But the boy did not come. The cook had prepared the breads, yoghurts, fish, and a pickled salad for the prisoner and set them in a side pantry out of sight. When the hour came to send the food to the harem, she found her forehead beaded with sweat, so much that a harem servant remarked that the heat and oppressive odor surely had affected her—but not her cooking, mercy to Allah. She should lie down on the divan at the end of the corridor, where the cool of the fountains might bring her some relief.
The cook agreed, thinking that this would be excuse enough for her to take action herself. She promised the harem girl she would lie down or perhaps even walk in the interior gardens to regain her strength.
She instructed three scullery maids to take care of any additional requests, pleasing them no end with the sudden responsibility entrusted to them.
In the shadows of the cypress trees that purred with buzzing insects, the cook found the old gardener sharpening his tools. He looked up at her with a toothless grin.
“What have you brought me to eat, woman?”
She looked both ways, and, seeing no one, took out a greasy sausage of mutton, fresh oregano, and mint that she had rolled in a towel. She kept such pieces of meat and sweets to bribe the pages for gossip, peddlers for extra trifles, and butchers for the best cuts of meat.
The gardener’s tongue moistened his lips; the woman was known for her sorcery in the kitchen and especially for her art in sausage making. The minced lamb spiced the air with its meaty aroma and the hungry man reached out.
“Not yet, gardener,” said Maria, snatching away the sausage. “This is made from the prize sheep from the hills of Anatolia. You will never again taste a sausage as savory as this, no matter if you live another hundred years.”
“You will not give it to me?” said the gardener, his voice dumb with misery.
“I did not say that,” she hissed, once again looking around to make certain no one had spied them. “But first you must do me one small favor.”
“Speak, woman.”
“Show me the garden entrance to the cistern and take me there at once.”
The old man’s eyes wandered to the cook’s sweating neck and dropped his gnarled hands to his groin with a leer.
“Do not insult me, you old fool!” snapped the cook. “You think I would trade my cooking for so limp a noodle? You are mad, just as they say.”
“What do you want then?”
“The old entrance to the cistern, you fool. I know there is one here, where the aqueducts carry water to the fountains.”
The gardener finally engaged the thought and laughed to himself, licking his lips.
“For that, you will give me the sausage, by Allah’s word?”
“I have no time to waste on your Allah. Where is it?”
The gardener led her around the edge of the toolshed into the deep shade of the cypresses.
“Just there,” he said, kicking the dry needles from the wooden door.
“Good,” she said and shoved the sausage into his greedy hands. “Now go into the kitchens and tell the scullery maids to feed you some yoghurt and honey from the larder. I have sesame biscuits made yesterday to accompany them. Tell them that I am resting and not to be disturbed, else no one will eat tonight. Go, now!”
The gardener smiled at her and plunged the sausage into his mouth, his lips smacking in delight, and hobbled off towards the palace with a sigh of contentment.
The cook lifted the wooden trapdoor. The cool air greeted her like a cat, curling around her ankles and making her sigh with relief from the heat. She lit a candlestick, descended the ladder, walked a few paces, and then stopped suddenly when she heard a man howl with rage.
“What do you mean, he escaped? Where were you? You drooling fool!”
“He caught me by surprise,” wailed a second man. “I thought he was asleep. He hadn’t moved more than a step or two in days.”
“Hopeless drunken fool,” she heard the first man say. It was a voice she could almost place, high and irritating, but superior. A man of education. She searched her mind, wondering what person of rank could have found his way to this dark place without the help and consent of Esma Sultan.
“You shall die for your treason, Solak, but first you will live in torture for your complete incompetence.”
By this time, the cook had crept to the end of the damp corridor. She held her candle behind her and looked around the corner where the flickering torches illuminated the enormous pool, a makeshift bed, and three men.
The pleading victim, now on his knees, wailed, “I swear I wasn’t drinking.”
“You lie,” said the small man with the educated voice, and battered him with hilt of a sword. As his hand rose, she saw the paleness of his skin and at last placed the voice.
“Emerald,” the cook whispered to herself.
The man on his knees fell back as the sword hit its mark. He collapsed onto the uneven stone.
“Seize him and take him to Topkapi,” shouted the eunuch to the third man, a Solak like the one who now lay unconscious on the floor. “But as he reaches the Gates of Bliss, see that his ridiculous head parts ways with his neck. This much respect he can show to his Sultan!”
Moments later, standing alone in the chamber, the eunuch stared at the empty bed and tangled sheets. His voice suddenly small in the darkness he said, “I should have known. I should have found him. I should have.”
Chapter 24
The eunuch Emerald lost no time in reaching Topkapi. He demanded to see the Sultan at once.
Mahmud was paying a scheduled visit to one of his wives when the message was delivered. He excused himself from her apartments, refusing her offer of tea and pastries.
“What news do you bring that interrupts my pleasure?”
“The giant lives, Sultan.”
“Where? What traitorous beast harbors him?”
“He—he has been hidden in the cistern of your sister, Esma Sultan.”
Mahmud wiped his face with his pale white hands.
“I cannot believe this! They say she is ill! She has waking nightmares! She hides the giant—I will give her a nightmare she shall never forget!”
“There must be a conspiracy, my Sultan. I have never seen her consort with him and I watch her night and day.”
“Saddle my horse! I shall pay my sick sister a visit at once!”
By the time the Sultan and his personal guards arrived at Esma Sultan’s palace, the cook had told Saffron what had happened and sent word to the Greek doctor through an Armenian Christian kitchen boy.
Once inside the palace walls, the Sultan and his guards bent over the soft ground leading away from the cobblestone entrance. When the Sultan arose, his mouth was twisted in a snarl that allowed a glimpse of his white teeth against his glossy black beard.
But though they searched fiercely, no one could find Ahmed Kadir. The surviving Serbian servant boy was already on his way to lands far from the Imperial City. He was aboard a Russian trade ship before sundown, with gold enough to begin a new life—and the knowledge that, unlike so many others, he still had a life to live.
The Sultan bellowed through the corridors of the palace.
“Esma! You have betrayed me!”
He ran escorted by Topkapi Solaks to the door of his sister’s Royal Harem and demanded she receive him at once.
Esma Sultan rose from her divan, pushing her auburn hair from her eyes. She had lost weight in the weeks since he had last seen her and looked almost childlike in her white linen tunic.
“I demand to know where he is!”
“What, dear brother, is the meaning of this?” she said, ignoring his demand. “Since when do you barge into my palace, given to me by our glorious sultan father when you were still cutting your teeth?”
“I have been told you conceal the traitor Ahmed Kadir in this palace!”
“Ahmed Kadir? My Angel brother, I have not seen the giant since I dismissed him a day before the rebellion, and that I swear in the Proph
et’s name.”
“I have seen horse dung in the interior of your palace gates.”
“What of it? My carriages have been standing ready to transport me to Galata to choose a lover for the night. But I have been so ill—”
“Don’t try my patience! There are hoofprints, dozens upon dozens of them that lead towards your interior gardens. Are you harboring a legion of Janissaries?”
“Oh, my brother!” she smiled slowly. “You must refer to the tracks of the polo ponies.”
“Polo? What men do you have here to play? Do your eunuchs play polo?”
“No men whatsoever. It is a pastime for the ladies of my harem.”
Mahmud strode towards his sister. He grabbed her shoulder so roughly that Saffron instinctively moved to defend her, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“Do not jest with me,” said the Sultan, his eyes inches from her. “A man who meant to kill me has been seen in your palace. You nurse a serpent at your bosom and call it entertainment!”
Esma Sultan raised her chin to look over her brother’s head. She wrinkled her nose in disdain at the sight of Emerald, who awaited the Sultan’s orders.
“You certainly know more about his whereabouts than I do,” she replied calmly. “I swear I have not seen him nor spoken to him since before the rebellion. I paid him his wages and dismissed him, long before what you term the ‘blessed event’—if a sea of drowned men and rivers of blood could ever amount to ‘blessed’ in Allah’s eyes.”
“Then you have a traitor in this house,” said the Sultan.
“Oh, most certainly. At least one,” she said. “But Ottomans are used to treachery. How they deal with it in a regal manner is the question.”
“Tell me about the horses,” commanded the Sultan. “How is it that I know nothing about your supposed polo games?”
“I have my secrets, brother,” she replied, brushing her hair calmly out of her eyes. “We play at night. Come this evening after dark and bring your own players with you. We shall have a match and you shall see how we play. I shall not be at my best, but my harem women shall perform for you.”
Mahmud’s eyes scanned her face. He saw only her clear brown eyes mocking him and he loosened his hold on her shoulder.
“Thank you brother, for that. Your grip was becoming tiresome. I hope you don’t embrace your lovers with such ferocity, as it would certainly interfere with your lovemaking and give the woman bruises to remember you by. Poor manners and worse memories.”
Just then, a white-sheathed harem girl fluttered by.
“You boast how your women eschew the veil,” said Mahmud.
“All except one.”
“And who is she? Why is she alone hidden behind the veil?”
Esma Sultan tilted her head, then gave a small shrug.
“Well, my Angel brother, that was your first love—that was little Irena.”
The Sultan was struck speechless. His eyes wandered about his sister’s face in amazement.
“Irena?” he whispered.
“Yes. My adopted daughter now. She is untouchable under my protection. Her name is Bezm-i Alem now. Her veil is to cover her scars—”
“I must see her! I don’t care about any scars,” he said, opening wide the fists he had clenched only seconds before. “I must talk to her!”
“What luck. She is the captain of our polo squad. You will play against her tonight.”
“You are joking.”
“She is a very adept rider. As skillful as her brother.”
“Her brother?”
“The man whose blood you lust for. Ahmed Kadir is her brother, just as you are mine.”
Mahmud’s jaw dropped open.
“Come, kucuk,” clucked Esma Sultan. “Do not act the fool in front of our servants. Does she not have the same fire and pride as her brother? You should see her on her horse. Then you will know for certain.”
“I cannot believe that wonderful woman and that murderous cur are brother and sister.”
“Oh? And does not all Constaninople say the same about the two of us?”
“Esma—”
Her laugh was alive, as if her sickness has fled. “Come play polo with us tonight. Perhaps her equestrian talent will convince you of the truth.”
“I cannot play against women!”
“Why not? There is nothing forbidding it in the Koran.”
“Men against women?”
“Are you afraid we will defeat you?”
The Sultan managed a laugh. “I am afraid you ladies might be injured. What nonsense you imagine, sister!”
Esma Sultan lifted her chin. “Come tonight, little brother. Leave your spies at home. Just you and your Kapikulu squad, no Topkapi Solaks. We will play by the light of the full moon.”
“So be it. In the meantime, I demand permission to search your grounds.”
“Most certainly. I will have Saffron issue the orders and accompany you, if need be. But have that savage brute of a eunuch, Emerald, off my palace grounds within the next five minutes, or I shall have my own Solaks slit his throat.”
Mahmud caught sight of the fluttering of a yasmak behind a screen. “Until tonight, Esma.”
“We will be ready for the match, my Sultan.”
As Mahmud turned to leave, he spied the Persian painting on the wall of harem women playing polo. He examined it closely and saw his sister smiling from the divan.
“A treasure like this belongs in the Topkapi.”
“Our father bequeathed it to me. It will not return to Topkapi until my death. If you wish to visit it, you know where it hangs.”
The Sultan snorted and left his sister’s harem.
Ivan Postivich had overheard the entire conversation. His sister Irena had clothed him in tunics and veils, imploring him to sit rather than stand, as his height would surely draw the attention of Emerald, should he enter the harem.
The women of the Serail conspired to hide the giant, giggling as they dressed him in flowing robes and jewels.
“I shall escort him to the hamam myself!” whispered Nazip.
“Inappropriate talk for the expectant mother of a prince.”
“There is nothing more tedious than being pregnant,” protested the freckled maid, who had grown quite plump and even more beautiful. “Except to be pregnant with Ottoman royalty.”
“Irena, you must get me away from here,” whispered Postivich. “I cannot endure these women’s caresses without losing control of myself.”
“Perhaps you are more suited for cisterns than for a Royal Harem,” mused his sister. “They are harmless. Let them fuss over you.”
“They are harmless, but I am not. I have not had a woman in months!”
“Poor little brother. Learn abstinence and restraint. It will strengthen your character.”
“It is not my character that is strengthening.”
Irena looked down below his waist where he gestured.
“Put that away! It is most unbecoming under such fine silks. This is the only way the Sultan will not find you—he is forbidden to touch Esma Sultan’s women without express permission. Even I have been saved by this promise.”
“If he should ever touch you, I shall cut off his hand and his head.”
“Fine boasting for a fugitive who wears a woman’s veil.”
Once they had searched the palace and its grounds, Mahmud and his men galloped off to Topkapi. There were men in hiding along the way who barked insults from the shadows.
“Murderer! Traitor!”
“Blood on the hands of our Sultan!”
“Long live Ahmed Kadir!”
The Sultan sent two horsemen to locate the source of the shouts, but in the tight warren of alleyways and corridors, he knew the insults would never be punished. A pack of dogs snarled and bit at the horses’ hooves, making them bolt.
“We cannot murder every soul who hates the Sultan,” said one of the riders. He had already beheaded a dervish who had insulted the Sultan as he rode alo
ng the Golden Horn.
“Infidel Sultan!” the dervish had shouted. “You will have to answer to Allah for your crimes!”
“You must be mad, dervish, to insult your Sultan.”
“Mad? I mad? It is you who have lost your reason! You shall answer to Allah! Hail the Janissaries! Their desperate spirits clamor for justice!”
The man was executed at once, but the poor dervish was hailed as a martyr. Soon after he was buried, a legend grew of a shining light over his grave.
“Ahmed Kadir must be found and must die.” Mahmud’s orders were clear and insistent. He understood all too well how dangerous legends could be.
Sultan Mahmud’s day of misfortune had not ended. His mother, Nakshidil, had been consulting the Greek Orthodox priest again. She had openly returned to the religion of her birth and demanded the services of a priest at Topkapi.
“Mother! You are worshipping like an infidel under the Topkapi roof! Our people note your absence in the mosque.”
“Let them! I shall die soon and it will be with the blessing of a priest, you must promise me this.”
“I can deny you nothing, Mother. But you must not speak of dying. Let me tell you the news from Esma Sultan.”
At this Nakshidil smiled, for there was always something interesting and uncommon at Esma Sultan’s palace.
“How is the dear young girl?”
“She remains a painful thorn in my side and it is rumored that she harbors Ahmed Kadir somewhere in her palace.”
“The giant of the cirit field?”
“My mortal enemy, mother.”
“Is there more?”
“Esma has told me that our dear Irena is his own sister!”
“No! The fair Irena?”
“She is in Esma’s harem. She alone among the women is veiled.”
“The woman they call Bezm-i Alem?” said Nakshidil laughing. She clapped her hands together. “I know her! The giant’s sister no less! How delicious!”
“They were taken in the devshirme in the same day.”
“And how fares the sweet Irena?”
“She is not permitted to speak to me as she is one of my sister’s harem.”
“So was Nazip, who is now big with your child.”
The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire Page 30