Veritas (Atto Melani) by Rita Monaldi, Francesco Sorti Read Free Book Online Page B

the Prince’s plans: since the middle of the month everything had been ready for his departure for The Hague, the theatre of war.
    The Grand Vizir’s decision cannot have been an easy one: as was pointed out in a pamphlet which I had picked up somewhere, in the winter it can take up to four months of hard and dangerous
travelling to get from Constantinople to Vienna, passing not only through accessible places like Hadrianopolis, Philippopolis and Nicopolis but also filthy ones like Sofia, where the horses find
themselves knee-deep in mud on the roads, through wretched villages in the uncultivated and unpopulated plains like the Ottoman Selivrea and Kinigli, or Bulgarian Hisardschik, Dragoman and Calcali,
or fortified palankas, like Pasha Palanka, Lexinza and Raschin, crumbling border castles where the Sultan had left handfuls of Turkish soldiers to moulder away in long-forgotten idleness . . .
    No, the real difficulty of the journey lay in passing through the jaws of the Bulgarian mountains, narrow gorges, with room for just one carriage at a time; it lay in facing the equally fearsome
pass of the Trajan Gate, following terrible roads, deep in thick, clinging mud, often mixed with rocks, and battling against snow and ice and winds strong enough to overturn carriages. And in
crossing the Sava and the Morava, the latter tumbling into the Danube at Semendria, eight hours below Belgrade, rivers that in winter have no bridges, whether of planks or boats, since they usually
get swept away by the autumn floods. And then, already worn out by the journey, entrusting oneself to the icy waters of the Danube on board Turkish caiques, with the constant danger that the ice
might crack – perhaps, to crown it all, just beneath the terrible pass of the Iron Gate, most dreadful especially when the water is low.
    It was no wonder that, ever since the first Ottoman embassies, it had become traditional to undertake the journey during the summer months, spending the winter in Vienna and then setting out
again the following spring. There had been no exceptions to this rule on the Ottoman side, given the extreme dangers of a winter journey. And in Vienna they still remembered with fear and trembling
the misadventures that had befallen them, after the Peace of Karlowitz had been concluded on 26th January 1699, during the mission of the State Councillor, Chamberlain, and President of the Noble
Imperial Council Lord Wolffgang Count of Ottingen, sent by his Caesarean Majesty, Emperor Leopold I, as his Grand Ambassador to the Sublime Ottoman Porte. Ottingen, who had taken far too long in
preparing his journey, had not departed until 20th October, with a retinue of 280 people, sailing out on the Danube towards Constantinople, and – after reaching the inhospitable mountains of
Bulgaria around Christmas – had truly, as they say, been through the mill.
    Despite this, and against all tradition, the Turkish Agha had set out in the depths of winter: the Grand Vizir must have a truly urgent embassy to communicate to Prince Eugene! And this had
aroused a good deal of alarm in the court and among the Viennese people. Every day they watched the shores of the Danube anxiously, waiting to hear the distant fanfare of the janissaries and to
catch the first sight of the seventy or more boats bearing the Agha and his numerous retinue. About five hundred people were expected: at any rate not less than three hundred, as had always been
the case for over a century.
    The Turkish Agha did not arrive until 7th April, over a week late. On that day the tension was palpable: even Emperor Joseph I had considered it politically wise to give the Turks an indirect
sign of his benevolence, and had gone with the ruling family to visit the church of the Barefoot Carmelites, which was in the same quarter, the island of St Leopold in the Danube, where the Turks
were to lodge. When the Agha landed on the island, to the accompaniment of waving flags, resounding drums