Pasha's Tale

by Turney, S. J. A.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Parmenio rolled his eyes and flashed a grin at his friend.

  ‘I was a little preoccupied. You had no trouble then?’

  ‘A few minor cuts. Diego here is a demon with a blade, Skiouros. You were right about going after him. He could have taught Orsini a thing or two.’

  Skiouros came to a halt next to his friends. ‘I think we should get back to the house. This place is starting to feel quite unsafe.’

  They murmured their agreement and turned to make their way back, and Skiouros nudged Dragi. ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea who they were? They weren’t Turks, for a start.’

  ‘As the hourglass turns, bringing the festival ever nearer, several groups vie for position, Skiouros. You have not seen your last trouble, yet.’

  ‘So you have no intention of telling me who they were?’

  ‘I am not sure enough of their identity to give you a thorough answer.’

  Skiouros fixed him with a suspicious, even disbelieving, glare.

  ‘But,’ Diego de Teba said, cutting in as he held up his hard-won blade to the light, ‘this is an interesting development.’

  Skiouros peered at the cross embossed upon the sword’s hilt, with each of its four arms an inverted ‘V’ giving the whole design eight individual points. It was an almost unbearably familiar symbol.

  ‘A Hospitaller blade?’

  Chapter six – Of poets and murderers

  May 20th

  SKIOUROS entered the open land of the sultan’s grand parade ground cautiously. Despite the fact that there were but few locals here, and no one seemed to be paying the four newcomers any attention, old habits died hard. While, despite being clean shaven, he could probably pass for a Turk these days – and Dragi was something of a native anyway – quite clearly Parmenio and Diego were western foreigners, from the shape and cast of their faces to the non-Turkish cut of their clothes. In fairness, Skiouros’ own clothes nodded far more in the direction of the unfashionable Greek than the fashionable Turkish, too.

  And the parade ground was not a place in which to be inconspicuous. Once a grand chariot-racing circuit in the ancient city, it was still on occasion used for horse races, though now its most notable duty was for grand processions and military displays by the janissaries and the sultan’s best. As such, added to its prime location at the heart of the oldest part of the city and lying directly before the great church of Haghia Sophia, it was rarely empty of visitors, from the well-to-do Ottoman residents taking a stroll, to distant travellers and academics studying the ancient pile.

  Its original form was clear. Along the northern side of the former stadium, hiding the slew of recent Turkish buildings among the ancient structures, stood the tiers of seats upon which a million million Roman backsides had watched the Greens and the Blues, the Reds and the Whites racing their deadly games in pursuit of fame and riches. A similar array of seating to the southern side was in far worse condition, having been allowed to collapse into the ruins of the ancient Roman palace which it abutted. The Kathisma – the box where emperors had watched the games – was now little more than a ruinous shell. And yet there was still something about the place that summoned up spirit into the blood. For the extended platform was perfectly level between the seating, and the spina along the centre, around which the racers pounded, was still adorned with over a dozen columns of differing shapes and sizes, some manufactured for the purpose, others taken as spoils of war from Egypt or Greece of old.

  And then there was their destination.

  At the western – or more strictly speaking the south-western – end of the former circus, where the graceful curved seating had long gone for Turkish rebuilding, stood a curved arcade of enormously tall, delicate marble columns with an intricate architrave along the top. This stunning ancient edifice had once formed simply a structural part of the seating stands. Now it stood proud and alone like one of the graceful monuments Skiouros had witnessed in the gardens of Rome and the villas of Italy. And with the morning sun behind them the four visitors could clearly see the drop beyond for, from the heart of the hippodrome, behind those beautiful white columns naught could be seen but clear blue sky.

  Skiouros eyed Dragi suspiciously as they walked west along the stadium, past the mismatched columns, towards that glorious colonnaded viewpoint. After the incident at the church two days ago, Dragi had told them that he would have the potential involvement of the Hospitaller knights investigated, and indeed a number of the seemingly endless Romani community had disappeared apparently on that very task. Yet nothing had come of it so far. And Dragi had made no further demands upon Skiouros’ time, allowing him freedom of movement, accompanied by mysterious phrases like ‘as necessity demands’ and ‘time will reveal’ whenever he was pressed.

  The day following their encounter at the church, the four of them had travelled around the Phanar and Balat regions, now armed against any further attacks. Those regions which were once home to Skiouros were almost solely the province of Greek and Jewish residents, and the chances of running into any authorities who might take offence at the bearing of blades were slim. Skiouros had led his friends to his old haunts, showing them the bloody church and the markets, the ruined baths and the former open air cistern, even to the house with the yellow marble columns on Zagan Paşa Caddesi, where he had found a dismembered official in a bathtub. He had also gathered up his three remaining hidden caches of coins around the city, which would give them a little finance to ease matters.

  But they had not dared leave the enclaves and venture into Turkocentric areas where they could not realistically bear arms. Dragi had been insistent that it was too dangerous when Skiouros had been itching to show his friends certain other sights with personal significance around the city. And yet this morning the Romani had rubbed his hands together in a business-like fashion and announced that he believed they could reasonably make their way into the heart of the Ottoman city, on the condition they bore no weapons. When pressed, he had intimated that there had been progress on his investigations, though he could not detail them yet, and regardless, there were places and times that Skiouros must be.

  And so here they were, ostensibly accommodating one of Skiouros’ desired visits, though he was under no illusion that this outing was entirely orchestrated and executed according to the designs of the secretive Romani. Damn him.

  They strode to the stunning white colonnade that curved around the hippodrome’s end upon a stone lip a few feet in height and, as they came to a halt beneath the architrave, Skiouros found that he was staring in disbelief every bit as much as the foreigners.

  He had seen this view a few times in his life. When he had found the courage to move through the Turkish areas, where the richest purses could be cut, and the risks so much greater, he had occasionally come here to drink in the panorama. Plus, of course, the substructures of the hippodrome on the hillside below them were a great place to hide and outwit any pursuit.

  But the view had changed.

  He had expected the change, of course, having been at least partially the architect of it. But he had not expected it to be quite so astonishing.

  The curved end of the hippodrome plunged down from such a height that they were looking over the tops of trees growing close to the walls. Before them two hundred yards of land packed with red-roofed structures marched out to the sea walls and, beyond, ships plied the waters of the Propontis amid frolicking, leaping dolphins. Off to the left, though, where Skiouros’ gaze had inevitably been drawn, was the familiar Bucoleon palace – one intact building abutting the water, one somewhat ruinous. But even that was not what he had fixed upon and what had drawn him.

  He stared.

  After a significant pause, Diego cleared his throat. ‘It is a stunning view, I will grant you. Perhaps better than the view from Ronda across the gorge at the sierra beyond. But the importance of it escapes me.’

  Parmenio’s gaze was steadily sweeping right to left, and then his own eyes wide
ned.

  ‘Was that…?’

  Skiouros nodded as he studied the gaping hole in the city of Constantine. Five years earlier here had stood one of the greatest churches of the Byzantine world: the Nea Ekklasia. Until a conspiracy that had threatened the life of the sultan had led Skiouros to confront his enemy there. He had barely made it away from the place alive in that dreadful Anatolian storm.

  Not only was the building gone, but a large part of the neighbourhood had disappeared with it. The church of Saint John the Theologian nearby was little more than a half-standing shell. A large stretch of the solid boundary wall of the emperor Phocas was now little more than a rubble heap. The tall pharos – the lighthouse he and Lykaion had used to spy upon the Mamluk ambassador – had survived at less than half its full height.

  Most of the houses had gone altogether. The area remained as a charred, scarred wound in the fabric of the city. The scale of the devastation was immense, as though an irate giant had rampaged across the urban landscape, tearing up some buildings and trampling others.

  ‘What in the name of the Holy Mothe…’ Diego caught his words, remembering where he was and bit down upon them. ‘What happened there?’

  Parmenio gave a small sigh and then turned an odd smile on the Spaniard. ‘Skiouros the Greek happened there. Someday, when all this is over, we’ll sit down over a cup of khave or a glass of wine and I’ll tell you the whole sordid, destructive tale. Suffice it to say that that large grey crater was a church five years ago.’

  Diego turned an expression of disbelief on Skiouros, who simply shrugged. It was hardly worth pointing out any of the detail, including the fact that it had no longer been a church, but a gunpowder store at the time.

  ‘Another glorious monument brought down by human foolishness,’ he admitted sadly.

  ‘Of course I never saw it,’ Parmenio muttered. ‘Well, I saw bits of it falling out of the sky and splashing into the sea damn close to the Isabella’s hull, and I certainly bloody heard it, but…’

  ‘Did you hear that?’ the Spaniard said suddenly, holding up a hand to hush them. The rest stood still and listened. The wind rushed through the trees below them and the occasional shrubbery around the periphery of the hippodrome, and the very distant murmur of conversation among the other folk formed a gentle hum of life backed by the chirruping of birds, but nothing stood out.

  ‘What?’ whispered Skiouros.

  ‘It sounds like the music the Moors used to make in Al-Andalus. Haunting and delicate. Can you not hear it?’

  And Skiouros could. Now that his companion had pointed it out, the gentle strains of music were audible as winding strands among the warp and weft of the city’s aural tapestry. A lavta or ‘ud from the sounds of it – a pear-shaped lute common among the musical stylings of the empire. And the tune was indeed haunting. At once beautiful and mournful, sad, hollow and delicate. A thing of beauty but with a strangely menacing underlying thread. And now, almost inaudible it was so gentle, a voice was crooning along in a similarly ominous-yet-beautiful voice. Skiouros’ brow creased.

  ‘I can’t quite hear what he’s singing.’

  Dragi cleared his throat quietly.

  ‘O zealot, go become intoxicated from that cup so sweet…

  completely.

  Bow down before the Merciful in human form,

  for the man of God who adores the human form of the Lord

  is adoring

  faithfully.

  He is wise who sees his Lord; come, see your Lord,

  become wise:

  that one who before the Truth is ashamed

  is like a djinn in dishonesty.’

  Dragi’s helpful translation into Greek, for the benefit of Diego in particular, came to a sharp end, as did the musical refrain and the poetic accompaniment as the air was riven by an ear-splitting shriek and, peering over the edge as they were, all four saw a skinny, naked figure arc out from the substructures immediately below them and plummet some fifty feet to the gravel and turf below, his limbs snapped and bent by the few tree branches as he fell. The body landed with a crack and a wet thud and, even from their height, the watchers could see the glistening pool begin to form around it.

  As Skiouros, Parmenio and Diego stared at the grisly sight in shock – Dragi seemed curiously unsurprised – a calm, almost musical voice which clearly belonged to that same singer, began to speak in the manner of a preacher or an orator.

  ‘A’ishah bought a cushion having on it images of creatures. When Allah's Apostle saw it, he stood at the door and did not enter. A’ishah noticed the sign of disapproval on his face and said, "O Mohammed, what sin have I committed?” Allah's Apostle said. "What is this cushion?" to which A’ishah said, "I have bought it for you so that you may recline upon it." Allah's Apostle said, "The makers of these pictures will be punished on the Day of Resurrection. The Angels do not enter a house in which there are such pictures.”’

  ‘What is this?’ hissed Diego in disgust. Skiouros and Parmenio nodded silently by his side, and Dragi, seemingly anxious at the possibility of being discovered by the unseen orator, gestured with his thumb and began to walk away.

  As they crossed the former hippodrome to an area of broken stonework where the more ruinous section of seating met the arc of columns, Skiouros deemed them far enough from the speaker for safety and laid his hand on Dragi’s shoulder.

  ‘What happened back there?’

  Dragi gave him a calculating look and, as they descended the ruins to a street that ran downhill alongside the great circus, he shrugged.

  ‘The Eagle of Sarahun showed his true plumage. Come. There is more to witness and to learn.’

  Skiouros started slightly at the name, though found to his surprise that it had not had the impact it should. Perhaps having already witnessed Şehzade Ahmet up close had dulled the shock, though in truth, Skiouros had been half expecting some such revelation since Dragi had urged them here.

  Turning left, the Romani trotted quickly downhill towards the huge curved brick substructures that supported the former hippodrome. With a nod to the others, he placed a finger over his lips to silence them, and slipped into the open doorway of a ramshackle timber house facing the great monument where the road turned away.

  Skiouros frowned in concern and, noticing Dragi casting a sharp glance at the brick curve as he disappeared, followed his gaze to see an open door into the substructures. Slipping past it, the three followed Dragi into the building with some trepidation. The structure was clearly unoccupied, and dangerously unstable in places. The winding staircase up which Dragi had disappeared was missing several steps and the timbers shifted and groaned alarmingly underfoot. After a few careful moments and the odd hair-raising misplaced step, the others emerged through a ruined door into a wide room with a large window at which stood Dragi, lurking in the shade.

  The others joined him and, keeping far enough back so as not to become obvious observers at the window, realised that from here they had achieved a clear view of the bricked-up arches of the hippodrome’s substructures, as well as the figure seated in one of the few smaller apertures and the broken naked bodies at the foot of the great arc. For in the time it had taken them to descend from the hippodrome’s top to this outer vantage point, a second broken figure had joined that first on the slope below. Their eyes slid up to the arcades.

  Despite the distance, Skiouros could see that the figure seated in the opening with his legs dangling into space and the lavta on his knee, plucking the strings once more, was dressed in extremely expensive, fashionable Ottoman clothing. From here the music was audible only as a faint murmur, though.

  ‘Who is that?’ Parmenio asked quietly.

  Skiouros, pursing his lips, took a deep breath. ‘That, Parmenio, is the Eagle of Sarahun, Şehzade Korkut, son of Bayezid and brother of our friend Ahmet.’ He turned to Dragi as the Romani began to murmur again, translating the lilting poetry that had once more begun to emanate from the hippodrome.

  ‘Respec
t the form and recognise its content,

  for I am soul and body, but both,

  and neither can contain me.

  I am pearl and shell, the scales for the End of Days, the bridge to Paradise…

  and even with such riches, this world cannot contain me.

  The ‘hidden treasure’ that is God I am…

  eyes open…’

  Without warning, a spindly, naked figure appeared at the opening next to the seated prince, the rough hands of unseen others propelling him out into space, where he fell with a piercing scream, broken by the tree branches before his life essence was ripped from him by the ground below.

  Again, the poetry ended and the quiet, lilting voice spoke softly. ‘Mohammed returned from a journey to find that A’ishah had placed a curtain of pictures over the door of her chamber. When Allah's Apostle saw this, he tore it down, saying, "The people who will receive the severest punishment on the Day of Resurrection will be those who try to make the likeness of Allah's creations."

  As Diego and Parmenio shared a stunned expression, the gentle strumming of the lavta began once more.

  ‘In Heaven’s rose garden,

  Like a sorrowful nightingale…’

  But something was happening now, and the music stopped sharply as two other figures appeared in the aperture. Another naked man, moving with desperation and panic, was grappling with a heavy-set soldier in the armour of a ghazi warrior. The two men came perilously close to knocking the seated prince from his perch and as the soldier finally won out and pushed the naked prisoner from the arch, the Eagle of Sarahun hooked out a leg, his face a picture of fury, and swept the ghazi’s feet from under him. With a cry of surprise, the unbalanced warrior fell from the wall and joined the four naked corpses on the ground below with a crunch of metal and bone. The four observers in the damaged house watched the unfortunate soldier try to rise once, but then collapse and lie still.