Pasha's Tale
Page 1
The Pasha’s Tale
The Ottoman Cycle, book 4
by S.J.A. Turney
For Nick and Sami
(Even though Nicolo’s already left the series!)
I would like to thank everyone who has been instrumental in this book seeing the light of day in its final form, as well as all those people who have continually supported me during its creation: Robin, Alun, Barry, Leni, Nick, Prue and of course Jenny and Tracey and once again my little imps Marcus and Callie who keep me entertained throughout, driving me to wonderful distraction. Also a big thanks to Christian Cameron, a fellow traveller in medieval Istanbul, whose encouragement drives me on.
Cover image by Lucy Sangster of Use or Ornament.
Cover design by Dave Slaney.
Many thanks to both.
All internal images are from the public domain with the exception of the map, which is copyright the author of this work.
Published in this format 2015 by Victrix Books
Copyright - S.J.A.Turney
Smashwords Edition
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Also by S. J. A. Turney:
The Marius' Mules Series
Marius’ Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul (2009)
Marius’ Mules II: The Belgae (2010)
Marius’ Mules III: Gallia Invicta (2011)
Marius’ Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (2012)
Marius’ Mules V: Hades Gate (2013)
Marius’ Mules VI: Caesar’s Vow (2014)
Marius’ Mules: Prelude to War (2014)
Marius’ Mules VII: The Great Revolt (2014)
Tales of the Empire
Interregnum (2009)
Ironroot (2010)
Dark Empress (2011)
The Ottoman Cycle
The Thief's Tale (2013)
The Priest’s Tale (2013)
The Assassin’s Tale (2014)
The Praetorian Series
The Great Game (2015)
Short story compilations & contributions:
Tales of Ancient Rome vol. 1 - S.J.A. Turney (2011)
Tortured Hearts vol 1 - Various (2012)
Tortured Hearts vol 2 - Various (2012)
Temporal Tales - Various (2013)
Historical Tales – Various (2013)
For more information visit http://www.sjaturney.co.uk/
or http://www.facebook.com/SJATurney
or follow Simon on Twitter @SJATurney
Prologos
Of the kingmaker and the kingbreaker
February 27th 1495, off the coast of Sicily.
SKIOUROS shuddered and pulled the rough wool cloak tighter about his shoulders, noting sourly how Parmenio seemed to be taking the night chill easily in his stride, in the manner of a veteran sailor who had experienced far worse and still labelled it summer.
‘Why are we moving so slowly?’ he complained.
Parmenio gave him a look with which he was becoming more than familiar – the one sailors give the uninitiated when they ask a question to which the answer may as well be plastered across the heavens in letters made of brilliant stars.
‘Sailing south in the Tyrrhenian in winter is a troublesome business, Skiouros. The currents and winds are all against you, so you must rely on God’s own breath in the sails or the base muscle of your oarsmen. Not to mention that the political situation in the peninsula is complex and dangerous at the moment; even between the Italian states themselves, let alone with the sultan’s empire. Kemal Reis has no interest in landing us in trouble somewhere along the coast.’
His Greek companion simply grunted and pulled the ineffectual wool tighter against the icy wind.
‘Besides,’ Parmenio went on undeterred, ‘the Kingdom of Sicily is so very Spanish, and you know how the great Kemal feels about Spaniards after his last few years. And I know how you feel about them. One will get you ten that Fernando and Isabella’s priests are already sniffing around the island like a dog under a feast table.’
Skiouros nodded acidly. His feelings about God and the churches of man had taken something of a knock over four years of vagrancy. His eyes had been opened to possibilities by the nomads of Africa who saw no ill in combining their ancient spirits with the teachings of Mohammed, and by the tribes of the New World, who had expressed an open interest in the Catholic faith of the crews, and yet had managed to successfully meld them with their own beliefs. Yet the one thing that had struck him time and again was the foulness of fanaticism whatever its base. Etci Hasan, the Ottoman pirate captain, had felt such soul-burning hatred for Christians that it had turned him from a devout path and sent him down the track of the cold, hard, unbending killer. And the Catholics of Rome had been set upon a different course, revelling in corruption and murder, all ostensibly for the greater glory of God. Yet despite all of that, what chilled Skiouros to the bone – far more than the icy wind of the Tyrrhenian in February – was the thought of those black robed zealots back in Spain who had been hungry to peel the flesh from a man and burn his pink-white remains merely for questioning the word of the priesthood.
He could hardly wait to be back in the old Byzantine lands, in a world where the Christians were of the good Greek Church and were pious rather than avaricious, and the followers of Mohammed were more tolerant and sincere.
That last thought jarred him and he tried not to picture the fanatic Hamza Bin Murad in too much detail, or his great uncle Stephanos who had lost an eye when Byzantium fell to Mehmed and had never been able to speak the word Turk without spitting bile. Yet despite occasional fanatics in the east, Bayezid the Just – a sultan with true vision – worked ceaselessly to bring order and understanding to the world. So long as there was always a Bayezid on the throne…
He shook such morose thoughts from his mind. Soon enough he would be back in his homeland and all would be right. And he had absolutely no wish to land in Italia, where men dripped jewels while they drew blood from the innocent, or on Sicilia where the black priests of Fernando and Isabella would be torturing farmers for imagined slights. Kemal Reis clearly knew exactly what he was doing. Kemal. Another man like Bayezid. Another with vision. If only he would lower himself to conversing with his passengers instead of just favouring Skiouros and his friend with a look of faintly distrustful regret.
Again he was forced to shrug off gloomy feelings. Perhaps it was just the weather and the confinement on board that was to blame for the atmosphere.
Back to Istanbul – to Byzantium. To the ancient and sacred city of Constantine.
His heart jumped just a little as it did every time he thought of home.
A faint spicy aroma tinged with the sharp tang of burned hemp announced the return of Dragi, and the Romani sailor dropped to a crouch near the other two.
‘Kemal Reis is aiming for landfall at Crete in mid-March,’ he announced quietly.
‘So long?’
Dragi turned a knowing smile on Skiouros. ‘Even mid-March is reaching for speeds that might be unwise, my friend. Had we no pressing matters, we would take far longer. The waters around Sicily, Malta, Tunis and southern Italy are hazardous for a good Ottoman captain, especially one who has made his reputation in the manner of Kemal, rescuing the worthy an
d raiding the unworthy. The eastern sea is prey to the Knights Hospitaller, who do not baulk at sinking and enslaving their own peoples, let alone the Turk. And beyond the heel of Italy, too far south would send us into the waiting arms of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, while too far north will throw us into the lap of the Republic of Venice.’
‘I thought the empire had a peace treaty with Venice?’ Parmenio frowned. ‘After all, Venice owns Crete, and we’re bound there happily enough.’
‘Oh it does, and we shall be safe on Venetian Crete, my Greek friend, but tensions are still high and trust hard to come by. Do not forget that Bayezid’s armies are in Croatia and southern Hungary, within spitting distance of the Venetian Doge’s realm. A lone Ottoman kadirga roaming the Venetian-patrolled Adriatic region might just disappear without trace, regardless of treaties. Slow and careful, my friends. Anyway, do you not enjoy your time aboard Kemal’s vessel? For a captain of his rank, this is a well-appointed vessel, and well-supplied, too.’
‘Not with wine,’ grumbled Parmenio, and Skiouros smiled. In their two days aboard, the Genoese former captain had complained about the abstinent habits of the Muslim crewmen on fairly numerous occasions.
‘If you’ve not found a drinking companion, where do you keep sloping off to in the evenings?’ grinned Skiouros.
Parmenio ignored him, and wagged a finger at Dragi. ‘And since we’re the guests of this ship’s second in command, it would be nice to eat something faintly recognisable for a change!’
Skiouros tried not to think too hard on the different meals he had suffered his way through these past few days aboard. The choice of grey meat or greyer meat had been a tough one. And the fact that the vegetables were almost the same colour and consistency as the meat had troubled him even more.
‘Anyway,’ Dragi smiled, and Skiouros noted – not for the first time – a strange hardness buried in the folds of the upturned lips, ‘the time has come for our most important tale.’
‘The king-maker and king-breaker at last?’ Skiouros asked, shivering and rubbing his hands together. The Romani nodded, and the young Greek leaned forwards, clutching his cloak tight. Despite Dragi’s mention of the tale that first night, he had held off, instead spending the previous day reeling off odd stories of his peoples’ devising that would have seen him broken and peeled had he spoken of them in front of a Spanish priest. The Romani was strange, and on occasion irritating, with his onion-like layers of personality and meaning, and Skiouros would have walked away before now, had he not owed the man such a great debt.
Dragi licked his lips and began.
‘Once, when the world was simpler and wisdom was prized, there lived two brothers. One was a holy man. An imam of sorts. You would probably think of him as a hermit, like your saints of old. A wise and pious man who sought peace and understanding, whose insight was craved by the faithful. He had become so famous for his interpretation of the will of God, in fact, that his name was spoken of alongside those of the prophets.’
‘Holy. Got it.’
Dragi flashed an irritated glance at Skiouros, and the Greek smiled.
‘The other brother was a teacher,’ the Romani continued. ‘He valued knowledge and intellect more than the divine, though he was equally sought-after and respected for his mind. He had taught most of the gifted thinkers of the world, such was his own intellect.’
He leaned back and paused for a moment, watching half a dozen of the Turkish sailors down by the prow playing some game, laughing and pushing each other about amiably.
‘The brothers did not always see eye-to-eye, of course. You can imagine. In fact, they argued about everything. When the holy man gloried in the pure green of the clear waters, claiming they were the same shade as the eyes of God, the teacher would snort and explain how that green could be formed from a drab blue and a sickly yellow, and that it was no more divine than was the goat’s-meat broth that they both drank.’
‘I understand the situation,’ Skiouros murmured with feeling, his mind filling with saddening images of Lykaion in their earlier days of argumentative separation in the great city.
‘Do not misunderstand,’ Dragi noted carefully. ‘The brothers were the best of friends, and they each respected and valued their sibling’s talents. But it is in the nature of the intelligent to question and debate, and they were the brightest of the bright, so they questioned and debated everything that passed between them.’
The Romani flexed his fingers. ‘Then there came a time when the sultan of their realm passed on and went before God, leaving his two eldest sons grieving and regarding one another in anticipation. For while the sultan had several other children by his concubines, only two would struggle for the throne, as they two had both led armies and held governorships in the traditional manner.’
‘Wouldn’t the succession fall to the elder?’ asked Parmenio curiously.
‘Not in the world from which they – from which I – hail, my friend. There is no line of heredity. There is no clear heir in the court of the Osman sultans. Succession is a matter of strength and luck.’
The former captain frowned. ‘That sounds messy.’
‘Perhaps. Sometimes it is, but think of it as being tested for your fitness for the role ahead. A man who can win the war of succession is likely strong enough to take the reins of the empire thereafter.’ Dragi shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘You are interrupting an important tale.’
Parmenio shrugged apologetically and the Romani went on.
‘The heirs had both tried to reach the capital first to claim their throne in the old way, but had arrived together, rendering the succession still moot. And so both men warred for a year, taking and retaking territory and causing endless destruction in the land. In the end, their courtiers begged them to halt the damage and to find a new solution. And so it was that they turned to the wise brothers in their mountain fastnesses, for the pair were respected above all, and their decision would be indisputable.’
He sighed and took a swig from a mug of warmed fruit drink, his breath clouding in the cold.
‘The heirs disbanded their armies to allow the land to recover and went to the cities of their former governorships to await the brothers’ decision. And the argument began. For the holy man could see the greater value in the heir that had clearly fought with the grace of the Qur’an in his heart and with God at his shoulder, while the teacher could see that the other heir had been careful and wise in his dealings with men and with nations. And the pious one saw wickedness in the heart of the second, while the learned one could see a dangerous impetuousness in the first.’
Dragi gave them a meaningful look. ‘As one sought to make a king, so the other sought to break him. And so they debated and argued and deliberated for endless days, while the world waited outside, its breath held, for the result of their discussion. Then, suddenly, as the cock crowed one morning, the teacher looked at his brother and shook his head in amazement.’
‘“Do you realise,” said the teacher, “that we have argued for a year and a day. We have argued for longer than the heirs fought, and still we are at an impasse. We are apparently too wise to decide between two such viable candidates.” And the holy man was struck by the wisdom of this insight. Smiling and shaking hands, the two men went to their door, preparing to pass the task onto someone less burdened with wit.’
He stopped and tilted his face up to the sky so that the cold starlight bathed his face.
‘And?’ urged Parmenio after a pregnant pause.
‘And they discovered that they were too late. They had argued – the king-maker and the king-breaker – for so long while the two heirs waited patiently, that one of the sultan’s lesser children, sick of the indecision, had raised an army, stormed the palace, executed both heirs and had instituted a reign of harsh terror upon the land. The world experienced a darkness of fear and blood that lasted for a year and two days, and from that time on, only decisiveness and strength has been prized in successions, for excessive pruden
ce had shown itself to be weak.’
‘Well that’s a depressing tale,’ snorted Parmenio, leaning back.
‘So,’ Skiouros mused, ‘in your tale, both men went out to make a king, but together they failed. Who is the king-maker and who is the king-breaker? Where do wisdom and piety lie in that system?’
Dragi sighed. ‘It is unimportant who is who. Do not fixate on unnecessary nuances of the tale such as its popular name, when it is the underlying moral that is important. The tale carries a warning,’ he noted. ‘Indecision and vacillating achieve nothing. A man should not seek to discover every angle of every facet of a thing, for by the time he has uncovered the deepest meanings, that thing may be gone. Decisiveness and a willingness to act promptly for the good are of prime importance. If the king-maker and the king-breaker had been kept apart and asked independently to advise a third, then the matter might have been resolved without such a terrible end.’
Skiouros frowned and pursed his lips.
‘You seem to be advocating taking things at face value and taking uninformed action?’
‘Not so, but a truly wise man can absorb the principle facts about a thing in a short time, while continued deliberation will only serve to cloud his mind and make him uncertain.’
The young Greek huffed into his hands. ‘You may take the moral of your tale to be a warning to act decisively. To me it sounds more like a caution against outside interference. The king-maker and the king-breaker should have kept their noses firmly out of the business and let the princes get on with it.’ He noted a darkening of Dragi’s expression and pressed on. ‘Anyway, I am not sure why you attach such significance to this tale and why you were so set on its telling to us in the first place?’