Twelve.
You didn't hold back, did you?
No.
Well you're looking a little pale all the same. You should be eating more. Is it true you had a cavalry escort coming and going?
Yes.
And the chief of staff himself read the order of exile? His Imperial Highness sending personal condolences?
Yes.
The old woman leaned back and rolled her eyes. She smacked her lips. Around the room the knitting needles softly assumed a rhythmic clicking.
A grandson of mine, she murmured, just think of it. The youngest colonel in the Imperial Army. Aren't you proud?
Yes. Very.
As well you should be. The Russians are barbarians and not to be trusted. You treated them exactly as they deserved. Now then, down to business.
The old woman stroked her chin thoughtfully. Around the room his female relatives somberly studied their knitting. When his grandmother spoke again the needles clicked quietly.
To be frank, young Munk, your military career has ended at a most opportune time for us. The House of Szondi finds itself facing an extremely grave situation, and a woman just can't do the things in Arab and Turkish lands that she can do in Europe. Even though you've spent time down there I hadn't thought of you before because you're so young, but when we learned of your exile it seemed more than coincidental. One of our musicians would be useless on a mission like this, but with your military experience you might be able to accomplish something even though you are young. Anyway, I've decided it's going to be you.
Munk saluted.
At your service, madame.
His grandmother suddenly frowned and his mother's face was all at once troubled. Others in the room looked variously perplexed or fearful. Again all clicking stopped. The kitchen was hushed as his grandmother spoke.
We haven't told any of the men in the family about this, not wanting to worry you, but we've been aware of the situation for some time. Our information began coming in about twenty years ago. The first clues we had were fragmentary and haphazard, yet even then we filed them away. You can't be too careful in this business. You're not versed in the intricacies of banking and you wouldn't understand such financial subtleties anyway, so I won't bother to go into detail. I'll just say there are definite ways of knowing when a consortium or some other group is buying into an enterprise. Especially if the acquisition is a major one, so large it can only be acquired piece by piece. Can you follow that?
Yes, Grandmother.
All right, that's what happened in this case. During the last twenty-odd years when we've been aware of it, and obviously before that when we weren't, the enterprise in question has been cleverly bought piece by piece. Bought right out from under our noses. And since our very foundations were long ago established there, the effect on the House of Szondi could be catastrophic.
What enterprise was bought from under your noses?
The old woman glared through her spectacles. Her face darkened.
The Ottoman Empire, she hissed.
The
That's right, you heard me correctly. The evidence is there and there can no longer be any doubt about it.
A little over thirty years ago, as unreal as it seems, someone secretly began to buy up the Ottoman Empire.
You mean the Russians have been intriguing with the French or the English again? They've formed a secret alliance with the Germans?
No that isn't what I mean. Politics aren't involved. This is a straight business proposition and only one man is involved. One man has bought the Ottoman Empire.
But that's impossible, Grandmother.
Of course it is. We've been telling ourselves nothing else for years. Haven't we, girls.
She looked sternly around the room and his mother and aunts and grandaunts and female cousins all nodded vigorously. Then they all began talking at once to each other, loudly and rapidly, not listening to what anyone else was saying.
That's enough, girls, shouted his grandmother. Instantly the room was silent.
So you see, young man, the situation before us is more than staggering. It's critical and perhaps even fatal. The House of Szondi was founded on the basis of Levantine trade and now we find one man has bought the entire Levant. Who is he and what does he want? Why did he buy it? What does he intend to do with it?
You're sure it's a man? asked Munk.
His grandmother snorted contemptuously.
Of course it's a man, no woman would ever act so crudely. Perhaps some substantial and influential role behind the scenes, but not a whole empire in one ruthless grab. That's the work of a man.
Munk clicked his heels.
Yes, Grandmother.
Please don't interrupt again.
No, Grandmother.
Now to continue. We've gone back to the beginning to try to reconstruct events and the best we can do, the earliest scenes we can conjecture, are vague reports of an Egyptian emir and a Baghdad banker and a Persian potentate holding shadowy interviews in Constantinople in 1880, sitting down. Remember that, sitting down. The man seems to have been unnaturally tall, but it's impossible for our informants to say how tall because he was always seated. I say
And how did he disguise himself? Always as a Levantine, which to us means he was obviously a European being clever again. So the available facts are these. A European of untold personal wealth, a man so unusually tall he feared his height would betray his real identity, remained carefully seated while buying all the wells in Mecca and all the wells on all the haj routes to Mecca, while becoming the secret paymaster of the Turkish army and navy, while buying up all Turkish government bonds and issuing new ones, while consulting with pashas and ministers and laying aside trust funds for their grandsons, while firing and rehiring every religious leader in the Middle East so they would have to answer to him, while consummating a hundred other such deals with the goal of making himself the sole owner of the Ottoman Empire. Now only one European in the last century fits that description. Do you know who he is?
No, Grandmother.
Strongbow. First name, Plantagenet. An Englishman who was the twenty-ninth Duke of Dorset. Seven feet, seven inches tall. He took a triple first at Cambridge in botany and was considered the greatest swordsman and botanist of the Victorian era, but he abandoned plants to become an explorer. In 1840
he disappeared from Cairo after attending a diplomatic reception held in honor of Queen Victoria's twenty- first birthday. And in order to outrage English decorum and sense of fair play, which he so dearly loved to do, Strongbow appeared at that diplomatic reception stark naked, save for a portable sundial strapped to his hip that hid nothing. About forty years later a publication of his appeared in Basle, which is the next time we hear of him, just prior to his appearance in Constantinople in various disguises. But the odd thing is, that publication had nothing to do with business or banking. If it had it might have warned us about what was going to happen in Constantinople.
What did the publication have to do with?
His grandmother smiled faintly. She raised her chin.
