The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (41 page)

“Rise, Bezm-i Alem,” he said softly. “You never have to kneel to anyone, and certainly not me.”

“You saved Ahmed Kadir,” she whispered. “You put your own life in danger. And that of the Bektashi!”

He helped her to her feet and gazed into her eyes.

“We are already condemned,” he said. “The Sultan has banished us from the Ottoman kingdom, as we are considered accessories to the revolution, since we are affiliated with the Janissaries.”

“Banished? Where will you go?”

“Some suggest the northern provinces—Serbia or even the mountains of Albania—where we can practice our religion in peace.” He smiled wearily, still cradling her hands in his.

Irena did not remember her father. Dede Mustafa’s presence challenged her to think of what it would have been like to have a father’s love. She wondered if her father would have been a peaceful man had he been allowed to live, and not murdered by the Ottomans while defending their farm.

It is possible for men to love and honor peace
, she thought.
Esma Sultan is wrong.

The Dede asked her about Ahmed Kadir and how he fared. He said that he was unable to speak now with the Greek doctor, as it risked Stephane Karatheodory’s life to be seen with a Bektashi.

Irena told him about the illness returning to Esma Sultan and he shook his head. “She will not ever be rid of the ghosts that haunt her if she does not repent. Redemption is her only escape from the fevers and djinns that haunt her. She must beg Allah’s forgiveness.”

He told her the Sufis were packing their wagons as quickly as possible. Were they to be seen in the city after Sunday, they would be killed by the Sultan’s Solaks.

The order of Bektashi would travel at night, so as not to agitate those who lusted yet for the Janissaries’ blood.

“They might take ours as a substitute,” he said. “Better we travel to the edges of the Ottoman frontier under the cover of darkness and navigate by the stars.”

He gave her a blessing.

“May Allah grant you peace and health,” he said turning towards the door. Then he called out, “And may your children have the same pure soul as their mother and seek peace and the love of humankind.”

That was the last Irena saw of Dede Mustafa, although she would seek his intervention one more time before the Bektashi Sufis left Constantinople forever.

A
s the giant’s body healed, drawing on the hard core of strength from a lifetime of work and training, each night of sleep faded into the next. That smooth succession was broken late one night when a scream somehow penetrated deep into the cavern, so terrifying in its desperation that Ivan Postivich’s eyes flew open. He frantically looked around, his heart pounding hard in his ears. He saw only the leaping flames of the torches, their tongues of light licking the rough walls. There was no human movement—and now no sound but the drip of the weeping water into the green pools.

Again the scream came, a cry from the depths of a terrified soul. Then again and again.

Postivich’s muscles tightened and he looked up to the ceiling. Algae and hanging mosses softened the rock face, where rivulets of water trickled towards the cistern’s pools.

The scream came again and Postivich knew it was Esma Sultan.

He called for water. The young boy who had bathed him days ago appeared and hurried to the edge of the pool with a hollow gourd that he filled and brought to the giant.

Ivan Postivich stared at him and remembered their conversations. The boy spoke with a Slavic intonation that tortured the lilting syllables of Ottoman.

“Two Serbs in the bowels of the earth,” said Postivich in his native tongue. “Surely Allah means this as a joke before I die!”

The boy smiled. “I am honored to serve you, Ahmed Kadir.”

The giant sipped, then drained the gourd. He motioned the boy close to him.

“How long have I been here?”

“It is weeks since the Janissaries’ revolt and slaughter.”

The scream came again, from above, perhaps weaker now.

“Weeks of sleep,” said the giant. “And I waken to that.”

“The cries of Esma Sultan,” said the boy.

“Has she cried out before this?”

“Many nights. They say she has ‘lunacy,’ the moon has stolen her wits. The screams only cease when the Sultan’s eunuch brings her opium.”

Ivan Postivich was silent for a long moment, until the scream came again, definitely weaker this time.

“Perhaps it is not the moon’s pale light that has leached out her wit.”

The boy widened his eyes and whispered, “It is said that the eunuch Emerald tempts her with men the way the animal keepers throw bloody meat to her pet tigers. He has tried everything to persuade her to take a lover.”

Ivan Postivich ran his tongue over his cracked lips.

“I am prisoner here, by Esma Sultan’s decree, am I not?”

“You are a prisoner by the Head Eunuch Saffron’s mercy. Neither Princess nor Sultan knows of your fate. They both offer gold and jewels for news of you: one for your life and one for your death. It is rumored that when the demons leave her, the Head Eunuch will give Esma Sultan the great news of your recovery. Now he fears that in her delirious state, your name will spill from her lips, sealing your fate with her rage-possessed brother.”

“I must get out of here.”

“Were you to try to leave, it would mean both our deaths, Corbaci.”

“There must be a way. Tell me everything you know about where we are and how I am guarded.”

The boy, like Postivich, had been captured to serve the Ottomans, but his heart and soul remained faithful to his countryman. He could not help but dream of his homeland, of the cool mountains and sweet apples of the fall. The strange customs of the Muslims made his head swirl and his Turkish was slow and clumsy. The giant’s words in Serbo-Croatian were a delicious intoxicant to him, and he eagerly obeyed.

The Solak emerged from the shadowed recesses of the cistern, carrying a tray. He blinked and rubbed his eyes still adjusting to the dark of the cavern.

He approached his prisoner with a burning torch, examining the sleeping giant’s face for a flicker of his eye, or a waking yawn.

The prisoner snored loudly.

“Has the giant awakened at all, boy?”

“Only long enough to call for a draught of boza, sir.”

The Solak laughed and spat on the ground.

“See what a drunkard your countryman is! All Serbs are brutes! He cannot even hold a child’s drink like boza. How he could inspire the bloodthirsty Janissaries, Allah curse their name, I cannot understand. We will wake him now and feed him like the weak-chinned baby he is.”

The page drew in his breath as the Solak kicked the giant’s hip.

“Wake, O great Ahmed Kadir!” the Solak shouted. “The cook sends your meal!”

Ivan Postivich rubbed his eyes and turned his head to avoid the Solak’s sour breath. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, imitating a struggle against weakness and the torpor of too many days spent asleep.

The Solak set the tray down and uncovered the plates. The scent of rosemary lamb and minted yoghurt filled the damp air.

“Page! Serve the Corbaci!”

“I find myself overcome with sleep, Solak,” said Postivich.

With a snort of impatience, the Solak reached down to grab the janissary to set him upright. As his face neared the giant’s, Ivan Postivich’s eyes flew open and he wrestled the Solak to the ground, punching him hard in the face. An instant later, the Solak lay unconscious on the rock floor of the cistern.

Postivich had torn a blanket into strips in preparation for this moment and they were tying the guard when they heard the scrape and creak of a door opening somewhere distant in the darkness.

“They will see the Solak!” the page whispered. “I will be murdered for taking your side.”

Postivich eyed the boy and gripped his shoulder.

“Every man takes a stand, else he is not a man at all. You have cast your lot; stand by your bet. And by Allah’s spit, do not shake with fear or I shall never believe you are a Serb!”

The steps of the unseen visitor faltered and paused and soon a curse rang through the darkness. “May the mother’s milk fall untasted from the lips of the eldest son of the swine who carved this path!”

The page watched a smile break across Postivich’s face.

“It is the old Greek doctor. Go. Take a lantern and help him! I’ll drag this pig of a Solak into the shadows.”

The boy took a lantern and ran into the darkness towards the source of the Greek oaths.

The guard disposed of, Postivich made his way to the edge of the pool where he knelt and submerged his head in the icy water. At the third dunking he felt his scalp draw tight against his skull with cold and his cheeks flush as the blood coursed through his veins.

“Ah, there you are, Corbaci! You look more of a drowned rat than a fighting man.”

Ivan Postivich stood. His eyes stared red at the Greek physician.

“I am trying to rinse the stupor from my mind. You have kept me here too long, doctor. The lethargy is eating my soul.”

The doctor motioned to the page to bring him a cushion. He sat heavily. “The Princess’s disease has returned,” he said. “I knew it would. She sees ghosts at windows and grasping hands in her pillows that drag her to drown in the goose down. The clean air from the Bosphorus carries nothing to her but the stench of rotting corpses, her former lovers joining with the Janissaries whose blood is mixed in the salty waters.”

“And the two hundred women and children the Sultan condemned to death,” said Ivan Postivich.

“Such is the Ottoman rule. Indeed, blessed be your confinement in the bowels of the earth, for there is no heaven above you, Ivan Postivich.”

The giant rubbed his eyes. “Yes. The deaths of so many drowned men haunt her.”

“She swears she will send no more lovers to their death. But she must fight the sexual appetites she has inherited from her Sultan ancestors. And the eunuch Emerald cultivates his power over her, tempting her with pretty boys, like a serpent. But she resists. There is no cure for her ailment but the hand of God.”

“Why does the eunuch tempt her with lovers?”

“The devil Emerald so enjoys the murder of men.”

The doctor looked away at the torchlight reflected off the pool with a heavenly shimmer that belied the tormented hell above the rocky ceiling.

“And the Corps?” Postivich yearned to hear that what he already knew was somehow not true.

“Gone. No one dares to remember them or speak their name for fear of losing his head.

“And that is why I am here. The Bektashi Sufis are also condemned, though their punishment must still be decided by the mullahs as they are Muslims.
They have decided to flee Constantinople. One convoy has offered to carry you to freedom in the northern provinces. They will leave tomorrow night and begged that I carry this message to you.

“When the hour comes, you are to be waiting in the limbs of the plane tree at the west end of the palace. The page will take you there. You will wait until the next to last wagon passes, then descend and climb onto its bed. They will conceal you there and carry you to the Western provinces. From there you will have to make your own way further northwest towards Vienna.”

“Vienna?”

“You have no safety anywhere in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan will not rest until your head is perched on a pike on the walls of Topkapi.”

A distant wail pierced the tomb-like silence of the cavern.

“And what will become of her?”

“She will survive. She is an Ottoman.”

Ivan Postivich watched the drooping eyes of the old Greek.

“I must see her once before I go.”

The physician cursed in a low growl. “You are as hardheaded as any of your countrymen. You will never leave the Ottoman Empire alive, you fool!”

Some water dripped from the giant’s matted hair, meandering in a rivulet that trickled into his eye. He wiped at it with a knuckle.

“What does it matter? A Kapikulu warrior cannot die in Europe of old age on a featherbed. I will die on Ottoman soil, where my soul can burn its way to Hades. But first I must see her—though not for the last time, for she shall meet me there in the fire.”

Postivich listened for her screams but heard only the water splashing from rock to pool.

The Greek eyed the giant like an ancient reptile looking up into the flickering light.

“I thought once you could save her. I did not realize the power she would have over you.”

“Do not speak, physician. It is too late for words to turn me.”

“The eunuch Emerald will delight in your folly. He serves the Sultan with keen joy. Will you give him the gift of your own death? One more for him to savor. Drawn into his trap by the beauty of Esma Sultan, to die for the pleasure of the eunuch. Like her last lover, that poor Greek boy.”

The doctor bent his neck, the loose skin relaxing in folds around his tunic collar.

Ivan Postivich stared, bewildered. “No, physician. He didn’t die. I delivered him safe to the Asian side. He was on his way to Greece.”

“He whom you spared was murdered nonetheless, just paces from the Bosphorus. Emerald will not spare anyone who has laid eyes on the Sultaness. The boy’s body was found facedown in the mud. Mutilated in Emerald’s special fashion. I have seen it too often not to know.”