The Siege

by Ismail Kadare

  “Next!” the Pasha said, not looking at anyone in particular.

  The scribe took advantage of the pause to scribble away twice as fast.

  “I’m in favour of an attack by stealth,” the Quartermaster General said. “But what do you think, brother engineer?”

  Saruxha shrugged.

  “Makes no difference to me.”

  “But it is now or never!” the Quartermaster insisted.

  Since the meeting began he had been thinking obsessively about a single thing: the destruction of the army’s supply trains.

  The Quartermaster General spoke again. Couching his views in elegant and well-turned phrases, he referred first of all to the disadvantages of an overlong siege and of its potential for blunting the army’s ardour. Then he came to the point. He shared the architect’s position: he was in favour of attacking.

  “Apparently a new astrologer has arrived from the capital,” a sanxhakbey said.

  “That is correct,” the Pasha confirmed. “Have him called.”

  A messenger stepped outside smartly.

  “Since I have no special esteem for astrologers, I prefer to give my opinion before he comes in,” Saruxha declared. “I am in favour of an assault.”

  They were all fingering their beads more and more slowly. They sought each other’s eyes, trying but failing to understand the nature of the miracle taking place in the war council. Men who hours before had been reckoned as soft as city whores and derided as laid-back, do-nothing, cotton-arsed cowards had suddenly turned into hawks.

  The astrologer came into the tent. He bowed low and then took the seat he was shown on the divan. The Pasha whispered a few words to the Alaybey, who was sitting beside him.

  “The council of war would like to know what the stars portend,” the Alaybey asked. “Do you have an answer?”

  “I am ready.”

  “Then tell us: what do the stars say about a second attack?”

  “The signs are not auspicious. The present position of the stars is not favourable.”

  The assembled dignitaries started whispering to each other.

  “He seems to be smarter than his predecessor,” Saruxha muttered to the Quartermaster.

  The Quartermaster was furious and grunted under his breath, “Every time, we have to put up with ignoramuses who spoil things.”

  “He’s understood that it’s the only way he can avoid taking a risk,” Saruxha observed. “Any other prediction could lead him straight to his predecessor, six feet under.”

  “The blockhead!” the Quartermaster went on.

  Other members of the council gave their opinions in turn. In truth, they had never faced quite such a delicate juncture before. For one thing, they didn’t understand why the experts had suddenly changed their usual position. But the Mufti’s contribution made things even more complicated. The strong preference of the technicians for attacking now was enough to make him dubious, but when the astrologer came out against it, he had no hesitation in casting his own vote among the nays. The sanxhakbeys, who were next to speak, followed the Mufti. Old Tavxha and Kurdisxhi were totally confused by this upside-down state of affairs, and broke with their custom by showing no ardour for combat. As for Tahanka, who glared furiously at the technicians, he was prepared to join them provided they were in favour of attacking.

  “What about you, Kara-Mukbil?” Tursun Pasha asked. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. He cast his sad eyes around the assembly, trying to uncover the real reasons behind what was going on. The switching of roles frightened him more than the walls of the fortress.

  “What if we tried our luck one more time with the aqueduct?” Old Tavxha asked.

  They could hardly believe their ears. Nobody could have dreamed that the fearsome Agha of the Janissary Corps, a man who seemed to have been born for fire and blood, would start talking about pipes and water supplies. He realised that he alone could now bridge the abyss of silence that his words had created. He slowly rubbed his forehead with his stumpy, gnarled fist.

  “Many years ago,” he went on, “at the siege of Hapsan-Kala, we found the aqueduct by a most curious means. We didn’t use any of that paperwork or those accursed drawings. We found the water with a horse.”

  “What was that?” the Alaybey asked.

  “An aged sipahi showed us how to do it,” Tavxha resumed. “It’s very simple. We fed a horse very well for four days but didn’t give it anything to drink. Then we let it roam free around the citadel. A really thirsty animal can find the trace of water in even the driest ground. Believe you me, a thirsty horse is more reliable than any architect!”

  The Mufti and the sanxhakbeys burst out laughing. Tursun Pasha waved his hand to bring the council to order.

  “So that’s how we found the aqueduct at Hapsan-Kala,” Tavxha concluded. “Why not do the same thing here?”

  They began to discuss the idea. To begin with they were far from sure, but came to take it more and more seriously as the discussion proceeded.

  “Every akinxhi knows from his own experience that a horse can find a hidden spring, especially if the animal is thirsty,” Kurdisxhi declared. “But can it locate a water pipe? I’ve never heard tell of such a thing.”

  “There were thousands of us at Hapsan-Kala who saw it happen!” Tavxha exclaimed angrily.

  Kurdisxhi stuck to his guns.

  “However many you were, I’m still sceptical.”

  The Alaybey raised his voice to ask the architect if an aqueduct could at any point in its passage under the ground give off enough dampness to alert the nostrils of a thirsty horse. The architect replied that he had never dealt with horses in his life and knew nothing about their physiology, but as far as pipes were concerned, the amount of humidity they could leak depended on what they were made of. He explained that if the watercourse was made of sandstone, as was customary for aqueducts, then it could indeed seep, but that if it was a pipe made of lead, then obviously minor leakage was ruled out.

  They talked about nothing else until the end of the meeting. When the council broke up, night had fallen. They came out of the tent one by one and went off in groups of two or three in different directions, except for the architect who, as was his habit, walked back to his tent on his own, with his bodyguard trailing him like a shadow.

  A few paces away, a very tall man stood watching them emerge from the Pasha’s tent. It was Sirri Selim.

  For three days now they have been busy with a task that appears incomprehensible. Under the burning sun, thousands of shirtless soldiers are raising a high fence all around the citadel. We cannot imagine what use such a fence may have.

  They have stopped all the other works in progress. They are no longer building their wheel-mounted towers, or their three-pronged pyramid ladders, and they do not seem to be looking for the aqueduct either. For the time being they are slaving away at their fence.

  We have been racking our brains for two days trying to work out the deeper reason for what looks like a whim. Are they worried about our messengers streaking off somewhere in the dark? Are they trying to forestall a surprise attack from our side? But there are so many gaps in the fence that it wouldn’t seriously impede our messengers, or an attack. So what does it mean? Is it something superstitious, along the lines of the curses and spells we have so much trouble understanding? Or is it just to make fun of us? The fence actually looks quite like a sheep pen. They may want us to think that as we are shut in like sheep, so we shall die, like lambs to the slaughter, and so on.

  For some while now we have become very suspicious, even of each other. Our priests urge us to avoid sin and remind us of sackcloth and ashes, but to no avail. People fly off the handle for nothing and lose their tempers at the slightest pretext. Yesterday, our commander Count Vrana — Vranakonti, as we call him — had the Prela brothers thrown in jail for disobedience. It began quite stupidly. Gjon Prela was claiming that the sun had always been against us, and maybe that was why all
the songs of the region begin, “The sun shines brightly but gives no warmth,” when someone butted in, saying, “So maybe you prefer the Ottoman moon?” and from one riposte to another the swords came out.

  In fact there are many here who do think that fate is against us.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In spite of the heat of the midday sun, throngs of curious soldiers wandered up to the great fence around noon. It had been put up so speedily that many of them had not yet had occasion to see it. The first sight disappointed them. It was just an ordinary fence, barely higher or sturdier than a garden gate. Nonetheless, they were expecting to witness a great spectacle. Even if the fence itself was nothing special, what was about to happen on the other side, in the no-man’s-land that lay between fence and fortress, was going to be out of the ordinary. Rumours galore had been doing the rounds for the previous couple of days, and had reached their peak that morning. There were forecasts in abundance, but solid information was unobtainable. Some men said it was all to do with the hunt for the water pipe, but they were unable to explain the connection between a fence and a buried watercourse. Others maintained that the citadel was going to be struck with a spell, and prayers and holy water sprinkled on the fence would limit its effect to the closed-off area. Yet others offered different explanations based on the songs and legends of their homeland or of the places where they had done long service.

  But when they saw a squad of senior officers come from the main camp and then a detachment of desert warriors followed by the commander-in-chief’s personal guard, and when finally the Pasha himself came and took up his position on the little podium from which he had observed the initial assault, everybody was convinced that something exceptional was about to happen. Lined up behind the Pasha, in order of precedence, stood the Alaybey, Old Tavxha, the Mufti, the Quartermaster General, Saruxha, Kurdisxhi, Kara-Mukbil, the architect, Tahanka and the other members of the war council. Some way behind them stood the sanxhakbeys, the captains of the death squads and of the dalkiliç, the imams, the chef-de-camp, the head of intelligence, the chief kadi, Sirri Selim, the astrologer, the new commander of the sappers, Saruxha’s assistant, the head gunner, the drum major, the first dream-interpreter, the keeper of the seals, and so forth. Still further back stood an even denser mixed group in which you could make out scribes, doctors, hoxhas, sipahis, technicians and officers of various ranks. Çelebi was among the latter set. He stretched out his neck towards the group in which Sirri Selim was located, and wondered if he would be better advised to go over and join him, or if such a gesture on his part would be taken amiss. He was wary of the jealousy of officials. The thought of such pettiness had often spoiled the pleasure he took in his walks with the Quartermaster General and with Saruxha. That was why in the end he decided not to budge from where he was standing.

  Meanwhile the crowd began to stir, despite the crushing heat of the sun. There was talking, shuffling, standing on tiptoes. Then all of a sudden a shout of, “A horse! A white horse!” could be heard from all quarters. “Why is it white?” someone asked. He was told it was a holy steed. For a few moments the word “holy,” as it went from mouth to mouth, drowned out the word “horse”.

  At that point a staccato neigh that sounded more like a sob confirmed in the minds of those who had not yet seen the beast that what was about to happen did indeed have something to do with a horse. Then everyone, or almost, saw the animal dart out on its own, beyond the fence, into no-man’s-land. It had no rider. No one was running after it. The horse galloped around for a bit, then stopped, snorted, and, as if it was looking for something invisible in the air, rushed off towards the river.

  “She’s looking for water!”

  “She’s dying of thirst. That’s obvious.”

  “She’s been kept from drinking for days on end.”

  “They must have given her salted oats to eat.”

  The horse neighed a second time. A plaintive, majestic sound that wafted through the air. A voice said: “Have you seen how she’s foaming at the mouth? Some people are saying she’ll find the aqueduct!”

  When it got to the fence, the horse reared up on its hind legs. Everyone noticed that on that side — the river side — the fence was higher and better made. Then the animal galloped around the entire length of the fence, visibly looking for a way out. As there was none, the horse turned on its tail and began to canter across no-man’s-land again.

  “The poor animal! Will she find the channel?”

  “She surely will. Horses aren’t as short-sighted as we are. They notice things that pass us by. For example, they can see the dead under the ground as easily as I can see you. Haven’t you ever wondered why horses never step on a piece of ground where a man has been buried? Well, it’s because they can see the corpse! A layer of earth doesn’t stop a horse from seeing. So that’s how she’ll find the aqueduct, however well hidden it is.”

  “Yes, you must be right.”

  The beast stopped at one or two places, snorted, shook itself, and then began running again, this time towards the ramparts.

  From the back, the Pasha issued a command:

  “Make a precise note of every place where the animal stops.”

  The horse went up to the foot of the ramparts, lowered its head to sniff the ground, and then ran all the way round the wall.

  Tavxha broke the silence to say to the Pasha: “Some people claim snakes are more alert to the presence of water. At Hapsan-Kala we tried to use one, but we weren’t able to keep it to the area we were interested in, and we were also afraid it would slither away down a hole. So we gave up.”

  The Pasha’s eyes were glued to the horse and he watched every movement the beast made. He seemed fascinated by it. In his tired gaze the horse seemed whiter and whiter, more and more ethereal. He was so tense that after a while, he could feel his own forelegs and neck muscles aching with fatigue, as if he was the one who was galloping round the ramparts and putting his head down now and then to sniff for a spot of damp in the scorched earth. At one point he even imagined he was foaming at the mouth, and he put up his hand to wipe his jaw clean.

  Meanwhile defenders appeared on the parapet.

  The horse ran around ever more wildly. For the fourth time, it came up to the moat, and turned tail.

  The thousands of men surging against the fence had now almost all understood why the animal was behaving like that. Every one of them saw it as related to the outcome of the war, and consequently to what lay in store for them individually. The tenseness of the situation had moderated the noise of the crowd. Its tumult had sunk to a rumble, but it was still loud, since it was made by tens of thousands of voices. Against this thunderous background din — now more like a muffled last groan, now like a rasping breath — the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves made a lonely sound.

  Sirri Selim beckoned the chronicler to come over to him.

  “The ancient Greeks seized Troy by using a wooden horse,” he said, as he leaned his head towards Çelebi’s ear. “Looks like we’re going to seize this fortress by means of a horse of flesh and blood! It’s true times have changed. Except that poets are still blind. By the way, where is your friend?”

  The chronicler shrugged his shoulders to say he had no idea.

  “Will the horse do it?” someone asked for the tenth time.

  “I doubt it.”

  “The beast’s worn out. I really think it’s going to collapse.”

  “Look, look up there! There are girls on the parapet!”

  “Girls? Where?”

  “Up there! To the right of the second tower. There are several of them. And two more a bit further on.”

  “Well, well, so there are! I can see them now.”

  “Odd!”

  “How dare they show themselves unveiled in front of thousands of men?”

  Several young women had indeed come to watch from the crenellations. In any other circumstance their appearance would have attracted everyone’s attention, but all were so absorbed
by the progress of the horse that very few of them raised their eyes, and then only for a second.

  “The horse looks like it’s on its last legs!”

  The beast was running round the main wall as if possessed by the devil. Three times over, it stopped dead in its tracks, pawed the ground furiously, then set off again. All around the fence there was now such a silence that you could not only hear the horse’s hooves quite clearly, but even its snorting breath. Once more it stopped dead a few paces from the wall, stamped hard on the ground with its forelegs and raised a cloud of dust, then galloped off again with its nostrils to the wind. It was running by the foot of the third tower when a defender drew his bow and took aim. The arrow whistled through the air and into the horse, and when the animal made a desperate leap to dislodge it, thousands of voices uttered a moan and a cry of anxiety. Many had already reached for their yatagans.

  The high officials surrounding the Pasha turned towards him with a quizzical look.

  “No matter,” the Pasha said, though he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. “The wound will only heighten its thirst.”

  The horse whinnied pitifully. Everyone had their eyes on the third tower, expecting a second arrow to come whizzing out of it. But there was no second shot.

  “They could kill the horse. If they are sparing the beast, then it must be to make us think there is no aqueduct,” a voice whispered from behind the Pasha’s back.

  “So why did they let off the arrow?”

  “An accident. Someone must have lost his self-control.”

  The horse ran on, ever more frantically. The arrow fell out of its flesh at the second or third pace. The wound in its shoulder and the diagonal trickle of blood across its shank could be seen from afar.

  “At Hapsan-Kala they killed three of our horses, one after the other,” Tavxha said. “We had to put heavy armour on the fourth one, the one that actually found the water.”