House of War

by Victor Foia

“There were two giaours who killed them,” Omar said on impulse. When he realized how pitiful he sounded, his cheeks became hot. “I was planning to hunt down both murderers and—”

  “You imagine revenge is a fruit hanging so low that any donkey might gorge on it?” Zaganos gave a disparaging snicker. “No, my friend, revenge is a rare gift Allah bestows only upon those who deserve it.” He stopped in front of Omar and, leaning his tall frame toward him, said in a conspiratorial tone, “I’m sparing your life because I hope you’re capable of a special deed that would please Allah, subhana wa taala, exalted and sublime is He.”

  “My life belongs to you, Zaganos Pasha.” Omar couldn’t have imagined that he, a freeborn Turk, would ever treat a converted slave as his master. Even if that slave happened to be the Third Vizier. But his desire to stay alive until his brothers’ deaths were avenged was stronger than his pride. “I’m ready for any deed you command.”

  Zaganos glowered at Omar. “Don’t expect me, or anyone else, to tell you what deed will earn you Allah’s grace. You’ll know it yourself when you’re able to understand the signs and hear the voice of al-Haqq, the Truth.”

  “But how can I—?’”

  “I know the Mevlevi Dervishes have rejected you,” Zaganos said. “But they aren’t the ones whose spiritual guidance you should seek. The fire that burns inside you is unsuitable for their order.”

  Omar was astounded that Zaganos, the fourth most powerful man in the empire, would know the doings of an insignificant creature like himself. He hadn’t told anyone of his attempt to join the Mevlevi order, let alone of the humiliating failure he’d suffered.

  “Your place is with the Bektashi order,” Zaganos continued. “Their tariqa, true Sufi path, will lead you to al-Haqq.”

  Omar had recently learned from a Janissary that the Bektashis’ love for Ali and the Twelve Imams was matched by their hatred for the infidel. They despised the abstract love of humanity professed by the Mevlevis as incompatible with jihād. The Bektashis’ thinking suited Omar and he longed to join them, but fear of another rejection held him back from trying.

  “What if the Bektashis don’t want me either?”

  “You’ll go to Sheik al-Masudi’s tekke, lodge, in Bursa, and receive his guidance. He’s a descendant of Hajji Bektash himself. It’s a priceless honor to be a murīd, seeker of spiritual enlightenment, at his lodge.”

  “But I can’t leave Edirne at the present, My Vizier,” Omar said, regretting he had to bring his petty concerns to this great man. “I must provide for my mother and earn enough money to pay off my debt to—” Omar arrested himself in time. To mention the name of the man who’d financed his raid to Wallachia would’ve meant providing a witness to his crime.

  Zaganos made an impatient gesture. “All obstacles on your path have been cleared. Your debt to Hajji Mustafa has been repaid by a secret benefactor, and your mother will want for nothing while you’re away.”

  Omar felt naked in front of this man who knew every detail of his life. “Who told you about Hajji—”

  “This will cover your travel and living costs until Sheik al-Masudi takes you into his tekke.” Zaganos tossed a coin purse at Omar.

  This could only mean Omar’s prayer had been answered. Dracula would survive the duel and be taken to Bursa. And Al-Muntaqim provided Omar the means to follow his enemy there.

  “Sheik al-Masudi’s a saint,” Zaganos said, “so ordinary men aren’t allowed to gaze upon his face. You may speak to him only through a veil. When you’re brought into his presence address him as dede, grandfather, then recite for him the ayah 10.72 from the Qur’an. He’ll know you have my endorsement as a Bektashi murīd.”

  The knowledge his admission to the Bektashi order was guaranteed by the recommendation of this influential man released the painful tension stored in Omar’s body for months.

  “I’ll praise your honorable name to all I encounter, my Vizier,” he said, glowing with gratitude.

  Zaganos pounced on Omar like a vicious dog and slammed him against the wall. “You’ll never mention my name to anyone, or I’ll hang you on your mother’s porch, do you hear me?” He bared his teeth, ready to bite off Omar’s face. “And forget revenge … forget Dracula. He’s not to be touched.”

  Forgetting Dracula wasn’t something Omar could do. That pale face, those satanic green eyes—oh, how they’d etched themselves on his brain five months ago, when he saw Dracula standing by Sezaï’s and Redjaï’s corpses. When he learned the outcome of the duel, Omar rushed to the mosque and poured out his gratitude to al-Muntaqim in prayers until his forehead became raw from touching the carpet.Omar shadowed Mehmed’s party from the moment it left Edirne until it entered the gate to the sultan’s palace in Bursa. He had no difficulty keeping up with the convoy on foot, as its speed was hampered by Mehmed’s slow-moving baggage train.

  The road between Edirne and Bursa was crowded with travelers moving in both directions. Now and then the traffic would stall, when a cart broke down, or when a swollen creek took longer than usual to ford. On those occasions, Omar would creep closer to Mehmed’s group to assure himself the man he intended to kill was still in its midst.

  Only once, on the shores of the Bosphorus, did he fear the unbeliever had slipped away. Omar had been observing Mehmed’s camp from the summit of a nearby hill, when he saw Dracula get into a boat with someone and float away on the current. But that night the infidel was brought back to Zaganos Pasha in Galata, and kept under guard for the rest of the journey.

  7

  MULLAH GÜRANI

  October 1442, Bursa, Ottoman Empire

  Mehmed didn’t have to wait long before he could test his will on Gürani. No sooner had he arrived in Bursa than the mullah sent for his unwilling pupil.

  “Be at my madrasah tomorrow after Salah al-Duhr, the noon prayer,” was all Gürani’s message said.

  “The arrogant peasant hasn’t bothered to write down his address,” Mehmed said, furious. “I had to ask his messenger for it.”

  “Why don’t you ask him to come to the palace instead?” Vlad said. “He’s only a scholar, while you’re a prince of the blood.”

  “I’ll let him have his way this time, since he doesn’t know me yet.” Mehmed pulled himself up and inflated his chest. “But I’m going to give him a lesson of my own, and you’re coming with me to witness it.”

  They left the palace when the adhān called the worshippers to the noon prayer. Mehmed spent an hour inside the Yıldırım Camii, the mosque built by his great-grandfather, Beyazid. Vlad waited outside with his two ever-present guards.

  “And now I have to visit Beyazid’s tomb,” Mehmed said when he rejoined Vlad.

  “It’s not advisable to be late at your first meeting with Gürani,” Vlad said. “Especially if you’re planning to ask a favor from him.”

  Mehmed wouldn’t be deterred. “Don’t worry. I’ll get his consent to have you as my study companion if I have to beat it out of him.” His mischievous smile showed he was determined to provoke a confrontation with his new tutor.

  Unlike Edirne, which was situated on a near-flat plateau, Bursa stood perched on the slope of a mountain, enjoying a commanding view over the plain below.

  “That’s Ordu Alan, Army Field,” Mehmed said, pointing to a wide band of flatland stretching east and west for miles below Bursa. “An army of half a million people could camp there. That’s where Aladdin will set his camp when he arrives in December at the head of the Anatolian army.”

  “Is he coming here in response to the rumors about the crusade?”

  “The crusade’s beyond the rumor stage, and will take place next spring, Insha’Allāh,” Mehmed said.

  Though Vlad had feared the same, he still hoped war would be delayed another year. It alarmed him to see how certain Mehmed appeared that wasn’t the case.

  “You wish war upon your own people?” Vlad said.

  “Father’s decided to cease pursuing war against Dar al-Harb,” Mehmed said. “So
the only hope for jihād is to have the infidels attack us first.”

  “Zaganos must’ve put that idea in your head,” Vlad said. “The man lives only for war.”

  “He does, but he’s smart enough not to criticize Father’s policies in the open. Others aren’t as cautious. Fazullah Pasha, the Second Vizier, for instance, has made no secret he disapproves of peace with the infidels. Many senior officials think like him.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m certainly not like my brother. Aladdin agrees with Father and the First Vizier that the empire has grown enough, and peace must now be the highest priority. Aladdin’s of no use to Fazullah and the jihād party.”

  Mehmed cast Vlad a guilty look and bit his lip as if he reproached himself for saying too much.

  “What’s that mountain above the city?” Vlad said to relieve the boy’s discomfort.

  “Uludağ, the Sublime Mountain. We get ice from there year-round.”

  Because of the poor terrain, Bursa streets were narrow and twisted. The houses were made of wood and many had shuttered balconies that cantilevered over the street, giving women a safe and discreet peek at life outside.

  Gürani’s madrasah was at the end of a narrow, dead-end street in the neighborhood of Ulu Camii, the Grand Mosque. The space in front of the building had once been an intimate round plaza with a marble fountain at its center. Only a fragment of the water basin remained in evidence, while the fountain’s upper section with its pipes and decorations had disappeared. The plaza was now taken over by bazaar stalls, shoppers, and vendors competing for space with donkeys, goats, and chickens. The banter, laughter, clucking, and bleating that reverberated in the tight place couldn’t be a welcome sound to scholars studying inside the madrasah.

  The imposing iwan, entryway, that formed the madrasah’s façade was dour and foreboding. Its sandstone walls, carved with geometrical motifs, had suffered defacing by malicious blows that had reduced their former magnificence to a weary shabbiness. The portal, a two-panel wood colossus disfigured by charred scars and requiring great effort to open, seemed meant to dissuade students from entering.

  “Whatever learning I’m going to do will take place at the palace, not in this gloomy ruin,” Mehmed said. “I’ll make Gürani regret he had me come down here.”

  Behind the portal, a vaulted corridor that reeked of urine led to a rectangular atrium open to the sky. Like the exterior of the madrasah, the interior gave signs of abuse and neglect. Many of the wall tiles along the two story arcade surrounding the atrium had been smashed, rendering incomplete the Qur’an verses they quoted. The mosaic on the colonnade walk had lost tiles as well and was now pockmarked with dirt-filled gaps. The space open to the sky was paved with marble slabs and centered on a decorative pool. Of the four bronze lions that had once been spewing water from their perches on the sides of the pool, only two remained. They gazed upon the rain-filled basin in front of them with blank eyes and dry mouths.

  “This is an insult,” Mehmed shouted, when he reached the pool’s edge. He assumed a defiant stance, leaning slightly back, hands on hips. “Where’s Mullah Gürani?”

  “Welcome to your madrasah, Prince Mehmed,” a booming voice sounded from behind one of the pillars supporting the arcade.

  A tall man in his late twenties stepped into the open, his fulsome beard and fierce black eyes bespeaking a stern master. He wore a floor-length brown robe and a black turban. He held a scroll in one hand, a thin rod in the other.

  Zaganos and Tirendaz, who must’ve been conferring with Gürani, also emerged from behind the pillars, but remained in the gallery. Vlad retreated a few steps to the side, leaving Mehmed to face Gürani on his own.

  “You’ll stand straight and hold your arms by your side when you speak to me,” Gürani said. He remained in place, clearly expecting Mehmed to approach him.

  Mehmed glanced at Vlad as if seeking his encouragement, then dropped his arms and stood erect. But he didn’t narrow the gap between himself and Gürani.

  “I’ve been told that despite your teachers’ efforts you’re deficient in sciences and languages. What’s more shameful, you’re alarmingly ignorant of the Qur’an. When I was your age—”

  “I intend to be a soldier,” Mehmed said with a fruitless effort to make his voice sound deep, “not a scholar.”

  “You won’t interrupt me again, Mehmed.” Gürani’s tone displayed no anger, only a steely self-confidence. “At your age I was already studying the Qur’an every day. I’ve promised the sultan that for as long as I am your tutor, you’ll be doing the same.” He must’ve detected Mehmed’s intention to protest, for he raised his rod to silence him. “And you’ll do it in this very building where Sultan Beyazid, whom I’ve been told you revere, himself studied the Qur’an.”

  Mehmed guffawed. “I admire my great-grandfather for his military prowess, not for his Qur’an knowledge. Besides, he wouldn’t have shit in a sorry building like this, let alone studied in it.”

  If Mehmed’s offensive attitude riled Gürani, he didn’t show it.

  “This building was erected by Orhan Ghazi Gürani said, unaffected by Mehmed’s rudeness. “By the time Beyazid came to study here it had fallen into disrepair. So the first thing he did was to order a complete renovation.”

  Mehmed kicked a tile shard that flew past Zaganos and shattered against the wall. “And a fine job he did.” He gave Vlad a furtive look and a wink that said, I told you I’ll be teaching the Kurd a lesson.

  Gürani didn’t react to Mehmed’s provocation.

  “This madrasah was the most illustrious learning center in Beyazid’s time. After his defeat at Ankara, the Mongols sacked Bursa and desecrated this place.”

  “That was forty years ago,” Mehmed said. “Why should I care? If you want me to learn anything you’ll set up my classes at the palace, like all other tutors have done in the past.”

  Gürani took a few deliberate steps toward Mehmed, then looked down upon him, his expression that of one touched by a whiff of foul odor. “All teaching will take place here, Insha’Allāh. But first, you shall restore the madrasah to its former glory.”

  Mehmed burst into a shrill cackle. “Me? Restore a building? I’ve got no money for such a thing.”

  “The taxes collected in western Anatolia are sufficient for the restoration of a thousand madrasahs,” Gürani said. “As the Governor General, all these revenues are under your control. So act like accordingly, don’t look for excuses.”

  “The only things I want to learn are history, geography, and the science of war. I don’t need a madrasah for that. The study of the Qur’an isn’t for me.”

  “Listen to what your father wrote when he invited me to assume responsibility over your education.” Gürani unfurled the scroll he was carrying and began reading. “‘You may decide what measures to employ in persuading my son to take his studies seriously.’” He paused, gave Mehmed a dark look, then continued. “‘The rod brought to you by my messenger—’” Gürani paused and raised the rod over his head, “‘—is for you to use on my son if he disobeys you.’”

  “Are you joking?” Mehmed shouted. “I’m a prince of the blood, not some vagrant you can thrash at will.”

  Gürani rolled up Murad’s letter and stuck it inside his robe. Then, with the speed of a striking viper, he clamped his left hand onto Mehmed’s shoulder and struck his thigh with the rod.

  Vlad watched, stunned, as three more blows fell on Mehmed. Before the rod could descend again, Vlad leaped forward and grabbed Guarani’s hand. “Hey, if you want to take on someone,” he shouted, his face scorched by fury, “take on a man, not a child.”

  For an instant Gürani lost his composure and turned a stupefied face to Vlad. Then he recovered and yanked his hand free from Vlad’s grip.

  “Ah, you must Vlad, the Wallachian prince who’s had such a stellar influence on Mehmed,” he thundered. “Do you wish to share his punishment? Well, here you go.”

  With that, Gürani struck Vlad
across the cheek with the rod. When Vlad didn’t flinch, Gürani struck him again, and again. Vlad gave the mullah a grin, despite the stinging pain in his face. Behind Gürani, Tirendaz appeared shocked, Zaganos amused.

  “Stop it, Mullah Gürani,” Mehmed shrieked from behind Vlad.

  “Nobody’s going to interfere with my responsibilities—”

  “I will study the Qur’an,” Mehmed shouted, “and will renovate the madrasah. Just stop hitting my friend.”

  Gürani lowered the rod and bared his teeth in a cold grin, then shoved Vlad aside to face Mehmed. “I expect work on the restoration to begin tomorrow. Until it’s completed, I’ll allow your classes to be held at the palace.”

  “I’ve got a condition, though,” Mehmed said and, to his credit, didn’t cower when Gürani raised his rod again. “I want Vlad to attend my classes until the end of Ramadan.”

  The request seemed to disconcert Gürani more than either Mehmed’s earlier affront, or Vlad’s unexpected intervention. At a loss for words, he glanced over his shoulder at the men on the arcade.

  “That’s out of the question, Mehmed,” Zaganos said. “The sultan has given me specific instructions to—”

  “I take responsibility for modifying Father’s dispositions, Lala Zaganos,” Mehmed said, imperious. “And until he arrives in Bursa, you’ll take orders only from me.”

  Zaganos’s lips moved silently as he bowed in submission. When he stood straight again, his face showed the color of burnt clay.

  Gürani furrowed his brow and seemed to ponder his options. “Very well, then,” he finally said and tossed the rod into the pool. “I’ll grant your wish under the following terms.”

  Mehmed brushed the welts on Vlad’s cheek with his fingertips, and whispered, “We’ve beaten him.”

  The thought that his departure for Amasya would be pushed back by three months took Vlad’s mind off the throbbing pain in his cheek.

  Gürani watched Mehmed for a while with severe eyes and set lips, then said, “You must memorize the entire Qur’an by Eid al-Fitr, Breaking the Fast. That’s ninety-five days from tomorrow.”