The Lake of Sorrows (23 page)

The Souliote captain washed down his wine and banged the empty goblet down on the table. “But let us be honest with one another. We will be under your command until you have conquered Argyrokastro. After that, we each go back to where and what we were before.”

“A just bargain and a fine alliance. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But I am worried.”

“About us? If you doubt our courage — “

“Never! But — I have heard your sixteen-year-old son, Fotos, is among the men you have brought with you?”

Zavellas stuck out his chin. “Yes. Among the
men
I have brought. Do not be surprised at his young age. In Souli, we learn to fight before we learn to walk.”

“I am sure he is a true son of his father. But in war, there is often more walking than fighting. We have long marches and cold nights in the mountains ahead of us.”

Now the captain also stuck out his chest. “My son is as ready for campaigns and battles as anyone. When do we leave?”

“The day after tomorrow. First in command will be my son, Muhtar. I will go with the army, too, but only to supervise, to avoid any unnecessary … mishaps. My son will be the commander.”

“Argyrokastro will fall. Have no doubt. Just make sure you honor our bargain.”

“Rest assured. I always honor my bargains with honorable men. My servants will take you to your quarters and fulfill your every wish.”

Without a bow or even a lowering of the head, Zavellas sallied out of the room.

Behind him, Alhi emptied his goblet and made a face as if the wine had been nothing but vinegar. “‘Just make sure you honor our bargain.’ Ahh, Tahir, having those Souliotes as friends will be harder than having them as enemies.”

“He most likely knows you are trying to trap him.”

“Indeed, but not
how
I am going to trap him. He probably thinks we will try to cheat him of the spoils. ‘Bargain’, is it?” Alhi’s large hand closed like a talon around his goblet, slowly squeezing it into a mangled lump of precious metal. “We will yet hoist that inflated wineskin of a Greek on the petard of his own pride. And we will use his greed to do the hoisting.”

Tahir wet his lips twice before venturing an answer. “You have never been outwitted yet, my Pasha. But - forgive me for saying so - neither has Zavellas.”

T
hat night was without stars or moon and a howling wind brought icy echoes of winter from the mountains. Froshenie and Muhtar, lying curled up against one another among the silken covers of her bed, had never seen so lovely a sky. After an eternity, Froshenie whispered against his neck. “I should feel shame. Fear. Or at least grief that I do not.”

“And do you?”

“No. I have no more shame or fear, there is no place left in me for it. I am like that poor girl that was drowned in the lake. I thrash, I fight, but I only sink in deeper and I know I will never escape.”

He held her so closely it hurt them both. “To my father, love is a brief foolishness made wise again by adding the woman to his stable in the harem. He warned me that a woman could be more intoxicating than wine or hashish or opium.”

She put a finger on his lips. “And that is all I am - an intoxication?”

He put his hands on her cheeks and gently raised her head. The longing in his eyes almost scared her. “No. Yes. No. I … I want all of you so desperately. I want your morning and noon and evening and night, too. I want your tears and your smiles, your kisses and your tantrums … the feel of your hair, your skin, your breath on my face -
everything
of you, no matter what it is, as long as it is
you
. I do not want to leave you and go to war. I do not want Argyrokastro to exist. I do not want to be the Pasha’s son. I do not even want to be
here
with you. I want us both to be somewhere else, someone else.”

“But our gods made it all so.”

Muhtar buried his face in her hair. “Then, at least while we can, let us forget the gods and hope
they
forget to make it morning.”

At dawn, they both slept stubbornly, still clinging to each other. They did not hear the gate clutch or the bedroom door being opened. Nor did they hear Chryssie’s gasp.

The Vaya lost the ground under her feet, yet she was wise enough to retreat and hide quietly in the library. “God or Allah, whomsoever rules that beast, make him go away. Now. Forever. Even kill him if you have to. She does not deserve this. And, fine young man or not — he does not deserve
her!
”

“D
awn, oh, Allah, or God, or whoever is up there. Give us dawn, so my army can march. Why did you make night and sleep, when both are so useless?” Stepping out onto the balcony of his sleeping chamber, Alhi stared at the lake and the horizon for the twentieth time.

All was dark in the palace, even his chamber. Having spent most of the nights of all of his life awake, Alhi was intimate with the darkness. And tonight, he had not slept at all.

“Be not too eager for this war, Alhi.”

The soft voice in his ear made the Pasha of Yannina yelp. Then he caught himself and spoke without turning. “Are you afraid, mother?”

“Take back that word, boy! I never knew fear and tried to banish it from your soul, too. But courage alone is not the measure of a man who wants to die rich and of old age. Use your wits, my son.”

He growled. “That is what I am doing. The mere thought of the plunder to be made at Argyrokastro will make too many heads hot. I need to be there when the army is marching, and keep it all in hand.”

“Do not try to fool me — you never could. You are hungry to see the Souliotes’ blood spilled. But the man who is hungry for blood for its own sake is only good for being a headsman or an assassin. You are the Pasha, Alhi. But you will not die a Pasha unless you have a new Pasha ready when fresh strength is needed.”

“There is Muhtar.” Alhi crowed. “Or do you only see me from … from wherever you are?”

“Oh, I see your son. A fine lad. He has proven himself in battle many times. But how can he become a man when you are always holding his leash?”

“I do not understand, mother. You ask me to be a coward?”

“I ask you to be wiser than those who strut about like children and babble about honor and valor - until they trip over their own vanity and fall into their graves. Stay in Yannina, Alhi. You are more needed here. Snakes are crawling out of their holes. Do you hear me?”

“Botsaris? The other venerable captain of Souli, who apparently had no desire for blood and plunder in Argyrokastro?”

“He.”

“Did you not think that I had guessed that? You made sure long ago that I alone among men have all night to think while others sleep.” He leaned heavily on the balcony’s railing and let out a deep sigh - then hurried to make it a snort. “I needed little thought to realize that he did not stay back because he disagrees with Zavellas. They sensed the trap together and Botsaris stayed back to protect Souli. Otherwise, how would anyone be able to persuade a man of Souli to stay at home when there is so much glory and gold to be had?”

“If you knew, then why so eager for dawn? You know you will not march with the army, then.”

“Maybe I needed you, after all, to make me face the inevitable. I enjoy a good killing, like a good hunt - but I must give up this one.”

“You must. When snakes are loose in a man’s home, he must stay there to deal with them.”

Alhi turned towards the darkness of his room. “And Muhtar needs to be a man? But a man will follow his own head or heart and my son has lost both. What, dear mother, do we do about that?”

But the room was empty now, even to Alhi.

T
he palace was curiously silent now that the Pasha’s army and its Souliote allies had left, marching on Argyrokastro. After the endless alarums and excursions of the final days of preparation for the campaign, tired servants went about their business far more slowly than usual. And rumor had it the Pasha was in a foul mood for staying at home while his soldiers went off to war, so the servants spoke as little as possible.

With the army sent on its way, he had run out of excuses to refuse the audience-giving that he had, with great relief, ordered suspended until after the army’s departure. Despite his displeasure with the necessity of giving such audiences, he felt curiously insulted that there were only two people waiting for his attention. Nevertheless, even Pashas had obligations and he settled into the throne on his audience chamber’s dais and motioned for his guards to bring in the first supplicant.

It was his sister, Haynitsa. His irritation was not less for seeing her haggard look and dark-rimmed eyes.

She ignored courtesies completely. “You have forgotten your vow to our mother Alhi!”

“Did you ask for an audience to charge me with that, sister? You could have told me any time.”

“I wanted to tell the
Pasha
Alhi, for my brother Alhi never seems to listen.”

Alhi bit his lip, but then forced a magnanimous smile. “Then tell your Pasha, sister. What do you wish from me.”

“She haunts both my dreams and my waking hours, our mother, saying over and over it is not right that your army should march on Argyrokastro. It should be Gardiki. Not Argyrokastro. Not Souli. Gardiki!”

“As a Pasha, I must consider Souli as more important, it must be brought down first. Then Gardiki will fall - in time.”

“Always ‘in time’. Always another place first. Mother is haunting me, I tell you!”

With an impatient gesture, Alhi dismissed his guards. When the doors had closed behind him, he rose from his throne and approached his sister, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Our mother haunts me as well, my sister, very often of late. But she does not cry ‘Gardiki’ every time she appears before me. Perhaps the mother you see is just - dreams.
Your
dreams of vengeance.”

“You were not the one twisting beneath those filthy, sweating, reeking swine!”

“My men left the lot of them with their throats cut and their manhoods chopped off and stuffed into their mouths. And they took care to do the manhoods first.”

She shook off his hands. “But the village that they were taunting us with, the people that put them up to it — they have had decades of peace while I have had decades of nightmares! I have waited too long for revenge. And so has mother, for they did it to her, too. That was why she made us vow we would not let that foul deed go unavenged. On her deathbed, too! You are the Pasha, not I. You command armies, I am a powerless woman. What good is it that I remember our vow if you forget it? How
can
a son forget such a vow?”

“Our vow never leaves me. It is right here in my heart, Haynitsa. Just be patient. The right time will come.”

“You were once the man who
made
a time the right time. But now you send out armies to do your fighting while you yourself stay behind on your fine bauble of a throne.”

“Our mother, since you are so fond of mentioning her, was the one who urged me to stay here. To safeguard what I have achieved.”

“How very convenient that our mother urges you to do precisely that which
you
want to do. Perhaps you dream while awake, since you sleep so seldom?”

“Have a care! I do what is best for our family!”

“Oh, you do, do you?” She stabbed a finger at him and her voice was dripping contempt. “When your own sister clamors for justice, you tell her to
wait!
All the vaunted Pasha is capable of is drowning a little strumpet of a girl in his palace’s backyard, to prove to the cowards of this city that he is yet the Lion of Hyperus. What has become of that lion that used to make his warrior enemies tremble?”

Eyes blazing, he raised a fist. “I said
have a care!
I have had men killed for far, far less than this, sister!”

Haynitsa stood her ground, as if daring him to strike. “So you can safely rail and roar at
me
, oh Lion of Hyperus? Will you drown me in your little lake, too?”

“Out of my sight, woman, before you tempt me to do just that!”

She took her own sweet time about it. When she finally opened the doors to the audience chamber, she called out in a grotesque imitation of the guards customary pompous announcements of audience seekers. “Do come in, oh Pashou, daughter-in-law of the mighty Pasha of Hyperus. If you can find him in here.”

She left with a cackling laugh, and Pashou walked in, looking puzzled, but determined.

“I fall on my knees and I beg you for succor, my Pasha.” She did as declared. “My husband Muhtar is no longer the same. This new affair of his has gone beyond all semblance of a mere … affair. I am his wife, I can tell.”

“You are exaggerating, Pashou. And what could I do, even if you were not?”

“Arrest that Greek whore of his and drown her in the lake! She has to go, or my marriage will not survive.”

“You are exaggerating, I say. As usual, Pashou.” He took her hands. “There, stand up my child. You are a Bey’s wife, do not let jealousy and hatred make you forget your status.”

She yanked her hands back and stayed on her knees. “It is either her or me!”

Alhi found himself stomping his foot against the marble floor. “It will go away. Same as all the times before. Let it go, woman. Muhtar will get bored with her.”

“How do you know? You do not see him thrash about in his bed at night. He calls out her name in his sleep! In our own bed!”

Alhi turned away, smoldering, tugging at his beard. “Do not make me hate this audience-giving more than I already do! I am your Pasha, not your doting father or your imam.”

“Fortunate for me, then, that I do have a father. Although he will not be happy to hear about this.”

He spun on his heel to glare down at her with a gaze that made her jump up and retreat a step. “Do not try to blackmail me, Pashou! I am the Pasha. I have better things to do than deal with women’s affairs. Or try to show compassion. And why would I, when it is your pride that is hurt, not your heart?”

“
Because
you are the Pasha. And I am your relation to my father, your ally. Your son is smearing both our names. I am told that Tepeleni tribesmen are men who guard their pride with their blades. But perhaps it is has been too long since you were one of them?”