His suspicion of his Romani friend heightened again. What were the chances of them being here in this church when two such important and powerful men arrived to conspire in secrecy? “None” was the answer. There was no chance. Coincidences like this were always manufactured, and despite the fact that it had been Skiouros’ choice to come here in order to bury Lykaion, what had Dragi said? ‘You are currently where you need to be.’
‘I know you do not like dealing with the Alevi sect, Hadim, but I will not ignore a potentially powerful ally simply because of their heretical beliefs. So, if we seek more powerful allies, to whom do we turn? Inevitably to yet greater heretics.’ Prince Ahmet murmured, a rhythmic clicking suggesting that he was tapping his toes as he thought. ‘Only two powers are large enough to overcome all others. But they are mutually exclusive, so we must decide.’
‘Who is this, my Şehzade?’
‘Clearly Persia in the east, or the Vatican in the west.’
Skiouros blinked. He simply could not believe his ears. Persia – that nebulous mass to the east of the empire – was a continual war-zone of failing states and desperate khanates and provinces whose panicked leaders annually petitioned the sultan to help secure their borders against the Turkomen horselords from the mountains and the rising Safavid predators in their midst. Those powers nominally in charge of the land would be of no benefit to the empire, and those increasingly dangerous peoples threatening them would only present an ever deadlier threat to the Turks. Only an idiot or a lunatic would look to Persia for support…
But then how could a Turk of nobility and wisdom even consider climbing into the papal bed with its bloated, corrupt pope and his dozen painted whores either? Admittedly, Skiouros might be a little biased in his views of the papacy, but he would sooner have driven nails through his own wrists and climbed up onto a cross than place his trust in the Borgias. The Pope played games with nations as his pieces. Would a crown prince of the empire really risk the Ottoman world in such a fashion?
To his great relief, there was a calculated, negative silence, and he felt sure that neither of those options sat well with the great vizier.
‘Even here, where I have brought you for safety, such names are not wise to utter. Even speaking them is to endanger us. There are other powers, Şehzade Ahmet. Leave my messengers to do their work. Your father is still hale and hearty. Time is not as short as you think.’
There was another pause, this one heavy with something important and unspoken, and when Hadim Ali-Paşa spoke again, it was with curiosity and suspicion. ‘Time is not so short, is it, my prince?’
‘Have me an answer before the festival, Hadim.’
An uncomfortable silence settled on this demand – a silence that was broken by the heavier footsteps moving again. Skiouros, who, until this moment had been able to see only the ceiling of the parakklesion and the very top of the east window through the hole, suddenly caught sight of a man, perhaps thirty years of age, with a neat beard and piercing eyes, the build of a great hunting cat, and the purposeful step of a soldier. The prince Ahmet skirted the hole, glancing briefly into it but noting nothing of interest, and moved to the wall, just out of sight.
‘See this, Hadim?’
The paşa, remaining hidden from the listeners, simply made a noncommittal noise.
‘Someone has scratched a word into the plaster. Ly – kai – on. Greek? This is wolf in Greek, yes?’
‘I believe so, Şehzade.’
Şehzade Ahmet had sharp eyes!
There was the sound of furious scratching and scraping, and when the prince passed back around the hole his hands were discarding a small shower of plaster dust.
‘Curse all wolves, and the one of Trabzon in particular! Secure me my support, Hadim. This empire needs steering, not just riding, and by the eyes of the Prophet, I am the man to steer it.’
‘Of course you are, my prince. No one would doubt the Lion of Amasya to be the natural choice. You are your father’s favourite. The army is with you, and I will bring you the support you desire, though I intend to do so without stretching out our neck and handing the cleaver to the Borgia devil of a Turkoman raider, Şehzade.’
The two men turned and began to move away, their voices trailing off. Skiouros hardly dared breathe until he heard the church door shut with a click, and even then the four men waited almost two minutes in silence before Dragi finally broke the spell.
‘Might I ask, Skiouros of Hadrianople, what you think of the crown prince Ahmet?’
Skiouros shook his head in disbelief. ‘Ahmet is said to be a lion, and an astute one – the governor who encouraged learning and cultural freedom to flourish in Amasya. Clever and untouchable, strong and proud, fierce and royal: that’s what they say, yes? All I heard was an ambitious and short-sighted power-seeker.’
Dragi nodded, and Skiouros cleared his throat again. ‘You timed this visit so that we would witness that, while making the whole visit seem to be my decision.’ It was not a question, nor even an accusation. It was plain statement of fact as Skiouros saw it. Dragi gave a small smile and a half-shrug. ‘I told you things would be revealed to you as and when required. The time is drawing close.’
‘And what’s at the end of that time, Dragi? This festival I’ve been hearing about? What’s planned then? A coup? Is Ahmet planning to overthrow his father and take the reins of empire?’
Dragi gave him an infuriating noncommittal look, and Skiouros rolled his eyes and expelled an irritated breath. ‘If he did, he wouldn’t win the succession, would he? There are two other strong brothers, I remember. Both governors and generals, just like Ahmet.’
‘Who can say?’ shrugged Dragi. ‘Şehzade Ahmet is strong. He is the eldest and the most popular with most of the higher officials in the court. He is in a strong position.’
Skiouros turned to the other two, who were staring at this Turkish exchange in complete incomprehension.
‘Come on. Help me get this ladder back up. It’s time to leave.
In line with Skiouros’ spirits, the sun was veiled by a thin cloud that held the best of its heat at bay as the four men emerged from the church door. Once the other three were out in the open and happy that the grounds of the disused church were not filled with janissaries, paşas, princes and other worrying figures, the Greek turned and replaced the padlock on the door, clicking it closed. It was a good job he’d taken it in with him. The visitors clearly had not registered the lack of a lock altogether, but finding one there and freshly opened would have raised dangerous questions.
Dragi was being interrogated in rapidly-fired queries by the other two, he and Skiouros having briefly enlightened them as to what it was they had witnessed on their way back out through the church. Skiouros stood, adjusting to the warm light outside once again, watching the increasing disbelief in the faces of the two westerners as they learned more of the Lion of Amasya and the powerful vizier who had counselled him. It was hard to believe. And the more Skiouros thought on the matter, the more he realised that this encounter was not only carefully timed and prepared, but must have been so for some time. Which suggested, to his mind at least, that there were further such encounters planned.
Eleven days, Dragi had said, which would be the date of the festival. Şehzade Ahmet had also intimated that something would happen on that day. Just eleven days. Perhaps he could persuade Dragi to open up a little and give him some warning of what was actually going on? But he knew Dragi, and the chances of that were negligible. ‘Things will be revealed in due course,’ he grumbled under his breath in a passable imitation of the secretive Romani.
‘Pardon?’ Dragi prompted, turning to Skiouros.
Sometimes he forgot how sharp the Romani’s senses were.
‘What is this festival on the 29th?’ he asked, neatly sidestepping the issue.
Dragi pursed his lips.
‘There is to be a grand festival in the city in eleven days to commemorate the Ottoman acquisition of Constantinople.’ The Romani
began to tap on his fingers as if counting. ‘There has apparently been a feeling of heightened tension in the city recently, fed by increasing external pressures. The Pope still toys with the idea of a crusade against the east, even if that persists as little more than a dream. Moldavia and Hungary remain in a state of icy, semi-military hostility with the empire. Venice hungers for Ottoman lands despite their treaty, and the Mamluks continue to look at Istanbul and see a prize for the picking. Add to that a strong influx of Jewish refugees from Spain flooding the marketplaces, and the people of the city are beginning to feel a sense of disquiet. The sultan believes that a great festival celebrating the power, the glory and the culture of this now-Ottoman city will help alleviate some of that pressure. He may be right – Bayezid is astute, as you know.’
Skiouros nodded. Despite being victorious conquerors, the Turkish rulers had not instituted an unbending Islamic reign on the former Byzantine world, and for their pains in becoming forgiving and tolerant overlords, they had been rewarded with a state cobbled together from various peoples and religions, divided in itself as much as it was one whole.
And how could the empire hope to hold its borders against so many fierce opponents if there were cracks in the mortar at its heart? An image of Prince Ahmet embracing the Borgia pope flashed into his head, and he shuddered at the thought.
Parmenio and Diego were now strolling through the garden and back towards the alley that led into the city with Dragi at their shoulder still answering their myriad questions, and Skiouros smiled as the sun emerged from the cloud once more, blasting its furnace heat down upon his face. He paused, allowing his friends to get ahead as he angled his face to the warm glow, his eyes shut as he drank in the heat.
What it was that tipped him off he couldn’t say, but something triggered his senses, and he dropped to the ground just as the arrow thudded into the brick wall of the church behind him. Heart suddenly hammering, Skiouros scrambled into the relative shelter of a large pile of sacks of plaster just as he shouted a warning to his friends. Taking a deep breath, he rose to peer over the top of the pile, seeking out the danger.
That vagrant lad was sitting atop the boundary wall again, though now a man stood next to him, wearing a domed turban of deep blue with a wide fur surround that, along with a thick dark beard, cast the owner’s features in shade. His lower half was hidden by the wall, but his deep blue yelek waistcoat over a voluminous shirt of white suggested he was a Christian, given the close ties between blue garments and the western church throughout the empire. Most notable, though, was the small recurve bow that was the stock in trade of Turkish archers, and which he held in one hand as he fetched a fresh arrow from his quiver.
The Greek’s eyes darted back to the path to see that his three friends had achieved similar positions of relative safety behind stacks of marble or of curved stonework or sacks or crates. Three more figures stood in the entrance to the alley, all armed and in a variety of clothes – including black, which was rarely worn by the Ottoman people for its association with ill-luck.
Not Turks, then.
So who?
Skiouros tried to think of a solution. There only appeared to be four of them, as well as the youth, and he was confident in the martial skills of all his friends, but they were, to a man, unarmed. Even out here at the city’s edge in an area mostly given over to Greeks, Jews, Armenians and Romani, it would be dangerous for a non-Turk to walk around openly armed. All it would take was bumping into a roving janissary patrol in a bad mood, and the consequences could be dire.
Four good men, then, but unarmed and against four unknowns, three with blades and a fourth with a bow… All he could do to begin with was concentrate on the immediate danger. The archer was busy nocking his next arrow, and had turned his head, seeking one of the other targets. That would provide the tiniest of openings.
Swallowing his nerves, Skiouros continued to peer over the tip of the pile and, as soon as the archer was picking out a target among the other three, he rose to a crouch, already running. Skirting the pile, he made for a large heap of stone blocks roughly halfway between him and the wall where the man stood. The young lad hissed something to the archer as Skiouros ran, crouched, from one defensive position to the next, and the bearded man turned, the nocked arrow’s tip sweeping across the grounds until it picked out the running figure.
The arrow was released in a professional, fluid move, even as the man was still turning. By God, but he was fast. Accurate, too.
The arrow tore through Skiouros’ doublet arm, drawing a tiny crimson line in the flesh as it passed, and suddenly he was in the safety of the next pile. He’d never seen an archer with such instinctive skill, the arrow so accurate with virtually no aiming involved. His arm burned with sharp pain, though he knew there was no real damage other than to his garments.
There was shouting from over near the alley entrance, but Skiouros’ view of that area was now too obscured by piles of workmen’s gear. Besides, he didn’t have the luxury of time to spend checking on his friends. As his gaze rose over the tip of the pile, he saw the archer readying a third arrow and beginning to draw back the string. He wouldn’t be caught out looking elsewhere again and, given the sheer speed of the man’s draw and release, Skiouros would probably be skewered before he made it three paces from cover.
He chewed his lip in frustration, his gaze roving around the surroundings. Holding his breath, he ducked down and picked up a discarded rake with two broken tines, raising its head from the ground. Hurriedly, keeping low, he shrugged out of his doublet and hung it over the rake, fastening the top button to keep it there. Hardly convincing, but then, it didn’t need to be. A tight coil of rope lay nearby, knotted at the centre, and he picked it up and jammed it into the neck of the doublet, shoving some of the strands around the rake tines to hold it in place. It was the least impressive scarecrow the world had ever seen. But it might be enough. It only had to buy him a single heartbeat, after all.
Readying himself, he thrust the rake head towards the far side of the pile, just enough to poke out over the edge, as though it were checking for trouble. To his relief, the sudden appearance of the makeshift mannequin was rewarded with the thunk of a bowstring snapping tight and the hum of an arrow in flight. Letting the doublet-coated rake fall, he was off and running without even a glance, emerging from the other side of the pile of stones as he ran for the wall.
The man cursed in Turkish as he struggled to bring a fourth arrow up to the bow in time.
Skiouros hurtled across the intervening grass like a demon, his muscles bunching at the last moment as he leapt for the man at the wall-top. The archer brought a fresh arrow to his bow, placing it against the string and drawing back for the release, but despite his impressive speed, he hadn’t quite the time to complete and the arrow discharged with a twang, hurtling harmlessly off into the air as Skiouros hit him in the chest, knocking him back from the wall and down into a dusty, reeking alleyway behind a row of low-quality wooden housing that overlooked the church grounds.
Even as the man hit the ground, the breath driven from his lungs by the weight of Skiouros landing atop him, the homeless youth was suddenly on the Greek’s back, pounding at him with surprisingly heavy blows for someone his size.
Unable to do anything about the boy, Skiouros concentrated on the man beneath him. The bow was still in the man’s hand and he was temporarily out of action, stunned from the fall and from Skiouros’ strike. He would recover soon enough, and the curved scimitar at his belt would come into play then. Skiouros considered trying to draw that blade himself, but from this angle it was nearly impossible. Instead, he grabbed the man by the shoulders, still ignoring the painful pounding his own back was suffering as he prepared to slam the archer’s head back down, hard against the ground.
However, the man was already recovering and fighting back. He was stronger than Skiouros, which came as no surprise – the young Greek had always relied upon speed and wit, not upon brute strength. Even as Skiouro
s realised he was losing the struggle and the man was freeing himself, one chance suddenly swam into focus. Swiftly, he let go of the archer with his left hand, fighting to keep him down with the right as his hand snaked down until it grasped feathers.
Skiouros felt his right hand being forced back and the man beginning to rise, the man’s free hand moving down to the hilt of the scimitar. Skiouros’ own left hand came up, gripping the arrow he had drawn from the man’s quiver just beneath the head as it plunged down with every ounce of strength he could muster, driving the shaft into the neck of the man beneath him. The archer gurgled in agony, his hand shaking, the sword forgotten as the bodkin point of the arrow scythed through his windpipe and gullet and plunged on through his neck until it came to a stop, grating against his spine.
Skiouros rolled off the bucking form of the dying archer and reached for the parasite who had been sitting on his back, delivering blow after blow to his tender kidneys. The boy rolled with the movement, coming to rise a few yards away, where he immediately broke into a run. Skiouros peered after him for a moment, trying to decide whether to give chase, but his bruised torso argued against such a decision, and reluctantly he watched the boy disappear.
Turning back to the archer, who was now lying still, his legs trembling and pink froth emerging from the wound around the arrow shaft, Skiouros reached down and unfastened the scimitar from the man’s belt. It was a solid, undecorated, functional blade. Gripping it tightly, Skiouros left the dying man and ran back around the church’s peripheral wall until he saw his friends. He had hoped he could be of some use, coming in behind the enemy and distracting them, but it seemed he had been too late. Dragi clutched a scimitar in an arm from which dripped a steady slow flow of his own blood. Parmenio was limping and massaging his knuckles, and Diego held a broadsword up, examining the grip, as three bodies littered the floor before them.
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