The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (38 page)

“I almost killed him.”

“I saw his death written in your face. What demon possessed you?”

“I am not sure, oarsman. I only know that it is more powerful than I.”

Then a cry pierced the air from the heavy mist of the Asian shoreline. Ivan Postivich and the oarsman turned, straining their ears to hear more, but there was only the lapping waters of the Bosphorus.

Irena had seen her brother dispatched directly from the palace in the night. She had seen the Esma Sultan’s young Greek lover spirited out of the palace, neither tied nor gagged.

She ran to Saffron, her slippers slapping on the smooth marble floors.

“What is this?” she begged him, gasping for breath. “Does the drowning guard return to his occupation of murderer?”

He turned with resignation in his eyes.

“That depends solely on Ahmed Kadir and his conscience. If his pride is stronger than his soul, he will murder again. But this time, the blood will stain his hands only, not Esma Sultan’s.”

Irena waited late into the night for Postivich to return, listening to the fast-moving water of the Bosphorus from the garden walls. At last when she saw the swaying light of a lantern, she bade a page to run to the docks and summoned the janissary to meet her in the garden in haste.

The night was hot, but after midnight puffs of wet breeze lifted off the Bosphorus and stirred the air. Overhead, the broad leaves of the plane trees rustled in the wind.

Irena sat on a bench near one of Esma’s favorite fountains: a high fluted column with a series of graduated marble pools, overflowing with cascades of water.

She saw the silhouette enter the garden from the west gate. Only one man in the Ottoman Empire could cast such a colossal figure in the moonlight.

“Irena, why do you bid me come so late?” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.

“Did you murder the Greek?” Her voice was cold as marble.

“I did not. I left him safely to travel back to his homeland.”

Irena did not argue that the Greek’s homeland was here, in Constantinople, in Galata, where he had been born, as had been generations of his forebears. Instead she studied her brother’s face, ravaged with emotion, not physical exhaustion. He sat down next to her, his massive shoulders crumpling.

“You love her,” Irena said simply, stroking his brown hair, matted with the salt air of the sea. His heavy torso sagged into her arms and she heard the sound of tearless sobs.

“I cannot allow myself to love a murderess. And see how she casts me aside, now that she is well?”

“She is not as well as you think. The Greek was a diversion. Her crimes haunt her. But she cannot trust herself to speak to you again.”

There was a silence and Irena felt a shift of emotion as subtle as the first wave to change the tide and move the sea out away from shore.

“May her guilty corpse rot in hell!” He stood up, heaving air into his lungs and straightening his back. “I have become soft as a woman from lack of war! I shall not let a woman wither my manhood!

“She is an Ottoman and her brother is my enemy. He shall pay with his life for his deceit and cunning. I shall revenge the humiliation of the Janissary Corps. And the deaths of over two hundred women and children drowned! And the foul deeds I have commited in the Sultan’s name!”

“No!” Irena’s hand flew to her throat. “Do not continue this bloody way! Follow the Bektashi way and let live! Make peace with the Sultan and stop this bloodshed.”

“There is no making peace! He has gone too far in his vile ways. The Janissaries boil in rage.”

He pulled his sister to her feet and held her close, his embrace so tight she could not draw a breath.

“Pray for me. The time has come.”

“No!” she shouted and a dog barked.

Immediately a Solak called. “Who goes there?”

“I must go,” he whispered hoarsely. “Pray to the Blessed Mary on my behalf, sister. Pray to our dead mother.”

Irena sunk to her knees, her hands clasped imploring, but her brother did not stop.

“It is I, Ahmed Kadir,” he shouted to the anxious guard. “I have asked Bezm-i Alem to deliver a message to Esma Sultan, and the content startled her.”

The Solak lifted a lantern as Irena struggled to her feet, the wet grass staining her harem pants.

“Are you all right, Bezm-i Alem?”

“Yes,” she cried. “Go with God.”

Alone in the garden again, Irena sat down on the bench and stared up at cold stars above her, thinking of the Bektashi Sufis as they lifted their faces to the heavens, swaying like stalks of wheat.

The Janissaries’ Revenge

“K
adir!” shouted a Solak, whistling the name through his rotten teeth as if it were a curse. “You are summoned. Saffron will speak with you. Come with me at once.”

Ivan Postivich ached to seize the pompous Macedonian guard and snap his neck. Instead, he followed in sullen silence. He knew that when the Head Eunuch summoned him, it concerned direct orders from Esma Sultan.

Saffron was speaking to three eunuchs about their duties for that evening. He saw the giant enter and waved him forward, dismissing the others with a flick of his hand.

“I have been told by the Princess Esma Sultan that your presence is no longer needed. She has pronounced herself cured. She has given me this purse of gold to pay you for your services.”

Saffron reached out, placing the small bag on the giant’s palm.

Ivan Postivich stared at the purse. It was crimson with a gold tassel and from the weight, he knew there was a fair sum of money inside. He felt winded as if he had been dealt a mighty blow to his chest.

“Will I not see the Princess before I leave?”

“No. She did not summon you. She is entertaining another guest and will not be disturbed. You are to return to Et Meydan, where you will be assigned new duties as a janissary. She has told me that she will continue to work to
persuade her brother, our glorious Sultan, to find a place for you once more as a cavalry guard. But there is little hope of that, I am afraid.”

“Am I not to remain here as her—drowning guard?”

Saffron’s face hardened. He waved away the eunuchs who hovered near and he pulled Ivan Postivich close.

“Did you not understand what I have said? You are free to leave for the barracks and fight for the Empire. You will never have to drown an innocent man again! Praise Allah, you have been released from your duties here. Forget you have ever met Esma Sultan. Beg for a post in the far reaches of the Empire where you can find peace!”

Ivan Postivich raised his chin in defiance, although he knew the eunuch spoke wisdom.

“I cannot ever forget that I have met her,” he said. “She has poisoned my blood.”

With that, he nodded a farewell to the eunuch and turned to leave the palace of Esma Sultan.

Postivich strode towards Et Meydan. He wound his way through the streets of Constantinople, surprised to see torches burning in the night, and a curfew commanded by the Sultan blatantly ignored. Wagons rattled up the streets, loaded with provisions. The drivers wore tight expressions, their eyes moving, alert in the darkness.

Meat Square hummed with activity. Thousands of Janissaries met in their ortas, with messengers running from one to the next.

“We will stand brother to brother against the infidel Sultan and his reforms!”

“Death to the New Order. Death to their pagan officers!”

Ivan Postivich pushed his way through the crowd, until he came to where his orta should have been.

The spot was empty, the huge copper kettle gone.

“Ahmed Kadir!” shouted a soldier who saw him standing alone. “You have come to join us! Your cowardly orta has joined our enemies. They have stolen away from Et Meydan and the Honorable Corps to fight with the Sultan.”

Ivan Postivich smelled their sweat. He knew the taste and odor of battle and saw the bellicose glitter in their eyes.

“So the day has come,” he said.

“The giant comes to lead us!” shouted an artilleryman. “The only cavalryman faithful to the Corps!”

Suddenly the eyes of thousands were on him, as if they had been waiting all along. Soldiers climbed the rooftops of the wooden barracks and scaled the meat stalls to see him better.

Ivan Postivich stood uncertain amidst the throng of soldiers, their dirty faces looking up to him, anxious for leadership. He recognized faces from his boyhood, men who had been proud to join the ranks of the Janissaries, who had fought on foot while he rode astride his horse. He saw another face, the janissary who had beaten the Jew in the Bazaar, his mouth twisting as he looked at the giant with hatred.

These were the men, both good and evil, with whom he would fight against the Sultan.

Postivich’s mind was clear. His decision was made. He spoke to the men.

“Reform! Ha! When the Sultan speaks of reform, he speaks of annihilation! We can have no reform with a Sultan who despises us! There may be corruption in our ranks, yes, but it is corruption that has been forced upon us by a Sultan who corrupts everything he touches. The honor and spirit of the Janissary Corps lie in battle—not in the drills of the Europeans who come to tame our Empire so they can swallow it whole for their own pleasure!”

He took a deep breath and his voice boomed across the square.

“If there is corruption, the fish rots from the head down! Sever the head and save the Corps!”

A roar of approval filled Et Meydan Square and the night birds were shaken from their roosts. They flew blindly about the marketplace in confusion.

“May Allah bless Ahmed Kadir, the only true janissary of the cavalry!”

Another cheer went up and men embraced him, stinking with the lust of battle. As they cheered and rallied around the giant, a man in a crimson tunic embroidered in gold thread slipped out the gates of Et Meydan to tell the Sultan of the rebellion and its leader, Ahmed Kadir.

“I must have my horse,” Postivich shouted. “Send to the stables and fetch my mare.”

A young runner broke from the crowd and sprinted to his side.

“I will return with your Peri, Corbaci,” he said, bowing quickly, “if I am not captured by the traitorous members of your orta.”

“Tell me boy,” Postivich said. “When did they decide not to stand with us?”

“The Sultan took away their horses, and unless they swore a blood oath, they could not ride. The Kapikulus would never willingly fight on foot! They cast their lot with the Sultan to ensure their safety and position.”

“Go with Allah, boy,” he said. “Do not try to rein in Peri. Let her gallop and she will find her way to the Meydan gates.”

The corbaci of the artillery pushed through the crowd and embraced the giant.

“Ahmed Kadir! You come with the benediction of Allah—the men’s hearts are eager for the Sultan’s blood.”

Another roar went up in the center of the square as the Janissaries listened to impassioned speeches from other rebels. Ivan Postivich knew that the Corps fed on the stirring words of all soldiers, not just the commanders. He pressed into the heart of the mob.

“The Eskenji infidels drilled here—on this very ground!” Postivich shouted. He scooped up a handful of dirt from his feet and vaulted onto the platform above the heads of the troops. “This ground that we Janissaries hold sacred was defiled by the Sultan with the parade of infidels! It is here that the Eskenjis shed their janissary uniforms, like serpents shedding their skins, taking on the pagan cloth of the New Order.”

The mob shouted, “Death to the infidel serpents!”

Postivich’s voice boomed across the square. “The Ulema blessed their pagan rifles! What corruption leads our Sultan to persuade our holy men to his cause! The Bektashi Dervishes stand with us to the death, incorruptible!”

One after another, soldiers took their turn on the platform, shouting as loud as they could so that they might be heard. The voices rose, eager for violence and revenge, and the collective heartbeat of the Janissaries pounded hard, ready for battle.

Soon, the boy who had gone to fetch Peri returned, racing through the Et Meydan gates, riding bareback on the galloping mare. Reaching the mob, the boy reined in the horse and she reared, her hooves slashing at the air. He tried in vain to cling to her mane but she shook him off and he tumbled into the dust.