The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (6 page)

“He climbs around on a horse like a monkey hanging from a tree!” marveled Sultan Selim III, watching a cirit game. “What agility he has!”

“Truly an ape,” muttered Mahmud.

The Horse Master cleared his throat and addressed Selim III, turning away from the young prince Mahmud.

“Ahmed Kadir will one day become a great cavalryman, my Sultan, and though he was born in the northlands, he is Turkish in his instincts. He will save his horse and stand on the field if he thinks there is an advantage in
fighting on foot. The infantry respect him as much as the cavalry—he will inspire the Ottoman armies on the battlefield and win many battles, if Allah wills it. He is a leader, and the soldiers look to him to follow.”

Mahmud remembered these words when his cousin Selim was butchered by rogue Janissaries who attacked the Topkapi. At that time Ahmed Kadir was only a boy himself, and his orta was on a foreign campaign in the borderlands of Wallachia, fighting the Russians. It was only a faction of the soldiers who supported Mahmud’s half brother, Mustafa IV, in the struggle for the throne and carried out the assassination. Still when Mahmud closed his eyes, he saw the Janissaries who searched the Topkapi to kill him as well. Mustafa was eager to spill the blood of any male relatives who might threaten his claim to the throne. Mahmud would never forget the terror of his narrow escape. His mother, Nakshidil, hid him in an oven as a servant distracted the Janissaries. Mahmud had trembled in fear, stifling the urge to sneeze as the ashes filled his nostrils. Outside the oven doors he heard the shouts and heavy footsteps of the Janissaries.

Years later, soon after he became sultan, Mahmud thought hard about the power that Ahmed Kadir could one day wield over the Janissaries. He remembered his cousin’s murder and trembled at the memory of those footsteps outside the oven where he cowered in terror. By that time, Ahmed Kadir had proved himself on battlefields and campaigns far from Constantinople. Now, Mahmud’s own Grand Vizier boasted of the giant’s fearless attacks, riding his grey-dappled mare into battle as he dodged the arrows and javelins of the opposing army with breathtaking agility. And as the Horse Master had predicted, Janissary Kadir left his horse with a groom and led the infantry into the last decisive battle against the Greeks, his sword slashing through the enemy like a sharp scythe through hay.

“Bah,” grumbled Mahmud, when the Grand Vizier came to tell him how a cavalryman had handed his reins to another man and joined the infantry. “Our Ottoman army needs reform, Vizier! A Kapikulu cavalryman joining the infantry at a whim? The man is mad! A dismounted cavalryman brings disgrace upon the Ottomans!”

“The man is a hero, my Sultan, and it is this willingness to lead that has won him the respect of the Janissaries. The Aga of the Janissaries holds him in the highest regard.”

The Sultan rose from his throne and paced the carpeted floors.

“The Aga is a fool who indulges slovenly conduct on the battlefield! I shall order a complete reform of our military and their tactics,” he said. “No Topkapi-trained cavalryman shall ever again descend from his horse! We will
fight in regiments, with order, not like a pack of mongrel dogs who mount and dismount capriciously.”

The old Vizier looked aghast at the Sultan at the thought of reforming the Janissaries. The Corps was created by the first Sultan of Constantinople, Mehmed the Conqueror, and without them, there would be no Ottoman Empire. The Aga himself had a palace that rivaled the Topkapi.

“But, my Sultan, that is exactly how your honorable cousin Selim III was murdered, instigating reform. The Janissaries will rebel and storm Topkapi, just as they have done before. You put your life in jeopardy!”

Mahmud dismissed his remark with a wave of his hand.

“My honorable cousin did not play his move with wisdom. He did not have the strength and will of the citizens. He tried to reform them with a timid hand—I shall crush them with my fist!” The Sultan’s fingers tightened in a ball, the knuckles white against his ruby and emerald rings.

The Vizier bowed his head

“You are absolutely correct, O Sultan. The Janissaries have become a barbarous lot—the merchants in the Bazaar hide their daughters from the Janissaries’ groping hands and people flee the bastinado, which they use too freely to club the innocent. But we might work within the ranks to root out corruption. If we were to infiltrate the ortas with disciplined leaders who believed in the spirit of the Corps—the tradition of honor and defenders of the Faith—we might yet stay the wave of corruption and their assault on the common people. Let us enlist those whom the men admire—this giant, for example, and lead them to more honorable ways of serving their Sultan as was the case with your ancestor Mehmed I or even Suleyman the Great!”

“Let them lie with the Devil! The more corrupt and menacing they become, the swifter the day will arrive when the Ottoman people will stand by their Sultan to stain the Bosphorus red with janissary blood. These thugs will not suffer reform and their arrogance will bring about their own demise. I will not spend another moment considering their future, other than their death!

“We will form regiments, not ortas, with our new corps, and we shall have more discipline like the European armies,” said Mahmud, rubbing his hands enthusiastically as he imagined the future. He looked out over the Bosphorus towards the Sweet Waters of Asia. “I shall stand proud to see an Ottoman army drilling to Western marches and wearing new uniforms that reflect our dignity and my sovereignty!”

“But my Sultan—” began the Grand Vizier.

“Silence! Our new army will be the pride of Constantinople. I shall speak to the English and French ambassadors this very afternoon and begin immediately to study the problem.”

“But, Your Highness, I only wish to defend you and your harem. The Janissary Corps has existed for over three hundred years. They will resist imitating the armies of the infidels and become rebellious. The Ulema could side with them, accusing you of fraternizing with the pagan enemies of the Prophet—”

“Enough! I shall reform these bloody brutes and we shall have discipline. Send me this Ahmed Kadir immediately.”

The Grand Vizier left the throne room stunned. What had begun as a report of the glorious Janissaries’ feats in the Western provinces had ended in a tirade by the Sultan. What had provoked such wrath in his master? Still, he suspected Mahmud would have to obtain a fatwa from the Mufti to conspire further, for the Janissaries were protected by the Sheriat as interpreted by the highest Muslim Imam. This would take time, and perhaps the Sultan would come to his senses.

He sent a page to run to the barracks and fetch the soldier, Ahmed Kadir. Then he hurried off to consult the military officers and the Aga on the decision the Sultan was threatening to make.

Several hours later, Ivan Postivich entered the Topkapi Court, his skin rubbed raw by an overzealous servant in the royal
hamam
. His blue tunic was spotless and starched as stiff as felt. He bowed to the new Sultan, the third he had known in just three decades. This one had been a boy let out of a Topkapi cage for equestrian events and cavalry drills, an arrogant, terrified youth about the same age as Postivich.

The Sultan asked to examine Postivich’s sword.

The Sultan’s smooth hand ran over the blade, his fine white fingers settling momentarily into the grooves etched in battle.

“This is the sword of a true Ottoman warrior,” the Sultan had said. “Your feats as a corbaci of the elite Kapikulu are legend.”

“The Ottomans have made me what I am, my Sultan.”

The Sultan narrowed his eyes. He studied the giant who stood before him. This man was becoming a leader of other men. And any leader other than the Sultan was dangerous, especially when it came to the volatile and powerful janissaries.

“Yes. The Ottomans have made you who you are, janissary. And I will make you who you will yet be.”

Two days later, the Sultan’s private guard arrived to escort Postivich to the Sultan’s favorite sister’s palace, stripping the janissary of his command of his cavalry orta.

“This is your new post, Ahmed Kadir. You shall guard the honor and life of Esma Sultan. The Sultan fears for his sister’s—habits,” he said. “Already there have been insults shouted at her by a man at the Galata Bridge, a man whose head now mourns the loss of his body. A madman—a Bektashi Sufi.”

“I am a warrior—the corbaci of the cavalry orta—not a palace servant!” protested Postivich. “I was not trained as a palace Solak! I have my horses to attend to and I must train the new recruits in cirit and polo. I shall go insane if I spend hours groveling on the floor to please a princess’s fancy. Let me fight the Russians or send me to reclaim lands in the west from the Greeks!”

“You know what you ask is impossible. The Sultan himself has assigned you to the Princess’s guard.”

But even the Sultan did not understand the fierce competition for the Princess’s care and trust. The established guards had barely let Postivich enter the outer courtyards of the palace, growling that the Sultan’s sister was in their care and not a janissary’s concern.

The Sultan’s Grand Vizier—allied closely with the Aga of the Janissaries—came to check on Ahmed Kadir’s new post. He appeared murderously angry to see the giant standing guard outside the palace’s walls in the shade of lime tree.

“Have we pulled our best soldier from the battlefield to stand and match his shadow with that of fruit trees?” he bellowed. “Why do you stand on the streets, Kadir?”

“The choice is not mine, sir,” answered the janissary. “This is my assigned post.”

The Vizier ordered the Solak commanding officer to present himself at once, his curses sending the harem girls and servants scurrying through the corridors.

Within the hour, Ivan Postivich had been installed just outside the Royal Audience Chamber doors. The palace guards were forced to acknowledge that he was a member of their force, although he was not a Solak and did not belong to their orta. Even the Turkish guard, who hated all the Janissaries, was forced to accept Ahmed Kadir’s presence. The chief minister had assigned him a more respectable mission—to inspect every male visitor for weapons and to study their faces for signs of treason or murder.

But with time there was another duty for which he would become known—the Princess Esma Sultan’s personal murderer. Her drowning guard.

T
he first light played on the wet cobblestone streets of Constantinople, fresh and cool from the early morning washing by the Jewish street sweep. This was the cypress-lined road that led to the royal palaces and the Pashas’
yali
s on the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, the one fine stretch of street meant to impress ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries visiting the capital of the vast Ottoman Empire.

The rest of the byways of Constantinople were a maze of narrow winding passageways, hard-packed dirt that turned into mire with the seasonal rains. It was there in the tangle of alleys that the wild dogs slept in the daytime. The wood-shingled houses with their windows jutting over the streets provided shade for the pack who were desperate to escape the fierce Turkish heat. The mongrels whined and yelped for scraps and fought each other over the carcasses of dead horses or mules that died in the streets. No one carted away the dead animals, as everyone knew the dogs would pick clean the bones overnight, leaving the morning streets tidy with their scavenging.

Ivan Postivich approached the janissary barracks at Et Meydan from this tangle of ancient roads, just as the muezzin began the call to prayer. As he entered the gates, Postivich could see the morning fires of the soup cooks flickering. White peacocks screeched in the trees in the courtyards of the Mosque of the Conqueror, mocking the messenger in the minaret, who summoned Constantinople’s faithful to begin their day by worshipping Allah.

The winding road led into the dusty acres of Meat Square, where the military cooks toiled. Lingering in the air was the sweet metallic odor of bloody meat mingled with the stench of rotting offal, for Constantinople’s slaughterhouses were located beside the janissary soup kitchens.

Row upon row of huge bronze cauldrons glittered in the sun. Each pot was flagged by a greasy silk banner with the insignia of a particular orta—bears, scimitars, horsetails—flapping in the morning breeze. The soldiers ate communally from the huge kettles, as Janissaries had done for over three hundred years. It was here that Ottoman Sultans’ victories and deaths were decided, wars planned, and revolutions staged, contemplated democratically over the hot pilaf pots of the Janissaries.

La ilaha illa ’Llah

There is no god but GOD

As the call of the muezzin echoed, Postivich knelt down on the stones and prayed, tucking the long sleeve of his janissary cap behind him. Thousands of men were roused from their blankets and a sea of turbans faced southeast towards Mecca and the rising sun.

Postivich never thought of Mecca. Instead he thought that by facing the City of God he was able to keep his left ear towards his homeland in the north. It was then he would remember.

“Hide him, oh God, hide him. In the pantry, behind the apple basket.”

“He won’t fit, Mother. He’s too big!”

“Make him fit or you shall have no brother.”

His sister Irena hid him behind a woven reed basket and then pushed the door closed.

The reeds stuck into his skin as she shoved him in further, trying to make the wooden latch swing down and hold the door shut.

He stayed still, quiet and dumb with pain, his scratched limbs contorted and cramped.

“We have come to see all the Christian boys,” said the Ottoman-accented voice.

“They say the devshirme is no more, that the Sultan needs not gather the Christians. Why do you come to this house, janissary?”

“You have a son. One the Sultan must see.”

“Oh,” his mother laughed, straining to convince them. “If I had a son, I would have better fortune. I have only my daughter here to help me with so much work since my husband died.”