Shadow of God (16 page)

Suleiman finished eating his fruit and began to pace. Ibrahim could see his master grow restless, and did not finish his thoughts about the war aloud. There would be time for that when the Sultan called for a
Divan.

“We have been trapped within these walls too long, Ibrahim. Arrange for us to go out and ride north to Edirne for a hunt. Near the Maritza River, I think. A small party of Janissaries and bearers. We will camp there for a few nights, and stay as long as the hunting is good.”

Ibrahim bowed, and made his way from the residence.

As soon as Ibrahim was gone, the servant appeared. He pressed his head to the floor and knelt before the Sultan. “I have done as you have ordered, Majesty. The Sipahi you sent for is here now,” he signed. A few minutes later, the Sipahi was announced and entered the room. He, too, pressed his head to the floor, and waited for instructions to rise before moving.

“You may kneel,” Suleiman said. They spoke with words, as only the household servants had been taught to use Suleiman’s sign language. “So, you have proved the faith that my Grand Vizier placed in you. Piri Pasha told me that he picked you to deliver the message of my father’s death because he knew you would be stopped by
nothing short of your own death. And you did well. He also told me that you accounted yourself bravely at Belgrade. This is good. You bring honor to your colleagues and to the Sultan.”

Abdullah said nothing. He looked toward his Sultan’s feet, and was afraid to raise his eyes. He barely breathed.

Suleiman looked at the young man and was struck by his physical beauty. Now dressed in the clean-pressed uniform of a Sipahi, he was a far cry from the muddied, exhausted lad that had shown up at the
caravanserai
at Manisa. Suleiman continued, “I have another mission for you. But, this must always remain a secret between the two of us. No matter what the outcome, you will speak to nobody about it, and you will carry out the task completely alone.”

The boy still did not look up, but merely nodded.

“My Captain of the Inner House, Ibrahim…you know of whom I speak?”

“I know Ibrahim, Majesty.”

“Yes, I am sure you do. Then you will have no trouble recognizing him when he leaves the Palace?”

“No, Majesty.”

“He has been seen leaving the Palace at odd times about once a week. Late at night, when everyone else is long asleep. He can do this because of his position as Captain of the Inner House. But, still I have been told of this.” Suleiman moved from the
divan
and began to pace. The Sipahi remained motionless. “I want you to wait at the Palace entrance every night, until you see him leave the Inner House. Then follow him, but take care that he does not see you. Do not underestimate Ibrahim for his fancy clothes and high position. He is a powerful man, and could kill you before you knew what struck. In any case, follow his every move. Find out what he is doing in these secret outings. Then report back to me. Do not confront him under any conditions. And, if you are found out, you will say nothing to anyone. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“Good. Then be off, and do not return until you have completed the task.”

Abdullah pressed his head to the floor again and backed out of the chamber. Suleiman remained standing, deep in troubled thought.

The Sultan could not sleep. Long into the night, his thoughts were disturbed by the possibility that his closest adviser—his closest friend—might be a spy. Ibrahim was, after all, Greek by birth. Was it not possible that after all these years he was a spy for the Greeks? Worse yet, could he be a spy for the Knights of Rhodes?
It seems I have not a true friend in the world,
Suleiman mused
. Anyone close to me could be there for the profit they might gain. Any friendship can be tainted by the possibility that it is my power and wealth that attracts. The curse of the Emperor!

He moved from his bed and put on a heavy robe over his sleeping clothes. He summoned his servant and sent him ahead to announce his arrival at the harem. Then he waited for word that his mother, Hafiza, was ready to receive him. Of all the people who wielded power in the Topkapi Palace, few came close to the
Sultan Valideh,
the Queen Mother. The
Sultan Valideh
ruled the harem, to be sure. But, her influence went far beyond its bounds. As the mother of the Sultan, she was his confidante and advisor. She was the one person on Earth he could trust with anything, any thought.

The Chief Black Eunuch arrived and bowed before Suleiman. He was a huge man, well muscled, as well as obese. He wore a scarlet-red caftan, completely edged with white ermine. His turban of white silk was almost three feet high. In his golden cummerbund, he wore a jeweled dagger in a gold and jeweled scabbard. The Black Eunuch had complete responsibility for the conduct of the harem, and even the power of life and death when it came to harem discipline. He had been in his position since the days of Selim, and nobody with a shred of sense would cross him.

All the eunuchs of the palace—white and black—had suffered the terrible pain and indignity of surgical procedures that made them suitably safe as harem guards. The closer to the Sultan’s women the guard might be, the more severe the surgery. Ordinary slaves who merely attended the harem as servants underwent
castration. Guards who might need to spend the night in the harem had their penis removed as well as an extra precaution against despoiling the Sultan’s treasures. These surgical procedures were extraordinarily painful and dangerous as well. Most of those selected for the position of eunuch died as a result of profuse bleeding or severe infections. Of those who survived, many felt that death would have been preferable. To be the person selected as the Sultan’s Chief Black Eunuch was a mixed blessing, for the price of such power was considerable.

The eunuch bowed to Suleiman, and turned in silence to lead his master to the quarters of the
Sultan Valideh
. They left the Inner House and proceeded through the secret passageway to the harem. There, over two hundred women were quartered as slaves in luxury for the personal use of the Sultan. The Turks had learned polygamy from the Arabs, and many of the Sultans spent huge amounts of money and time in the maintenance of the harem. While his great grand father had felt the need for a harem with over nine hundred women, for Suleiman the traditions of polygamy were an anathema. He was relatively modest in his activities there. Among his two hundred slaves, many were merely children, and others were older women—perhaps twenty-five years old—who would be married off to Palace widowers in search of mothers for their own children.

Suleiman followed the Black Eunuch into his mother’s elaborately ornate quarters
.
In the large marble-walled room, the Queen Mother lived a life of unparalleled opulence. Her quarters were guarded by twenty black eunuchs, and she was attended day and night by a staff of more than fifty serving women. Her rooms were adjoined by a heated marble bath chamber, and gave out onto an enclosed garden, where flowers and trees were tended by her own gardeners. Most of the harem girls lived three or four to a room, in small cubicles, and attended by about fifteen servants per room.

When Suleiman entered the chamber, Hafiza was seated on the
divan
, and was dressed and washed as if this were a mid-afternoon visit, rather than so late in the night. Her eyelids were darkened with
kohl
and her nails painted reddish brown with
al Hanna.
Her skin was hairless, for each day the servants meticulously plucked and
scraped each body hair. Hafiza’s servants spent many hours of every day and every night washing and scrubbing her face and body. Her skin was oiled and massaged, and delicate scents from the Far East were applied to her hair.

As soon as the Sultan entered, the servants backed out of the room, leaving the two alone.

“I’m sorry to disturb your sleep, Mother. I thank you for receiving me at so late an hour.” He bent over and kissed Hafiza on her forehead, and she in turn touched him lightly upon his cheek with her fingertips. Suleiman was comforted by the familiar scents of his childhood.

“It’s nothing, my son. I’m here for you always.” Hafiza, now forty-two, was aging with a grace and vitality that went with her high station. “What is troubling your sleep, my son, that you are up and about so late?”

“There is enough in my mind to keep me awake for the rest of my life. I hardly know whom to trust. It seems to me that everyone around me, everyone except you, could have something to gain from me. And, thus, their counsel might be tainted by their greed. I don’t know who is my friend and who is not.” He decided not to mention his worries about Ibrahim, because he knew his mother would lecture him again. She was not happy that his childhood friend had risen so high in the ranks of the imperial household. She feared that Ibrahim would rise still further under the reign of Suleiman, and the thought did not sit well with her. She had always looked upon Ibrahim as nothing more than an educated playmate to keep her son company.

“This is the burden inherent in being Sultan of the House of Osman. Were you the head of a smaller state, your burdens would be less. But, as you command the mightiest empire on Earth, your burden is the heaviest on Earth as well. Your mistrust is proportional to the burden.”

“Was it so with Selim? Did he awaken at night with terrible indecision? Did he haunt the corridors of the palace as I do now?”

“Your father was Selim. He was Selim
Yavuz
, the Grim. Selim, the Terrible. Selim, the Protector of the Faithful. He had so many titles.
But, my son, he was Selim and you are Suleiman. I think you are well named, for the Solomon of the Book was very wise, as you are.

“Never was a son so different from his father. If I had not bore you, myself, I would wonder who your father really was.” Suleiman looked uncomfortable, and shifted on the
divan
. Hafiza moved and sat next to him. “Do not lose any sleep over
that
question. Your father
was
Selim. Of that there is no doubt. But you are made of different stuff, and you must not fear to be the man you are. Do not try to be Selim. You will fail. I know you went to Belgrade to show the people and the world that the House of Osman rests in strong, decisive hands. And to show the Janissaries that you are not Bayazid.”

She placed her hand on top of his and gently tightened her grip. In all the world, only she and Suleiman’s consorts had the privilege of touching him this way. She thought of how the rules that surrounded him and protected him were the very rules that isolated him from ordinary human kindness. “But, you must be true to yourself. You are a lawyer. A poet. A lover of the arts. A goldsmith. You are gifted at crafts and at hunting. And you are kind and just.” Suleiman nodded, but did not respond. “Yes,” she continued, “I know you are given to some outbursts of anger and rage. Perhaps that is where you and your father share the same blood. But, where he would strike out and kill for the slightest reason, you restrain your anger, or recant after reflecting upon it.
There
is the difference between you.”

“What was it like for you, Mother? You lived with him, as I did not. I barely remember him save for a few days here and there, between the wars and my going off to Manisa.”

“It was much like that for me as well. He was away fighting during most of our life together. I stayed at the Old Palace and took care of you when you were little. I saw him between military campaigns. But, I did see a different man than you did. And I saw some things that nobody else saw.”

“Such as…?”

“He was always good to me, and I think he loved me well enough. I am one of the few people in this palace who is not a captured slave. That’s unusual, don’t you think? You know I was a
princess before he found me. A Tartar princess at that. My father was Mengli Giray, the Khan of a large and powerful army. He was your grandfather as much as Bayazid was, though no one would dare say that out loud. And so the blood of Genghis Khan also runs in your veins. My life was good before your father took me as his bride. And it was good afterward.”

“And how did he treat you here in the harem? I have heard that he took many of the odalisques to his bed. Did that not hurt you?”