The Janissary Tree (37 page)

"No,"
Yashim agreed quietly. "But nevertheless--"

The
seraskier raised a hand to stop him. "Don't think I misunderstand you. And yes,
I think something could be done. But the decision would not lie with me. Only
the sultan can order troops out of barracks. Troops under arms, I mean. You
think he can make this decision so fast?"

"He
did ten years ago."

The
seraskier grunted. "Ten years," he echoed. "Ten years ago the people were
united with the sultans will. The Janissary menace had overwhelmed us all. But
todays--what do we know? You think Stambouliots will welcome my men with open
arms?

"There
is another thing I hesitate to point out. What happened ten years ago was not
the work of a day. It took months, you could say years to prepare for victory
over the Janissary rabble. We have twenty-four hours. And the sultan is--older. His
health is not so good."

He
drinks, you mean, Yashim thought. M. Le Moine, the Belgian wine merchant in
Pera, notoriously fortified the sultan's wines with brandy. And what about the
discovery only last year of a mountain of long-necked bottles in the woods
close to where the sultan liked to take his family for picnics?

"There
will be a Janissary insurrection," said Yashim flatly. "I think it will take
the form of a fire, or many fires, I don't know. Either sooner or later the
sultan will have to order out the Guards, to keep order and deal with the
conflagration, and I for one would prefer it was sooner." He stepped away from
the window and turned to face the seraskier.

"If
you won't, even I will try to talk to the sultan," he said.

"You."
It wasn't a question. Yashim could see the seraskier weighing the situation. He
stood with his back to the light, his hands clasped behind his back. The
silence deepened.

"We
will go together, you and I," the seraskier announced at last. "But you, Yashim
efendi, will make it clear to the sultan that this was your suggestion, not
mine."

Yashim
stared at him coldly. One day, he thought, he would come across a man in the
sultan's service who would stand up and stand out for his beliefs. But not
today.

"I
will take responsibility," he said quietly.

I'm
only a eunuch, after all.

108

***********

THEIR
footsteps echoed off the high walls of the Seraglio as they walked across the
First Court. Usually on a Friday the place would have been busy, but a
combination of gray skies and the suppressed tension hanging in the air had
left the great court all but deserted. Ceremonial guardsmen stood at attention
around the perimeter walls, as silent and immobile as the Janissary guards
whose stillness had once struck chill into the hearts of foreign envoys. Yashim
wondered if the New Guards were not, in their own way, more sinister: like
German clockwork dolls rather than real men. At least the Janissaries had
possessed their own swaggering panache, as his friend Palewski had pointed out.

His
fingers closed on a scrap of paper tucked beneath his belt. Coming across the
Hippodrome, he had swerved on an impulse from the bronze serpent and cut across
the dirt to the Janissary Tree, knowing what he would find: the same mystic
verses that had been puzzling him all week.

They
had been pinned to the peeling bark. This was how the Greeks advertised their
dead, Yashim thought, with a piece of paper nailed to a post or tree. He had
pulled down the paper and studied it again.

Unknowing

And
knowing nothing of unknowing,

They
sleep.

Wake them.

A
fire in the night, Yashim thought. A call to arms. But what did this mean?

Knowing,

And
knowing unknowing,

The
silent few become one with the Core.

Approach.

He
folded the paper and tucked it into his belt.

109

***********

The
sultan kept them waiting for an hour, and when he met them it was not in the
private apartments, as Yashim had expected, but in the Throne Room, a room that
Yashim had seen only once, fifteen years before.

He
had not seen the sultan, either, for several years. Mahmut's beard, which had
been jet-black, was red with henna, and the keen dark eyes had turned watery,
sunk beneath folds of fat. His mouth seemed to have drooped into a pout of
permanent disappointment as if, having tasted everything that money could buy
in the world, he had found it all to be sour. He waved them in with a chubby
hand, larded with rings, but made no effort to rise from the throne.

The
room itself was as Yashim remembered it, a jewel box of the coolest blues,
tiled from the floor to the apex of the dome in exquisite Iznikware, a frozen
dream of a garden that twined and dripped and hung festooned around the walls.

Yashim
and the seraskier entered stooping at the waist, and after they had advanced
five paces they prostrated themselves on the ground.

"Get
up, get up," snapped the sultan testily. "About time," he added, pointing at
Yashim.

The
seraskier frowned. "Your Imperial Majesty," he began. "A situation has arisen
in the city which we believe--Yashim efendi and myself--to be of the gravest
potential consequence to the well-being and security of the people."

"What
are you talking about? Yashim?"

Yashim
bowed and started to explain. He spoke of the edict and the murder of the
cadets. He described a prophecy uttered centuries ago by the founder of the
Karagozi order of dervishes--and caught the sultan's warning frown.

"Be
careful,
lala.
Be very careful of the words you choose. There are some
things one cannot speak about."

Yashim
eyed him levelly. "Then I don't think it will be necessary, Sul-tan.

There
was a silence.

"No,"
Mahmut replied. "I have understood. Both of you, approach the throne. We don't
want to shout."

Yashim
hesitated. The sultan's words had reminded him of the last lines in the verse:
The
silent few become one with the Core. Approach.
What could it mean? He took
a step closer to the sultan. The seraskier stood stiffly beside him.

"What
do you say, Seraskier?"

"There
may be upward of fifty thousand men preparing to take to the streets."

"And
Istanbul could be burned to the ground, is that it? I see. Well, we must do
something about that. What do you have in mind?"

"I
believe, sire, you must let the New Guards occupy the city temporarily," Yashim
explained. "The seraskier is reluctant, but I can't see a better way of
guaranteeing public safety."

The
sultan frowned and tugged his beard. "Seraskier, you know the temper of your
men. Are they ready to take such a step?"

"Their
discipline is good, Sultan. And they have several commanders who are
level-headed and decisive. With your permission, they could take up positions
overnight. Their presence alone might overawe the conspirators.

Yashim
noticed that the seraskier sounded less hesitant now.

"All
the same," the sultan observed, "it could become a battle in the streets."

"There
is that risk. In those circumstances we would simply have to do our best. Identify
the ringleaders, limit the damage. Above all, Sultan, protect the palace."

"Hmm.
As it happens, Seraskier, I hadn't been planning to remain in the city."

"With
respect, Sultan. Your safety can be guaranteed, and I think that your presence
will help to reassure the people."

The
sultan answered with a sigh.

"I
am not afraid, Seraskier." He rubbed his hands across his face. "Get the men
ready. I will consult with my viziers. You can expect an order within the next
few hours."

He
turned to Yashim.

"As
for you, it is high time you made progress in our inquiry. Be so good as to
report to my apartments."

He
dismissed them with a gesture. Both men bowed deeply and walked backward to the
door. As it closed on the audience room, Yashim looked up to see the sultan
sitting on his throne, his fist bunched against his cheek, watching them.

110

***********

OUTSIDE
the door the seraskier stopped to mop his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Our
inquiry? You should have told me that you were working on a case in here," he
muttered reproachfully.

"You
didn't ask. Anyway, as you heard, I gave yours priority." The seraskier
grunted. "May I ask what the inquiry concerns?"

The
seraskier was too brusque. On the parade ground it would do, perhaps: soldiers
promised their unwavering obedience. But Yashim wasn't a soldier.

"It
wouldn't interest you," Yashim said.

The
seraskier's lips drew tight.

"Perhaps
not." He stared Yashim in the face. "I suggest, then, you do as the sultan
said. As I will."

He
watched the seraskier stepping briskly toward the Ortakapi, the central gate
leading to the First Court. It wasn't a position he'd enjoy to be in himself. On
the other hand, if the seraskier handled it well, both he and the Guard would
emerge with honor. It was an opportunity to restore the reputation of the
Guards, somewhat tarnished by their failures on the battlefield.

And
a duty, too. Not just to the sultan, but to the people of Istanbul. Without the
Guards, the whole city was in danger from the Janissary rebels.

There
was no doubt in Yashim's mind that the fourth murder had completed a stage,
established the preliminaries. The old altars had been reconsecrated, in blood.
The second stage was under way, Yashim felt sure of that.

Wake them. Approach.

What
did it mean?

Within
the next seventy-two hours, he sensed, they would all find out.

He
saw the seraskier disappear into the shadow of the Ortakapi. Then he turned and
headed for the harem apartments.

111

***********

"HELLO,
stranger!"

It
was almost a whisper. Ibou the librarian doubled up his long arm and waggled
the fingers in greeting.

Yashim
grinned and raised a hand.

"Off
to work?" he asked in a low tone. By long-established custom, no one ever
raised his voice in the Second Court of the palace.

Ibou
cocked his head. "I've just finished, actually. I was going to get something to
eat."

Yashim
thought he sensed an invitation.

"Well,
I wish I could come with you," he said. And then: "You've come out of the wrong
door."

Ibou
gave him a solemn look, then turned his head. "It looks all right to me."

"No,
I mean from the archives. I--I didn't know you could get through on this side." Yashim
felt himself blushing. "It doesn't matter. Thanks for your help the other
night."

"I
only wish I could have done more, efendi," Ibou replied. "You can come and see
me again, if you like. I'm on nights for the rest of this week."

He
salaamed, and Yashim salaamed back.

Yashim
went into the harem by the Gate of the Aviary. He could never pass this gate
without thinking of the valide Kosem, who two centuries before was dragged here
from the apartments naked by the heels and strangled in the corridor. That had
been the finale to fifty terrifying years in which the empire was ruled by a
succession of madmen, drunkards, and debauchees--including Kosem's own son
Ibrahim, who had his rooms papered and carpeted in Russian furs, and rode his
girls like mares... until the executioner came for him with the bowstring.

Dangerous
territory, the harem.

He
stepped into the guard room. Six halberdiers were on duty, standing in pairs
beside the doors that led to the Court of the Valide Sultan and the Golden
Road, a tiny, open alleyway that linked the harem to the selamlik, the men's
living quarters. The halberdiers were unarmed, except for the short daggers
they wore stuffed into the sash of their baggy trousers; they carried halberds
only on protective duty, as when on rare occasions they escorted the sultan's
women out of the palace. In the meantime they had a single distinguishing
characteristic: the long black tresses that hung from the crown of their high
hats as a token that they had been passed for entry into the harem. Yashim
remembered a Frenchman laughing when the function of the hair was explained to
him.

"You
think a mane of hair will stop a man from seeing the sultan's women? In
France," he had said, "it is the women who have long hair. Is it so that they cannot
steal glances at a handsome man?"

And
Yashim had replied, rather stiffly, that the halberdiers of the tresses went
into only the more public areas of the harem, to bring in the wood.