The Wanderer (33 page)

It all happened so quickly that I was really conscious of nothing until I found myself sitting uncomfortably in a basket on the back of a camel, swaying rapidly along toward the city gate on the Adrianople road. I lifted my hands to heaven weeping and bewailing my hard fate, but at this the ten janissaries who were goading forward my camel began to sing at the tops of their voices, praising Allah and proclaiming that they were bound for Vienna to overthrow the Kiag.

Their eagerness for battle, the unclouded evening sky—transparently clear after so many rainy days—and last but not least the passage in the Aga’s written order entitling me to thirty aspers a day from the Defterdar’s treasury, cheered me by degrees and inspired me with fresh courage. I tried also to console myself by thinking that nothing occurred contrary to the will of Allah. If for some reason I was to be removed from the Seraglio, it could only be because the Sultan wished to test my efficiency on a campaign, and so discover in which high appointment he could best employ me.

We swung through the low arch in the city wall just as the sun was setting. The rolling slopes beyond glowed red and yellow with tulips, and the white columns of Moslem tombs caught the last dying rays. Dusk fell, the sky darkened to purple, and in strange accompaniment to the tramp of the soldiers and the grunting of the camel I heard the hoarse, distant voices of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer.

All at once I felt as if someone had lifted a heavy, stifling blanket from me; I breathed freely once more, and enjoyed deep draughts of the fresh spring air.

Although I was now to take part in a campaign that threatened all Christendom, I was escorted by a squad of experienced janissaries who must answer for my safety with their heads. I had thirty aspers a day and if fortune favored me I had much to gain and little to lose. My dog was in good hands. Giulia could maintain herself very well until my return on the money that the Sultan had given me, and perhaps I might soon meet my dear brother Andy again among the gunners; his loyalty and strength could be of great help to me in time of need.

And so there was no reason for dejection. True, the camel smelled very evil, my legs were numb, and the constant swaying afflicted me with nausea; yet without effort I swung forward through the fragrant spring night. Sultan Suleiman’s expedition against the Emperor’s brother in Vienna was now to begin, and out of respect for the Sultan I will bring this book to an end and start another.

I SHALL say little of the hardships I underwent on that journey. Bad weather set in again, and every night I lay drenched and shivering in the janissaries’ tent. Columns of infantry, troops of cavalry, and strings of camels struggled along all the roads toward Philippopolis; at night every farm was packed to overflowing so that neither by hook nor by crook were sleeping quarters to be had. I never understood how I was able to endure these discomforts without falling sick, accustomed as I now was to a life of relative comfort.

In justice to the onbash I must mention that he ordered his men to take the very greatest care of me. They cooked my food and dried my clothes, and I soon came to admire the excellent discipline prevailing in our little troop. Each of the ten men seemed to have his own task to perform whenever we camped for the night. One collected firewood, another cooked, a third cleaned the weapons and accouterments. While a fourth fed the camels, others would be pitching the tents, and so smoothly and speedily were all things done that very soon a cheerful fire would be crackling beneath the pot, while a tent offered a comparatively dry sleeping place. These toil-toughened men cared little for the ceaseless downpour, and indeed made it a point of honor to endure uncomplainingly every sort of hardship, even performing regularly the five daily acts of devotion, though it meant kneeling and prostrating themselves in the mud.

What most surprised me, however, was their consideration for the peasants. They neither struck them nor stole their cattle nor tore down their dwellings for firewood. They never set fire to their ricks or molested their women, as was the custom among Christian soldiery. In the civilized states of Europe the right to do these things was considered the lawful perquisite of every mercenary, and bitterly though the victims complained, they accepted it as they accepted floods, earthquakes, or any other scourge of nature. But my onbash paid for all food and forage in pure silver at rates laid down by the Seraskier, and told me that any janissary who stole so much as a chicken or trampled the smallest patch of corn within the Ottoman borders would be hanged. So lovingly did the Sultan care for his subjects.

The reader must not wonder at my asking what satisfaction a poor soldier could find in an expedition where these innocent and well- deserved enjoyments were forbidden. But the onbash reassured me, explaining that all would change as soon as we set foot in the countries of the unbeliever. There a man could rob and pillage to his heart’s content and commit what deeds of violence he chose, for such was pleasing to Allah. The onbash hoped that he and his men would richly compensate themselves for the privations of the march through the Sultan’s domains.

The swollen rivers were very difficult to ford, and peasants told me that no man living remembered a rainier spring. Floods submerged their fields, prevented spring sowing, and threatened the whole land with famine. Their words depressed me, but the onbash smiled sourly and said he had never known a peasant to appear satisfied with the weather. It was too hot, too cold, it rained too much or too little, and not even Allah could gratify his every wish, though by this the onbash would not be thought to cast doubts upon Allah’s omnipotence.

When at last we drew near Philippopolis and I saw the plain by the brimming river covered with a huge encampment, I cried out in amazement and said, “I’ve beheld many wonders in this world, but never so vast a camp as this. I could wager there are at least a hundred thousand men gathered here, and as many animals.”

The onbash replied that there might well be a hundred and fifty thousand armed men on the plain. To these would be added about twenty thousand janissaries under the Sultan’s own command, besides the Tartar auxiliaries and the akindshas who would join us at the frontier. I was greatly consoled, and with real pleasure alighted from my spiteful and untrustworthy camel at the gates of Philippopolis. Once or twice the treacherous beast had flung me basket and all into the mud. Camels were meant for the scorching desert and are distressed by cold air and constant rain. Marshy ground gives them no proper foothold, and my mount stumbled so often and so badly that her gangling legs straddled in all directions and it was a marvel that she was not torn in two. I resolved at any cost to find myself a horse in Philippopolis.

This huddle of narrow streets may once have been a pleasant riverside town, but when I arrived there it was packed with troops. The damp houses and miry streets emitted a terrible stench and the place seethed with angry men. After a great deal of trouble I was shown at last to the house of a Greek merchant where I found a mob of clerks, map makers, officers, messengers, idlers, peddlers, Jews, gypsies, and even a runaway monk who had wandered barefoot through Hungary that winter to serve the Sultan’s cause.

When I reported to the Aga of the Scouts, this much-tried man cursed and declared he could not find a crib for every donkey that the Sultan was pleased to send him. Nevertheless he bade me study the maps of Hungary and make a list of the wells and grazing grounds marked upon them, so that if need arose I could gather more detailed information by interrogating prisoners. I might billet myself where I could find room, for—as he added drily—he could always reach me through the paymaster, whom I would be sure to visit.

This unfriendly reception sobered me, but after my all too rosy expectations it was wholesome, and inclined me to humility and patience. I put a good face on it, therefore, and returned to my janissaries who had pitched their tents on the riverbank. I could not even be rid of my camel, since no one was so foolish as to give me a horse in exchange.

We were now in the month of May, and one night as I lay shivering in my wet clothes the river burst its banks. The wildest confusion arose in the rainy darkness, and I had only the alertness of my janissaries to thank for being still alive at dawn when I found myself high up in a tree, lashed to a sturdy bough. Below us the yellow waters eddied and swirled, carrying with them drowned men and beasts and all manner of stores. I was still dazed with sleep, my teeth chattered, and my stomach cried out for food. At first I felt no gratitude for my rescue, but mourned the loss of my tent, my clothes and weapons, and even my unserviceable camel, which had perished. But at dawn the onbash and the six janissaries whom his presence of mind had saved praised Allah and performed their devotions as best they might in so comfortless a situation. The onbash assured us that our wetting in the floods equaled a complete ablution and that Allah, taking our plight into account, would pardon our imperfect prostrations. The prayers of these men, so singularly performed in the tree top, gave true expression to their thankfulness, yet I, weighed down by my losses, could not feel reverence at so fantastic a sight. As the light grew, however, and revealed the desolation of that flooded plain where lately so huge a camp had stood, I realized the wonder of my preservation and the good reason I had to send up a sigh of thanksgiving.

Here and there clumps of trees rose out of the waters, with survivors hanging in them like clusters of grapes. Other men, shrieking in terror, clung to drifting roofs, to troughs, and even to the carcasses of drowned animals, and besought us in Allah’s name to throw them a rope’s end. But our tree could carry no more, and we needed all the ropes to keep us from falling in ourselves. Three days and nights we stayed there and would no doubt have succumbed had we not been able to cut pieces of flesh from the carcass of a donkey that lodged among the lower boughs.

I had begun to lose all hope of rescue when a flat-bottomed river boat came in sight, punted along by several men and constantly running aground on its voyage from tree to tree to pick up survivors. As it drew near we shouted and waved until the man in command brought it alongside and ordered us to jump down. My fingers were too stiff to loosen the knots in my rope and so I cut it, and tumbled headfirst into the boat; no doubt I should have broken my neck had not the man in charge caught me in his arms. His broad face and indeed the whole of him was plastered with yellow mud, and as he looked at me he cried in astonishment, “Is it you, brother Michael? What can you be doing here? Has Piri-reis sent you to chart these new Turkish waters?”

“Dear heaven, it’s Andy!” I exclaimed. “But where are your guns?”

“Safe under these swirling waters; and as the powder has become somewhat damp they’d be of little use to me just now. From this we see how equitably fate orders our affairs. But you’re in luck, for I’ve orders to bring you straight to the Sultan who will pay you compensation for your wetting. Others wiser and more prudent than you, who ran uphill in good time out of reach of the floods, win no prizes.

I wonder what can be the object of rewarding stupidity and punishing good sense?”

When we had taken so many men aboard that our gunwale was almost level with the water, he began to punt his way back, and was by now so familiar with the channels that he was able to avoid shipwreck on the ruins of houses, and other reefs. Soon we reached the foot of a slope where helpful hands dragged us ashore, rubbed our numbed limbs, and poured warm milk down our throats. We were then led to the top of the hill where stood Sultan Suleiman and Ser- askier Ibrahim, gorgeously arrayed and surrounded by bowmen. At their command the Defterdar paid immediate compensation to every man saved. Janissaries received nine aspers each, onbashes eighteen, and I, having produced my written orders from the Aga of Janissaries, was given no less than ninety aspers. I hardly knew if I was awake or dreaming, for how had we deserved thanks by being caught in the floods ? But the onbash loudly praised the Sultan and explained, “Janissaries have a traditional right to compensation for a wetting. If while marching with the Sultan we wade through water to the knees we’re given an extra day’s pay. If it reaches the waist, double. And if we’re lucky enough to go in up to the neck in his service we get three days’ pay. Therefore the Sultan does his best to avoid pools and streams, but he could hardly be expected to allow for the flooding of the Maritsa. I hope not too many were rescued, however, or funds will give out before we reach even Buda.”

The sun shone. After the three days’ fast the milk felt warm in my stomach and the good silver coins were agreeably heavy. Neither the Sultan nor the Grand Vizier appeared discouraged at the losses sustained by the army; on the contrary they laughed aloud and gaily welcomed the groups of survivors that were still coming ashore. Yet their seeming cheerfulness was but a custom, to encourage the troops after any reverse; and a good custom it was, for no sooner had I taken my money than I too began to make little of the sufferings I had undergone. Three pillars had been set up on the hillside, on each of which a head had been placed. Some of the rescued men amused themselves by pulling the beards of these; for they were the heads of three pashas whom the Seraskier held responsible for choosing the camping place and whom he beheaded, to propitiate the Sultan and to keep his favor.

My guide brushed the mud from his kaftan and told me to fetch the new clothes that the Sultan had promised me, and then go to the road builders’ tent to await further orders from the Grand Vizier. But Andy turned his steps resolutely toward the field kitchens and I was compelled to go with him, for he had me by the arm. The cooks were easily identified by their white aprons and caps, and Andy addressed them respectfully, saying that he felt a little hungry; but they bade him join his father in the nethermost pit. Resenting this, Andy first assured himself that the broth in one of the cauldrons was not yet scalding, then seized the nearest cook by the ears and plunged his head into it. Next, lifting him out and holding him high in the air he said mildly, “Perhaps another time you’ll treat a grown man like a man and not like a naughty boy.”