The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (18 page)

Now Judah del Medigo’s lifelong ordeal was over. He had the Sultan’s word on it. When, after a hellish thirty-day siege, the Ottomans finally defeated a stray remnant of the Austrian army at Guns, the Sultan asked his physician to name his reward for service rendered beyond the call of duty.
Send me home
, Judah longed to ask. But his pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead, he simply requested relief from field duty in all future campaigns. This was the second time he had been engaged at the Sultan’s side in a lengthy, unsuccessful siege of Vienna, and he honestly believed that one more rain-soaked summer campaign besieging the emperor’s capital would kill him.

Anyone with eyes could tell at a glance that over the past three months, the doctor had deteriorated from a vigorous specimen — remarkably robust for a man in his sixties — to a pale shade with cloudy eyes, hanging flesh, and a tremor in the limbs.
He is an old man
, the Sultan thought.
And sick.
It was a rare moment of recognition for that remote being who tended to regard those close to him purely as extensions of himself.

The doctor’s request was granted. Questions of compassion and gratitude aside, Judah del Medigo’s dilapidated state suggested that the time had come for the Padishah’s Chief Body Physician to make way for a younger man. So the long trek home along the Danube was Judah’s last campaign march. From now on, he would remain in residence in the house the Sultan had given him in the Third Court. But today, the Sultan insisted that his physician must take his place in the triumphal procession from Üsküdar into the capital. Suleiman had been groomed for high heroism. He knew that a true hero enhanced his glory by sharing it.

“Your son will be so proud of you,” he assured the doctor. “To see you enter the city borne on a litter in my train like a prince, that is a sight he will cherish all his life.”

And what about the sight of his aging and aching parent dying on his own doorstep?
Judah asked silently. But he was well enough acquainted with his master to know when the man had made up his mind. So here he was, being bounced up and down on the cobblestones, his back crying out for relief, as he fulfilled the demands of royal honor. By now, both sides of the parade route were packed with the Sultan’s subjects, four or even sometimes five deep. In this crush, the bearers of the doctor’s litter were forced to swerve one way, then another, to avoid harming the bodies pressing against the litter on both sides.

Seen through Judah’s fevered eyes, the crowd took on the aspect of a pack of howling wolves. It was a hallucination. This was not an unruly mob. Not even a boisterous one. But with many thousands of pairs of feet milling in the narrow streets, there was bound to be the odd jostle or collision. And much more noise than was usually tolerated in this strictly regulated city. Because today, every citizen of the capital who was not lame or at death’s door had turned out to celebrate the Sultan’s victory at Guns over the king of Spain, acknowledged in Europe as Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman emperor.

Of course, the Turks never referred to Charles the Fifth as the emperor. For them, there was only one emperor, one Padishah, their Padishah, known to the world as Suleiman the Magnificent. And today he would appear before them in his most traditional and exalted role: the Warrior of God against the Infidel, the
Ghazi
, Son of
Ghazis
,
and Sultan of
Ghazis.

It was in defense of the faith that the
Ghazi
Sultan set out every spring on campaign, as his forefathers did. That he returned laden with booty and prisoners and conquered ever more territory on three continents was proof that Allah smiled on his endeavors. So the intoxication of the citizens was tempered by their awe at Allah’s beneficence. And the doctor’s pain was tempered by knowing that at every crossing, he was that much closer to his home, to his bed and to his son, Danilo.

The Sultan had sent word ahead that the doctor’s son was to be given a place behind a velvet rope in the First Court of Topkapi Palace, a place where the page should get an excellent view of his father being borne into the palace in the Sultan’s train. But when the long procession began its ascent of Palace Point, Danilo del Medigo was not on his way to take his place behind the velvet rope in the First Court of Topkapi Palace. He had not bathed. He was not shaved. He was nowhere near the First Court. He was, in fact, stretched out beside his horse in a stall in the Sultan’s private stables, fast asleep.

14

IN THE STABLE

Still adrift in that blurred terrain between sleeping and waking, Danilo heard at a distance the strains of “The Sultan’s March” played by a military band. Drowsy, more asleep than awake, he set it aside as part of his dream, a terrible, foul-smelling dream of dodging a snorting, bucking horse that kept kicking out at him. He felt his nose twitch and instinctively raised his hand to remove the source of the tickle — a straw. Then came a familiar odor — horse manure — but mixed with something else, something less familiar. Something fetid, rank, and evil-smelling.

Still clinging to the last vestiges of sleep, he rolled over to one side, closer to the bad smell, sniffing. All at once he was fully alert. Before he even opened his eyes, he knew where he was. He was in the stall of his horse, Bucephalus.

The sound of the animal’s labored breathing brought back his memory of the previous night. Of being wakened in his dormitory bed by Abdul, the stable boy.

“Wake up, sir, you must come to the stable. Your horse is sick. Very sick.”

“Bucephalus? Sick?” The horse had been in perfect health when he left him a few hours earlier.

“He cries. He moans. And now, his belly swells.”

“Did you call the horse doctor?” Danilo asked, throwing on some clothes haphazardly.

“The Master of the Horse is in Üsküdar with the parade horses, sir.” Of course, the Sultan’s horse doctor would be in Üsküdar preparing the Sultan’s horses to appear in the procession.

One last yank at his girdle and Danilo was off, followed by the stable boy, both barefooted, dashing past the long hall of the School for Pages, ducking into a small corridor, skirting the big barn, now empty, and finally reaching the stall of his ailing horse Bucephalus, his pride, his joy, the love of his life, the Sultan’s gift to him.
Oh, God, don’t let it be the colic
, he thought.

Even before Abdul swung open the gate of the paddock, they could hear the mournful neighing of the suffering horse. In the stall, the animal lay cramped, the way he lay in his mother’s womb, head rolling from side to side. Unmindful of the muck, Danilo threw himself onto the straw beside the horse, stroking the sweaty brow, heedless of the foul breath issuing from the open mouth.

“Danilo is here, Bucephalus. Danilo will make you better,” he whispered. In fact, Danilo had no idea how to cure a sick horse.

“Abdul, you must get to the staging area.” He reached for the pouch that hung from his girdle. “Take this money.” He held out a handful of coins. “Run to the harbor. Get one of those louts to ferry you across the Bosphorus. Pay him what he asks. Find the horse doctor. Tell him he must come. Bucephalus is very sick.”

And the groom was gone, leaving Danilo and his horse to weather what was left of the night together.

In the hour before sunrise the muezzin’s voice was heard, calling the faithful to the first of the day’s prayers. As if in response, Bucephalus shook himself to his feet, sweat pouring down into his blood-red eyes, stood still for a moment, and then expelled a huge bubble of gas. Then he began to thrash wildly, kicking out against the paneled wall of the stall. Blind instinct led his terrified master to a guide rope hanging on the wall. Bobbing and weaving to avoid being butted by the pain-maddened animal, he looped the rope and made a desperate attempt to throw it over the horse’s head.

With great patience, he tugged the animal out of the stall, coaxing, pulling, smacking, anything to prevent the poor beast from laming himself as he kicked at the paddock wall. Of course, there was no contest between a man and a horse eight times his weight. But somewhere beneath the fever, the much loved animal responded to his master’s will and was slowly eased out of the stall.

Not knowing what else to do, Danilo began to walk the sweaty horse back and forth along the length of the stable, the way he had done so often, cooling him down after a race. Up and back, over and over, always keeping a firm hand on the rope that the poor beast continued to yank at every so often, as if in a spasm.

Finally, by the first light of dawn, the loud neighing subsided into a soft moan and Bucephalus, after emitting a terrifying series of loud, smelly farts, walked back into his stall of his own accord and lay down in the straw.
Is my horse
— Danilo could not bring himself even to think the word —
dying?

He reached for a sponge and proceeded to wipe the sweat very gently from the horse’s head. Then, settling himself down on the straw, he whispered into the velvety ear, “Live, Bucephalus. Live. Please don’t die.”

And there they lay, face to face, master and horse, the master weeping unashamedly, his tears mixed with the sweat of the horse. Now, for the first time, the thought came to him that a rider without a mount cannot compete in the
gerit
. The thought was too painful to face. He closed his eyes to shut out the world and allowed himself to drift into a nap.
Only for a few minutes
, he told himself.
Just until Abdul comes back from Üsküdar with the Master of the Horse
.

But when he awakened, the sun was shining bright through the slots of the stall and there was no horse doctor. And no groom.

“Abdul!” he shouted. “Abdul!”

After three shouts, the groom came limping in from the barn, carrying a pail and favoring his right leg as he tended to do when feeling put-upon or ill-used.

“Where have you been? Where is the horse doctor?”

“He would not come, master.”

“Did you tell him that Bucephalus was very sick?”

“He was attending to the Sultan’s own horse. The white horse; the stallion that the horse doctor himself chose to lead the procession.”

The procession. Oh, God. Did I miss it?

“What time is it?” Realizing as he asked that the groom had no way of knowing the time, he rephrased the question. “Has the muezzin called out the third prayer?”

The groom could not remember. His religion did not demand that he keep track of the daily prayer schedule. The muezzin did that with his call to prayer. All the boy had to do was fall to his knees five times a day, face Mecca, touch his forehead to the ground, and intone,
Allahu Akbar.

“What about the music? Have you heard the music for the third prayer?” Danilo pressed.

“I think I heard the muezzin on the way to Üsküdar.” Abdul wrinkled his forehead in an effort to remember the events of a few hours ago. “Yes, I think so. How else did I get my knees wet?” He smiled, pleased by his own cleverness. “Yes, I knelt down on the deck on the way to Üsküdar.” A pause. “Or was it on the way back that I prayed?”

Hopeless. But Danilo gave it one last try. “Tell me what happened at Üsküdar. Did you see the parade horses leave the camp on a barge?”

“Oh, yes, I crossed with them. Otherwise I would still be back in Üsküdar. You didn’t give me enough money. I had to pay it all to the boatman on the way over. And even so, I had to walk to the camp from the dock. You should have given me more money, master. My feet are very sore.”

“Sorry.” Danilo knew when he was beaten. “I will make it up. Now, tell me, had the procession begun when you landed back in the city? Did you see the
sipahis
? The Janissaries?”

“
Sipahis
, yes. Janissaries, no. Lucky for me. You know what they’re like on a feast day.”

“Thank you, Abdul.”
May you rot in hell, Abdul.
As this curse rose in him, he heard again the strains of “The Sultan’s March,” louder this time, unmistakably real. So the music was not a dream, simply far off, which meant that the procession was at the very beginning of the long climb up to Palace Point. If he ran all the way, he might still be able to take his place behind the velvet rope in time. For him not to appear after receiving a personal invitation from the Sultan would be unforgivably disloyal. In the crowd of hundreds he would be the only one present to honor the doctor, a widower with no other living relatives than his only son. Absentmindedly, Danilo picked at the wisps of straw clinging to his caftan.
What’s this?
A lump of manure was stuck to his girdle. He couldn’t possibly appear behind the velvet rope in the state he was in. To appear dirty and disheveled would bring shame on the Sultan.

What a mess. He would never get out of this scrape. His father would never forgive him. His horse would never be well. He would never compete in the
gerit
at the hippodrome. Any bad thing he had ever lived through paled in significance beside the events of this cursed day.