Shadow of God (22 page)

“So, this Greek sailor, who was he? A spy? Is my Captain of the Inner House selling my plans to a Greek sailor? From Rhodes perhaps?”

“No, Majesty, he was not. The Captain of the Inner House is not a spy. This, I know for certain. For many times on that night he called the man,
‘Baba.’
This poor old man was his father.”

Suleiman sat quietly in his tent, after a light dinner of lamb and rice. He reclined on a nest of cushions in the middle of the dimly lit room; he was warmed by the heat of a coal brazier. The Sultan was just taking a taste of lemon sorbet when a page announced himself and entered the room. He knelt, pressing his head to the floor. Suleiman signaled for the page to rise and waited.

The page signed that the
Kadin
Gülbehar had arrived in the Sultan’s quarters from the harem, and was being escorted by the Black Eunuch. Suleiman nodded and dismissed the page with a wave of the hand.

There was a short interval before Suleiman heard muffled footsteps in the corridor, followed by the appearance of the Chief Black
Eunuch. The eunuch bowed and announced the arrival of the
Kadin
. Putting down the remains of his sorbet and adjusting his robes, Suleiman signaled for Gülbehar to be brought in.

She entered the room unattended, having dismissed her maids at the entrance to the Sultan’s quarters. In an ancient Ottoman ceremony, Gülbehar knelt at the door and then crawled the several yards to the Sultan’s
divan
in silence. She placed her forehead to the carpet while reaching up, taking Suleiman’s ankle in her hand. As an act of submission to his power and her own vulnerability, she placed his foot upon the back of her neck, holding it there for several seconds before releasing it.

Suleiman reached down and without a word took her hand in his. He pulled her gently to her knees and guided her to the cushions beside him. He was touched at her preservation of the traditions of subservience. In the several years of their relationship, Gülbehar had quickly become more informal in his presence. She was allowed free access to his presence, often arriving with little notice and in many cases no escort at all. But those were the days of Suleiman’s governorship in Manisa before he had ascended to the throne. Somehow, from the day of his girding with the Sword of the House of Osman, without specific agreement, their relationship changed. But, here in his tent, Suleiman, relaxed with his
Kadin
, fell into the role of lover.

Suleiman felt Gülbehar settle onto the
divan
and nuzzle her body closer to his. Her thigh was warm against him, a faint taste of her perfume barely detectable on her skin. Not a word passed between them, for they had done all their talking earlier in the day. There was little for Suleiman to discuss with Gülbehar outside of the well-being of their baby son and heir, Mustapha.

Now, in the silence of the encampment, the couple tried to feel completely alone. Suleiman, more than Gülbehar, had learned to ignore the reality that there were dozens of armed men and servants within earshot of him at all times. Though the tent walls were thicker and more opulently draped than the ordinary military tent, sound still traveled beyond the limits of his privacy. For Gülbehar, it was hard to relax knowing that her words and sounds would be
overheard. The Sultan had always lived his life in such a protected environment, but his eighteen-year-old
Kadin
was still learning.

For what seemed like a very long time, Gülbehar waited for her master to respond to her presence. She could feel his body slowly relax against her and soon she was close enough to detect the faint scent of spiced lamb. She herself had not eaten that evening, so that there would be no unnatural taste on her tongue or breath. Everything in her day had been carefully designed to please the Sultan. Her future, her whole life, and the life of her child could rest on the whim of this man who had nearly two hundred other women waiting to please him.

Suleiman let out a long sigh, signaling to Gülbehar that he was relaxed and ready for her attentions. She responded to this minute invitation by easing out of her caftan, revealing a rose-colored gauze top that showed the hint of the curve of her breasts and the suggestion of her nipples. Suleiman looked into her eyes and smiled. He placed his hand on her thigh and gently stroked her through the silk layers of her long gown. She in turn placed her hand for the first time that night on Suleiman’s thigh and gently caressed him in return. She could feel his response to her approach in the slight increase in the depth of his breathing. She continued to stroke him until she could feel his erection growing beneath his loose-fitting pants. She stopped for a moment and leaned away to blow out the oil light nearest the
divan
.

She reached up and started to undo the pearls that held her hair high on her head. The jewelry snagged for a moment, and Suleiman took her hands away to help her himself. The feel of her soft hair aroused him even more than her touching him. When the jewels were free, he dropped them to the floor. Her hair fell around her shoulders and he kissed the top of her head, smelling even more strongly the scent of her perfume.

Gülbehar pulled at a coverlet that lay nearby, covering both her legs and Suleiman’s. Then in the very dim light of the room, she undid the buttons of her top and let it fall away. Suleiman bent down to kiss her bare breasts as she slid the rest of the way out of her many layers of silk. When she was completely naked, she pulled
the coverlet higher over her body and enveloped them both in a silk cocoon. The Sultan undressed himself and dropped his own clothing at the side of the
divan
. They stopped for a moment, holding each other quietly, motionlessly. Still, not a word had passed between them.

Gülbehar relaxed her hold on Suleiman, sliding slowly beneath the coverlet. As she disappeared from sight, Suleiman gave in completely to the feelings that were washing over him. As he felt her mouth and tongue explore his body, all the thoughts of his empire and his coming war faded away.

Gülbehar took her lover into her mouth as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her fingers explored his back and his buttocks. In the briefest time, Suleiman burst with the pent-up longing that had gone so long unsatisfied. When he was finished, Gülbehar crept up next to him and held his sweating body to hers. She felt him sleep awhile and she slept, too. Sometime later, she woke to feel Suleiman caressing her in the darkness of the room, the only other lamp now extinguished. She responded to him and he grew aroused again and quickly entered her. The two made love through the night, like new lovers. They slept again, and when the morning light brightened the roof of the tent, Suleiman found himself on his cushions, beneath his silk coverlet, naked and relaxed, and alone once more.

Rhodes, the Fortress of the Knights of St. John
May, 1522

When the newly elected Grand Master, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle Adam, finally reached the island of Rhodes on September 19th, 1521, he was put ashore at the Commercial Port, near the Tower of Naillac. He looked up to the battlements where most of his youth had been spent. Philippe had been born of a noble family in Beauvais, France, in 1464. He was a kinsman of one of the Order’s most famous Grand Masters, Jean de Villiers. It was de Villiers who had been in command when the knights were driven from their fortress at St.Jean d’Acre in 1291.

Philippe was inducted into the Order of the Knights of St. John as a teenager. Thus, many years before, as a fledgling knight, he had arrived at that very spot, when the fortress was barely recovering from the damage inflicted during the terrible siege of 1480, by Mehmet, the Conqueror.

On the day Philippe returned to his beloved Rhodes, he stood in the shadows of the giant stone walls and prepared to take command of the strongest fortification on Earth. Now, only a year later and a few miles away, Suleiman’s armies, the largest force of fighting men in the world, along with nearly three hundred ships of war, were preparing to bring the battle back to Philippe’s island home.

The fortress was situated at the northeast end of the island of Rhodes. The island itself was oblong, pointing from southwest to
northeast, some forty-five miles long and twenty miles wide. A ridge of mountains ran up the middle of the island like a spine, the highest of which rose to nearly four thousand feet above the sea. The port city of Rhodes, itself, was served by two separate man-made harbors. Pointing to the north like an open mouth was the
Porto Mercantile,
the Commercial Harbor. Its entrance was guarded by the Tower of Naillac on the mainland and the Tower of the Windmills on the outer side along the artificial stone mole. The opening was barely three hundred yards wide, and easily protected with a massive chain and log booms. A second, smaller harbor to the north was the
Porto del Mandraccio,
or the Galley Port. It was across this port that in ancient times stood the legendary Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Colossus long gone, this smaller harbor was now defended with chain and booms.

Surmounting the harbors on a small hill was the fortress itself. The city was just under a mile square. The walls were of heavy stone, guarded at intervals by towers. For two hundred years, the Knights had reinforced the walls and the defenses of their city. After their successful defense against the siege in 1480, the knights had worked even harder at modernizing and strengthening the fortifications.

Many of the changes had been made to keep up with the latest advances in siege warfare. The original thin curtain walls, designed before the development of heavy cannon fire, merely prevented soldiers from climbing into the city. The new walls had to withstand a constant barrage of huge stone and iron cannonballs, now in general use by the Turks. So, the old walls were thickened and replaced by massive bastions over forty feet thick. The bastions were projections in the fortress walls that allowed wider fields of fire to cover the approaches to the city. Each
langue
had responsibility for a portion of the defenses, and its wealth dictated the degree to which the position could be strengthened. The already huge ditches, or dry moats, were widened and deepened around the entire fortress. The moats were then encircled by a second perimeter of moats.

The guard towers, which were formerly designed for observation and the occasional use by archers, were pushed out and angled in front of the bastions. The defenders could rain down a murderous
crossfire of both arrows and gunshot upon the attackers who might try to breach the walls. Boiling oil had been generally replaced by modern weaponry, and attackers trying to scale the walls would be slaughtered by an enfilade of arrows and shot. By the time Philippe had taken the reins of command, there was not a fortress in the world better able to withstand a prolonged attack.

On Rhodes, as elsewhere throughout the world, the knights were organized by their home countries, divided into
langues,
or the “tongues” for the languages they spoke. There were the
langues
of England, France, Germany, Auvergne, Provence, and Italy. Aragon and Castile comprised the
langue
of Spain.

Though France was by far the most dominant of the
langues,
most of the men spoke several languages fluently. A great rivalry existed among the knights of the different
langues.
Jealousies arose from the great differences in the financial resources available to each. France was the richest, and their
Auberge,
or inn
,
was the most opulent. Responsibility for the fortifications on Rhodes were also divided among the
langues,
and there, too, were major differences. The defense posts of the French were the most lavishly built, while weaknesses riddled the posts of the poorer
langues,
such as England.