Mika Waltari - The Wanderer

Tears were now streaming down her cheeks and her words so moved me that I too began to picture to myself a little dwelling on the Bosphorus, with a garden from among whose fruit trees I could watch the stars come out and listen to the lapping of the water along the shore. But reason told me that I could not be certain of keeping the Sultan’s favor, and that houses were not built nor gardens laid out on twelve aspers a day.

Our conversation was cut short by a shrill squealing, and when wc ran out into the evening sunlight of the courtyard we beheld Giulia’s furry blue cat writhing on the grass plot. Giulia tried to take the cat in her arms, but it scratched her and at last hid beneath the house and refused to come out, coax as we would. The wailing grew ever more agonized and at last ceased altogether. Deathly pale and with hands clenched, Giulia walked to the corner of the court where the dog’s bowl was kept. After putting Rael’s food into it she had covered it with a lid which one of the cats in its greed had pushed off; the food was gone and I had only to glance at Giulia to see that during my absence she had mixed poison with it, to kill my dog and punish me for staying away all night.

Seeing that I understood she quailed and said faintly, “Forgive me, Michael! I meant no harm, but I was blinded by anger after wandering about sleepless all night thinking evil thoughts of you. Your wicked dog has tried my patience long enough, and tormented my cats when you weren’t looking. He left fleas on my cushions, muddied my floors, and overturned my jars. And now to crown everything he has poisoned my pet cat and I shall never, never forgive either of you.”

She worked herself up into a frenzy against me and my dog, but at least this melancholy interlude diverted her thoughts from her building schemes. We never had time to return to the subject, for hardly had we begun to tear up the floorboards to get out the cat’s body when we heard the rhythmic tramp of marching feet. Someone thundered at the outer gate with a sword hilt, and when I opened it there entered an onbash of janissaries fully equipped for battle, with a white felt cap on his head. He greeted me and handed me an order from his aga to the effect that I must set forth at once to join the army in the town of Philippopolis, on the river Maritsa, and there report as interpreter to the Seraskier’s intelligence corps.

As I read this appalling communication I became so greatly agitated that I could only stammer the suggestion that there had been a grave mistake, and that for his own sake the onbash would be wise to accompany me at once to the aga and have the matter cleared up. But the onbash was a stolid, unimaginative veteran who said he had his orders. These were to see that before the last hour of prayer I was beyond the city walls and on my way to the theater of war. I had better make haste, he said, if I wished to put up some provisions for the journey, and pack suitable clothes.

It all happened so quickly that I was really conscious of nothing until I found myself sitting uncomfortably in a basket on the back of a camel, swaying rapidly along toward the city gate on the Adrianople road. I lifted my hands to heaven weeping and bewailing my hard fate, but at this the ten janissaries who were goading forward my camel began to sing at the tops of their voices, praising Allah and proclaiming that they were bound for Vienna to overthrow the Kiag.

Their eagerness for battle, the unclouded evening sky-transparently clear after so many rainy days-and last but not least the passage in the Aga’s written order entitling me to thirty aspers a day from the Defterdar’s treasury, cheered me by degrees and inspired me with fresh courage. I tried also to console myself by thinking that nothing occurred contrary to the will of Allah. If for some reason I was to be removed from the Seraglio, it could only be because the Sultan wished to test my efficiency on a campaign, and so discover in which high appointment he could best employ me.

We swung through the low arch in the city wall just as the sun was setting. The rolling slopes beyond glowed red and yellow with tulips, and the white columns of Moslem tombs caught the last dying rays. Dusk fell, the sky darkened to purple, and in strange accompaniment to the tramp of the soldiers and the grunting of the camel I heard the hoarse, distant voices of the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer.

All at once I felt as if someone had lifted a heavy, stifling blanket from me; I breathed freely once more, and enjoyed deep draughts of the fresh spring air.

Although I was now to take part in a campaign that threatened all Christendom, I was escorted by a squad of experienced janissaries who must answer for my safety with their heads. I had thirty aspers a day and if fortune favored me I had much to gain and little to lose. My dog was in good hands. Giulia could maintain herself very well until my return on the money that the Sultan had given me, and perhaps I might soon meet my dear brother Andy again among the gunners; his loyalty and strength could be of great help to me in time of need.

And so there was no reason for dejection. True, the camel smelled very evil, my legs were numb, and the constant swaying afflicted me with nausea; yet without effort I swung forward through the fragrant spring night. Sultan Suleiman’s expedition against the Emperor’s brother in Vienna was now to begin, and out of respect for the Sultan I will bring this book to an end and start another.

I SHALL say little of the hardships I underwent on that journey. Bad weather set in again, and every night I lay drenched and shivering in the janissaries’ tent. Columns of infantry, troops of cavalry, and strings of camels struggled along all the roads toward Philippopolis; at night every farm was packed to overflowing so that neither by hook nor by crook were sleeping quarters to be had. I never understood how I was able to endure these discomforts without falling sick, accustomed as I now was to a life of relative comfort.

In justice to the onbash I must mention that he ordered his men to take the very greatest care of me. They cooked my food and dried my clothes, and I soon came to admire the excellent discipline prevailing in our little troop. Each of the ten men seemed to have his own task to perform whenever we camped for the night. One collected firewood, another cooked, a third cleaned the weapons and accouterments. While a fourth fed the camels, others would be pitching the tents, and so smoothly and speedily were all things done that very soon a cheerful fire would be crackling beneath the pot, while a tent offered a comparatively dry sleeping place. These toil-toughened men cared little for the ceaseless downpour, and indeed made it a point of honor to endure uncomplainingly every sort of hardship, even performing regularly the five daily acts of devotion, though it meant kneeling and prostrating themselves in the mud.

What most surprised me, however, was their consideration for the peasants. They neither struck them nor stole their cattle nor tore down their dwellings for firewood. They never set fire to their ricks or molested their women, as was the custom among Christian soldiery. In the civilized states of Europe the right to do these things was considered the lawful perquisite of every mercenary, and bitterly though the victims complained, they accepted it as they accepted floods, earthquakes, or any other scourge of nature. But my onbash paid for all food and forage in pure silver at rates laid down by the Seraskier, and told me that any janissary who stole so much as a chicken or trampled the smallest patch of corn within the Ottoman borders would be hanged. So lovingly did the Sultan care for his subjects.