memories.”

  Ivan Postivich could not help himself. He raised his head and stared at her, his insolence betraying him. His eyes flashed wide in astonishment and anger.

  “Why me?” his spread hand flew to his breast, indicating his insignificance. “I am only a guard to your Royal Highness, no holy man am I! I am soldier, a man of horses, swords, and battle. Could you not speak to your attendants? The Head Eunuch Saffron who serves you night and day? This trusted servant who wrings her hands in worry over your health?” he said, gesturing to the red-haired woman. “Surely you will find more willing and sympathetic ears than mine!”

  “No. These are stories they will not understand. I need someone to hear who can—judge me. A stranger who can hear and cannot, even if he tries, deceive himself and thus deceive me. You, Ahmed Kadir, do not like me. I know this. Everyone who surrounds me is subservient to me. They will listen to my story and proclaim my innocence, because they cannot imagine otherwise. And I will die by their deception, for they will not hear and know the truth.

  “You, janissary, have learned to hate me because of the work I cause you to do. Some day, I will have to answer to Allah for the acts of my life. I think you will serve very well in the meantime, schooled in your own pagan beliefs and our true Islamic faith. Perhaps if I speak, the efrits that haunt me will leave me in peace.”

  Ivan Postivich looked over at the fountain and listened to the rhythmic splash of water.

  “You forget, Sultane, that I, too, have blood on my hands—a stain that all the water of the Black Sea cannot wash clean. How can I be your confessor when I have carried out the murders of innocent men? It is by my very hand each of them has died.”

  “That is why it is you who must listen. Allah sees all. You have seen only the worst—men sinking to the bottom of the Bosphorus. But you have not known my life. I was once an innocent child—you must know that.”

  “I will listen,” agreed the janissary. “But as Allah is my witness, you will murder me in the end for the hatred I feel.”

  “I will not touch you, Janissary Kadir. You shall be under my personal protection as long as you remain in my guard. No matter what you decide, your life is secure. I promise you this much. I ask you only to listen, you need not comment.

  “If you do not consent, I will speak to my brother who indulges me more than any wife, and he will have your head impaled upon my garden wall for insolence. But if you listen, and listen with your heart and soul, I will grant you freedom from my palace guard to return to the Janissary Corps and the war campaigns that you thirst for.”

  She smiled languidly and said, “I have my spies, even among the fishmongers, prostitutes, and chestnut vendors. Even midnight’s mantle cannot hide your wanderin
gs—you are known as the ‘dog warrior’ who invades the neighborhoods of Galata, raging for a fight. The Pasha Efendi judged you well—you shall return to the war campaigns of the Ottoman Empire if you grant me these nights to listen to my story. You know nothing of me, nothing of my life. You must know everything if you are to understand me.”

  Ivan Postivich could think of nothing more repugnant than to hear the Princess’s tales, but to refuse her would be suicide. In response he only nodded, his jaw clenched.

  “When I close my eyes, I see blood. Red. A dark flowing crimson. Ottoman blood. I see my dearest cousin, Sultan Selim, butchered at the hands of Janissaries like you. His mouth is agape, his tongue is stuck to the skin at the corner of his mouth, drying there like parchment. Dirt and leaves cling to his face, sticky with blood, and I know the Janissaries will return to claim his head and impale it. But now they scour the Topkapi for my youngest brother, Mahmud.

  “I know that it is my half brother Mustafa who has caused this, or more likely, his mother, Ayse, who thirsts for power.

  “I stand over Selim’s mutilated body and wipe the leaves and dirt from his mouth. I try to tuck the tongue behind his teeth again, for his expression is not becoming an Ottoman Sultan. But he will not submit and the tongue lolls back out like a panting dog.

  “The rebel Janissaries and my half brother Mustafa will leave me in peace, I know this. An Ottoman princess, barely past puberty, is not a threat to power and I am only a curiosity. Because of my birthright, I am untouchable. It’s my male relatives they seek.

  “Mustafa will surely drown most of the wives and concubines to rinse the seed of my cousin from their wombs forever. How he can ever face me or the other women of the harem again is something I cannot fathom.

  “They have murdered my cousin! He was the most gentle of the Sultans, preferring music and poetry to warfare. It was precisely these gifts that marked him as vulnerable.

  “In the harem we had long heard the rumors, long sensed the unrest. We might not have our freedom, but we had our eyes and our ears. And our spies. We knew the Janissaries were angry with Sultan Selim because he looked to the armies of the West for inspiration and knowledge. And we knew to fear the sullen power and murderous nature of the soldiers.”