A Place Called Armageddon (50 page)

But which way? She shivered. It was unlike her to be so uncertain. And then she heard it, the called command to clear a path, the rhythmic steps, the clink of sword harness. They were coming to bring her to Mehmet. Certainty would once again have to be faked.

She knelt, rolled the paper, slipped a ribbon over it. Then she rose, drew the scarlet cloak over her shoulders, donned the headdress, letting the veil fall over her face. As the marching stopped on a command, and a man’s shadow, made long by the evening sun, spilled onto her carpet, she reached up under the silk to rub the blood into her lips. It reminded her of other tastes there, of her and Gregoras conjoined like planets, and what they had planned. It reminded her too that there were always things in the stars that were unknowable, however skilled the sorceress. And that all she could do was concentrate on her will, her desire, which was Mehmet’s desire too. To achieve it, the city must be stormed. If wielding her crossbow would accomplish that, she would happily take her place in the siege lines. However, it was her other skills she needed now. Skills of enchantment. Skills of persuasion.

‘Are you ready?’

She recognised the voice. Hamza, the sultan’s shadow. The new
kapudan pasha
. The risen man. She knew he was wary of her, wary perhaps of the influence she had, that he could not control. He had prevented her reaching Mehmet before. But now he was there to take her to him. ‘I am ready,’ she said, picking up the horoscope, stepping into the sunlight.

Hamza had bent to call. Now he straightened to study. She was more hidden than she had ever been before, except behind the screen in Edirne, the first time he’d encountered her, in her robe now and a headdress of so many layers her face was only visible by its features pressing the silk out. It made him uneasy, the unreadable face. He wanted to see her, to be able to gauge if what she would say to Mehmet was what they both wanted to hear. The lord of lords wanted to be told that the stars still foretold his victory. Hamza wanted to be told it too. But there were many in the army, especially those of the highest rank like Candarli Halil, who did not. Who would delight in hearing that the sultan’s favourite sorceress was doubtful of success. Mehmet, for all his growing skills, was still a young man. And when greybeards carped … Hamza could not see her. He could not gauge by her look. But he would find a way to ask, and tell it in her voice, in the short walk back to the sultan’s
otak
.

He bowed, gestured with his arm. She stepped forward, and he followed, into the gap between two bodies of the household guard, their halberds at port across their chests. ‘Forward,’ he called.

They fell into step. Despite the urgency, he did not know how to begin. ‘Does Allah, most mighty, show His blessings to you?’ he asked, formally.

‘He does.’

She smiled beneath her veil at the silence that followed his first words. She could sense the energy in the man, the questions that filled him. She would answer if she chose, or not. The only man that truly concerned her waited ahead. Through layers of silk she looked to either side, saw what she had been hearing for some time now in her tent. Men celebrating. And it brought a question of her own, though she hid it in a statement. ‘The army is happy.’

Hamza, who had been about to speak, nodded. ‘
Irade
has been commanded. Two days of feast and one of fasting. To prepare.’

‘For what, lord?’

‘For a great attack. The greatest yet. If … if the sultan commands it.’

‘If?’ She let the word hang a moment, continued. ‘The final one?’

‘Perhaps.
Inshallah
.’

‘
Does
God will it?’

‘The imam, Aksemseddin, most revered, believes he does. Most in the army do, though …’ he hesitated, went on, ‘though many do not.’ Hamza sucked in a deep breath. ‘Do the stars?’

She smiled. It was the question of questions for him, she who was skilled in guessing men’s desires could tell. But she had learned that words were most powerful when uttered for the first time. So she did not answer him. ‘I do not see many here who doubt of its success,’ she said.

‘No. The doubters are elsewhere. Waiting for the sultan’s command. To advance to God’s glory or … or to strike their tents. Return to their farms. Some are close to him.’

‘You, Hamza Pasha?’

‘Not I,’ he said, too firmly, then looked about him, at the soldiers gathered around fires where whole sheep were revolving on spits, goatskin sacks being passed from hand to hand, squirted into mouths. And he, who never drank
al-kohl
, suddenly craved it, for his dry throat, for his doubting mind.

She sensed his doubt. It reminded her of her own, back in the tent. Yet she knew their doubt would not be resolved anywhere but in the very heart of the breached walls … and perhaps at one moment of destiny. And she found there were words she could give only to him. ‘I see you, master, with great wealth, with many wives, many children, one of the most eminent men in the land. Will that happen if Constantinople does not fall?’

Hamza thought of the doubters ahead, Candarli Halil, Ishak Pasha and the rest, the old Anatolian nobility. Their grip on the throne would be hugely strengthened by failure here, failure they’d always foreseen. The throne itself would have a new occupant soon after that failure, he was certain; and the new, ignoble men that Mehmet had raised would disappear like him, the mark of a silken bowstring on their necks. He shook his head. ‘It will not.’

‘Then …’ she smiled beneath her veil, ‘trust in Allah … and in the stars.’

It brightened him for a moment, until he thought of the other thing she’d said to him, when he’d prevented her reaching Mehmet before. ‘You saw something else for me. Not my … eminence.’ He swallowed. ‘My death.’

She saw it again, a sudden flash of it, as clearly as she had before. The risen man rising differently, into the sky, in terrible agony. A dragon watched, and a gloved hand plucked out a pasha’s heart. She swayed with the vision, stumbled into him. He steadied her, till she could speak. ‘Every man must die, master,’ she said. ‘Surely all that matters is how he lives?’

He wanted to ask her more, but they had reached their destination: the rear entrance of Mehmet’s great pavilion. The guard ahead of them moved to the side, the tent flap parted … and revealed the sultan. He was standing among a group of officers and clerks, clad as she had last seen him when he had tested the great cannon before the walls of Edirne, in a crimson coat, unbuttoned now so she could see the chain mail sewn into it, glistening in the last light of the sun. His face, though, under the silver helmet with its ostrich feather, was changed from the youth she’d first met. Thinner, older. There were dark crescents under eyes that brightened when he saw her, then filled again with fear. ‘Come,’ he hissed, beckoning her in, ‘and quickly.’

He led her into a small antechamber. A canvas wall faced her. Beyond it, she could hear the murmuring of men – his council, ready to hear his words. He showed her no courtesy, made no offer of sherbet, nor of gold. Only the blunt question in his look from a man who needed to know, beyond his doubts. And seeing his, she put her own aside. ‘King of kings,’ she declaimed, her voice strong, ‘possessor of men’s necks. Allah’s deputy on earth. These and many more names are you called. Now, I say, prepare for more titles to be heaped upon you. In three days, all will hail you as “majestic Caesar”.’ She paused, as Mehmet sucked in his breath. ‘And you will for evermore be known by the title you covet most – “Fatih”. For in three days’ time you will be the Conqueror.’

‘Ah!’

His face cleared in a smile as she unfolded the scroll and turned it towards him. ‘See what is in the stars.’

Mehmet barely glanced at it. He looked back, to the murmuring behind him. ‘I have not time to read it now. Later, perhaps. Later, when all is set in motion. But if you tell me that all …
all
is well …’

‘Lord of lords of this world, all is as I have told you,’ she said simply, firmly, gesturing down. ‘It is written.’

Mehmet was not a small man, but he grew taller in that moment, till the ostrich plume on his feather almost scraped the tent’s roof. ‘Then I can do nothing but read and follow.’ He turned to Hamza. ‘Pay her. You know the jewel saved for this, an emerald beyond price for the prize she has given me.’ He turned to face the entrance to the other, larger room. ‘And let me give my commands.’

Adjusting his sword belt, he nodded to the guards either side, who moved to place their hands upon the split in the canvas. But all movement halted at Leilah’s cry, as she threw back her cloak and flung herself down upon the ground. ‘Most potent,’ she cried, ‘I ask for the boon you promised me.’

Mehmet’s attention had been all forward. But beneath the cloak Leilah had put on only the silken shift she’d worn for Gregoras, and every man in the room could not help but stare. Even the sultan, who turned back. ‘What boon?’ he murmured.

She peeled back her headdress, so he could look into eyes rimmed in kohl that made their darkness deeper. ‘I crave no jewel, lord, however priceless. I ask only this for my services.’ Her voice was deep, and as silken as the little she wore. ‘There is a church in the city. I want it kept safe from destruction, by your order.’

Hamza stepped forward. She had surprised him before, but never so much as now. ‘I did not think you were of the Christian faith?’

‘I am not.’

‘Then why do you ask such a thing?’

She had not turned to Hamza, kept her eyes on Mehmet, took a deep breath. ‘For my own reasons. May I keep them hidden, O Conqueror, as many things are hidden?’

Her breath had raised her breasts within the silk. She watched his eyes follow them, saw his face tinge near as red as his beard. ‘I asked you another thing that day,’ he said, his voice rougher. ‘Do you remember it?’

‘Indeed, lord.’ She lowered her eyes, allowed a blush to take her face. ‘You asked that I … I offer you what I need to preserve, to keep my visions clear.’

He stepped a little closer. ‘And now you have had the vision of visions, is there any need to hold out longer?’

She raised her eyes, dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Once you are Fatih, how could any of your subjects refuse you anything?’

Mehmet smiled, doubts swept from his face. He turned to his scribes. ‘See that such an order is written. Stamp it with my
tugra
and give it to her. And you …’ He gestured to an officer. ‘Assign a body of my guard – for her gifts I will spare her twenty men – to escort her to whatever place she wants protecting, once we are inside the walls. Let no man touch it, or feel my wrath. You are under her command.’ He bent, ran a finger down from her forehead to her lips, and she did not pull away. ‘And mine – to bring her to me once the city, and everything in it, is in my power.’ For another moment he stared, then withdrew his hand, turning again to face the entranceway. ‘And now …’

He nodded. The tent flaps were lifted aside and the noise of murmuring doubled, then ceased as Mehmet swept through. Hamza, with one more glance at the kneeling woman and one shake of his head, followed, and the canvas closed behind them.

The officer, the scribe assigned, came to her, eyebrows raised in question. Leilah, who’d stood swiftly as the sultan left and gathered her cloak again around her, held up her hand to command their silence so she could listen.

The young sultan’s voice came clear through the canvas. ‘Children of Allah,’ he said. ‘Followers of Muhammad. Sons of Osman. The time has come to put aside all doubts, all divisions. To unite under the green banner of the Prophet, peace be upon him. What he foretold is come to pass. In three days’ time, the richest fruit of all, the Red Apple, will fall into our outstretched hands.’

A great shout came. ‘God is great! God is great! God is great!’ When it passed, as suddenly as it started, his voice came again. ‘Each shall have his place. All shall join in the last great attack, for we shall attack in every place at once. Thus all shall partake in the glory, either as martyrs sent to an eternal paradise, or to share equally in the fabulous wealth of the city of the Caesars. What was heard in the prayers of all believers, dreamed for a thousand years, is now upon us. It is written in the stars and in the hearts of all God’s chosen people.’ His voice soared in the same cry as before. ‘
Allahu akbar!
’

The voices of all within the tent repeated his words.

‘God is great! God is great! God is great!’

The canvas swayed with air and passion. Smiling, Leilah turned and beckoned the scribe, who dipped his quill, looked up at her as she spoke. ‘Let it be known that Mehmet, lord of lords, Conqueror of Constantinople, takes under his protection this church …’

–
THIRTY-THREE
–

Forgiveness

28 May: fifty-second day of the siege: 10 p.m
.

Like all the women, Sofia could not see the main body of the great church. It was filled with men, crowded for the first time since the union with Rome was declared and most of the Orthodox shunned their former temple as they would anything unclean.

No one shunned it today. Those who could, and could be spared from the walls, squeezed in, whatever their faith. Those who could not – mainly the poor of the city, for it was the leaders who claimed precedence – were packed into the churchyard to hear the liturgy sung, to add their voices to those swelling within.

She had loved the Hagia Sophia before she’d even seen it, as a child thinking it was called, of course, after her; loved it when she found out it was not, that it was named for divine wisdom. And she did not mind that she could not see, that her sex restricted her to the side. She would not have had it any different, for she was in the place she loved most in the old building. In the north-west corner of the north aisle, flush against the column of St Gregory. The Miracle Worker, as he was known, had worked a miracle for her, once. Pilgrims had sought his aid for centuries, pressing themselves against the marble, rubbing a cavity in it in which moisture gathered. That precious liquid, used to anoint, could cure ailments, could bring birth. It had brought her a second child, her Minerva.