SERAGLIO

by Colin Falconer

  'No!'

  'So you see this is my … waqf, my bequest to the Osmanlis. Choose Suleiman! Fat, stupid Selim … or the son of the … Greek! I curse you and I curse … every Sultan who follows you … until your Empire crumbles away … into memory and ruin.'

  'Stop it! PLEASE!'

  'How I hate you …'

  'NOOOOOOO!' He took her by the shoulders and shook her. 'You love me! Say it! You love me!'

  He looked into her eyes and watched the light die there. A flicker, like a candle in a draught, and then darkness, He threw her back on the bed with all his force. She slumped onto her side.

  'NO, IT IS NOT TRUE!'

  He ripped the taplock off her head and the pearls that were braided into her whitened hair scattered on the marble floor. Her hair tore out from the roots and tangled in his fingers.

  'Nooooooo ….'

  He picked up a stool and flung it at the Vicenzan mirror, saw his own image splinter into a thousand pieces. Then he ran from the room.

  When Abbas found him he was curled up on the floor of his own bedchamber crying like an infant. His servants hung back, none of them knowing what to do. Abbas put him to bed.

  He stayed there for three days crying and shouting at the phantoms that came to haunt him, and when he finally summoned Abbas it was to order that her apartments be locked and sealed so that he would never again have to go in any room where he had once heard her laughter or felt her embrace.

  PART 6

  God's Wind

  Chapter 56

  Amasya, 1559

  The two riders galloped towards each other at full tilt, the horse's hoofs drumming on the soft earth, the mud tossed into the air behind them in thick clumps. The first rider threw his spear and his opponent tried to slide out of the way on the lee side of his horse, but it struck him a glancing blow on his back. The mounted horsemen at the side of the arena cheered. The music of the drums and zounas became more urgent.

  'Sssss,' Bayezid whispered to calm his Arab, who was kicking with his forelegs, agitated by the music and the shouting of the riders around them.

  'Another three points,' Murad grinned, 'another good day for the Blues.'

  'Soon we may be throwing real spears,' Bayezid said. He took off again toward the centre of the arena and two riders from the Greens. As they closed Murad saw the first javelin, thrown too soon, pass harmlessly over his prince's shoulder as he ducked beneath the horse's head. Bayezid veered his Arab suddenly to the right and the other rider had to pull up sharply to avoid crashing into him.

  Bayezid reined in his horse, which responded immediately. Before the other rider had realized what was happening he was behind him and his spear struck the Green between the shoulder blades. The man cried out in pain and slumped over his horse.

  All around him the Blues stood in their stirrups and cheered.

  Bayezid charged on, calling for another javelin from the pages darting between the horses. He grinned through his thick black beard at Murad. 'What do you say, Murad?'

  'I say we march today and cut ourselves a slice of barley pudding!'

  Bayezid laughed. There was more whoops from the Blues as another of their team scored a direct hit with his spear and sent a Green tumbling from his horse with blood spurting from his head.

  They were invincible that day. They could not lose.

  ***

  Bayezid found Gülbehar in the Harem garden, in the rose kiosk. The roses that gave it its name were in full flower, a blaze of rose and gold and pink.

  She sat alone, the silence broken only by the steady click-click-click of the pearl tespi running through her fingers, her lips moving silently as she recited the prayers of Mohammed. Her face was hidden by her yashmak but the deep lines around her eyes betrayed her age. The years had not been kind to Rose of Spring. All that remained were the thorns.

  She heard him enter but did not look up. 'You look so much like my son,' he said.

  'I should like to be like him in every way.'

  'Not in every way, Bayezid, surely? My son is dead.' She looked up for the first time. 'So what brings you here to this old woman's garden?'

  'I want your advice.'

  'My advice? I have spent my whole life in gardens like this one. What would I know of the world of princes?'

  'I think you know a great deal.' He paused, choosing his words carefully. 'You know there is going to be war.' Such a beautiful day, the air was redolent with the scent of roses. Too fine a day to be talking about bloodshed.

  A gediçli poured Gülbehar a perfumed sherbet into a crystal glass. She sipped it.

  'Because of Selim?'

  'The troubles of the Osmanlis do not begin and end with Selim. The great grandsons of the men who followed the Fatih into battle now sit on their farms in Anatolia and are ruled by the great grandsons of the men that were conquered. The devshirme has burdened us with an army of bureaucrats, and a Bulgarian vizier forces them off their lands while he fills his own pockets with their taxes. Everything is baksheesh, baksheesh. A true Osmanli lives in the saddle of a horse not on a silk divan! He finds his power in the sword not in a bribe.'

  Gülbehar ran the tespi through her fingers, click-click-click. 'Do you remember how they murdered my son? Do you remember what the Yeniçeris said that day? Our hope is lost in Mustapha.'

  'I remember.'

  'We need another Mustapha and you are so much like him. You can ride, you can fight, you command respect wherever you go. I believe our hope might be reborn in you.'

  'If only Suleiman thought so.'

  'Suleiman was my lord for many years but truly I do not recognize the man he has become. Look at what he has done to you! He has shamed you and exiled you here to Amasya, as he did to my son. He has all but handed the throne to your idiot brother. This time we cannot blame it all on Hürrem.'

  'He knows what kind of man my brother is. It makes no sense.'

  'If you are Suleiman it makes every kind of sense.'

  'So what should I do?'

  'It is Suleiman who has done it. He claims that what he does is for the Osmanlis but he's a liar. He just wants to hold on to his power and everyone who threatens it, he destroys. He pretends not to be a tyrant like his father, but he is worse. At least you knew where you were with Selim the Grim. He did not pretend to be something he wasn't.'

  'What are you telling me?'

  'Selim is not your enemy. Your father is. Be careful of him Bayezid If you ride against anyone, let it be your father. Selim cannot hurt you. Your father will bury you and spit on your grave.'

  She held out her hand. Bayezid kissed it and took his leave.

  Ride against Suleiman? he thought. No, that is unthinkable. Suleiman was just testing his mettle, that was all. He must know he could not let Selim remain at Manisa, just five days ride from the capital, while he lived like an exile a month's ride away. It was the Osmanli way and his father would understand that.

  Topkapi Saraya

  Suleiman contemplated his grand vizier, motionless but for the steady tapping of his index finger on the golden arm of his throne. He was dressed magnificently; a kaftan lined with black sable, a crimson robe with gold tiger stripes, emeralds glittering in his turban and on his fingers. Yet he looked shrunken as if the pages had thrown an adult's clothes on a wizened little boy.

  'It was the illness,' Suleiman murmured.

  Rüstem frowned. 'My Lord?'

  Suleiman jerked his head up as if suddenly aware of his presence. 'Ah, Rüstem.'

  'I have come from the Divan, my Lord.'

  'The Divan,' Suleiman repeated as if trying to remember what manner of thing that might be.

  'I have bad news, my Lord.'

  'Bayezid?'

  Rüstem nodded. It was disconcerting; one moment the Sultan seemed on the edge of madness, the next he was lucid and alert. He had been this way ever since Hürrem died.

  'Has he answered the chaush?'

  'He has.'

  'And what does he say?'

/>   'His reply was short, my Lord.' He produced the letter from the fold of his robes. He read the formal salutation, then: 'He goes on to say just this, My Lord: 'In everything I will obey the command of the Sultan, my father, except in all that lies between Selim and me.'

  Suleiman uttered a small cry, like an animal caught in a trap. 'She was very ill. She did not mean what she said.'

  'My Lord?'

  'Why does he defy me?'

  What else can he do? Rüstem thought. You virtually exiled him after Hürrem's death. 'He raises an army at Angora,' Rüstem said. 'They say the veterans and the Turcomans are flooding to him. Meanwhile Selim has complained that he has received a woman's bonnet and apron from his brother as a gift.'

  'We must stop this. While I live they shall obey me!'

  'There may yet be a way, my Lord.'

  'Tell me.'

  'Restore Bayezid to Kütahya. If not there, then Konia. Make some conciliation. But by assigning him to Amasya you give the succession to Selim.'

  'He must obey me!'

  'If you insist on this we cannot avert a civil war.'

  'They are my sons! They will do as I say!'

  'I fear we cannot persuade Bayezid to stay his hand, my Lord.' He hesitated. 'It was always my understanding that you wanted Bayezid as your successor.'

  'Then your understanding was at fault. You are getting old. The dropsy has addled your brain.'

  Rüstem touched his forehead to the carpet. 'As you say.'

  'Tell Selim he is to proceed to Konia, to guard our southern route to Syria and Egypt. Send Mohammed Sokolli to protect him with a regiment of Yeniçeris and thirty cannon. Meanwhile you shall command Pertew Pasha to go to Bayezid and try and persuade him to return without delay to the governorship of Amasya and extract from him a promise of fealty. My sons will not be allowed to drag this empire into war while I still sit on this throne.'

  'Yes, my Lord,' Rüstem said. He rose slowly to his feet and hobbled from the room. Suleiman is mad! he thought, Hürrem's death had unhinged his mind. But he would do as the Sultan commanded. Let others worry about Suleiman's successor. He would be dead before then.

  ***

  'You were ill,' Suleiman said. 'You did not mean what you were saying.'

  'There was a fever in my brain,' Hürrem answered. 'It was the devil who spoke.'

  'Bayezid is my son.'

  'Of course he is your son. I loved you with all my heart. Besides, I was close guarded in the Harem. Ibrahim could not have reached me in there. It was the Devil's lie.'

  'Yet he looks like Ibrahim,' Suleiman said.

  Suleiman reached out a hand to touch her but she was not there. Tears of grief and self pity welled up in his eyes. For thirty five years he had loved her, loved her more than anyone. He had given up his Harem for her and made her his queen. Of course she had loved him. It was the illness that made her say what she had right at the end.

  Yet he could still hear her, as if she was in the room right now. He could see her lying on the bed, her face white, her voice jagged as metal. I have never loved you. Every day of my life I have hated you with all my soul.'

  'My little russelana, please …'

  He opened his eyes, almost expecting to see her. But there were only the mutes, dumb to his grief, faces blank as stone.

  Little russelana.

  He remembered when he had first seen her, in the courtyard of the old Eski Saraya, that green taplock on her head and a childlike frown on her face as she worked the needle and thread. She was incapable of so much hate, he told himself. It was Satan speaking through her; she was already in Paradise when she damned him.

  But how could he be really sure? It was the reason he had exiled Bayezid to Amasya and favoured Selim for the throne. Better a drunk than break the line forever with a traitor.

  Even a traitor he had loved.

  Hürrem, tell me you lied at the end; come back and tell you lied.

  Chapter 57

  Angora.

  In Spring Cappadocia is ablaze with wildflowers, the rain drawing a riot of colour from the sun-baked steps. Bayezid rode with his equerry, Murad, along a stream between ranks of tall, spindly poplars, fields of brilliant yellow rapeseed either side.

  They reached the crest of the spur. His army was camped below under the towers of the Hisar fortress. Bayezid felt the warm flesh of his Arab quiver beneath him. The camp was at prayer; men were lined in rows, on their knees. Turbans bobbed in unison, thousands of them, row upon row upon row.

  They had arrived in these past weeks from all over the plains; Kurds with broad scarlet sashes at their waists with woollen skull caps instead of turbans; Turkoman bandits in fur hats; black plumed Spahis who had deserted the Porte to come in search of the new Mustapha; and the dispossessed timariots in a motley selection of armour and conical helmets.

  Now there were twenty thousand camped on the plain, a traditional ghazi army, the ancestors of the horsemen whose great grandfathers had conquered the steppes in the name of the Osmanlis.

  Murad turned to Bayezid. 'You lit a flame under the Empire. See how they flock to you. You are the future now.'

  'And I will not let them down,' he said.

  Manisa

  The shahzade Selim was in a black mood. Bayezid was amassing an army and still his father refused to make his move. Instead he had sent Sokolli and his cannon and a royal command to move on to Konia to face his brother. Was he not the Chosen? So why did his father still sit in his palace watching the sun move the shadows around the walls while 'the new Mustapha' gathered strength at Angora, ready to murder him? Once again, he had been abandoned.

  He emptied the crystal cup at his side and clapped his hands for his page to refill it.

  Damn Bayezid. And damn Suleiman.

  Perhaps they were plotting together. For all he knew Suleiman might even be at Amasya right now, feasting with him in the seraglio, or watching him show off to him at the çerit. Worse, his brother might be intriguing with the Aga of the Yeniçeris to usurp the throne, as his grandfather had done.

  He gulped down another draft of wine. Life was so unfair. His mother had never shown him any affection, and Suleiman had ignored him in favour of Mustapha and Çehangir. Perhaps he should have been born with a spine like a camel's hump, then he might have got a little attention.

  He was assailed by a sudden wave of vertigo, as if he were on the edge of a black cliff; he clutched at the divan as an oily sweat broke out on his skin. They were all intriguing against him, weren't they? He was quite alone.

  Even the wine would not shake this black mood tonight. He needed a distraction. 'Abbas!'

  His Kislar Aghasi stepped forward, bowing low. Ugly brute, Selim thought. Why did Hürrem insist he take him into his household after her death? Perhaps he was a spy. He should have this brute's head on a spike soon. He would think about it.

  'My lord,' Abbas murmured.

  'I need some entertainment, Kislar Aghasi.'

  'What does my Lord wish?'

  'Bring on the herd. The bull is pawing the ground.'

  'As you wish.'

  Angora

  The oil lamps had been lit in the campaign tent and his officers crowded in side by side with Turkoman and Kurdish bandits to stare at the charts he had unfolded on the carpet.

  'Suleiman has ordered Prince Barley Pudding …' a grunt of derisive laughter from the others for the nickname they had given Selim … 'to take his army and his household to Konia, to protect the land route to Syria. From us, I suppose he means. But we have no quarrel with Suleiman.' Bayezid looked around at the hard, bearded faces. 'We will ride south to confront Selim.'

  'He will run,' someone suggested.

  'Yes, my brother would like to run. But my father has sent him a backbone, in the form of a Yeniçeri regiment and thirty cannon. It may be a harder fight than we expected.'

  'Thirty cannon will not stop us!'

  'The cannon are not important, not even the Yeniçeris. It is Selim. Once my brother is
dead, the battle is won. It is as simple as that.' He pointed to the map at his feet. 'We will draw up our army here on the plain and wait. Sokolli has orders to keep us apart, not to attack. So he will draw up artillery in a defensive posture. We will give him the charge he expects to keep him occupied. Meanwhile we will leave a cavalry squadron here in the hills to the west. It will be small enough to pass unnoticed, a tiny dart just big enough to cut the vein in Prince Barley Pudding's neck. When he is dead we can break off the attack. Our work will be done. There will be no other shahzade then but me.'

  They all nodded. They were sure they would win.

  Manisa

  There were three or four dozen girls, all of them naked. They were the most beautiful girls in the Empire, none older than twenty, some as young as twelve. They had been purchased in the outlying provinces or by Selim's special procurators at the market at the Place of the Burned Pillar, the same place where his mother had been sold.

  Selim reeled into the hall, staggering from the effects of the wine.

  They were all on all fours, breasts swaying as they moved about the thick rugs, a moving herd of coffee, alabaster and olive. Abbas, the Kislar Aghasi, snapped a short oxhide whip in the air above their heads like a cattle master to keep them moving.

  Selim roared like a bull and started to strip off his clothes.

  Abbas stepped back as Selim plunged in among the girls. Selim caught the back of one and tried to mount her. Abbas saw her grimace in pain.

  Selim roared again. Finally he was inside her and began to thrust his hips violently. Then he pushed her away and crawled after another one, his great belly sagging on the ground. He caught a fair haired Armenian by her hips and she wriggled in distress.

  No, don't do that, Abbas thought. He'll have you killed if you resist.

  But Selim was too drunk to notice. He mounted her and his fingers cupped her breasts, squeezing so hard he made her scream. He liked that. He roared again and with a final thrust of his hips released her.