“Guys, check this out,” Cassie called out eagerly. “There’s a balcony.” She threw open the double glass doors and rushed outside to a picture postcard scene. Her room overlooked the oldest section of the city with its mosques and minarets. Beyond them lay the blue ribbon of water that was the Bosporus Straits.
“What a view!” she exclaimed. “I was in a fog during the taxi ride from the airport. When I got here, I dropped off to sleep right away, so I didn’t get to see the city. It’s amazing!”
The two men came out to join her at the railing.
“Yes, Istanbul does have some interesting features,” Griffin observed. “Over there is Hagia Sophia, the church of Holy Wisdom. Its huge dome is an architectural wonder. At the time it was built in the 6th century, the structure was the largest cathedral in the world and remained so for a thousand years. It was converted to a mosque at which point the minarets surrounding it were added. Now it’s a museum.”
Cassie studied the four slender towers that surrounded the building. “That’s something I’m not used to seeing. I’ve seen cathedrals before, but not with little towers around them. In fact, they’re all over town.”
Griffin assumed full lecture mode. “Five times a day, the muezzin, a man appointed to lead prayers, will climb the stairs of those minarets and call the Muslim faithful to praise Allah.”
Cassie squinted in the late afternoon sun. “The tops look so sharp from here; it’s almost as if they’re trying to poke a hole in the sky.”
Directing her attention elsewhere, Griffin pointed. “Over there is the Blue Mosque, built by a sultan named Ahmet who wished to outdo the splendor of the Hagia Sophia.”
“It doesn’t look blue to me,” Cassie noted.
“That’s because you have to be inside to see the blue tiles that it’s named for,” Erik offered. “That green space around the mosques is where the Hippodrome used to be. It was like the Coliseum in Rome. Chariot races and lots of blood sport for the masses. Not to mention a few riots and massacres.”
“People had an odd idea of fun back then.” The pythia shook her head.
Erik continued. “On the other side of the Hagia Sofia is the Topkapi Palace. Sultan central. Now it’s a museum, too. The harem is always a big tourist draw.”
“Hmmm.” Cassie scowled in disapproval. “I’d rather not know about what went on in there.”
“Actually, it’s quite a fascinating place,” Griffin chimed in, “and not for the reasons you would imagine. The harem was a microcosm of Ottoman society with its own bureaucracy and political power struggles. The sultan’s mother, the Valide Sultan, had a great deal of influence over her son’s decisions in governing the empire. Sultan Padishah Ahmet is even quoted to have said that the world lies at the foot of the mother.”
Erik snorted sarcastically. “Harem life was pretty good for the sultan’s mother but not so good for his brothers.”
“Why not?” Cassie turned from the railing to look at him. “Being related to the head honcho couldn’t be all that bad.”
The two men glanced significantly at one another.
“You tell her,” Griffin instructed Erik.
“Sure.” Erik grinned. “Back in the bad old days, there was cutthroat competition to be the next guy in charge, and I mean that literally. Multiple wives meant lots and lots of half-brothers all itching to take the crown, or turban anyway. Succession by murder.”
“That’s awful.” Cassie gasped. “You mean they’d kill their own relatives to become sultan?”
“Well, what do you expect? Overlord culture rules applied. The world had become a dog eat dog kind of place. After Sultan Mahomet III murdered all his brothers and most of their mothers, he came up with a kinder, gentler way to deal with the problem of his own sons.”
“If you can call it kind,” Griffin muttered.
Cassie shot him a puzzled look but said nothing.
Erik leaned his elbows on the railing and continued. “Instead of killing all the guys who might be future competition for the throne, the reigning sultan decided to shut them up in a part of the harem called The Cage.”
Cassie blanched. “Was it an actual cage?”
“No, it was more like house arrest, but they were always watched by guards and weren’t allowed outside. Of course, they were provided with female company to pass away the time.”
“Sorry, but I don’t find that idea any less disturbing,” the pythia grumbled. “The women couldn’t have been any more happy to be shut up for a lifetime than the men were.”
“Yeah but they got to go outside sometimes,” Erik corrected. “Shopping trips to the bazaar.”
“Swell,” Cassie retorted.
Griffin concluded the story. “In the long run, the practice of caging rivals for the throne wasn’t a success. By the time a prince was allowed to assume power, he was usually incompetent to rule if not outright insane from having spent all his life in confinement. Although one poor sod endured fifty-six years in the cage, others chose a quicker release by committing suicide.”
“I can believe that,” Cassie agreed. “It’s all so creepy.”
“It was a violent time, and the men in charge could only retain their power by using violent means.” Griffin sighed. “Even by the standards of overlord culture, this city has had a frightfully bloody past.”
Cassie turned from the railing and flopped down in one of the balcony chairs. Her companions followed suit.
“What made it so frightfully bloody?” she asked.
“This spot was a battleground for nearly all the overlord kingdoms during the past two thousand years,” Griffin explained. “The Bosporus is the only waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Istanbul itself straddles two continents. Anyone intent on building an empire in this part of the world would eventually have to pass right through it. First, it was conquered by the Greeks, then the Persians, then the Romans, then the Crusaders and finally the Ottomans in the 15th century who held it until the country became a
