House of Ivy

Happy New Year, gentle readers!

Seelmeister said:

I've been lurking in this AAR for a number of weeks, and I've been really enjoying it. I particularly like the different narrators, all of whom have their own interesting backgrounds.

Hope that your essay submissions went well, and looking forward to more updates in the new year!

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Thanks! And thanks for the positive AARlander review, too .

Stuyvesant said:

Ouch - Savas walked into a trap and is set for a humiliating defeat. How did his army get so small, so outnumbered?

I imagine that the battle of Patras won't change anything in the greater scheme of things, but it surely will be a blow (if not the blow) to Savas' career. Will be interesting to see where his story goes from this low point.

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Simple lack of manpower, really. The Empire has been at war for many years; admittedly victorious wars, but they are still suffering as a result. Dealing with the Athenians and Akropolites' first rebellion has taken its toll.

Oh, it does change the greater scheme of things. A lot, in fact, as we are about to see- for this is the part in the game where I made a really, really stupid mistake .


We are all the bastard children of the earth. Only the very greatest of men gain legitimacy- Jan Gorski, called Cobalt.

-----


The Disaster at Patras begins...

My sweet Pereyaslava,

I am an old man. This is something of a sad fact, but one I have accepted. I am lord of a grand estate, and a powerful nobleman in my dear native land. Yet, as I hope I have demonstrated, this was not always thus. And this is the main difference between our two sexes- while men are forced to climb the bitter cliffs of fortune, or find some ledge to shelter upon, women are tossed about the seas of chance, unable to change their own destiny but dependent upon menfolk, and the situations around them. It is a clever woman who can find her way to those cliffs, and a greater one still who can climb it.

Whether this is a good thing or not, I cannot say. I have never much cared for material possessions beyond my telescope and my sword, but I can understand why the cliff is alluring to many. There are those- almost all in the world- who would say that a woman shaping her own destiny is an eminently bad occurrence- and perhaps Ivy stands as a tribute to that, for I believe that there would be far less blood shed in the south if that were the case. But nobody can deny that Ivy was more bloodthirsty than all other members of the fairer sex, and that if one factors out her cruelty, her life burnt brighter than all the assembled lords of Christendom, sitting stolid in their banquet-halls and metal suits.

I apologise, my dear Pereyaslava, for digressing so much. You have been like a sister to me for a long, long time, and I miss someone to philosophise and debate with. Antoni is as slow witting as ever, Dmitri is dead (an eminently good thing, in my opinion), my parents' grave is cold, the Whisperer is locked in a Samarkand tower, Lala is dead after his long Morean exile. The corpse of Ivy lies on an Armenian mountain with a knife through her chest. Old Abbas, Selina, Mona and Khalid live in the City, far from me. I love my wife and children dearly, but life is sad without someone to wile away the nights, talking of maths, astronomy, Plato and Abelard.

All those people were insane, in one way or another. The Whisperer was lovestruck, old Savas was a blood-crazed madman, Ivy had such an imbalance of the humours that I could spend a day discussing her broken mind. And Dmitri, as you will remember well, was little more than a cruel child who liked to play with knives. Antoni and I still carry the scars of our brother's youthful experiments.

Such strange cruelty was an odd affliction, and I knew of another with such a curse: Akropolites, the Grecian rebel. The Whisperer would have you believe that the man was sin incarnate, but it was more complex than that. He had a spark of genuine chivalry the first time he clashed with the Turk, and I was impressed with him. But that loss did something to him, and when I met him after Patras, he was broken. Something had gone wrong with his brain, and he had developed an irrational hatred of the infidel; if he had ever met with Savas, he would have killed him on the spot.


An icon depicting Akropolites as a saint; in the years following his rebellion, this was a popular image among certain parts of the Morea.

It was in this vein of religious bigotry that his second rebellion developed. This was not a rebellion with some vague hope of Imperial restoration, but an attempt to restore the Eastern church with a new state. Akropolites even named his new state the "Kingdom of Christ"; I have little doubt that it would not have lasted a decade had it survived.

But Akropolites' main achievement was not to carve a state, for on that score he failed miserably. No, he did something worse than that; his victory at Patras caused a ripple of events which led to a most terrible time for the Sultan. Mehmed was in the east with one half of the army, with the other half kept in the east to keep the peace and defend from incursions from abroad. This army, led by Savas, had just finished seizing Athens, and it was only a week after arriving home that news of a huge force in the Morea had been sighted.

Depleted though our forces were, Savas did not even consult the Sultan; furious that his long campaign was being undone before his eyes, he immediately took his demoralised force south. Ivy absolutely refused to accompany him, and the Whisperer refused to leave Ivy; I, however, was more than happy to take a break from looking after the house. I was young, you must remember, and while I could not live without my telescope and books, the lust for glory was still embedded in my heart, as it is in all men of that age. The same fever struck Young Abbas and Qasim; they also rode beside us.

So, we headed off south. Those were the bad days; raids, strikes, and ambushes depleted us further. But Savas was a madman with a fury in his soul. He followed them incessantly, through all their feints and false trails; and, at last, they could run no further at Patras. Akropolites and his crack general, the Serb Bojovic, turned around at the edge of the sea, with their backs to the ocean.

They outnumbered us, but Lala was confident- too confident. It was one of only two mistakes he ever made, the other being the cause of his exile. The battle began well; we powered into their flanks with our cavalry, and for a moment, I thought all was well. We had the higher ground, and they had nowhere to run to.

But then, everything changed.


The initial charge of the cavalry worked well...

Our infantry began to advance as the light cavalry hacked through their flanks. Every time the cavalry seemed to be about to falter, they withdrew, and as the Greeks ran into each other, disorganised, the charge began again. Just as they were almost broken, arrows began to fly from the direction of the city; a group of archers had run out and had begun to pepper our cavalry.

The commander of the cavalry, Mahmud Pasha, became furious. In defiance of Lala's strict orders to keep harrying their flank, he plunged after the archers. But this was not the worst of it. Seeing them turn into the city, chasing a slower foe, our infantry broke their steady advance, and the greater part of them followed at a run. Lala hastily dispatched a messenger, but he was hit by a Greek arrow. By the time a second was dispatched, it was too late.

I was commanding the cavalry on the other flank; seeing these events transpire, I quickly withdrew. It was then that the Greeks opened their lines and deployed their secret weapon; a small force of heavy cavalry. I know not where a band of rebels came across an elite regiment of Roman horsemen; at a guess, these were fanatical loyalists to the Emperor who escaped Lala's earlier campaigns. Ordinarily, we could have outrun them easily, but as we were going uphill after an exhausting few hours, they ran us down. The entire force was slaughtered, and I was put in chains, dragged back to the Greek camp. Abbas was with me, and I felt sorry for the child; this was not the warfare he had dreamt of.

But a far worse fate was in store for the cavalry and infantry on the opposing side. Fire tends to feature prominently in all my letters, it seems, but this was the worst occurrence of the lot. Our soldiers did not understand the fanaticism of the Greeks, and their desire for martydom. When all of them were deep in the city, their agents lit it on fire in multiple places all around the edges and centre, before barricading the streets and guarding the city perimeter with guns and muskets.


Later depiction of the Disaster at Patras.

It was the most horrifying sight I have ever seen. Everyone, from the citizens of your grand Moscow to the guards of the castles of the Scots know of the Disaster at Patras. It was maybe this which stopped the Venetians from gaining support for their coalition, it was this which forever tainted the cause of rebellion in the western provinces. The numbers of those who died reached well into the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. Abbas and I could only stare, a sickness in our stomachs, as Patras burnt through the dusk and the night.

Needless to say, that was the end of the battle. Even Lala, butcher of Athens, was disgusted, and it was this sight which spurred him to greater gentleness in the future. His lines broken, he fled; but the Greeks followed, and destroyed his army. Less than a hundred escaped from the sword or the chains.


The complete destruction of the Army of the West left the Ottomans horribly exposed...

If there is any consolation to be found, it is that this was the last of the great atrocities of war I saw. The subsequent wars I have been in have all had their fair share of violence, but no commander committed such heinous acts as Athens or Patras again. And each and every day, I pray that such horrors are never again seen, be they in Salonica, Poland or any other corner of the globe, regardless of whether it happens to Christian, Muslim or Jew.

I shall end here. I do not wish to write any more tonight. I imagine you can understand why.

Your ever loving friend and brother,

Jan Gorski, called Cobalt.


The empire's troubles are about to reach their greatest extent since Timur...

----

There will be slightly less fire from now on, I promise and fewer horrible bloody massacres too .

And we're back, after a month-long absence. Expect better updating from now on. Hopefully. If everything goes to plan.

Stuyvesant said:

More asynchronous narration: Savas dead, Ivy dead, the Whisperer locked up... Clearly this is Cobalt writing at a time far in the future from the events he is describing. We now know that Ivy will die a violent death in Armenia (and that Savas will die and the Whisperer will get locked away - but we already knew the latter), but when? Or why? The answers to those questions, I suspect, will have to wait a considerable time still.

Savas is beaten, but this is not what undoes him. Still more mishaps will befall him, then. Of course, the battle of Patras is definitely a major mishap, a disaster for the Ottomans (and the following fire a disaster for all involved). And southern Greece is being turned into a wasteland. It's a bad time to be living in Greece.

Enjoyed reading your explanation of how a ragtag bunch of rebels managed to inflict a crippling blow on the Intergalactic Ottoman Empire, and seeing how the horrors of Patras changed Cobalt and even Savas Lala. Now, to find out (in due time) how Cobalt manages to extricate himself from the predicament of being a captive of a bunch of Greek religious zealots...

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Yes, there is still much to be revealed about the eventual fates of the current main characters. Cobalt is the only one who has anything approaching a happy ending, really. Except maybe Abbas, but I won't spoil too much yet...

Savas is not yet beaten, no. He is, perhaps, going to learn from his mistakes, however. Patras is going to have a very far-reaching impact in the months to come, and he is not going to quite regain his former trust with the Sultan...

It is, indeed, a bad time to be a Greek but things are going to get better. Perhaps .

This bunch of ragtag rebels is certainly a worrisome one- and as we are about to see, Cobalt alone has no way of escaping. He doesn't have quite the right mindset...

Seelmeister said:

A really well written update, Cobalt's disgust is clearly evident.

As Stuyvesant points out, it is interesting to note that Cobalt has clearly outlived his unlikely companions - it will be interesting to hear the stories which lead to their diverging fates.

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Thanks .

Cobalt does indeed outlive all of the original three, or at least remains free when the others are dead or imprisoned. Ivy's end is particularly ignoble, which I'm sure will please some of the readers greatly. But I shall not reveal too much yet...

-----

And now, a somewhat lighthearted update to get back into the swing of things .


"A man in my unique position does not do well to speak of religion. But that man, what he was doing... that was blasphemy"- Jan Gorski, upon seeing Akropolites' court.

----


The strangeness of Cobalt and Abbas' account of Akropolites' court led to many later artistic works being based on their narrative, with many strange embellishments.

Young Abbas was not having the best of weeks. First, he'd gone to war, something he always found to be tedious, and full of too much blood. Secondly, he'd been captured by a group of religious fanatics who would probably not look too kindly on a science-minded Muslim. And thirdly, they'd confiscated his explosives. They were early designs which had taken months of work, and he hadn't been find where he'd put his original drawings and measurements back in the City. All in all, he was feeling somewhat highly strung.

They were sitting, as they had been for several days, outside a large church. It was a new church, that had only been built in recent years. Cobalt had mentioned in passing that it bore some similarity to the magnificent monastery of Hosias Loukas, near the old pagan site of Delphi. This didn't really mean much to Abbas. He said his prayers and obeyed the laws of Islam, but beyond that, he was a scientist, who cared little for the minutiae of other religions. It wasn't so much that he had anything against them; they were just unnecessary complications which didn't help him in developing a new kind of gunpowder.

They were in chains. They were in a camp surrounding the church. Cobalt was looking sour. There's been some kind of ceremony involving chicken's blood which he hadn't looked too happy at. Abbas didn't really know what to do about that. It was only a chicken. It was killed in a fashion vaguely resembling halal, after all. Wasn't nice to watch, but Cobalt didn't seem to mind seeing horrible things.

Abbas suddenly became immensely curious about Cobalt's reactions, as was his nature. He took a break from thinking of exactly which scheme he would employ to get them free from the overly-muscular guards to turn to his companion, and ask in a conversational tone, "So, what was all that with the chicken blood?"

Cobalt glared at him, with the kind of sourness which only a Pole or a Russian could pull off. Abbas was undeterred, and kept his face of mild interest on. Cobalt sighed heavily.

"That was witchcraft. Or, if it was not witchcraft, it was some kind of pagan rite. Certainly not a Christian thing to do. Definitely something your Caliphs would disapprove of too."

Well, actually, there hasn't been a Caliph since the thirteenth century, unless you count those puppets in Cai-" Abbas decided to stop, as Cobalt was giving him a withering look. He looked down at the floor. If the guard moved a couple of feet in an easterly direction...

"The King will see you now." Abbas looked up, to see a wiry man speaking Greek in a thick accent. He had a moustache. The moustache bothered Abbas immensely.

They were dragged to their feet, and made to follow the man. They entered the sumptuous wooden doors of the church. The ceiling was quite magnificent. Abbas had not been in a Christian church before. It was quite impressive, to say the least; lots of gold. It was somewhat cerebral. Mosques could be too, of course, but the austere designs in his little Moroccan village weren't as nice as this.


The inside of the monastery at Hosias Loukas, upon which Akropolites' new "church" was based.

Cobalt, however, let out a disgusted cry. Abbas looked up at the altar. It seemed to have been converted into some kind of throne. There was a man sitting on it, a pale, thin, twitching sort. Surrounding him were Nubian dancing girls. Extremely pretty Nubian dancing girls. Without any clothes on. Abbas swallowed heavily.

"What sacrilege is this! This is a house of God! This is a place of worship and communion, not some den of... of whores!" Cobalt shrieked. One of the grunts moved to restrain him before he calmed himself.

The twitching man smiled. "You dare, oh little Rhos king, question I, the representative of Christ, the Basileus, the living God made incarnate once again? I am Akropolites, King of Kings, Shah of Shahs, lord of the Sunset Sea, Keeper of the Holy Sepulchre..."

As he continued, Cobalt groaned. "I have a horrible feeling that the little rebel here has gone insane. This will be... interesting, to say the least."

"You mean fun."

"Not for us! We'll probably be sacrificed to an obscure Amorian sheep-deity!"

Abbas grinned. "Your lot keep telling me that we Muslims worship Aphrodite. This surely can't be worse?"

Cobalt glared at him. "We need to get out of here. The wiry fellow is, I think, his crack general, Bojovic. He'll know what he's doing. This will not be easy."

"Um, well, I think it might. If you shout something very loudly at that guard while punching him in the stomach, I think I can get us out of here."

There was a pause, while Akropolites continued to list off a series of impossible titles, such as "The Anointed Messiah of the Armenians".

Then Cobalt sighed. "Well, we're going to die anyway..."

----

Dusk was coming, and the two horses began to slow down as their riders looked for suitable places to lie down. They were not talking to each other. They were not looking at each other. They simply continued on the muddy road.

Then one of them spoke. "Young Abbas", he said. "That thing you did to the guards back there..."

"Yes?", replied his bright-faced colleague.

"Remind me to never, ever annoy you again. Ever."

Young Abbas grinned widely. "Certainly, sir. At every possible opportunity..."


In the far east, things are changing, and the Sultan shall soon return west with all the fury of his Empire behind him...

Seelmeister said:

From my point of view, a very well timed update Compared to Patras, the escape from captivity was almost whimsical! Great to see you return to this.

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Thanks- it's good to be back .


"Either I conquer Istanbul or Istanbul conquers me"- Sultan Mehmet II.

----


While the periphery is covered in disaster, the Empire's centre is growing more magnificent every passing day.

The city of Constantinople is changing- any idle observer can see that. Once, it had been the vast, sprawling city full of amateur theologians, ruled by a golden emperor and holding chariot races splashed with blue and green. Then, it had been the loose confederacy of villages, enclosed in crumbling walls.

Now the walls are useless. Now, minarets are being erected on the new Ayasofya Mosque, once the finest church in Christendom. Now, the Greeks who still survive all live in one small quarter of the new Paradise Mehmet is trying to create. Now, a palace is being erected, which the Sultan has already moved into a part of, during those brief times when he is actually in the city. The farmland is being paved over, and new houses and buildings are flooding into the open spaces. Already, the city is beginning to shine again.

I walk gently through the streets on this coldest of nights. The stones are cobbled, and make a nice clattering sound beneath my boots. I hold a candle aloft, and occasionally look left or right for bandits; but I’ve been wandering the roads of Constantinople long enough that none of them dare try anything. They slink into the shadows, and wait for easier targets.

I cannot sleep. I haven’t been able to since Athens. Introspection is a cruel companion. I have snatched hours here and there, and fret with worry. I am with child; and a child should have a mother who sleeps soundly. Who knows what imbalances the child might be born with, otherwise?

I am with child. And this is a problem. It is still very early, but the physicians whom the Whisperer sent all say one single thing: I should not go on campaign. The very idea seemed to frighten and shock them, and they looked at me as if I were the devil. Well, let them. I care little for their affection.

Of course, the most pressing question is whose child it is. If it is not the Whisperer’s, then he could cast me out of the halls of influence. I feel oddly weak. My destiny does not seem quite to be my own.

And then three weeks ago, the news came. Qasim ran into the house, and roared the news to everyone. The assembled artists and writers all leapt up with one great cry at the news: Patras has been burnt, the Western army annihilated, and my friends in the court of this half-crazed pretender, Akropolites.

Abbas will get them out, of that I am in no doubt- provided the madman does not kill them first. I have let myself care too much about the fates of these people. I need to be more detached. There is no point in being able to cut through webs if one is worried about hurting the spider.

I have decided on a name for the child: Khalid. I do not know the first thing about motherhood. The other pregnancy I had was stillborn, and perhaps that was not a bad thing. Cairo slums are not the place for unmarried mothers.

I sigh. I rest a while on the side of a little house. The Hagia Eirene is ahead; it is still a church. The Sultan has not seen fit to convert it just yet. I wander over, ignoring the cold, hugging myself to preserve some semblance of warmth.

The church is vast inside, a product of Iconoclasm. It is almost as cold as the outside, and has none of the splendour of some of the other Greek halls. I walk down the side aisles, moving my hand along the stone pillars. A single cross hovers above the altar, gazing down in stern reproval at the scene of silence.

I sigh once again. I walk up to the altar; a simple affair. I wander down the nave, and leave again. I look at the little palace beyond, half-built on the ruins of the old Great Palace of the Romans. The first snow is just beginning to fall on the ground.


Hagia Eirene, which was never converted to a Mosque. Today, it is used as a concert-hall.

I look up, across the water. There is something coming across, to the Palace. I dart across to the construction site, and hide myself beside a wall. A boat! It is small, but ornate, and is landing just now, just there, by some little piece of shoreline.

I creep closer. A single figure is standing on the beach. It is the Whisperer, who is supposed to be lying in a bed in the House, sleeping like a baby. Something is very, very wrong here.

The boat comes closer. I can hear the oars splashing in the water. The snow is falling thick and fast now, and settling heavily. I crouch behind the bushes and remain silent.

The ship reaches land. Five men emerge; three guards, two thin figures; Cobalt and Abbas, looking half dead. They wave the guards away, and they go back onto the ship. Cobalt mutters something to Abbas, and he nods and runs off.

Cobalt and the Whisperer begin talking in low tones. I decide to reveal myself. I walk towards them, arms outstretched. The Whisperer does not look surprised to see me, but Cobalt seems happy, and smiles. I hug him as a brother, then step back.

The three of us, together again at last. We stand in silence for a moment, before Cobalt breaks the silence with a low mutter.

“The Sultan is coming, and soon. Within the month he shall be in the city. He is angry, Bagatur, very angry. I have heard that he wishes for Savas’ head on a silver platter. I do not think he means this, but I would not cross him when he does come.”

The Whisperer nods. “What happened down there, Cobalt?”

Cobalt shudders. “It was… wrong. They were not Christians at all, but pagan witches. Abbas got us out-“ I was right, then, “-but I have a strange desire to go right back there. I saw many things in that camp, while Abbas slept. They drank chicken blood, they murdered innocents, they danced in strange agonies. They seemed half-human to me.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as one who cared,” I mutter, eyebrow raised. Cobalt simply gave me a look- not of anger, but of tired worry.

“Normally you would be right. But something about this… touched a nerve in me. It just smelt as something wrong, something mad. We have to stop them.”

Under the Whisperer's eye, a series of training programmes have begun to take place for a new, more efficient army.

“We do,” nodded the Whisperer. “I care little for their rituals, but there are… disturbing rumours. Things are happening in the courts of the West and the lesser Sultans to the East. Things I do not wish to discuss now… but if what I have been hearing is true, then we need to act fast. The Sultan’s wrath is, perhaps a good thing, as is the new series of recruits I have gathered...”

“Why, Bagatur, do you not trust us with such sensitive information?” I grin at him. But he looks at me with a grin of his own, something malicious and cruel.

“I have only the greatest affection for you, Isra El-Amin. But trust you? I am not a fool.”

Night shone on his face, and for the first time, I knew that what he was saying was absolutely, truthfully, completely sincere…


What is Candar planning...?

Idhrendur said:

Two updates?! This is wonderful!

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Thanks- have a third! .

Stuyvesant said:

It worked! I mentioned your AAR in my FotW closing statement and a brace of new updates appeared! Awesome! I should try this more often (of course, then I would need to win the award more often and that's probably not going to happen reliably enough to secure a steady stream of updates...).

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Well, it certainly was effective though I was thinking about resuming anyway .

You are a tease. All this dramatic buildup and what do we get? A simple 'and then they escaped'. Were you inspired by the Neoplatonic philosopher Plethon to conjure up your religious zealots turning back to the old gods? It sure seems fitting.

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Well, I wanted to get back into the swing of things and tie up that story quickly . I was not, I'm afraid; though they aren't quite pagan, but a weird syncretism of Christianity, "witchcraft" and pagan rites.

The various descriptions of locales in Constantinople and Ivy's ruminations were delightful, but it's the above exchange that takes the crown. The double realization - one, that the Whisperer has taken the measure of Ivy, and two, Ivy's realization of said fact - is one of those moments where your perspective shifts (and in the story, probably alliances as well).

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Thanks- and yes, there are many tensions between those two. The Whisperer's view of her in old age is, perhaps, somewhat rose-tinted...

Another Ivy update; if you are not a fan of Ivy, I apologise .


"There shall be no quarter. There shall be no reasoning with me. I am the Khan of the Turks, Kayser of the Rum, and Sultan of the Sublime state. I shall have Akropolites' head, and shall adorn it with such a crown that all the realms of Christendom will weep with despair"- Sultan Mehmed II, shortly before the Battle of Corinth.

-----

"So, this is what you have left me."

The Sultan has, it seems, dispensed with all formality. He has dismissed his usual viziers, and simply gathered together a group of people he is comfortable around. The meeting has been going on for hours now, discussing a myriad of topics in between the Sultan's angry monologues directed at Lala. The Grand Vizier, my dear Bagatur, is sitting to the right of Mehmed on the long, thin table the Sultan has had had set up in the half-built palace. The Whisperer's face is grim and cold, and uncomfortable without the Berber scarf he's taken to wearing; he is clearly unused to such finery. This is good; it would not favour me if he became some pampered court-spoilt lord.

Beside him sits Cobalt. His clothes are much less sumptuous, his face less grim; yet more inscrutable. He is simply looking at the table, twirling a small chip of wood between his fingers. He seems inattentive, but anyone who knows him well- the entire table, really- would be able to tell that he is simply deep in thought.

I am sitting opposite the Whisperer, clad in military dress, a long curved scimitar by my side. I can barely restrain my smile; I sense talk of a campaign, and I the chance to be embroiled in a good old-fashioned fight.

Savas Lala is to my left. His face is scarred, his demeanour far less arrogant than the previous time we had seen him. He seems to taking the defeat hard. Poor fellow. Maybe that'll teach him not to blow up ancient monuments and murder hundreds of innocent civilians for the sake of convenience.

There is Abbas, too. I insisted on taking him along; his escape from Akropolites had drawn the attention of the Sultan anyway. And he has earnt the right to be a part of our little, ragtag cadre; more than most.


A Venetian image of Sultan Mehmed II "The Conqueror".

"Tell me something", comes Mehmed's carefully restrained voice. The young Sultan still cuts a more magnificent and terrifying figure than all of us combined, I think, despite his youth. Those eyes can be as warm as summer or as icy as the grave; today, they are the latter. "Tell me how an army of thirteen thousand troops, which I believe I left to you, Lala, could be destroyed by a cheap and easily predictable gambit? Are you incapable-" a word emphasised with a roar and a fist being slammed on the table "-of controlling your own army?"

Savas looks like misery in the flesh. "I was... foolish, Your Excel-"

"Foolish? Yes, you were very foolish! I know you are capable of better than that. You shall not lead the next operation; you shall stay in Istanbul until I call upon you again."

"Yes, your exc-"

"I shall lead the attack myself, in fact." Mehmed is looking around the table, as if daring anyone to disagree with him. But nobody does. Because nobody wants to be the person who breaks the Sultan's patience in the event of a loss.

"Good. Cobalt and Ivy, I want you to take the cavalry on the flanks. And control them. Mr Harrak?"

Abbas almost does a double take. I smile at him encouragingly. God knows the poor lad could do with a break from the excitement of the last few weeks.

"Y-yes, your excellency?"

"These bombs Ivy has been telling me about. If I give you the resources of the army stores, how many could you make by Friday prayers?"

Abbas swallows. "Um... seven hundred. Ish. Might be more. Depends how things, erm, work out, and so forth."

"And so forth." Mehmed is looking sternly but not unkindly at the young bombardier. "Good. Good... you shall have the stores at your disposal. I think that will do for today. Be on your way, all of you. Except for you, Ivy."

I freeze, and so does Bagatur, briefly. Is this to discuss one of my many secrets? Have I been found out? Is it known that I am with child? Have they worked out who the real father is? If the Sultan knew that...

The others file away. The Sultan breathes out, visibly more relaxed. "Follow me."

He takes me through winding staircases of ancient stone, reappropriated for a new purpose. Corridors fitted with marble, stretching and twisting around and around. I am almost feeling dizzy when finally, we emerge onto a balcony.


Ottoman Constantinople at the setting of the sun.

I almost gasp. The view is stunning; it is dusk, and the sun is shining gently on the Bosporus, rippling on the waves. "An impressive sight, Your Excellency", I murmur. He isn't paying attention; he is merely leaning on the rail, watching the ships go past and the buildings being constructed.

"Ivy, I have a task for you. My son is now four, and needs a tutor."

I inwardly groan. "I am not sure I am quite the right-"

"You are, Ivy. Trust me. You have a woman's touch, and a warrior's heart. You shall raise him well."

He is not in his right mind. He is clearly not in his right mind.

"And will he come with us on the campaign, Excellency?"

Mehmed turns, a strange little smile playing about his face. "Yes, I rather think he should. But he will stay behind when the battle occurs. No child should see the wrath I will turn upon Akropolites. Half my army is destroyed, but the other half..."

Even I cannot help but feel a little shiver. As I look into Mehmed's eyes again, I see not warmth or coldness; they remind me of the way Savas sometimes looks. He has become a man possessed by war, and he is even going to drag his own child down with him.

"I will aim to tutor him to the utmost of my ability, Excellency." And I mean it. I may be a killer, but I shall raise Yusuf Osmanli to be a Sultan...

So, it occurs to me that some of you might be thinking this is abandoned.

It is not. It has, however, been what is known as "a hell of a month" in RL, with essay after essay coming my way.

But worry not! Come Tuesday it will all be over, so expect an update then or Wednesday Your patience is appreciated.

Right, now we're resuming sorry again for the delay, everyone.

Idhrendur said:

Madman!

And I am starting to feel a bit more sympathetic to Ivy. Not that I'd trust her in the least, still.

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Oh, you shouldn't she has many secrets, including one whopping one...

Stuyvesant said:

So this is when the Ottomans start to strangle all their brothers when they rise to the throne, to prevent succession shenanigans?

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...Maaaaybe... .

Interesting situation. Seeing the Whisperer out of his element and Lala cowed is a bit unsettling. Makes you wonder what kind of man/monster Mehmed is. Of course, Mehmed has absolute power, which means everyone should be on their toes around him, but these are particularly powerful men to be trembling...

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He's a highly charismatic, but also a highly tempestuous one, who has become increasingly cynical and a little cruel. The kind of combination which any powerful man (or woman) in his realm would always be wary of.

Oh, and to see Ivy recoil from that most Ur-feminine thing, raising a child, is kind of funny. Though she clearly is not your average, 'normal' woman.

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She is not indeed although the aforementioned fear of Mehmet also impacts her decision here, as well as her own rather... curious nature .

I don't have high hopes for Yusuf's future as a well-adjusted human being. And Ivy's own child... I'm not sure it'll ever live to see the light of day.

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Ah, but if there is one thing Ivy is good at, it is killing people. Imagine what she'd do to anyone trying to harm her baby...

Bit of a gloomy way to end the update, but given your past track record in Georgia, you'll forgive me if I tend towards pessimism.

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There were happy moments! They killed Demetrios eventually! And they eventually defeated the Turks! And Bedisa was rescued from her father! If you ignore all the murder, slaughter and ruthless manipulators, it was positively cheery! .

(Still might continue that one day, if I can ever recover the save.)

GreatUberGeek said:

Late here, but-subscribed! You're a great writer, Tufto, and some...interesting events.

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Thank you! .


"Kill them all"- Mehmed II, at the Battle of Tirana, several months after the Second Battle of Corinth.

-----

Ah, Pereyaslava, how I remember my early years. When you were first brought here, an exile in a grand carriage, I was jealous, I freely admit it. There you were, an exiled princess from a foreign court, while we were nobles who had seen better days. And so I was cold to you at first; my first impression was bad, not through any fault of yours but through my own childish obstinance. But I grew to love you, dear sister, and now I am certain that my life would have been infinitely worse without your company in my childhood years.

And so it is that first impressions are often false. I thought the Whisperer a cunning, cold spymaster when I first met him. I thought Ivy a wild hedonist, and Mehmet a rash yet pious monarch. All these have turned out to be false judgements.

I feel I should give you some impression of the character of Mehmet. When I first met him, perhaps he was indeed the fiery young Muslim, intent on seizing the city of Rome, with a poetical streak and a polyglot nature. But he changed over time, especially after the war in the East. By the time we marched on the Morea, he was a cynical, unpredictable sort, weary after the constant war against his own people.

He was a truly great man, however. Instead of allowing such cynical thoughts to weigh down his person, they instead helped him to stab, swiftly and sharply, like a knife in the dark, to hurt his enemies where they were most vulnerable. He always went for the kill, and had developed an uncanny knowledge of the manipulation of others. I am proud to have been his friend. His death was a most unhappy occurrence; and, alas, that was the catalyst for the destruction of our cadre and the dark years for the House of Ivy.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The march to the Morea was an eventful one, to say the least. The Sultan had many attempts upon his life, as the strange, half-pagan kingdom of Akropolites unleashed its agents. More reports came to us, which only confirmed to the others what I and Abbas had reported. Decadent, idolatrous blood-sacrifices, in the epitome of the wicked hearts of men. We did not think that the Christians of the West would care if we annhilated them all, for I reassured the Sultan and the more pious Muslims of his court several times that this was not typical behaviour for Christians.

And amid all of this, I was worried. The army was understaffed. We had lost too many men at Patras, and our regular field armies were only thirteen thousand strong. It was amid this that the Sultan hit upon the idea to introduce a new system of recruitment; the Christian children of the Balkans would be raised in Constantinople, brought up as Muslims and used as both administrators and soldiers. It was a clever system, lessening the power of the aristocracy and their petty interests on both spheres of government.


The beginnings of a new era for the Ottomans...

But this did not change the immediate problem. Thirteen thousand men was not a large number. I was concerned that the East, which we had taken so much time to subdue, would again fall to the machinations of our enemies. The Persian sons of Timur, or the Burji Egyptians to the south, might both try to expand their holdings to the Tarsus mountains. Even Trebizond, that last bastion of the Greek Empire, was looking greedily at our Eastern holdings.

I did not know that my suspicions were incorrect- catasrophically so. No, at that time, I was simply trying to find some way to make my tent warmer, as it was fiercely cold in Greece in the winter. Ivy suggested that I find myself a woman, but I had no wish to stain my soul with further sins. A few fur coats I bought in Thessalonica helped immensely.


Akropolites was harshly criticised by both Christian and Islamic contemporaries, with good reason; his arbitrary cruelty won him few friends outside his court.

As we approached the Morea, we could see the land being more and more devastated. Akropolites had taken to raiding to the north of the Peloponnese, and the Greeks had come to hate them even more than they hated us. Morale was low, but then March came and with it a renewed optimism. The weather was warmer, and signs of Spring were everywhere. Mehmet had a talent for rousing speeches, and by the time of the eve of battle, the men were roaring with enthusiasm.

Ah, Pereyaslava! Life on that evening seemed so fine. And it was on that day that Ivy told us, and Mehmet, something rather shocking; she was pregnant. She refused to reveal the father, but the Whisperer assured us that it was his, in private. The Sultan was not best pleased, but he did not dismiss her, nor did he remove her as tutor to Yusuf. He was shaping up to be a fine young man, and Ivy was doing a surprisingly good job of teaching him and keeping him in line.



Yusuf Osmanli as a child was already showing signs of his future effectiveness, but also his future gruffness.

And so, on that eve, spirits were high. I ate supper with my cavalry, Abbas wandered the camp telling jokes to all, the Sultan gave a speech, and practiced his swordplay, Ivy sharpened her sword while the Whisperer tried to hear the child kicking in Ivy's womb. Khalid, the baby's name was to be; it saddens me that the man who was so tender towards the unborn babe is now locked up in a tower constructed by the child, raging and spitting bile against his name.


Spirits were high on the eve of battle

I shall not tell you of the battle, and of what followed, just yet, my dear. There shall be time enough for that in the next letter. For now, I urge you to consider these words, and to think kindly of me, sitting in my old age at the old manor.

Your humble servant, as ever,

Jan Gorski, called Cobalt.

-----

Two more chapters of Book One. I was originally going to have a Book per ruler, but there is such a natural end-point in two updates time that I couldn't help myself .

I'm thinking of starting a CK2 AAR on the side. Won't interfere with Ivy updates, though, I shall make sure of it this time.