by Victor Foia
As Vlad wheeled Samur around to settle her down, he noticed a troop of ten horsemen approaching from the town’s gate at a trot, two abreast. As they drew closer, he recognized the uniforms of the Household Cavalry. He was about to tell Aladdin about the new arrivals, when he noticed they’d picked up speed and were holding their bows at the ready.
They’re coming for me, a shout went off inside his head. The imminent danger released Vlad’s store of repressed anger gathered in his heart for months. His throat burned and every fiber in his body quivered as if stung by nettles.
Only fifty yards to go and the riders would slam into him like the waters of a flash flood. If he were meant to die, he’d at least head off the attack to save Gruya, Aladdin, and Hızır from becoming collateral victims.
“Treason,” he screamed over the blare of the band. From the corner of his eye he saw the men of the mehterân drop their instruments and scatter.
Without looking back, he drew his kiliç and spurred Samur hard. The mare sprang toward the oncoming pack, and that instant three arrows slammed into his shield. One pierced it and sank to the bone into his left forearm. Other arrows buzzed harmless past his right ear. The next moment he found himself in a tunnel whose walls zipped past him in a colorful blur. He stretched his sword out to his right and braced himself for impact. The blade slid across something hard, a shield perhaps, then bit into a soft target.
He felt a warm spray on his face, then he was clear of the tunnel.
Behind him a curtain of dust obscured the knot of riders clashing into Aladdin and his men. Vlad didn’t wait to sort out the encounter’s outcome. He kicked Samur and caught up with two of the attackers at the rear of the pack. They both glanced over their shoulders, disbelief painted on their faces at finding danger there. The last thing they saw was the tip of Vlad’s kiliç as he jabbed them in their unprotected foreheads, one after the other.
Gruya must’ve been the first to react to Vlad’s alarm call, for his horse was wedged between the assailants and Aladdin’s group. Despite an arrow sticking out of his left shoulder, his sword arm moved in a wild, circular motion, like a windmill in the teeth of a winter storm.
“Come you pagan sons of bitches,” he hollered in Romanian with a maniacal grin. Two riders crowded him, wielding war axes. One of them encountered the windmill and lost his right arm. The other took Gruya’s blade on the side of his neck and toppled to the ground. “I’ll send you to the old virgins who’re waiting for you in hell.”
The remaining five attackers left Gruya and pounced upon the unarmed pages, who’d bunched their horses together to form a wall in front of Aladdin and Hızır. Within seconds all six youths were cut down, leaving their corpses and frightened horses as the only obstacle between Aladdin and his aggressors.
While the confusion of rearing, neighing horses was at its peak, Vlad maneuvered Samur amidst the attackers and felled two more of them.
“Save yourself, lala,” Aladdin screamed when two of the enemies managed to close in on him.
But instead of fleeing, Hızır made his horse rear and kick one of the two men out of the saddle. Gruya pounced on him, dagger in hand. The second man wheeled his horse around and gave Hızır an ax blow that that chopped off the old man’s right hand. Spurting blood from the stump of his arm, Hızır chivied his horse to shield Aladdin. Seconds only, and he would’ve been killed, but for Vlad plunging his sword into the back of the rider who’d maimed the old man.
The last surviving attacker found himself flanked by Aladdin and Vlad. He looked around in panic and decided to save himself. But no sooner had he spurred his horse than Aladdin reacted by decapitating him with a flick of his kiliç.
Aladdin was at Hızır’s side before the severed head had stopped rolling in the dust.
The stranger’s horse galloped away with the headless body on its back.
“Don’t die on me, lala,” Aladdin cried as he helped Hızır dismount and lie on the ground. Tears streaked the dirt on Aladdin’s face when he turned to Vlad. “Who wanted me dead?”
“We need a tourniquet, quick,” Vlad shouted and cut the leather straps securing Hızır’s hauberk so the old man could breath easier. Then he added, “They’ve come to kill me, Aladdin, not you.”
But Aladdin was too absorbed with his mentor’s wound to pay attention to Vlad.
Gruya pointed to the arrow in his shoulder. “Help me with this, Vlad.”
The arrow had penetrated Gruya’s chain mail, passed through the flesh of his shoulder, then came to rest against the back side of his armor. Vlad helped him strip down to his shirt; then he broke off the shaft above the fletching and pulled out the arrow through the exit wound.
Gruya swore lustily in Hungarian then said, “Your arm’s bleeding too.”
Vlad tore off Gruya’s sleeves and crouched next to Hızır. He’d seen a tourniquet applied only once, to a peasant who’d lost a hand in a logging accident. But this wasn’t the time to show indecision. “I’ve done this a dozen times. You’ll be recovering in no time.” He tied one of Gruya’s sleeves above Hızır’s wrist and used the hilt of his dagger to twist the knot tight. Then he fastened the dagger to Hızır’s arm with the other sleeve, so the tourniquet wouldn’t come undone.
Aladdin had lost all composure and was weeping uncontrollably.
“Don’t worry, My Prince,” Hızır whispered through parched lips. “Everything happens only by Allah’s will.”
A messenger, blood-splattered and dust besmirched, rode up to Aladdin that moment and shouted, “İbrahim Bey’s on the run.”
The news tore Aladdin from his befuddlement. He appeared torn between attending to Hızır and running off to chase after İbrahim.
“Go do your job, Aladdin,” Vlad said. “You can’t help Hızır Pasha now.”
Aladdin hesitated, face crumpled in agony, then vaulted onto his horse. “Take my lala back to the camp and don’t let outsiders know about his wound.”
Left alone, Vlad and Gruya improvised a stretcher from a horse blanket and placed the wounded man on it. Vlad covered the now unconscious Hızır with his own mantle from head to toe.
“Why the secrecy about the old man’s injury?” Gruya said.
“He’ll have to feed himself with his unclean hand from now on,” Vlad said. “I imagine Aladdin will be settling him on some remote estate so Hızır’s friends won’t know of his shame.”
Belatedly, a large squadron rode out of Bursa with pennons aflutter and headed toward Vlad and Gruya. From a good distance Vlad recognized Skanderbeg at its head.
“What the fuck happened here?” the Albanian thundered from forty yards away.
“Aladdin’s safe,” Vlad said, “but he came closed to being killed.”
Skanderbeg dismounted with an agility surprising for someone of his height and girth. He kicked one of the corpses. “Who are these turds?”
“If you hurry you’ll catch up with the prince,” Vlad said. “Word came İbrahim’s running away and Aladdin wants to capture him.”
“Murad wants the boy to handle the entire affair by himself,” Skanderbeg said.
Vlad lifted his end of the stretcher. “Try to get information out of the survivors,” he said to Skanderbeg. “We’ve got a wounded man here we need to take to the camp and have the hekim fix him up.”
By the time Vlad and Gruya reached the camp, word of the ambuscade had already spread. Two camp attendants rushed to Vlad and attempted to help with the stretcher. He shooed them away and took Hızır into Aladdin’s tent.
“Get the hekim, quick,” he ordered one of Aladdin’s eunuchs idling there, “but mention to no one that Hızır Pasha’s been wounded.”
41
A SECRET SIGN
April 1443, Bursa, Ottoman Empire
Omar left the tekke on the eve of Eid al-Adha, without asking Jalāl’s permission. It was best the old man knew nothing of Omar’s whereabouts. That way, if questioned, Jalāl could swear by Allah he was unaware of Omar’s criminal intent.
As for Omar, should he be captured by the enemies of jihād, he couldn’t, under the worst torture, implicate either Jalāl or Sheik al-Masudi. For indeed, they had asked nothing of him.
When Omar reached the main street leading to the Great Mosque, he became aware of a beggar who stood up from his begging spot and began to follow him. Omar walked faster to shake off his pursuer, but the man kept pace with him, about fifty feet behind.
If the beggar were someone who’d recognized him as the arsonist of Dracula’s tenement, he’d want to know where Omar lodged. Then he’d be able to inform the Janissary guards of his discovery and claim a reward. Omar had to lose him. Failing that, he’d entice the beggar into a deserted alley and ….
He walked to Ulu Camii plaza, crowded with worshippers awaiting the muezzin’s call for the sunset prayer. A circle had formed there; people were gawking at something Omar couldn’t see. He glanced behind and saw the beggar only ten feet away. What if the man wasn’t interested in turning Omar in, but in shoving a blade into his back? His upper lip began to twitch and a tremor passed through his body.
“Make room,” he hissed at the onlookers in front of him then worked his way to the front row. In the circle formed by the spectators he saw a man crouching amidst covered wicker baskets, a lit torch in hand.
If Omar crossed the circle and plunged into the crowd on the other side, he’d be lost amid worshippers by the time the beggar came around.
He took three steps into the open space and only then noticed the ground was littered with coiled snakes. He must have made a frightened face, for the crowd burst into laughter. He skipped wildly over the snakes, flapping his arms and shrieking involuntarily. When he reached the far side of the circle, he turned around to see the beggar standing in the spot he’d just left. The man’s right hand was placed below his heart, with the thumb, index, and middle finger splayed, the remaining fingers folded.
The beggar was saluting Omar with the secret sign of the Bektashi dervishes.
“You could’ve told me who you were back there,” Omar said when the beggar joined him by the ablution fountain. “You’ve almost got me killed by the damned snakes.”
“I’m Azmir,” the beggar said. “You can’t do what you’re planning without help.”
Omar was taken aback to realize this wasn’t an incidental encounter between two dervishes. Azmir knew Omar was up to something. But how was that possible, when he, himself, hadn’t spoken to anyone of his intention?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Azmir said. “We both have received the saint’s baraka.”
That doesn’t explain how you know I’m on a mission, Omar thought, but decided the man could be trusted.
“And you can help me?” he said.
“What’s your plan?” Azmir said. “Don’t tell me you intend to attack your target in broad daylight.”
“But of course I do,” Omar said. “That’s how the hashshashin killed the King of Jerusalem. Stabbed him in the view of his retinue. All I need is to procure a knife, and that’s not a problem in this town.”
“The King of Jerusalem’s hashshashin was caught alive,” Azmir said. “What would happen to our saint if you were—”
“The Eid crowds will make it easy for me to get away,” Omar said. “But if Allah decrees I should be caught, I shall never talk. Insha’Allāh.”
“We can’t risk you falling into their hands alive,” Azmir said.
“You can’t stop me from my mission.”
“I don’t intend to. But you’ll be doing it our way. The first thing you must do is visit the hamam. You stink like a goat.” Azmir pressed a few copper coins into Omar’s hand. “And get a very close shave. I want you to look like you’ve never had a beard.”
“On whose behalf are you ordering me about like this?” Omar said. He wavered between rebelliousness against being manipulated and curiosity. “Who told you of my intentions?”
“Stay out of sight tomorrow,” Azmir said. “Even without a beard someone might recognize you from your missing teeth.”
That commanding tone again. Omar wanted to smack Azmir. But the man was built like a wrestler and could easily crush him. “If you want to help, tell me where the Grand Vizier’s being lodged.”
Azmir shook his head and made a face. “Forget Khalil Pasha.”
“But he’s—he’s my gift—I must have a gift for—”
“What are you blabbering about?” Aziz hissed. “The Grand Vizier’s in Edirne.”
Because of all the fuss about the war with Karaman, Omar had assumed Khalil Pasha would’ve come to Bursa to assume command of the army. If Omar wasn’t meant to kill him, it could only mean … He broke into a sweat. “Do you mean I’m expected to kill the sultan?”
“Stop acting like a child,” Azmir growled. “Come back to this spot tomorrow after the Isha prayer, and you’ll be guided to your target.”
42
EID PRAYER
April 1443, Bursa, Ottoman Empire
“Yes, I’m sure you don’t need to come along,” Vlad said to Lash.
The Gypsy had been blaming himself for the wounds Vlad and Gruya had suffered the day before. “It wouldn’t have happened if I were with you,” he kept saying. “I would’ve sounded the alarm sooner, and you could’ve—”
“I want you to look after Gruya,” Vlad said. “I’ll be safe in Aladdin’s company. He’s got increased security now.”
“But you said the conspirators were after you, not Aladdin,” Lash said. “While everybody’s minding his safety, I’ll watch out for you.”
“Change Gruya’s bandage when he awakes,” Vlad said, “and apply the ointment the hekim’s given us. I’ll return as soon as the Eid sermon’s over.”
He stepped out of his tent into a vanishing darkness about to yield its grip on Ordu Alan. High above Bursa, Uludağ’s summit had already captured the first sunrays on its snowcap and seemed lit from within. To the east the stars had faded, and a dab of pink marked the horizon. To the northwest, where his country lay about three hundred miles away, the sky was leaden, the stars still visible.
Same stars Father and Marcus can see at this very moment.
Knowing that soon even this tenuous connection with his kin would be broken filled him with sadness and longing. With İbrahim’s capture the war was over, and Aladdin free to return to Amasya. Vlad’s exile wouldn’t be put off any longer.
He walked over to Aladdin’s pavilion, where a company of Skanderbeg’s Sipahis waited to escort him to the palace.
“Here’s my savior,” Aladdin shouted from the opening of his tent.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Vlad said. “I’ve told you I fought to save my own skin.”
“I’ve recounted the attack to Father, but he insists on hearing the story from your lips.”
At the palace they found a platoon of solak archers outside the hamam.
“Father used to walk alone to the public hamam in town, before he had the dream with the ram,” Aladdin said. “Now he demands a military escort in his own yard.”
“After yesterday’s attack who can blame him?” Vlad said.
They found Murad in the hot room, seated on the edge of the circular marble platform, having his head shaved. Mehmed, Zaganos, Tirendaz, and the kadıasker were stretched out on the hot slab, glistening with sweat.
Mehmed gave Vlad a cold look, then turned his head away.
“Let me have the blade,” Murad said to the barber and stood, holding the towel wrapped around his waist with his left hand. Then he became aware of Vlad’s and Aladdin’s presence, and a smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes.
“My son the warrior,” Murad exclaimed, “and his new musahib.”
He was about to embrace Aladdin, when he realized he had the razor blade in his hand.
“Wait,” he said with a chuckle. “Even the sultan has to do some things by himself.”
He stepped into an adjoining niche, followed by a page with a lantern.
“You too will
have to shave your groin in preparation for the Eid prayer,” Aladdin whispered to Vlad. “From what I’ve heard of your circumcision you seem to be skilled with the blade down there.”
“We have more to celebrate today than just the Feast of the Sacrifice,” Murad said when he returned to the hot room. “Aladdin has single-handedly put an end to the Christians’ hope for a dual front against the empire. So no crusade to worry about for a while.”
“Not single-handedly, Father,” Aladdin said with ardent modesty. “Twenty thousand of the best fighters in the world were by my side.”
Zaganos raised himself on one elbow and gave Murad an obsequious grin. “No seventeen-year-old commander has shown such military prowess since you, My Sultan, defeated and killed your brother Mustafa right here on Ordu Alan.”
Murad’s face darkened. “Not a happy memory for me, Zaganos,” he said. “Poor Mustafa was only thirteen, and had been manipulated into rebelling against me by his overly ambitious lala.”
Vlad noticed Mehmed lift his head and throw Zaganos a quick look.
“No one doubts Aladdin’s courage, or his strategic skills,” the kadıasker said. “But let’s acknowledge he’s put all of us in mortal danger by allowing İbrahim to reach Ordu Alan with an army of thirty thousand. We all could’ve ended—”
“Great leaders don’t behave in a conventional manner, Sadeddin Hoja,” Murad said, showing annoyance at having his favorite son criticized. “Instead of speculating on possible mishaps, why not mention that İbrahim started his campaign with forty thousand men, and Aladdin reduced it by a quarter, while losing only eight hundred Sipahis?”
“The real danger we face,” Tirendaz said, “is from traitors in our midst. It’s unfortunate Zaganos Pasha has been unable to get any information out of yesterday’s surviving attackers.”
“Only three of them were in a condition to speak by the time I got to them,” Zaganos said. “And they claimed before dying they’d acted on orders from their superior, who perished in the fight.”
How convenient for you to have no witnesses left alive, Vlad thought. He was convinced Zaganos had his hand in the plot to assassinate him and was astounded the vizier continued to hold Murad’s trust.
