The Janissary Tree

attendants to bring him refreshment, as well as a pipe-bearer to select his tobacco, keep the equipment in good clean working order, accompany his master on outings with the pipe in a cloth and the tobacco pouch in his shirt, and ensure the proper lighting and draw of the pipe. Rich men who vied with one another to present their guests with the finest leaf and the most elegant pipes—amber for the mouthpiece, Persian cherry for the stem—would no more think of functioning without a pipe-bearer than an English milord could dispense with the services of a valet. But the room was empty.

“Less than two weeks from today, the Sultan is to review the troops. Marches, drill, gunnery displays. The sultan will not be the only one watching. It will be—” the seraskier stopped, and his head snapped up. Yashim wondered what he had been about to say. That the review would be the most important moment of his career, perhaps. “We are a young troop, as you know. The New Guard has only been in existence for ten years. Like a young colt, we startle easily. We have not had, ah, all the care and training we might have wished for.”

“Nor always quite the success that was promised.”

Yashim saw the seraskier stiffen. In their newfangled European jackets and trousers, the New Guard had been put through their paces by a succession of foreign instructors, fer-enghi from Europe who taught them drilling, marching, presenting arms. What could you say? In spite of it all the Egyptians—the Egyptians!—had dealt them humiliating reverses in Palestine and Syria, and the Russians were closer to Istanbul than at any time in living memory. Perhaps their victories were to have been expected, for they were formidable opponents with up-to-date equipment and modern armies; yet there remained, too, the debacle in Greece. No more than peasants in pantaloons, led by quarrelsome windbags, even the Greeks had proved to be more than a match for the New Guard.

All this left the New Guard with a single sanguinary triumph. It was a victory achieved not on the battlefield but right here, on the streets of Istanbul; not against foreign enemies but against their own military predecessors, the dangerously overweening Janissary Corps. Once the Ottoman Empire’s crack troops, the Janissaries had degenerated—or evolved, if you liked—into an armed mafia, terrorising sultans, swaggering through the streets of Istanbul, rioting, fire-raising, thieving and extorting with impunity. Outgunned and outdrilled by the armies of the west, stubbornly they had clung to the traditions of their forefathers, contemptuous of innovation, despising the common soldiers of the enemy and rejecting every lesson the battlefield could teach, for fear of their grip loosening. For decades they had held the empire to ransom.

The New Guard had finally settled the account. Ten years ago that was, on the night of 16 June i8z6: the Auspicious Event, as people were careful to refer to it. Right here, in Istanbul, New Guard gunners had pounded the Janissaries to pieces in their barracks, bringing four centuries of terror and triumph to a well-deserved end.

“The review will be a success,” the seraskier growled. “People will see the backbone of this empire, unbreakable, unshakeable.” He swung round, sawing the air with the edge of his hand. “Accurate fire. Precise drill. Obedience. Our enemies, as well as our friends, will draw their own conclusions. Do you understand?”

Yashim shrugged slightly. The seraskier tilted his chin and snorted through his nose.

“But we have a problem,” he said. Yashim continued to gaze at him: it was a long time since he had been woken in the dead of night and summoned to the palace. Or to the barracks. He glanced out of the window: it was still dark, the sky cold and overcast. Everything begins in darkness. Well, it was his job to shed light.

“And what, exactly, does your problem consist of?”

“Yashim Effendi. They call you the lala, do they not? Yashim Lala, the guardian.”

Yashim inclined his head. Lala was an honorific, a title of respect given to certain trusted eunuchs who attended on rich and powerful families, chaperoning their women, watching over their children, supervising the household. An ordinary lala was something between a butler and a housekeeper, a nanny a’nd the head of security: a guardian. Yashim felt the title suited him.

“But as far as I understand it,” the seraskier said slowly, “you are without attachment. Yes, you have links to the palace. Also to the streets. So tonight I invite you into our family, the family of the New Guard. For ten days, at most.”

“The family, you mean, of which you are the head?”

“In a manner of speaking. But do not think I am setting myself up as the father of this family. I would like you to think of me, rather, as a kind of, of—” the seraskier looked uneasy: the word did not seem to come easily to him. Distaste for eunuchs, Yashim knew, was as inbound amongst Ottoman men as their suspicion of tables and chairs. “Think of me—as an older brother. I protect you. You confide in me.” He paused, wiped his forehead. “Do you, ah, have any family yourself?”

Yashim was used to this: disgust, tempered with curiosity. He made a motion with his hand, ambiguous: let the man wonder, it was none of his business.

“The New Guard must earn the confidence of the people, and of the sultan, too,” the seraskier continued. “That is the purpose of the Review. But something has happened which might wreck the process.”

It was Yashim’s turn to be curious, and he felt it like a ripple up the back of his neck.

“This morning,” the seraskier began, “I was informed that four of our officers had failed to report for morning drill.” He stopped, frowned. “You must understand that the New Guard are not like any other army the empire has seen. Discipline. Hard work, fair pay and obedience to a superior officer. We turn up for drill. I know what you are thinking, but these officers were particularly fine young gentlemen. I would say that they were the flower of our