The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire

by Linda Lafferty

  “May he dwell in Paradise with Allah and be recompensed with virgins of exquisite quality for what he has suffered here on this earth.”

  “What did he suffer?”

  “An untouchable Princess who ordered him from her bed, slapping and biting him on their wedding night. She bloodied his nose with a kick when he kissed the coverlet to approach her.”

  “Banished from his own marriage bed? Did he not demand his rights as a man to claim her?”

  “An Ottoman princess is above all men, except her brother. The poor Pasha built his own residence at the edge of Constantinople, so that he might not suffer the disgrace of the bruises from his wife who scorned him. The harem whispers he died without carnal knowledge.

  “But enough gossip of the palace. You must rest so that you are ready to serve the Princess at midnight.”

  Bezm-i Alem spied through the perforation in the ornate marble grille. She did not trust this white eunuch, Emerald.

  Who has assigned this contemptible little beast to Ahmed Kadir? Esma Sultan scorns Emerald and only permits him to enter the palace under orders of Topkapi. When he leaves she demands that lemon oil be rubbed on every surface he has trodden or touched.

  Does the Sultan have a hand in this?

  She wanted to warn the corbaci, but could not think how to approach him. One of the women in the harem had told Esma Sultan that Bezm-i Alem had spoken to the giant through the screen.

  “You may never speak to him again!” she screamed and slapped the young woman across her face. Bezm-i Alem stared at her in wonder, for she had not struck her since the harem girl was a small child.

  Bezm-i Alem raised her hand to her cheek. She said nothing but simply studied Esma Sultan’s face, trying to understand.

  When the harem girl saw the anguish in her mistress’s eyes, Bezm-i Alem knew how much she was loved and what price Esma Sultan would pay to keep her safe in the harem. But Bezm-i Alem also saw how much Esma Sultan valued the corbaci—was it just the restful sleep he brought her?

  “If my brother the Sultan learned of your interest in the giant, he would kill him, as he has despised the janissary since he was a child. He knows nothing of you now. Would you jeopardize your freedom and the life of the corbaci so foolishly?”

  Bezm-i Alem could not go against the Princess’s command. Still, she wished she could warn Ahmed Kadir of the treachery of this strange white eunuch who attended him.

  Chapter 5

  The janissary slept fitfully through the day, the heat making him sweat his sheets. Others joined him later in the morning, unwinding their turbans and folding them carefully at the foot of their mats. These were the men who had similar shifts to his, for there were servants and Solaks afoot in the palace at all hours of night and day.

  At the muezzin’s call, twice more during the day, Ivan Postivich dragged himself from his bed and prayed towards Mecca. He bowed his head and lay prostrate on his old woolen prayer rug that scratched mercilessly at his knees as he prayed to Allah. As he recited his prayers, he noticed all but one of the Janissaries in the same position. That one seemed to sleep on, making an exaggerated snore, a mockery to the muezzin’s call to prayer.

  No one disturbed him.

  The men whispered their prayers, hoarse with weariness, but devout. They stumbled back onto their mats and within seconds were sound asleep.

  Ivan Postivich rose an hour before sunset. He was immediately greeted by a page who promptly hissed to another down the corridor. Within moments, Emerald appeared with towels and suggested he visit the hamam, where he could bathe and be massaged while he took a light meal.

  The hamam was empty. Ivan could hear only the splash of water from the fountains. He stripped off his tunic and untied the sash that bound his billowing pants. A page whisked away his clothes to be laundered, while Emerald laid out a fresh uniform and starched white-sleeved felt hat.

  He prepared a coarse hemp bag, rubbing oily soap over the inside weave. He filled it with water until the suds inflated the sack

  “I will bathe you, sir.”

  The janissary lay on the warm marble stone while the eunuch rubbed the bag over his flesh, wringing the suds over the giant’s body, massaging his shoulders and legs. His body was soon encased in a billow of rich lather squeezed from the sack. The eunuch’s soft hands soaped every centimeter of the janissary’s skin, reaching into even the soft, intimate crevices with expertise and without hesitation.

  The eunuch then rinsed the man’s body with water from a silver pitcher. Then he pulled a long razor from a crimson sheath and honed it expertly against a leather strop.

  The janissary watched his back and forth motions with a wary eye. There was something sinister about this diminutive eunuch that he did not trust.

  “Lean back and allow me to shave you.”

  Ivan Postivich locked eyes with the eunuch. One quick move with the sharp edge could be his death.

  The jannisary jutted out his chin and exposed his neck. The eunuch smiled slowly, exposing his yellow teeth, and lowered the blade next to his wet skin.

  “Do not worry, Ahmed. Should I as much as nick your skin, the Sultaness would have my head mounted on a stick at Topkapi. This shall be the best shave you have ever experienced. Relax with faith in Allah.”

  A young page asked permission to come in, carrying a teapot and some sweetmeats. Emerald nodded to him to prepare the tea, while the janissary dried himself and rested, reclining against the marble wall.

  “When you have rested and been oiled and massaged, I will order your dinner. You can take it in the janissary hall, adjacent to your quarters, or under the lime trees in the garden.”

  “Sit, eunuch,” said the janissary, his mouth full of pastry. “I’m a soldier and not at ease with so many waiting on me.”

  “I am your personal servant while you attend the Sultaness.”

  “Then sit, I order you.”

  Emerald smiled and sat across from the janissary, who drank his tea in the flickering candlelight of the hamam. Ivan motioned to the page to serve tea to the man who had just bathed him.

  “Most gracious of you,” said the little eunuch, as the page ran to fetch another cup. “Are you aware that this is not the hamam of the palace Janissaries?” said the eunuch.

  “Yes, I was surprised you brought me here.”

  “This hamam is only for the Sultaness’s most honored guests. She prescribes a very strict bathing before anyone can enter her inner rooms.”

  Ivan Postivich tore at another pastry and chewed thoughtfully.

  “Did she bring the men I have drowned here?”

  Emerald looked up at the vaulted tile ceiling, seeming to study the drops of condensation crawling slowly to the lip of the cobalt-blue tiles before falling in an erratic patter into the pogol below. For a moment, Ivan Postivich thought the man had not heard him.

  “Yes. Always,” answered Emerald in a soft, high voice. “They must perform the ritual ablutions twice. They are made to soak their privates in buckets of warm seawater before lying on the belly stone, so as to drown any parasites that cling to their infidel bodies. All cleansings are supervised by the Head Eunuch.”

  “The Sultaness is fastidious about the purity of her lovers,” said the janissary.

  Emerald raised his fingertips in the air, cautioning the janissary to say no more. He darted a look at the page who was returning with the cup.

  “You may go now. I will ring the bell if I need more assistance.”

  The page bowed his head and left the steaming room.

  “I must warn you to be careful what you say in others’ presence,” said Emerald, wiping the steam from his temples with a linen cloth. “They are paid to have sharp ears and good memories.”

  He opened the end of two pipes that let a splashing stream of hot water into the bathing pool.

  Ivan Postivich grunted. He leaned back against a cool white marble column, enveloped in fresh steam.

  “He would bring no news to the Sultane
ss,” said Postivich. “Esma Sultan knows too well how I feel.”

  The eunuch’s eyes widened. The janissary could see the rings of white outlining the pale blue orbits of his eyes.

  “You have criticized her Royal Highness to her face and still live? You must have unique kismet in this world!”

  “She knows I loathe the blood I have on my hands in her name.”

  Emerald contemplated this as he opened a bronze pipe to wash the remaining soap from his hands.

  “You were brought up in the Topkapi as a boy, I know. I remember a tall lad wrestling a grown man in the training grounds and winning the match. ‘The giant’ he was called, but the Sultan Selim III later referred to him as ‘Biscuit.’ That was you.”

  Ivan Postivich looked away and grunted.

  “How can it be that a man of your rank and education could be asked to serve such a duty for the Sultaness? Were you not commander of your cavalry orta?”

  Ivan Postivich hesitated. He detected a disingenious note in the eunuch’s words. Surely everyone in the Topkapi Court knew the story of the corbaci’s demotion.

  “The Sultan Mahmud saw fit to relieve me of my post in the Janissary Corps when I returned from the Northern Wars, having served the Ottomans well and brought great honor to Topkapi.”

  The janissary threw his head back and finished off his tea. In his big hands, the porcelain cup looked tiny and fragile, like a girl’s toy.

  “This is how the Ottomans reward their faithful soldiers,” he said, “by letting them serve their blasphemous sisters.”

  Emerald suddenly sucked in his breath as if the giant had sunk a fist in his soft belly.

  “What is the matter, eunuch? You must know that I hate the Ottomans. I am still a janissary at the core, even if I am one of the Kapikulu elite. You will not find a janissary who admires the Sultan in all Stamboul.”

  “You honor me with your confidences, but I will again warn you not to utter them in anyone else’s company,” said the eunuch, his face hardening under the folds of fat. “You might consider withholding them from me, as well. I am sworn to be a faithful Ottoman servant.”

  The janissary looked the man in the eye. “If I were concerned for my life, I wouldn’t speak of them in front of you. But I am not afraid of death or the Sultaness. I am weary of the vice of this regime and the sins committed in the Ottoman name. I am a janissary, meant to protect the Empire and fight the infidels who threaten Constantinople, not a butcher of poor men who entertain an Ottoman whore.”

  Emerald lit another lantern in silence.

  “I prefer to think that you honor me with your confidences, rather than believe you tell me them as a death wish,” said the eunuch, illuminated in the glowing flame of the lantern. Ivan Postivich could see that the muscles in his jaw were clenched. “For surely, what you say is high treason against the Ottomans whom I serve.”

  “A janissary is not known for his subordination and discretion.”

  “And so there have been many assassinations of Sultans at the Janissaries’ hand. ‘Long live the brother,’ has rung in my ears now twice in a lifetime.”

  Ivan Postivich grabbed a towel and wiped his dripping face.

  “I am not a revolutionary, and it is only under duress and imperial order that I am an unwilling assassin.”

  “I have seen your face many nights,” said the eunuch, through the steam. “It was I who stood in the shadows on the docks and carried your confirmation of death to the Princess.”

  “Yes. I recognize you.”

  “I made the report these many nights, repeating your words. May Allah cleanse my soul with the tears I have shed in shame.”

  The janissary stared at him and wondered if he was telling the truth.

  As if he sensed the janissary’s doubts and sought to quiet them by sharing his own story, the eunuch went on. “I was born in the northlands and, like you, was captured at a young age. After my castration, I was sold and taken to Stamboul. I was made to memorize passages of the Koran in both Persian and Ottoman in order to prove my faith and worthiness to Allah.

  “I delighted in my faith, for after my capture and my castration, I had only this one refuge, for Allah does not indulge such atrocities, but will punish justly those who brought me such shame and robbed me of my manhood.”

  “How is it that you are so educated, eunuch? You speak like a prince.”

  “That is the gift of His Highness, Sultan Selim. Under his direction, I was taught foreign languages, algebra, music. It delighted Selim to see his servant master the skills many of the princes and his rivals could not. I was his pet,” said Emerald, lowering his eyes, the blond lashes fluttering.

  Ivan Postivich understood the particular honor to which the eunuch referred.

  “I was second only to his favorite cousins, the Princess Esma Sultan and her brother Mahmud, who also received the finest tutoring as children. But it was I who shared the Sultan’s bed more often than the women of his harem.

  “But my greatest delight was the reading of the Koran, for I believed that now I truly served Allah, being so close to ‘his shadow on earth.’ The night he was murdered, I licked his wounds in immeasurable grief and wailed to Allah for his revenge. The butchers later carved his body into pieces, taking his head and impaling it upon the palace wall and flinging the rest of the mutilated corpse over the walls of Topkapi to the crowd below.

  “There was only one other member of the court who dared to return to watch his blood dry on the courtyard stones—Esma Sultan. A child, yet she stood under the lime tree, oblivious to the terror and striking at her handmaidens who beseeched her to hide from the Janissaries.

  “We shared that horror then—and now I dread the nights of the new moon, knowing I will be sent to fetch news of men’s murders.”

  “Why does the moon figure into this wretchedness?”

  “She is a woman and controlled by no man, but the rhythms of nature still mandate her womanly ebb and flow.”

  “She is a witch, for no human woman could be as cruel.”

  The eunuch tipped his teacup into his fleshy mouth, masking his expression from the janissary.

  “This sin would never have been suffered under Selim, for he honored the teachings of the Prophet. But everything turned on that night, even the destiny of the Sultaness I now serve. Still, control your tongue before it moves falsely again. I have known the Princess these many years. Esma Sultan is more dedicated to goodness and the Koran than you suspect.”

  “Dedicated to goodness! She defiles herself and the Ottomans and then dispatches men to their deaths. How could a murderess be accused of benevolence!”

  “You have a supreme death wish, my friend,” said Emerald, rising. “I have been with her since I first came to Topkapi. You, I suspect, will come to know her better and will see what a complicated woman reigns here. Perhaps you will hesitate in your judgment as time passes.

  “So, until you have that knowledge and can better know her, I will keep your words in my ears and heart. You are a man of desperate mind to risk the wrath of Esma Sultan, even if you proclaim no fear of death. Still, I will see who will ultimately win, under the judgment of Allah. Come, let me dry your back and prepare you for a good supper.”

  With that Emerald closed the tap on the pipes of the baths and whistled for the page to assist him in the cooler rooms of the hamam.

  Part II

  Sophie

  Chapter 6

  At midnight, Ivan Postivich was admitted to the exterior apartments of the harem, where the Princess stood, her hennaed hands twisting the curtains at a great window that overlooked the Bosphorus.

  “Your Highness summoned me,” he said, approaching at a walk, barely imitating a bow as he reached the fretting Princess.

  “Of course, you fool,” she said, dismissing his words with a flick of her palm. Heavy ruby bracelets clattered on her wrist. The calm and easy manner she had possessed when he left her at dawn had vanished. “No man dares enter the Royal Harem
without the express consent of the Sultaness.”

  “I don’t know about the men who are admitted to your harem.”

  She whirled around to face him.

  “Are you clean?” demanded the Sultaness. Ivan Postivich noticed beads of sweat on her pale forehead. “Tell me, Saffron, has the janissary been washed thoroughly?”

  “Emerald performed the prescribed ablutions himself,” responded the Head Eunuch.

  She sniffed the air. “There is an acrid odor of man about him that is foul. It pollutes my harem with its stench.”

  “I can take him back to the hamam again, myself, Your Highness—”

  “No, leave him here! I will endure his presence and disgusting odor. Light incense! Bring us mint tea to cleanse my throat. Sit, janissary.”

  Ivan Postivich crossed his legs upon an enormous silk cushion.

  “I have dreamt again and smell the rotting flesh,” she said, her white hands pressed against her cheeks, making a temple over her face. “Men’s jaws opening wide, exposing rotten yellow teeth that crumble as they scream to me, with no sound issuing from their stinking mouths.”

  The Sultaness gasped as she covered her nose and mouth with a linen handkerchief scented with lavender oils. “Can you not smell it now, the vile odor of rot?”

  Ivan Postivich sniffed the air, placing his hands on his hips. He drew an exaggerated breath, his great chest expanding. He smiled slowly as he exhaled.

  “I smell nothing but the sweet feminine aromas of talc and jasmine. Perhaps a pot of musk. The warm smell of bathed women, hungry for a man between their thighs.”

  “Your impertinence is astonishing,” said the Sultaness. Suddenly she gagged and crumpled her face into her fists. “I cannot abide a minute longer this hideous stench! Perform what Christian miracles you have done this past evening. Take away the demons, janissary, I command you!”

  Ivan Postivich watched the Ottoman Princess in amazement. He relished this moment, to have the Sultan’s sister beg succor from one who had been taken as a slave as an innocent boy. A born Muslim, an Ottoman princess, pleading for the solace of confession, that holy ritual of Christianity.