Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat

by Garrett Bettencourt

  “Well done, Bostanci-basi,” said Mustafa. “Tribute and troops once again flow from Kaffa.”

  “And have you chronicled these events, Acemi Naim?” asked Soysal Nisanci. He was the only member of the Divan that knew the truth—the youth Naim was no mere court scribe. He’d been secretly training in the deadly arts with the Head Gardener since childhood, a project endorsed by the sultan himself. A project to create a new kind of gardener—one that no man would ever see coming.

  “Yes, Nisanci.” Naim produced a scroll with a green wax seal. “Every detail. I left out not a word.”

  A court servant took the scroll from Naim and handed it to the calligrapher.

  “I very much look forward to reading the tale,” boomed Mustafa. “Rahmi Bostanci-basi, you will receive a handsome reward, and the scribe Naim will remain in your service.”

  Rahmi bowed low, a smile hiding his chagrin. “It will be my honor, Sultan.”

  ###

  “It is a disgrace!” Rahmi Bostanci-basi swatted the wooden kilij from Naim’s hand. He planted a kick in Naim’s stomach.

  Naim landed on his side in the barracks courtyard, gasping for air. Churned up mud coated the young protégé of Soysal Nisanci, naked but for a loincloth. Despite athletic muscles from grueling daily training, a recent growth spurt had left Naim gangly. For all his growing skill, he spent most afternoons taking bruises and getting knocked on the ground as the stout master assassin vented his rage. Naim spat a glob of blood.

  Today, the Head Gardener was in a particularly black mood. Rahmi stomped around the courtyard, voice echoing off the palace walls. “No Bostanci-basi has ever had to train a quill-wielding weakling! Worse still, you disobey me at Kaffa and steal my glory? Stay down, you orphan rat!”

  The swelling pain all over Naim’s torso begged him to obey. A crowd of young men laughed—the Head Gardener’s hand-picked protégés. They stood in a circle, enjoying the sight of Naim’s humiliation. They hated the cerebral, educated orphan forced upon them. Every night, they made Naim’s life a living Hell. His eyes found a part in the cedar branches near a window in the seraglio. A round, petite face looked down at him from behind the curtains. It was a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl with almond-shaped eyes and full lips.

  Rahele is watching, thought Naim. He was ashamed to be laid low before her eyes. He thought of his recent pleas to Soysal Nisanci.

  “They hate me, Master Soysal,” Naim pleads. “The Bostanci-basi most of all. You commanded him to train me in the assassin’s arts, but he and the others beat, and starve, and humiliate me.”

  “Yes.” Soysal clips the dead leaf from a snowdrop flower. He appears more preoccupied with the plants in his conservatory than his bruised and bloodied pupil. “Men of violence will always despise men of learning. To them, might reigns supreme. But the power to destroy is nothing weighed against the knowledge of God’s wondrous creations. You reflect their insignificance like a mirror.”

  The battered young man follows Soysal to the next potted plant, limping from a puncture in his thigh. “Then please, Master, send me to a wise teacher. One who will teach me to fight, not beat me into the dirt.”

  “You misunderstand, Varlick. I did not send you to the Bostanci-basi to take instruction from men. I sent you to take instruction from suffering. Your sparring partners are not the other boys but rather pride, doubt, and want. You will never face more ruthless opponents. When they ‘beat you into the dirt,’ your task is to rise.”

  Naim watches the scissors snip a stem of withered brown leaves. He doesn’t want to let down his mentor, but neither can he deny his fear. “But Master, the beatings are worse every day. How many times will I be able to rise?”

  Soysal looks at his pupil. The shears make a sharp snap, and a perfect white flower drifts to the floor. “As many as needed.”

  Naim pulled himself onto hands and knees, his head spinning. He staggered to his feet. His back popped as he picked up the wooden kilij and faced Rahmi. He said, “Ready for the next lesson, Bostanci-basi.”

  A vein appeared in Rahmi’s flushed face. “All you had to do was pretend to be the minister’s scribe. Leave the side door open after the governor’s banquet.” Rahmi stalked forward. “But no!”

  Crack! Rahmi swung his wooden training sword like a club. The teen-aged recruit gave ground, barely parrying the blows. Despite the court assassin’s loss of temper, he was still fast and precise. Naim stumbled into one of the older boys, who shoved him away. Naim ducked, and Rahmi’s waster whistled over his head. He spun around and struck back. Rahmi slapped away the blow.

  “You had to play the little spymaster.” Spit collected on Rahmi’s lips. He caught Naim’s sword arm with his free hand, then landed a blow in the youth’s stomach. Naim fell down gasping. “I don’t care if the governor was innocent or not. If you ever interfere with my mission again, I’ll kill you.”

  The sand of the training square squeezed through Naim’s fingers. He clawed his way onto hands and knees. Rahmi’s eyes went wide with rage. The other students shared looks of disbelief. Naim picked up his waster and again stood up.

  “Ready for the next lesson, Bostanci-basi.”

  ###

  By the time Naim made the secret knock on the kitchen door, his muscles were tied up in knots. Rahmi had beaten him from one end of the training square to the other until the last rays of the sun faded. Only the thought of this moment, waiting in the cobbled alley behind the palace kitchens, gave Naim the strength to rise after every defeat. One by one, the spectators had given up, and at last Rahmi had tired of the lesson. Naim waited patiently, a kerchief held to the split above his eye.

  The door clicked open. A pair of brown eyes, dark as coffee, peeked through the door. Rahele lit up at the sight of him, her smile all the more beautiful for her rouge lips and long lashes. In the gray winter that was Naim’s life, the young harem maiden was a ray of sun. Rahele motioned him inside.

  “Rahele.” Naim stole into the kitchen, half-lit by the embers of an oven. His heart pounded at the danger of their meeting. She belonged to the sultan’s seraglio, and their secret love risked penalty of death. “How I missed you.”

  “Varlick,” Rahele whispered with a bittersweet note. Her hand hovered near his cut. “What have they done to you, my love?”

  “It is nothing.” He stroked her russet locks. His body drew close to her, and he inhaled the scent of her rose flower oil. “I would endure ten thousand blows if they brought me closer to you.”

  “Varlick…” Rahele closed her arms around him, her fingers digging into his back.

  Naim suppressed a wince as she touched his tender muscles. He lifted her into his arms. She swept a thread of hair from his dirty forehead. He kissed her, and their eyes slipped closed.

  A few minutes later, as she had done so many nights, Rahele led Varlick through the back halls of the seraglio to a secret door. It led into the suites of the haseki sultan—the chosen concubine of Sultan Mustafa and the woman soon to give birth to his child. Haseki Sultan Mihrisah had great affection for Rahele and afforded the girl a favored place in the inner circle of the Seraglio, allowing Rahele to better keep the affair secret. Rahele led Naim into her private chambers, and they made love until they lay exhausted in each other’s arms.

  Afterward, Rahele lay in Naim’s arms, twirling her hair. “Your training is puzzling to me. Why not block with the wooden sword?”

  Naim caressed Rahele’s arm, reveling in the feeling of her naked skin. “I don’t know what you mean. What else would I use?”

  Rahele turned over, and he felt her supple curves against his chest. “Your body most of the time. Sometimes your face. Seems like a bad strategy to me.”

  Naim knit his brows.

  Her cheeks dimpled into a grin.

  He realized she was teasing, and they broke into giggles.

  “Really my, love,” she said between kisses. “You need no more scars to impress me. You already share my bed.”

  “This is
why you would make a terrible wife to the sultan.” Naim lifted her up, and she squealed with delight. He rolled on top of her, kissing along her neck. “Men with power want flattery from their women.”

  She moaned when his kisses reached her nipples. “Hmm, but mockery is a great deal more fun.”

  “Perhaps I will try insults instead of a waster against the Bostanci-basi.” Naim’s lips pressed between her legs, and she made a shrill cry.

  “Why does he hate you so, anyway?” Rahele asked between heady breaths.

  “Because I discovered the real traitor was the governor’s vizier. And because he is dull-witted—and knows it.”

  Rahele’s fingers curled into the sheets. “How did you know about the vizier?”

  “I listened to all of them talk, posing as a scribe at dinner.” He looked up at her eyes, withholding his tongue to tease her. “The governor was the weakest man in the court—spoiling his children, deferring to his ministers. The vizier, on the other hand, was always ready with the right answer. So I broke into his study and found his secret letters to the Cossacks.”

  “I only wish your cleverness didn’t earn you such terrible beatings.” She trembled with pleasure. “I have better uses for your clever tongue.”

  “Every beating I endure brings me closer to the day I can take you away from this place.”

  Rahele made her lips pout. “By then, your face will have so many lumps, I won’t—”

  His tongue pressed inside her. She interrupted her own quip with another moan. He smiled, pleased to finally have the last word.

  ###

  The screams awakened Naim. He’d fallen asleep in Rahele’s arms, and now sunlight streamed through the window of her chamber. Women elsewhere in the harem were shrieking in terror. There were loud crashes and shouting men. Naim threw off the covers, his heart pounding.

  “What is it?” Rahele sat up, holding the blanket to her naked chest. “What’s happening?”

  Naim held a finger to his lips, then opened the door a crack. He peeked down the hall, hearing screams, but seeing no one. Then, a door flung open, and a man dragged a crying woman into the hall by the ankle. The man was dressed in black from head to toe, a turban and veil obscuring his face. He cut her screams short with a stroke of his scimitar. Her head rolled away from her body.

  “Varlick?” Water pooled in Rahele’s eyes.

  “The seraglio is under attack.” Naim shut the door and faced her. “There have been rumors of a plot against Mustafa’s unborn child, but the Bostanci-basi dismissed them. It seems he was wrong.”

  “We have to go now.” Rahele jumped out of bed and took Naim’s hand, but he resisted.

  “No. You must go. Use our secret route. Get to the quarters of the Nisanci and bring help. I will protect the Haseki Sultan as long as I can.”

  “But…the guardian eunuchs will learn of your presence in the seraglio. If the assassins don’t claim you, Mustafa will have you put to death.”

  “I made my choices. I cannot ignore my duty. Now…” Naim pressed his lips to hers. “…Go, my love.”

  “Wait!” Rahele ran to the dresser near her bed. She opened the bottom drawer, dug through her underclothes, and returned to him with a dagger curved like a fang. It had a bronze-studded sheath and an emerald pommel. Tears ran from her eyes. “Take this. I’ll bring help. I swear.”

  Naim accepted the dagger, and then she was gone.

  Over the next few minutes, Naim slipped through the interconnected halls and suites, never far from the screams, never too close to the shouts. Once or twice, he ducked behind a corner in the nick of time, hiding from the roaming assassins. At last, he found the grand chambers of the Haseki Sultan—the chosen wife of Sultan Mustafa. Mihrisah lay moaning under the awning of her four-poster bed, her swollen belly naked. On the floor nearby, a bald black man was on his back, wrestling with an assassin. The Chief Black Eunuch—in charge of protecting the harem women—was holding back a scimitar with wiry strength. Another assassin lay dead a few feet away.

  Naim used the carpet to mute his bare feet. He slipped behind the distracted assassin and unsheathed Rahele’s dagger. Naim seized the attacker’s hair and sliced open his throat, marveling at the sharpness of the blade. Blood splashed the eunuch’s face. Naim tossed the dead man aside, then offered a hand.

  The Chief Black Eunuch stared in disbelief for a moment, then allowed Naim to help him to his feet. “On any other day, your presence in this harem would mean your death.”

  “It may yet,” replied Naim. “The white eunuchs?”

  “Dead.”

  Haseki Sultan Mihrisah wailed in pain as a midwife mopped her forehead with a damp cloth. Blood dotted the sheet across her legs. She was in the throes of birth. “Please,” she cried. Her eyes met Naim’s. “Don’t let them take my baby. Please.”

  “How many?” Naim asked the eunuch.

  The sound of feet pounded in the adjacent hall.

  “Enough that I need your help,” replied the black guardian. “Jubair,” he said by way of introduction.

  “Varlick Naim.”

  “The calligrapher’s ward?” Jubair had a puzzled expression.

  “I can wield more than a pen.” Naim took up a scimitar from the fallen assassin. He and Jubair squared to the door. They breathed a collective sigh of relief when two black eunuchs and one white one came through. They were spotted with blood and had one of the harem women in tow. One limped from a stab wound in his thigh. Another had a slashed eye dripping white ooze.

  “Not here.” Naim gestured to the adjoining parlor room. With the side door to the Haseki Sultan’s chambers barred, the parlor entrance would be the path of least resistance. “We make our stand there. With a diversion.”

  The other eunuchs looked to Jubair, and the Chief Black Eunuch nodded his agreement. The five men took up positions in the parlor. They barred the door to Mihrisah’s room and moved furniture to flank the outer door.

  The next several minutes were the most blood-soaked of Naim’s young life. Half a dozen assassins came through the door, bottlenecked by the stacked furniture. The clamor of swords competed with the cries of a woman in labor. One by one, the eunuchs fell to the assassin’s blades. More than once, Naim found himself knocked down or off balance, only to be spared the killer blow by Jubair’s intervention. Blood spattered the beautiful paintings, soaked the mahogany floors, stained the clothes of the defenders. Naim’s sword and dagger worked as if by their own will, slicing jugulars, parrying blows, piercing livers, deflecting thrusts.

  It turned out that while Naim’s body had been taking bruises, his muscles had been learning. Now, his limbs remembered each killer blow like feet remembered a dance.

  There were only two assassins left when Jubair fell to a sword through his back—Naim hadn’t been close enough to save the brave guardian. Bodies littered the floor, and only Naim remained to defend the Haseki Sultan. The blood from a dozen cuts and stab wounds soaked his clothes. Fatigue began to sap his strength. Naim thought of Rahele—the reason he never failed to rise.

  Two assassins charged as one.

  ###

  When the Janissaries swarmed into the Haseki Sultan’s parlor, they found a scene of severed limbs and cut up corpses. Harem women cowered in the corners. They entered Mihrisah’s chambers at the moment her baby’s head emerged from the birth canal. Naim looked over his shoulder at them, feeling the blood of the assassins still hot on his face. He turned back to his work, the tiny new life cradled in his hands.

  “You’re almost there, Haseki Sultan!” He had no idea what he was doing, but circumstances hadn’t given him a choice. Fortunately, nature was doing much of the work. “Push again.”

  With a scream of pain, Mihrisah gave a final effort, and her baby came into the world.

  “My child,” cried Mihrisah. “Is my child all right?”

  Naim touched Rahele’s curved blade to the umbilical cord and sliced it. He turned the infant toward the sultan’s wife, his arms sli
ck to the elbows with blood—from afterbirth, from his wounds, from the men he slew. At a suggestion from one of the harem women, he patted the babe on the back, and it burst into squalling. “You have a newborn son.” He handed the child to his mother.

  “He’s so beautiful.” She looked at Naim, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank you, young acemi. Thank you.”

  Loss of blood had taken its toll, and Naim could only muster the energy to nod. He climbed off the bed, staggered to his feet, and limped toward the Janissaries.

  “Halt!” cried the soldiers, leveling their rifles.

  An understandable reaction, considering Naim was covered in the blood of birth and death.

  Rahmi Bostanci-basi dashed through the door. “Lower your weapons. He’s my pupil.” The Janissaries obeyed, and Rahmi stared slack-jawed at Naim. “Allah preserve us. How many did you kill?”

  Naim limped past the Bostanci-basi. “As many as needed.”

  Chapter 24

  The Silver Road

  On the Rooftops of Tunis

  Monday, September 12th, 1803

  Day 3, Near Dawn

  John marveled at Kaitlin’s ability to navigate Tunis unseen. She led him, Ethan, and Declan beneath the city walls in an underground aqueduct. They emerged into an alley where a trellis of vines ascended a building. According to Kaitlin, a silver handprint behind the wooden lattice marked “The Silver Road.” It was a road that existed on no map, but rather in the minds of thieves who traveled by its hidden signposts. After they climbed the trellis onto the roofs of the tenements, she led them on a maze-like path above the streets. They crossed planks bridging alleys, tiptoed along ledges, or climbed ladders hidden behind parapets.

  It was nearly dawn when they reached a roof at the edge of the bastedan—an open square serving as the city’s slave market. A stone windmill towered on the other side of the street, behind the bastedan wall. Its three canvas blades served as stationary supports for awnings. A long building with a gabled roof abutted its side, running along the edge of the square. Beyond the defunct windmill, merchant stalls sat empty in the hours before sunrise. John’s skin crawled at the sight of slave pens under the colonnades, stalls where captive women could be viewed behind curtains, and the large wooden dais where auctions were held. In this place, five years ago, his family had been torn apart before his eyes.