The Architect's Apprentice (25 page)

A hundred and thirty hands were hired for the repair of the aqueducts. They worked in two teams – the first on the west wing, the second on the middle part, where the decay had been most severe. In the meantime the four apprentices, with the help of an astrolabe, measured the depths of valleys and the heights of peaks. As was his wont, Sinan ordered them to research the methods undertaken by the craftsmen of the past. They needed to understand how the Byzantines had succeeded and how they had failed if they wished to do better themselves.

Davud and Yusuf, adept at the science of geometry, took the measurements of the waterways. Nikola and Jahan, trudging up and down the hills, logged all the broken canals and the clogged runnels. In some places the water rushed through a gorge because the conduits had fallen into disrepair. Water was dispersed amid green meadows, returned to the earth without having been of use to human beings. In other parts they had to find the source of the stream and excavate the conduits. They dammed the water to make it flow in a single direction, towards the city. Then, with the aid of a new ditch, they made it run the length of the dale. At every stage they measured the quantity – using brass spouts attached to tanks with sluices – calculating how much water had accumulated along the way.

A week later Jahan began to notice something strange. The labourers were giving them a wide berth, reluctant to carry out the orders. The more he observed them, the more he was convinced that they were looking for excuses not to hammer a nail, carry a plank, or do the slightest thing, which, when added together, was enough to hold everything back.

He pulled aside one of the draughtsmen – a Kurd named Salahaddin. His wife had recently given birth to twin boys. Knowing him to be an honest man, Jahan expected him to tell the truth.

‘What’s going on? Why’s everyone slow?’

Salahaddin averted his gaze. ‘We’re workin’,
effendi
.’

‘You are falling behind – why?’

A little blush crept into his cheeks. ‘You didn’t tell us there was a saint here.’

‘Who says that?’

The man shrugged, refusing to give names.

Jahan tried another question. ‘How do they know there’s a saint?’

‘They have seen … an apparition,’ Salahaddin replied, glancing at Jahan, as if for confirmation.

It was the ghost of a martyr – a mettlesome Muslim soldier who had met his end while fighting the infidels. An arrow had pierced his chest and entered his heart, yet he had kept on fighting relentlessly for two more days. On the third morning he had fallen and was buried in this area. Now his soul, disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the construction, was appearing to the labourers, who fretted that the ghost would put a curse on them.

‘Nonsense. Whoever is spreading this story wants to harm Master Sinan.’

‘It’s true,
effendi
,’ said Salahaddin. ‘People have seen it.’

‘Where?’ Jahan said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. ‘Show me!’

To his surprise, the man pointed with his chin at the scaffolding.

‘Has the ghost set up home there?’ Jahan asked teasingly.

But Salahaddin was solemn. ‘That’s where he was seen.’

During the rest of the afternoon Jahan prowled around the scaffolding, checking the planks, tightening the ropes, making sure it was safe, scowling at every man who so much as threw a glance at him.

‘You are not paying attention,’ said Davud, when they were studying the measurements the next day.

‘I’m sorry. My mind –’ said Jahan and gasped. In that moment something had caught his eye – on the raised wooden platform, down along the third tier. A few labourers were working there, one of
them carrying a bucket. He watched the man sway on his feet, as if pushed by an invisible hand, then regain his balance. The hairs on the back of Jahan’s neck stiffened. In the past, whenever timber was scarce, they had used platforms dangling from abutments above to save wood. But this one rose from the ground and was attached to the walls, supported by struts and trusses. For it to move to and fro, the ropes must have come loose and a part of the edifice must have been hanging free – a part or all.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Davud, following his gaze.

A scream of panic shattered the hum of work. They watched a board flip in the air, whirling as though it were a leaf in the wind, and plummet to the ground. Another board hit a mason, landing on his head with a sickening thud. People ran left and right as timber and metal rained from above.

‘
Kiyamet, kiyamet
,’
*
someone wailed.

Oxen bellowed in pain, a horse with a broken leg lay on its side, its body twitching, its nostrils flaring. Jahan could not see Chota in the commotion. In the blink of an eye the scaffolding they had proudly put up only weeks before had come tumbling down. The workers on the higher tiers in the middle section suffered the worst falls, along with those down below who had been hit by the planks. Of these, eight would not survive. Among them was Salahaddin.

Sinan and the four apprentices approached the
gassal
.
*
‘May we stay next to you while you wash him?’

The man hesitated. Then, either because he had recognized the Chief Royal Architect or because he had confused him with a bereaved relative, he said, ‘That’s fine,
effendi
.’

Turning to his apprentices, Sinan asked, ‘Would any of you like to join me?’

Yusuf avoided his gaze, a light blush rising to his cheeks. Nikola, who wasn’t a Muslim, said the man might not have wished him to be present at the washing. Davud, suddenly waxen, said he had still not forgotten the corpses he had seen as a child and did not wish to encounter another until the day he died. Being the only one left, Jahan nodded. ‘I’ll come.’

Lying on cold marble was Salahaddin’s naked body. Bruises of various sizes and shades covered the left side of his head and chest where he had been hit by the falling timbers. Even so, Jahan had the strange sensation that the injuries had been painted on rather than etched into Salahaddin’s frame, and that if they washed them off, he could, at any moment, show signs of life.

‘God has built the palace of our body and entrusted to us its key,’ Sinan said in a voice so quiet that the
gassal
, standing behind, bowed his head, assuming he was praying.

The palace of our body
… What a peculiar thing to say, Jahan thought. All he saw was a pile of wounded flesh. As if he had read his thoughts, Sinan asked Jahan to come closer.

‘Man is made in the image of God. At its centre there’s order, balance. See the circles and the squares. See how proportionately they have been arranged. There are four humours – blood, yellow bile,
black bile and phlegm. We work with four elements – wood, marble, glass, metal.’

Jahan and the
gassal
exchanged a glance. Jahan knew what the man was thinking, for he’d had similar thoughts himself. He feared that his master, out of sorrow or weariness, had lost his mind.

‘The face is the facade, the eyes are the windows, the mouth is the door that opens into the universe. The legs and the arms are the staircases.’ Then Sinan poured water from a ewer, and, by drawing circles with his hands, began to wash the body with such tenderness that the
gassal
dared not move.

‘That’s why when you see a human being, slave or vizier, Mohammedan or heathen, you ought to respect him. Remember, even a beggar owns a palace.’

Jahan said, ‘With much respect, master, I don’t see perfection. I see the missing teeth. This crooked bone. All of us, I mean, some are hunchbacked, others –’

‘Cracks on the surface. But the building is flawless.’

The
gassal
, craning his neck over their shoulders, bowed his head in assent, perhaps convinced more by the lull of Sinan’s voice than by his views. After that they were silent. They washed the deceased twice – once with warm water, once with tepid. Then they wrapped him head to toe in a milky-white shroud, leaving his right hand outside. This they held, gently, and placed on his heart, as though he were saying his goodbyes to this world and his salaams to the next.

The funeral prayer was led by an imam with a goitre so large that it pressed on his windpipe, making his breath come out in raspy gasps. He said it was of great consolation that they had died on a construction site. The men had not been leching after women of ill-repute or imbibing or gambling or uttering blasphemies. Death had found them in an hour of honest, hard work. When the Day of Judgement arrived, which it was sure to do, God would take this into account.

He said Salahaddin had departed this mortal life while building a bridge for the Sultan – no one dared to say that it was in fact while repairing an aqueduct. In return, in the other world, when it was his
turn to cross the Bridge of Sirat – thinner than a hair, slimier than a thousand eels – a pair of angels would assist him. They would hold him by his hands and not let him fall into the flames of hell underneath.

The casket was transported to the cemetery amid wailing and keening. Salahaddin’s family were poor, so Sinan had paid for his tombstone.

The father of the deceased, brought low by age and grief, trudged towards them. Touched and honoured that a man like Sinan should attend his son’s funeral, he thanked each of them. Salahaddin’s brother, meanwhile, kept his distance. It wasn’t hard to see he was holding them responsible for his loss, this lad who was no more than fourteen. One glance at him and Jahan knew they had made themselves yet another enemy. When, after throwing spadefuls of earth on to his brother’s coffin, he moved towards the back of the crowd, Jahan followed him.

‘May God welcome your brother into Paradise,’ Jahan said as soon as he caught up with him.

No response. An awkward moment passed between them, as each waited for the other to speak. In the end, it was the lad who broke the silence. ‘Were you with him when he died?’

‘I was nearby.’

‘The ghost pushed them. Did you see it happen?’

‘Nobody pushed them. It was an accident,’ Jahan said nervously. Even he couldn’t deny the bizarreness of the incident.

‘The ghost wants you to stop. There’ll be no end to disaster if you disturb him, but your master doesn’t care. He has no respect for the dead.’

‘That’s not true. Master is a good man,’ said Jahan.

The boy’s face darkened with rage. ‘Your friend was right. You are befouling a sacred place. What with your hammers and donkeys. You are all condemned to hell.’

The crowd began to disperse. Amid the mourners inching towards the gate, Jahan noticed Sinan moving listlessly, as though pulled by
invisible strings against his will. Jahan said weakly, ‘Don’t blame my master.’

As they left the cemetery, the wind blustered, tufts of dust and dirt rolling in their direction. Later, much later, it would dawn on Jahan that in the commotion he had not asked Salahaddin’s brother who this
friend
he had talked with was and why he had uttered premonitions so dire.

The next day only half of the labourers turned up for work.

‘So much for paid workmen!’ Davud exclaimed. ‘Had we hired chained galley slaves, none of this would have happened. See where kindness gets us?’

‘Master will find extra hands,’ Nikola said.

He was right. Determined to complete what he had started, Sinan took on new labourers. It wasn’t hard to obtain them. There were many in need of a job in this city. The misery of hunger prevailed over the fear of a saint’s curse. For a while, things seemed to improve. The work proceeded without incident. Autumn drew in, the air chilled.

Then came the flood. Sweeping down houses, taverns, shrines and sheds, it gushed through the valleys. Because they had not been able to fully unclog the channels leading to the aqueduct, the waters washed away the scaffolding and crumbled the watercourse as if it had been a wafer. The flood had caught them unprepared. No one was injured. But they lost weeks of work and materials of value. The disaster gave credence to the gossip-mongers’ rumours, and even those who had previously been unsure now became convinced that Sinan and his apprentices were accursed.

Their spirits sank. Until this point their master had overcome every obstacle, no matter how great or daunting. Yet this was different. How could Sinan possibly defeat a ghost?