The Janissary Tree

[ 50 ]

The seraskier clawed his way to the edge of the divan with his heels and clambered to his feet.

“You should have told me.” His voice was clipped, correct. “I did not ask you to speak to foreigners. Unbelievers.”

Yashim, sitting on the divan, put his chin upon his knees.

“Do you know why I brought you in? Do you think it was because I wanted discretion?” He glared at Yashim. “Because you’re supposed to be fast. My men are dying. I want to know who is killing them, and I don’t have a lot of time. It is one week exactly before the Review. Days have gone by, and you’ve told me nothing. You were quick enough in the Crimea. I want to see that right here. In Istanbul.”

The veins on his temples were pulsing.

“Poems. Taxi rides. They tell me nothing.”

Yashim got to his feet and bowed. When he reached the doorway, the seraskier said: “Those meetings were fixed up by me.”

Yashim’s cloak swirled. “Meetings?”

The seraskier stood against the window with his hands behind his back.

“Meeting the Russians. I’ve made it my business to see that my boys get an education. Present arms and salute your superior officer! Fine. Learn how to load a breech gun or to drill like a Frenchman? That’s the half of it. Someday we are going to be fighting the Russians. Or the French. Or the English.

“How do they think? How willingly do the men fight? Who are their heroes? You can learn a lot if you understand another man’s heroes.”

The seraskier cracked his knuckles.

“I could pretend that none of that matters. There was a time when we met our enemies on the field, and crushed them underfoot. We were very good. But times have changed. We are not as fast as we were, and the enemy has become faster.

“We can’t afford to ignore them—Russians, Frenchmen. Yes, even those Egyptians can teach us something, but not if we suck on narghiles here, in Istanbul, trying to imagine what they are like. It’s for us to go out and learn how they think.”

Yashim scratched his ear. “And you think your officers can learn all this by having coffee with the Russian military attache?”

The seraskier thought: he is not a military man. Not a man at all.

He spoke with exaggerated precision. “You asked me the other day if I spoke French. In fact I do not. Nowadays we have a book, a dictionary, which gives all the words in Turkish and French so that our men can read some of the French textbooks. This book never existed when I was young. Apart from the officers we engage to teach our men, I have never met a Frenchman. Or an Englishman or a Russian. And never, of course, any of their ladies. Of course not. I would not know how to—”

He broke off, gripping the air with outstretched hands.

“How to act. How to speak with them. You know? Thirty years ago the idea would not have occurred to me. Now I think about it all the time.”

“I understand.” Yashim felt a wave of pity for the seraskier, in his western kit, his efficient boots, his buttoned tunic. These were symbols he endured, not knowing exactly why, like one of those simpletons in the bazaar who feel that no medicine is good unless it causes them some pain. Magic boots, magic buttons. Ferenghi magic.

“Things are moving fast. Even here.” The seraskier rubbed a hand across his chin, watching Yashim. “The sultan recognises that our military review presents him with an opportunity. Next Monday, all the city will be watching. People will see the banner of the Prophet at the head of the troop. The jingle of cavalry, brightwork sparkling, beautiful mounts. There’ll be the deep lines of soldiery, marching in step. Whatever they think of us now, they’ll be moved. They will be impressed, I’m sure of that. Better still, it’s going to make them proud.”

The seraskier raised his chin with the population, and his nostrils flared as if pride were something he already smelled in the air.

“To coincide with the display, the sultan will issue an Edict. An Edict that will move us all along in the direction he wants us to take. It is up to us to support him. To try and learn the good things that the infidels can teach us now. Even, as you say, by having coffee with the Russians.”

But Yashim had stopped listening. “An Edict?”

The seraskier lowered his voice.

“You may as well know. Changes will be made in many areas. Equality of the people under a single law. Administration. Ministers instead of pashas, that sort of thing. It will follow the way the army has been reformed on western lines, and it will not be enough. Naturally.”

Yashim felt flattened. What did he really know about anything? In six days, an imperial Edict. An order for change. With an effort he pushed the thoughts that crowded in aside.

“Why the Russians? Why not send our boys to have tea with the English? Or drink wine with the French ambassador?” The seraskier rubbed a hand across the back of his enormous neck. “The Russians…were more interested.”

“And that didn’t strike you as being suspicious?”

“I’m not naive. I took a risk. The boys from the Guard were…what shall I say? Sheltered. I thought it safer for them to make some mistakes now, in Istanbul, than to be ignorant later, on the battlefield.”

Yet they might have survived a battle, Yashim thought. In Istanbul they didn’t have a chance.