No request could have been more acceptable to the Grand Vizier. A smile overspread his handsome face as he stretched fqrth his hand to be kissed and said, “Your request is the best proof of your sincerity, for if you had meditated treachery you would certainly not have asked for a house near the capital, but rather such reward as could be carried abroad. And there is no lovelier city than Istanbul. Allah himself designed it to be the capital of the world, and if he wills it I mean to beautify it further with fine buildings and mosques. I will make over to you a spacious plot of ground next to my own summer palace on the Bosphorus, and Sinan shall build for you and your family a roomy wooden house to harmonize with the landscape and gladden the heart and the eyes. He may draw the necessary funds from my treasury and employ azamoghlans to help in the building. In confirmation of which I now repeat the first sura.”
Master Gritti shook his head at my stupidity, but my own joy knew no bounds and I saw that fate after all had been kind in sending me to this war.
But we wasted many valuable days at Buda, and when at last the army moved off the heavens opened once more, so that even the toughest of the janissaries began to fear that Hungary was infested with raging jinn, while the shivering dervishes foretold another deluge. Yet the Sultan’s army was too big for anyone to doubt its ultimate success. Not even the Hungarians doubted it, for when on our way up the Danube valley we came to the strong fortress of Gran, Bishop Varday surrendered at once and so far sacrificed himself as to join the Sultan’s suite, in order to save what could be saved of the property of the Hungarian church.
We pursued our way under great difficulties, and it was pitiful to see the camels in that icy rain, slipping and stumbling along the swampy roads and tearing the pads of their feet, until they lay down to die. By the time we reached Vienna we had hardly twenty thousand camels left, though we had started with over ninety thousand, and it will be understood how hard it became to carry supplies for so vast an army.
September was drawing to an end when at last our forces took up their positions before Vienna, and in his gorgeous pavilion the Sultan sat shivering before a charcoal brazier. The gold-embroidered lining of the tent gave little protection against the cold and was not even rainproof.
But from the hills of Semmering, the rich and populous city, with its cathedral spire soaring into the sky, seemed almost within reach. The walls looked as slender as threads while the hastily thrown up breastworks and palisades held no menace. Truly, I cannot think how we failed to capture Vienna with its slender fortifications and relatively small garrison, though this indeed was stiffened with a few veterans whom King Ferdinand had been able to install there before prudently taking flight into Bohemia.
But in all fairness I must mention that the defenders lived up to their reputation and did all they could to increase the homesickness of the besieger. They were supported by a firm and well-justified belief that time and the forces of nature were on their side, and I fancy also that they regarded themselves as the guardians of the last Christian stronghold. If this fell, nothing could hold back the tide of a victorious Islam from flooding in over Germany and all Europe. I felt this strongly as I looked out over Vienna from the Semmering heights, and renegade though I was I could not be sure for which side I desired victory. And when I saw the incredible valor of the besieged I felt very painfully my apostasy, though the understanding reader will appreciate my sincerity and singleness of heart in matters of faith.
I had little time for profitless brooding, for Sinan the Builder soon set me to work in earnest. As his interpreter I had to interrogate every prisoner we had taken at the capitulation of Buda; he even sent me to the prison camp to question fugitives whom the akindshas had captured, and learn from them details of streets, houses, walls, towers, and new fortifications in Vienna. He gave me no rest. Panting, I dashed from one informant to another and noted on my map which houses were stone built and which were of timber, which had lost their roofs and which had been torn down to make room for artillery, where trenches had been dug, which streets were closed to horse traffic and who had command of the various gates, towers, and bastions. I became really exasperated at last and cried, “Allah preserve me, what trouble you give yourself! Make a breach in the walls, no matter where, and the janissaries will do the rest-if only for the sake of warming themselves at last in front of a good fire.”
But Sinan the Builder replied, “No, no. First I must note the slope of the ground and discover any subterranean springs, establish the water table, and note the depth of soil, lest my saps become flooded or brought up short by a wall of rock. I must know all there is to know about Vienna.”
I was already so familiar with the plan of the city that I could almost have found my way about it blindfold. Thousands of its inhabitants who were unfit to bear arms had been driven forth most mercilessly, and fell an easy prey to the savage akindshas. Their numbers so increased that there was scarcely room for them in the slave pens; nor was it possible to maintain an effective guard. Thus it was that many of them succeeded in escaping and carrying back useful information to the defenders.
If these defenders had been mindful of their small numbers and had followed the rules of war by waiting quietly behind their walls for our attack, life in our camp might have been bearable, despite the weather and the shortage of provisions. But these reckless Germans and Bohemians hindered us in every possible way. When after much reflection and calculation Sinan began at last to dig toward the Carin- thian Gate, the German gunners in the city descended into the underground galleries beneath the walls. There they sat with ears pricked and eyes fixed upon the surface of water in a bucket and upon a handful of peas scattered on a drum. When the peas began to dance and the water to quiver with the vibration of our works, these godless men at once embarked on countermeasures. So, when at last we had tunneled right under the wall and there stacked our powder until such time as we could explode all the mines at once, these impudent and thievish Germans dug through to our saps from inside, stole all our powder, and carried it back into the city, having first blown up and destroyed all that we had achieved in the course of weeks of hard and dangerous labor.
One evening the Seraskier, impatient at the slowness of the sappers, brought his light fieldpieces into position before the Carinthian Gate and bombarded its towers throughout a night of torrential rain. There could have been no better demonstration of the incomparable skill of the Turkish artillery, for they kept up an unbroken fire, loading and discharging their pieces almost as rapidly as in dry weather and by daylight. The constant thunder of these guns greatly stiffened my courage, but Andy thought it useless to expose the gunners to the drenching rain and so worsen their chills. The coughing of a hundred thousand Moslems was more alarming than a cannonade, he said, and alone would shatter the walls of Vienna.
I felt no desire to leave my comparatively dry quarters, for which Sinan the Builder had procured a brazier. I spent a cheerful evening with him there over a flask or two of wine, and as a result we fell into a deep sleep. Suddenly we were roused by a terrific explosion.
Certain picked troops of the garrison-Germans, Spaniards, and Hungarians-had made a surprise sortie through the Salt Gate and hurled themselves upon our unsuspecting men. They set fire to all the brushwood we had so painfully collected, to Sinan’s store sheds, the slave pens, and all the tents they could reach. It would have gone ill with the whole camp had not everything been too wet to burn properly.