The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (25 page)

“ ‘Silence, you little demon!’ the Valide screeched. ‘I shall have your tongue torn from its roots.’

“ ‘Silence? Yes, a fine Ottoman trait! Silence and peace I shall have!’

“And with that, Sophie tipped over the brazier, hot with coals. My first reaction was to jump back. But my mother lunged forward, understanding in an instant. But the young girl was too quick. She seized a red hot coal and crammed it into her mouth.

“We heard the sizzle of wet flesh and the choking scream—though to this day, I cannot tell you whether it was my mother or Sophie who made the cry of anguish.”

And again there was silence in the room.

Esma Sultan stared straight ahead. She did not look at the janissary, but seemed to be watching the last dim vestiges of the memory fade from her mind’s eye.

“And it was then that I knew I must create my harem. A home for women where we do not live in fear of men. There is no other sanctuary like this in the world. My father died only a few days later of a paralysis that seized his body and mind. I can only believe it was Allah’s punishment for what he had done, and in the vacuum of sorrow that filled the palace, I was free to act, with the blessing of my cousin Selim, the new Sultan. He was the power that set free the women from the Palace of Tears and allowed me to buy the beautiful slaves that were mistreated in the markets. I gave them the chance to reclaim their freedom. Some did and some did not. But Sophie came with me joyfully, for her life was already destroyed. Her beauty was ravaged. Her mother had died and her beloved brother was lost to her.

“And so she stayed on, even when she was given her freedom.”

Esma Sultan reached for the little gold bell that stood on a mother-of-pearl table.

“I can see by your expression that you do not believe my words, nor my knowledge of women’s hearts. You will be quickly persuaded of my truth.”

Her hand shook the bell, making a fine tinkling sound that hung in the air. Saffron instantly appeared.

“Send for Irena.”

Saffron looked at Postivich and back at the Sultaness, then turned on his heel and left.

“Irena? Irena is a Serbo-Croatian name. And—”

He started to say more, but Esma Sultan broke in. “Do you think I learn nothing from my subjects?” said the Princess in perfect Serbo-Croatian. “And what language did you think my precious Sophie spoke?”

Ivan Postivich shook his massive head in astonishment as the language of his homeland spilled from the Ottoman Princess’s mouth.

But it was the next sight that truly stole his power to speak. For as the fair-haired, veiled woman entered the room, he knew her instantly, if only by her eyes. Even with the years that had passed, he had not a moment’s hesitation. These were the eyes of his sister.

“Irena. I know that you and your brother must have time to speak. I shall leave the two of you alone. I will return at dawn, so that you have time to share all that you must.”

“Stop!” said Ivan Postivich, as Esma Sultan started for the door. “I beg of you!”

“Yes, my impertinent janissary. What is it?”

“Your story—it was…?”

Esma Sultan smiled. “My story was exactly correct, but for the fact I called her Sophie in my tale, so you would not recognize her. I simply never cared for the name Irena. Irena means peace… Bah! You must never let anyone know where she is,
Ivan Postivich
, or you jeopardize her life. She shall remain Bezm-i Alem for the outside world. For if my brother knows for certain her whereabouts, he would give anything to have her in his bed at Topkapi. And I think she would rather kill herself than surrender to masculine hands again.”

With that, the Sultaness disappeared in a flutter of handmaidens who escorted her into her exquisite gardens.

Ivan Postivich rushed to embrace his sister. He was not surprised when she removed her veil and revealed the pearl-colored scars that ringed her mouth. He kissed her cheeks over and over again, wetting them with his tears.

“Ivan, my brother,” she cried.

For the first time in many years, Bezm-i Alem heard her brother speak her name aloud in Serbo-Croatian.

“Irena,” he whispered, his massive body convulsing with emotion. “Irena!”

S
ister and brother spent the night together in the apartments of Esma Sultan. Ivan Postivich’s tears bathed the scarred flesh of his sister’s face.

She retraced her life from loss to joy to pain. Esma Sultan had rescued her, sheltered her, and treated her as a sister. And in the end it was the kindness of women that had comforted her after she had traded her physical beauty for the sanctity of being an untouchable, protected by her wounds.

Ivan Postivich smoothed her hair with his great paw of a hand and burrowed his face into the space where her neck met her shoulder. He breathed in the unforgettable scent of his home and family and wept uncontrollably for his dead mother. He confessed his life to her in stages throughout the night, in chapters of recollections that came to him in the hours of darkness.

As dawn approached and the light of the rising sun rendered the flickering candles unnecessary, two Circassian servants silently entered the room to extinguish the flames. The slave girls saw the favorite of Esma Sultan in the arms of Ahmed Kadir and smiled inwardly. That the giant had chosen the most unfortunate of the harem women as his lover spoke of secrets of the soul and not just the lusts of the body. They thanked Allah for the generosity of their mistress who had allowed a man’s touch to at last caress the burnt flesh of the Sultaness’s favorite companion.

“Praise Allah,” they whispered to each other as they silently closed the door on the whispering couple.

Irena and her brother whispered their secrets through the dawn and into the day. They had lost their dear family home, their language, and their religion. Their mother died of grief and hardship, with no one left to help her through the hard Serbian winters.

Brother and sister, they had lost everything, but now they had regained each other. Irena’s soul was filled, and like the water that escapes the overflowing lip of a fountain, her spirit spilled over with joy.

As the sun burned higher in the sky, Esma joined them. She refused any gratitude. She didn’t let them speak. Instead, she warned them that their secret would be revealed eventually to the Sultan. She reached out her hand to Irena’s shoulder, holding it gently.

“It would be best if you told him yourself. Secrets are like air. They disperse and travel freely, no matter how you try to keep them from escaping. Should Emerald learn of our secret, we shall die of suffocation. Better you find the best time to use the information to our advantage than to have the eunuch carry the secret to Topkapi.”

She smiled gently, an expression Postivich thought he had never before seen on her face. “Mahmud has never forgotten you, despite the many concubines and wives he has taken.”

“But once he sees my face,” Irena protested. “No one will ever love this face!”

“I love it,” Esma Sultan said, stroking her friend’s cheek. Irena watched the intricate patterns of the red henna on the Princess’s hand drift past. “It is the face of rebellion and determination. It does not show age, terror, or ennui. It is frozen in time, in a moment when you took a stand against a man who abused you. It is a mark of rebellion against man’s dominion, even an Ottoman Sultan. What face could be more beautiful, Kucuk?”

The next night, the janissary was not called to the royal chambers. He sat idly in the courtyard, eating pistachios until long after midnight. A yawning servant boy swept up the shells that fell on the marbled ground.

Out of the darkness, Emerald approached and, with his chin lifted unnaturally high, dismissed him.

“Return to your barracks, Ahmed Kadir,” he said, his voice officious and distant. “The Princess rests peacefully on the second night of the new moon. There is no need for your presence now.”

Ivan Postivich felt a strange wave of disappointment wash over him. As he made his way out of the courtyard, he turned and saw the eunuch’s tight smile sour in the torchlight, his hands crossed over his chest in satisfaction.

How could she banish him now from her harem, when he had learned that his own beloved sister was among the women behind the grille?

After so many long nights awake, the janissary realized he would not fall asleep until sunrise. He chose instead to leave the palace grounds and walk along the Bosphorus.

He gazed out upon the water, black in the new moon’s light. In these dark waters, he had drowned more than two dozen men, their watery graves unmarked in the immense cemetery of the enemies of the Sultans.

Lost in his thoughts, Ivan Postivich ignored the first muffled scream, thinking his mind was playing tricks on him. Then the agonized wail of a child broke through his reveries and he shouted across the water, “Who goes there? By the Sultan’s Royal Janissary’s order, announce your business!”

A woman screamed back to him, her voice pleading and hysterical.

“My child, my child! You murderers, don’t touch him!”

Postivich heard a sound he knew far too well. One that haunted his dreams: the splash of a heavy sack and the sudden stillness of the frantic voices.

He struggled to steady his breath and strained his eyes in the dim moonlight to find the murder. A single lantern flickered in the distance.

“Fellow Janissary!” called a voice. A launch rapidly approached. Postivich caught the mooring line.

“It is you, the giant,” said a soldier, standing at the prow, his tall sleeved cap fluttering in the night wind. “Oarsman, rest. I must speak to this man.”

The oarsman nodded. He kneaded his hands, content with a moment’s rest.

“You are Esma Sultan’s Solak,” said the janissary, climbing out of the boat. He had bright red hair and spoke in Serbo-Croat with an inflection of the northeastern provinces.

“I am no Solak,” protested Ivan Postivich, spitting in the dust. “I was assigned duty to the Sultaness, but I do not belong to that orta.”

“I did not mean to insult you, brother,” said the young soldier. “I only meant—” He looked over at the Turkish oarsman, staring into the night. “To warn you. Go into the barracks and cover your ears, for what you will hear will haunt your mind.”

“Say more.”

“They say that you have suffered murderous nights under the orders of Esma Sultan. Tonight will be worse by hundreds. I am only the first to commit my sin.”

“I heard. A harem woman?”

“And her child, a little prince, son of Mahmud’s brother Mustafa. They are only the first. Two hundred will be drowned this night.”

Ivan Postivich suddenly spied dozens of lanterns rounding the bend of the Golden Horn and heading for the center of the Bosphorus.

“The Sultan has ordered that all of Mustafa’s women shall die by his decree and by our hand—”

As he spoke, the red-haired janissary’s voice rose an octave, to the range of a young boy. He choked back tears, his face frightened at the prospect of appearing womanish in front of the legendary Ahmed Kadir.

“I saw your great size and recognized you. The taverns still hum with your conquests and your men sing your praises. You have become a legend.”

“If I am a legend, I am dead. Peace be with you, my brother. I need no praise. Let us live to serve Allah.”

The young janissary fidgeted with his sash. “I came not to give you false praise, Ahmed Kadir. Moments ago, I stood on that launch, considering throwing myself after the two souls I dispatched. Then I heard you call and recognized your unmistakable stature and judged it as a sign from God.

“Give me words that will soothe my soul for I am tormented by this woman’s screams and the tears of the little prince. If I had refused the order, I would have died along with the woman and child. But now I live and I cannot suffer this memory, the Holy Mary forgive me and my filthy soul.”

Ivan Postivich could make out the young man’s pleading eyes in the darkness. He wore his cap clumsily, his red hair emerging in tufts pulled by the sea breeze. His face was nearly hairless and his lip quivered as he spoke. He rubbed his nose on the sleeve of his tunic.

Now Postivich could hear the distant splashes and the cries of the women from the Bosphorus. Their shrieks of terror tore at his soul. He, like Esma Sultan, was haunted by the deaths in these dark waters.

These women—like the men he had drowned—were innocent.

The drowning guard felt something shift within him.

“I cannot offer you words of comfort, brother,” he said. “But having seen the denigration of the Janissary Corps, and above all, the drowning of hundreds of innocent women and children, I am ready to strike the head from the serpent.
The only words we can speak now are those of revenge, which will wash this stain from our hands and soul. Revenge and justice are words revered in the Holy Koran. We will make those who command this evil choke on these words.”