Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [276]
The stirring up of sedition. Gabriel’s voice, tinged with pain, was rolling over the phrases. How gross the guest, the diplomatic guest under their roof, who made profit from the canker within the host’s flesh. All knew of the melancholy fate of the Prince Mustafa, his head turned with pride and ambition, who had thought to win the love of the army and ultimately the throne of the Shadow of God. Rustem Pasha, their well-loved Grand Vizier, had detected it. He himself, coming from Zuara, had seen it. Both had sent messages, urgent messages to Khourrém Sultán, the Sultan’s beloved mistress and wife, that she might softly acquaint the Sultan with this his betrayal by the young man he loved.
So, with sorrow, the father had had to remove the undutiful son, and the Prince Mustafa had been killed. So, he had just heard, the Prince Mustafa’s son of four years had been swiftly and mercifully put to his rest in the city of Bursa.… But far from accepting these things as the will of Allah and allowing the bereaved and betrayed to be silent, mourning their dead, men had lent their ears to a vicious new rumour. A rumour that Mustafa Pasha had been innocent of plot against his royal father. A rumour that Rustem Pasha the Vizier, in guilty concert with the Sultan’s wife Roxelana, had fabricated a plot against the Prince Mustafa, in order to place Roxelana’s own son on the throne.
A cruel and malignant rumour, of which the man standing before them was author.
A rustle; a shifting of colour ran through the whole room. Lymond said clearly, in Turkish, ‘That is not so.’
Gabriel turned on him. ‘Is it not? Do you deny that since the death of Mustafa you have adopted the guise of a Meddáh and roaming the city have incited people to rebellion, talking to them of the innocence of Mustafa and the guilt of Roxelana, the Sultan’s own gracious wife? Have you not entered and searched my home for papers the Sultana might have written proving her guilt? Have you not placed in the Sultana’s apartments even a girl, an English girl who under the guise of knowing no Turkish could find and read the Sultana’s own private correspondence, and could listen unseen to her talk? And when the Jewess who smuggled you out such information as you discovered was killed, did you not instal yet another, a Frenchwoman, under the colour of mending the French King’s clock-spinet?’
He paused, making a little space, and so the Grand Mufti, turning his white beard and great bushel-green turban, was able to ask his quiet question. ‘Might it be known what information, if any, they discovered?’
What the Sheikh-ul-Islâm, the Ancient of Islam, inquired must surely be answered. Gabriel hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with respect, he replied. ‘Until Rustem Pasha is here, Hâkim, to answer for himself, it is not my place to divulge it.’
The white beard considered that. Then, gentle-voiced, the Grand Mufti supplemented his question. ‘And the matter as it affects Roxelana Sultán. Were any new facts revealed about that?’
On his throne, Gabriel’s fair face was lined. He moved a little, twisting his rings, his eyes on his fingers. Then looking up: ‘I cannot answer that,’ he replied.
‘Then I can.’ Lymond’s voice cut through the whispering rustle. ‘No papers have been found, in Stamboul or elsewhere, which support to the slightest degree the rumour you speak of, that Rustem Pasha and Roxelana Sultán together plotted to have Mustafa and his child killed.’
The green turban of the Mufti turned towards him, and the old voice was dry. ‘Should thy tongue be so forthright? Had this been