The Janissary Tree Read Online Free PDF

Western style of the New Guard, knowing that they would be provoked and
affronted. And the Janissaries had rebelled on cue. Caring only for their own
privileges, they turned on the palace and the fledgling New Guards. But they
had grown stupid as well as lazy. They were loathed by the people. The sultan
had made ready. When the Janissaries overturned their cauldrons on the night of
Thursday, June 15, it took a day to accomplish by modern means what no one had
managed to achieve in three hundred years. By the night of the 16th, efficient
modern gunnery had reduced their mutinous barracks to a smoldering ruin. Thousands
were already dead: the rest, fleeing for their lives, died in the city streets,
in the forests outside the walls, in the holes and lairs they crept into to
survive.
    It
was a trauma, Yashim reflected, from which the empire still waited to recover. Certain
people might never recover at all.
    9
    ****************
    A
man with grime up to his elbows and a leather apron was working on a lantern in
the street outside his shop. With a pair of tongs he crimped the tin sheets,
fixing them together with a speed and dexterity Yashim was content simply to
admire, until the man looked up questioningly.
    "I've
got something slightly unusual I'd like a price for," Yashim explained. "You
seem to make large objects."
    The
man grunted in agreement. "What is it you want, efendi?"
    "A
cauldron. A very big cauldron--as tall as me, on legs. Can you do it?"
    The
man straightened up and pulled his hand over the back of his neck, wincing.
    "Funny
time of year for a big cauldron," he remarked.
    Yashim's
eyes widened. "You can do it? You've done it before?"
    The
smith's answer took him by surprise. "Do it every year or so. Big tin cauldrons
for the Soup Makers' Guild. They use them for the city procession."
    Of
course! Why hadn't he thought of that? Every year, when the guilds-men process
through the streets to the Aya Sofia, each guild drags a juggernaut loaded with
the implements of their craft. The guild of barbers have a huge pair of
scissors and offer free haircuts to the crowd. The fishmongers make their float
like a ship and stand casting nets and hauling on the ropes. The bakers set up
an oven and toss hot rolls to the people. And the soup makers: huge black
cauldrons of fresh soup, which they ladle out into clay pannikins and
distribute to the crowd as they go along. Carnival.
    "But
a tin cauldron wouldn't take the heat or the weight," Yashim objected.
    The
smith laughed.
    "They're
not real! The whole float would collapse if they were real. You don't think,
efendi, the barber cuts people's hair with that giant pair of scissors? They
put a smaller pot of soup inside the tin cauldron and just make believe. It's
for a laugh."
    Yashim
felt like a dim-witted child.
    "Have
you made one of those cauldrons recently? Out of season, even?"
    "We
make the cauldrons when the guild orders them. The rest of the year, well"--he
spat on his hands and picked up the tongs--"it's just lanterns and such. The
cauldrons get a bit battered and they split, so we make more at the right time.
If you're looking for one, I'd talk to the soup men's guild if I were you." He
looked at Yashim and creases of amusement showed around his eyes. "You're not
the mullah Nasreddin, are you?"
    "No,
I am not the mullah." Yashim laughed.
    "Sounds
like some kind of prank, anyway. If you'll excuse me..."
    10
    ****************
    THE
girl lay on the bed in her vestal finery, her eyes closed. Her hair was
elaborately braided, fastened with a malachite clasp. Perhaps it was the kohl,
but her eyes seemed very dark, while the skin of her beautiful face seemed
almost to glitter in the slatted sunlight that filtered through the shutters of
the room. Heavy tassels of gold thread hung from the gauze scarf she wore
around her breasts, and her long legs were encased in pantaloons of a satin
muslin so fine it was as though she were naked. A small golden slipper dangled
from the toe of her