“What do you mean by that foolish title Seraskier-sultan?” I demanded, so exasperated that I forgot my lowly position. “You turn everything upsidedown. I had no such mission and my only object has been to serve the Sultan loyally. Neither Khaireddin nor I can be blamed for the defeat and I have nothing to add, since you will persist in distorting the truth.”
The smile faded from the Sultana’s lips and her plump face became a chalky mask. Her eyes took on an icy blue glint, and for a moment I seemed to be face to face with a monster in human form. Yet this singular expression vanished so quickly that I fancied I must have dreamed it or been bewitched by her look.
Presently she said in her usual cooing tones, “Perhaps you are speaking the truth and my informant was mistaken. I can only rejoice that all serve the Sultan so loyally and faithfully. You have greatly relieved my mind, Michael el-Hakim; you deserve liberal reward, and I shall not forget to put in a good word for you with the Sultan. Perhaps I am foolish to imagine that so gifted a man as the Grand Vizier would do anything behind his lord’s back. We must wait and see. All will turn out for the best and you and I will be silent about the whole distressing affair.”
She smiled at me again in her bewitching manner, but the cold glint remained in her eye as she repeated the words that seemed to veil a stern warning: “All will turn out for the best, and you and I will be silent about the whole distressing affair.”
With this she made a sign with her plump hand and a slave girl dropped the curtain between us.
As I returned through the splendid courtyards of the Seraglio I was overcome by a sense of unreality. This was like a story, or a dream, and I seemed to have been through it all before. I looked at the countless slaves who from the highest to the lowest turned their backs on me, and they no longer appeared to me as living people. It was as if they had no faces of their own, and only by their clothes, headdresses, sticks, whips, ladles, and other tokens of rank could I tell their position and occupation. They looked like nothing so much as brilliant beetles. Any one of them could have changed places with any other without altering the pattern. All would go on in the same empty way and with the same senseless and outmoded customs as before.
I seemed tQ stand outside. I no longer brooded over myself or my fate. I felt only an unspeakable weariness and depression, and the vanity of it all was like a raw December day in my heart.
At the beginning of January, 1536, Sultan Suleiman arrived at Scutari on the opposite shore of the Marmara, and allowed members of the Divan to help him from the saddle as a sign that the Persian campaign was at an end. The Grand Vizier had secretly ordered the building of a splendid barge, well able to compare with the fabled “Bucentoro” of the Doge of Venice, so that in a manner worthy of the conquerer of Persia the Sultan might glide over to Istanbul amid the thunder of salutes.
Once more the names of captured fortresses and cities were proclaimed to the populace. Once more the bonfires blazed for nights on end and the people roared their acclamations of the returning spahis and janissaries. But this time the joy was forced, as if evil forebodings had poisoned the mood of triumph. Moreover, the army had suffered very severe losses on the retreat, on account of both the Persian cavalry attacks and the bad weather, and many wives bitterly mourned their dead husbands, though they might do this only in solitude and within the four walls of their homes.
After the days of jubilation, life in the capital resumed its normal course, and no foreigner would have noticed any change. King Francis I’s representative, who had attended the Sultan from Bagdad to Tabriz and back to Istanbul, was rewarded for his trouble by the Sultan’s consent to a commercial treaty with France. Slaves of French birth in the Sultan’s dominions were given their freedom and all things pointed to the fact that King Francis, having learned nothing from former failures, was preparing for another war against the Emperor. Khaireddin did not fall into disgrace as many had hoped; on the contrary, the treaty was drawn up in his name and he was designated therein as king of Algeria. Without this, ill feeling would have been aroused among both Moslems and Christians. As it was, many otherwise shrewd Moslems blamed the Grand Vizier for secretly favoring the Christians, just as he had been blamed for protecting the Shiite heretics at the Ottoman army’s expense. But by this time all evil that occurred was laid at his door, to blacken his face and undermine his position, while all good was credited to the Sultan.
In the course of that spring the people’s senseless and unreasoning hatred for the Grand Vizier became so evident that he preferred not to appear in public, and remained either in his palace beyond the Atmeidan or among the buildings of the third courtyard of the Seraglio. Janissaries exercising on the Atmeidan would yell insults and make faces at his palace, and one night some drunken wrestlers broke into it, tore the trophies from the walls and smashed them, and befouled the corners of his rooms. Yet to avoid all troublesome publicity the Grand Vizier made no inquiry and summoned none of the culprits to answer for the outrage.
After his return from Persia the Grand Vizier was compelled first of all to deal with matters that had arisen during his absence and that the pashas had refused to handle for fear of making mistakes. Negotiations in preparation for the French treaty also occupied his time, so that with the best will in the world he could not receive me. The winter days went by without hope of a personal interview, although I longed to warn him of dangers that I did not dare to hint at in a letter. Now and then he sent me word that he would attend to me all in good time.
In response to my continual pestering, the Grand Vizier sent me two hundred gold pieces in a silken bag. This was intended as a proof of his favor, but never did a present sadden and hurt me so much. It showed that in his heart he despised me and believed that I served him only for money-and how could I blame him for that? The fault was mine. Too long I had thought only of presents and rewards. But now as I stood idly among the slender pillars of the Grand Vizier’s entrance hall with that embroidered purse in my hand, I perceived with agonizing clarity that not all the gold in the world could deaden the pain now gnawing at my heart.
Yet I will not seek to appear better than I am, for my object in writing this story is to be as honest as it is possible for imperfect human nature to be. Therefore I admit freely that since sharing the Tunisian diamonds with Andy I felt-though without any great pleasure-that my future was financially secure.
On my return Giulia laid her white arms about my neck and said coaxingly, “Dear Michael, while you were out I searched your medicine chest for a remedy for stomach trouble. The Greek gardener is ill. But I dared not take the African drug that you brought from Tunis, for you told me that an overdose might be dangerous. I don’t want to harm the man through ignorance.”
I disliked her habit of ransacking my chests while I was out, and I told her so. But my mind was on other things and I gave her a drug that Abu el-Kasim had warmly recommended, warning her against administering too much at a time. The same evening I was attacked by pains in the stomach after eating fruit, and Giulia told me that besides the gardener, one of the boatmen had also fallen sick. Such disorders were common in Istanbul and I paid no heed to my own pains. I took a dose of aloes and opium before going to bed and in the morning was fully recovered.
Next day I learned that the Sultan had suffered the same thing after an evening meal taken with the Grand Vizier. Suleiman at once succumbed to a mood of depression-a common enough thing among those suffering from stomach disorders.