The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (42 page)

I heard the Aga telling my mentor, Ahmed Pasha, that the boy had been trained to please. If so, his teachers should be well satisfied with their work. But how well, I wonder, will his African blood survive the rigors of Armenia and Azerbaijan? I suppose they can keep him swaddled in furs, like a little Russian prince. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind a bit of swaddling myself. Just joking, Papa. You have sent me off well prepared with my store of woolen socks and my sheepskin vest, for which I have already begun to thank you as we travel into northern parts.

Gratefully,

D.

40

TABRIZ

From: Danilo del Medigo at Tabriz

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: September 28, 1534

Dear Papa:

What a revelation is the east! We haven’t even reached Persia yet, but already, here in Tabriz, our eyes and ears and nose tell us at every turn that Azerbaijan is not in Europe.

Lucky for us, the Persian king did not have time to carry off his treasure when he fled in such a hurry. Believe it or not, he left us his entire treasury. There it stands in an unlocked room, guarded for safekeeping by our Janissaries who, in a wonderful twist of fate, will shortly be paid their quarterly wages out of the very hoard they are duty bound to conserve.

It appears that when he conquered Tahmasp’s capital, the Grand Vizier brought the Sultan not only a military coup but also a vast fortune. And if you add this cache to the wealth already piled up by the Ottoman conquests in Egypt and Europe — remembering also that Sultan Suleiman did not exactly begin his reign as a pauper — this acquisition must make him at the very least the second-richest man in the world. The first, I believe, remains the Persian monarch, who, to hear tell, still has vast riches hidden in the eastern reaches of his kingdom. And we of the Sultan’s entourage are housed here in what was his palace.

You should see the Shah’s bedroom, Papa. The floor and sofas are swathed in silk and gold Persian carpets. Not an inch of common wool. The bed, which stands not on wooden supports but on columns of fluted gold, is guarded by giant crystal lions, each with huge emeralds for eyes.

I do not command the skill to describe the overhead lantern, its hundreds of drops of silver inlaid with gold, encrusted with turquoise, and dripping with rubies and diamonds. Nor can words convey the impression of the
Divan-khane
, where the Shah granted audiences. That chamber is domed in scarlet cloth with foliage cut out of it, each leaf bordered in colored silk ribbons. The delicacy of the appliqué work is even more impressive than the richness of the fabric. Every room of this palace is exactly as Shah Tahmasp left it, down to the hand-washing basins with ewers cast in solid gold.

Standing at the entrance, I was reminded of what Alexander saw when he entered the tent that the then Persian king, Darius, had abandoned to him at Issus: the solid gold throne tossed over in the rush to escape, the carpets thrown about like so many rags, and gold everywhere — gold vessels, gold trays, gold implements.

Into this waste of extravagance walks the victor, Alexander the Great, twenty-five years old and bred in the austerity of Macedonia. There he stands gazing about him at the evidence of the everyday life of the great Persian ruler he has just driven from the field. At first, he is speechless. Finally, he speaks.

“So this is what it is like to be a great king,” he says. No question, these Ottomans have lessons in majesty to learn from the Persian kings.

Of course, unlike those of us in the Sultan’s retinue, the rank and file of our army cannot be accommodated in such luxury. The troops are settled in a camp of tents that has been erected at the edge of the city. Not, you will note, outside the walls. Like Venice, the city of Tabriz has no fortifications. And, perhaps for that reason, it has never been sacked. Ask any citizen and he will tell you without shame that back in 1392, when Tamerlane came rampaging across Persia, reducing the surrounding fields to ash and the towns to ruin, the people of Tabriz immediately hoisted a white flag of surrender and sent out a party of officials to bow down to him and bury their faces in the dirt at his feet. It would appear that not much has changed in Tabriz in 150 years.

Still, although there was no armed resistance this time, I sense an air of unease in this palace. Whatever the Grand Vizier has done to subdue the populace, he has done it in such a way as to set up an undercurrent of resentment that one can detect in the narrowing of an eye or the curl of a lip. And it goes without saying that if there is insurgency brewing in Tabriz, the Sultan must deal with it before he can move on into Iraq.

Understandably, the Sultan no longer has time for leisurely nightly reading. So the Grand Vizier’s equerry informs me. Perhaps there is a different reason why my evening presence is no longer requested.

On the night of our arrival in Tabriz I came to the Sultan’s tent and seated myself in the anteroom of his sleeping room as I always do. It is the most quiet and serene place in the entire encampment, a place where I can preview my evening’s reading without distractions. Well, tonight, as I reached over to turn up the oil lamp, my sleeve caught on the edge of the chimney, knocking it over, dousing me and my beautiful caftan, and spewing shattered glass all around; and the worst gaff of all, breaking the silence. I was so occupied with trying to sop up the oil from my caftan that I hardly noticed the figure that came out of the Sultan’s chamber holding a bottle of wine and now stood before me, glowering.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” His Greek accent was unmistakable.

Before I could gather my wits to respond, a pair of powerful hands took me by the shoulders, pulled me up to face him, and demanded, “Who let you in?”

“I am the Sultan’s Assistant Foreign Language Interpreter, sir,” I managed to stammer.

“Did Ahmed send you?”

“No, sir, I come by after the last prayer every evening . . . at the Sultan’s request.”

At the very mention of the word “Sultan,” I felt the great hands loosen their grip on my shoulders.

“Well, the Sultan will not be needing your services tonight. So you can gather up your possessions and scat,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “And be quick about it. You certainly can’t appear before the Padishah in that condition. Your caftan is soaked.”

How I looked was the last thing on my mind, but he was right. The Sultan is particular about the deportment of his pages, and my beautiful caftan was badly stained and drenched in oil. No argument there.

So I bundled up my papers and headed for the corridor, his voice following me as I walked. “Strong vinegar is an excellent remedy for grease stains. Pity to ruin the cloak. It is a beautiful garment. How came you by it?”

“It was a gift from the Sultan, sir,” I replied.

“I see.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully and then walked closer to me. “Hold your head up. Have I seen you before?” He favored me with a glance that made me feel he could see into my very soul. “Yes! It was you who performed in the hippodrome with the
gerit
team.”

I nodded my assent.

“So you are what we would call a double hitter, not only a foreign language translator but a master of the
gerit
as well.” Then, in an abrupt change of tone, “None of which entitles you to come skulking around the Sultan’s tent, understand?”

If I did not understand his words, there was no mistaking his tone.

“Just make certain that you are never again caught prowling around the Sultan’s private quarters.”

Then he turned abruptly and walked back toward the Sultan’s sleeping room. As he pushed the curtains aside I caught a glimpse of a low table set with two tall crystal wine glasses and a bubble pipe attached to an
argulah
. It was the first time I had seen evidence that the Padishah drank wine. Normally, he is respectful of the Muslim prohibition against alcohol.

Later, in my chamber, I heard issuing from the corridor the sound of two voices singing some tavern ditty in unison, with great gusto, at a quicker and quicker pace until the notes began to trip over each other, the voices finally dissolving into peals of laughter. It was the first time I had heard the Sultan laugh out loud.

The next morning, I was advised by Selim, a page who takes great pride in having been given the name of the Sultan’s father, Selim the Grim, when he was circumcised into Islam, that the Grand Vizier had slept in the Sultan’s bed until morning. Since then I am no longer invited to spend my evenings reading in the royal tent. And Selim no longer teases me about being the Sultan’s Persian boy.

Of course, I am relieved to be spared the teasing. Still, the thought lurked in my mind. And I would be less than honest if I were to deny that it did not entirely discomfit me to contemplate becoming the Sultan’s favorite. The privilege that comes with it! The preferment! The riches (yes, the riches)! The opportunities! The Sultan’s boon companion, Ibrahim, has risen to the rank of Grand Vizier. He owns palaces. He commands armies. He does not have to beg for the chance to fight. Whereas I am neither a warrior nor a scholar — just a barnacle on the great ship of state.

But I hold onto the hope that perhaps, during the visit of the French delegation about to descend on us, I can still be of some use to my superior, the Chief Foreign Interpreter, Ahmed Pasha. The French visit is a highly secret mission that seems to be known to everyone in the world except, it is hoped, the Holy Roman emperor (who we in the Sultan’s service refer to as the King of Spain). Perhaps the knowledge of French that I acquired at my mother’s knee will be of use. It seems you have raised me to prefer usefulness to idleness, Papa. And I do still long for the feel of the
gerit
under my hand.

Good night,

D.

From: His Special Envoy, Jean de la Foret at Tabriz

To: H.M. Francis the First, King of France at Blois

Date: September 29, 1534

Majesty:

It gives me great pleasure to report that, after a long and taxing journey, we have caught up with the Sultan, who has established himself in Tabriz in the palace formerly occupied by the king of Persia. Sadly, the cloak of invisibility in which we have taken great pains to envelop this mission has been compromised in spite of our best efforts at discretion. And by none other than the Sultan himself.

Since the moment of our arrival, he has treated us publicly with the full honors owing to ambassadors — quite beyond the limits of a trade mission. We are housed within the royal palace rather than at one of those travelers’ hostels called
caravanserai
of which this country is so proud,
.
Most telling, our horses are bedded alongside the Sultan’s own in the royal stables. This is a gesture of supreme regard on the part of the Ottomans. Also, in our initial audience, the Sultan spoke of your Majesty as his kinsman and expressed his wish to be regarded as your brother-in-arms. This augurs well for the success of our mission. The Ottomans are by no means always so hospitable to foreign emissaries. Ask the Venetians!

By a stroke of luck, we arrived at Tabriz just in time for the quarterly distribution of the army’s wages, a day of good spirits for all, especially, I would think, for the Sultan, who is able to pay out this huge sum of gold from the treasury that Tahmasp left behind. Of course, we are all aware that it is the custom in these parts for the ruler to haul his entire treasury around with him on campaign. This practice astonished the Greeks in Alexander’s time, and it is still an awesome sight to see thousands of men lined up in the field to receive a purse containing their earnings for the past quarter and to see each walk away jingling a pocketful of gold coins delivered three months to the day from the last payday — no matter what part of the world in which he is serving. On campaign, these Ottoman troops also receive twelve
akce
for clothing and incidentals, plus thirty
akce
for weapons with an additional allowance for ammunition.

Did I mention that the Sultan himself lines up with his Janissary troops to receive his pay as an officer in the Janissary corps? To the European eye, such a flamboyant display of chests of coins being dispensed from the very hand of the sovereign is like a scene from
The Thousand and One Nights
. But in the east it is just one of many such public gestures that serve to entrench the Ottomans so deeply in the hearts of their troops and subjects.