shaded the entrance to the Sultan’s tent, Sinan turned in his agony to Khosref- pasha and asked him point blank, “Dear father! An adoptive son has the same right of inheritance as other sons, has he not? And you acknowledged me as your son before all the builders, confirming it with the first sura?”
Khosref-pasha, beside himself with delight, tenderly embraced Sinan and assured him that a foster son inherited from the foster father and vice versa. We then entered the tent and Khosref-pasha kept his arm fondly about Sinan’s shoulders, to show that he was ready to share the honors of the undertaking with his dear son. At Suleiman’s right hand, in garments sparkling with precious stones, stood the Grand Vizier. He praised our achievement with eloquence, and the Sultan himself addressed a few words to Khosref-pasha and Sinan the Builder, assuring them of his special favor. But outside the tent the janissaries beat ever more enthusiastically upon their cooking pots, and at last Sinan could contain himself no longer. Drawing a paper from his bosom he unfolded it with trembling hands and began to read aloud the rewards that he had promised the janissaries and builders. When he had finished he looked the Sultan straight in the eye and said, “Lord, as you hear, the bridge will cost two million, two hundred thousand aspers in gifts alone, but in this I do not include the cost of materials, transport, and manufacture, nor that of forging, stone cutting, and other minor expenses. But my dear father Khosref has pledged his fortune that my word may be kept, and for my part I gladly sacrifice the inheritance he has promised me, for lack of other property. If I may judge from the noise outside I fancy the janissaries are impatiently awaiting their reward, and I beseech you to pay them at once the two million, two hundred thousand aspers. My father and I will then make out a joint receipt for the sum. I shall do my utmost to redeem my share of this, provided you will entrust me with profitable building works in the future.”
Khosref-pasha, crimson in the face, thrust Sinan the Builder violently from him and shrieked, “It is true that I recited the first sura when I adopted him as my son, but he wormed himself into my confidence with false pretenses and I cannot answer with my whole fortune for a madman’s promise. On the contrary I shall have him beheaded immediately.”
He raised his hand to smite his son Sinan, in the very presence of the Sultan, but fortunately he could not accomplish this disgraceful act, for at that moment a blood vessel burst in his brain and he sank powerless to the ground.
This lamentable incident was certainly our salvation, for it gave the Sultan time to recover from his amazement; the smoke-colored face regained its customary composure. Ibrahim had been anxiously watching his expression, but Suleiman lived up to his reputation for nobility and said only, “My small change seems likely to be exhausted before we reach even Buda. But we must give thanks to Allah that Sinan did not promise the janissaries the moon from heaven.”
Grand Vizier Ibrahim laughed quickly, and we all joined in as heartily as we might until even the Sultan smiled. Only Sinan the Builder was grave. The Sultan then ordered the Defterdar to distribute the rewards according to Sinan’s memorandum. He bestowed upon Sinan a splendid purse containing a thousand pieces of gold, while lesser sums were given to his assistants. I contrived to stand in so prominent a position as to receive ten gold pieces for my services as bridge builder, while Andy was given a new plume set in a jeweled clasp to replace his broken one, also a hundred gold pieces.
The highest reward went however to Khosref-pasha, for his discrimination-as the Sultan rightly said-in choosing the best man for the work. And Sinan was content that it should be so. But for a long time afterward, Khosref spoke thickly and gave orders by nods and signs, which Sinan interpreted as best suited him.
Once over the bridge the army divided and marched away by different routes toward the great plains of Mohacs, where Janos Zapolya, the ruler-elect of the Hungarian people, was to bring his forces to swell the Sultan’s army. Sinan and I traveled in our horse litter along the Danube, above whose rapids nearly eight hundred vessels had been assembled to carry guns, ammunition, forage, and provisions up the river; we moved level with these transports.
After many days’ journeying through thicket and swamp we came at last to that melancholy battlefield where three years ago the fate of Hungary had been sealed. But in fact it had been determined long before, when the King of France begged the Sultan’s help against the Emperor. The Most Christian King’s alliance with the Moslem ruler was a more decisive factor than any battle. Poppies were already waving above the burial mounds: a reminder-to me, at least-of the vain sacrifices resulting from Christian disunity.
As Sinan and I were borne over these ghosdy plains we were overwhelmed by a sense of the pettiness of human life and the vanity of statecraft. Beneath our feet lay bones washed bare by torrential rains. Nothing distinguished Hungarian skulls from Turkish. Both gazed with blank eye sockets at a blank universe. The warriors lay among cannon balls and battered shields, their broken swords still in their skeleton hands, their only visible memorial the alien, Oriental flowers that blossomed about them. The seeds of these had fallen from Turkish wagons or mingled with the blood-soaked soil in the droppings of horses and camels, and at the sight of the thorny, broad-leaved plants with their blue flowers I was overcome with melancholy and cried, “Hail, field of Mohacs! Europe’s grave, memorial to Western statesmanship! Your bleached skulls bear witness of a continent that tore itself to tatters, as a maniac rends his own body. Bitterly do they tell of the princes of the West, who wrought one another’s destruction by treachery while night fell over Europe, and the crescent of Islam shone in menace from the East. Mohacs! Dark token of the decline of the West; bright promise also of a future when men shall not be required to give their lives for other men’s blind lust for power, and when East and West shall be ruled by the same just ruler, in the name of the Compassionate! His law will bind rich and poor alike and none shall persecute, strangle, burn, or torture another for his faith. People will live in concord within the pale of wise government and be free to practice their religion without making war. This is what we must achieve, and quickly, or there is no meaning in the world and no reason for living.”
In this highflown manner did I apostrophize the whitened bones of Mohacs. But then an unspeakable anguish seized me as I remembered the glorious cathedrals and smiling cities of Christendom, from whose steeples the hoarse voice of the muezzins might soon be calling the faithful to prayer. My blood, the faith in which I had been bred, and the memory of my forefathers bound me to the nations of the West which by their divisions had dug their own grave. Yet I was severed from the fallen Mohacs by my desire to live, even in changed conditions; I felt no urge to die for a faith that had doomed itself.
At that moment we heard the thunder of many hoofs, and the wind bore to us the clashing music of the janissaries’ drums and cymbals; life itself seemed on the march toward this field of death. Sultan Suleiman was proceeding to the scene of his greatest victory, and though in general his troops marched as silently as shadows, on this day the Sultan allowed the bands to play and the banners to fly before he called a halt for the night. With this martial music ringing in our ears we perceived the futility of our reflections, and hurried to our tent on the banks of the river.
Like magic the mighty camp sprang up on the desolate plain. Each man knew what he had to do, and soon the janissaries were seated in their groups of ten about the cooking pots and crackling fires. The Sultan’s pavilion with its awning stood on the highest knoll whose slopes were covered, as with a living carpet, by the bodyguard. The duty of these men was to sleep on the bare ground about Suleiman’s tent, with their bows beside them. While herdsmen watered the camels and oxen at the river and mowers cut hay for the spahis’ horses, Grand Vizier Ibrahim, attended by a brilliant retinue, rode forward to meet King Zapolya.
Next morning when we had washed ourselves and said the morning prayer, I met Master Gritti, who was evidently suffering from the effects of a carouse. He hastened to embrace me and said, “For the love of God, Master Carvajal, tell me where in this accursed camp a keg of refreshing wine may be had! Later today I have to accompany King Janos to the Sultan, lest he forget the Hungarian bishopric he promised me.”
I was far from pleased to see this licentious and scheming man, but common humanity required me to help him. Just then Andy, who had spent the night inspecting his cannon aboard the newly arrived rafts, came up to us and I asked his advice. After some deliberation he went to borrow a couple of horses for Master Gritti and myself to ride, and walked beside us to the camp of the Christian akindshas half a mile away. Unlike the Moslems they were filthy in their habits, and had befouled a lovely grove of beeches with their garbage and ordure. Janissary patrols, far from inspecting this camp, kept as far away as possible. In return for Master Gritti’s gold the ruffianly akindshas dug up a cask of excellent Tokay that they had buried and eagerly invited him to quench his thirst.
Like the experienced toper he was, Master Gritti drank only enough to bring the blood back to his head and put him in a good humor, for important tasks awaited him. Then we left the camp and he hastened to his tent to change his clothes and prepare to join King Zapolya’s suite. In order to receive the King in a worthy manner, the Sultan paraded his great army on either side of the reception tent, so that when after the noon prayer the lawful
