House of War

by Victor Foia

  Father will admire me for bringing peace to lands that have known only war for a century, he thought, giddy with pride. And Marcus? Vlad chuckled. He’ll hate me for the same reason.

  What would Uncle Michael think? Would he believe Vlad had fulfilled the prophesy so many have heard about but no one understood?

  Tirendaz returned fifteen minutes later, flushed, a gleam in his eyes.

  “I’ve found the ideal spot to build my retirement hut,” he said, beaming. He surveyed the hills once more before he sat next to Vlad.

  “When does the sultan need to have Norbert’s acceptance?”

  Tirendaz thought for few moments, chewing on his mustache.

  “There is a twist to this peace offering,” he said. “For reasons related to the jihād party, the request for peace must be seen to originate with Norbert.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Vlad blurted. He saw the hero’s monument he’d just erected to himself crumble like a sand castle in the rain. “Norbert has notched enough wins this year to consider his chances for an ultimate victory better than good. Why would he sue for peace?”

  “Vanity,” Tirendaz said. “He wants to bring his magnates to heel … raise the envy of all crowned heads in Europe … earn the Pope’s admiration. The concessions Norbert will appear to be extracting from the sultan can give him all of that. No eighteen-year-old king can resist such a temptation.”

  “And you think this subterfuge will make the jihadists abandon their quest?” Vlad said.

  Tirendaz grinned. “They won’t have a choice when the ulema asks the sultan to accept Norbert’s peace request, in obedience to the Qur’an.”

  But of course, Vlad thought, as he now recalled sūrah 4, ayah 90, mentioned in one of Mara’s letters: ‘“If they do not fight you but ask for peace, then Allah gives you no cause to fight against them.’”

  “Moreover,” Tirendaz said, “the Sheikh al-Islām will issue a fatwā proclaiming the treaty in compliance with Sharia. That’s something even Kalıcı Cihad has to abide.”

  “What happens if I fail in my mission? I might be waylaid by robbers like my predecessors, get caught by agents of Kalıcı Cihad, drown crossing a river ….”

  Tirendaz cocked his head and grinned. “I have the feeling you don’t believe there is a chance for any of that.”

  Vlad lowered his gaze, somewhat embarrassed his cockiness was so transparent. “But, what if I’m unable to return on time?”

  This question erased Tirendaz’s jolliness.

  “To hold the jihād party at bay, the sultan had to promise that if the Christians had not asked for peace by the first day of Ṣafar, he’d march on Hungary. His army will be fully assembled at Nicopolis, ready for that purpose.”

  The first day of Ṣafar—May 20— was five months away. Under normal circumstances a healthy traveler could easily cover the required distance in that time. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Vlad was glad to play the role of secret agent, but didn’t fancy the notion that an uncontrollable delay on his part would trigger the war.

  Tirendaz’s expression indicated there was worse to come. “We’ve captured two thousand noncombatant Christians this year: grooms, cooks, camp followers, army suppliers, and so on. Fazullah Pasha has obtained His Majesty’s commitment that those prisoners will be executed at the war’s onset, in retaliation for the civilian Muslims killed by the crusaders.”

  The top of Vlad’s scalp tightened and his cheeks blazed. “You can’t put the lives of those people on my shoulders.”

  Tirendaz appeared taken aback by Vlad’s reaction. “You must’ve known lives would be at risk if your mission failed.”

  “Getting to Buda and then Nicopolis on time isn’t entirely up to me,” Vlad said. “I want to help, but I’d rather not have those deaths on my conscience, if I fail.”

  Tirendaz blanched, perhaps fearing Vlad would back out of the arrangement. “You have the option to decline His Highness’s assignment.”

  I’m sure the sultan’s counting on me not to do that. Under different circumstances Vlad would’ve been gratified by Murad’s confidence in him. But now the excessive price of sultan’s trust made Vlad waver.

  I’m given the chance to block jihād and I dither over my peace of mind?

  He tried to mask his internal equivocation under a veneer of self-confidence. “I must depart immediately if I’m to have a chance of making the deadline. Will you take me as far as the Black Sea?”

  “The men on the galley can’t be trusted with the knowledge you’ve left Athos,” Tirendaz said. “Besides, you must pass through Venice. That city’s key to my plan. I’ve arranged passage for you across the Adriatic from Ragusa.”

  Vlad’s already waning excitement about his mission caught an additional cold draft at the mention of Donatella’s hometown. A visit to Venice was bound to tear the scab off his injured pride. But how could such a trivial consideration be given much thought?

  “How do you expect me get off this peninsula without—” Vlad stopped as a twinkle in Tirendaz’s eyes told him the musahib already knew of the pirates’ tender and had worked it into his plans. “You’ve got spies even here on Athos.”

  Tirendaz chuckled and winked at Vlad. “You always find a way to reach your goals. Even it it means acting as your own sünnetçi.”

  Vlad didn’t welcome that reminder, but forced himself to smile. “Crossing war-ravaged Serbia might prove a tougher challenge than cutting off a bit of skin.”

  “The Ragusan merchants bound for Thessaloniki have indeed found Serbia impassable and are now detouring their traffic through Albania.”

  “How safe is that route going to be if the Albanians go to war with the sultan?”

  “Skanderbeg needs money to equip his army. That means he’s going to protect commerce even during hostilities, so he may collect custom taxes.”

  “My servant can always travel as himself,” Vlad said. “Nobody bothers Gypsies, if they mind their own business. But how do you want Gruya and me to disguise ourselves?”

  “We thought that traveling as Franciscan friars would be the best. Friars live off the charity of people, so they aren’t likely to be suspected of being secret agents.”

  “Have you brought us friars’ outfits?”

  “Mehmed suggested it would be safer to let you manage the clothes on your own,” Tirendaz said. “Procuring such habits in Edirne, given the presence of Kalıcı Cihad spies everywhere, could betray the secret of your disguise.”

  “How does Mehmed know of this plan?” Vlad said, stupefied.

  Tirendaz shrugged. “Now that he’s the undisputed heir to the throne, his father wants him involved in all major decisions.”

  Vlad thought the disguise was a good idea. But learning that Mehmed was privy to it unsettled him. “I’m concerned Mehmed isn’t discreet enough. Don’t you think that had something to do with your messengers getting intercepted?”

  Tirendaz’s face hardened. “Absolutely not. I alone am responsible for the failure of the operation. I thought it would be best to design specific itineraries for them—leave nothing to their imagination. I had Mehmed’s detailed maps and his help to calculate the distances they could travel each day, based on the terrain and road conditions; then I told them where to lodge each night. Someone must’ve overheard me and betrayed my plan to Kalıcı Cihad.”

  Taking a child into your confidence when the stakes are this high is reckless, Vlad thought, disdainful of Tirendaz’s reason-defying naiveté. Especially when he’s controlled by his evil lala.

  “I’m not making the same mistake with you,” Tirendaz said. “Except for Ragusa and Venice, even I won’t know your itinerary.”

  Vlad rolled up Murad’s letter, and was about to secrete it inside his tunic when Tirendaz stopped him.

  “Memorize it, then let me have it back.”

  Vlad was incredulous. “You expect King Norbert to accept my recitation of this letter, in lieu of a document marked with the sultan’s
tuğrâ?”

  “Kalıcı Cihad came close to laying its hands on the two previous copies of the letter. I won’t give our foes another chance.” Tirendaz took a long time to continue, seeming to relish Vlad’s befuddlement. “Venice will make it possible for you to give Norbert the letter, seal and tuğrâ included, without taking this copy with you.”

  66

  PIRATES’ SILVER

  November 1443, Athos Peninsula, Ottoman Empire

  “The sultan’s giving you nothing to make this trip possible?” Gruya said, incredulous. They were packing the last supplies onto the tender, under the curious stares of the monks assembled on the dock. “No money, no safe-conduct? Does he think you’re a magician?”

  “We’re traveling as begging friars and must behave consistent with that cover,” Vlad said. “Anything incompatible with our status would compromise the mission.”

  “What about weapons? You know the roads are thick with malefactors.”

  Vlad shook his head. “Even a small knife found on us would raise unwanted questions.”

  He scanned the crowd for Kalimakos, but couldn’t see him. He’d prepared scathing remarks in farewell for the monk.

  “I’ll tell you what will compromise our mission,” Gruya said. “Dying from lack of food is one example that comes to mind.”

  “We’ve got your silver.”

  “Glad we aren’t abandoning that too,” Gruya said. “We can buy ourselves boots and winter clothes.”

  “Your money’s for emergencies only,” Vlad said.

  Gruya grinned, facetious. “What a great feeling to know the peace of Europe rests on a few aspers I stole off some dead pirates.”

  Lash arrived just then with a sack he tossed into the tender. “Your friars’ robes.”

  They shoved off amidst cheers and blessings from the monks. Cyril and Methodius rowed ahead of them in their fishing boat, serving as pilots across Maiden’s Teeth. When the moment to part arrived, Methodius gave Vlad a crucifix of olive wood.

  “Both Cyril and I worked on carving this cross as a penance for our sin against you,” he said, the corners of his mouth drooping in contrition.

  “It’s mostly my fault, Prince Vlad,” Cyril said, wringing his hands. “The sin of curiosity.”

  “We brought you a letter from Lady Mara a week after we dropped off the child on her island,” Methodius said. “Then two weeks later, she sent you another one. I became curious and—”

  “You had Kalimakos read it to you and discovered the boy was a girl,” Vlad said. He felt bad for these simple, illiterate men who spent their lives in search of God by fishing for their brothers. “Did he keep all subsequent letters?”

  “He claimed the girl was sent by the Devil,” Methodius said.

  “She was going to ensnare you away from the path of righteousness that was your destiny,” Cyril said.

  The anger Vlad had felt the day before at learning of his missing letters, erupted again, hotter in the knowledge of these details. As for the reference to his destiny, he knew where Kalimakos had gotten that.

  “I forgive you both,” he said. But when I lay hands on Kalimakos …

  After parting from the two fisher monks, Vlad and his companions rowed the tender along to the shore, where the water was calmer. While two of them rowed, the third one stood on the prow as lookout for submerged rocks. The boat was unwieldy, making their progress laborious.

  “I haven’t worked so hard since Ramadan,” Gruya said when he completed his first hour of rowing. “But then I was motivated by faith.”

  “More likely by the food that awaited you at the end of every day,” Vlad said.

  Lash had just hopped down from the prow deck to relieve Gruya when he caught sight of movement on top of the cliff. “Someone’s watching us.”

  At the edge of a sheer drop of about thirty feet stood the figure of a monk, the hem of his cassock fluttering in the breeze.

  “Why, that’s my friend Kalimakos,” Gruya cried and waved at the monk.

  Kalimakos didn’t reciprocate.

  “I admit it was a mistake to abandon my bow,” Vlad said. “I had one arrow with that meddlesome cretin’s name on it.”

  He stood and, making a funnel with his palms, shouted, “Why did you steal my prophecy, Kalimakos?”

  There was no answer.

  “Let’s move on,” Vlad said and sat down to row.

  “Don’t forget your numbers in the Book of Life, Son of the Dragon,” came the monk’s belated reply.

  The prophecy-inspired admonition wouldn’t have shocked Vlad, had it not been uttered in Romanian. He turned to confront Kalimakos with all the rage he had in store for him, but the monk had vanished from sight.

  67

  CONSUL BENEDETTO

  December 1443, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire

  “I wish we went to Venice via Athens,” Gruya said. “I’ve heard great things about the culture in that Greek city.”

  They had spent the night in an olive orchard outside Stagira. Lash had gone to town in search for food; Vlad and Gruya were breakfasting on the last morsel of salt fish left from their original supply. Contrary winds had stretched their voyage to two weeks, causing them to exhaust their provisions.

  Vlad divided the fish into three thumb-sized portions and set one aside for Lash. “I know what culture you have in mind, and I would partake in it myself.” He bit a sliver of fish and let it melt on his tongue. Then he drank deeply from his waterskin.

  Gruya swallowed his fish in one gulp, then reached for Lash’s portion; Vlad batted his hand away.

  “Alas, there won’t be a passage to Athens until spring,” Vlad said, “and we don’t have time to wait.”

  Lash returned an hour later. “I saw a few scattered military units. Mostly Azaps, foot soldiers, heading home from the war.”

  “Any food?” Gruya said.

  Lash gave Vlad and Gruya a shriveled apple each. “There is no market in town.”

  “Now that the war’s in recess for the winter,” Gruya said, mouth full of apple, “why cross the Adriatic to Venice instead of going overland through Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia? I’ve had my share of seasickness already.”

  “We can’t traverse Serbia safely,” Vlad said. “The crusade has left there hundreds of mercenaries bent on rapine. It’s better to go through Albania and cross the sea at Ragusa.”

  Gruya made a face and spit. “I don’t trust the Albanians. They have the reputation of cutting your throat first, then asking what business you’ve got in their country.”

  “We have a friend in Skanderbeg among the Albanians,” Vlad said. “He’ll give us safe passage.”

  Lash took out of his sack the two friars’ outfits he’d sewn at the monastery following Vlad’s instructions. “The only thing I couldn’t find at Theotókos was horsehair for your girdles. So I came up with this.” He produced two hemp ropes, each provided with the customary three knots.

  “It’s not the worst transgression against Saint Francis’s rules,” Vlad said. He tossed Gruya a hooded scapular pointed in the front and back, an ankle-length tunic of gray wool, and an equally gray cloak. “Time to discard our rich merchant’s clothes. You may keep your shirt and trousers, but the cape and the doublet must go.”

  After cinching himself with the rope, Vlad tied the monks’ crucifix to it. Then he prayed silently to Saint Christopher for protection on the road. Just to the confines of the empire, he added, to lessen the saint’s burden of benevolence. From there on we should be good on our own.

  Gruya took a long time to disrobe, downcast at parting with the colorful silk and worsted wool garments of the anonymous merchant. “I’m grateful to Saint Francis for letting me keep the boots. It’s the finest pair I’ve ever stolen.”

  “You may keep them until Thessaloniki,” Vlad said. “Thenceforth we’ve got to look entirely like two authentic mendicant friars, down to our footwear.”

  The seventy miles to Thessaloniki took them a week of walking throu
gh mud and snow. The hilly area they traveled was sparsely populated by impoverished Greek peasants inhabiting hamlets of five, six houses; some were Christians; others converts to Islam. Vlad and his company had little trouble obtaining shelter for the night from either category, usually in barns or sheepfolds. But the food they received as charity rarely amounted to more than boiled beets, millet gruel, or worm-eaten apples.

  By the time they reached Thessaloniki, their boots had fallen apart under the rigors of the terrain. They waited by the city gate for an opportunity to enter unobserved, while an endless convoy of market-goers and demobilized soldiers trudged on.

  “It’s clear Murad’s taken a beating,” Gruya said. “I don’t see a soldier free of bandages.”

  “It’s our luck,” Vlad said. “With so many wounded Turks jamming the roads, nobody’s going to pay attention to us.”

  “Move on, dede,” one of the gatekeepers shouted at a peasant whose cart was blocking the traffic. “These brave men need to go see the hekim, not languish here while you baby your mule.”

  Vlad, Gruya, and Lash put their shoulders to the cart and entered the gate with it, unchallenged by the guards.

  “Find a cobbler to make us opinci,” Vlad said to Lash. “Not of bark, but cowhide. They’ll have to last until Venice.”

  “I can see where my aspers are going,” Gruya said. “I was actually planning to find me a—”

  “With your charms, you can find an old crone who’ll take you to bed without consideration.” Vlad said. “But we aren’t going to make it over five hundred miles of rough terrain with unreliable footwear.”

  “Look who’s righteous now about proper travel accoutrements,” Gruya grumbled.

  Vlad left Gruya to ponder his amorous options and went in search of the Ragusan consul. After asking around the bedestan, he found him behind a spice vendor’s stall in a tiny room filled with books and writing materials. The consul, a man in his late twenties, was working at a cluttered desk by the light of two candles. Sheets of brownish paper with dense, neat writing on them were strewn on the floor around the room.