The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (53 page)

Certainly the admiral is a qualified candidate. Still my obligations to the Ottoman dynasty dictate that a less hurried and more thoughtful selection process be followed. While searching, I may happen upon a younger man: one equally loyal, whose courage and quickness to respond to challenges would merit consideration and whose youthful ardor might better serve the dynastic demands of the Ottoman Empire. I understand how troublesome it will be to change the plans you have made for Princess Saida’s marriage to Admiral Lofti at this late date. And I certainly do not wish to offend the admiral in any way or tarnish his fine record. Perhaps a new plan can be made to seem as a postponement rather than a cancellation.

I leave that decision to you. There is no one more practiced in the art of diplomacy.

Step by step, we are moving toward a spring departure from Iraq. Already the slowest parts of our expedition — the siege equipment and the big guns — have been dispatched homeward by the southern route along the Euphrates. Meanwhile I, myself, accompanied by the Grand Vizier, will proceed to Tabriz and from there return to Istanbul via northern Anatolia.

Believe me, my love, had I a pair of wings and only my own desires to think of, I would fly home to your arms at the speed of an eagle. I am sorely tempted. But it is many months since my subjects in Mesopotamia have caught so much as a glimpse of their new emperor — the reincarnation of their hereditary caliph, once again the Defender of Mecca, Medina, and Baghdad, and, most important, the being to whom they must render fidelity and taxes. So you see why I feel it necessary to take advantage of this opportunity to make myself highly visible and not simply pass them by. But you have my pledge to be in your arms by the end of this triumphant year.

Be patient, my darling. Think not of the lonely months ahead but of the glorious future to follow.

I am, ever, your Sultan of Love.

Beneath the signature, an invisible encryption:

Aided by perseverance, fidelity, and patience, the goodwill of the gods can overcome what has been fated and transform what seemed to be the impossible into the possible.

From: Danilo del Medigo at Baghdad

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: February 17, 1535

Dear Papa:

If you recall, the Sultan left me a few nights ago with the impression that he was more than pleased with my service. Then, tonight, he announced that he had a further reward for me.
What is it?
I wondered.
Another gold-embroidered caftan? A permanent appointment to the Fourth
Oda
?

No, it was none of these. As a reward for my excellent service, he is sending me home by the short route across the Syrian wilderness, along with the heavy cannons and unused siege equipment. Also, he has given me an advance in rank to captain in the new Heavy Armament Brigade and a huge raise in pay. He and his Janissaries, his
divan
, and his treasure — and his Grand Vizier — will return via Tabriz and from there march home victorious across the top of Anatolia to Istanbul.

To hear the Sultan tell it, the idea of assigning me to the Heavy Armament Brigade is his own. But I hear the voice of Ibrahim Pasha in his words. And I do not doubt that it was the Grand Vizier who implanted this notion in the Padishah’s mind. As the Sultan tells it, he made a solemn commitment to you, when he invited me to join him as an interpreter, that I would not be gone for more than a year. Now that year is coming to an end. He has been made aware that I am deeply homesick and worried about my ill father. (And who do you suppose has made him aware?) And he has found a way to gratify my wishes by giving me this position in the Heavy Equipment Brigade, which will bring me home sooner than if I had continued as a member of his personal retinue. It will also put a stop to the growing warmth between us.

If that was his intention, the Grand Vizier may have outsmarted himself. By now, I am as pleased to see the end of this court as Ibrahim Pasha is to see the last of me. I no longer wish to study war. I no longer find any nobility in it, if ever there was. I thought that our enemy was Tahmasp and his Persians, who have danced on ahead of us burning everything behind them. But I have learned that our true enemies have been cold and hunger and geography, and weather and deceit and history.

The great king of Persia must have read Arrian because what he is doing to us is exactly what his ancestor did to Alexander — refusing to engage. And here in Iraq we have been dutifully replaying īskender’s role as the conqueror in a strange land, where we are regarded as invaders at worst and, at best, as dupes to be trapped, snared, milked, and bilked as these Persians know very well how to do.

So, Papa, I am on my way home by the short route. I cannot contain my eagerness to see you. The trek ahead will take us on the old Silk Road that follows the Euphrates River along the rim of the Syrian desert, then over the Taurus Mountains into southern Anatolia. It is slow but secure — chosen more out of concern for the valuable cannons, each of which cost the earth, than for me, I am sure. Still, you need have no fears for my safety since the entire route lies within the bounds of the Ottoman Empire — no threat from lurking Persians.

On the other hand, once this portion of the army is separated from the Sultan, it is also out of range of his courier service. But I will try to get a letter through to you when I can.

Love,

D.

P.S. I trust that the tale of your illness is an invention of Ibrahim Pasha’s fertile mind. But, if you really have fallen ill, Papa, please send a message to the Sultan and ask him to send me home. He is the only one able to pluck me up out of the Heavy Armament Brigade and speed me to your bedside. And he would do that, Papa. He never fails to repeat to me that he holds you in the highest esteem and that he owes his present good health — including the cure of his gouty toes — to your expert ministrations. And, as you know, he is a great one for repaying every act of service — both good and bad — to the full.

52

MAYADIN

From: Danilo del Medigo at Mayadin

To: Judah del Medigo at Topkapi Palace

Date: April 29, 1535

Dear Papa:

After the last letter I was able to send, everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time even to search out the yellow pigskin slippers that I meant to bring home to you. And now I am halfway to Aleppo, traveling an ancient road that hugs the shore of the Euphrates and stretches over a brown sea of dust — teeming with gazelles and even wolves. Mind you, I haven’t seen a wolf yet.

Oh, yes, since I am no longer in the Sultan’s retinue, I no longer have the use of the Sultan’s courier post. Too bad to be out of touch, but think of this, Papa: I am getting my chance to travel the length of the fabled Euphrates on my new assignment to the Heavy Armament Brigade, in which I am now a captain.

By the way, the sudden departure of this brigade from Baghdad was not because of strategy, as you might expect, but because of money (as everything seems to be in military life). It came about because of the huge financial penalty we would have to pay for hanging onto leased animals past their return delivery date. In this case, the animals are water buffaloes, ten thousand of them rented at a discount by the Grand Vizier to carry our heavy weapons, which have never been used — not once! — in the entire Baghdad campaign. Well, by some mishap, these creatures were overlooked when it came time to return them to their owners.

Don’t ask me how anyone can simply forget ten thousand water buffaloes, but the Grand Vizier somehow managed it, and the fines for holding onto the animals past their breeding time mount up at the rate of a hundred gold pieces a day.

I must add that these excessive charges are not some dastardly Arab plot to bilk the Sultan, no matter what the Grand Vizier would have you believe. I am told that the buffalo merchant will actually lose many hundreds of gold pieces if he is unable to breed his herd in season, because the cows come into heat only once a year and each cow produces only one calf per breeding season. Important point: the sale of calves constitutes an even bigger profit to their owner than the leasing or slaughtering of the beasts, which makes it all the more important to have the herd back in the breeding yards on time.

Until now I hardly knew that water buffaloes existed. So far in this campaign, our pack animals have been mostly mules and camels. But I now know that it takes twenty buffaloes to transport one of the big cannons. Expensive, you say, but water buffaloes can survive on whatever grows wild in muddy terrains like riverbanks, so it costs nothing to feed them. Which is why we are transporting them via the Euphrates.

Luckily, our Sultan is a great one to create advantage out of adversity. Within a day, after the affair of the forgotten buffaloes was discovered, he had devised an ingenious plan for the quick return of this expensive herd.

Instead of remaining idle in Baghdad while the court readies itself to quit Iraq, the buffalo herd can make themselves useful by carrying the big guns back to their breeding grounds in Aleppo. There, the Heavy Armament Brigade is authorized to purchase a herd of mules to carry us and our heavy baggage homeward over the Taurus Mountains, a chore that mules are much better at than buffaloes.

That is the important difference between camel strings and buffalo hordes. While buffaloes navigate the muddy edge of the river with ease, it is a terrain into which camels tend to sink and die. And I have learned that it is of such calculations that this war effort consists. Forget marksmanship, horsemanship, courage, and honor. Think of account books, abacuses, records, and calculations. These are the very heart and soul of war. I finally understand the lesson that the Sultan was trying to teach me when he unleashed the storm of papers over us at Sivas.

And I am daily reminded as we plod along this old river of your warning to be careful what I wish for.

I wanted to see the great rivers of antiquity. Well, I am certainly getting my chance. These beasts may be the strongest and the cheapest, but they move very slowly — very, very slowly. I mean twice as slowly as a camel and at least four times slower than any horse. (I don’t know about donkeys.) As for the Euphrates, I report to you that it has the muddiest banks of any river I ever saw.

Love,

D.

From: Sultana Hürrem, Consort and Regent, at Topkapi Palace

To: Sultan Suleiman, whose glory resounds throughout the world, encamped at Baghdad

Date: March 25, 1535

My beloved Sultan,

I can only hope that this letter reaches Baghdad before you depart. The vast distance and the weeks that separate us make what is not easy more difficult, but these petty annoyances are melted away by the warm words of trust and concern in your recent letter postponing Princess Saida’s wedding.

A postponement there will be. I have begun to advise the countless people concerned. Of course I will not cease my efforts on behalf of Princess Saida’s future happiness. I will most certainly continue to cultivate a familial relationship with our chosen
damat,
the Admiral Lofti Pasha. And I will keep up the search for a suitable palace in which the couple can establish a residence and begin to raise a family. I owe it to the blessed girl not to desert her at a time when she most needs the advice of a mother.