SERAGLIO

by Colin Falconer

  You should be unconscious already! she thought. He took the goblet and swallowed it in one draught. He allowed her to undress him then, something she had never let him do before. He sat on the bed, head bowed, and then she laid him down.

  She lay on top of him, her small breasts brushing his chest. She wriggled against him. He did not respond. She kissed his chest, his belly, his …

  He twisted away from her and sat up. He made for the door.

  'My Lord!'

  'I cannot …'

  She thought he would break then, even tried to throw open the door, then remembered it was locked. He sank to his haunches, his hands across his stomach as if he had been stabbed. Hürrem refilled the goblet with more of the drugged wine and hurried across the room with it. She held the cup to his lips and he gulped it with the desperation of a man dying of thirst. 'Do not let it happen while I am awake, russelana. I must not break my oath! Let it not happen while I am awake!'

  She cradled his head between her breasts, cooing to him as if he were a baby. 'Sleep, my Lord. Sleep …'

  After a while she felt his head grow heavy. She lay on the floor beside him and held him while he twitched and muttered in his sleep. She prayed for the bostanji to hurry up and do their work.

  Chapter 19

  Ibrahim paced the room, ignoring the bed the pages had made up for him, fighting the heaviness in his limbs and the numbing tiredness that had all but overwhelmed him. He walked into the wall. The wine! Suleiman had drugged him!

  No, he would not do that! Never!

  He must stay awake. He would not let them find him sleeping. He must stay awake! He was Ibrahim, Vizier to the Magnificent. He could not die at the Sultan's hand. He had his prince's word, his oath before God.

  So why had the pages locked the door behind them?

  He felt dizzy and leaned against the wall. If I sit down I will sleep. It must have been the wine! This cannot be happening.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor outside and a noise that sounded like the yelp of a dog. The deaf-mutes! The bostanji! A key creaked in the lock and the handle began to turn.

  God help me in my sorrow!

  The door swung open.

  There were five of them, all Nubians. The bostanji's assassins were eunuchs prepared for their unique assignments by further alterations to their physique; their eardrums had been pierced with needles and their tongues had been cut out. This way they could not succumb to the pleas of their victims or tell anyone what they had done.

  Ibrahim took out his dagger and staggered to the door that separated his room from the Sultan's. He hammered on it with his fists. 'My Lord!'

  The bostanji edged towards him.

  'My Lord! Suleiman! Please! Stop this!'

  ***

  Suleiman jerked awake. 'What was that?'

  Someone was hammering on the door. Ibrahim! Ibrahim needed his help!

  Hürrem covered his ears with her hands and cradled his head against her breasts. She started to sing, to drown out the shouts from the next room. Ibrahim is dying, he thought, and yet I am still awake.

  'While I yet live …'

  He heard a scream. I have broken my oath. I have murdered my friend.

  ***

  Each of the five bostanji held a silken bowstring, the ritual instrument of execution for those of high position or with royal blood. It was a silk bowstring that had dispatched Suleiman's own uncles, cousins and nephews.

  Ibrahim held the dagger in front of him and turned to face them.

  The first of them grinned and moved in, as if he had not even seen the knife, perhaps overconfident of his ability to evade it. As he lunged Ibrahim sidestepped him easily and the knife flashed up and out.

  The assassin stared at him in surprise. Blood spurted rhythmically from his neck and up the wall. He out his hands to his throat in a vain attempt to staunch the flow and fell to his knees.

  Ibrahim backed against the wall, as the other bostanji fanned out across the room, more wary now. Their comrade died, noisily.

  They signalled to each other with deft, almost imperceptible hand signals. He tensed, ready.

  When they moved again it was quickly and in unison; Ibrahim struck out in a broad arc in front of his body and leaped back. One of them moaned, a deep mournful sigh from deep within his chest. Blood poured from a gash in his arm.

  His assassins moved in again. Ibrahim slashed again, and one of them fell, but Ibrahim's shout of defiance was cut off as a bowstring closed around his throat. The other two went to grab him and he slashed again, and saw another of them reel back, clutching at his face.

  But then the other had hold of his arm and had twisted it behind him, trying to break his grip on the knife. The bowstring tightened around his throat.

  Most men clawed at the bowstring; it was instinctive, he had been told. Instead Ibrahim used his free hand to plunge two splayed fingers into the eyes of the second attacker. The man screamed his grip loosened just enough for him to twist his dagger arm free, the blade slicing through the man's hands and arms as he pulled it free.

  He turned it in his hand and stabbed behind him. He felt a rush of warmth on his back and the noose around his throat loosened. He stabbed twice more, but the second time the dagger was torn from his grip. It had jammed between the bostanji's ribs as he fell and it would not pull free.

  Another bowstring closed around his throat. His attacker was one he had already wounded; he could feel the blood dripping from the man's arm and down his neck. He tried to twist around but the assassin jerked backwards with the noose, pulling him off balance.

  He put his hands to his throat, and in that moment when his reflexes took over from his warrior's training he knew he was lost. He tried to slide his fingers under the bowstring, but it was drawn taut, biting deep into the flesh of his throat. His chest spasmed and he kicked out in panic, all reason gone. Bright flashes of light exploded in front of his eyes.

  He tried to scream Suleiman's name, but no sound came. He could no longer control his limbs. Black shadows closed in from all sides.

  The Hippodrome

  Güzül hurried along the Atmeydani under the imposing red walls of Ibrahim's palace. A messenger had brought an urgent summons to her house in the Jewish quarter a few minutes before. Ibrahim wanted to see her immediately.

  She was ushered through the gates by the guards. She hurried across the courtyard to the stairs that led to the pasha's hall of audience. She kept her head down, lifting the skirts of her ferijde as she ran, taking care not to slip on the thin film of ice on the cobblestones.

  She was halfway up the stair when she was aware of the figure watching her from the shadows. He wore a fur-lined green pelisse and white sugarloaf turban. The Kislar Aghasi! She stared at him in confusion.

  'Ibrahim is dead,' Abbas said. His voice was flat. He sounded sad, if anything; or reluctant.

  Güzül turned and looked behind her. Two bostanji stood at the foot of the stairs, their killiç drawn.

  'It is at the order of the Lady Hürrem,' Abbas said. "Go with God.' He turned away, his duty done, with no particular desire to see the bostanji complete their work.

  Topkapi Saraya

  Suleiman watched from a window high above the Third Court as Ibrahim's body was loaded onto the back of a horse. A blanket of black velvet had been laid on the horse's back, and a special ointment had been put in its eyes to make it weep. A bostanji led the horse away. He would be taken to Galata and buried in an unmarked grave.

  The two dead bostanji had been dragged from the room. None of them had escaped injury. One had lost an eye, another his nose. There were dark splashes of blood up the four walls. It looked as if two small armies had gone to war in there.

  'He fought well,' Suleiman said. His face was white. He was trembling.

  'Please my Lord,' Hürrem said. 'Do not torment yourself. Your orders were just. You could not do other than what you did.'

  'Oh my russelana,' he said. He clung to her.

&nbs
p; After all, she thought with some relief, he can cling to no one else now.

  PART 2

  This Woman Hürrem

  Chapter 20

  Çamlica 1541

  Suleiman watched Mustapha spur his Arab to the crest of the hill. Its long, silky tail stood straight in pureblood fashion. He has grown into a handsome young man, he thought. A fine prince. Already he has four sons of his own from his harem. Twenty six years old already; the same age that he had ridden from Manisa to take the throne.

  The awkward, bowed figure of Çehangir followed, the hooded gyrfalcon on his outstretched arm. Suleiman had been surprised and gratified at the friendship that had developed between Mustapha and Çehangir in the past weeks. The young prince had taken his less well favoured brother under his wing, had showed him how to hunt with the falcons and spent hours with him in the Place of Arrows, showing endless patience. They were the most unlikely of half-brothers, he supposed. Çehangir now followed him round like a puppy, spent hours watching him ride at the çerit.

  He urged his own horse to the rise to join them there, so they could watch the archers and their dogs sweeping through the marsh below, flushing out prey.

  Çehangir rode down the slope and released his gyrfalcon, as Mustapha had shown him. It swept into the air with a piercing cry.

  'Look at him,' Mustapha said proudly. 'He tries hard to overcome what God has willed.'

  'Promise me you will never harm him,' Suleiman said.

  'Harm him? Why would I do that?'

  'When the throne is yours. You know the law.'

  'I am not my grandfather.'

  'Yet it is your right, if you wish it.'

  'Then I give you my word - I shall not harm him, or any of my brothers.'

  I wish I could believe you, Suleiman thought, but will you feel the same when your life and your throne is threatened? The Fatih's murderous blood is in my veins and in yours. 'What you do after I am gone and in Paradise is with you and with God. But spare Çehangir.'

  'None of them need fear me, my Lord. That bloody custom ended with my grandfather.'

  'You may feel differently in time.'

  'If they do not raise their hands against me, I shall not harm them.'

  'You are not children any longer. Selim and Bayezid are men now, like you.'

  'The decision will be theirs. If they take arms against me, I shall act. That is the way of princes. The throne shall be mine, in time. But you may tell them what I said. I don't want their blood on my hands.'

  How can you be sure what you will do when the whispers start? he thought. How can any of us be sure? He thought of Ibrahim. When was there a day when he did not? 'As long as you do not harm Çehangir,' he repeated.

  The gyrfalcon swooped on its quarry and the dogs bayed and sprang forward and the archers let out a whoop of triumph. Çehangir turned and grinned at Mustapha, such a good pupil. Another life ended on a beautiful spring morning.

  The Eski Saraya

  The shadows retreated across Asia toward the cold dark of Europe. Sunlight inched through the cloisters and dark gardens, dissolving the mist that curled around the roofs. A spider, clinging to its beaded web, was outlined against a lemon sky; an owl tolled the watch song of the dawn.

  The muezzin called the city to prayer. 'Allahu akbar! La illaha illa'llah …'

  Hürrem stood at the lattice window, shrouded in a fur pelisse. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders, unkempt and unbraided. She shivered in the cold, staring at the minarets of the Aya Sofia, flashing like the tips of lances as they broke through the morning mist.

  I am a heartbeat away from oblivion, she thought. If Mustapha should live, my sons will be murdered or imprisoned, I will be banished to some lonely place in Anatolia with only the jackals and goats for company.

  She called for Muomi to come and perform her toilet. She sat in front of the mirror and watched her comb out her hair. She felt as if she were staring over the edge of a cliff.

  'Stop,' she said.

  She leaned closer to the glass. She withdrew her hand from her pelisse and ran her fingers through her hair, saw the terrible truth confirmed. A grey hair.

  You cannot deny me any longer, the mirror said. The tiny lines at the corner of your eyes will grow deeper until you can no longer disguise them with kohl and this first gray hair will soon be followed by others.

  And what will happen when he sees you growing old? Will the Lord of Life still be yours to command then? Will he still overlook the paradise of willing, ambitious little houris eager to use their transient charms to replace you in his bed? Even now there may be another Hürrem scheming to exile you, as you did to Gülbehar.

  She snatched the ivory handled brush from Muomi and smashed into the mirror, splintering her reflection into shards.

  'Get Abbas! Get him now!'

  ***

  'How is Julia?' she said.

  Abbas felt himself falling yet again towards a black pit. She would never let him be, this witch. She would torment him with this until death. Damn Ludovici.

  'I trust she is well?

  'How did you find out about her?'

  'I cannot tell you that. A woman has to have some secrets.' She sat on the divan, her legs tucked beneath her, her body curled into the fur of the long green pelisse. 'Oh Abbas, you should not be frightened of me! I am your friend. If I intended to denounce you to the Lord of Life, I would have done it long ago.'

  'I live only to serve my Sultan and the Crown of Veiled Heads. I am thankful for your pardon, though I shall surely answer for all my sins before God.'

  Hürrem clapped her hands in delight. 'What a fine speech! You have become the perfect diplomat, Abbas. You are a credit to all eunuchs everywhere.'

  How I would like to rip out your evil tongue and keep it in a jar! 'And you are a credit to all women everywhere, My Lady'

  Hürrem cocked her head to one side, and her tongue traversed her upper lip. She stood up, letting the pelisse fall away from her shoulders. She was naked underneath.

  Abbas gritted his teeth and lowered his eyes to the floor.

  'What is the matter, am I too ugly to look at?'

  'No, My Lady, your loveliness dazzles me,' he said, trying to maintain control of his own voice. Nearly twenty years in the Harem have done you little harm, he thought. You know your body can still stir a man, even an incomplete one like me. A wet nurse for every infant and I have never seen you touch a sweetbread, though they lie around in here like apples in an orchard. But why are you doing this to me? Why would you flaunt yourself at a eunuch?

  'They tell me you were razored after puberty. How old were you, Abbas?'

  'Seventeen years old, My Lady.'

  'Did you have any knowledge of women before then?'

  'Some.'

  'Not many survive such an operation at that age, do they? You were one of the lucky ones.'

  'I should hardly call it luck,' he said before he could check himself.

  She reached up and stroked his cheek. He could smell her perfume, oranges and jasmine. 'Poor Abbas, do you still sometimes feel desire then?'

  He lowered his eyes to her body. O Great God, help me in my sorrow! She knew the answer to that, of course. Even in his hatred he longed to caress her breast. The look in his eyes had already betrayed him, he knew.

  'Do you still think about Julia?'

  He felt as if he were choking. 'No, My Lady.'

  'I can have your unbiased opinion then. Do you think I am still as lovely as the other girls in the Harem?'

  She turned around slowly on the tips of her toes. This woman is mad, he thought. Mad, dangerous and depraved in the soul. 'Lovelier,' he said.

  Her eyes glittered. 'Isn't it strange? A naked woman is powerless before a real man. Yet with you I am quite safe. It creates a bond between us, doesn't it?'

  'We are all tied by bonds of service.'

  'Exactly. And you have to give yours service to me. Because of Julia.'

  Just tell me what you want and leav
e me in peace, he thought. 'You only have to name your desire and it is done.'

  'My desire? My desire is that you burn down the Harem. I want this place utterly destroyed. You can do that little thing for me, can you not, Abbas?'

  ***

  Their time at the Enderun was almost finished. Soon they would be sent out to the provinces and take up governorships, as their father had done. Selim could not wait for the day to come. But there were scores to settle before he left.

  His tutors, for instance. One of them, Hakim, had singled him out for special treatment the whole time he was there. He even beat him when he could not recite his Qu'ran, though he would never beat Bayezid. Once he even put him to the bastinado; it was a simple enough device, stocks secured the feet and the soles were beaten with long sticks. Even five years later Selim could still remember the pain. He had shrieked like a baby at each blow and Hakim only ceased the beating when Selim had begged, through his tears, for him to stop. He had been unable to walk for a week and it was a month before the scars healed.

  And he had not forgotten how his little brother had humiliated him in front of everyone in the courtyard. Perhaps, he thought, there is a way that I might let them both remember their days at the Enderun as fondly as I do.

  There was a playing field below the walls of the Second Court where all the boys practiced at çerit; the tutors called it a game but it was more like a mock battle. They used horses with short necks and strong bodies, bred for their speed and their ability to check quickly. Riders armed with javelins three and a half feet long would manoeuvre in two teams of twelve around an open field and hurl their weapons at each other's heads. The side with the most hits at the end of the 'game' was declared the winner.

  There were frequent injuries; sometimes boys were killed. Selim dreaded it as much as Bayezid excelled at it.

  Although they were on opposite teams - Bayezid rode for the Blues, the Sultan's favoured team (of course) and Selim for the Greens - he knew any attempt to injure Bayezid was doomed. He was just too good a rider. Selim would only expose himself to risk. His usual tactic anyway was to hang back and try and preserve his own skin.