The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer

by Lucille Turner

  A spasm of anger made him shift position. ‘You forget, Madam, that it was your father who sent you here, not I.’ He sipped his coffee, irritated. ‘And in any case, I cannot release you. It would be an insult to your family.’

  ‘Then you will be going against the will of the gods. Even Kalypso did not do such a thing.’ She backed away, dark eyes flashing like Minerva the Strategist. ‘You will turn the gods against you.’

  Murad stood up. Since he did not know what to say, he suggested a stroll. Mara the Strategist agreed.

  He took to the alleyways between the beds of tulips, thinking of the gods. How it would be if, as Homer had believed, every encounter, every act brought a lesson from the gods. If he took Brankovic’s daughter against her will, would he be denied some other conquest – Constantinople, for instance? That was the trouble with the Greeks; they provoked inquiry. Had he been before the ulema, the council of Islamic scholars, they would have set him right at once. God’s will was hidden. Even a Christian would say the same. And people were all the better for it being hidden, in his view. What you do not know does you no harm, but the opposite is not necessarily true. He pictured Pandora opening the forbidden box and finding only demons, then remembered that another Greek had told the tale before him.

  He paused on the path; if Mehmet read Homer, would he learn the lessons of the gods? Perhaps, but Mehmet was far more interested in the Chinese books of military strategy than he was in the power of destiny. It was his fault; he should have educated him better. He should have put more into the fourth courtyard than servants and fountains.

  He turned; Mara Brankovic had discovered the irises. She was stooped over a bloom, rapt with pleasure. Somehow infuriated, but at the same time unable to be anything less than hospitable, he went back to appreciate them.

  Chapter 23

  Around the table in the dining hall of the fortress of Egrigoz sat a curious collection of people. The Grand Vizier Pasha, who was at the head of it, crossed his hands in his lap and wondered how Murad had persuaded him to spend the season playing host to this odd mix of hostages. He knew the answer to that of course. They were the cream of the crop, and Murad wanted to groom them for what he liked to call imperial affairs, which meant that they were intended to be solaks, his own personal guards, or sanjakbeys, governors of the districts of the Ottoman territories.

  Georg Kastrioti was one of these. The Albanian had arrived young, as they all did, but he had not been released on the death of his father. The Sultan had trained him as a janissary because he was promising. They needed men like Kastrioti, who could see the sense in accommodating themselves to the lesser of two evils. The Albanian prince had understood early that he either died with his friends or lived with his enemy. Soon he might have to die with both, if his corps of janissaries was called to the border country. It looked likely that Sofia would be threatened again by that fool of a Magyar, Hunyadi, who thought that the Serbs and the Rumani were his allies. Did he not understand that a leader whose children had been taken as hostages was no longer an ally? Then again, perhaps he did, since relations between Serbia and Hungary had never been so strained. He did not need the Serbian ambassador to tell him that. He could read as much between the lines of Brankovic’s correspondence, which had become riddled with rhetoric. Do not imagine that a daughter is less precious than a city, which meant that she was. The battle of Kosovo is a bad memory, which should be consigned to a bitter past, meaning that the Serbs were still smarting from the failure of the Hungarians to compensate their losses.

  And just to add another drop to the blend, he had learned, to his very great displeasure, that Murad had made his son Mehmet, regent. Did he not realise that Mehmet had no more experience in dealing with matters of empire than a fresh conscript on a battlefield? What was more, Murad had asked him to instruct Mehmet a little, show him how things are managed. He might as well have given him a bag of snakes and told him to pick out a fig. He would have refused if he had not been mindful of Murad’s family sentiments. Instead, he had written a brief note beseeching Murad to think it through again. But Murad tended to decide on something then follow it through regardless. It was not that he was stubborn, but when he wanted something a certain way he simply had to have it. He did not stop to think that Mehmet could prove more of a danger than an asset, like the hostages around this table. A hostage could go one way or the other, even Kastrioti. When you asked an Albanian to kill an Albanian for the benefit of his new masters, the Turks, you were taking your chances. Murad imagined that the structure of the empire could repose on this foundation of hostage-taking he had made, and that Mehmet would make his empire stronger. Personally, he had his reservations.

  As for Dracul of Wallachia, it was hard to imagine what had possessed the man to take his sons to Edirne in the first place. Especially that son. He watched Vlad Dracula take his seat at the table beside his brother. He seemed to have recovered remarkably well considering the condition he was in after his seizure. Kastrioti had shown himself friendly to the Dracul boys on their arrival, but would he be quite so obliging once he knew what he was dealing with? Nothing happened at Egrigoz that did not become everyone’s news in a moment. Seizures were uncommon, even in Albania. And Kastrioti was watching the Draculesti brothers, and Vlad in particular, very closely. No doubt he was wondering if the circle had been drawn, according to the custom. It was widely believed in the Black Sea regions that the core of a demon was fashioned from metal, and that a circle of fire would banish it. But Halil Pasha did not put store in such things, or at least he had not thus far. Had they been in Wallachia, Vlad’s home country, prayers would certainly have been said; they would have planted the sign of the cross upon his chest, and supplicated the angels to deliver the victim from the evils of the seizure and return him to the hand of God. But he found it hard to imagine Prince Dracul of the Rumani supplicating anyone. The son was just like him, with those eyes like the point of a flail. And then the strong, long limbs, the waves of darkness on the head, the manner he had of staring into nothing, as though he was not with them but somewhere else. It made him singularly striking to look at. A recollection of that face in the moment of the seizure came upon him. Had he, Halil Pasha, been of a more fragile disposition, he might have feared a curse. He turned his eyes on the younger boy instead. Such a sweet child, much younger than his brother. He pushed bread across the table. ‘The nights are cold here because of the heights. This is not Edirne. If you do not eat enough now, you will freeze later.’

  ‘I am used to mountains,’ said Vlad Dracula. ‘The Carpathians are higher.’ And he gave his bread to his brother.

  Touching, observed Halil Pasha, the way they looked out for each other. Then he remembered that, given the circumstances, brotherly love was no more useful to the pair of them than love of country. Better for them if they put both out of mind.

  Egrigoz’s teacher of Turkish and logic, the Kurd Ahmed Gurani, sat at the far end of the table, implacable as ever. Now he was engaging the Draculesti boy in deep conversation. What were they saying? He strained his ears to listen.

  ‘You will have to learn Turkish before you are permitted to resume your studies in Greek,’ said Gurani. ‘For an Orthodox your Greek is quite poor I think. Not that it matters much; once the Hungarians take over you will have to use this,’ he stabbed at his head with his finger, ‘and become a Muslim and a Turk.’

  ‘I am Rumani,’ said Vlad, dangerously, ‘nothing will change that.’

  Gurani exchanged a glance with Kastrioti and noticed that Radu Dracula had finished eating and was sitting by the fire playing chequers with one of the guards. ‘Your brother has already made friends. He is cleverer than you, I think.’

  Kastrioti laughed. ‘We say in Albania that a Rumani trusts none but his own, and even then he thinks twice. If one day you rule,’ he said, turning to Vlad Dracula, ‘it will work in your favour, although there is no certainty of anything in Wallachia. You
have an older brother, haven’t you?’

  Vlad Dracula stared round the table. ‘It is true that my brother Mircea is the eldest, but the throne is destined for me, not for him.’

  ‘Really?’ said Gurani. ‘Well, I must say I doubt it, since you are a hostage and he is not.’

  ‘I and my brother Radu are here by error and trickery.’ He turned to Gurani. ‘You do not know the circumstances.’

  Kastrioti looked up. ‘The boys were taken at Edirne.’

  ‘So which one then?’ Gurani pointed his knife. ‘Error or trickery? You cannot have it both ways. Although not that it matters much, since if you were taken at Edirne, it could hardly be error or trickery that threw you into the hands of the sultanate. It must have been your own doing.’

  ‘No. It is you who are mistaken.’ Vlad Dracula folded his hands on the table. Halil Pasha observed how long and white they were. He picked up his fork, placed a piece of meat delicately into his mouth and chewed. The son of Dracul continued, each word worse than the last. Halil Pasha shook his head.

  ‘In coming to Edirne, my father was deceived.’

  Gurani laughed low. ‘The explanations are indeed broadening. Either error brought you here so that you would not take your father’s seat,’ said the Kurd quietly, ‘or your father did it himself – if you make it a matter of logic. But then perhaps that does not suit you?’

  Halil Pasha looked up, the meat lodging in his throat. A kind of fury had taken hold of Vlad Dracula, as though inside his body a fight was now in progress. The air around him quivered with menace, and the look that he had worn on his face at the moment of the seizure appeared to take him over. The Vizier gazed on, rapt but worried. Would he now collapse, shaking on the floor while battles and wolves raged inside his head? Kastrioti buried his knife beneath his hand; Gurani did not budge. Radu Dracula paused, one hand on a counter of the board, immobile.

  Kastrioti broke the spell. ‘I think your brother wants you.’

  Vlad Dracula stood up, and stared around the table as if he would set a curse on every one of them. He threw down his napkin, his face a twisted storm, took his brother by the arm and marched him out of the hall. Halil Pasha motioned the guard to follow them. Mealtimes, the Vizier concluded, were going to be difficult. Lessons would have to be learned, and the sooner the better as far as he was concerned. They would have to see what Gurani could do with him. The Kurd was a rigorous tutor, although he hoped that the young one, Radu, might be spared the professor’s infamous methods. At Egrigoz, Gurani had made himself a reputation that even the Chief Executioner, the Bostanji of Edirne, would envy. He did not so much teach the Turkic tongue, Halil Pasha considered with a slight thrill of horror, as carve it into the backs of his students with the whip. He did not particularly approve of Gurani’s methods but sometimes a briefly enforced acceptance was better than a long period of resistance, which, judging from the events of the evening, would be exhausting for everyone concerned.

  Ahmed Gurani left the dining table shortly after the Draculesti boys had made their dramatic exit. Halil Pasha followed him and poked his head around Gurani’s door.

  ‘You might soften your methods a little. Particularly with the younger one. They are princes.’

  ‘Princes of what, a mountain pass?’

  ‘A country. One with borders.’ His eyes found the Kurd’s coil of flail in the bag beside the books.

  ‘Was there something else?’ said Gurani menacingly.

  Chapter 24

  Ever since the Sultan had had him escorted out of the city of Edirne as far as the Giurgiu border, Dracul had been preoccupied with old ghosts. As to the nature of these ghosts, what they were and how they showed themselves, he knew that already, as he knew their names, and there were many of those. Strigoi was one, vampyr another. Stretch a word but a little and it changed shape, but the thing remained the same. Sorcerer, shaman, demon, ghost. Was there a difference between them? Perhaps there was none at all. These names were written in the stories of the Rumani; they were as much a part of his family as the land he walked on. The superstitions of Wallachia ran deep; they lived in flesh and blood. The strigoi of the Rumani was a living, breathing person like himself, a creature no different from any other, in the essentials. Alluring when it suited, persuasive when it didn’t, since persuasion was the Devil’s favourite tool. Was he not a good prince? He knew he was. He had the power to be more than he was, but he did not use it. He could have surrounded himself with devotees, men like Cazan who would put aside their own souls to serve him, but he did not surround himself. He had chosen to seek the good, even if Anton believed the good was not enough. And now, in a way he had not had the foresight to anticipate, he would be tested as never before. He told himself, as he rang the bell of the Monastery of Saint Nicholas, that it was meant to be. It was part of the plan that God had drawn up for him, the final one that would determine the truthfulness of the rumours that surrounded him. Was he a strigoi or wasn’t he?

  He entered the cloister through the familiar archway. Nothing had changed; everything was as it had been before, except that now he was alone. Vlad was beyond his reach, beyond the reach of all of them.

  ‘We heard the news as soon as you were arrested.’

  ‘I do not doubt it.’

  Friar Anton pushed a bowl of food across the table in front of him. ‘Then you expected it?’

  Dracul hesitated, then took a mouthful of soup. The bitterness of his solitary return had worn him out. He felt gaunt, wasted and weary. He glanced up. ‘What is the matter, Anton? You look unwell.’

  ‘It is you who look unwell, my friend.’

  ‘You want to know what happened? Simply this; I knew the risk and I went.’

  He pushed the bowl away. He knew that look; it was the one worn by clerics at confession. If a confession was needed, then he would provide one. ‘Murad does not do alliances,’ he said, his voice chilled by recollection. ‘Either he has you in his hand or he does not. If he does not, you are a threat.’ He folded his fingers together. ‘I have bought time, Anton. Time for John Palaiologos. Time for Constantinople.’

  ‘Murad has obliged Brankovic to send his sons,’ said Anton quietly. ‘Did you know?’

  Dracul swept his hand across the table. There was a clattering of porcelain on the floor. Anton pressed his shoulder. He buried his face in his hands. What now? He had dreamed of a pilgrimage, the vapours of the Hagia Sophia. Instead, there had been the Sultan’s guard. Halberds at his throat. His sons dragged off like dogs. When he had crossed back again over the Danube River two days ago, he had remembered Vlad’s sudden absence that day at the river crossing – perhaps not the first absence and probably not the last. All the way to the sultanate he had said nothing, and now it was too late. He stood up. ‘I sent word to Mircea that the boys had been arrested. I must get back.’

  Anton held his arm. ‘Did you stop at the farm?’

  His mind filled up with more uncertainty. In one corner of it, there in the space the Sultan had occupied since his visit to the Dumitru family, was Murad’s Holy Book and his own costly silence. In the other corner was the farmer’s tale, which he had tried to dismiss as a nightmare.

  He stretched out his hand and flexed his fingers. Anton had once said that Vlad was choleric, drawn by the vital strength of death. It had been no surprise to him that his middle son had chosen the sword over the book that day in the basement; his deepest urge demanded it. He, his father, had cautioned him against it and yet now all he wanted was to pick it up himself. Destruction, retribution and vengeance were what he needed, but he knew he could not have them. He would like to test the Sultan’s faith as his had been tested, so that the Sultan would capitulate as all men did when in their darkest moments they doubted their own judgement, but he knew that retribution was beyond him. He could not even entertain it. He gathered up his cloak. ‘Please, join us for dinner. Mircea will want to see you.
’ He paused at Anton’s shoulder. ‘Come after dusk.’

  Targoviste. Home. Familiar faces. The servants greeted him with a bow. Mircea’s worried face looked over the banister. ‘Not now,’ he said, and shut himself in his basement. The stairwell to the basement was dark and damp. Some sort of chill had wrapped its fingers around the walls of his home during his long absence, and as he descended the stairs he felt the chill of it deep inside his chest. He pulled the key from its place in the wall and opened the door. A breath of stagnant air greeted him, as if the door to an ancient gaol had just been re-opened. He sat in his chair and looked from shelf to shelf, wondering which codex would tell him how to save his sons from the Turks.

  He returned his sword and scabbard to the topmost shelf as though he was placing it deliberately beyond the reach of his own hands. Below it, from his collection of the works of the Greeks, Aristotle looked up at him wondering how a learned man could have made such a miscalculation. Beside him, Ptolemy smiled and looked at the stars. It is written, he said. He leaned against the shelf, head in hands for a few moments more, then took down the scabbard, unsheathed the sword and held it up. Life was weak, death more powerful. All his life he had balanced on a blade. The time had come to make a cut.

  He dipped his quill in ink and considered the situation. If, to gain time for the Greeks, he had walked into a trap, he must turn it around to his advantage. He must claw his way out. The Hungarian captain must be set to task.

  He penned a rapid note, his pen flying over the paper. He sealed the note with wax and set it aside. Not enough.

  He took up another sheet. In the drawer, his hand fell on something hard and he pulled out a rosary. He closed his fingers over it and smiled. He dipped the quill in the pot and wrote: To His Eminence Cardinal Cesarini. If Their Eminences the cardinals continued to refuse to lend their full weight to the plight of the Palaiologos brothers, they would find that the path to God was not the path of their present course. Soon, and sooner than they imagined, they would come up against a wall. Not the wall of Constantinople, the mighty rampart, which the Turks must face, but rather the wall that blocked the way to enlightenment. Are we not all men of faith, he wrote. If we truly seek the truth, must we not use the light of knowledge as our guide? Instead, we flounder in the darkness of dispute and ignorance. That light is in the hands of the Greeks. We must not let them fail.