The Religion (64 page)

"Where are we going?" said Orlandu.

"What, no gratitude?"

"I thought you were dead. I mourned for you and prayed for your soul, even though I thought you were damned."

"Your lack of faith shames you. Did I not tell you we would meet again?"

"Why did you take so long?"

"Hold now," said Tannhauser. "It was not I who let himself be captured by the Sultan's sea wolves, while on a secret mission for La Valette."

Orlandu let go of the stirrup and stopped. Tannhauser stopped too and looked down at him. The boy's eyes were filled with hurt and rage.
Tannhauser had spoken lightly, without intention of cruelty, but the boy was too young to accept it as such.

"Listen," said Tannhauser, "you've done well to survive six weeks in the company of corsairs." If Orlandu had been less rough hewn, and more cherubic, his perpetual freshness might well have been sullied, but he didn't say so. "You've been resolute and brave and I'm proud of you. So much so that I've decided to make you my partner in a famous enterprise."

Orlandu brightened. He had a mercurial nature, not given to pointless brooding-in Tannhauser's book a strength to be admired. "Your partner?" Orlandu said.

"In the first instance, you'd be more in the way of my apprentice. After all, you know nothing of business-or of very much else. But with due diligence, and in, I should say, ten years or so, you could be a prosperous young man-a man of the world, no less-with a diamond in your turban and a ship or two at your command."

Tannhauser was suddenly aware that these were extravagant claims for a man wearing hand-me-down clothes, grand as they were, and who sat on a borrowed horse. But Orlandu didn't doubt his mentor for a second.

"I must wear a turban?" said Orlandu.

"You are going to become a Turk, my friend."

"I hate the Turks."

"Then learn to love them. They're no worse than any other kind of men, and have the advantage over most in all sorts of ways."

"They've come here to kill us and take our land."

"A habit they share with a good many tribes and peoples. That they've proved uncommonly good at it is not to be held against them. The Religion are invaders too."

"But we fought the Turks," said Orlandu. "You fought them too."

"For and against in my time," said Tannhauser. "The French fight the Italians, the Germans fight with themselves-as do Christians and Moslems both-and the Spanish fight just about anyone they can find. Fighting is a habit as naturally inborn as shitting. As you will learn, the identity of the foe hardly matters to the combatants at all. In any case, we're hardly well placed to quarrel with the Turks right now."

Orlandu's face twisted in confusion. He was bright enough to appreciate the power of logic but, like most, he was unfamiliar with the art. He said, "What about Jesus?"

"Worship Him if you will. The Turks won't tie you to a stake for it. But there are benefits to professing an allegiance to Allah and His Prophet, may peace be upon Him, even if it be insincere."

"How can you pretend to believe in a god?"

Tannhauser laughed. "Mark my words, there are red-hatted scoundrels in the Vatican at this very moment who doubt that He exists at all. They're just cunning enough not to say so."

"We'll go to the everlasting fires of Hell."

"It's a crowded place by any account. But if you were God, would you much care by what name or means humanity groveled before you? Indeed, would you much care what we did at all?"

"Jesus loves us. This I know."

"Then he will forgive a petty deception designed to save us from the bastinado. And now, with your permission, we must be on our way. It's improper for a man of my standing to be seen arguing theology with his slave."

"Your slave?"

"For the sake of appearances, certainly. And without doubt you are the Sultan's slave, as are the majority of his subjects. The grand viziers are slaves. The aga of the janissaries is a slave. The most powerful men in the empire are slaves. Suleiman's slaves. Under the empire only Turks are freeborn. But, as we've just established, when it's merely a matter of words, where is the sting? In Europe birth is all and it's a boot on every throat. But under the Ottomans, merit can take you to the highest councils of Stambouli. Piyale himself was born a Christian, found abandoned as a babe on a plowshare outside Belgrade, when Suleiman laid that city siege. He's now the greatest admiral in the empire, perhaps the world. Surely it's better to be a rich slave than a poor man free in name alone, scraping at the barnacles in Grand Harbor and bowing like a serf whenever a nobleman walks by."

Orlandu considered this, not yet wholly convinced. "Then I must pretend to be your slave, and pretend to love the Turk, and pretend to worship Allah too?"

"It's easier than it sounds," Tannhauser assured him. "And when your belly is full and the silks are soft against your skin, it becomes easier still."

"And my mother?"

Tannhauser blinked, unprepared for the matter to be raised. "She is in God's hands, as either faith would attest. You and I must see to ourselves."
Orlandu blinked at the harshness of this prescription, and, in truth, Tannhauser felt something of a fraud. He did not, however, admit it. Instead he leaned forward and squeezed the boy's shoulder. "You've witnessed the thick of battle, boy. The madness and the waste. The sorrow, the terror, the pain. Can you tell me that there's any use to it?"

Orlandu didn't answer.

"If there is a God, He's blessed you with a keen wit," said Tannhauser. "You would honor Him best by employing it. And now let's away."

Tannhauser took Orlandu to the bazaar and refreshed some acquaintances and exchanged two ounces of opium for silver
akçe
. He subjected Orlandu to a bath shared with two Sipahi cavalrymen, and bought him some clothes and slippers appropriate to his station, and a knife and a small iron cooking pot, which he promised would make him popular. He taught him to say the
Shahada
-
Ashhadu Alla Ilaha Illa Allah Wa Ashhadu Anna Muhammad Rasulu Allah
: There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet-which would endear him to the faithful in an emergency, and since Maltese and Arabic were not far distant tongues, Orlandu mastered it readily. He told him not to bow his head to any man, even a vizier, for one bows to Allah alone, and he discovered that "
Asalaamu alaykum
" was a greeting with which the boy was already familiar.

He impressed on him that they were not to appear too friendly before Abbas or his entourage. They were to believe that Tannhauser was repaying a modest debt, out of charity and reverence for Allah rather than out of affection for the boy, and no more than that. He then took him back to Abbas's camp and introduced him to the staff, and bribed the hostler to instruct him in the care of horses, a skill always in demand. Orlandu, with his street urchin's instinct to the fore, played his part with conviction and Tannhauser, his black bile purged, congratulated himself on a fair day's work.

Later, he made a gift of a pound of opium to Abbas, and told him that, with his blessing, he planned to take a ship for Tripoli the very next day. Abbas gave his blessing, and a letter of commendation, but his mood was preoccupied and dark, though he did not say why.

Tannhauser retired to his cushions to contemplate a brighter future
than had recently seemed possible. He'd parlay the remaining opium into gold at the bazaar, for it was worth far more here than elsewhere. In Tripoli the gold, artfully distributed, would buy him a line of credit with the grain merchants. His knowledge of the Maltese situation, and his contacts in the army bazaar, would purchase something even more precious: their confidence. And Abbas's letter would be worth more gold than he could carry. Tannhauser had started out before with much less capital. He'd be back in Malta in a month with a cargo of goods that would make the quartermasters drool.

He'd done what he could for the boy. A place on Abbas's staff was as safe as any station on the island. He'd stood by his bargain with Carla and more. He'd paid his dues to the War God. Someone had to rise from the ashes yet to come; better he than some other. As he laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, what passed for his conscience was as clear as a polished mirror.

Some hours later he awoke. The light of the fires burned outside the tent. He'd been dreaming, he knew not of what. He glanced down for the Ethiop, but the Ethiop wasn't there. The dream had been haunted by a distant thread of music that had made his heart ache with sadness, that left a blurred impression of possibilities unfulfilled and paths not taken. He lay back on the pillow and scratched his privities. Then he realized that he heard the music still.

His gut clenched tight. He told himself to go back to his dreams. Come the dawn he had a ship to catch, for Tripoli. Instead, he rose from the cushions and pulled on his caftan, and as if under the spell of some enchantment he wandered out into the night.

Watch fires speckled the vast pooled darkness of the Marsa, and he imagined the janissaries fettling their arms and binding each other's wounds by the
oçak
's warmth, and, as was their practice, reciting heroic ballads around their
kazan
. Part of him yearned to join their hearth for an hour or two, to revisit the sacred fellowship of his youth. His tattoos would guarantee a cordial welcome. A quarter-pound of opium would ease their dismay at events. But the past was past and better left so, and the melody's golden thread drew him on elsewhere.

The music on the crystalline air was faint but real. It pulled him to the rim of Corradino and he overlooked the Christian harbors jumbled down below. The half-moon was in Sagittarius and a lunar beam slashed the
waters of Galley Creek. He imagined she sat at the moonbeam's farther end. Wherever she sat, she sawed at her viola da gamba with that same extravagant union of hope and despair that had charmed him in the rose garden, and had launched him into the core of Hell's creation. As then on that perfumed hill, so now on this one which reeked of putrefaction, he felt his eyes fill with tears and her music fill his soul where it had always been empty. Amparo was his darling. And yet. Had he chosen the wrong woman? He didn't wonder that he'd dared not choose Carla. She wielded a power to which he feared submission. But one woman or the other was hardly the present predicament. In his present predicament, all his choices were carried away on the wings of her nocturnal heart song.

He heard steps in the dirt behind him and turned. It was Orlandu. He looked up with an unspoken question, his tongue stilled by what he saw in Tannhauser's face. Tannhauser smiled. In his mind's eye, he saw the galley for Tripoli pulling out of Marsamxett Harbor without him.

"You hear that, boy?" he said.

Orlandu cocked an ear. He nodded.

"That's your mother."

Orlandu gazed out across the bay.

Tannhauser said, "She plays like an angel in chains."

Orlandu looked up at him smartly, as if Tannhauser had let slip out a secret that he'd meant to keep to himself. Tannhauser scraped a thumbnail through his beard. He studied the vast terrain of darkness which enswathed the town.

"It's the Devil's bounty I'll need if I'm going to set her free. But he's always been more than happy to extend my credit."

Tuesday, August 7, 1565

Santa Margharita-The Mdina Road-Monte San Salvatore

The day dawned windless and still and a fetid aroma infested the air throughout the camp. As Tannhauser rose for prayer the stench told him the reason for Abbas's dour humor of the night before. The prelude to all battles included, if nothing else, a mighty swill of feces, and feces of a
uniquely malodorous character at that. It was not a measure of cowardice, rather a fact of nature; thirty thousand men were preparing to sacrifice their lives for Allah, and even the fearless were wise to rid their bodies of the excess weight.

The battalions had maneuvered into place in the dark and by the time he'd collected his chestnut mare and ridden across the saddle between Corradino and Margharita, the
surah
of Conquest was proclaimed over the neighboring heights. The tympani and pipes of the Mehterhane band struck up and the marshaling horns summoned a colossal twin-pronged offensive by the Grande Turke's legions. Admiral Piyale commanded the assault on the Borgo; Mustafa Pasha that on L'Isola.

Since the intention was to take both citadels at any cost, Tannhauser spent the morning on the Margharita ridge, in the feigned role, when necessary, of Abbas's aide-de-camp, and from there he watched the prodigies of violence and valor unfold below. After all, there was no point sneaking into the Borgo-his plan since hearing the contessa's untimely nocturne-if the Turks were already streaming in through the walls. In that event he would ride down the hill and join them, in the hope that he could salvage at least Amparo and Carla from the rampage that would follow. And a rampage it would be. Suleiman himself had failed to restrain the janissaries-at Buda, Rhodes, and elsewhere-and the grudges nurtured in this war ran deeper than most. La Valette had made sure of that. The streets would run red for a day, perhaps two or three. Atrocities would abound. Men would knife each other over tawdry scraps of booty. The knights would take the brunt of the torture and execution, which was only fair. But sooner rather than later the abscess would be lanced, and once it dawned that the property, human and otherwise, being destroyed belonged to the Sultan, Mustafa would start hanging his own men in droves.