The Kadin - Bertrice Small [125]
After learning of Khair ad-Din’s feats, the Ottoman sultan sent for him. Khair ad-Din came, for he was no fool. He might be a pirate of great fame, but as famous as he was at sea, the Ottoman’s feats as a soldier were greater. The pirate chief was a peasant, and he knew it With a commission from the Grand Turk, he would be respectable and honored in the Muslim world. Khair ad-Din had one weakness. He desperately wanted respectability.
Selim, standing on the top step of the dais, fought back the urge to laugh as the pirate admiral approached. He was of medium height well-muscled, and fat as a wrestler. His bright red hair and bushy beard were oiled and perfumed. The sultan, whose only acquaintance with redheads was with Cyra and their youngest son, thought Khair ad-Din the ugliest and most ludicrous figure he had ever seen; but he maintained his grim composure.
“May you live a thousand years, o my padishah,” came a deep, cannonlike voice.
Selim graciously acknowledged the greeting and quickly got to the main business. Khair ad-Din was given the rank of beylerbey, with its horsetail standard, a sword, and a fine Arabian stallion. When the new beylerbey agreed to escort the twenty-five ships full of the sultan’s booty back to Constantinople, Selim added a regiment of Janissaries and a battery of heavy cannon.
Khair ad-Din was ecstatic. From this day forward he would fight for Ottoman Turkey, proudly flying its flag on his topmost mast Forty-five percent of all he took would go to the sultan. The remainder would be divided among himself, his captains, and their men.
Satisfied, Selim left Egypt for the long trek home to Constantinople. With Khair ad-Din the scourge of the Mediterranean, the Christians would be kept very busy, and he would have the time to plan his Western invasions. The journey took longer than he would have wanted, for accompanying him and the army were an additional one thousand camels laden with treasure.
Selim returned to his capital in the early spring of 1518, to find that Cyra had temporarily appointed Anber, the chief eunuch of the Moonlight Serai, as agha kislar. He confirmed this appointment first to her privately when they visited the simple tomb of Hadji Bey, and then publicly through his grand vizier, Piri Pasha.
Piri Pasha was everything Cyra had promised he would be. It amazed Selim that she knew so much about his officials, but he trusted her and had learned long ago not to question his good fortune.
In his absence, his twin daughters had made him a grandfather for the first time, with two fine boys. Nilufer was fifteen and finally ready for marriage. With little prodding, he chose Ibrahim to be her bridegroom.
A messenger was dispatched to Magnesia. Suleiman and Ibrahim were to come to Constantinople within the month. In the meantime, the palace would be made ready for the approaching festivities.
Sarina, no less peppery at forty, bullied the new agha to the point of tears with her demands to be allowed to supervise the gardens for the wedding. Cyra smoothed things over by sweetly asking Anber to grant her request “It will help ease her deep sorrow over Prince Bajazet’s death,” the bas-kadin said. Anber, grateful for an excuse to get the sultan’s fourth kadin off his neck, agreed, and Sarina triumphantly bustled to the royal greenhouse to oversee the quickly cowed gardeners.
By coaxing and bullying, she achieved miracles. On Nilufer’s wedding day, the Yeni Serai gardens were filled with Gold of Ophir rose trees in full bloom, each set in a tall turquoise-enameled pot and thousands of paper-white narcissus and pale-yellow tulips