The Janissary Tree (43 page)

"Well
done, Yashim," said the seraskier, smiling. "I wondered if you would come."

126

***********

The
seraskier tapped his foot on the sloping roof.

"Do
you know what this is? Do you see where we are?"

Yashim
gazed at him.

"Of
course you do. The roof of the Great Mosque. You see the dome, above your head?
The Greeks called it Hagia Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom. One hundred
and eighty-two feet high. Enclosed volume, nine million cubic feet. Do you know
how old it is?"

"It
was built before the days of the Prophet," Yashim said cautiously.

"Incredible,
isn't it?" The seraskier chuckled. He seemed to be in the best of spirits. "And
it took just five years to build. Can you imagine what an effort that must have
required? Or what we could do with such energy today, applied to something
actually worthwhile?"

He
laughed again and stamped his foot.

"How
does something so old get to last so long? Well, I'll tell you. It's because no
one, not even the Conqueror Mehmet himself, had the wit or courage to knock it
down. Do I surprise you?"

Yashim
frowned. "Not entirely," he replied quietly.

The
seraskier looked up.

"Thousands
of sheets of beaten lead," he said. "Acres of it. And the pillars. And the
dome. Just imagine, Yashim! It's been weighing on us all for fourteen hundred
years. We can't even see beyond it, or around it. We can't imagine a world
without it. Can we? Do you know, it's like a stench, nobody notices it after a
while. Not even when it's poisoning them." He leaned forward. The gun, Yashim
noticed, was still steady in his hand. "And it's poisoning us. All this." He
waved a hand. "Year after year, habit piled on prejudice, ignorance on greed. Come
on, Yashim, you know it as well as I do. We're smothered by it. Tradition! It's
just grime that accumulates. Why, it even took your balls!"

Yashim
could no longer see the seraskier's face against the light of the fires at his
back, but he heard him snicker at his own thrust.

"I've
just come from the palace," Yashim said. "The sultan is safe. There was a coup
of sorts--"

"A
coup?" The seraskier ran his tongue across his lips.

"Yes.
The palace eunuchs, led by the kislar agha. They were set to turn back the
clock. Reinstate the Janissaries. It was all in that Karagozi verse-- remember?"

The
seraskier blew out his cheeks. "Come, Yashim. This isn't important. You know
that, don't you? Eunuchs. Sultans. The sultan's finished. The edict? Did you
really think the edict was going to make a difference? You saw him today,
didn't you, the old boozer? What makes you think any of them can do a thing? They
are half the problem. The edict is just another worthless piece of paper. Equality,
blah blah. There's only one equality under these skies, and that's when you're
in the line, shoulder to shoulder with the men beside you, taking orders. We
could have figured that out years ago, but we grew crooked."

"The
Janissaries?"

The
seraskier gave an amused grunt.

"The
Janissaries--and their Russian friends. Some of them, I gather, were living in
Russian territory. And the rebels wanted Russian help."

"Who
warned you?" Yashim asked. "Not Derentsov?"

The
seraskier chuckled. "Derentsov doesn't need money. It was your friend in the
cab. The scarface."

Yashim
frowned. "Potemkin--kept you informed?"

"Potemkin
informed me, initially. But he was too expensive. And too dangerous."

Yashim
regarded the seraskier in silence. "So you found someone else to keep you up to
date with the Janissary plot. Somebody safe, who wouldn't be much noticed."

"That's
right. Somebody cheap and inconsequential." The seraskier grinned, and his eyes
widened with delight. "I found you."

"I
gave you the timing of the rebellion."

"Oh,
more, much more. You kept the plot alive. You helped to create the atmosphere I
needed. Down there, a city in panic. They're defeated already. The Janissaries.
The people. And now the palace, too."

He
ran his hand around his chest: a gesture of relish.

"For
you, I'm afraid, I have a choice prepared between life and death. Or should I
say, between devotion to the state and--what, a romantic attachment to an
outdated set of traditions." He paused. "For the empire? Well, the choice is
made. Or will have been made in"--he drew a glinting orb from his
pocket--"approximately eighteen minutes. The choice between all this, this
weight and history and tradition, this great weight squatting over us all like
the dome of Justinian's cathedral--and starting fresh."

"But
the people--" Yashim began to interrupt.

"Oh,
the people." The seraskier half turned his head, as if he wanted to spit. "The
world is full of people.

"We're
well-placed, up here, aren't we?" the seraskier went on. "To watch the palace
burn. And with the dawn, a new era. Efficient. Clean. The House of Osman served
us well in its time, yes. Reform? An edict? Written in water. The system is too
crazy and tottering to reform itself. We need to start fresh. Sweep away all
this junk, these pantaloons, sultans, eunuchs, whispers in the dark. We have
suffered under an autocracy that doesn't even have the power to do what it
wants. This empire needs firm government. It needs to be run by people who know
how to command. Think of Russia."

"Russia?"

"Russia
is unassailable. Without the czar it could beat the world. Without all its
princes and aristocrats and courts. Imagine: run by experts, engineers,
soldiers. It's about to happen--but not in Russia. Here. We need the Russian
system--the control of labor, the control of information. That's an area for
you, if you like. I've said you're good. The modern state needs ears and eyes.
We'll need them tomorrow, when the first day dawns on the Ottoman republic."

Yashim
stared. He had a sudden vision of the seraskier the first time they'd met,
reclining so awkwardly on his divan in trousers and a jacket, reluctant to sit
at the table with his back to the room. A fine Western gentleman
he
made. Was that what all this was about?

"Republic?"
He echoed the seraskier's unfamiliar word. He thought of the sultan and the
valide, and all those women in the court: and he remembered the glittering
fanatical fight in the eyes of the leading eunuchs, and the unexpected death of
the chief.

The
seraskier had known that they would gather together. And he, Yashim himself,
had persuaded the sultan to let the artillery into the city.

"That's
right," said the seraskier curtly. "We've seen those weak old fools for the
last time. Blathering about tradition! Padding around in their own nest, like
silly chickens. Defying history."

He
drew himself up.

"Think
of it as--surgery. It hurts, of course. The surgeon's knife is ruthless, but it
cuts out the disease."

Yashim
felt his heart grow still. With it, his mind cleared.

The
seraskier was still talking. "For the patient, the agony brings relief," he was
saying. "We can be modern, Yashim: we must be modern. But do you really think
modernity is something you can buy? Modernity isn't a commodity. It's a
condition of the mind."

Something
stirred in Yashim's memory. He clutched at it, an elusive shape, a form of
words he'd heard before. The man was still talking; he felt the memory slipping
away.

"It's
an arrangement of power. The old one is over. We have to think about the new."

"We?"

"The
governing classes. The educated people. People like you and me."

No
one, Yashim thought, is like me.

"People
need to be directed. That hasn't changed. What changes is the way they are to
be led."

None
of us are alike. I am like no one.

I
will stay free.

127

***********

"I'M
going down now," the seraskier said quietly. "And you--you'll stay up here, I'm
afraid. I thought you might come with me, but it doesn't matter."

He
gestured with his gun, and Yashim stepped out of the archway onto the sloping
roof.

"Shall
we just change places, slowly?" the seraskier suggested. They circled each
other for a few seconds, and then the seraskier was in the arch.

"You
see, I'm not going to shoot you. I still think you might want to change your
mind. When the troops fall back. When this place starts to burn."

But
Yashim wasn't really listening. The seraskier had seen his eyes stray from his
face, and then widen, almost involuntarily. But he mastered an impulse to turn
around. Deflection tactics were no more than he expected.

Yashim's
surprise was not at all affected. Behind the seraskier, up the stairs, two
extraordinary figures had made a silent appearance. One was dark, the other
fair, and they were dressed like believers, but Yashim could have sworn that
the last time he had clapped eyes on these two they had been wearing frock
coats and cravats in the British embassy.

"
Excusez-moi
,"
the fair one said. "
Mais
--
-parlayvoo francais
?"

The
seraskier spun around as though he had been shot.

"What's
this?" he hissed, turning a wary look on Yashim.

Yashim
smiled. The fair young man was glancing around the seraskier, putting up a hand
to wave.

"Je vous connais, m'sieur
--I know you, don't I? I'm Compston, this is Fizerly. You're the
historian, aren't you?"

There
was a tinge of desperation in his voice which, Yashim thought, was not
misplaced.

"They
are officials at the British embassy," he told the seraskier. "Much more modern
than they look, I imagine. And efficient, as you say."

"I'll
kill them," the seraskier snarled. He jabbed his gun at them, and they shrank
back.

"I
wouldn't if I were you," Yashim said. "Your republican dawn could quickly turn
into dusk if you bring British gunboats to our doorstep."

"It's
of no consequence," the seraskier said. He had regained his composure. "Tell them
to get out."

Yashim
opened his mouth to speak, but his first words were drowned out by a muffled
crump that sounded like a clap of thunder. The ground trembled beneath their
feet.

As
the sound of the explosion died away, the seraskier jerked the watch from his
pocket and bit his lip.

Too
early, he thought. And then: it doesn't matter. Let them begin the barrage.

He
waited, staring at his watch.

Fifteen
seconds. Twenty seconds. Let the guns fire.

The
sweat had broken out on his forehead.

There
was another bang, slightly fainter than the first.

The
seraskier looked up and flashed a look of triumph at Yashim.

But
Yashim had turned away. He was standing on the roof, hands held aloft, staring
out over the city as the wind caught at his cloak.

Beyond
him, the seraskier saw the burst of light. It glanced off the pillars of the
dome, flinging Yashim into brilliant relief where he stood against the skyline.
The seraskier heard the rumble of the guns that followed. There was another
burst of light, as of an exploding shell, and another deep rumble, and the
seraskier frowned. He knew what was puzzling him. The sound and fight were the
wrong way around.

He
should have heard the guns roar, and then seen the light flash as the shell
reached its target.

The
seraskier leaped from the archway and began to run, his feet making no sound on
the thick lead sheets.

Yashim
made a lunge for him, but the seraskier was too quick. In an instant he had
seen what he had not expected to see, and with brilliant military intuition he
had grasped precisely what it all meant to him. The guns were working the wrong
end of the city, the shells exploding far away. He did not break stride. He
shrank slightly as Yashim reached out, but a moment later he was over the
gutters and half running, half sliding down the leaden roof of the supporting
half dome.

He
moved with a speed that was terrible to see. Yashim darted to the edge and
began to lower himself down onto the conical roof, but the seraskier had
already dropped from sight. Then he suddenly reappeared, lower down, loping
south across a cat-slide roof.

For
a moment the whole city lay spread out beneath his feet. He saw again the dark
mass of the Seraglio. He saw the lights twinkling on the Bosphorus. He saw men
and women streaming through the square beneath him, and in the distance the
chutes of flame that peeled away from the sudden yawning gaps that the
artillery was making in their path.