Roxelana & Suleyman

CHAPTER SEVEN-2

Beneath voluminous skirts, Aleksandra’s legs ached from crouching on the rough deck. Her arms had buckled with fatigue, and the continual movements of the fishing boat made her feel sick to her stomach. None of the other girls faired any better. A night of churning waters in a darkness lit only by the captain’s oil lamp had left them all spent. When the sun made its appearance behind them, the sails above took on an iridescence that flooded the deck with a warming amber light. At least it is going to be a beautiful spring day, Aleksandra consoled herself. The captain of the fishing boat sat close behind her, on the raised rear-deck, with his grip firmly on the tiller. I am sure that I have seen you amongst the caravans passing through Lvov—selling coppers and trinkets. Am I really no more to you than a carpet or a sack of spice? Is my life really only worth the money you can get to fill your own gut with wine and bread? Her vision of the captain quickly lost focus as her thoughts turned further inward.

It had been more than three months since Aleksandra had been captured in the Tartar raid of Lvov. Her nights were still full of nightmares of s*******r. Father. Dariusz. And the days—days were consumed by an unknown future. Now, here on the deck of this boat, surrounded by girls she had known since childhood, she just didn’t care what happened to her. They were alive and that was all that mattered.

Shifting her weight off her left leg, numb with bruising, Aleksandra crawled to the side of the vessel and peered under the railing. She pushed a rope away from her cheek. Ahead of them was a second fishing boat. Two men sat on its stern mending sails and ropes. One of them stared in her direction, so she let the rope fall in front of her face; but still she was able to see between its frayed loops. Off the starboard there were other boats. No doubt, she concluded, full of more spoils from Lvov and perhaps other devastated villages.

Beyond the boats, the shores of the Bosphorus slid past with increasing speed. Cypress and beech grew down to the water’s edge. Stag, drinking amongst half-submerged granite boulders, stopped to look up at the vessels skimming smoothly in the gentler current. The flotilla passed a village where women sat bathing and dark men pushed their boats, brimming with fish, onto rocky beaches. Children waved from the shore. The captain of the boat waved back.

“Ayyhhhh,” he chuckled, taking a swig from a decanter, gloating over the treasure of feminine flesh and fragrance that covered his deck. He threw Aleksandra a wink, and she quickly turned away to once again glance between the loops of rope. Far ahead, on the northern side of the waterway, was an ancient tower.

“Ya, Galata Tower,” the captain yelled, standing and barking orders to his crew.

Aleksandra had never imagined such a tall structure; beyond comprehension. It soared high above its nest on the point—arched windows all around, topped by a conical roof.

“Wake up, stand up, my fine maidens,” the Captain bellowed. “You will never see a finer sight in all your short lives.”

The boats coursed down the Bosphorus. The majestic Galata Tower seemed to grow taller with each gust of breeze in their sails.

“Behold, my lovely chattels: The City of Pilgrimage, City of Saints, New Rome, House of the Caliphate, the Throne of the Sultanate, the Gate of Happiness, the Eye of the World, Polis, the City.”

Aleksandra stood in awe as the foreshores of the waterway pulled back and the magnificence that was Istanbul rose dramatically before her. She had to force herself to keep breathing; to hold tight to the boat’s railing to ensure she would not fall to her knees. A strange and wonderful architecture, one that she could never have dreamed existed, spread across the shores around her. Palaces, towers, great aqueducts, soaring minarets and the tops of other immense buildings, which could only be imagined, spread as far as Aleksandra could see. Splendid trees and gardens shared equal area and grandeur along the shore and amongst the extraordinary structures. And dominating the entire vista was an enormous edifice—a mosque, the captain called it—that touched the very sky. Its dome rose clearly almost two hundred feet into the air, as if suspended from the heavens by a golden chain. Aleksandra gasped in amazement. Two semi-domes flanked the greater one, with colossal buttresses supporting the entire construction. Taller still were its four surrounding minarets with their conical tops similar to Galata Tower. The light of the sun, still low in the east, reflected off this monolith, dazzling into the young girl’s eyes.

In front of the mosque, taking prime position on the promontory, stood a magnificent palace with enchanting gardens that rolled right down to its sea-wall at the water’s edge. Foliaged pavilions dotted the gardens like a fairy-tale landscape.

Aleksandra was totally arrested by this incomprehensible view and unexpected beauty—the strange city crowding around these unfathomable structures of geometry and size.

“There must be one, two..., five thousand..., no..., no..., five-hundred thousand people or more living here.” She was incredulous—the number tumbling through her mind, incalculable, making her feel more ill than the Black Sea had been able. But still she was incapable of averting her gaze. The city spread from the promontory across a small harbor up to the Galata Tower and even across the Bosphorus to, what the captain called, the Asian side of the channel. The waterway and harbor itself must have been full of a thousand craft: fishing boats, warships, and merchant carriers—even craft that appeared to serve no purpose but pleasure.

The captain spread his arms wide, beaming down upon the girls knowingly, his face brimming with pride. “Istanbul is the diamond between the two emeralds of Europe and Asia. It is the jewel in the ring of the universal empire.”

And Aleksandra knew that it was true.

And she was afraid.