Read The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire Online
Authors: Linda Lafferty
Tags: #Historical Fiction, #Turkey
The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire
ALSO BY LINDA LAFFERTY
The Bloodletter’s Daughter
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 Linda Lafferty
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477805299
ISBN-10: 147780529X
Library of Congress Number: 2013912678
To my first editor and the love of my life, Andy Stone
Part IV The Janissaries’ Revenge
A
UTHOR
’
S
N
OTES ON
The Drowning Guard
Note to Reader
: Please refer to glossary provided at the back of this book for an explanation of Ottoman and Turkish words from the nineteenth century.
May 1826
T
he oarsman’s lantern threw shadows against the side of the Royal Launch as he maneuvered the boat into the deepest waters of the Bosphorus, halfway between Asia and Europe.
The wind blew warm from the west, through the Straits of the Dardanelles and up the waterway to the Imperial City of Constantinople, where Sultan Mahmud II’s favorite sister lay sleeping, her night’s lover condemned to death.
The launch, painted bright blue to ward off the evil eye, had higher sides than any of the Sultan’s
kayik
fleet; it was meant to carry cargo across the Bosphorus, between Europe and Asia. Tonight its cargo consisted of three: the oarsman, a condemned man, and the janissary who must kill him.
The janissary’s freakish size—he was the giant of the Ottoman army—meant that no other guards were needed to subdue the struggling victim. Ahmed Kadir was known to be neat and efficient, for no one could overpower him. Except for the oarsman, there was to be no witness.
But even this early, an hour before dawn, there were a few who had seen the launch set off from docks on the the Golden Horn, heading towards deeper waters with a battered prisoner and the giant soldier. The chestnut vendor uttered a prayer to Allah and fed a whining cur a burned nut from his blackened hand, just to feel the presence of life in the dark belly of night.
The water lapped against the hull of the boat as the prisoner pleaded for mercy, stinking of urine and fear as he invoked the name of the Virgin Mary to comfort him in his last hour.
The janissary studied the Eastern waters that flowed from the Black Sea and saw the blood streak of dawn on the horizon. He cursed himself for allowing time to escape as the prisoner babbled prayers to the Christian God. He preferred to do his work in the dead of night and return to the harbor of the Golden Horn unnoticed.
“There is no mercy I can give you; you are condemned to die by decree of the Princess Esma Sultan. Not to carry out this order would mean my own death.”
The prisoner craned his neck, covered with savage bites and bruises, looking up at the guard who towered above him. The janissary noticed a series of long angry welts along the man’s back—the marks of a savage flogging.
“In the name of Jesus Christ,” the man whispered. “Hear my confession and give me a quick death. They say that you strangle your victims rather than have them face the nightmare of drowning in a sack.”
The janissary threw a quick look at the oarsman whose face was drained of color. This was his favorite boatman, one who clearly hated his work.
“I am of the true faith of Islam,” pronounced the janissary loudly, a gust of wind snatching his words. “How could I absolve you of your Christian sins when I pray to the God of our Prophet Mohammed?”
The man winced and gagged. The janissary grabbed him by the shoulders and held his head overboard as the prisoner retched up a cream-colored fruit, wrinkled purple skin still partially adhered to the meat.
“I gave her no pleasure,” gasped the man through the dripping spittle. “That is why I was beaten, I am sure. I die a virgin as I was meant to be, a priest to the Holy Byzantine Church.”
The janissary felt the weight of the man’s head in his hands, holding him like a tired child as he vomited one last time into the salty water. The condemned man had come from the landlocked provinces and this would be his first glimpse—and last—of the terrifying sea.
“What was your Christian name?” whispered the prisoner, his face just inches from the water. “Before you send me to my grave, tell me your name.”
“I was born Ivan Postivich,” said the janissary, his mouth next to the prisoner’s ear. “I forgive you only if you can forgive me for what I am about to do. But Allah will never forgive me. And your Virgin Mary spits on my soul.”
With that, the janissary dipped his fingers in the saltwater and made the sign of the cross on the condemned man’s forehead. Looking him in the eye, Ivan Postivich placed his huge hands around his prisoner’s throat, his thumbs on either side of the man’s Adam’s apple, and snapped his neck as if it were a brittle branch.
Without a word to the oarsman, Postivich hauled the lifeless body to the middle of the boat and stuffed it in the sack filled with stones. His hands looped a knot in the bag and pitched the body overboard, the tea-colored water parting with a heavy splash. As the depression in the water quickly healed, the bag disappeared in the depths. The guard made a quick motion to the oarsman to return to shore.
A diminutive eunuch stood at the Imperial Docks as they reached the Golden Horn. As always, he kept his distance from the vessel, as if by proximity he would be cursed by its mission. Postivich could never quite make out the features of the eunuch’s face, recognizing him only by his crimson tunic, starched white turban, and preternaturally pale skin.
“What news to report to the Sultaness?” the eunuch called.
The janissary cursed under his breath, his words obscured by the waters lapping against the pylons of the dock.
“Tell her—this one was different. He died without a word.”
Drowned Men
T
he Bazaar of old Constantinople rang with a dozen languages and the savage barking of mongrel dogs. Amber-skinned North Africans bartered with sailors from the Far East, who cursed and spat in disgust on the azure tiles of the marketplace. Armenians cried out the virtues of their carpets and offered sweet apple tea to blue-eyed Englishmen, their northern skin burned red under the harsh sun of the Near Orient. Portuguese and Italian merchants tried shouting to make their language more intelligible to Asian ears as yellow and green African parrots, chained to their perches, mimicked the screeching.
The Jewish street sweep, whose family had escaped brutal persecution in Spain and fled to the relative sanctuary that the Muslim Sultans provided, leaned on his broom and smiled crookedly at all those fortunate enough to live and breathe in the most cosmopolitan city on earth.
By now, in the late spring of 1826, the old Greek residents had grudgingly accepted a peace with the Sultan’s army of Janissaries. It had been four years since the last uprising had been savagely crushed, and the Orthodox Patriarch dragged from his pulpit, a rope around his neck, to answer for conspiracy against the Ottomans. The Greeks’ staccato voices mixed with the Serbo-Croat pidgin of the crowd, rising to the sky along with Ladino, Turkish, and the lilting strains of the Ottoman language of the elite, educated in the Topkapi Palace.
Noisy vendors hawked their fiercely colored spices—green hennas and saffrons—their silver teapots, and lapis opium pipes. Red glass hookahs hung
from rawhide tethers under the awnings. The tang of tobacco laced the air, mingling with the aroma of fish frying in olive oil and garlic.
On the Meydan, the square in front of the Bazaar’s maze of tents and stalls, an English slavemaster was unloading his wares. Three young women—black, amber, and white-skinned—crawled awkwardly out of the donkey cart, their wrists chained together.
“Come on, hurry up then,” grunted their master in a Cockney-accented English. He inspected their meager clothing and removed their veils, rubbing one’s cheek with a spit-moistened thumb to remove a smear of dirt.
He tapped the girls firmly in the small of their backs with his fist to make them stand straight.
“Smile,” he whispered. “Smile or get a good lashing from James R. Rickles.”
A group of men gathered, leering and pointing. They rubbed their genitals as they exchanged lewd remarks in a stew of languages.
The Englishman knew that these were not buyers. He ignored them, his eyes searching for a likely customer.
“Is that one really a virgin?” shouted a man in a tunic and crimson sash. He wore a fine linen turban.
The slavemaster smiled and addressed him in a guttural Turkish laced with very bad French. “This one here? The pretty white girl? She was captured in Chios during the last uprising and knows no man. Barely fourteen. She would bear strong, fine-boned children in your harem and pass along her comely looks.”