The Lake of Sorrows (3 page)

Alhi had been met by the city elders, clad in their finest clothes and heads kept as low as possible, and had been escorted by them and their fluent flattery to the great hall of the palace. Even more richly laid out than the courtyard, it was now alive with laughter, boisterous when coming from Alhi’s commanders and courtiers, and nervous when coming from from the elders and magnates of Yannina.

But at least the men of the fearsome Lion of Hyperus were seated at tables, joyously assaulting glass and goblet, plate and bowl, and with their mouths full of Yannina’s finest cuisine, not of battle-cries.

Captain Tahir was one of the very few who ate sparingly and drank even less. After all, he had, on more than one occasion, been among the first to slip into an enemy camp before daybreak to slit the throats of enemies sleeping off last evening’s excesses. He noted with satisfaction that his Pasha was also one of the few men who did not gorge himself.

“Your Pasha,
our
Pasha, seems a man of great self-control.” The Patriarch, seated beside Tahir, leaned towards him and smiled mildly.

Tahir returned the smile, sipping his glass. “One of the qualities that made him Pasha.”

“An admirable one indeed. Is he truly without weaknesses, as even his enemies say.”

“Truly.”

“Were you a flattery-spouting courtier, I might have had some doubts. But I hear that you are his most trusted captain and have been with him ever since he was his son’s age?”

“Younger.”

The Patriarch forced his smile wider. “And I gather you are a man of few words. More a man of action, perhaps?”

“Indeed. My duty calls.” Tahir rose, bowed curtly, and turned to leave.

As he turned, he put a hand on the Patriarch’s shoulder and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear. “Do not worry, Patriarch. You will get to know the Pasha soon enough. And you will find that he is all you have been told he is, and more.”

“W
ho can believe the word of a henchman?” The old magnate merchant Kostas Vassiliou tapped his cane firmly on the marble tiles of the Patriarch mansion’s grand hall. “Of course this Pasha has weaknesses. All men do.”

The Patriarch nodded. “I am sure there are some to be found. But I was unable to find them. His captain gives away nothing, and neither does he himself.”

The elders, those that could still stay awake and on their feet after the very, very long evening in Yannina palace, were gathered once more in the Patriarch’s house, although all remained standing in the hall, eager to leave again. The Pasha was said to have an over-keen eye for conspiracies.

“Uncle, uncle, you are back. Tell me, did you meet him? Is he really a beast? Does he roar like a lion?” The piping voice belonged to a girl, barely twelve years old, who came running into the hall, playfully dodging the servants’ attempts to catch her. She ran straight to the Patriarch, and threw her arms around him, daring the servants to pry her off again.

The Patriarch himself tried to look severe, but a strong tugging at the corners of his mouth spoiled the effect. “No, little Froshenie, he is not a lion, and he does not roar. He is a man, a great man in his own way, perhaps, but no more than a man.”

“And still they call him beast.” Another youthful voice, this time that of a young man, made all heads turn. The Patriarch gave up all resistance to his smile, as two young men joined the elders in the hall. “You are too quick to judge, young Karayannis. Let us call him a man, at least until we learn more about him.”

The young Karayannis’ eyes glistened with poorly hidden pride behind his silver-rimmed spectacles. “I have already learned more about him.”

Several elders snorted. “You were not even invited to the banquet. How could you learn more than we have?”

“In the Pasha’s harem.”

A wave of ooh’s and ahh’s ran through the elders. Now it was old Vassiliou who snorted. “Even you ought to know that only gelded men are allowed in an Ottoman despot’s harem - and if they have gelded you today, you seem to have made a remarkable recovery, at least.”

Young Karayannis suffered their derisive laughter with defiance. Slim and supple as a riding-whip, he was confident as only youth can be, dark eyes behind the spectacles showing the spark of someone intent on doing the great and right things. And someone who is, perhaps, just a little proud that he understands the world rather more than just a bit better than his slower-witted elders ever will. A sentiment that had been evident in him ever since he was a child, and perhaps part of the reason that noone could remember when he had been called by his first name. “The ladies have been traveling with his army, and they are not used to camp life. Some were ill when they arrived at the palace. They needed a doctor - and I was at the banquet because my poor father can hardly go anywhere without me at his side, so I was at hand.”

The young man beside Karayannis, looking quite excited - and not a little envious - slapped him on the shoulder. “You told them you are a doctor, just to get into their harem? Lying to the Pasha’s men on their first day in Yannina. You are a foolhardy one, my friend.”

Karayannis deigned to give him an overbearing glance. “I may not have completed my studies, dear Dimitros, but they are studies at the academy of Genoa, do not forget. Even a first-year student of the academy would be far superior to the butchers those brute soldiers call doctors.”

Froshenie piped up again. “You were in the
harem?
With all the Pasha’s wives? Are they all as lovely as people say? How can he love them all?” She considered her own question, then looked quizzically at her Patriarch uncle. “Why can Christian men not love a lot of wives?”

Everyone suddenly had to cough, and cover sputtering smiles with their hands.

The Patriarch made a supreme effort and managed to keep his face straight. “Christians know that a man can only truly love one woman. That is one reason we consider the Muslims heathens. Now run along and go back to bed like a good girl.”

“Uncle!”

“Froshenie, these are men’s affairs. I have told you often enough no man will love
you
as his wife if you do not learn to behave yourself.”

She made a face at him, then suddenly bolted away and flung her arms around the young man at Karayannis’ side. “Dimitros. Tell them I do not need to go to bed.”

Dimitros Vassiliou laughed nervously. Almost strikingly unlike his friend Karayannis, Dimitros was a boyish young man, a bit on the portly side, and with an almost permanent apologetic smile on his face, as if he wanted to make amends in advance for bothering you by being present. Children loved him, though, as did animals; loved him, and took shameless advantage of him at every turn. Now he patted Froshenie on the head, and looked at her uncle. “It
is
an extraordinary night. Perhaps — “

Old Vassiliou’s voice fell across the young man’s supplication like an axe. “You are pampering her, my son. Again! You should learn some firmness. Do you think women will love
you
for being so soft on them?”

His son blushed from collar to hairline. The Patriarch gracefully came to his rescue, waving a hand at a cherub-faced matron among the servants. “Take her back to bed, Chryssie. We must free poor Dimitros before she steals his heart.”

The
Vaya
nurse took Froshenie’s hand, and the girl sullenly padded away beside her keeper.

Young Karayannis only managed to contain himself until one moment after the door had closed behind them. “The Pasha does
not
love all his women equally, to be sure. But I think there is one he loves almost like a Christian man would love a wife.”

“Then you
have
learned more than any of us, young man. Enlighten us.”

Fighting in vain to hide his pride at being the center of so many elders’ attention, young Karayannis walked to their midst. “She is his first wife, Eminee. Daughter of the late Kaplan Pasha. I overheard him calling her
Güzelim
, the Turkish word for ‘sweetheart’. And he is said to otherwise never employ that language, except to the Sultan himself.”

“She must be either a devil or an angel to win the devotion of someone like him.”

“I gathered from the harem women that she is a little of both. I guess no woman could be all devotion and sweetness if she had to survive the intrigues of Ottoman courts. She is the mother of both his sons, Velis and Muhtar.”

The Patriarch frowned. “Muhtar? The young man who looked so … freely at our women when they marched into the city?”

“The one. From what I hear, his brother would have done the same, but he is a guest of the Sultan in Constantinople.”

A contemptuous cackle erupted from old Vassiliou’s throat. “Say hostage, it would be closer to the truth. Such ‘guests’ may have little to do but eat, drink and enjoy the pleasures of a harem, but they can lose their heads at a moment’s notice if their family does not behave itself!”

“Just like the women of a harem, except our new Pasha does not behead them if they displease him — he drowns them.”

Fascinated until now, the elders suddenly remembered that they would prefer not to stay too long. Feet shifted uneasily, gazes darted towards the door. Karayannis, feeling that his moment in the limelight was rapidly coming to an end, hurried on. “The lady Eminee has every girl in the harem quivering in fear when she raises her voice, yet they all seem to think of her as their mother. She considers it her personal duty to prepare the in best possible way the harem girl who might occasionally keep him company at night; to dress and bring out her beauty, to advise her for his pleasure.”

The elders momentarily forgot their unease; someone sighed deeply, everyone avoided everyone else’s eyes.

Old Vassiliou cleared his throat quite noisily. “One should think she would be jealous of all those pretty young women?”

“Her beauty is far from faded.” Karayannis suddenly blushed himself, and finished his story so fast his words were crowding each other. “It is said that she alone knows the Pasha’s heart, for she is the only one to whom he will show it. But perhaps he will show a tiny bit of it to
me
one day.”

“Has the Pasha fallen in love with you, young man? Do not smile, some of them are known to have such — Oh, my apologies, Patriarch.”

Karayannis, even more red-faced, summoned every ounce of his youthful dignity. “No. But he is an enlightened despot, it seems. When he heard I was studying at the Genoa academy, he told me he wanted to see me when I return to Yannina for good. Apparently, he thinks no more of his current personal doctors than I do.”

Dimitros gaped at his friend, although he laughed, too. “You can become personal physician to the Pasha himself? You may become richer than I will ever be, you shameless scoundrel!”

“I am not hoping for riches. I am hoping for insight. One should endeavor to know one’s enemy.”

To a man, the elders shushed him. A wildfire of “I really should be going” and “Goodness, is that the time” rushed through them. Within moments, they were hurrying down the stairs outside, waving furiously at their coachmen. Carriage doors slammed, hooves clattered on the cobblestones, and all of a sudden the Patriarch was all alone with Vassiliou senior and the two youths.

The old Vassiliou shook his head gravely. “Dimitros. Go call for our carriage. No, do not argue! And you, young Karayannis, can walk home. You always were a fantast, but it is time you grew up. We have been the subjects of one Ottoman Pasha or the other for three and a half centuries. The careful have prospered, and the most prominent of them are now among the most respected families in Constantinople itself.”

“But hardly Greek any more!”

“You are reading too many books besides those about medicine! I can tell you would very much like one day to see your own name in one of them. Just remember, lad, that the real hero is often the one who is forgotten.”

“Y
ou were right, father. The elders did gather in the Patriarch’s house. Do you think they are already conspiring against you? Should I take some guardsmen and — “

“No, Muhtar. Definitely not. I saw those cowards at the banquet. I would not trust them to organize the theft of a goat.”

Muhtar almost sulked. He had felt like a very important man when his father told him to take a few of the youngest men of the army and discreetly follow the Patriarch’s carriage home. Now the youth felt simply like a boy saying good night to his father, and the bedchamber of Yannina’s new Pasha was large enough to make even a grown man feel small.

“Cheer up, lad. There is no better place than Yannina to make my position unassailable. You will get to fight many conspiracies, aye, and armies, too. Look at the castle. Built years ago in a city split in half between glory and misery, but in a strategic place. A cross-roads between the Sultan’s empire and all commerce from the west. Just take a look. The palace above, and right at its feet - the lake.”

Muhtar agreed without much interest. “No army can approach the palace from the rear.”

“That is all the use you can see in the lake? You are stupid, poor Muhtar.” Alhi mocked his son mercilessly; it was the way Tepeleni men taught their sons. “You may be commander-to-be of my Army, but all these women you have gawked at today have turned your mind into soup.”

“Enlighten me with your wisdom, father.”

“The useless, the annoying ones, the spies from the courts of West and the East? What do you do with them? You pamper them, you set banquets like the one tonight to feed and please them - and then you throw them in the lake.”

Alhi laughed at his own idea of statecraft. “Even a disrespectful emissary from a friendly court might join the spies. Who will be able to prove the slightest thing afterwards? The lake is large, and has the deep waters to hold its secrets.”

“The weather is strange here.” Muhtar changed the subject inelegantly, feeling too grown a man to be lectured like this. “It changes without any warning from sunshine to shade and deep shadows.”

“Just like me.” Alhi chuckled contentedly. “This castle was occupied by tyrants in the past and that is the legacy we shall continue, Muhtar.”