The Kadin - Bertrice Small [70]
“It has already reached her,” replied Hadji Bey, “and she has already tried again to gain the sultan’s ear. Fortunately, the death of Selim’s mother is still fresh in his mind and heart, and I intend to keep it so. In three nights the sultan gives a reception. He will be presented to an exquisite girl, a Circassian like yourself and your sister. I call her Kiusem, as your sister was called. She even bears a striking resemblance to the first Kiusem. I have been keeping her hidden for just such a moment but I guarantee that the sultan will be enamored of her and will have no time for the lady Besma’s complaints and ravings.”
“Bless you for your foresight” sighed Lady Refet
“However,” continued the agha kislar, “I would advise you, Selim, to take a hunting trip for a few weeks, and not to take a new ikbal until Cyra’s child is born.”
“You would do well to heed Hadji Bey’s advice, my dear nephew, before Besma convinces Bajazet that you and your burgeoning family are a threat to him.”
“I do not feel like hunting.”
“Nevertheless,” thundered the agha, “you will hunt! We have not schemed and planned all these years for Turkey’s future to have your whims destroy those plans. For myself I care not but what future has your aunt or Cyra, or Firousi, or your unborn children, should the sultan become suspicious? You will hunt my son. Go toward the mountains. Take a few of your Tartars with you, but leave the main force to guard this palace. In two or three days’ time, you will meet ‘by chance,’ with Bali Agha and his troop of Janissaries. He is a young man about your age and holds the highest position in the corps. I can keep Besma from the sultan, but he who controls the Janissaries’ loyalty controls the empire. The Janissaries know little of your good work in Magnesia, They remember only the dull boy of early days, and Besma has worked very hard to keep that image alive. Your half-brother grows more degenerate every day. Though he has been forced by his mother to consort with women, he still prefers boys, and he has no sons. Besma is becoming desperate, and she schemes for the sultan’s overthrow so she may place her son upon the throne.”
“I must be back in time for the birth of my son.”
“I will personally guarantee it,” replied the agha. “But remember, Selim—the birth of your child is a certainty; that you rule after your father is not”
The prince grimaced at the agha’s words, but he was no foot and Hadji Bey had made his point So comfortable had he been these last few months with his life and Cyra that he had almost forgotten his goals.
The next morning Selim, with half a dozen of his Tartars for companions, left the Moonlight Serai and galloped into the hills to hunt—and for a “chance encounter” with the young chief of the Janissaries.
Bali Agha was thirty years old, of great height and commanding presence. Unlike many Janissaries, who, being of European origin, dyed their light hair black, Bali wore his shaggy dark-gold hair proudly. He had discovered early that his lighter locks won him considerable favor with the ladies. His face was square, with a strong jaw fringed with a yellow beard, a high forehead, a short nose, and snapping black eyes that peered from beneath bushy eyebrows, giving him the appearance of a stern lion.
Bali Agha was a disciplinarian, and under his command the Janissaries flourished, grew stronger, and were feared. He and his men were loyal to Bajazet but looked to the future. The future offered them three choices—the heir, Prince Ahmed, Prince Korkut and Prince Selim—the last a devout Muslim, intelligent and a good soldier.
Turkey had had two good sultans under the Ottoman dynasty—Mohammed II, conqueror of Constantinople, and his son, Bajazet II. The empire had grown powerful, and if it was to remain that way, it needed a strong sultan to succeed Bajazet Bali Agha knew that neither Ahmed nor Korkut was that man, and from his powerful position he secretly began to sound out his captains and the more promising of their men