Chapter 33
In the three seconds it took Sinan to sprint across the diagonal of the court, Abu Abdallah had three thoughts:
that n***o spirits had finally got the better of his slave;
that any wisp of hope for a vizierate was gone;
and, as a bristle of blades rose round the Sultan like the quills on a porcupine and another hackle of steel aimed itself at Sinan, that the young man who had taken the place of all his own lost sons was going to die.
And then it happened: Sinan fell.
But no . . . Abu Abdallah, pushed forward by the surging crowd, realized that Sinan had not fallen, but had thrown himself, in a wild lunge, away from his collision-course with the Mamluk guard – thrown himself on to one of the channels that bisected the court, and was now smashing his bare fists at something
