The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi (9 page)

He had not long to wait. The final selections were announced in the dining hall that evening, and Danilo del Medigo, the freshman Jew, headed the list of those chosen to join the Sultan’s
gerit
team that year.

Did he have a momentary longing for someone to share his good news with? Yes. Did he think wistfully of Princess Saida, his confidante and friend? Yes. But she was lost to him now, beyond reach. And his new teammates were beckoning.

Being younger than all the rest, he quickly became a kind of mascot to them, the frequent butt of rude jokes but at the same time the subject of real affection. And he had his horse for companionship, his own horse — a gift the Sultan gave to each member of his team — which Danilo named Bucephalus. And he had the rights to his own stall in the Sultan’s stable, where he spent his evening hours combing and grooming the animal’s coat until it shone, as he recalled his mother having told him she did as a girl. Buoyed by this double dose of good fortune, he barely had time to notice the darker side of his newly charmed life. And the news he sent to his father, who was away on campaign in the field, was all good.

Dear Papa:

Today in the ring, I un-saddled myself and re-saddled myself at full gallop. This is one of the four basic turns we must master in this first year. The last of the four is when we gallop two by two and switch horses in mid-gallop. I tried that once in the Harem School with Prince Mustafa as my partner, and we both ended up in the ditch with skinned knees. But here I know that I will master the move because my partners are all such excellent riders and we practice every day, rain or shine. I know that you view the
gerit
as a hazardous sport, but, Papa, a man can be trampled in the street by a runaway camel. And here, we learn slowly, step-by-step, always very carefully watched and constantly warned to take no unnecessary chances.

I hope this will allay your fears for my safety. Believe it or not, I am most secure when I am on the back of my horse. And, Papa, where else would I get to ride every day with my friends, on my own horse? And Bucephalus keeps me company in the evenings when the others are at the mosque. And, yes, I take my Torah with me to the stables and read to him. I do not believe it matters to God where or with whom we do our study. Do you have thoughts on this?

Your most respectful son,

Danilo del Medigo

P.S. As you warned me, the discipline is strict, even harsh. But there are no picky quarrels or tattle-telling between us in this school, only friendship and loyalty, because we stand or fall as a team.

I thank you every day for allowing me to be here and I thank God every day for bestowing on me such good fortune.

6

A WISH COME TRUE

Strict? Harsh? In writing about the School for Pages to his masters in the Venetian Senate, their
bailo
reported that discipline was enforced with an austerity and a relentlessness that rivaled a Capuchin monastery. For Danilo del Medigo, it represented a way of life unlike any other he had ever known. Having lived through the sack of Rome, he was no stranger to violence and cruelty. And certainly his residence in Topkapi, where every event unfolded with scrupulous obedience to protocol, had acquainted him with the formality of the Oriental style. But the impersonal, calculated punishment meted out by the school’s eunuch overseers stationed night and day on the balcony overlooking his dormitory was something new in his experience. Monitored by the eunuchs for their behavior, by teachers for their academic performance, and by a
mullah
for their religious observance, the young pages were constantly subject to severe punishments for the slightest infringement — lateness, dirty shoes, a misspelled word, a whisper during prayers.

One hour before dawn, the sleeping pages were summoned by three strikes of a gong suspended from the ceiling of their dormitory. Half an hour later the Chief Aga came around to inspect their beds. Any page discovered still in his bed was pulled out and scolded. Always an early riser, Danilo did not find this onerous. But when one of his mates overslept for the third time and was punished with ten strokes of the bastinado that crippled him for a week, the screams of the offender when the cane cut into the soles of his feet seemed to bite into Danilo’s own flesh as well.

The routine was unvarying. Lessons began at sun-up. At four hours after sunrise, the first meal was served, consisting of boiled mutton without sauce, a thin loaf of bread and a bowl of cheese, lentil or cream soup thickened with rice, honey, and saffron or currants. No salad, no sherbet, no melons, and no variation except for the currants.

Next came school work and athletic training followed by the second meal — the same monotonous repast as the first, day after day. With his already healthy appetite stimulated by daily bouts of physical exercise, Danilo would have been ready to gobble down the thinnest shepherd’s gruel had it been the only dish on offer. But most of the pages — some more picky, others hungrier — complained bitterly about the food.

At sunset, prayers were attended in the mosque — from which the Jewish page was excused — followed by a quiet hour of Koran study and ablutions. The presiding eunuch announced bedtime by striking a cane on the floor. Lights out. No talking. In the morning while the pages were at the mosque, the caregivers searched through their trunks for groceries and love letters.

This regimen was followed six days a week, punctuated by the mandatory five prayer breaks each day. The only deviation was a serving of pilaf
at the second meal every Thursday.

But twice a year two official
Bayram
festivals were celebrated: the
Bayram
of sacrifice that marks the sacrifice of Isaac and the
Bayram
of sweets at the end of Ramadan. On these two occasions, the pages dressed up in their finest clothes and attended a
baisemain
held by the Sultan where they kissed the hem of his garment and, with his blessing, received his permission to spend the next four days pleasuring themselves day and night.

Uninhibited by any thought of rules or punishment during these respites, they were permitted to leave the confines of their dormitory and cross the waterway, awash with caiques and barges loaded with revelers. Once landed, they were free to roam the streets of the capital unhindered and unfettered.

Other than the
Bayram
reprieves, it was all work and very little play for the Sultan’s pages. Seen through the eyes of someone like the Venetian
bailo
, the investment of thought, time, energy, and money needed to keep this training school running seemed excessive. But to the Ottoman sultans, this school was the bedrock of what foreigners called the Ruling Institution and what their subjects simply called the Sultan’s
cul,
a governing caste of slaves who owed allegiance strictly to him. This
cul
was the unique invention that had enabled an obscure mongrel nomadic tribe to conquer, hold, and expand a sphere of influence exceeding the Roman Empire in less than one hundred years.

The speed of that transformation boggled the European imagination. Observing it from the west, it seemed as if one day the Osman tribe was a ragged band of
ghazi
march warriors and overnight became the scourge of Christian Europe. Having converted early on to Islam and changed their name from Osman to Ottoman, they attributed their remarkable rise to the beneficence of Allah. They saw their mission as a
jihad
against infidels. But they went at it with a stony pragmatism that owed more to Sun Tzu than to Mohammed. And like their Oriental forbears they seemed to have a gift for recognizing problems early and solving them without delay, often using methods borrowed from others, in particular their enemies.

When, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the first Ottoman gave up being a march warrior in the style of Ghengis Khan, took on the title of Sultan, and set about to create an empire, he wasted no tears on the demise of his traditional tribal council. Clearly that instrument of clan life was inadequate to the tribe’s new ambitions. In what became a hallmark of Ottoman style, the new Sultan and his advisors began to look around — not only in Asia but in Europe as well — for models of how other great powers protected, maintained, and managed their greatness.

To the west, the rapacious barons and rebellious dukes of Europe offered ample evidence that aristocracies of blood were breeding grounds for corruption and insurrection. So there would be nothing like a hereditary caste of nobles in the new Ottoman Empire, except for the heirs of the Sultan, the new title adopted for the former tribal chief.

The very idea of a republic was completely alien to their tribal tradition. But Egypt provided a useful exemplar. The Egyptians had bought themselves an entire army in the slave markets of the Mediterranean, had trained them to the highest levels, and had gone on to win battles with them. Why not take this practice a step further? Why not expand the role of the slave caste beyond the military to cover service in the civil arm of government as well?

Of course, certain small adjustments became necessary. The slave markets could and did supply soldiers and gardeners and grooms and hangmen, but they did not offer the superior types — boys of the highest intelligence and ability — who could be trained to run a world empire. For those candidates, the Ottoman Empire builders needed to cast their nets wider than the slave markets. As observant Muslims, they were prohibited from enslaving other Muslims. But the Koran had nothing to say about enslaving infidels.

Tax levies are as old as time. All over the world, farmers give up a portion of their crops as fiefs. The church exacts tithes from its followers. It is an old idea. But the Ottomans bent it in a new direction. Their ingenious invention, the
devshirme,
was an impost not of taxes or crops but of manpower, specifically a levy of one son out of every thirty born to the conquered Christian families in the Ottoman Empire. Of the judges sent abroad to harvest this human crop, it was said that they were more skilled in judging boys than trained horse dealers were in judging colts.

Out of each draft of the
devshirme
, the most physically perfect, the most intelligent, and the most promising boys in every respect were set aside for the Sultan’s personal service. They became members of his
cul
. Once selected, these “tribute boys” were immediately converted to Islam. But these slaves rarely severed their Christian roots completely. Deep inside them, there often ran a tendency toward drunkenness and whoring (for which, with typical Ottoman bureaucratic efficiency, a provision had been made in the form of the semi-annual
Bayram
outings during which all rules of behavior were suspended).

Once they were certified as loyal Muslims, the pages of the
cul
were assigned to one of the Sultan’s personally supervised schools, which also served as training grounds for his sons and nephews. There the brainiest became bureaucrats, the brawniest became officers, and from them all the highest posts in the land were commissioned. Once selected, all were treated equally — prince or slave, it made no difference.

Not surprisingly the Europeans were shocked when they discovered that this formidable new Turkish Empire was not actually ruled by the Turks themselves but by a Christian-born slave caste. It cut clean across the hereditary principle they held so dear. Equally incredible were the reports that in many poor areas, Christian families vied for the chance to send their sons into Muslim slavery, seeing opportunity where any right-thinking Christian could see only shame. But some perceptive European observers were impressed by the invention of the
devshirme
. One of them, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbucq, the Flemish ambassador to Istanbul, described the
cul
system as a “ruthless meritocracy.”

“Their ideas are not our ideas,” he wrote. “They care for men as we care for our horses,” he explained to his masters. “With us birth is the standard for everything. There is no opening left for merit. The prestige of birth is the sole key to advancement in the public service, whereas among the Turks no distinction is attached to birth. Each man in Turkey carries in his own hand his ancestry and his position in life, to make or mar as he will. Those so-called slaves who receive the highest offices from the Sultan are most often the sons of shepherds and herdsmen, and far from being ashamed of their parentage they actually glory in it. Nor do they believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary but, rather, the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal. So honors, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service. And if a man be dishonest or lazy or careless, he remains at the bottom of the ladder.”

In the pages’ schools continuous thought and care were devoted to training worthy boys for leadership. As the ever-astute Busbecq pointed out to his civilized Belgian patrons, with no little irony, “In Europe, if we find a good dog or hawk or horse we spare nothing to bring it to the greatest perfection of its kind. But if a young man happens to possess an extraordinary disposition, we do not take like pains. And we receive much pleasure and many kinds of service from the well-trained dog, horse, and hawk, but the Turks receive much more from a well-educated man.”