The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire by Linda Lafferty Read Free Book Online Page A

did not understand the fierce competition for the Princess’s care and trust. The established guards had barely let Postivich enter the outer courtyards of the palace, growling that the Sultan’s sister was in their care and not a janissary’s concern.
    The Sultan’s Grand Vizier—allied closely with the Aga of the Janissaries—came to check on Ahmed Kadir’s new post. He appeared murderously angry to see the giant standing guard outside the palace’s walls in the shade of lime tree.
    “Have we pulled our best soldier from the battlefield to stand and match his shadow with that of fruit trees?” he bellowed. “Why do you stand on the streets, Kadir?”
    “The choice is not mine, sir,” answered the janissary. “This is my assigned post.”
    The Vizier ordered the Solak commanding officer to present himself at once, his curses sending the harem girls and servants scurrying through the corridors.
    Within the hour, Ivan Postivich had been installed just outside the Royal Audience Chamber doors. The palace guards were forced to acknowledge that he was a member of their force, although he was not a Solak and did not belong to their orta. Even the Turkish guard, who hated all the Janissaries, was forced to accept Ahmed Kadir’s presence. The chief minister had assigned him a more respectable mission—to inspect every male visitor for weapons and to study their faces for signs of treason or murder.
    But with time there was another duty for which he would become known—the Princess Esma Sultan’s personal murderer. Her drowning guard.

Chapter 2
    T he first light played on the wet cobblestone streets of Constantinople, fresh and cool from the early morning washing by the Jewish street sweep. This was the cypress-lined road that led to the royal palaces and the Pashas’
yali
s on the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, the one fine stretch of street meant to impress ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries visiting the capital of the vast Ottoman Empire.
    The rest of the byways of Constantinople were a maze of narrow winding passageways, hard-packed dirt that turned into mire with the seasonal rains. It was there in the tangle of alleys that the wild dogs slept in the daytime. The wood-shingled houses with their windows jutting over the streets provided shade for the pack who were desperate to escape the fierce Turkish heat. The mongrels whined and yelped for scraps and fought each other over the carcasses of dead horses or mules that died in the streets. No one carted away the dead animals, as everyone knew the dogs would pick clean the bones overnight, leaving the morning streets tidy with their scavenging.
    Ivan Postivich approached the janissary barracks at Et Meydan from this tangle of ancient roads, just as the muezzin began the call to prayer. As he entered the gates, Postivich could see the morning fires of the soup cooks flickering. White peacocks screeched in the trees in the courtyards of the Mosque of the Conqueror, mocking the messenger in the minaret, who summoned Constantinople’s faithful to begin their day by worshipping Allah.
    The winding road led into the dusty acres of Meat Square, where the military cooks toiled. Lingering in the air was the sweet metallic odor of bloody meat mingled with the stench of rotting offal, for Constantinople’s slaughterhouses were located beside the janissary soup kitchens.
    Row upon row of huge bronze cauldrons glittered in the sun. Each pot was flagged by a greasy silk banner with the insignia of a particular orta—bears, scimitars, horsetails—flapping in the morning breeze. The soldiers ate communally from the huge kettles, as Janissaries had done for over three hundred years. It was here that Ottoman Sultans’ victories and deaths were decided, wars planned, and revolutions staged, contemplated democratically over the hot pilaf pots of the Janissaries.
    La ilaha illa ’Llah
    There is no god but GOD
    As the call of the muezzin echoed, Postivich knelt down on