SERAGLIO (23 page)

Angora
.

In Spring Cappadocia is ablaze with wildflowers, the rain drawing a riot of colour from the sun-baked steps. Bayezid rode with his equerry, Murad, along a stream between ranks of tall, spindly poplars, fields of brilliant yellow rapeseed either side.

They reached the crest of the spur. His army was camped below under the towers of the Hisar fortress. Bayezid felt the warm flesh of his Arab quiver beneath him. The camp was at prayer; men were lined in rows, on their knees. Turbans bobbed in unison, thousands of them, row upon row upon row.

They had arrived in these past weeks from all over the plains; Kurds with broad scarlet sashes at their waists with woollen skull caps instead of turbans; Turkoman bandits in fur hats; black plumed Spahis who had deserted the Porte to come in search of the new Mustapha; and the dispossessed
timariot
s in a motley selection of armour and conical helmets.

Now there were twenty thousand camped on the plain, a traditional ghazi army, the ancestors of the horsemen whose great grandfathers had conquered the steppes in the name of the Osmanlis.

Murad turned to Bayezid. 'You lit a flame under the Empire. See how they flock to you. You are the future now.'

'And I will not let them down,' he said.

Manisa

The
shahzade
Selim was in a black mood. Bayezid was amassing an army and still his father refused to make his move. Instead he had sent Sokolli and his cannon and a royal command to move on to Konia to face his brother. Was he not the Chosen? So why did his father still sit in his palace watching the sun move the shadows around the walls while 'the new Mustapha' gathered strength at Angora, ready to murder him? Once again, he had been abandoned.

He emptied the crystal cup at his side and clapped his hands for his page to refill it.

Damn Bayezid. And damn Suleiman.

Perhaps they were plotting together. For all he knew Suleiman might even be at Amasya right now, feasting with him in the seraglio, or watching him show off to him at the
çerit
. Worse, his brother might be intriguing with the Aga of the
Yeniçeris
to usurp the throne, as his grandfather had done.

He gulped down another draft of wine. Life was so unfair. His mother had never shown him any affection, and Suleiman had ignored him in favour of Mustapha and Çehangir. Perhaps he should have been born with a spine like a camel's hump, then he might have got a little attention.

He was assailed by a sudden wave of vertigo, as if he were on the edge of a black cliff; he clutched at the divan as an oily sweat broke out on his skin. They were all intriguing against him, weren't they? He was quite alone.

Even the wine would not shake this black mood tonight. He needed a distraction. 'Abbas!'

His Kislar Aghasi stepped forward, bowing low. Ugly brute, Selim thought. Why did Hürrem insist he take him into his household after her death? Perhaps he was a spy. He should have this brute's head on a spike soon. He would think about it.

'My lord,' Abbas murmured.

'I need some entertainment, Kislar Aghasi.'

'What does my Lord wish?'

'Bring on the herd. The bull is pawing the ground.'

'As you wish.'

Angora

The oil lamps had been lit in the campaign tent and his officers crowded in side by side with Turkoman and Kurdish bandits to stare at the charts he had unfolded on the carpet.

'Suleiman has ordered Prince Barley Pudding …' a grunt of derisive laughter from the others for the nickname they had given Selim … 'to take his army and his household to Konia, to protect the land route to Syria. From us, I suppose he means. But we have no quarrel with Suleiman.' Bayezid looked around at the hard, bearded faces. 'We will ride south to confront Selim.'

'He will run,' someone suggested.

'Yes, my brother would like to run. But my father has sent him a backbone, in the form of a
Yeniçeri
regiment and thirty cannon. It may be a harder fight than we expected.'

'Thirty cannon will not stop us!'

'The cannon are not important, not even the
Yeniçeris
. It is Selim. Once my brother is dead, the battle is won. It is as simple as that.' He pointed to the map at his feet. 'We will draw up our army here on the plain and wait. Sokolli has orders to keep us apart, not to attack. So he will draw up artillery in a defensive posture. We will give him the charge he expects to keep him occupied. Meanwhile we will leave a cavalry squadron here in the hills to the west. It will be small enough to pass unnoticed, a tiny dart just big enough to cut the vein in Prince Barley Pudding's neck. When he is dead we can break off the attack. Our work will be done. There will be no other
shahzade
then but me.'

They all nodded. They were sure they would win.

Manisa

There were three or four dozen girls, all of them naked. They were the most beautiful girls in the Empire, none older than twenty, some as young as twelve. They had been purchased in the outlying provinces or by Selim's special procurators at the market at the Place of the Burned Pillar, the same place where his mother had been sold.

Selim reeled into the hall, staggering from the effects of the wine.

They were all on all fours, breasts swaying as they moved about the thick rugs, a moving herd of coffee, alabaster and olive. Abbas, the Kislar Aghasi, snapped a short oxhide whip in the air above their heads like a cattle master to keep them moving.

Selim roared like a bull and started to strip off his clothes.

Abbas stepped back as Selim plunged in among the girls. Selim caught the back of one and tried to mount her. Abbas saw her grimace in pain.

Selim roared again. Finally he was inside her and began to thrust his hips violently. Then he pushed her away and crawled after another one, his great belly sagging on the ground. He caught a fair haired Armenian by her hips and she wriggled in distress.

No, don't do that, Abbas thought. He'll have you killed if you resist.

But Selim was too drunk to notice. He mounted her and his fingers cupped her breasts, squeezing so hard he made her scream. He liked that. He roared again and with a final thrust of his hips released her.

He clapped his hands and a page threaded his way through the girls with a cup of wine. Selim drained it in one draft and returned to his pleasures.

He mounted yet another girl, gripping her braids as if they were the reins of a horse. 'Damn you, Bayezid! See, I shall impregnate a whole herd of women and my sons shall swarm over the throne like ants over a corpse!'

He released the girl and scuttled after yet another; but by now the wine had slowed him and he slumped forward on his face. He tried to struggle back to his knees. The girls cowered away along the walls but Abbas cracked the whip above their heads to force them back into the centre of the room.

Selim grunted and made after the nearest one. He caught her leg but she wriggled free and he toppled over onto his back, his belly heaving. He had already lost his erection to the wine, Abbas noted.

He made a final attempt to rise but his head fell back onto the carpets. He laughed again. 'Damn you, Bayezid!' Within seconds he was snoring.

Abbas clapped his hands and the girls fled from the room. Four pages lifted the sleeping
shahzade
from the floor and carried him to his bedchamber. The prince of the Osmanlis, first son of the Magnificent, pretender to the throne of the greatest empire on earth, turned over and vomited copiously on the silk sheets.

Konia

The dervishes had been fasting and praying for a month. Now, drunk with opium and faces ghost-white from talcum, they filed into the courtyard. The musicians sat in a circle, cross-legged on the hard stone. The flutes began to play, the soft wailing drifting upwards as a sliver of moon rose behind the dome of the
türbesi
. Torchlight threw long shadows on the walls of the monastery.

The drummers joined in, quickening the rhythm as the dancers began to spin, long skirts fanning out around their legs. They started their chant, saying prayers for the great ones.

The dancers inclined their heads to their right shoulders, their heavy garments giving off a low whistling moan, like the wind in the mountains.

Bayezid felt his own heartbeat speeding up in time with the music; still they whirled, until even the dancer's faces began to blur. But not one of them staggered, none of them fell.

The music ended without warning. The dancers fell prostrate to the floor, heads rolling on their shoulders, flecks of foam on their lips. They were in the trance.

He stepped into the circle and approached one of the dancers, a tall monk with a white beard and a brown face as wrinkled and hard as a walnut. They said he was one hundred and eleven years old. 'Holy Man, can you see?' he said.

His eyes were open but his pupils were cold and glazed, like a dead fish. 'I can see,' the old man answered.

'Tell me what you see for the sons of Suleiman.'

'If the one who is not the son of Suleiman becomes king, I see only misery and corruption and stink.'

Bayezid crouched lower, trying to make out his words more clearly. The one who was not his son? 'What of Bayezid?'

'I do not see him.'

'Who do you see then?'

'A great wind that blows a curtain over everything. God's wind.'

'What else?'

'There is nothing else. I see only the wind.'

Bayezid stood up, frowning with disgust. All these monks only ever spoke in riddles. You could never get any sense out of any of them. He stamped away. Holy men? Holy wasters of time!

Topkapi Saraya

Suleiman stared at the
gediçli
kneeling at the foot of his throne. Her tight curls were grizzled with gray but her eyes had lost none of their malevolence. For thirty five years she had been Hürrem's slave, and hardly worthy of his attention. Now he had summoned her here by express command. Muomi alone, he realized, could possess the remedy for his grief.

'You were the Lady Hürrem's handmaiden since she was first
gözde
. Yes?'

'Yes, My Lord.'

'You knew her intimately?'

'I did.'

'I wish then, to speak of intimate matters. There is no reason to fear,' he added, ' as long as you answer me truthfully, for I am your Sultan, and your allegiance is to me, not Hürrem. She rests now and is beyond mortal retribution.'

'Yes, My Lord.'

''I want you to think back, to your first years of service. Do you remember a man called Ibrahim who was my vizier for many years?'

'I remember, my Lord.'

Suleiman leaned even closer so that now he was perched on the very edge of the throne. 'Was it possible … that the lady Hürrem ever received him in the Eski Saraya?'

Muomi raised her head and met his eyes. God help me in my sorrow, he thought. This woman is terrifying. She has Satan in her eyes.

'She received him once, my Lord.'

He could not breathe.

'How?' he asked her finally.

'A bribe to the Kislar Aghasi, the captain of the Girls, before Abbas. The Lady Hürrem swore me to secrecy. She said I would die if I ever whispered a word of it.'

She is lying, Suleiman thought.

She is lying.

She must be.

A lie, a lie, a lie.

'NO!' he screamed at her. He leaped from the throne and slapped her across the face. Muomi fell back, astonished that this frail old man still had the strength to hit so hard. She put a hand to her lips and it came away bloody.

'
Bostanji
!' Suleiman screamed and signalled to the deaf-mute who stood in attendance. The man stepped forward and drew the
yataghan
from his belt. With one movement he scythed Muomi's head from her shoulders. A fine pattern of blood sprayed over Suleiman's boots.

It was a lie.

It had to be.

Konia

Wind.

It whipped at the pennons on the levelled lances and tore at the robes of the waiting horsemen. Bayezid sat immobile on his Arab stallion, his face partially hidden behind the nasal of the conical silver helmet. When he drew his damascened sword, thousands of his cavalry ranged behind him imitated his movement so the sounds of steel rasping on sharpened blades could be heard even over the howling of the wind.

Bayezid spurred his horse forward into a walk. The line of horsemen behind him followed.

Even at this distance he could see the mouths of the cannon on the other side of the plain. They would not fire on him, he was sure of it.

'Vvvvvt!' Bayezid whispered to his horse and it broke from its march into a canter.

Dust rose from the hoofs, a purple tail that spiralled from the plain like a trailing banner. Bayezid heard the ululation behind him as they gathered speed. The ground flashed past in a blur. Nothing could stand against this wall of lancers and the muscles of the Arab warhorses.

He brought his sword over his head and held it in front of his body, pointing towards the cannon. He ordered the charge.

He was sure Sokolli could not persuade his troopers to fire on their favourite son.

***

Selim heard the drumming of the hoofs and felt the vibrations through the thick carpets strewn on the floor of his pavilion. He gripped the arms of his throne as if a chasm had opened up in the ground around him.

He clapped his hands and Abbas hurried to his side with the jug of wine. 'Where is Sokolli?' Selim said.

'He is with the
Yeniçeris
, my Lord.'

Selim took the glass but his hands were shaking so badly he spilled most of it into his beard and down the front of his golden robe. Abbas refilled it. The last servant who had been too slow to refill the
shahzade
's goblet had lost both his hands at the wrist.

'Sokolli should be here with me,' Selim said.

'With respect, it is better that he is with the gunners. Someone must direct them.'

Selim badly needed to void his bowels. He drained his glass and rushed out of the tent.

***

The horses had sensed the coming storm. They shook their tasselled heads and stamped their hoofs. Murad rode to the crest of the ridge and scanned the sky to the south. The horizon had disappeared. He watched the dust storm sweep across the Mevlevi monastery almost as if the dervishes had summoned it there.

'God's wind,' Murad muttered. 'It is headed straight for our cavalry. In a few minutes they will be blind.'

He drew his
killiç
from his belt. It was time. There were two dozen riders waiting with him in the gully. He wheeled his horse to face them. 'Now!' he barked.

***

Muhammad Sokolli had expected trouble.

He had brought with him from Stamboul a hand-picked squadron of
Yeniçeris
and
solak
guardsmen. They were veterans of the campaigns in Persia with Suleiman; a handful of them had even served as young men at Mohacs. They were loyal only to the Sultan.

He had taken the precaution of deploying them in a line behind the artillery. As he watched Bayezid's horde make the charge he thanked God for his foresight.

There were two banners of cloud drifting towards them; the cavalry from the front, the desert storm behind. He wondered which would arrive first.

'When I give the order you will fire!' he screamed over the rushing of the wind.

The
Yeniçeris
looked at each other then at the advancing cavalry. Finally one of them found the courage to speak up: 'We cannot fire on the
shahzade
!'

The horses came on.

'That is not the
shahzade
,' Sokolli shouted at the man. 'Selim is the
shahzade
, as decreed by your Sultan. Prepare to fire!'

Not a single trooper bent to the pyramid of musket balls beside their cannon pieces. 'Long live Bayezid!' someone shouted.

Sokolli could see Bayezid now, in his green robes - a clever choice, Sokolli thought, the colour of Islam. The ground shook under their feet.

Sokolli drew his sword and turned to the soldiers waiting in line behind him. 'Prepare to fire,' he shouted. They rested their harquebuses on the forked sticks in their left hands and aimed at the gunners in front of them.

Sokolli turned back to the artillery troopers. 'Fire or I will give them the order to shoot all of you.'

Still they hesitated.

'Aim ..' Sokolli said. Is their nerve going to hold, he wondered. Will they force me to fire? We will all die, if they do.

The cavalry were close now.

Suddenly one of the men picked up a cannon ball and heaved it into the mouth of his cannon. One by one the others did the same.

'Light the fuses,' Sokolli said.

They lowered the trajectories, aiming at the onrushing horde.

***

Bayezid saw an orange blossoming of flame along the line of artillery, heard the howl of shot in the air. The earth erupted all around him. It was if God had taken an invisible scythe and raked it over their ranks. Suddenly he was riding alone.

They were gone! Almost every man riding with him in the first wave had disappeared. He saw a horse, wide-eyed with terror, trying to rise to its feet, dripping blood from its severed foreleg. Its rider lay in several dusty heaps beside it.

He turned in the saddle. The plain was littered with more little mounds, horses and men, some writhing, some lying quite still where they had fallen. The second wave came on. The ground erupted again and for a moment they, too, were lost behind a wall of flame and dirt.

Just a handful rode on through the cloud.

A third wave, a fourth.

They had to keep coming. He turned back to urge them on.

Now he heard the hiss of arrows in flight, the clang of musket balls and crossbow bolts hitting armour. The ground erupted again, and more horses were scythed away from their riders.

Bayezid raised his sword and stood in the stirrups so they could all see him. 'Death to Selim!'

Another wave came, then another. His ragged army of bandits and horsemen did not waver. While the new Mustapha sat in the saddle, they were ready to die.

They would do it, he thought. Despite Sokolli's cannon, they would prevail.

***

By the time Murad reached Selim's camp the storm had already rolled in, obscuring the horsetail standard outside the
shahzade
's tent. Where was he? They galloped in circles, hacking down the few guards who tried to stand in their way.

God's wind had obliterated everything.

Murad could not make out anything more than a few yards in front of him. 'Where is he?' he screamed.

He could hear the rest of his raiding party but all sight of them was lost behind the stinging barrage of sand. He raised his arm to protect his face, did not see the man who ran from one of the tents and slashed the hamstrings of his Arab. The beast bucked and screamed and crashed onto its side.

The fall trapped him underneath his horse, jarring his
killiç
from his fist and winding him. He looked around desperately for his attacker. He glimpsed the blue jacket and gray cap of a
Yeniçeri
. He fumbled for the spear in its sheath on the saddle and threw it.

His practice at the
çerit
had served him well. The spear took the trooper through his chest. The man fell back, choking and kicking.

The crippled Arab was scrabbling in the dust, trying to regain his feet. For a moment it lifted its weight and he was able to scramble clear. He crawled to the dying trooper and took his sword off him. His ankle was agony. He limped away, blinded by the storm.

***

Murad heard a woman's screams. The dust cleared for just a moment and he saw veiled figures running from a silk pavilion, darting between the horses and the silhouettes of fighting men. Somehow they had found Selim's harem; Prince Barley Pudding could not be too far away. He limped towards them but then the dust closed around them again and everything was just shadow.

He was standing in front of a purple tent. There it was the horsetail standard! But where were the guards? Perhaps they had been lured away by the battle in front of the women's' tent. He tore open the entrance curtain and went in, dragging his injured leg behind him.

Bayezid, I will not let you down. You will be Sultan, I shall make sure of that.

He came face to face with an enormous Moor. He wore a kaftan of bright blue flowered silk. There were pointed
ship-ship
on his feet and a ruby glinted in his left ear. Although he dressed like a fop, he was one of the ugliest man Murad had ever seen in his life. His face had been scarred and only one eye remained. He was also obscenely fat, even for a eunuch. He gaped at Murad then fell prostrate on the floor in front of him.

'Please don't hurt me,' he said. 'I am just a harmless slave.'

Murad snorted in disgust and burst through another silk curtain into the inner sanctum. Selim lay on his belly, arms and legs spreadeagled. Murad leaned his weight on his sword and rolled him over with his uninjured foot expecting to see him split open like an over ripe peach.

He heard the rustle of silk as the eunuch followed him in. 'Is he dead?' Murad asked him.

'No, he is not dead, my Lord, only drunk. He fainted as soon as he heard the first cannon.'

'Then he is fortunate. He will not feel my sword tickle his ribs.'

Murad raised his
killiç
for the death blow. Suddenly he felt as if every nerve, every muscle had been numbed. The sword slipped from his fingers and fell onto the carpet. He did not understand what was happening.

He lay on his back, staring up at the eunuch. There was a jewel-handled dagger in the slave's hand and blood smeared down the blade. 'I am sorry,' Abbas said to him. 'But I cannot let you kill him. I wish that I could.'

Everything went black.

***

Bayezid turned his horse from the whipping blast of sand and rode back across the plain, his stallion picking its way through a litter of bleeding and moaning horses and men. How many have I lost t
oda
y? he wondered.

Sokolli's cannon were silent. There was only the howl of the wind and the cries of the dying now. A horse nuzzled a fallen rider; the Turkoman tried to crawl towards him, both legs shot away, leaving a trail of gore in the dust. Bayezid jumped down and administered the merciful blow, sending the man to Paradise.

They were defeated. Their charge had been halted by a barrage of sand and grapeshot. It was God's wind. The monk was right, after all.