At the end of the tale he bowed deeply, as Ismail complimented his friend on his storytelling gifts. A little way away, the young men were whirling quail carcasses on a long string to train the falcons to seize them in flight. Hafiz and Mukhtar observed the scene carefully, as if committing to memory the gestures of a ritual.
At that point, Ismail judged that it would not be impolite to pose the question that had brought us all there, half a day’s ride from the old walls.
“I was wondering, my friend, what happened to Mimi Reis. I lost trace of him, I have had no news of him, and I would like to see him as I have seen you.”
The falconer nodded. “He had a few problems, so he decided to leave the city. You will find him in Bandirma, on the Sea of Marmara, doing exactly what he has always done. Mimi Reis will always navigate the sea, even if he has only a cardamom pod as a boat and a cup of coffee as the only available sea.”
The two men laughed. I had never heard Ismail’s laugh. It was sonorous, and sounded like the laughter of a young man, but it left a melancholy echo behind.
I would have liked to know more about the past that linked the old man to our host and to the pirate we were looking for, but instead the two friends’ words flowed together into rumors about imminent war.
“They say our Sultan wants to terminate the construction of the Edirne mosque,” the Turk explained. “He needs lots of money, and the Grand Mufti has told him that for the glory of God it is better to use the booty from a holy war than the taxes of subject Muslims.”
That was an opinion that I hadn’t heard before. The vox populi said that Selim needed to inaugurate his reign with a conquest, lest he be seen as inferior to his predecessors.
Ismail’s comment was somewhat broad, and I tried to work out what he was trying to imply. “The men seem to be going off to war like dogs crowding around a carcass. But the causes are complex, hard to discern. That’s why the humble people experience wars as natural disasters, like floods or plagues. They see cannons of bronze, not the gold that originated them. In the lands I come from, the cannon smelters and the money coiners were the same people.”
“The point of view of the humble folk is not ours, Ismail,” said the falconer. “You know what impels the powerful men of this city. And it’s the ambition of powerful men that drives wars. There is no need to seek other reasons.”
With those words, he gestured to his attendant to summon the others. The hunting day was over, and Hassan Agha invited us to his palace, which was not far away.
As we road among the grassy hills, I felt free, just as I had felt when I arrived in Constantinople, when I saw the city from the deck of the ship.
Even in the saddle, pages and boys made their raptors fly. The little ones, sparrow-hawks, kestrels and honey buzzards, perched on the arms of the youngest boys, sped into the air until they had a good view of the ground below, and then, with the wind supporting their wings, stopped in midair, waiting to plunge down on their earthly quarry. I remembered that this attitude was called, in Italian lands, the Holy Spirit. Like Tuota’s dog, in Ragusa.
Then, once again, it was the moment of the falcon that Hassan Agha had called an Altai. I was drawn to the creature; it had a fierce and noble appearance, and yet it was serene, as if its fellowship with man came from the very distant past, as if it had always known the voice and arm of its wingless companion.
The Altai flew high over the countryside. We went on, each in his own disguise, still not suspecting the carnival that would see us dancing together.
25
The midday sun erased the shadows from the dock at Uskudar and scattered drops of gold in the puddles left by the nighttime rain. The reflections dazzled the eye. It was hot, perhaps for the first time since I had come to the city, and the sea’s bright hues spoke of summer. Men and goods crowded the big open space on the Bosphorus; products from Asia and Europe went up and down between carts and holds, unloaded from the backs of stevedores and the humps of camels. Nothing seemed to stop for as long as a breath.
We took shelter from the light and the crowd beneath the big loggia of the mosque, which loomed over the slipway from the top of a platform.
I had grown used to asking the names of Muslim temples, because in Constantinople they tend to be named not after saints and prophets, but instead after the people who financed their construction, powerful men and women — the more influential, the more remarkable the architecture. Knowing the kulliye of the city is a way of knowing the personalities of the empire, whether past or present.
Ismail told me that the person responsible for this particular mosque was Mihrimah Sultan, a name famous even in Venice, where I had heard various rumors about her. Some said that her father, Suleyman the Magnificent, had besieged Malta just to make her happy, and they hinted at incestuous love. Some maintained that Mihrimah was an odalisque, an unscrupulous concubine, whose beauty had so bewitched Suleyman that he was impelled into that ruinous military campaign.
I asked Ismail if he knew which of those stories was true, and he laughed. “None,” he replied. “The princess herself financed the expedition against Malta.” He added that Mihrimah, Selim II’s big sister, was the oldest woman in the Sultan’s family. The siblings’ mother, the legendary Roxelana, had in fact been dead for some time. So, along with Nurbanu, Mihrimah was one of the most powerful women in the empire.
“In Europe, no one can imagine the women of the harem capable of moving money, fleets, armies. This demonstrates how little we know about what’s happening here.” He shrugged. “Besides, the matter is reciprocal.”
The boat that awaited us, a felucca with a lateen sail, was now ready to set off. Ali beckoned us over. We climbed on board and the sailors hurried to pick up their oars. The boat bore us off, away from the hubbub of the port. Soon we found ourselves on the open sea, heading south.
As evening fell, I realized that I hadn’t exchanged a word with a living soul since we had weighed anchor. The sun set slow and red. Everyone stopped to pray. After that, each of us returned to his own place, waiting.
All but Mukhtar. The young woman traced a geometrical figure on the planks of the deck with a piece of white chalk, then aligned her feet with some of the marks and began to move in a dance that appeared to be simulating an act of combat. Her body seemed that of a reptile, or a lynx. I had seen great fighters and fencers practicing their movements bare-handed, and although the girl’s were much more graceful and less direct, her limbs seemed to contain a strength not unlike that of a coiled spring, or a serpent ready to strike.
Ali must have noticed my puzzlement and imagined my reflections. He came over and said in a low voice, “In the land from which she comes, it is not unusual for girls to be sent to fight. They are trained in places like convents, under the direction of a sheik who also understands medicine and astrology. It is a skill practiced by idolaters, but also by those who have embraced the true religion. You see the figure she has drawn on the floor? In their language, that is called kalam. It conveys the precise steps and effective angles of attack and defense. In the language of the Book, kalam means ‘the word of God.’”