A Place Called Armageddon (43 page)

‘We need you, old friend,’ he’d said, greeting him. ‘Perhaps he’ll heed you as he will not me.’

Hamza had stared at the man, wondering if the siege had carved such fresh lines upon his own face. He recalled the apple-cheeked youth from their time together in the old sultan’s household. Zaganos had been part of the levy, the
devsirme
, that took the strongest and brightest – and the prettiest – from the Turk’s vassal lands. A Christian from Albania, but such a Muslim now that he put those born in the faith to shame. He was also a ‘coming man’, completely dedicated to Mehmet and so at odds, like Hamza the tanner’s son, with the old nobility. Both knew their own star rose and fell with Mehmet’s.

Taking his arm, the Albanian had led Hamza aside and spoken to him in urgent whispers. ‘The Greeks blew up his mine this morning,’ he’d said, ‘and the long-bearded bastards somehow keep patching every piece of wall he knocks down. It is making him, as you hear, crazy.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, to the almost unintelligible noises of rage within the tent. ‘Now he wants to send in the tower, which is only half finished. Now, this hour, in broad daylight, right up against the section that that immovable goatfucker Giustiniani defends. I think Mehmet means to fling himself from the tower top, sword in hand, and take him on in single combat.’ A man had come out of the tent and stared at them, so Zaganos pulled him further away. ‘For the love of Allah, most revered, you have to stop him. I don’t know how many more setbacks the army can take. That shit-faced Anatolian is already sowing doubt: “Oh, most exalted, I feared this would be the outcome. Perhaps it is time to reconsider.”’ Zaganos turned and spat onto the
otak
’s silk-draped side.

Another time Hamza would have smiled. It was an almost perfect impersonation of the high-pitched Iznikian accent of the grand vizier, Candarli Halil. ‘What do you think I can do that you have failed to do?’ he said. ‘He is hard to move once he is decided. That’s why we are here, after all.’

‘Think I don’t know? I do not ask you to stop the storm. Just deflect it. Get me a night at least. If we can finish the tower and move it into position so the Greeks wake up and see it there at dawn, we might have a chance.’ He’d taken Hamza’s arm, half squeezed, half shoved. ‘Go, before it is too late.’

So Hamza stood at the back of the crowd of apprehensive men, watching the sultan rage. Zaganos’s likening of it to a storm was accurate. Mehmet’s arms whirled as if in a high wind; his breath came in great gasps and was expelled with gobs of spittle like fat raindrops. Accusations, of treachery, of incompetence, of cowardice exploded like thunderclaps.

Like any storm, though, it needed force to sustain it, and Hamza could see that Mehmet lacked the stamina. It had only been three weeks since he’d last seen the sultan, on the day he’d been appointed
kapudan pasha
. But Mehmet had thinned, his big wrestler’s body diminished, his vibrant thick red hair hanging lank around his temples. His eyes were sunken, sockets bruised by lack of sleep. He looked younger because of it, younger even than his twenty-one years. And it was the youth who, lacking the breath to continue, suddenly subsided, leaned on his knees in tiredness, raising his face with a look that was more appeal than fury.

It was his time. ‘Balm of the world,’ Hamza shouted, pushing through the startled men, who turned at the noise. ‘I beg you to let me be the one to lead this attack. To die, if Allah so wills it, a martyr for Him and for you.’

He’d reached the front rank now, and Mehmet could see him. He knew he had the advantage of not being tainted with this recent failure. He had his own, true. But the past could be lost, for a time, in the present.

Mehmet looked up. ‘Hamza. My
cakircibas
. Have you a hawk for me to fly?’

‘Fly me, master,’ Hamza said, prostrating himself on the ground, kissing Mehmet’s curling slipper, ‘at any game you desire.’

The sultan stared down for a long moment, then quietly said, ‘Leave us alone.’

Hamza did not move, did not look up. Didn’t need to, to hear a familiar high-pitched whine: ‘But, lord, let your most trusted stay and speak more on this. Perhaps it is time to reconsider …’

‘Go!’ Mehmet roared. ‘You dare to dispute with me, Candarli Halil?’

The tent cleared, swiftly. Hamza heard the fall of cloth at the entrance, then Mehmet’s voice, a single word. ‘Rise.’

Hamza rose. Mehmet had flung himself back onto the divan at the centre of the room and covered his face with his hands. He spoke through clenched fingers. ‘The cowards try to thwart me, falconer. I cannot bid them to my fist.’

Hamza stepped closer, spoke softly, as he would to a bird that was straining to the limit of its jesses. ‘So bid others, lord. You cannot fly a heron against a hare.’

After a moment, Mehmet gave a sharp, muffled laugh, then dropped his hands. ‘He is a proper heron, that smug Anatolian. And he wants to see me fail. He tries to make me fail.’

‘Yes, lord,’ Hamza continued, as softly. ‘But there is a goshawk outside, awaiting your command.’

‘Who?’

‘Zaganos. May I call him in?’

After a moment of staring, Mehmet nodded. Walking slowly to the entrance – you didn’t make sudden moves with a nervous bird – Hamza pulled up the cloth, sought Zaganos, beckoned him with his eyes. The Albanian came swiftly, his own eyes wide in query. At Hamza’s nod, he sighed and followed him into the tent.

‘Well, Zaganos?’ Mehmet said. ‘Are you willing to obey my orders?’

‘Every one, star of the sky. And to hurl myself with your other good servant from the tower. We will be the first to die for your glory.’

The younger man was rising during these words, but he stopped halfway, like a wrestler ready to counter a move. ‘Eh? Are you both so ready to die?’

‘As you command, lord. I admit I would rather take my chance in the half-light of the dawn tomorrow, with the tower fully finished,’ Zaganos replied, then snapped his fingers. ‘No! As it is, and in the blazing sun of this afternoon, so all will witness the loyalty that surpasses death.’

Mehmet straightened now, looking between the two men. Both could see, for the first time, some uncertainty in his eyes. ‘You truly think the dawn a better time?’

Zaganos tipped his head to the side, considering. ‘Well, it would mean that we would have time to not just once but triple-ward the front of the tower with soaked ox hides. They would better resist their fire arrows.’

Mehmet looked at Hamza. ‘What think you?’

Hamza also took a long moment to consider. ‘I can see another advantage, lord. Imagine if the Greeks wake up to see a mighty tower standing flush to their wall where no tower existed before. They would think it magical. They would gaze upon it with the same awe …’ he paused, ‘as the Trojans did upon the horse that brought their city low.’

It was the best arrow in his quiver, for he knew the young man’s obsessions. And he saw it strike home. ‘Yes,’ said Mehmet, smiling too. ‘Yes! Let it be so. It will give me time to supervise the last parts of its construction. And choose the men who will fight from it. The ablest that I have. Come …’ he gestured to the back of the tent, his table there, filled with rosters and maps, ‘advise me.’

The young sultan led Zaganos back. Servants appeared, bringing flagons, sweetmeats. Hamza, breathing deep and about to follow, stopped when he heard a hiss. He turned. An officer stood at the entrance, beckoning. Hamza moved to him. ‘What is it?’

‘A message for the sultan,
kapudan pasha
. A woman brings it.’

‘A woman?’ Hamza sighed. Mehmet had forbidden all his officers their wives. But he had brought a few concubines from his own
saray
. ‘It is not the time,’ he said, turning away.

‘Forgive me, pasha, but it is not that … that sort of woman.’ The officer’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘It is a sorceress. She has a prophecy for the sultan.’

Hamza sucked in air, then stepped past the officer out before the tent. A dozen paces away, at the gap in the silk rope that surrounded the
otak
like a thin crimson wall, stood a woman in a veil and cloak. Hamza shivered, although the sun was hot upon him. She could have been any woman. But she was not. She was the witch from Edirne, who’d predicted the Red Apple’s fall, and sealed the decision in the blood of an importuning Jew.

He crossed to the unmoving figure. ‘Do you know me?’ he said, more sharply than he meant.

The voice came muffled through indigo-dyed cloth. ‘I know you, master.’

‘You cannot see the sultan now.’

‘I must. I have a prophecy for him.’

‘I tell you that you cannot. You can tell your prophecy to me.’

‘It is not for you.’

Hamza hesitated. He knew his lord set much store by portents. Too much, many said. And though Hamza himself did not altogether discount them, he preferred to trust in what he could see rather than in the stars or in the guts of a freshly slaughtered goat. Like a hunting bird, he had just recalled Mehmet to the fist. He would not have him jostled again. ‘You cannot see him, woman,’ he said harshly. ‘Be gone.’

He’d taken a step back to the tent when her words came. He did not turn, but he heard them clearly enough.

‘I do have a prophecy that is yours, Hamza Pasha,’ Leilah said softly. The man was a blur through her veil. But her vision of him was clear. ‘Enjoy your glory. All the success you could desire will be yours. Until a forest grows where no forest has been. And a dragon makes you climb upon a tree.’

He turned then, fast, but she was gone. He thought he glimpsed a flash of indigo, thought to chase it, catch her, ask what she had meant. But Zaganos was behind him, calling. So he went.

‘Up, peasants. Up, lazy sons of the devils. It is our turn.’

Achmed opened his eyes, squinting against the late afternoon sun. Farouk, their
bolukbasi
, was moving among his company of men. The lieutenant, they said, had one eye that saw all, one ear that heard all, one cock that fucked all and one thumb … Well, he used the other hand to grip the
bastinado
that he wielded now, poking and striking his men to their feet.

Achmed sighed. The sun was hot and he would have been content to lie in it and sleep some more, maybe dull the throbbing in his head, maybe find some more
boza
to dull it with. He saw a few of his comrades hiding a bottle of the fermented barley from Farouk’s single, eagle eye – not because he would have objected, but because he would have demanded the lion’s share of it.

It had been the same with the hundred gold coins that Achmed had won raising the Prophet’s standard upon the walls. Half seemed to have gone into the lieutenant’s bottomless war chest, the rest to drink and better food for the company. There was nothing he could do about it. When he complained, he got his answer. ‘You wouldn’t have got to the wall without us, giant,’ Farouk had said, when Achmed had woken from the three-day delirium caused by the Greek stone that had opened his head. ‘So we will drink to the martyrs now in paradise who died for you, and we will reward those who survived your immense stupidity.’

Achmed didn’t want to drink. Hadn’t, in the long march from his home to the walls of Constantinople. It was forbidden by the Qur’an and there were many, like him, who kept faithful to the law. There were also many who did not. His little companion Raschid, with his twisted right leg and endless dreams of women, was one such. And he had fed Achmed
boza
when he was helpless in the darkness of his wound. It had reduced the pain, kept reducing it as the weeks passed. It had reduced the fear, when they were called again and again to the attack. For a while it had given him dreams – of home, of his beautiful wife, of his sons. And of his dead daughter, his wild rose, little Abal, alive again and running through his fields of golden wheat.

It was surprising how fast a hundred gold coins went – on
boza
, on sheep bought for feasts held in memory of the dead, in payments that his lieutenant and some of the company made to certain women who lived in a tent village on the shores of the Marmara sea. Achmed did not go, though Raschid always did. But when the hundred coins were gone, the company found rougher liquor that brought pain almost as soon as it brought oblivion. Achmed had tried to drink less, pray more. But the cannon that boomed above him day and night needed quieting, as did his fear.

‘Up, hell hounds,’ bellowed Farouk, nearing him and Raschid. ‘The sultan would unleash you.’ He stopped in front of them, struck Achmed’s bare toe. ‘Up,
gazi!
Allah, most glorious, calls you to Him.’

‘Is it another general attack, lieutenant?’ Raschid pulled himself up to standing, using Achmed’s shoulders.

Farouk smiled, something that Achmed always hated. It was not just the ugliness of the face, the near-toothless mouth stretching under the puckered eye socket to the missing ear. He’d smiled like that each time he ordered them to the walls – twice since the first attack when the standard had been raised. Each time many comrades had not returned. Yet the company was full again the next day, for the largely unschooled
bashibazouks
sought out an officer like Farouk, his experience written on his face, while his reputation for seeking the best plunder once a city fell was unmatched.

Now he smiled, spoke loudly, addressing all. ‘A general attack? Not now. But perhaps later, and perhaps it will be the last of them, the one that sweeps the Greeks from their walls and opens their coffer lids and their wives’ legs to us.’ His few teeth gleamed. ‘For our glorious sultan, praised of heaven, has found a new way to do that. He has enlisted the services of a great djinn, a powerful wizard who has, overnight, created a marvellous tower that reaches to the skies and overlooks the Greeks’ puny walls.’ Gasps came at this, many men reaching within their clothes for talismans and protective objects. Farouk’s smile broadened. ‘So come, devil spawn, and see what magic has wrought for the destruction of our enemies.’

Achmed had been lying bare-chested because some fool had vomited on his shirt. Now he dug into his satchel and pulled out the vest he’d purchased from a gypsy with one of the few coins he’d managed to keep for himself. The girl had merged four letters of his name – ACMD – with one of the ninety-nine names of Allah, al-Qarib. He could not read, but he knew it meant ‘near’, and when he chanted the names, he did feel near to Him, the garment and the conjoined names protecting him.