The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (43 page)

Of course, it takes bottomless wealth to fund a scene such as I saw here today. And with respect, Majesty, may I tender to you my congratulations on having made alliance with such a financial prodigy as our brother, the Sultan.

Not surprisingly, the payday ritual — and the lucre that accompanies it — has swathed the camp in a blanket of good cheer that has expanded to include the Sultan’s pages. At the close of the payday ceremony, the troops, in the manner of all troops, hooted off to spend as much of their money as they could on liquor and whores while the court gathered together in the shah’s great reception hall, where the Sultan was tendered a royal welcome by the native Tabrizites plus assorted Kurdish chiefs.

The salutation began with the entrance of the Sunni priesthood (all of them members of the Ottoman
divan
as well as jurists, making them doubly revered personages). This governmental body has traveled all the way from Üsküdar and is expected to remain with the Sultan until we reach Baghdad, meeting regularly twice a week at the rest stops. One begins to appreciate the immense size of our cavalcade as various cadres, hitherto invisible, suddenly pop up to perform a task or simply to make an appearance.

No one I speak to seems to have a precise number for the size of our cavalcade, which has swelled considerably since we left Istanbul because various feudatories and
beys
arrive at each stop with their own complement of troops to fulfill their military obligations to the Sultan. According to my palace informant, now that the two halves of the army are joined at Tabriz, and allowing for the occasional additional dilatory Kurdish chieftain, there should be just under three hundred thousand bodies preparing to enter the Persian empire, plus an equal number of animals. The animal estimate goes far beyond military horses to include dray animals such as camels, donkeys, and water buffalo. Together the total animals probably far outnumber the troops. But as these animals are often rented for limited service on particular parts of the route, it is impossible for my informants to arrive at an accurate count of the animals that belong to the Ottoman army and those that are merely being leased.

To give you an example of the fluidity of these estimates, today a multiplicity of never-before-seen cohorts swept into the meeting place, wave after wave, each group distinguished from the others by the color of their turbans. I would guess there to be half a dozen of these military units, most of them comprising up to a thousand men and animals. All very colorful. But of the lot, the judges take the sartorial prize on account of the emerald green of their headgear. Massed together, they resemble a single huge emerald green cloud.

After all were seated, we witnessed the submission of both Gilan and Shirvan — two recently acquired provinces — whose leaders literally ate the dust at the Sultan’s feet. Then came the installation of the Shirvan emir’s son as the new governor of Tabriz. In the custom of the country, he brought along as a kind of gruesome trophy the severed head of the rebel governor of Bitlis, who had imprudently chosen to side with Tahmasp before the Grand Vizier’s army recaptured the town. Finally, we of the French delegation were recognized.

All this marching up and down and blowing of trumpets was directed by the Grand Vizier standing in for the Sultan, who must have had his fill of severed heads by now. Since it is the custom at this court for foreign visitors to conduct their business with the Grand Vizier — and frequently not even to see the Sultan in the flesh — we were quite prepared to present our credentials to the Grand Vizier alone. But no. After the bloody head from Bitlis had been retired, Ibrahim Pasha withdrew to the side of the podium, and, accompanied by the strains of the Sultan’s band, there came onto the podium a most astonishing sight: a small contingent of pages holding aloft on a palanquin a very young, very shiny, very black boy dressed in white satin. The young blackamoor was holding aloft a pillow also covered in white satin on which sat a life-size turban made not from cloth of gold but entirely of gold itself, every turn edged with a row of different-colored precious stones. One got a sense of the weight of the thing by the difficulty the boy had keeping it upright on the pillow.

I learned later in the evening from Selim, the page who seems to know everything about everyone, that this monstrous head ornament was ordered by the Grand Vizier from the legendary Venetian goldsmith Caorlini, very likely to assuage Suleiman’s displeasure on learning that his European rival, Charles Five, had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Medici pope. Apparently the Sultan was affronted by being denied a like honor, so the Grand Vizier had a headpiece made up for him. But since crowns are not worn in the Islamic world, the Grand Vizier had this coronet cast in the shape of a turban. No expense was spared — it is rumored to have cost 115,000 ducats. And it was publicly displayed at the Doge’s palace a couple of years ago to great acclaim before being shipped off to Istanbul. What no one seemed to realize was how much a turban made of gold would weigh, especially after it had been plastered with pearls and jewels.

In a word, the prodigious crown gave the Sultan a headache. From this indisposition came the notion of announcing the Sultan’s appearance on state occasions by sending out his gold turban ahead of him,
in locum tenens,
as it were.

I have taken advantage of your patience, Majesty, to regale you with these details in order to convey the peculiar nature of the people you have sent me to deal with. In this society, exquisite politesse is mixed in equal measure with rampant savagery, such as the unfortunate habit of lopping off the head of someone who has displeased you with a word or a gesture, then trucking the offending member around the countryside on a satin pillow as a trophy. At such times, all I can do is express my gratitude to God for making me a Frenchman.

Tomorrow morning we take up the practical business of reviewing the details of the treaty between the Ottoman Empire and ourselves. It should take the better part of the day but does not promise to present any difficulties, both sides having initialed the draft. Once our business is concluded, we will pack up for the journey back to Istanbul. There, after I have paid respects to the Sultana, I will entrust myself to the custody of a Venetian sea captain, the safest bet in the eastern Mediterranean — at least while the Venetians and the Turks maintain their current amity.

Your servant,

Jean de la Foret

41

COUP DE FOUDRE

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

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

Date: September 29, 1534

Majesty:

Was it Aristotle or Sophocles who warned us that no man could count himself happy until the moment of his death? This afternoon, a completely unanticipated event occurred which appeared for a time to put our entire mission in jeopardy. It seems that no treaty is truly ratified until it is signed. Fortunately, the document was finally confirmed at the last possible moment after a thunderbolt had suddenly struck down the person on whom all depended just as he was about to record the terms of the final clause. To reassure your mind, Majesty, it was not the Sultan who suffered this
coup de foudre
, nor one of our party, thanks to God, but the Sultan’s Chief Interpreter who, without warning, fell into a swoon and had to be carried from the negotiating table unconscious.

We had spent the morning haggling over details, such as precisely how many of our nationals would be accommodated within the proposed French quarter of Istanbul. The compromise agreed upon: a number equal to the Genovese but slightly fewer than the Venetians. Within these restrictions, the French now have the right to travel by land or sea and to buy and sell throughout the Ottoman Empire on the same terms as the Turks themselves.

When we gathered after lunch — many courses, all of which tasted like pilaf — the Sultan’s Chief Foreign Interpreter began to record the final terms of the treaty one by one, first in Arabic, then in French. But before he could finish, he suddenly turned pale, gasped, and collapsed at his lectern. At first we treated this
coup de foudre
as a purely personal calamity. It was only after the doctors had carried Ahmed Pasha from the room that the difficulties arising from his misfortune became apparent.

As you may recall, Majesty, we were promised at the outset that the other party would supply instant translation in both our official languages. And, indeed, the unfortunate translator turned out to be more than competent. What the Turks did not anticipate was that he might suddenly be rendered
hors de combat
by an act of God. Thus, they had not troubled themselves to provide a surrogate, nor had we. Something close to panic descended as we began to perceive our predicament.

“Never mind,” said the Sultan, with all the assurance of a man unaccustomed to being disappointed. “My Grand Vizier will take on the task. He has a decent familiarity with Latin, as do you Franks, and he will complete the document in that language while translating for me. Sadly, Turkish, Arabic and Persian are my only languages.”

Everyone nodded with relief, except for the Grand Vizier who turned somewhat pink and refused the assignment. His Latin was rusty and not up to the linguistic requirements of such precise interpretation, he demurred. Further, even if one of us were to do a translation of the treaty into Latin, there seems to be no one on the Ottoman side to carry it on from Latin to Arabic. Or Turkish. Or Persian. Everyone was apprehensive, no one more than the Grand Vizier, who seemed to fear the future perils inherent in a falsely translated treaty even more than the reproachful glares of his master.

And there we sat, stymied by an act of God, when, out of nowhere, a hand shot up.

“Sire?”

The Sultan motioned for the page to rise and speak.

“With respect, sire, I do have a command of Turkish, owing to my fine education in your School for Pages. And, although my French may be somewhat impaired by disuse, it is the language I learned at my mother’s knee during her time of service to the Marchesana of Mantova, when she translated and read aloud a number of the so-called French
romans
that the lady doted on.”

The Sultan beckoned and the page made his way to the lectern so recently vacated by the Chief Foreign Interpreter. He was a young fellow, light-skinned and agreeable to look upon with an amazing mop of golden curls; probably, I thought, one of those tribute boys taken as a tithe on captured Christian families from as far away as Russia and Poland, and circumcised as a Muslim slave to the Sultan. (I later learned that this boy is indeed circumcised but not as a Muslim. He is the son of the Sultan’s Jewish doctor, of all things.)

Well, sire, the page’s French was not up to our standard — he started out hesitant and never did achieve true fluency. But he did have the skill and the wit to work us through the document by the end of the day to everyone’s satisfaction. Correction: not everyone. Certainly, the Sultan was well pleased with his Jewish page. As the work went on, his expression changed from frowning apprehension to half a smile. But the Grand Vizier, who had started out the day brimming with good cheer, descended from élan to red-faced spleen. This episode could not fail to have damaged the esteem in which he is held by his master, the Sultan.

As I mentioned in an earlier dispatch from Constantinople, this Grand Vizier was a slave companion to the Sultan when they were boys, and since then he has risen faster than a shooting star in the royal firmament. After leading a triumphant campaign in Egypt, this Greek was named Grand Vizier over the heads of several older and wiser viziers, which does not make him a universal favorite. But that seems to trouble him not at all.

No doubt the Grand Vizier believes himself to be shielded from his enemies by his intimacy with the Sultan. And indeed, they dine together, they hunt together, and on campaign they share a tent and even clothing. What degree of intimacy this indicates I will not presume to assess. But there has been no one better positioned to fill the void left in the Sultan’s life by the death of his beloved mother and councillor than the Grand Vizier. Except, perhaps, the newly wedded Sultana, now the Regent.

Lest you begin to think me infected by the Byzantine spirit of conspiracy that pervades this place, let me assure you, sire, given the lack of any checks to the Sultan’s whim from a noble class, such conjecture is far from gossip. Conspiracy is the heart and soul of Ottoman politics. And whatever the outcome of this incident, the ill wind that blew the Grand Vizier into hazardous waters proved to be a fair breeze for us. For it was the lad’s intervention that saved our enterprise and enabled us to accomplish our task with dispatch.

Tomorrow, the Sultan and I will bid each other farewell and go our separate ways, him into Persia to retake Baghdad (which somehow managed to slip through his father’s fingers) and our small delegation to Trabzon — shades of Jason and the Argonauts — whence we will undertake the long voyage home to France.