Shadow of God (20 page)

“And how do we know such things?”

“We have a spy, too, my Lord.”

Suleiman clasped his hands and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Who is this spy? Is he reliable? How often do we hear from him?”

“Your great-grandfather was handicapped by lack of information. Selim knew this. So when he became Sultan, one of the first things he did was to find an agent he could plant among the knights. Though he knew it would be many years in the future, he still believed that some day he would go to war. He planned well, my Lord. And carefully. For the eight years of his reign, we received communications almost every month. The information was written or verbal, and was sent by trading ships that plied the seas and stopped both at Rhodes and Istanbul. And it has always been reliable.”

“Who is this man?”

“I am not sure, my Lord. I know only that Selim always trusted the man’s information.”

Suleiman stood and began to pace the room. It seemed odd that he, the Sultan, would know nothing of this from Selim; but that Piri Pasha had to tell him of it. Then, again, he had almost no contact with his father, and this spy was not needed while Selim was still alive.

“Can we contact this man?”

“No, my Lord. Selim felt it would endanger the man to have messages coming from us. This spy makes all the contacts, and it is always through different channels.”

“When was the last time we received information?”

“Just this month. He sent a parchment with the captain of a trading ship that was bound from the East to Istanbul. But, I am not sure that all he tells us is accurate. The information from our other sources say that the new Grand Master from France is old and frail. That his health and mind is failing. Other reports tell us of a strong and able leader who fights alongside his men. They also tell us that the defenses are in poor repair, and easily overwhelmed; that the knights have not taken in sufficient arms or provisions. This, too, is at odds with what we hear from Selim’s spy. And there is yet another spy who seems to be very well placed. But, we have no idea who he is.”

“How can this be?”

“We only know that other messages come from time to time telling us in detail of the preparations the knights are making. It is always written in the same hand. It arrives on different ships, and is delivered to the Janissaries in the First Court. But, we have no idea who sends them. We believe the second spy as well, because the information he sends tends to agree with the messages we receive from Selim’s spy. Whenever one of our merchant ships lands there, we get good agreement with the information in these mysterious letters. Perhaps it all comes from the same man, and is written in a different hand to obscure his identity. Or it could be that these men do not know each other’s existence. We just have no idea.”

“And what have these mysterious letters told us of late?”

“That the walls are in
good
repair in most places, but that there are some gaps, and that we might make use of these selected weaknesses in the defenses. But, more important, they say that some of the stores of gunpowder have been stolen and hidden by night where they will not be found.”

“Why?”

“Well, the powder has been accounted for, and listed by the quartermaster. It is thought by the knights that there is powder enough to last a year. The Grand Master thinks that we will not last the winter. He calls us a ‘summer army,’ and thinks that we will retreat as soon as the weather turns bad. My lord, that is exactly what happened when Mehmet laid siege forty-two years ago.”

Piri stopped speaking and waited. Then he went on, “Forgive me, Majesty. I must say this because it is part of the Grand Master’s plan. He thinks he can just wait us out, and we will be driven off the island by the coming of the cold winter rains. But, you see, when we lay siege, there will not be enough powder to last more than a few months. This the knights will not know for quite a while. When they discover the loss, it will be too late, and they’ll have to surrender. At the same time, the battlements on Rhodes
are
stronger than ever. The knights have expected us to attack and they have made ready for it. Their new Grand Master is neither old nor frail; rather, he is strong and determined. But, it is also true that there is little hope for support from the
ferenghi
, their brothers in Europe. This is just as we have suspected.”

Suleiman remained silent, and so Piri went on. “But, from purely a military point of view, this attack seems imprudent. For us to move this huge field army to a small island with virtually no source of supplies is dangerous. The knights are very skillful at sea, and it is possible that they could cut us off from our supply lines in Anatolia.”

“Go on.”

“And, Majesty, our greatest strength is in the power of our mounted troops, the Sipahi. Our cavalry is virtually indestructible. They have terrorized some of the finest armies in the world and defeated them easily. But, in a siege against a fortress surrounded by
deep ditches and high walls, they will be useless. They will merely sit in the camps and consume supplies. We will be fighting without the help of our strongest asset. Why not return to Europe and continue up the Danube to Vienna? There we could secure our position and eventually take over the whole of the continent. After that, Rhodes could be strangled with the silken cord of isolation.”

Suleiman considered Piri’s words carefully and long. He settled himself down on the
divan
and took some fruit from a bowl. Piri waited while the Sultan ate a handful of the grapes.

The Sultan turned to Piri and said, “Piri Pasha, you have spoken well, and I believe what you say is true. About this spy, I care not. Whether his information is good or not matters little. If this Philippe Villiers de L’Isle Adam is wise or not; if he is old or not; if he is frail of mind or not; none of this matters to me. I am the Sultan of Sultans, and I fear nothing. My armies fear nothing!”

Suleiman took several long breaths and resettled himself in the
divan
. Slowly the Sultan composed his thoughts and said, “We are well prepared for this siege. We have over one hundred thousand troops ready to fight this pitiful band of knights. How many can they muster to defend this stronghold of Hellhounds? Five hundred knights? Perhaps a thousand mercenaries? And the Greeks? Maybe a thousand?”

Piri nodded as the Sultan spoke. They both tallied the numbers in silence. Then Suleiman said, “So we will face two or three thousand armed men? Let us say five thousand at the outside. We will still outnumber them by twenty to one. And we will have the capability of resupplying our forces by sea, while they are penned up on their small island like so many rats.”

Suleiman went on. “Our victory at Belgrade assured the gateway to Europe. But the knights on Rhodes still strike at the trade routes that supply my Empire. My great-grandfather was humiliated by his defeat at the hands of these knights. My father’s next campaign was to be their destruction. Do not forget that my father left me an armada of over three hundred ships, which are this very moment preparing to leave Gallipoli for Rhodes. There are ten thousand engineers, miners, and sappers ready to destroy the fortress walls.
Between our miners and our new siege guns, the fortress of Rhodes will crumble. Our men will pour into the city like a pestilence. Then what will their knights do?”

Piri bowed his head and remained in this position. There was no way out now. There would be no tulips for him to tend. There would be no sultry nights overlooking the Bosporus from his gardens. Now there would be war on the Island of the Roses. And a terrible war at that. Only Allah, Himself, could know the outcome.

Abdullah, the young Sipahi, waited every night for a week. He stood guard in the shadows of the many trees that lined the gardens of the New Palace. His eyes never left the exit from the Inner House. For seven nights, all he ate was flour with water and spices, as he waited in the shadows of the trees. He barely slept, catching a few minutes here and there as he leaned against the Palace walls in the cover of the gardens. Since nobody knew of his orders from the Sultan, he was also required to perform his daytime duties of training and mounted drills along with his company.

Finally, well after midnight on the seventh night of watch, a figure appeared in the doorway, back-lit by the oil lamps from within. The man looked about, and then made for the corridor of shrubs that led from the Inner House. At first, Abdullah could not be sure it was Ibrahim, for the lighting was poor. But, after the man took a few steps, his gait made it certain that it was he.

The Sipahi followed Ibrahim through each of the Palace gates, staying in the cover of the nearby walls. At first Ibrahim seemed to be walking toward the Mosque of Aya Sophia. But, when he reached the front of the mosque, he passed by the doors and headed away from the water toward the center of town. For nearly an hour, Ibrahim went farther away from the Palace. He seemed to make several circles in his path, but Abdullah stayed close. It was easier for the Sipahi to go undetected once they were in the city, because even at this late hour there were more people in the streets than there had been at the Palace grounds, and the boy could blend into the crowd. His uniform and sword were hidden in the outer robes that he had thrown over his shoulders.

Finally, Ibrahim stopped his circuitous route and made straight for the poorest section of Istanbul. The Sipahi watched as Ibrahim looked among the bodies of men sleeping in the gutters and against fountain walls. Eventually, he found one in particular that he seemed to recognize, and shook the man awake. The man had been drinking, and still held the empty bottle in his hand. Ibrahim shook the man some more. Abdullah watched as he took the man’s arm and pulled it over his own shoulder. Then Ibrahim rose from his crouch and dragged the man to his feet. They stood uneasily for a moment, as the man regained his balance. Ibrahim placed both arms around the man’s body and hugged him tightly.

Then, the two staggered to a nearby fountain that ran weakly with cold water. Ibrahim sat the man on the cobbled street and propped his back against the fountain wall. He painstakingly removed the rags and washed him delicately with water from the fountain and a small bit of soap he took from his pocket. He threw away each piece of the torn and dirty clothing, replacing them with simple clean cloths he was carrying under his own robe. Finally, when the man was dressed and cleansed, Ibrahim again hoisted him to his feet and helped him along the road. Abdullah moved in closer now, because he was sure that Ibrahim was so busy, he would never notice he was being followed.

The two men moved painfully along the streets of the city, finally stopping in front of a boarding house. Ibrahim took some silver
aspers
from his pocket and placed them in the man’s pouch. Then he opened the door and helped the man inside. Abdullah waited for a long hour in the cold night. Finally, Ibrahim returned to the street again, alone.

Abdullah went back to the Palace and got there before Ibrahim. He stationed himself once more at the exit from the Inner House, and watched as Ibrahim returned for the night.

The Sipahi didn’t go to the Sultan with the news right away, for he hadn’t really learned enough in that one night. He continued his vigil, and was able to follow Ibrahim on three more nights over the next two weeks. Each time, Ibrahim would find the man in a different place. Sometimes he would be sleeping in the boat repair sheds
along the Bosporus. On another night, he would be near the steps of Aya Sophia. Always, the man was drunk, and always he wore rags. Each time, Ibrahim repeated the same process. He would gently wash the man and change his clothes, feed him, and then put money in his pockets and find a place to stay for the night. Sometimes Ibrahim would remain inside only a few hours; sometimes the whole night. Each time Abdullah watched these events, he was able to get closer and closer, until finally he could hear the words that Ibrahim spoke to the man. After the fourth foray, he left his post for good, and reported to his Sultan.

The Sultan’s party had left Istanbul four days earlier, and had ridden west and north to Edirne on the border with Greece. They made camp at Suleiman’s favorite hunting site on the banks of the Maritza River. Suleiman loved to spend August and September away from Istanbul in the more pleasant climate of the north. At the chosen campsite, his servants set up miles of gardens, planting roses and wild quince. The tents were elaborate and lacked nothing that could be found at the Palace itself. Though he took a minimal security force, there was no lack of servants in his camp. His
caravanserai
was set up in almost the exact pattern of the Topkapi Palace.