The Wanderer (58 page)

“Allah is Allah!” I exclaimed. “Is this not the body of Defterdar Iskender
-tseleb?
How comes it that this man—the richest, noblest, and most learned in the Ottoman Empire—hangs on this gallows like the meanest malefactor? Could he not at least have been given the green silken noose, so that in the name of the Compassionate he might have taken his own life in the privacy of his room?”
 

Some of the high court officials who had journeyed with me in obedience to Ibrahim’s summons hid their faces, turned their horses, and rode back to the gates, determined to leave the city without delay. The janissaries guarding the gibbet said fiercely, “It is all the fault of the accursed Grand Vizier. The Sultan is innocent, and we never begged this honor. Who can doubt now that Ibrahim is plotting against the Ottoman Empire? The mufti proclaimed a
jatwa
entitling us to plunder these heretics of their possessions and to sell them into slavery. But Seraskier Ibrahim, that winebibber and blasphemer, denies us our right to pillage. We should like to know how much the merchants have paid him for that. Wages cannot compensate for this injustice and serve only to show that Grand Vizier Ibrahim is suffering from a tender conscience.”
 

One could sympathize with the janissaries if their tale was true.
IskcnAcr-tseleb’s
wealth, piety, and pure Turkish origins had won him great regard throughout the Ottoman Empire, so that indeed it can have been no pleasure to stand sentinel over his dangling corpse. I rode on, oppressed by dark forebodings. At the palace chosen by the Grand Vizier for his headquarters I was received with the greatest suspicion; my clothes were repeatedly searched by the guards, who even ripped up the seams of my kaftan in search of poison and hidden weapons. From this I realized the state of terror prevailing in Bagdad. When at length I was led by the elbow into the presence of the Grand Vizier, I found him too greatly agitated to keep still. He was pacing up and down the marble room, his handsome features were puffy and his eyes bloodshot with strain and lack of sleep. His usually well-kept nails were bitten, and he paused often to take a draught of spiced wine. At the sight of me he forgot all his dignity and hurried forward to embrace me. He dismissed the guards and cried, “At last I behold one known and trusted face among the traitors! Blessed be your coming, Michael el-Hakim, for never did I stand in such need of a clearsighted, impartial friend.”
 

As coolly and dispassionately as he could he gave me a brief account of the progress of the campaign since the departure from Aleppo, and as I thought the matter over I saw that Ibrahim was in possession of so many proofs of Iskender
-tseleb’s
treachery as to leave no room for doubt. Against the Seraskier’s will, Iskender had been appointed kehaya, or steward, of the army and, blinded by his hatred of the Grand Vizier, he had acted throughout the campaign against the best interests of the troops. Not until the outset of the terrible winter march from Tabriz to Bagdad was Ibrahim able to persuade the Sultan to dismiss the Defterdar from his post as kehaya, and then it was too late, for when snow set in and floods came and roads were transformed into bottomless swamps, the wretched state of the supplies and equipment was revealed, as also the confusion and disorder brought about by secret agents. The Grand Vizier did not hesitate to cast the blame on Iskender
-tseleb
both for the ruinous condition of the baggage wagons and for the lack of forage, as a result of which the draft animals dropped from exhaustion. The Kehaya’s reconnaissance and route planning had been most imperfect; indeed, he seemed to have chosen the worst roads in order to undermine the morale of the troops and to incite them to revolt against the Seraskier.
 

“Vanity led me to follow his deceitful counsels and march on Tabriz without waiting for the Sultan to join me, for it would have been a triumph if I could have defeated the Shah unaided,” said Ibrahim candidly. “All too late I realized that Iskender’s encouragement was born of his secret wish to destroy me and discredit me in the eyes of my lord and sovereign. I now have proof that the Defterdar was in secret communication with the Persians throughout the whole march and gave them all needful information as to our routes and objectives, so that they were able to withdraw in time and avoid a pitched battle. If that is not treachery, tell me what is! In the end it was either his head or mine. Yet since his execution I’ve been oppressed by a feeling of impotence. I feel caught in a net. My head is at stake, and there is no one whom I can trust.”

As we sat drinking wine together, agitated servants in gilded helmets hurried in to tell us that the Sultan had woken from his midday rest and seemed out of his mind. He was screaming and tearing at his breast and no one could quiet him. Together Ibrahim and I raced to the Sultan’s bedchamber, where we found him standing in the middle of the floor staring into space. His face was wet with sweat, and he trembled all over. The sight of the Grand Vizier seemed to bring him to himself; he wiped his face and dismissed all anxious questions with the words, “I had a bad dream.”

His nightmare had been so terrible that he refused to speak of it, and the Grand Vizier proposed that they should visit the baths together. Because of their many cares and anxieties they had both drunk too much and so become a prey to nightmares and even waking illusions. But the Sultan was plunged in his own thoughts; his eyes were lowered and he would not look the Grand Vizier in the face.

The execution of Iskender-£re/e£, which had caused such an uproar in Bagdad, nevertheless cleared the air and made plain to everyone who was master. One of its results was to bring about a shuffle of appointments by which some found themselves a rung higher in the hierarchy. These had every reason to feel grateful to the Grand Vizier. Moreover the newly conquered provinces in Persia offered new and profitable posts. By means of these and other measures superficial order was restored, and there were even cheers to be heard when the Sultan and the Grand Vizier together rode to the mosque or to the holy tombs in the neighborhood of the city.

In the course of these devotional exercises the Sultan was always greatly saddened by the fact that Shiites had long since destroyed the tomb of the founder of Sunna, the wise Abu-Hanif, and in their heretic frenzy had even burned his holy bones, so that no orthodox Sun- nite had since then been able to pay homage to the greatest saint of the true path.

Though discontent in the army was temporarily allayed, the Grand Vizier thought with some uneasiness of the coming spring and the renewed campaigns against Persia. He engaged a learned historian to chronicle the course of events, and having thus ensured a fair and impartial record he questioned the learned man as to previous campaigns, constantly reverting to the story of Eiup, the Prophet’s stand- ard-bearer, and demanding to know every detail of his life. Eiup had died a hero’s death before the impregnable walls of Constantinople, and hundreds of years later his sacred bones were mysteriously found in the forgotten grave—a discovery that fired the janissaries of Muhammed the Conqueror at the final victorious assault on Constantinople. There was a strange light in Ibrahim’s eyes as he said to me, “Such another find would be very welcome just now, to inspire the troops with courage and enthusiasm. Yet I fear the days of miracles are past.”

I am resolved to express no opinion about what followed. According to a secret tradition handed down among the descendants of one of the guards of Abu-Hanif’s tomb, this guard rejected the Shiite heresy, rescued the saint’s remains, and buried them elsewhere, replacing them by those of a heretic. These false bones had afterward been burned, but the sacred relics of the great teacher were in safekeeping somewhere within the walls of Bagdad.

This story was told, for a consideration, to one of the Sultan’s attendants by a direct descendant of the watchman. The attendant related it to the Grand Vizier, who commanded a certain devout and learned man named Tashkun to seek out the resting place of the bones.
 

After much research and diligent peering among the ruins, Tashkun ordered his men to dig up the floor of a certain dilapidated house. An ancient vault was revealed, through one of whose walls came a heavenly fragrance of musk. Hearing of this discovery, the Grand Vizier at once hastened to the spot and with his own hands pulled away a few stones, leaving a gap large enough to crawl through. Thus the resting place of the great Imam was discovered and its sanctity vouched for by the mysterious fragrance. An express messenger was sent to the Sultan, who came in haste and descended into the tomb. The army could now see for themselves that by the grace of Allah, Ibrahim and Suleiman had rediscovered the long-lost but miraculously preserved remains. The Sultan spent nearly a day and a night at the tomb in prayer and fasting, and his fervor infected the troops; even the dullest could see that Abu-Hanif hoped for the uprooting of the Shiite heresy, so that the path of Sunna, which he had founded, might take the place of honor in every country of Islam.

I naturally visited the tomb myself and saw the yellow-brown skull and
the skeleton in its rotting shroud, and I was able to satisfy myself that these remains gave out the same scent that I remembered from my boyhood when, as a reward for scholarship, I was allowed to help at the enshrining of holy Hemming’s bones in Abo cathedral. Nevertheless this strange and timely discovery caused me some distress of mind, and at a convenient moment I inquired of the Grand Vizier how it had come about. He was far from being a devout man. Was it deliberate deception, I asked him, or some diabolical illusion?
 

Grand Vizier Ibrahim looked upon me with shining eyes, and his whole being seemed purified by his prayer and fasting as in a firm and convincing tone he replied, “Believe me or not, Michael, the discovery of those bones was the greatest surprise of my life. I had planned to deceive and with the help of my most faithful dervishes I buried some bones of suitable holiness for pious, credulous old Tashkun to find. No doubt they lie hidden to this day. I was far more amazed than Tashkun when thanks
to his
drearns and other visions he actually found Abu-Hanif’s tomb. Surely if such things can befall me, the star of my fortune cannot fail to reach the zenith.”
 

But the suspicions of the Seraglio had poisoned my mind, and his words did not convince me.

The discovery of Abu-Hanif’s holy bones eclipsed all unpleasant or troublesome memories, and the army spent the remainder of the winter in feasting and merrymaking. With the coming of spring the Grand Vizier grew more serene. His despair melted away and gave place to an exhilarated, joyful mood. Nothing seemed impossible, and the whole world witnessed his triumphs. He had sent word to Venice and Vienna of the capture of Bagdad, and even now the French ambassador with a brilliant retinue was on his way with felicitations and proposals for an alliance. Ibrahim seemed to have attained the climax of his fame and glory; nevertheless he was not blinded by it, and before I left that beautiful city he sent for me to give me my final instructions.
 

“I’ve had enough of treachery and in future I will show no mercy to any who plot against me. You must go to Khaireddin in Tunis, and if you value your head keep him from succumbing to the blandishments of either the Seraglio or the Emperor; let him remember his debt to me. It was not to help him extend his own kingdom that I made him Kapudan-pasha, and he must now keep Doria and the Emperor busy at sea so that I need not give a thought to what goes on behind my back while I’m waging war in Persia. Impress this on him, or he may lose his horsehair switches as suddenly as he came by them.”
 

In proof of his favor and his continued trust he bestowed such princely gifts upon me as to surpass my wildest hopes. From them I gained some notion of the sums the Bagdad merchants must have paid him for protection; from them also I glimpsed the glorious future awaiting me if fortune continued to smile upon him and I proved myself worthy of his trust.

I came home to find Giulia in a state of agitation.

“The Seraglio is in an uproar over the murder of Iskender-to?/

This and much more she said, but I paid little heed, being still full of the wonder of Bagdad, and I had not the smallest doubt that despite all intrigues the Grand Vizier’s star of fortune was now rising to its zenith.

Soon after my return a wealthy Jewish dealer in precious stones called upon me, honored me with many fine presents, and by way of introduction brought me greetings from Aaron in Vienna. After mutual expressions of esteem he said, “You’re the friend of the great Khaireddin, Michael el-Hakim, and it seems that last summer when Khaireddin attacked Tunis, Sultan Muley-Hassan was forced to flee from his kasbah. In his fright he left behind him a red velvet bag containing two hundred selected diamonds of considerable size. In the list of presents sent by Khaireddin to the Sultan there is no mention of these stones, and no trace of their sale has been found either in Istanbul, Aleppo, or Cairo. I have made many inquiries about the matter among my colleagues in different cities, for as you may fancy, so considerable a treasure aroused my curiosity. You need not regret speaking openly to me, Michael el-Hakim, and telling me all you know of this. I would offer you the highest possible prices and assure you of my silence. If necessary I can sell these diamonds in India and even China without anything becoming known of the matter. I am accustomed to such traffic, and if as I suppose the Grand Vizier is concerned in it—for it represents a vast fortune—he need feel no uneasiness about the consequences.”