The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (51 page)

From: Danilo del Medigo at Baghdad

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: December 4, 1534

Dear Papa:

Finally, we are encamped in fabled Baghdad. I assume word has reached you that the city fell to us without a shot. Quite so. Tahmasp’s governor, Mehmet Khan, met us at the gates accompanied by a cortège of nobles to escort our army into the city. Once again this province is back in Sunni hands and our Sultan sits officially as the Caliph of Baghdad, seated high on a solid gold throne in the caliph’s carpeted throne room, wielding the caliph’s scepter and wearing the caliph’s crown.

In the midst of all this grandeur, there is no place for me. The Sultan is fully occupied with readying the restored province of Baghdad for its place in the Ottoman Empire. Already he has organized the government of the new province under an Albanian pasha — also named Suleiman — and has bolstered him against future Persian attacks from the east with a garrison of one thousand harquebusiers and one thousand cavalry. He is also building a citadel to repel the shah, should he return to Iraq, and has assigned a total of 32,000 troops to guard the province. All of this, says Ahmed Pasha, may well make Iraq the most expensive to maintain of all the provinces in the Ottoman Empire.

But Baghdad is still Baghdad. So each day, I mount my horse and I set out to see what is to be seen while I await a summons from the Sultan. Sadly, little of ancient Baghdad remains. Of course, the fabled city had lost much of its splendor long before we got here. Genghis Khan is said to have razed it to the ground just a few hundred years ago. And Tamerlane, they say, decimated the population a hundred years later. But great cities somehow stay alive, don’t they? And, ravaged or not, this city, built on the bricks of ancient Babylon, has the air of a place held aloft by the sheer power of history. The souk
is still soaked with the scent of cardamom. And the streets still hum with the accents of Arabs, Russians, Aramaeans, Turks, Jews, Christians, Nubians, Laristanis, and all the rest who keep trade flowing between east and west.

But as day follows day with no word from the royal enclosure, I cannot help but believe that I have unwittingly done something to offend the Sultan. And I wonder if, as the cynics say, no good deed goes unpunished. For in my admittedly sketchy knowledge of the history of kings, I cannot find a single instance when the act of saving a king’s life (and I did save his life) is rewarded with stony silence and disfavor. I find it more and more difficult to keep myself ready for the summons that never comes.

Truthfully, Papa, I am very discouraged.

Your loving son,

D.

From: Danilo del Medigo at Baghdad

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: December 13, 1534

Dear Papa:

Finally, today, for the first time since we arrived in Baghdad, I was summoned to the Sultan’s apartments in the traditional residence of the great caliphs of history and legend. At Tabriz, Tahmasp fled too hurriedly to carry anything away with him. Here at Baghdad, he had time to pack up, or smash up, every portable thing in the palace. So what greeted us on arrival were bare walls and empty rooms. But not for long. Knowing the Persians, our foresighted leader anticipated finding his captured strongholds stripped bare, even burned. And so now I am beginning to comprehend what filled up the hundreds of wagons and carts that made up the bulk of the Sultan’s personal caravan. Pillows! I swear to you, Papa, I have never seen so many pillows and carpets and braziers and lamps and lanterns crammed into one space, each of them so carefully packed that not a single pane of glass was shattered in transit. And enough of them to fill, beyond overflowing, the confines of the Baghdad
selamlik
where the likes of Harun al-Rashid and Saladin ate, bathed, took their leisure, and greeted their guests in the glory days of the caliphate.

I thought of you, Papa, when I took my place beneath the caliphs’ ancient throne and gazed upward into the huge green cupola that shelters the ruler’s throne, still awesome after centuries of neglect. Standing there, I remembered you putting me to sleep with stories of olden times when Baghdad was the most powerful city in the world, the heart of an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to India. And Mama stuffed me with the doings of Harun al-Rashid, the caliph who rewarded poets for a good sonnet with gold pieces, Greek slave girls, and horses from his royal stables. Can you imagine the Christian emperor giving a valuable horse to a poet? As you have often told me, Papa, things do come to those who wait. But not, I have found, necessarily good things. So, yes, I was called. And treated kindly. But I was also dismissed. Not by the Padishah himself but by the Grand Vizier, who had apparently been delegated to deal with me.

During my audience, the Sultan continued to consult with his pages in another corner, leaving me to the mercies of Grand Vizier Ibrahim. Mind you, the Grand Vizier was very polite. The Padishah, in deep gratitude for my quickness and agility during the avalanche in the Zagros Mountains, he explained, was graciously granting me a fully honorable discharge from his service and a quick return to my ailing parent, plus a second purse of gold.

For a moment I stood stunned, clutching the heavy purse that the Grand Vizier had thrust into my hand. Then I found myself walking as if propelled by an unseen hand toward the Sultan at the other end of the room. As you well know, Papa, one does not approach the Padishah unless invited, yet I heard my own voice issuing from my throat as I sank to my knees and kissed the hand that had bestowed the coins and thanked him for it.

“However,” I explained, looking the Sultan full in the face, “I cannot accept a reward for such a small service after the many benefactions you have bestowed upon me. What I did was nothing more than what duty demanded. But, sire, the skill I used to kill that animal, the skill for which you have so generously praised me, I learned through your good offices, in your schools, which I attended at your invitation.”

I waited. When no one came forward to garrote me with a silken bowstring, I plunged on. “It is I who owe you thanks, sire — for my excellent education, my equestrian training, my language skills. Under your generous benefaction, I have enjoyed schooling that would be the envy of any boy in the world. As for these past months in your campaign retinue, I will remember them all the rest of my life with gratitude for the wisdom I have received from your own lips.”

From his expression, I gathered that I had not entirely displeased the Sultan with my unauthorized utterances. But I also knew that, since this might well be my only chance to speak face to face with him, I had better get to it before I was hustled off. Thus far, the royal pages had been so taken aback by my audacity that they had made no moves. The Grand Vizier simply glowered.

“With your assent, sire,” I continued, “I would, however, ask one single indulgence . . .” If he indicated the affirmative, I was, as we say in the stables, home and dry. If not, I was cooked. But what did I have to lose other than a packet of gold coins?

Fortuna was with me that day. The Sultan nodded graciously. He even spoke.

“Ask what you will,” he said.

“All I want in the world, great Padishah,” I told him, “is to remain in your service, to finish out this campaign with my comrades, and to return home victorious in your train.”

As I had hoped it would, my offer so pleased the Sultan that he announced in a booming voice, “Request granted and double the purse.” Whereupon he went on to acknowledge what he called my extraordinary service at the hunt right there in front of the entire court. And as I prepared to back away he added, “Such loyal service as yours calls for a reward beyond mere coins to mark the place you have earned in my heart.” Then, with a nod to his Grand Vizier, “Tomorrow we will search for a place in our entourage where such skill and devotion are made full use of.”

And to be sure, today I was summoned again. There was no mistaking, I was once again in the Sultan’s favor. Had I any doubts, his greeting when I arrived at his audience tent the next day was, if not effusive, at least cordial. More than cordial. He actually rose from his nest of pillows to greet me. “We are having a discussion on how to deal with the Persians from now on,” he advised me, as if speaking to an old friend or a trusted advisor. “And it occurred to me,” he went on, oblivious of the Grand Vizier’s annoyance, “that we might learn something from the eastern campaigns of īskender, who was faced with similar choices. We are, after all, walking in his footsteps. Do you by chance have a helpful passage from Arrian’s
Life of İskender
firmly in your memory, my boy?”

Did I? No, I did not. Should I admit the imperfections of my scholarship or should I prepare to bluff it out in case I was called upon to recite whole passages from Arrian? Too risky, I thought. Better stick with the truth.

“My memory is imperfect, sire. But the text itself is in my cabinet only a few steps away along the corridor.”

“Go get it at once,” the Sultan ordered. Then, before I had time to make it to the door, “No, stop. My business with the Grand Vizier is done for the night. Bring the Arrian manuscript to my bed within the hour. You can read me to sleep.”

“But, sire,” the Grand Vizier protested, “our discussion is not over. We have yet to reach a clear strategy for dealing with the Persians. And I must leave for Persia before dawn.”

With hardly a pause for thought the Sultan quickly turned the Grand Vizier’s point to his own advantage.

“Exactly!” He swooped down on Ibrahim Pasha like a bird of prey. “You will be much better prepared to advise me on a Persian strategy after you are on the ground in that territory and have gained close-up knowledge of Persian resources and intentions. Is that not the very reason I am sending you off on this dangerous mission at a time when I am so in need of your vast experience in settling the occupation of Baghdad?”

As always, his logic was irrefutable. He did not wait for a response but simply turned to me at the door. “Give me time to bid farewell to the Grand Vizier, my boy, then appear at my bedside with the Arrian manuscript.”

As I crept out of the room I caught a glimpse of the Grand Vizier’s face that seared my soul. Believe me, Papa, I have seen men in battle lusting after blood and riders, consumed by a passion to destroy an opponent with a
gerit
,
but never have I seen a more palpable expression of venom on a man’s face.
This man will not rest
, I thought to myself,
until he sees me dead
.

With that happy thought, I bid you good night.

D.

From: Sultana Hürrem at Topkapi Palace

To: Sultan Suleiman, encamped in Baghdad

Date: December 15, 1534

Glorious Sultan!

So many tasks, so many details. Duty calls to me as it does to you. Small chores in my case, the conquest of the world in yours. From time to time I think back to my early days in the harem as your Second
Kadin,
and of my delight at receiving the early poems of the Sultan of Love. Will those days ever come again? Perhaps, as I have heard the Christians say, for everything there is a season. Perhaps this is my season of service and obedience to a great
ghazi
who labors in a great cause.

One source of comfort to me is that all the omens are in place for the glorious occasion that is in prospect! When I consulted with the royal astronomer he confirmed that the very time we are planning for Princess Saida’s nuptials is the most felicitous period in which a woman can marry. During any of the last ten days of January, he says, Jupiter is in good aspect to the princess’s sun. So, under the benign goodwill of the gods, the princess will be married within two weeks of your victorious return. The Festival of Double Happiness will memorialize not two but three milestones: your great victory over Persia, your long-awaited homecoming, and a family wedding to warm the hearts of your people. The whole world will watch with awe and respect the total success of the Ottoman Empire.

Signed and sealed with the Regent’s stamp by Sultana Hürrem.