by Victor Foia
Zaganos was playing Mehmed like a zither, and Gruya was going to die as a result.
Grovel, beg, lie, threaten, promise anything: just keep Gruya alive.
With hundreds of hateful eyes fixed upon him, Vlad clawed at the bottom of his soul for something to say that would make this nightmare end. But he found only darkness and emptiness there. Then he heard the drum roll signaling the resumption of the grotesque spectacle, and a dazzling flash illuminated the one and only option he had.
“My friend will convert to Islam,” he shouted, loud enough so everyone in the courtyard would hear. “He hasn’t confessed to any wrongdoing, so according to Sharia you must grant him life in exchange for adopting your faith.”
The crowd gave a gasp, anticipating a curtailment of its entertainment.
Vlad’s words, with their soul-damning implications, hurt as if his throat had been rammed with a chimney brush. Through welling tears, he observed Zaganos speaking into Mehmed’s ear.
“We can’t accept your servant’s conversion,” Mehmed said, “as long as you, his life-long master, reject the word of the Qur’an.”
Zaganos was beaming to hear articulated the words he’d just poured into Mehmed’s ear. The vizier’s wide grin showed he was certain he’d checkmated Vlad, who’d choose to let his servant die, rather than accept Islam himself.
Of course, Zaganos’s assertion, as expressed by Mehmed, was untrue. Vlad had been in contact with Islam long enough to know a master wasn’t responsible for his servant’s religion. But what did it matter? The vizier had the whip hand at the moment and could make any claim he wanted. Vlad had to accept his rules or pay the price for rejecting them.
There was only one way out of the impasse: a double apostasy.
For as long as Vlad could remember, this word carried frightening connotations. The hottest fires in hell were reserved for those who abjured the true faith. He knew of no one who, after abandoning Christianity, had been readmitted to the bosom of the church. But, even knowing the risk of damnation, could he let Gruya perish?
And there was hope. He and Gruya would ultimately find a way to escape from the Turks and place themselves at the mercy of the Church. How could a priest fail to absolve two repentant sinners?
Of course, there was the chance they’d die before returning to Christ. In that case their souls would surely be lost.
But whatever the cost, letting Gruya die wasn’t an option.
“I too shall convert to Islam,” he cried. Then he dropped to his knees and pressed his temples to quell their explosive throbbing.
“You told them I’ll do what?” Gruya said, more shaken to learn he was to become a Muslim than by his narrowly-averted demise. They had just reached a washing room inside the second court, and Gruya stripped off his shirt with a groan.
Vlad, heart still racing from his fateful decision, was aghast at the gashes and bruises marking his friend’s torso. “There isn’t much you have to do. I’ll say a formula in Arabic and you’ll just repeat after me. It goes like this—”
“I don’t want to know what I’m saying,” Gruya cried, raising both hands in defense. “That way I can swear on Judgment Day I haven’t abandoned my faith, and maybe I’ll get away with it. On the other hand, you, who know all those heathen languages, will be having a problem explaining your conversion.” He scooped frothy water from an earthenware basin with his cupped hands and splashed it onto his face. Then he winced and cursed as his wounds took in the soap’s sting. “What will my father say when I get home? And my grandfather?”
“They’ll never know,” Vlad said. “But if the news reaches them they’ll cope with it. You’ll get a whipping, then they’ll kill a fattened calf to celebrate your return.”
“Grandmother’s dying,” Gruya said. “It will finish her off to know her only grandson’s become a Turk.” He swallowed hard and appeared ready to weep.
Sadness crept into Vlad’s heart at the news of Lady Mathilda’s condition. Raised without mothers, both he and Gruya looked upon Mathilda as their surrogate mutti: a mother figure close enough to extort favors from in exchange for love; distant enough to disobey with impunity. At the thought of losing her, guilt and remorse stirred in him for not showing her more of the affection she deserved.
“What would she say to learn you’ve let yourself be sawed in half for refusing to say a few words?”
“But you bought my freedom at the price of my soul,” Gruya said, harsh. “What would mutti say to that?”
“I bought only your life. Freedom is something you’ll have yet to earn.”
Gruya threw Vlad a quizzical look. “Do you mean I’ll be kept in chains after making such a huge sacrifice?”
“No chains for either of us; we’ll be able to move around town unescorted. But you can be sure Zaganos will be watching every step I take. You, on the other hand, mean nothing to him, so I’ll rely on you to—”
“Well, he means a lot to me.” Gruya felt his lips, nose, and eyelids with the tip of his fingers. “The prick has ruined my looks.”
“I’ll ask Mehmed to let us take lodgings in town. With my decision to convert he won’t refuse me anything. Living outside the palace will make it easier for you to scout opportunities for our escape.”
This news cheered Gruya, and he gave Vlad a hideous grin through his deformed lips.
“Father has surely sent with you enough silver for our escape,” Vlad said. “Does Lash have it?”
Gruya puckered his lips and squinted in a pose that for him illustrated deep thinking. “Do you have any idea what things cost in this damned empire?” Avoiding eye contact with Vlad, he bent over the washbasin and began to soap his hair with great determination.
Ah, so you’ve squandered Father’s money. “I haven’t yet whored, or gotten drunk,” Vlad said with ill-concealed vexation. “Nor have I had the chance to gamble. So no, I’ve got no fucking idea what ‘things’ cost.”
Gruya stuck his head under the water and Vlad had to wait almost three minutes before he resurfaced.
“Well, money or no money,” Vlad said, his anger drained by now, “once we’re done with the conversion, find Lash and begin looking for a means of escape.”
“The first thing I’ll look for is a most intriguing Gypsy girl I’ve heard about. They say she can crush walnuts with her—”
“Don’t put so much effort into washing your hair,” Vlad said. “We’ll both have it shaved soon enough.”
Gruya jerked up his head and sent a spray of soapy water into the air. “You’ve made the conversion sound easy. ‘I’ll say a formula in Arabic and you’ll just repeat after me.’ But now you want me to give up my hair?”
“You get to keep a topknot on the crown of your head and can let it grow as long as you want.”
“That’s not going to make up for—”
“Oh, stop whining. When we return to Wallachia we’ll hole up in some village until our hair grows back, so no one who counts will see us shorn.”
Gruya reflected for a moment, then regained his customary cheerfulness. “Perhaps you’re right. No one needs to know about your Arabic formula.”
“We’ll both be given the name Abdullah, Servant of Allah,” Vlad said. “It’s the customary name for converts throughout Dar al-Islam. Then you can add bin, son of, so people can tell you apart from other Abdullahs. So you’ll be Abdullah bin Novak.”
“I’d rather chuck bin Novak, if you don’t mind. That way the saint in charge of punishing apostates might lose track of me among so many Abdullahs.”
Vlad nurtured a similar hope for himself but didn’t confess this to his friend. “I’ll be known as Abdullah Emirzade,” he said. “It means king’s son in Persian.”
Gruya winked, complicit. “Once our hair grows back and we retake our true names, there’ll be no trace left of our conversion.”
He lifted the washbasin over his head and was about to douse himself with the murky water, when Vlad raised a finger to stop him. Gruya froze, suspi
cion in his eyes.
“Well, actually—” Vlad paused, filled with a mixture of dread and mischievousness in anticipation of Gruya’s reaction. “There will be a small trace.”
“Whatever that is, I don’t care as long as I have my hair back.”
“We’ve got to get circumcised.”
Gruya dropped the basin and grabbed his crotch. Pottery shards and water shot across the room.
13
OMAR’S PREY
November 1442, Bursa, Ottoman Empire
Omar was certain he’d be summoned back to the Bektashi tekke the day following his introduction to al-Masudi. But he wasn’t. Nor was he contacted by anyone from the tekke the day after, or the day after that. He finally surmised he must have failed some secret test and concluded, with the resentment of a spurned lover, that the Bektashi’s door would remain shut for him just like that of the Mevlevis.
But while his spiritual aspirations were deflated, the quest for a sighting of his nemesis was finally gratified. Four days into his relentless vigil, the palace gates opened to let through a clutch of seven people, one a boy of about ten. When, from the vantage point of his garret, he identified Dracula among them, Omar’s blood rushed to his head, gurgling like a spring torrent. And as if Vlad’s emergence weren’t reason enough for celebration, he was accompanied by his squire, Zekaï’s killer. Omar strained to remember the man’s name as he’d heard it months ago in Wallachia. When it finally came to him—Gruya—an invigorating stream of hate coursed through his veins. Despite my worthlessness, al-Ḥasīb, the Bringer of Judgment, You’re guiding my eyes and my feet. Omar concluded al-Masudi’s baraka, the beneficent force that flows from Allah, must’ve splashed over him in those moments of silence spent at the lodge.
Where’re you going, Dracula? a venomous voice hissed in Omar’s head.
His knees began to shake, and despite the urge to rush downstairs and follow the group, he found himself glued onto the spot. Only when the men disappeared from view did Omar regain the energy needed to launch in their pursuit. He sprinted along the crowded street, bumping into passersby while a corrosive fluid rose to his gorge.
Don’t you disappear on me, Shaytan’s bitch.
He caught up with Dracula’s group just as it left the Meydancik Quarter and crossed into the Yeşil one. There, five of the men entered a tenement similar to Omar’s, while two, who appeared to be soldiers of the palace guard, posted themselves in front of the gate.
He waited for half an hour, then saw the boy and two of the men, youths in their early twenties, reemerge. Dracula and Gruya were left behind.
More baraka, he thought, brimming with gratitude for al-Karīm, the Generous One. With only his servant for company Dracula would be easier to overpower.
Then Omar recognized the boy as Mehmed, and puzzled over the meaning of this imperial escort accorded to Dracula. Rumors regarding Vlad’s duel in Edirne claimed the Wallachian’s success was applauded by the sultan and his son. And now this. What could it mean?
The mystery deepened when the two soldiers, instead of accompanying Mehmed back to the palace, stayed behind to guard the tenement’s gate.
Omar waited, concealed behind some trash in an alley across the street.
Six hours later the guards were changed; another six hours, another change of the guard. Omar concluded the tenement contained Dracula’s new lodgings for the time being.
14
AKHAL-TEKE MARE
November 1442, Bursa, Ottoman Empire
Omar’s watch over the two-story building extended from the time the gate opened for the Fajr prayer, until it closed after the Isha prayer. The structure was set flush against similar buildings on the left and the right, and had neither a gate nor windows in the rear. With the soldiers on guard around the clock, his prey was secured in a place he could keep under near continual surveillance.
I’ll wait for months, if I have to, he told himself, as he felt the knife concealed inside his tunic.
From his observation post in the alley, Omar spotted Mehmed return to the tenement the following afternoon, accompanied by the two youths of the day before. They remained inside until the evening prayer then left. The following day Mehmed came alone, disguised as a servant, and again spent the entire afternoon inside the building. The prince maintained this inexplicable routine for several days, and his daily visits kept Omar in a state of high anxiety.
He subsisted on pumpkin seeds and apples he bought on the street. Occasionally a passerby would give him alms, taking his shabby appearance for that of a dervish. He was proud to be thus mistaken, and the hope he might yet join the Bektashi order one day continued to flicker in him.
At night he slept fitfully, huddled on the ground, ears alert to any sound that might come from across the street. He left the place only to relieve himself at a public outhouse. On those occasions his insides felt as if shredded by the fear that in his absence Dracula and Gruya might leave their confinement.
On the fifth morning of his vigil, he was startled to see Mehmed show up earlier than was his custom. About two hours later, a palace groom arrived at the gate leading a saddled horse. The Akhal-Teke mare stood sixteen hands, yet was so svelte it couldn’t have weighed more than eight hundred pounds. Its unshod hooves seemed to caress the ground, and its slender legs quivered like blades of grass in the breeze. The mare’s black coat flashed a metallic sheen that summoned in him the memory of thrilling night raids.
Omar was at the horse’s side in a flash and ran his hand down her lustrous rump.
This was a horse faster than the Black Sea wind. Meant for whom? The tenants were too poor to afford a donkey, let alone a horse. A royal gift for Dracula, no doubt. But on what merits? The pleasure Omar had felt at touching the animal turned to raging envy.
What have you done to deserve such a horse?
The groom led the horse into the courtyard, just as two pages arrived carrying fruit and sweets trays. Omar’s anxiety burst its levee. Something big was afoot here; something meant to interfere with his designs for Dracula. But what? He was further flummoxed when a man appearing to be a hekim elbowed him aside and walked in through the gate. A child apprentice carrying a surgeon’s case tried to follow the doctor. Omar barred his way.
“What’s going on in there, boy?” Omar said with the rough authority he’d observed dervishes assume on occasion. “And what’s with the fancy horse?”
“It’s a circumcision gift for a foreign prince who lives here. Come, join the celebration. There will be free sweets for everyone after the surgery.”
Omar’s skin turned to gooseflesh, as if he’d been blasted by an icy wind. Was conversion to Islam Dracula’s latest trick? Omar tried to figure out the implications of his enemy’s becoming a Muslim. On the positive side, Dracula would free to move around, so Omar’s chances of ambushing him would improve. But the convert could also get onto his new horse and disappear forever into the empire’s vast reaches. Or, more likely, flee to his homeland.
Well, Omar wasn’t going to wait and see which case played out. He’d strike now when his enemies were penned in and vulnerable.
Affecting a casual stance, he walked past the two soldiers and stepped through the gate on the apprentice’s heels.
The courtyard was teeming with curious tenants gathered around the horse, jabbering like excited schoolboys. The wailing of unattended infants resounded from all directions; so did the cry of women berating their husbands for idling in the middle of the day. The two pages had all they could do to keep impatient children away from the sweets they’d set on trestle tables.
No one paid Omar attention.
He saw with relief Mehmed make his way through the crowd and leave the courtyard.
“It’s now or never,” he hissed, and felt his blood tingle.
His plan was elementary but relied on complete surprise. Given the private nature of the circumcision, there would be no one else in Dracula’s room but Gruya, the surgeon, and the apprentice. Omar
would barge in and slash his enemies’ throats before they realized who he was. Then he’d do the same to the doctor and the apprentice, so they couldn’t sound the alarm. He’d be back on the street before they all had finished bleeding.
He saw the apprentice ask for directions, then make his way up the stairs leading to the second floor. Once on the landing, the boy entered the first room near the top of the stairs.
Aha! Now I know where you live, Dracula.
Omar’s impulse was to follow the apprentice, but the steps were congested with men crouching there to get a better view of the horse. They’d know he didn’t live there and would ask his purpose. Even if he could fool them into letting him pass, they’d be able to identify him later when the killings were discovered.
He cast a look around searching for other stairs, and discovered there weren’t any. The entire second floor, whose landing extended along the four sides of the courtyard, was being serviced by a single set of stairs.
What a stupid construction, he thought and broke into a sweat. If he let this opportunity escape him, would he ever get another one this good? He began to stroll around the yard, kneading his hands in despair and begging Allah’s assistance. His hope revived when, at the rear of the yard, he came upon several bales of straw secured with hemp twine and piled on top of each other up to the second floor. Ropes dangling through a hatch in the ceiling of the landing indicated men had been loading straw into the attic that morning. The arrival of the horse, Omar guessed, had disrupted their work.
For an instant, he considered climbing on the bales to reach the second floor, about twelve feet above the ground. But the pile looked unstable, and a fall would draw attention to him. Furious at the bad luck he was having, he turned around abruptly and nearly knocked over a soup cauldron resting atop a brazier.
Whoever was supposed to mind the cooking had probably left to join the crowd of gawkers. As hunger kept his eyes fastened on the bubbling broth, a brilliant idea occurred to him.
With a shiver he whispered, “Allāh al-Mujīb, the One Who Answers, be exalted.”
