Vlad by C.C. Humphreys Page B

lifted up his shirt.
    “See how smooth my skin is!” he called. “See the luxuriance of my hair.” He ran his fingers up a thick blond mat, from groin to chest. “Show us yours, effendi . Let us compare beauties!”
    Vlad knew the man. His slave name was Abdulkarim, “Servant to the Powerful.” But he was known to all by his name and the land of his birth: Sweyn the Swede. No one knew by what byways he had come to be the Sultan’s soldier and slave. But all knew what this baring of skin meant. For Mehmet, in his two years as sultan, had adopted Greek customs as well as their dress. To surround himself with men who were happy, he had their spleens cut out; thus removing, from those who survived the operation—and many did, the Persian surgeons were so good—the very seat of moroseness.
    It hadn’t seemed to work for the bolukbasi . “Out of the way, intemperate dog!” he bellowed, grasping the hilt of his sheathed sword. “Before I remove your spleen and half your guts with it.”
    “Oh, terror!” cried the Swede, fanning himself with his raised shirt. “But tell me! Could you not also remove a few hemorrhoids?” With that, he turned about and bared his arse.
    More jeering. More laughter. For a moment, Vlad thought that the bolukbasi was going to draw his sword and thrust it up the tempting target. But then the Swede straightened, robed and, to great cheers, began to move out of the roadway. The officer turned, and gestured his men forward.
    Vlad looked around, desperately seeking he knew not what. He saw that some of the younger janissaries were still clutching three-legged stools, willing the fight. Even as he watched, though, these were being reluctantly lowered.
    So Vlad bent and snatched one up. He too had seen the tattoos of the orta that held the tavern. “Elephants!” he cried, and hurled the stool straight at the bolukbasi ’s head. He saw it come, ducked enough so it thumped into his helmet not his face. But the sound of wood on metal rang like another battle-cry. A wave of stools, mugs, jugs came crashing over the guards. Many struck the palanquin , which had been hastily dropped by men protecting themselves. Screams came from within it.
    “To me!” yelled the bolukbasi , blood running from the blow to his head. His men rallied to him, halberds swatting aside thrown wood, points lowering towards the janissaries.
    Vlad had moved to the shelter of the far side of the litter. Ion and Radu joined him there.
    “What now?” Ion shouted.
    They were on the opposite side to the door. Vlad peered through the lattice. He could see two shapes within. “This,” he said, drawing his dagger, plunging it in just below the roof.
    Screams came from one woman inside, but were suddenly cut off as if smothered. Ion joined in the cutting on the other side, sawing down through the thin wood. By the time he reached the bottom, Vlad was already cutting along the edge of the roof. When he reached Ion’s cut, the three jabbed their fingers in to the gap, and pulled.
    The wall of the litter gave with a loud rip. And there, on its floor, crouched a masked and painted houri , her hand clamped across the mouth of a servant. Through the veil of coins, eyes glittered.
    “Come,” said Vlad, speaking Osmanlica, “swiftly now. And you…” he added, looking at the prone maid, touching the hilt of his dagger back in its sheath, “…silence or death!”
    Clasping Ilona’s hand, he drew her from the wrecked palanquin .
    Beyond it, the peyk had begun to march into the tavern. Wood had been surpassed by steel, bruises by blood. All were focused on the fight, on surviving it, so none saw the four shrouded figures slipping away.
    —
    Nestled beside the new stone bridge that Murad had built over the River Ergene was a sprawl of jetties, flat-bottomed barges bumping against them. With night falling, and workers drawn to mosque or tavern, few observed their passage to a certain pier.
    “You’re late!” called Alexandru, the