The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (5 page)

“Yes, of course. They will convert to Islam and learn the Koran. He will see that they are taught calligraphy and embroidery. They are still young enough to learn well. They will speak Ottoman and learn verses well enough to recite to the Sultan, my Angel brother.”

“And my mother?”

The Princess frowned. “I told you I would give you news of your sisters. You must satisfy other wishes to hear of your mother’s destiny.”

Ivan Postivich had lied to the Greek cook. He found it more and more difficult to sleep and this particular night was the worst he could remember.

The room was fetid with the smell of sleeping men. Their bodies gave off the odors of sweat and passion, five having stopped at a brothel just before curfew. Despite the Koran’s commandment to wash before and after sex, the Janissaries, native to Wallachia, Greece, and the Baltic territories, were sometimes too drunk and exhausted to carry out the ritual ablutions. Their snores carried the stench of rotting teeth, and a stifling acrid odor filled the barracks.

Postivich left his cot and threw on his tunic, slipping his long dagger under his waistband. He closed the door behind him and was greeted with the fresh breeze coming off the water.

“Where go you, janissary?” questioned the sentry.

“A night errand,” Postivich replied.

“Business or pleasure, Janissary Kadir? Are you doing the Sultane’s bidding?”

“Pleasure. I need to visit the brothel.”

The sentry leered at him. Ahmed Kadir had special permission to come and go at all hours as the Sultaness’s trysts were erratic and unscheduled.

“Pick a sturdy one, Ahmed—a fat one with a strong back. The weight of your body could crush the delicate girls,” said the guard, waving him on.

Ivan Postivich had no intention of visiting a brothel. His only wish was to breathe fresh air that did not carry the mingled stench of murder and sex.

For most, a walk along the Bosphorus long past midnight was a dangerous proposition. The waterfront was home to thieves who had immigrated on the ships that passed through the Golden Horn each day.

But no one dared approach the dark silhouette of Ivan Postivich, his giant shadow preceding him, the moon at his back.

A pack of dogs circled him, silent in the dark, as he strode the path towards the harbor. The dog packs of Constantinople were notorious, claiming their territory and killing strays that wandered within their limits. But Postivich bent down to pick up a rock from the ground, and the pack ran whimpering for cover under the blanket of night.

He walked the shore of the Golden Horn below the high walls of the Topkapi Palace. He heard nothing, but knew that the sentries watched his every step, each passing the word in whispers and clucks of the tongue to the next, as they checked his progress around the perimeter of the fortress. At last he came to the palace limits and into the harbor. Here there were signs of life.

He bought some chestnuts from a vendor, the chalky taste of the outside skin cleaning his mouth of the greasy lamb he had eaten earlier.

“Ahmed Kadir,” whispered a voice from the rocks.

Postivich turned towards the voice and shouted down. “Who calls my name?”

“It is I, of your own name, Ahmed—the oarsman,” said the voice coming closer.

Postivich spat out a piece of chestnut shell, deliberating. Cracking another between his fingers, he pried out the soft meat.

“What are doing out at this hour, oarsman? Surely your mistress will call you tomorrow to row her in the Sultan’s procession for Friday prayers.”

“Yes,” answered the oarsman, stumbling through the darkness on the rocks. He made his way towards the light that spilled from the chestnut merchant’s lantern. “But sleep will not visit me tonight.”

The young man’s body was now visible to Postivich, narrow-waisted with a hairless chest and muscles cut deeply into his arms and legs. He saw the wide-eyed fright that was concealed by day from the world and especially from Esma Sultan.

“I cannot sleep,” whispered the oarsman, “when the Bosphorus stinks of death.”

“Your words could be your own death,” cautioned Postivich. “Speak no more, the shores and even the waters have ears.”

“They have heard me cry, then,” he replied. “For I cannot face Allah laughing at the death of dozens of men.”

Postivich picked at a bit of chestnut in his teeth. He looked over his shoulder towards the water and the grief-stricken man.

“What then, oarsman, do you plan?”

“My name is Ahmed,” he said. “Surely you can remember the name that is the same as the Ottomans have given you! Why will you not speak it when we are intimates in murder?”

“I despise my own name, oarsman. Do not curse yourself by having me utter it. What do you propose then, as you make your way to the mosque to pray on the morrow?”

“I have no plan but to confide in Allah of my horror.”

“Allah surely sees all that man does, before a man even sees it himself.”

“Then twice is his suffering,” muttered the oarsman.

“And your mistress?” said Postivich, looking out to the deep waters of the Bosphorus. “You think Allah sees her?”

The man stared down at his frayed sandals, his own fine clothes for the Royal Barge laid out in his bedroom chamber in the outer court of the palace. He was favored by the Sultan and his sister for his beauty and strength at the oars and was rising quickly through the lower ranks of the Ottoman navy, though he still had to perform the vile task of rowing men to their death.

“Allah sees all,” the oarsman said. “No Sultan or Ottoman is above his judgment.”

“That is inconvenient for all of us then,” whispered Ivan Postivich. “For Allah seems to offer no recourse.”

“In my heart, I seethe with loathing for the deeds I have committed. I see the men I have transported to their death in my dreams, struggling against the knotted bag at the bottom of the Bosphorus. How can Allah not answer with his own sword of revenge for the innocent? I shall have my revenge one day in a manner that will cripple the Ottoman rule.”

“You do not speak as one who sleeps under the roof of the palace,” said Postivich, wiping his hands of the charred bits of chestnuts. “But for all I know you are a spy for the Princess, searching for those disloyal to her. So I shall say to you, oarsman with the unlucky name of Ahmed, ‘Long live the Sultan and his favorite sister.’ ”

With that, the janissary turned to continue his walk, the oarsman protesting his innocence and agony in his wake.

“You shall see how earnest my confession is,” hissed the oarsman from the rocks. “One day, I shall redeem my soul and that of this Empire!”

Ivan Postivich turned and looked down at the defiant eyes of the Turkish sailor.

“Then Allah be with you to guide your soul,” he said, registering the oath as truth. He walked on, leaving the young man at the edge of the Bosphorus.

As Postivich returned to the barracks on the edge of the massive drilling grounds of Et Meydan, he heard the raucous laughter of Janissaries coming from a tavern. He saw a piece of parchment nailed to the door, flapping slightly in the light breeze.

It was a crude picture of a janissary—made obvious by the exaggerated white sleevehat—and, beside him, the Sultan, attached to a leash. And below the drawing, in crude capital letters:

YOU SEE HOW WE USE OUR DOGS. AS LONG AS THEY ARE USEFUL TO US AND SUFFER THEMSELVES TO BE LED, WE USE THEM WELL, BUT WHEN THEY CEASE TO BE OF SERVICE, WE CAST THEM INTO THE STREETS.

Postivich knew that a similar paper had been found on the Topkapi gates and the Sultan, furious with the insult, had ordered the artist to be found and beheaded. The Aga of the Janissary Corps had summoned his troops to the Topkapi walls and made the announcement, even though it was rumored he
sneered at the Sultan’s command, knowing that the loyal brotherhood of these soldiers was far stronger than an Ottoman ruler’s decree.

Postivich avoided taverns; they were hotbeds of mutiny and defiance. The Sultan himself was known to frequent them in disguise to flush out the ringleaders and agitators who threatened his regime. It was Sultan Mahmud II who had stripped Postivich of his command after the border campaigns, suspicious of the huge soldier’s power over other men.

The public display of scorn for the all-powerful Sultan flapped insolently on the tavern door.

The Sultan’s procession to Friday morning prayers was an event the chestnut vendor looked forward to every week. Everyone gathered along the shores of the Golden Horn to see the great Sultan’s kayik cut through the water, accompanied by the fleet of his entourage. He sat bejeweled on cushions, his aquiline nose jutting into the wind, face immobile—imperial grandeur incarnate.

As Mahmud’s subjects gathered to watch this convoy, the chestnut vendor’s business was good. Men and boys stood in line to buy nuts hot from his fire.

The women stayed close to their men, but their eyes were trained on a single kayik, flying fast across the water. Near-naked men, their legs and loins wrapped in gauzy white breeches, rowed the Princess Esma Sultan across the Golden Horn to the Aya Sofya. The men’s skin was oiled and their muscles gleamed in the sun. The Princess reclined under an awning, joined by her two favorite handmaids, the freckled Nazip and always veiled Bezm-i Alem, the “Jewel of the Universe.”

It was rumored that Bezm-i Alem was so beautiful that if any man gazed upon her unveiled, he could never love another woman. Still the other women of Esma Sultan’s harem laughed barefaced at the sun and exchanged whispers at the beauty of the oarsman, who pulled the kayik gracefully across the water.

It was treason to criticize the Sultan or the Sultan’s favorite sister, so knowing looks and gasps at the bare faces and necks of the women sufficed to convey how the Princess’s court brazenly disregarded the word of the Prophet. Esma Sultan’s lack of morals was notorious and made clear yet again each Friday before prayers.

But today the Princess appeared with her face covered in blue silk. Had there been a death in the Royal Family? Some favorite niece or nephew? Or had the Sultan drowned one of his once-favored wives?

The chestnut man chewed pensively on one of his wares and wondered what the sudden change might portend.

Ivan Postivich sat on the edge of his cot, inspecting his saber. There were nicks and scrapes that could not be repaired, and he considered each with a flash of memory.

In the Sultan’s service, fighting the Greeks in Peloponnesus or the Russians in Wallachia, he had nicked and scored his sword a dozen times. He remembered the sound of a skull cleaved in two, the blade sinking into the brain as swiftly as a knife into a melon. He had fought off starving looters who had tried to rob the Sultan’s shipment of French champagne and fine brandy, his sword slicing into the backs of their thighs as they ran, attempting in vain to flee their death.

Indeed, the fame of Ahmed Kadir had reached the inner court of Topkapi and inflamed the jealousy of the young prince Mahmud, long before he became Sultan. The paths of their lives ran surprisingly close. The sultan and the soldier were of the same age and the soldier was trained and educated within the palace.

Even as a boy, Ahmed Kadir worked with the wildest of horses and won the grudging respect of the Turkish Master of the Horse. It was his skill in the war game of cirit that had won the highest praise, for despite his size Ahmed Kadir was agile as an acrobat on his horse, ducking the pointed spears that whistled over him.