The Kadin - Bertrice Small [29]
The prince was called into the agha’s presence and greeted his old friend warmly. When steaming cups of coffee had been brought and the servants dismissed, the agha spoke. Selim listened quietly, his handsome face grave, as the agha outlined the plan that he and Kiusem had conceived even before the prince’s birth.
Ahmed must not succeed his father. He was, unfortunately, too influenced by his mother, poorly educated, and depraved. Turkey could not support such a sultan.
As for Prince Korkut, he was a good man but more a scholarly recluse than a future sultan. He was not a soldier and had no interest in women. Should he, Allah forbid, succeed his father, he would not last a month. Fortunately Prince Korkut had informed the agha that he did not wish to be sultan. He would, he said meaningfully, support the “right” man.
Now the field was clear for Selim, said the agha. The first part of the plan was to keep him isolated and safe during his youth, to see that he was superbly educated and then given the governorship of Magnesia—the same province his father had ruled in his youth.
Step two of the plan called for Selim’s governorship to be transferred to the Crimean province nearest Constantinople. Using Bajazet’s love for Kiusem, this had already been accomplished. Selim would leave Magnesia shortly before his twenty-fifth birthday to visit his father in the capital, and depart the day after for his new post.
In case of emergency he would be a day’s hard ride from the city, and, more important, the sultan would have easy access to his son.
This brought Hadji Bey to step three. Kiusem’s archrival, Besma, had never stopped her campaign to discredit Bajazet’s youngest son in order to advance the cause of her own offspring. She dared not compare the two princes’ morals, for Ahmed’s degenerate behavior was an open scandal. His mother, in hopes of ruling through her son one day, had, in order to keep him under her thumb, directed his sexual appetites in twisted directions.
She could not compare Ahmed and Selim in the field of governorship, for the province of Magnesia was peaceful, fruitful, and well-run. Ahmed’s domain in the east on the Persian border was a constant source of trouble.
Her only hope had been to keep Selim from his father, to fill the sultan’s ear with what poison she could, and hope for Bajazet’s death and Ahmed’s succession before the sultan learned the truth.
Besma’s desires had suited Kiusem and the agha, for the result was that Selim enjoyed unprecedented freedom. Now, however, the time had come for the sultan to know what kind of a man his younger son had become. Moving him nearer to the capital would help to accomplish this. Setting him up with a bevy of lovely maidens from his father’s own harem would impress upon the people Bajazet’s regard for him
Later, when sons were born, Selim’s position would be solidified—especially since Hadji Bey was quite certain that Prince Ahmed’s preference for young boys negated his chances for having sons. The agha was sure that once the sultan realized what a fine and capable man Selim was, the succession would be changed.
Selim absorbed the agha’s words carefully. He did not tell his friend that from the time he was old enough to understand, it had been his intention to replace his dead brother on the throne of their father one day. He knew his brothers much better than they knew themselves, and he was neither a hedonistic seeker of personal pleasures like Ahmed, nor a monkish lover of learning like Korkut There had been only one man he had admired in his life, and that man had been his grandfather.
He had been almost thirteen when the conqueror had died, and he remembered the old man vividly. Mohammed had lived in the Yeni Serai, where he could keep an eye on the construction going on about his new palace. One day he had ordered his grandsons to be brought to him. Both Ahmed and Korkut arrived with retinues befitting their imperial state, but the seven-year-old Selim came with just one attendant
Mohammed raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. There had been wrestlers