Mika Waltari - The Wanderer

The Sultan had much to attend to before setting forth to war, including the imprisonment of Rashid ben-Hafs, Prince of Tunis, which was so secretly effected that Khaireddin’s own officers believed the Prince had sailed with them and was merely staying below decks because of the rolling seas. But undoubtedly the most important step taken by Suleiman was the appointment of Prince Mustafa as Governor of Anatolia. The Prince was now fifteen years old and had ruled as sanjak over a district; this new appointment finally confirmed the Sultan’s choice of Mustafa as his lawful heir, though many had been led by Sultana Khurrem’s ever increasing influence to doubt this. Pious Moslems, dazzled by the incomparable splendor of their military and naval forces, were persuaded that the great age of Islam had dawned. Only Sultana Khurrem was silent.

One day toward the end of summer, I was crossing the janissaries’ deserted courtyard, with my perfumed handkerchief to my nose because of the stench of severed heads from the vaults of the Gateway of Peace, when a limping onbash came up to me, struck me roughly on the shoulder with his cane, and having made sure of my name announced that he had orders to arrest me-to throw me in chains and confine me in the Fort of the Seven Towers.

I shouted aloud for help and insisted that there must be some terrible mistake, since I had nothing to hide and all my actions could bear the light of day. But the onbash silenced me with a blow across the mouth, and before I was fully aware of what was happening he had taken me to the smith, who riveted shackles about my ankles and held out a sooty hand-I must reward him for neither burning me nor breaking my bones. A sack was drawn over my head lest any in the street should recognize me. I was lifted onto a donkey and led the long way from the Seraglio to the Fort of the Seven Towers.

The constable, a thin-lipped eunuch, received me in person, for my rank and position were well known. He made me undress, searched and removed my clothes, giving me a worn camlet kaftan, and asked me politely whether I would have a cook of my own or be content with prison fare, which would cost me only two aspers a day. This sudden stunning blow of fate had so clouded my understanding that in a faint voice I declared myself satisfied to eat the same food as other prisoners. I was resolved to mortify my flesh and pass my time in pious meditation after my life of luxury in the Sultan’s service.

I bade the eunuch take from my purse a sum befitting his rank and dignity, and hoped that in return he would inform my unfortunate wife as to where I was and what had happened. But he shook his head and told me that this was out of the question, since all state prisoners must be kept as completely cut off from the outer world as if they dwelt in the moon.

This eunuch showed me the greatest consideration and respect, and even exerted himself to climb with me up the steep stairs to show me the view from the marble pinnacles of the Golden Gate. At the same time I had the opportunity of observing the measures taken to defend the fort against assailants, and I believe that the walls alone that linked one tower with the next were enough to sever us from the outer world.

In the square marble tower of the Golden Gate he showed me bricked-up, windowless vaults into which food was passed through an opening the width of a hand. These were designed for the highest princes of Osman’s line and for viziers and members of the Divan, whose rank did not permit them to be shackled. With pardonable pride he pointed to one wall and told me that not even the oldest warder knew who lived behind it, and the prisoner himself could not tell him, as his tongue had been cut out on his arrest many, many years ago. He then showed me the deep hole through which corpses were thrown into the moat and thence carried away into the Marmara. For my further entertainment he pointed out the bloodstained block where executions by the sword took place. Above a long-since bricked- up gateway a faded gold inscription in Greek letters could still be seen, surmounted by the two-headed eagle of the Byzantine emperors. Of this only the heads had been hewn away, to spare the feelings of pious Moslems.

At length, with many apologies, he showed me my own accommodation-a roomy stone cell with windows looking out over the courtyard. I might wander freely about this court and eat if I chose beside the wooden cookhouse.

He left me to my misery, and for three days and nights I lay on the hard wooden bench in my cell, without appetite or desire for company. Desperately I puzzled over the reason for my arrest, and indeed wondered that anyone had dared to order it, since to judge from Ibrahim’s letters I still enjoyed his favor. I passed all my actions in review, and even my secret thoughts, but without finding anything to justify my plight. Yet the more earnestly a man broods over possible guilt, the guiltier he feels. After three days and nights of self-examination I was so keenly aware that at least in my heart I had broken many laws, both of the Prophet and of man, that I was left like a guttering candle, and felt of all outcasts the most wretched.

On the third day the duty onbash came to me with a bundle of clothes, my old copper pen case, and a letter from Giulia. She hinted obscurely that I had only myself and my ingratitude to thank for my hard fate. “Never should I have thought that you would deceive me so,” she wrote. “If you had revealed your base scheme to me I could at least have warned you. And now, but for my tears and prayers, your head would have been cut off and your body thrown into the pit. I can do no more for you; you have made your bed and must lie on it, thankless Michael. I can never forgive your conduct, for soon I shall be forced to pawn my jewels to meet household expenses.”

Her incomprehensible letter put me altogether beside myself. I rushed to the eunuch, burst into passionate reproaches, and ended, “I can bear this uncertainty no longer-I am going out of my mind. What am I accused of, that I may at least defend myself? When the Grand Vizier returns he will inflict terrible punishment on everyone who has dared to lay a hand on me. Have my irons struck off, my good man, and release me at once from this prison, or even you may lose your head.”

The eunuch was annoyed at being disturbed in his exacting work of casting accounts. Yet as became a man trained in the Seraglio he kept his temper and answered pleasantly, “Ah, Michael el-Hakim, in five or ten years when you are a little more composed we will discuss the question again. Very few state prisoners know what they’re accused of, for the essence of the punishment decreed by the Sultan in his wisdom lies in that very torment of uncertainty. Not one of our distinguished guests knows whether he will remain here a week, a year, or his whole life. At any hour of the day or night the deaf-mutes may come and lead you to the brink of the pit; at any hour the gates of the prison may open before you and release you once more into the world of men, to attain perhaps to even higher distinctions than before. You would be wise to devote this favorable time to mystic contemplation, until like the dervishes you come to understand that in the eyes of Allah all is illusion, whether it be imprisonment or freedom, wealth or poverty, power or serfdom. Therefore I shall be happy to lend you the Koran.”

But it was easier to discuss these things in the sweatroom of the bathhouse than behind the iron bars of a prison. I lost all control of myself and began to stamp and shriek until he was compelled to have me seized by janissaries and caned on the soles of my feet. My fury soon dissolved into tears of pain, and the janissaries held me under the arms and half-carried me back to my cell, where they touched brow and floor with their finger tips to convey their continued good will and respect. The swelling and agony of my feet distracted my thoughts, as the wise eunuch had intended, and so in time I composed myself and began to live each day as it came. My one hope was that when the Grand Vizier returned from Persia he would miss me and, Seraglio intrigues notwithstanding, discover my whereabouts.