“Nothing,” Ferhad said. “Forget I mentioned it. The Edirne Gate before noon?”
“Yes, sir.”
Now for the life of him, Ferhad couldn’t imagine what it was that had ever made him trust the fellow. It must have been something, and something that affected others, too, for Iskandar had risen so rapidly through the ranks. But the last advancement had been Ferhad’s own responsibility and now here he was, catching the attention of viziers, leading the fire exercise, knocking at the door to the post of the Master of the Horse itself.
Why did it feel like Iskandar was head of this expedition to Hungary and not he himself? Iskandar got the best horse, the flashiest drill team. Did he gain trust in the same way, and for the same ulterior motives?
XXXVIII
“The beglerbeg says he knows nothing, and that is that. What more can we do?” Ferhad asked Iskandar two weeks later in Buda.
“He says so,” Iskandar repeated skeptically, almost sarcastically. “But what sort of satisfaction’ is that? It is merely his word. The word of a man entrenched so firmly in Sokolli Pasha’s own camp you’d have to drain out all his blood to change him.”
“In any case, it’s clear Feridun Bey is already over the border.”
“Yes, alas.”
“There is nothing more we can do.”
“Nothing? I am not satisfied. I doubt Lala Mustafa Pasha will be.”
“Sokolli Pasha is the Grand Vizier. Why go on tormenting his favorites without cause?”
“Because his days in this world are numbered. Best to latch onto those whose star is rising, not those about to set, whatever title they may presently hold.”
“Your talk, spahi, sounds of treason.”
“Treason is talk against the Sultan which, Allah is my witness, I never say. Where is the treason in a few words against the Grand Vizier who, after all, is a mere slave, no better than you or I? Besides, I said nothing but what is obvious to anyone. Sokolli Pasha is not only a slave, he is an old slave. He’s over seventy. Allah may call him to his reward at any time. Any time.”
“Allah forbid,” Ferhad murmured automatically, a wish Iskandar did not bother to amen. Perhaps because it was a vain wish indeed.
Later, a dismal rain seemed about to wash all of Buda down the muddy streets. Ramshackle houses of the refugees and sturdier buildings alike seemed on the brink of flushing into the Danube, off towards the sea, and finally, Constantinople. Night was hardly distinguishable from day under that sky. Ferhad had to notice that the streets were empty now in order to tell the time. They were empty save for mud, rain, and himself. Anyone with honest business had taken the first excuse to leave them and go home.
Why am I so devoted to that man Sokolli? Ferhad asked himself. Even if—Allah willing—he dies a natural death, it cannot be far off. Since that night, he felt obliged to his superior with a debt no amount of servitude could repay. Sometimes it seemed to be the only night in his life, compared to which this drizzle was but an uncomfortable dream.
It is almost as if he has graciously allowed me to share her with him, Ferhad thought. Like he gives charity to any beggar who comes to his door.
Ferhad didn’t like to think of himself in beggar’s guise, so he swaggered a little in the empty street until he lost his balance on the mud.
French masons and Italian artists had once made Buda a gem of a city, but nearly half a century as a border outpost had not been easy on such fragile beauty. “Once the Austrians back off a little more, we may rebuild it to Turkish taste,” the promise always was. But to date, a bath or two at the mineral springs were the only niceties that beglerbegs could not do without. It was a wild, rough aesthetic to Ferhad’s Constantinople-trained eyes, made wilder and rougher still by the years of misunderstanding between conqueror and conquered.
The rain had soaked into the city everywhere and enlivened foreign smells: Tokay wine, paprika, sour cream, cabbage. Pork sausage. The sounds, too, were guaranteed to cause homesickness: The language seemed shackled with consonants and somewhere a gypsy fiddler played with little care for melody or feeling, only breakneck speed.
“Gul Ruh”, Ferhad said aloud. He had never framed the words in public before and wouldn’t until he died. “My daughter.” He looked up for the moon, as he always did when his mind rode on such things, but of course there wasn’t one that night. “Gul Ruh. The old tale of the nightingale’s love for the rose. It means something that can never be.”
Ferhad knew very well what he was doing. He would have rather been warm and dry by the fire in their lodgings, and away from such thoughts. Who would not on a night like this? But this walk was like Christ’s sop to Judas Iscariot, telling Iskandar “That thou doest, do quickly.” Ferhad knew full well that when he returned, the first words of greeting would be: “The beglerbeg! He’s dead! Assassinated!”
Not that the beglerbeg himself deserved much sympathy. He was a weak, corrupted excuse for a nephew and Sokolli Pasha had seen him to this position prompted only by duty. But still in Ferhad’s mind there was Sokolli. There was still that abominable, inexplicable devotion to the Grand Vizier. As if because of that night he was related to the man closer than any nephew.
“Gul Ruh,” he murmured again. And was glad, that dripping night, of the name’s impossibility.
Ferhad stopped to examine the facade of one of the buildings he passed and to wonder at the barbarous style—what was left of it, for passing armies had found it a good place to pick up souvenirs. Ferhad saw that another one of the bricks was loose: a small bit of plaster in the shape of a rosette the rain had turned a rather pleasant, glossy gray. He pried it off, feeling no remorse for defacing a
