SERAGLIO (13 page)

Pera

'We come here in peace and they spit on us! How dare they treat us this way!'

It was two days since the Ambassador of the Illustrious Signory of Venice had been honoured with an audience with the Sultan of the Osmanlis and he was still shaken. Ludovici poured him wine from the crystal decanter to soothe his nerves.

'That is the protocol,' Ludovici said. 'All ambassadors are treated alike, ever since Murad the First was assassinated by a Serbian noble.'

'I was not even given the opportunity to speak to him in person! Who does he think he is?'

'He is the Lord of Life, the Emperor of the Two Worlds, Maker of Kings and Possessor Men's Necks - that's who he thinks he is, your Excellency. Besides, all decisions on foreign policy are taken by the Vizier for Suleiman to ratify. He never conducts negotiations directly. It would be too demeaning.'

'Demeaning!'

They were in the drawing room of Ludovici's
palazzo
. He saw Gonzaga cast a critical gaze over the long table of polished chestnut and carved chairs upholstered with crimson damask. Gilt Vicenzan mirrors hung on the walls. Yes, Ludovici thought, impressed aren't you? Not bad for a bastard.

He had not expected to ever entertain a
Consigliotore
here, and he supposed that Gonzaga had not expected to find himself here either. But politics made for strange bedfellows. 'You must understand,' he said, 'their whole system is built around a rigid hierarchy. To their mind the Sultan has no equal anywhere in the world. Not even the Pope - or the Doge.'

Gonzaga snorted with derision.

'The Sultan is the only one in this whole Empire who attains his position by virtue of his birth,' Ludovici continued. 'All others rise by their own abilities. They do not even have to be born a Muslim. The last Vizier, Ibrahim, was the son of a Greek fisherman. A Christian. They have a system called the
devshirme
. They take men and women from all over the Empire and train them to be part of the
kullar
, which is what they call the Sultan's slave family. Those with real ability can rise to pre-eminence. Those with more brawn than brain are conscripted into the
Yeniçeris
, which is their soldier elite. And they are elite; full time professionals and the reason they have conquered half of Europe. As for the women, the mother of the Sultan might start life as the daughter of a Circassian peasant farmer. The system is eminently fair and eternally surprising.'

'I understand the point you are making, but perhaps your admiration for them is tempered by your own bitterness.'

Ludovici bowed his head to concede the point. 'It is true, in the Republic men such as myself must go abroad to find their own measure. However, even an impartial judge would see that their system is not only fair but it also promotes peace inside the society. For instance, although the Turk fights the infidel -as he calls us - with all the means at his disposal, nowhere else in the world can a man practice his religion as freely as he may inside the Osmanli empire. Even when they made war on you - on us - we in Pera were allowed to practice our Catholic rites in peace. Down there in Galata you will find Jews, Muslims, Christians all working side by side. In Rome they are still putting Lutherans to the stake.'

'Is that why you asked me here Ludovici? To list the Sultan's virtues? Perhaps you will convert to Islam yourself?'

'I remain a loyal subject of La Serenissima. But I have lived here a long time, your Excellency, I understand their ways.'

'Thank you for the lecture. It has been most instructive.'

'That was not my purpose in inviting you here.'

'You said you had a proposal for me.' Gonzaga finished his wine and helped himself to more.

'I understand your negotiations with the Vizier did not go well.'

'The impertinent little man wants us to pay tribute and cede the island of Cyprus! He will want the San Marco as his summer palace next!'

'Can we refuse his demands?'

'Ever since Prevezzo Suleiman has us by the throat, as you well know. Without uninterrupted trading routes our republic will sink into the Adriatic. Thanks to your enlightened Turk!'

'There might be another way to settle this, Excellency.'

'I'm listening.'

'As I think you know my activities do not always align with the strictest reading of the law.'

'You're a pirate.'

'Not quite. But I have made some unusual allegiances in the course of my business. They might now be of some use to La Serenissima.'

'How?'

'It is true that I admire the Turk, but I love my country more. Perhaps you should abandon your negotiations with the Sultan. I might instead be able to arrange a meeting for you with the Turkish admiral, Dragut.'

'Dragut?'

'Now he really is a pirate, for sale to the highest border. Ecco, if Venice must pay tribute for use of the sea lanes I am sure Dragut would not be quite as unreasonable in his demands as the Vizier.'

Gonzaga drained his glass. 'You think he would do this?'

'Dragut is not one of the
kullar
. He's a freebooter. Make him the right offer and he'll switch sides. What's it worth to you?'

'So you can do this?'

'Of course.'

Gonzaga smiled. 'Well my renegade merchant, perhaps you could be of service to the Republic after all.'

'I am so glad you think so,' Ludovici said.

***

Julia watched the conversation from the shadows at the top of the stairs. Her father! Yet it was like looking at a total stranger. He looked grayer and smaller than she remembered. Almost twelve years since she had seen him, but his voice still put a chill through her. It brought back memories of silent, gloomy meals, black, dusty Bibles and of course, Abbas screaming in the hold of a privateer.

She searched in her soul for some ghost of filial affection but found nothing. She felt instead a deep kinship for Ludovici, as he handed yet another goblet of wine to the man who had destroyed his best friend and crushed the spirit of the woman he loved.

Stamboul

Sirhane now had her own
hammam
. Her husband lived in some luxury, befitting a man of high rank. She had sent a message to Julia, inviting her to visit with her at his
palazzo
. 'Let's bath together,' she said, when she had shrugged off her
ferijde
. 'Like the old days!'

Now Julia sat naked on the edge of the bath while Sirhane held a stone jar of scented oil and splashed some on her hands. She massaged it into Julia's shoulders.

'Does Ludovici know you are here?' she asked her.

'No. I haven't told him.'

'No one needs to know.' Julia groaned as Sirhane's thumbs found a sore spot. 'You're tense. Are you worried about being here?'

Julia shook her head. 'Do you remember your father?'

'My Father? Of course.'

'How old were you when you were taken away?'

'Fifteen.'

'Did you cry?'

'For a week. Why?'

'Tell me what happened.'

'We were farmers. My father had sheep and a few goats. Also we grew seeds and a little grain. He was a kind man, but he was very old when I left. He is probably dead now. My mother, too. I had ten brothers and sisters. I miss them all. But what good is it to brood about it? If I were still with them I would be in a field driving a plough or picking sunflowers.'

'But your father, did you love him?'

Sirhane seemed perplexed by the question. 'Of course.' She squeezed hard on Julia's neck muscles. 'I suppose so. Julia, what is wrong?'

'Sirhane, I fear for my soul.'

'Your soul?'

'There is something evil in, I feel it.'

Sirhane laughed, then realized that Julia was serious. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and hugged her. 'What is it? First you ask me about my father, then you tell me you are evil …'

'There is so much about myself I do not understand. Why can't I love a man? Why do I prefer your company to my husband's?'

Sirhane stiffened. 'It's not wrong.'

'Of course it is.'

'We harm no one. A woman cannot violate another woman.'

'It would do harm, if he knew. I know he loves me, I know he wants me to love him. I betray him every time I see you.'

'Julia, what is all this about?'

She sighed and rested her head on Sirhane's shoulder. The gauze wrap felt rough against her cheek. She allowed Sirhane to cradle her.

'If you knew something terrible was about to happen to someone and you did nothing to prevent it … is that wrong?'

'I don't know.'

'What do you think?'

Sirhane ran a hand across the frieze of Iznik ceramic on the walls, feeling the condensation cool on her hand. It was emblazoned with a verse from the Qu'ran in white and blue script. 'Every soul will taste death. We test you with both good and evil as a trial. And you will be returned to us.' 'It depends,' Sirhane answered carefully. 'Has this person done anything wrong?'

'Yes … oh, yes.'

'And is his punishment ratified by law?'

Julia did not answer and Sirhane did not press her., Instead she said: 'What will happen if you keep your silence?'

'Someone will die.'

'And if you do not?'

'A person will has caused great suffering will go unpunished.'

'Then if it were me, I would keep my silence. But there is more to it than that, isn't there? Who is this person? Do you love him?' Is it Ludovici? she thought. Is it me?

'I should love him, but I cannot. That is why there is something bad in me.'

You are talking in riddles. There is nothing bad in you, Julia. You are kind and you are gentle.'

'You're wrong,' Julia said. She lay her head on Sirhane's lap. Sirhane stroked her hair. It was never spoken of again.

Pera

Gonzaga informed only the
bailo
of his meeting with Dragut. Ludovici had impressed on him that the fewer who knew about it in advance the better. He omitted Ludovici's role in the arrangements. Gonzaga was prepared to protect him while he was still of possible future use.

A messenger arrived that afternoon at the
bailo's
residence with a sealed missive for Gonzaga. It informed him that Dragut would be on the galleot Barbarossa, moored in the harbor at Galata. Gonzaga was to meet him there at midnight and he was to come alone.

That night he left Pera in a coach. The
bailo
wished him luck and waved him farewell. He disappeared down the hill towards the inky bowels of Galata.

A pink glow lit the sky from the nearby foundries. A carriage clattered out of one of the
yokush
, a violently steep alley that finished right there on the deserted waterfront. Abbas watched from the shadows as a man stepped out. The driver handed him a lighted lamp. He was wearing the robes and a
bareta
of a togato.

He passed close to the doorway where Abbas stood, and he saw his face clearly illuminated by the lamp. A decade rolled back. He was in the hold of a stinking privateer and he felt the terror overwhelm him yet again.

***

There had been three of them, a knifer and two assistants. It came back to him as if it were yesterday, scalded on his memory. He remembered the large raised birthmark on the knifer's temple, at the hairline; in the lamplight it looked like a large raisin. The knifer had a high pitched voice like a choirboy. He had laughed the whole time. It was almost as if he were playing some schoolboy prank.

They had tied a white bandage round his lower belly and thighs to slow the bleeding. This operation had taken a long time because he had kicked and struggled so fiercely. The knifer had sworn at him but they let him exhaust himself before they set to work. When he was finally subdued they bathed his penis and testicles with hot pepper water. He had screamed at the scalding pain and the knifer laughed again and told him he would rinse them in cold water as soon as they were off and cool them down for him.

Abbas had struggled with all the strength he possessed. But against three men, his hands tied behind his back, it had been useless. He sobbed and pleaded with them to name their price, anything, just don't do this!

That only made the knifer laugh even harder.

He screamed so loudly when they did it that his voice was hoarse for a week afterwards. Then they cauterized the wound with boiling pitch and he vomited and passed out.

When he came round they were still binding the wound using paper that had been saturated in cold water. They put a spigot in an opening in the bandages to restrict the flow of urine and blood.

He started screaming again but the screams seemed to come from outside himself. Another voice inside him was quite calm and told him not to worry, that he would soon bleed to death and then it would all be over.

The knifer's assistant dragged him to his feet and began to walk him around the hold. One circuit took in the blue lolling head of Julia's duenna, whom they had murdered earlier that night; another a pool of blood-stained bilge, a coil of tarred rope, some sacking, a broken winch cable. Then it began again.

They walked round and round the hold for hours. What horrified him was the way the two men talked to him continually, encouraging him, recalling other operations they had seen and telling him everything would be all right. You have to walk, they said, it stops you going into shock, and then you'll die. Come on, we'll help you. You're doing well. You're a brave one, a tough one, we'll get through this. It was as if they were friends come to rescue him instead of his tormentors.

What was even worse, he felt his hatred of them slipping away. He sobbed and thanked them when they finally eased him back onto the floor, half crazed with pain and barely conscious.

He had no idea how long he lay there. Someone lit a fire inside his body and he started to burn with fever. But they would not let him drink and his tongue swelled in his mouth until it almost choked him and his lips cracked and he could not speak.

One day the men came back into the hold and bent down to examine the wound. They removed the bandages and nodded to each other, apparently satisfied. When they released the spigot a flow of urine spurted across the hold like a fountain.

'Well done,' one of them men said and patted him on the shoulder. 'You're going to be all right.'

All right? What was 'all right'? A few weeks later they sold him in the market square at Algiers. From there he was brought to the seraglio, to suffer in glorious splendour, to live the rest of his days as a besilked freak.

He envied the other eunuchs. Most had never known sexual maturity. He was one of the few who had survived such an operation when it was done so late in life. As he grew accustomed to life in the Harem he watched the rest of his body change, turning soft, then running to fat. Food became his only pleasure.

And every day he cursed the name of Antonio Gonzaga.

***

The memory passed in just a few seconds; soon he was alert again. He watched Gonzaga head towards the Barbarossa, lamp swinging. The galleot's outline was silhouetted by the glow from the arsenal at Top Hane. He looked back up the hill. Two men slipped into the shadows. Of course, he trusted that Gonzaga would not be so foolish as to come alone. Well, that did not matter. His own men would take care of that.

He moved out of the doorway and followed Gonzaga towards the Barbarossa.

Pera

Julia knelt in her private chapel and stared at the wooden crucifix above the altar. She had come here to ask for forgiveness, to pray for absolution and the strength to fight her weakness. Instead she felt only anger.

What sort of God had allowed a boy like Abbas to suffer so much and a man like her father to prosper?

Her father's God.

She rose from her knees. She would find her solace elsewhere.