The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (39 page)

My fortune-favored Sultan:

The Rumi poem that your translator sent to me fell upon me like rose petals from heaven. It was a joy multiplied by a hundred when my faithful reader, Princess Saida, sat with us to read out the words. But — and this may be a reflection on my own lack of education in poetics — I prefer your poems to his and I long for just a few lines in the hand.

My Sultan of Love, Muhabbi: I live out these long days of separation tortured by longing and racked by dreams of the perils that threaten my warrior husband; not least the knowledge, shared by all women, that the campaign trail is littered with evil women only too eager to offer their charms to lonely soldiers far from home. Women know that for men, loving memories begin to fade as with distance.

Having written that, I fear my demands for reassurance of your love have made me unworthy of the great honor you have bestowed on me by making me your Sultana. As Saida reminded me while scolding me for my tardiness at my language lessons, it is all very well for a
kadin
to weep and wail for an absent loved one, but a Sultana must bear up to her fears and loneliness as befits her elevated station.

My heart jumps in my bosom when I think of your return. Pray Allah, it be soon. If only I could fly to you across the heavens just for an hour as they do in
The Thousand and One Nights
. But I must take comfort in knowing that when the day of victory arrives, my small sacrifice will have been a part of the great effort to vanquish the Shiite heretics for the glory of the true Sunni faith.

My Sultan, your sons and daughters pray daily that Allah watches over you and protects you from all harm as you pursue your holy
jihad.

Signed, stamped, and sealed by her Regent.

At the bottom of this letter is an encrypted message. A quick pass over the page with a lighted taper reveals the words:

Is it true of all soldiers far from home that loving memories begin to fade as the miles and months slip by?

37

SIVAS

From: Danilo del Medigo at Sivas

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: August 9, 1534

Hi, ho, dear Papa:

We are rolling up Anatolia without a shot being fired. But the life of the
jihad
is a life of surprises, and we are not on our way to Syria as expected. Instead we are riding north to join up with the Grand Vizier’s forces at Tabriz.

This decision to detour north through Azerbaijan was handed down to us without expectation two days ago by the Sultan. But who am I to complain? Even though we seem to be headed in the wrong direction to reach our eventual destination (unless that objective has also been changed while I slept), we are bound to see the two great rivers of antiquity someday soon since Baghdad lies between them.

There is a rumor circulating in our camp that the reason for this change of route is a quarrel that has broken out in Tabriz between the Grand Vizier Ibrahim and his Janissary brigade, which necessitates the intervention of the Sultan. It is whispered that the Janissaries attached to the Grand Vizier’s forces are on the verge of overturning their kettles. The fact is the Grand Vizier’s half of the army has not seen their Padishah for many months, and many will be refusing to march into Persia without their true
ghazi
leader. Since Ibrahim Pasha is not well liked, one must take this tale with a grain of salt.

Others have a different explanation for the change of route. They say that the season is now too advanced for river travel and that currents of the Tigris are now too treacherous for barge transport. Mind you, this new alternate route to Baghdad, via Azerbaijan and across the Zagros Mountains, is reputedly perilous in its own way. But that is the route we are about to take if we proceed by way of Tabriz.

Whatever the reason for it, I tell you that this change in our route of march is mightily vexing to the Sultan. Tonight, just as I started my reading of Rumi, a messenger arrived all red-faced and sweaty with a packet from the Grand Vizier at Tabriz. I recognized his seal. The Sultan did not appear delighted with the contents of the package. He spent some time shuffling through the papers in the packet, shaking his head and muttering. Then suddenly he hurled the entire package across the tent with a mighty thrust, and we were enveloped in a storm of paper.

Of course, a group of pages materialized instantly to clean up the mess. The boys are still picking up sheets of paper as I write. Perhaps they are accustomed to these outbursts, but I have been at this man’s side day and night for two months now and have never seen him like this. When one of the pages offered him a sip of sherbet to settle him down, he bashed the cup out of the fellow’s hand with such force he all but knocked him down. At that moment, Papa, I wished you had been there to administer your calming-down medicine. But all I could do was to cower in a corner in the hope of dodging flying objects. And, to be sure, as the minutes ticked by, the Sultan ceased to shake and mutter and finally began to read aloud from one of the dispatches — to me, of all people.

“The contract to deliver two thousand desert camels to the Ottoman high command at Aleppo has been voided,” he read and sighed. “Attached is a new contract for two thousand mountain camels to be delivered at Tabriz.” Then, without taking a breath, he waggled his finger under my nose and demanded, “Do you know how far a camel can travel in a day?”

He did not expect an answer and I did not give one.

“Twenty-five miles on average in good weather,” he said. “Do you know how many miles it is across the Syrian Desert to Mesopotamia from where we now stand?”

I shook my head no.

“Four hundred miles,” he answered his own question. “And how many miles do you suppose my army must march to join the Grand Vizier’s forces at Tabriz in order to approach Baghdad from the east by way of Persia instead of Syria?” He paused a moment for effect. “Five hundred miles. Which amounts to an additional four days’ march,” he advised me. “And can you guess how much it costs to rent just one camel for a single day of march?”

“No, sir,” I managed to answer.

“Of course you can’t. It is not your business to know. Nor is it mine. I have advisors for that. And they advise me the extra hundred miles will cost my treasury one hundred silver rupees per load in the local currency. But that is a mere drop in the ocean of expense that this new plan will cost.” A deep sigh at the prospect and a dismal shake of the turban.

For a brief moment, I thought he might weep. But he is not the Sultan for nothing. Instead, he took a deep breath, seated himself cross-legged and straight-backed on his cushions, and began what seemed like a new subject.

“These Europeans know nothing of war. Nothing.” It was not an accusation, simply a statement somehow connected with the cost of camels. “They call my empire the Gunpowder Empire. Because my revered ancestor, Mehmet the Conqueror, managed to bring Constantinople to its knees with a cannonade, they take the view that all we know how to do is blow things up. The truth is, we were not the inventors of gunpowder. The Chinese were the first to use it. But it was my ancestors who divined that the mixture of sulfur, carbon, and saltpeter could be put to a more useful purpose than making fireworks for festivals. Such as blowing holes in city walls. Even so, it takes more than an explosion to win a war. And let me tell you, boy, gunpowder is a most unreliable weapon. If you allow it to get wet — even damp — it won’t light. And how are you supposed to keep it dry when you’re carrying it over rivers on barges? Answer me that.”

I thought it best to keep my thoughts to myself.

“Besides,” he went on, “even if, with luck and good weather, you manage to keep your powder dry, field guns can shoot a maximum distance of only three hundred yards, and at that distance they can barely hit a barn. Compared to an arrow, gunpowder is a crude weapon. Don’t talk to me about gunpowder.”

Not that I would have dared. There seem to be a hundred ways in which gunpowder has disappointed the Sultan personally.

“If gunpowder were the only weapon in our arsenal, do you think we would now be masters in Tunis? Or Egypt?” He was on his feet now, pacing. “Or Hungary? Even here in Anatolia? Gunpowder served us well at Rhodes. But compared to a piece of paper” — he reached down for one of the dispatches and held it up — “yes, believe me, compared to this piece of paper and thousands more like it, gunpowder is no more than a secondary stand of arms. Here in my hand” — he was coming close now and waving the piece of paper under my nose — “here is the great secret of Ottoman warfare that the Europeans keep sending their spies to ferret out. Paper, my son. Yet another weapon we got from the Chinese. All credit to them for that. But it was not the Chinese who taught the world how to make paper a weapon of war. No, it was my people, the first Osman tribe, the ones Europeans call ‘barbarians,’ who thought to use paper to keep written records of distances, troop counts, food supplies, and baggage limits. And it is paper that enables us to plan an attack long before a
jihad
begins. That and having Allah on our side” — long pause — “which the Europeans call ‘Ottoman luck.’”

I found his words very persuasive and could not wait to get back to my desk to write them down before I forgot them. It isn’t every day you get a private tutorial in military strategy from the conqueror of half the world. But before I could rise to my feet, he took up his peroration again.

Would I like to know, he asked, what he would choose as his second most valuable weapon after paper? This time he didn’t even pretend to wait for my reply.

“Weather,” he announced. “Weather, my son. If I were the god of thunder, I could devise a strategy to win any war.”

The god of thunder? Had I heard right?

“Take this war we are now engaged in,” he went on. “We must be careful not to arrive in Mesopotamia in the summer months because the heat limits our travel time to four hours out of every twenty-four. Beyond that limit, pack horses faint from the heat and die. So much for summer. On the other hand, the mudslides and avalanches of winter can wipe out an entire army overnight. So we must plan our arrival in Mesopotamia to avoid the Zagros Mountains in winter. Any delay is perilous. Do you begin to grasp the problem, my son?”

No mistaking it, he had called me “my son.” Twice!

“Weather is always the weakest link in any strategy,” he went on. “But, alas, I am not the god of thunder and weather is not under my control. So I must do my best with firepower and paper and pray to Allah to bend the weather to my purposes.”

Whereupon he uttered a brief
inshallah
and I began, once again, to rise to my feet. And once again he motioned me to stay.

Lucky for me he does apparently suffer hunger and thirst like ordinary humans. So, with a snap of his fingers, sherbet was brought in solid gold canteens encrusted with emeralds and rubies, and there was no talk of war for at least ten minutes while we refreshed ourselves royally. Then he waved the beakers aside and took his place on the pillows like a professor at his lectern. And, as he began again, it occurred to me that somewhere on the road from Kayseri, I had been reassigned to a new role. No longer the Interpreter or the Page of the Pouch or Rumi’s scribe, I was now the Acolyte with the Sultan for my Mentor.

“You see my son,” — this was the third time he called me “my son” — “as long as we are within our own empire, we can store foodstuffs in silos along the way. But after we enter Persian territory we can no longer depend on the goodwill of the people and their willingness to sell us what we need. The Kurds shift their allegiance between the Persians and us, depending on who is the most persuasive — with gun or with gold. And should the Persians outbid us for their services, the Kurds are highly experienced at burning everything they cannot carry and fading away into the mountains with their animals. So, you see, we must take with us everything we need in order to mount an offensive against Baghdad. Not only gunpowder, weapons, and siege machines, but food for the men and silage for the animals, metal for horseshoes, leather for boots — everything right down to the little seats between the camels’ bumps. Else we perish.”

It was a grim picture. But the drearier the forecast became, the less melancholy the Sultan became. He even managed half a smile for the little seats between the camel bumps. Then he went rooting around among his papers with what can only be described as renewed vigor. And to be sure he found the exact dispatch he was looking for and pounced on it.

“I hold here in my hand” — with a triumphant wave of the document — “a bill for hauling only four supply categories, not including grain, from Hamedan to Baghdad by camel. Once we cross into Persian territory (
inshallah
)
we will need four thousand camels to supply the arsenal. Plus five thousand for my own larder. Plus two thousand for the necessaries of the Janissaries. More than eleven thousand camels in all. And let me tell you those camels are needful creatures. Everything must be made to order for them, even the saddle blankets. It costs fourteen hundred
akces
just to equip one of the beasts. Now add the purchase or rental of the horses and donkeys and the water buffalo that carry the heavy guns, and you can see what this change of plan is going to cost. And I am supposed to sign these orders” — waving his ringed hand across the sea of paper he had drowned us in — “and find the money for all of this.”