The Wanderer (34 page)

The cooks raised a great outcry and brandished their carving knifes, but as Andy still stood firm and massive as a block of granite, pointing first to his mouth and then to his belly, they came like wise men to the conclusion that they would most easily be rid of him by giving him the food he asked for.

We sat down to eat, and Andy so gorged himself that afterward he could hardly move. He made a few feeble attempts and then stretched himself on his back; I, exhausted by three days and nights of exposure, laid my head on his stomach and fell into the deepest sleep of my whole life.

I fancy I must have slept the clock round, for when aroused at last by a great need to make water, I had no idea where I was and thought I had been carried on board a rolling vessel. But on raising my head I found myself comfortably reclining in a litter borne by four horses. Beside me on a down cushion sat a youngish, thoughtful-looking man who, seeing me awake, laid aside the book he was studying and greeted me kindly, saying, “Guardian angels have watched over you and shielded you from evil. Have no fear, for you’re in good hands. I am Sinan the Builder, one of those in charge of the Sultan’s road makers. You’re appointed to be my interpreter in the Christian lands, which, if Allah so wills, we are to conquer.”

I noted that I had been dressed in new clothes, but having hurriedly assured myself that I still had my purse I could think of nothing but my immediate need, and said, “Let us leave all phrase making, O Sinan the Builder, and order your men to rein in the horses, lest I wet your valuable cushions.”

Sinan the Builder, who had been brought up in the Seraglio, was not at all offended. Raising the cover of a round hole in the floor he said, “In such matters slave and monarch are equal. May it remind us that on the Last Day the Compassionate will make no distinction between high and low.”

In other circumstances I might better have appreciated this tactful speech, but now I could not spare the time to listen. Having eased myself, however, I turned to him again to find him regarding me with a frown, and I begged him to forgive my unseemly conduct. He said, “I don’t complain of your conduct, but because of your great haste I had no time to turn away my head and so observed to my horror that you’re uncircumcised. Can you be a Christian spy?”

Dismayed at the result of my negligence I greeted him hurriedly in the name of the Compassionate, professed my faith in Allah the one God and in Mohammed his Prophet, and recited the first sura to prove myself a true believer. I added, “I have submitted to the will of Allah and taken the turban, but a strange destiny has tossed me hither and thither and allowed me neither time nor opportunity to undergo that unpleasant operation. I will gladly tell you my story and so convince you of my sincerity, but must beg you not to betray the omission to others, for it may be the will of Allah that I should serve the Sultan and the Grand Vizier as I am.”

He answered smiling, “We have a long journey before us, and I enjoy instructive stories, but your words are too glib to be true. However, if the Grand Vizier knows your secret I have no reason to mistrust you.”

Slightly more composed I replied, “The Grand Vizier knows me and all about me, though he must have more important things to think of than the circumcision of a slave.”

“I’m no bigot,” he rejoined, “and won’t conceal from you that I too have a secret sin; then neither of us need feel superior to the other.”

He brought out a beautifully painted little keg and filled two mugs, handing one to me. I gladly swallowed the wine, believing that the burden of my sin would not be gravely increased thereby. I had often broken this rule before, and many interpreters of the law were of the opinion that repetition of a sin was no aggravation—that on the Last Day a hardened toper would receive no worse punishment than he who drank for the first time, knowing it to be sinful. We preserved polite silence in that swaying litter, and in the shade of its awning enjoyed the glow that coursed through our veins and to our eyes enhanced the colors of the landscape. At length I said, “I feel no concern for the morrow. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof and everything that comes to pass is in accordance with the will of Allah. It’s from mere human curiosity that I now ask you whither we’re bound?”

Sinan the Builder answered readily, “We’re to cross the rivers of Serbia, my native land, and must hasten, for tomorrow the janissaries will march and after them the spahis, and for every day’s delay on the timetable my chief, the road makers’ pasha, must lose an inch of his beard. When his beard has gone, his head must follow. Therefore he is liberal with punishments among his subordinates. Pray that the sun may shine and the wind may dry the roads, for a single shower might shorten many men by a head.”

I now had nothing to complain of. We traveled in swift comfort by night and day, and at fixed stages along our route fresh horses were in readiness, and food, and relays of akindshas to guide us. When any hitch occurred, Sinan the Builder had the culprits flogged without mercy. I pitied these poor men and chided Sinan for his sternness, but he replied, “I myself am an unassuming man, but an important task has been assigned to me and it would be foolish to tire myself needlessly or go hungry. I must conserve all my strength for work which I alone among all these men can do. Our greatest obstacle will be the river Drava, which now lies straight ahead of us. Hitherto, whenever spring floods have swept away the bridges there, not the devil himself has been able to build new ones until late in the summer. Yet I must build one now.”

We did not make straight for our goal, however, but in obedience to orders brought by express messengers made one detour after another. Sinan the Builder marked the altered routes on his maps and sent his men ahead to mark the fords and throw booms across them as a measure of safety for those who lost their footing in the current. His courage was beyond question, for he never relied entirely on the scouts’ reports, but waded out into the icy water himself, staff in hand, to test the bottom and direct the placing of stones where it was soft. Several times the current swept him off his feet and he had to be hauled ashore by a lifeline.

On reaching the Sava River he sent his men in their thousands to the woods to fell trees, or to the riverside to saw planks; wherever he appeared order and discipline took the place of chaos. But once again the heavens opened and floodwaters scoured away his works as if they had been spiders’ webs. Rain fell in torrents from leaden skies, and when Sinan the Builder saw the river grow to a thundering cataract he calmed himself, sent his men to shelter, and ordered the slaughter of many sheep and heifers, saying, “Eat, drink, and rest until the rain stops, for nothing happens contrary to the will of Allah and the Sultan can hardly be in a greater hurry than the Merciful and Compassionate. Though the delay should cost me my head, I rejoice, for that head aches with figures and plans, and I cannot sleep at night for thinking of the bridge I must throw across the river Drava when we reach it.”

Sinan the resolute, who had spared neither himself nor his men, now burst into tears of exhaustion. I put him to bed in the ferryman’s hut and gave him hot wine to drink, so that he slept at last. In his sleep he babbled of a great mosque that he would build, whose like the world had never seen.
 

For five days the rain came down in sheets, and with my friend Sinan I suffered all the agonies of delay, pacing back and forth over the floor of the little hut. At any
moment
the army might march up to the riverbank, when the Grand Vizier would have our heads cut off and thrown into the river. Yet my fears were groundless, for not even Khosref, the road makers’ pasha, appeared. At last a soaked and mud- bespattered messenger reached us through the downpour to report that the whole army was fast in a bog and that the Sultan had called a halt until the rain stopped. The messenger was so exhausted that he had thrown away his ax. His bell was choked with mud and he lacked strength even to sprinkle perfume from his flask, but sank to the ground proclaiming that Allah was one and indivisible and Mohammed was his Prophet. Blood then poured from his mouth, for he had run for many days
and nights through drenching rain and along slippery bypaths, and his strength was at an end, although under normal conditions these runners could cover the distance between Istanbul and Adrianople in a single day.
 

Suleiman and Ibrahim submitted to the will of Allah and no one was punished for the delay caused by the rain. As the army marched slowly onward, many perished in the swollen rivers despite all precautions. Numberless pack camels, having had enough of the miry roads, closed their eyes and nostrils and sank down beneath their load, never to rise again.

The summer was already far advanced, bright poppies flowered on the plains of Hungary, and I had had more than my fill of the willow thickets and bogs of our route, when at last at the head of the army we reached the banks of the still flooded Drava, by the town of Esseki. The Turkish garrison had long since given up hope of crossing it and had paid for their feeble efforts at bridge building with scores of drowned men, for the current tore away the mightiest timbers as if they were straws.

In the town of Esseki we met at last our great chief, Khosref-pasha. He stroked his beard and surveyed the swirling Drava thoughtfully. At length he said in submissive tones, “Allah is great. Allah is the one God and Mohammed is his Prophet, peace be with him. The Sultan can scarcely demand the impossible of me, since I married his cousin and am thus related to him by blood. But Ibrahim, Grand Vizier and Seraskier, is a ruthless man. I must therefore bid farewell to my gray beard. You, my dear children and sturdy builders, would be wise to make your peace with Allah.”

His men had formerly accompanied Selim the implacable on his many campaigns; they had built bridges over numberless rivers from Hungary to Egypt and by means of skillful sapping had reduced many fortified cities, including Belgrade and Rhodes. But even these veterans began weeping and tearing their beards as they cursed the Drava, the treacherous land of Hungary, King Ferdinand, and especially his brother, the Emperor of the unbelievers. But Sinan, having silently waited until the eldest among them had said their say, stepped forward and began, “Why, think you, did I cause thousands of camels and oxen to drag huge balks of timber from the hillsides of five countries to the banks of the Drava? Why have I sent the best smiths and carpenters to this miserable hole Esseki, on forced marches along unspeakable roads? As long ago as last winter detailed information was sent me at the Seraglio about the breadth of the Drava, the nature of its banks, and the strength of its current. Night and day I’ve wrestled with figures, that I might build a mighty bridge across this river. Shall all this have been in vain? No! I will not throw away my rule, compasses, and tables without at least attempting the great task.”

The master builders, who had a lifetime’s experience behind them, looked pityingly at the younger man and said, “Who is this Sinan, who gained his knowledge sitting on silken cushions in the Seraglio? The profoundest wisdom consists in submission to the will of Allah, and surely in this matter Allah has made his meaning plain.”

Sinan glanced at the broad river, at the timbers stacked on the bank, and at the rafts already built. Then falling on his knees he kissed the ground before Khosref-pasha and said, “I’m young, but I’ve listened to the wisdom of the foremost bridge builders of our time. I have read the works of the Greek strategists and studied the description of the bridge that Iskender the Great threw across the river Indus. Give me your hammer, noble Khosref-pasha, and in the sight of all raise me to the rank of your son. Then, despite all obstacles, I will bridge the Drava. Ride meanwhile to the Sultan and beg him for three days’ grace. He will need those three days himself to rest his troops. But I must ask for the help of all the thirty thousand janissaries.”

Khosref-pasha shook his head and for a long time he demurred. Yet there was something so persuasive in Sinan the Builder’s assurance that at length he gave in.

“Well, I will be a father to you,” he assented, “and share your disgrace if you fail. But I mean to share the honor also, if by the help of Allah and his angels you achieve the impossible. Take my hammer—and let all of you, my sons, obey young Sinan!”

He handed his jeweled and gold-hafted hammer to Sinan, laid a hand upon his shoulder and declared in the presence of many witnesses, “You are flesh of my flesh, my son Sinan the Builder.”

He then rapidly recited the first sura in confirmation, sent for his horse, and set forth with his suite to meet the Sultan.

I hardly know how to account for Sinan’s bold behavior unless it was that having been born in this region he knew the ways of Serbian rivers, or perhaps had reason to believe that the rainy spell was now at an end. Be that as it may, by next day the level of the water had fallen and Sinan sent thousands of men into the river to sink caissons and fill them with rocks, and to drive massive piles into the river bed at points carefully calculated and marked in his plans.

Each end of the bridge was strengthened by sturdy abutments to withstand any further floods, and work did not cease even at nightfall. Swarms of naked men waded through the dark waters by the light of torches and flares. Above the rushing of the torrent, the din of hammering and sawing could be heard in Esseki itself. Sinan the Builder took further advantage of his new authority by promising unheard-of sums to every man who hastened the work, and ordered the Marabouts to proclaim that all who drowned or were crushed by falling timbers or in any other way lost their lives should win direct to Paradise exactly as if they had fallen in battle against idolatrous unbelievers. Even the janissaries caught something of his dauntless energy, for unlike the experienced engineers they could form no clear idea of the magnitude of the task.

Sinan could not indeed complete the bridge by the third day, when the Sultan and Grand Vizier arrived with the main army, but he explained ingeniously that the three days he asked for were to be reckoned from the time the Sultan reached the banks of the Drava. And when the Sultan saw that despite seemingly insuperable difficulties the work was really going forward, he did not question this new interpretation. He and the Grand Vizier, plainly dressed and with pointed helmets on their heads, made their way to the scene of operations attended by a few green-clad
tsaushes.
In this way they could judge for themselves which men worked hardest and behaved most creditably in moments of danger. And although Khosref-pasha, who now began to suspect that Sinan might succeed, hastened to sit in the younger man’s tent, study his plans, and issue orders right and left as if he were the true leader of the enterprise, the Sultan was not deceived. It was Sinan alone whom he watched, with an expressionless face, though never once during the work did he speak to him.