Ismail Kadare - The Siege

The Quartermaster General spoke. He asked for the astrologer to be stripped of his rank and sentenced to hard labour. Everyone knew that his onslaught, despite its measured terms, was really aimed at the Mufti. Saruxha, who had allowed himself to drop off from time to time, was now listening with rapt attention. At one point he even interrupted the Quartermaster to demand that the astrologer be put to death. Some of the sanxhakbeys who were in the sway of the Mufti attempted to excuse the astrologer’s mistake. Others among them agreed only that he should be sacked. Kara-Mukbil was the only one of the divisional commanders who wanted the astrologer’s head. The dreadful wound on his face made it difficult for him to speak, but lent great weight to the words he did utter. The Mufti himself, Old Tavxha and Kurdisxhi did not express an opinion. The Alaybey, for his part, went along with removing the astrologer from office, but did not suggest any further punishment. The Pasha listened to all of them in complete indifference. Whether or not to punish the astrologer seemed to him a matter of no greater importance than deciding whether to tread on an ant or not. He knew that was not the issue. The velvet-gloved fight between the two hostile factions within his own council, which in other circumstances might have agitated him, seemed trivial. Only one thing mattered to him: what was to be done?

He cut short the debate with a clear decision of his own: the astrologer would be removed from office forthwith and reallocated to grave-digging. While the secretary was transcribing the order, Kurdisxhi rose to speak. He asked permission, in accordance with tradition, to mount a punitive expedition to sack and terrorise the villages in the surrounding hills. He claimed that an action of that sort was especially necessary in current circumstances, so as to shatter the confidence that the Turks’ defeat might have aroused among the rebels.

“Today, I shall avenge the blood we have spilled!” he yelled. “I shall lay waste to the whole country! I’ll turn it into a living hell!”

Tursun Pasha looked at Kurdisxhi’s flaming head of red hair and thought to himself that the man would literally do what he said.

“Granted,” the Pasha said, nodding to his secretary to transcribe the decision which he had taken, contrary to normal practice, without consulting his advisers.

“Pasha, sire,” a barely audible voice whispered.

A curly redhead who was apparently attending the war council for the first time was requesting permission to speak.

“Tabduk Baba, Agha of the secret police,” Tursun Pasha said, realising that most members of his council were eying the newcomer with astonishment. “Speak, Agha!”

The man pretended not to have noticed the disdain that could be read in the eyes of some of those present.

“Much has been said about the astrologer,” he said, “but there are others who should be punished too. I have learned that attempts were made to steal the secret of the new weapon. I am also in possession of an anonymous letter that incriminates the spell-caster.”

“What’s an anonymous letter?” Aslanhan asked. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“It’s a letter without a signature,” Tabduk Baba explained. “I got a letter of that kind expressing grave suspicions about the damning of the citadel.”

“Well, well,” two or three men muttered.

Tursun Pasha gave a slight nod of agreement. The Agha of the secret police was like balm to his wounds when he felt depressed. The other members also perked up. So the defeat was not their fault.

“If that’s how it is, let’s not waste time. Cut off the spell-caster’s head,” Aslanhan said.

“Wait a minute,” the Pasha intervened. “We must first be sure of his guilt. Isn’t that so, Kadi?” he added, turning towards a small and wrinkle-faced man who was also attending the council for the first time.

“Punishing a caster of spells is no easy matter,” the kadi said emphatically. “I would go so far as to say it is the opposite.”

“That is not my view,” the Agha of the secret police replied.

Tursun Pasha let them argue it out for a few minutes, and then cut in.

“That’s enough! Put the caster of spells in chains, and investigate the matter with extreme discretion. We’ve got time to think about a trial. But I would suggest it be held in public.”

“A public trial is always useful in these circumstances,” the Quartermaster General said with a smile that was full of unspoken meaning.

Tursun Pasha pretended not to notice.

“I give you full powers to spy on suspect elements,” the Pasha said to Police Commander Tabduk Baba. After a pause, he added: “To spy on anyone!” He noticed the glances across the room that his statement prompted and reckoned that all present had therefore grasped what it meant. “And now, let us get on to the main question, to the reason why the great Padishah sent us all here to the end of the earth. How are we going to proceed so as to take control of this citadel?”

Old Tavxha, Tahanka, the Mufti and a few others were of the view that a fresh assault should be launched without delay. The glorious army of the Osmanlis which had stormed dozens of supposedly impregnable fortresses should never, they said, be allowed to suffer the slightest humiliation, even that of remaining stationary in front of these walls. The whole world was expecting to hear that the citadel had fallen. They had to attack. However, most of the advisers were against attacking, especially in present circumstances. If they had a second mishap, their numerical strength could be seriously weakened, and, worse still, another defeat would certainly wreck the morale of the troops. So they were minded to try to devise other means that would lead to the result that had not been obtained by direct onslaught. They reckoned that, for an army, any victory is another jewel in its crown of glory, irrespective of the means used to achieve it.

The council went on arguing late into the night. Each spoke of all that he knew from long military experience about the means available for seizing a stronghold, from the most valiant to the least noble, not to say despicable. They included movable towers, infection with cholera, a feigned retreat followed by a surprise attack, the taking of hostages, throwing excrement over the ramparts, and a wide range of tricks, one of which would be to dress the akinxhis in Albanian costumes and to have them pretend to attack the Turkish camp.

Tursun Pasha tried to imagine Kurdisxhi in Skanderbeg’s goat-head helmet, and thought, No!

Dozens of variations were suggested and each was gone over several times, with its pros and cons weighed against each of the others. One wounded council member fainted. The doctor was called, and he had the man taken back to his tent. In the end it appeared that the majority was in favour of digging an underground passageway that the architect had proposed right at the start. The Pasha nodded towards him. Giaour stood up in his corner, pulled a sheaf of plans out of his satchel, and came into the middle of the tent. Under the envious gaze of the secret policeman, who eyed him as a beast stares at prey within reach of its claws, Giaour laid out his plans on the kilim and started to explain. Nobody tried to follow what he was saying because they all knew that even if they concentrated as hard as they could they would not be able to understand. The only thing they could get out of the architect’s gibberish was the word “shaft,” which meant “passage,” and for which Giaour also sometimes used the words “hole” or “underground,” and even more often the term “tunnel,” borrowed from the accursed language of the giaours themselves.

They contented themselves with watching the architect’s waxen hand move over the strange shapes drawn on the paper, amazed once again that something as real, solid and huge as the citadel could be summed up in a few squiggles which represented not only the visible parts of it but also the parts that could not be seen from outside, such as the stairs in the turrets and the foundations. The Muslim religion had made them all aware of the diabolical nature of figurative compositions, but they were nonetheless obliged to rely on them, just as they had believed in the complicated diagrams which had given birth to Saruxha’s monstrous cannon. The architect’s index finger ran this way and that over the plan. He was describing the nature of the earth around the fortress, and explained that although loose soil is much easier to dig, and therefore an advantage, it was also subject to caving in, whereas digging through rock, though much harder to do, produced less risky results. He showed the depth to which the shaft had to be dug at the start, how deep it would then have to dip to get underneath the foundations of the outer wall, how it would then have to split into two to allow an escape if one of the exits got blocked. He finished off by calculating how long it would take to dig such a “tunnel” and the number of soldiers who could pass through it in a given period of time.