They walked on in silence. The chronicler thought how strange it was that men of such different kinds should all be serving the Padishah, brought together by war in this god-forsaken spot at the end of the world.
They could still hear chanting in the far distance, and could just about make out the refrain: “O Fate, O Fate …”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare is Albania’s best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005 he was awarded the first Man Booker International Prize for ‘a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact’. He is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Principe de Asturias de las Lettras in Spain.