The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (40 page)

With a doleful shake of the head, he motioned me to my feet. The lesson was over. And I began to back out of the royal presence in the obligatory way.

Next thing I knew, I felt the touch of his hand on my shoulder. Now, one of the first things I learned at the School for Pages was that the Sultan touches no one and no one touches the Sultan. Yet there I was standing in the middle of his tent with someone’s hand on my shoulder, and with only the two of us present, it could not have been any hand but his. While I was debating with myself whether or not to raise my eyes and discover if I was dreaming, he spoke:

“When I was your age my father read to me a quote from our ancestor the great Ghengis Khan. Do you wish me to pass it on to you?”

Of course I did. And these are the words he quoted (to the best of my memory): “
After us the descendants of our clan will wear gold-embroidered garments, eat rich and sweet food, ride fine horses, and embrace beautiful women. But they will not say that they owe it all to their Chinese forefathers and to us, their fathers. They will forget us and our great times.
”

I believe, Papa, that I saw a trace of mist in his eyes before he spoke again.

“This has been a long evening for you, my son.” Again! “Not what you expected when you signed on for this campaign. Without a military role to play and now deprived of your interpretive duties, you appear to have no avenue of expression for your youthful ardor. I myself have often found refuge in poetry at such times. And, observing the sympathetic way you have responded to the poems of the Mevlana, I believe that I have found an outlet for your poetic soul.”

My poetic soul! Lucky for me, I hadn’t raised my eyes. Otherwise, he surely would have read on my face my horror at this total misreading of my true nature.

Well, Papa, I have got my ardent wish for some role to play beyond that of a mere clerk, and, as you so wisely foretold, it has turned around and bit me in the ass.

Good night,

D.

From: Sultana Hürrem at Topkapi Palace

To: Sultan Suleiman en route, received at Sivas

Date: August 3, 1534

My fortune-favored Sultan:

It is acknowledged by all that generosity of spirit is one of your great virtues, my Sultan. But sadly not all hearts are as noble as yours. For my poor sake, whose whole life is only you, and for the sake of your children, who kiss the hem of your garment, be sparing with your trust. A royal court can all too easily become a nest of envious vipers. Sadly, I must remind you that your trusted viziers in council have been the source of assassination plots in the past. We must all be vigilant on your behalf and take care to surround ourselves only with those who love us most, our dear ones.

As a loving father, you want your daughter to be happy, as do we all. But as a royal family, we must continue to add new members who add strength to our house. A royal wedding is a God-given opportunity to create a new
damat
, a son-in-law of proven loyalty to sit as a vizier on your council. I have met separately with each of the candidates on our short list of husbands for Princess Saida. And I am now able to assure you that each one — the judge, the priest, and the admiral — would be only too willing to divest himself of any current domestic encumbrances in accordance with custom, and would welcome the handsome dowry that Princess Saida will bring with her and the gift of a suitable palace yet to be selected and equipped, a task I will be pleased to accomplish.

My own favorite choice would be Admiral Lofti. He has already proven himself in the Mediterranean theater. You may prefer the judge. The choice is, of course, yours. But allow me to point out that royal weddings are not created in a day. Even now, it is almost too late to plan a wedding to take place on your return. Everywhere I turn I am unable to proceed further until I can consult with the chosen
damat
,
which I cannot do until a
damat
is named by you personally. Meanwhile, the days tick by and I am at a loss to begin the impossible task of making countless arrangements with a non-existent future
damat
. On my knees I beg you, Magnificent One, to take time out of your careworn life to consider the following suggestion:

What if you were to designate Admiral Lofti informally through me and then simply make the choice official the day you arrive home safely, God willing? That would enable me to put into motion the legal and financial agreements that precede any important wedding contract. You cannot know the eagerness with which I look forward to welcoming a new son-in-law into our family circle, who may start to assume some of the onerous responsibilities that weigh so heavily on you and, in your absence, on me.

I beg you, my fortune-favored Sultan, do not withhold your favor from Admiral Lofti, for the sake of your beautiful daughter, for your own sake, and for that of the Ottoman dynasty. I beg you to bestow your informal blessing on him at once as
damat
for Princess Saida. I have spoken to him on your behalf. He is your slave. Our citizens have dug deep into their coffers to support this war and, what is more, have suffered many long months of your absence without a word of complaint. Would it not be a just reward to invite them to share in your happiness at the wedding of your beloved daughter to a man of your own choosing on the day of your return?

I long for your victorious return. I pray for your safety. May Allah watch over you. I am out of ink and out of tears.

Signed and sealed with the Regent’s seal.

At the bottom of the page, visible only by the heat of a taper, is written
:

Today the jewelers came to estimate the quantity of pearls needed to
decorate the wedding train of a princess. How many pearls does it take to embroider a shroud?

From: Sultan Suleiman, encamped at Sivas

To: Sultana Hürrem at Topkapi Palace

Date: August 9, 1534

Your keen eye and motherly concern have brought to mind a recollection of Princess Saida’s sweet smile, which we have hardly seen in the months since she lost her beloved grandmother. Like you I would welcome the sight of a touch of color in her pale cheeks and sparkle in her sad eyes. My daughter’s happiness is close to my heart, and I will be the most joyful of men to dance at her wedding.

Your efforts to bring that happy day closer are one of the many generous gestures from your capacious heart that I treasure. Not even a Sultan can always rely on such constant devotion. Your choice is my choice. I will forward an informal letter to be shown to Admiral Lofti, this document to be shared only with the necessary few.

My daughter is blessed to have her future happiness resting in such loving and capable hands as yours.

Signed,

The Sultan

At the bottom of the page, visible only by the heat of a taper, is written:

When mortals make plans, the gods laugh
.
Wars alter destinies. New
ties are formed on the campaign trail. New bonds are forged. Forbidden pathways open wide. What has seemed impossible becomes possible.

38

ALEPPO

From: His Special Envoy, Jean de la Foret at Aleppo

To: H.M. Francis the First, King of France at Blois

Date: September 15, 1534

Majesty:

Does your Majesty wonder at the source of this letter? No more than I do at being here in Syria and still out of reach of the Sultan. I can think of no word to describe the wild chase we are embarked on other than comedy.

As I reported from Constantinople (which the Ottomans have renamed Istanbul), we arrived there for the prearranged conference with the Sultan only to find that he had departed for Mesopotamia some weeks earlier. But we were assured that we could catch up with him at Aleppo if we took the sea route to Syria. We had no choice if we were to succeed in our mission to negotiate a trade agreement. But whatever issue we might take with their attitude, be it said for the Ottomans that they did find a berth for us on one of their ships bound for Antioch and provided us with a squad of Janissaries to protect us on the land portion to follow.

The sea voyage from Istanbul went quite without incident. These Ottomans have indeed turned the Mediterranean into a Turkish lake. They own it and they know it. When they passed us on their flotillas, they waved at us gaily like hosts at a garden party.

But that illusion was shattered abruptly when we arrived at Aleppo to find no Sultan. We are now advised that, as I write, the Sultan has shifted his route and is marching north to join the Grand Vizier in Azerbaijan. We are now informed that the Padishah will be pleased to audience us not at Aleppo but at Tabriz.

We have been offered a complicated explanation for this change of route — something to do with an unseasonable current of ferocious strength in the Tigress River that would have imperiled the animals and heavy guns. Surely the engineers must have considered conditions on the Tigress before abandoning the Syrian route. One suspects that we are not being told the whole story. One suspects it may have to do with events in Tabriz. According to my informant, who has returned to us this week from a reconnaissance mission to Azerbaijan, the Grand Vizier has had two months to establish a court and seems to have used it to position himself as a kind of surrogate king. Although the capture of Tabriz may have been brought to your ears as a great triumph, it must be admitted that the victory was considerably facilitated when the Great King of Persia took to his heels and fled eastward after he learned that the Ottoman army was approaching. So Ibrahim Pasha actually walked unimpeded into an untouched town and a fully functioning palace complete with furnishings. My informant tells me that the Persians didn’t even have time to douse the cooking fires.

Mind you, no one can deny the Grand Vizier’s talent for organization. Think of how he set up the Ottoman administration of Egypt in the twenties — still functioning ten years later — laws, protocols, positions, appointments all in place within three months of his defeat of the Mamluks. Ibrahim Pasha is not likable, nor trustworthy — after all, he is a Greek so is naturally two-faced by birth and ambitious by inclination — but he does know how to get things done. Now he has apparently set himself up like a king in the palace that Tahmasp abandoned, and has taken up the Persian habit of accepting the full body bow as his right. He has also begun to sign his edicts as
Saskehier
,
which in the Turkish tongue means king.

What will Suleiman make of all this when he arrives in Tabriz? He was well satisfied with Ibrahim’s generalship of the Egyptian conquest. But Azerbaijan is not Egypt. The Mamluk rulers of Egypt were usurpers who created and left behind them new instruments of governance. When Ibrahim Pasha conquered Egypt, he had only to change their official
tugra
to the Ottoman ensign and carry on as a foreign master. But the capital that Tahmasp left behind at Tabriz is a city with a long history of service to the Shah of Persia. And thence are we now bound. Somehow what began as a diplomatic mission has turned into a child’s game of tag, in which the Ottomans chase after the Great King of Persia and we chase after the Ottomans with the local Bedouins snapping like puppies at our heels.