The Tournament

by Matthew Reilly

  ‘Most assuredly.’

  ‘When he wears a new item of clothing, do others in the court and in the streets of London mimic him?’

  ‘All the time,’ I said. ‘It is said that if he wears a new design of paned breeches—to further display his manly calves, of which he is ever so proud—within a week every man at Whitehall is wearing similar breeches.’

  ‘So it is with Moslem women and their veils,’ Michelangelo said. ‘When they saw Muhammad’s wives wearing veils, they sought to imitate them, and so now nearly all Islamic women wear veils even though there is no stipulation in their Holy Koran that they do so.’

  ‘Now, now, Michel,’ my teacher interjected. ‘That’s not the whole of it. As with many other faiths—including our own Christian one—a small group of zealots have distorted Islam to further their own agenda. When many women took to imitating the fashions of the Prophet’s wives, some Moslem men saw an opportunity to put all women under their thumb. They espoused foul laws like those allowing a man to beat his wife or force her into his bed.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked innocently. ‘Why do these men seek to dominate women? I mean, what have they to fear from women?’

  ‘From the mouths of babes . . .’ Michelangelo said wistfully.

  ‘Indeed,’ my teacher agreed, smiling at me kindly.

  I noticed, however, that Ignatius said nothing on this matter.

  Mr Ascham said, ‘Bess, not all men seek to dominate women. Only small-minded ones. Such men do so because it is a woman’s choice whether or not she grants her body to a man. Small-minded men hate this, perhaps because at some time in their lives their advances were rejected by women. And so these men design laws that give them power over women. The shame of it all is that they do so in the name of God.’

  Ignatius raised his finger. ‘But what of someone like me, a member of an order composed exclusively of celibate men. I devote my entire being, including my sexual being, to my Church and my God. That is why I distance myself from women, not because I am one of your “small-minded” men.’

  ‘You most certainly are not one of those.’ My teacher bowed his head. ‘And I respect you, your vows and the self-restraint you display in living in accordance with them. But your faith’s attitudes to women are not so worthy. For instance, why can a woman not be one of your Jesuits or a priest in the Catholic Church? Can a woman not also devote her entire being to God?’

  ‘Well, the early Church was composed almost entirely of men . . .’

  ‘In a male-dominated ancient world. My good sir, times and customs have changed over a thousand years. In these times, queens rule, women own property, young maidens walk the streets unaccompanied.’

  ‘Christ himself had only male disciples.’

  ‘And yet the majority of those who had the courage to stay by his side when he was nailed to the cross were women,’ Michelangelo pointed out.

  My teacher said, ‘The Church’s war against women occurred not under Christ—who by all accounts held women as equals to men—but through the writings of St Irenaeus and Tertullian, and that most cruel woman-hater of them all, St Paul, whose hostile views on women were unfortunately included in the Bible. But let me be clear, it is not only a Catholic problem; it is a Christian one: Martin Luther, the scourge of the old Church, shares its views on women. He once wrote: “Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops.” Weeds! Weeds!’

  I had not heard of this. I quite favoured Luther’s views on the Christian faith over those of the Church in Rome. But I did not like being thought of as a weed.

  I was also, I must say, captivated by what they were saying. I had never heard anyone discuss so boldly and forthrightly the topic of women or religion, let alone a group of minds as distinguished as this one. I listened intently, determined to remember every word.

  Mr Ascham went on. ‘Consider Islam’s promise of seventy-two round-bosomed maidens “whom no man will have deflowered before them” to any man who martyrs himself in defence of the faith. To whom can that appeal but a small-minded man?’

  ‘A most odd promise,’ Ignatius admitted, ‘and one that my translators of Islamic texts have struggled with.’

  Michelangelo said, ‘Indeed, for only a fellow who is a failure in the bedchamber would require virgins in heaven, as only virgins would be ignorant of how poor a lover he was. This also raises the question: do Moslem women who martyr themselves in the name of their faith encounter seventy-two strapping young virgin men in heaven? This I do not know but I doubt it.’

  Later, the topic turned to the Sultan and the strength of his Moslem empire.

  ‘Is Europe in danger of an Islamic invasion?’ my teacher asked. ‘This Sultan openly calls the Holy Roman Emperor the “King of Spain”, he treats the Habsburgs with contempt, his forces hold Buda, he considers another attack on Vienna, and his navies recently defeated the Spanish at Preveza. Can the West stop this Islamic wave? Will we in England soon be reading the Koran at prayer times?’

  The two great thinkers sitting with us contemplated this.

  Ignatius said, ‘I foresee only one outcome: a great pan-European war to settle this. A new Crusade; not one fought in the Holy Land but rather at the gates of each and every capital in Europe, as we fend off this ever-expanding empire. While the West has bickered about popes, faiths and royal divorces, the Moslems have been rising and now they advance.’

  Michelangelo nodded. ‘I am inclined to agree.’

  ‘You really think so?’ Mr Ascham said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Michelangelo said. ‘Let me ask you, did you bring a scarlet envelope with you to this event, sealed by your King Henry?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Do you know what it contained?’

  ‘No. I was forbidden to open it. I was merely instructed to hand it to the Sultan upon our arrival.’

  ‘You brought nothing else with that scarlet envelope? No trunk or chest or lockbox?’ Michelangelo asked pointedly.

  ‘No,’ Mr Ascham said blankly. ‘Should I have?’

  Michelangelo frowned at that and threw a glance at Ignatius. Then he looked away, his formidable mind turning. ‘How very interesting. Henry . . . Henry the Eighth. Ignatius, did you bring such an envelope with you from the Pope?’

  ‘I did, and like Mr Ascham I did not know its contents. I also handed to the Sultan, during our initial audience, a heavy locked trunk, filled—I guessed—with gold.’

  ‘As did every other delegation to this tournament,’ Michelangelo informed us, ‘except for one: the English one.’

  I felt a chill run through me. I was not certain it was a good thing to be so singular in this matter.

  My teacher was also very confused by this. He looked from Michelangelo to Ignatius as if he were the only one present not included in a joke. ‘I do not understand. What was in the scarlet envelope?’

  Michelangelo leaned forward and spoke in a whisper.

  ‘Inside that scarlet envelope was your king’s answer to a challenge from the Sultan,’ he said. ‘Every king who sent a player to this tournament also sent to the Sultan, in one of those red envelopes, his answer to Suleiman’s challenge.’

  ‘And what was this challenge?’ I asked, unable to restrain myself.

  ‘I do not know the precise details,’ Michelangelo said, ‘but I am led to believe that the Sultan, while inviting each king to send his chess champion to Constantinople, also dispatched a secret protocol to each king giving them a choice: pay Suleiman a hefty ransom in gold or face full-scale invasion after the tournament. And as we have now seen, only one king did not return his scarlet envelope accompanied by any kind of trunk or chest filled with gold: yours.’

  My teacher and I exchanged worried looks. My father was a great man but as we both knew, he was also vain, impetuous and not given to taking threats well.

  We could only wonder in horror at what King Henry VIII of England had written in the scarlet envelope
my teacher had personally brought to the possible future ruler of Europe.

  Thankfully, the conversation turned to another topic and over the course of that afternoon (we heard the wails of the muezzins twice), it was my privilege to hear those three great men discuss many things, until finally, as the dying sun touched the horizon and Constantinople shone in a magnificent orange glow, they concluded their philosophical musings and headed back to the palace.

  We stopped at the Hagia Sophia on the way to find out what had happened in the afternoon matches.

  It turned out that the Moghul prince Nasiruddin had defeated Lao over six games, while Ibrahim had overcome Wilhelm of Königsberg in a very tough encounter that had gone to the seventh and deciding game.

  With the day’s matches over, the sadrazam made an announcement: tomorrow would be a rest day, during which the successful players could put their minds at ease in preparation for the second round. In lieu of chess, festival activities would be held around the city, paid for by the Sultan himself. The crowd cheered loudly at this.

  And so as night fell, we arrived back at the palace. There Mr Ascham and I took our leave of Michelangelo and Ignatius, thanking them for a most stimulating afternoon.

  We returned to our quarters for supper, but I was keenly aware that we would not be staying there long, for having been thwarted the previous evening, tonight my teacher had plans: he wanted to observe Cardinal Cardoza’s embassy under the cover of darkness.

  THE EMBASSY

  AFTER TAKING A LATE SUPPER, my teacher called for Latif and asked the eunuch to escort him, Elsie and me on a stroll around the palace grounds. After the mental exertions of his match during the day, Mr Giles was fast asleep, snoring loudly.

  I already knew that this was a ruse of Mr Ascham’s: to any observer, we would merely be visitors taking a late-evening tour of the palace, guided by an esteemed eunuch, whereas in reality my teacher had already asked Latif to take us to all possible vantage points from which he could observe Cardinal Cardoza’s embassy later that night.

  Guided by Latif, the three of us strolled around the night-time palace.

  We walked under a glorious full moon, and bathed in its silver light the palace was a magical place. With its high domes, vivid mosaics and intricate lattice walls that gave one tantalising glimpses of the adjoining courtyards, Topkapi Palace was as fantastical and exotic as English castles were cold and utilitarian.

  ‘Latif,’ my teacher said. ‘Have you discovered anything about the whereabouts of the dead chef’s son, Pietro?’

  ‘I fear not, sir,’ Latif replied as he walked. ‘The lad has vanished. My men have been making inquiries all day, but there has been no sign of the boy at all. He has not been seen since his parents’ bodies were discovered yesterday.’

  I looked at my teacher. ‘A sign of guilt?’

  ‘Or fear,’ Mr Ascham said.

  We continued our perambulations. For a time, I walked with Elsie a short distance behind my teacher and Latif.

  I said, ‘Elsie, I have been thinking. About the awful things that people do to each other. Murder, torture, enslavement. Do you ever wonder why we do such terrible things to each other?’

  Elsie thought for a long moment. Then she turned to face me, a look of sudden enlightenment in her eyes. ‘You know, Bessie, I think I should wear my hair up for tonight’s gathering with the Crown Prince. It will show off my neck all the more.’

  I looked at Elsie as she continued walking and I said no more.

  We arrived at the south-east corner of the palace, where we spied the white two-storey structure that was Cardinal Cardoza’s embassy.

  ‘Did the cardinal host the Sultan earlier?’ Mr Ascham asked Latif.

  ‘He did,’ the eunuch said. ‘The Sultan left an hour ago with his retinue. Now, only churchmen remain in the embassy.’

  As Latif walked in front of us, pointing to the string of small islands in the Sea of Marmara directly to the south, we essentially circumnavigated the wide lawn surrounding the cardinal’s building.

  Candlelight glowed within the embassy and we could hear voices and lute music playing inside. The curtains of all the ground-level windows were drawn.

  ‘But those on the upper level are not,’ my teacher observed.

  The upper level of the structure bore four tall windows on its southern and eastern faces, designed to take in the view. My teacher looked around us and beheld a balcony at the very end of the nearby south pavilion from which one might be able to see into the embassy’s upper level.

  ‘Latif,’ Mr Ascham said. ‘That balcony, is it accessible? Or, rather, can we access it unnoticed?’

  ‘We can. It is the Sultan’s private viewing balcony. His Majesty only uses it in the daytime and then but rarely.’

  ‘I am sure he will not mind us borrowing it in the course of our investigation. It is the vantage point I seek. Take us there, please.’

  Getting to the Sultan’s balcony meant doubling back past our own rooms and Mr Ascham gave both Elsie and me the option of retiring. Of course, Elsie took that option, although she and I knew exactly where she would be going. I, however, insisted on staying with my teacher.

  ‘You may come,’ he said, ‘as long as you understand that you may again see unpleasant things.’

  ‘I understand.’ I felt I was becoming an old hand at seeing unpleasant things and could no longer be easily shocked. I must admit that maybe I was also becoming like my teacher: I didn’t like unresolved events. I wanted to know what was behind the murders that had taken place in the palace.

  ‘You promise not to make a sound?’ he said.

  ‘Not a sound.’

  ‘No matter what we see?’

  ‘No matter what we see.’

  ‘All right, then,’ he said, but the final, doubtful look he gave me suggested that it might not be all right at all.

  And so, guided by our eunuch, we made our way to the Sultan’s private balcony.

  The wide balcony offered a glorious panoramic view of the Sea of Marmara and I could see why it was reserved for the Sultan. It also, as my teacher had hoped, looked back down onto the Catholic embassy, offering a clear view into its upper-level windows.

  My teacher and I settled into two wooden chairs at the rail and commenced our watch.

  My confidence in my inability to be easily shocked was short-lived.

  What I saw appalled me. It was all I could do not to cry out.

  I saw two rooms. In the left-hand one, I saw priests of the Church prancing around in various states of undress and drunkenness—some wore their holy chains around their naked waists instead of their shoulders, others wore nothing at all; a few gulped wine from holy chalices, spilling it down their chests, while others smoked opium. Among them was Brother Raul.

  There were perhaps six priests in total in that room and with them were a gaggle of boys ranging in age from about thirteen to fifteen. The boys wore loincloths and laurel wreaths, making them look like a gang of Cupids, and they variously served and entertained the clergymen: one boy poured wine while another sang, and a third daintily stroked an old priest’s hair.

  Directing the whole affair was Cardinal Cardoza himself.

  He sat on an elevated chair—a throne of sorts—holding a bejewelled chalice filled with wine, pointing and laughing and stroking the shoulders of a boy who sat at his side like a loyal dog. The big cardinal was also naked. Every now and then, he would pick up his little horsehair whip and swat away with it at some insect that dared to approach his face.

  ‘By the love of . . .’ I whispered. ‘These are men of God . . .’

  My teacher grimaced. ‘These men do not preach the Word of the Lord. They gorge at the trough of an organisation that gives them wealth, influence and power. And it appears they have taken advantage of that organisation to cater to their perversions.

  ‘The Lord I believe in does not endorse men like these. Nor do the truly pious men of the Church, like Ignatius. The Church does many noble d
eeds and it has produced many genuinely great individuals, but it has been corrupted by men of low character who bring down its reputation: men like Boniface who sold indulgences and supposedly celibate popes who fathered many bastards.’

  ‘But this, sir,’ I said, ‘this is wickedness. This is the work of the Devil.’

  ‘No, Bess, it is the work of men,’ Mr Ascham said sadly. ‘The corruption of young boys by its priests has been a problem for the Church for over a thousand years. It was mentioned as far back as 309 A.D. when the lack of moral discipline among priests was so poor that the Council of Elvira was convened under the presidency of Felix of Accitum. St Bede wrote about it in his Penitential in the 8th century and in 1051, the great reformist monk, St Peter Damian, wrote in his Liber Gomorrhianus that interference with children by priests was rampant in the Church at that time. Worse still, Damian accused the Church’s superiors of concealing the deplorable crimes of its clergy. And so it continues today, an absolute abomination. Is it any wonder that Luther has found a willing audience for his message?’

  We continued to watch the gathering and as I gazed upon these men of God engaging in such impiety, I realised that they had no more connection with God than even the lowest criminal did. For my whole life I had thought priests and ministers had a special, higher relationship with our Lord. Now I could see otherwise. Priests were simply men with the same flaws and desires as other men.

  I found myself thinking about Elsie’s description of the Crown Prince’s gatherings and her comments about the delightful thrill of copulation. I also pondered what I had witnessed in Afridi’s establishment the previous day.

  ‘Mr Ascham,’ I said, ‘are all adult affairs really just driven by carnal desires?’

  My teacher looked at me, thinking.

  ‘I should very much like to know,’ I prodded, ‘especially now that I have reached womanhood and my father speaks of marrying me off to a foreign prince.’

  Mr Ascham sighed. ‘In the end I’d have to say, yes, many if not most adult affairs are driven by such desires. And the powerful have long known that power itself can command certain carnal advantages: from the wicked doctrine of jus primae noctis that used to be practised by landed lords to the lusty monarch who merely points to a girl and she is whisked to his bedchamber.’