The Traitor at the Table

The Traitor at the Table

The Ottoman Camp, Outside the Walls of Constantinople, 1453

The tunnel was old.

Andronikos Vlastos had found it in the archives—a forgotten passage in the Roman records, an aqueduct from the days of the Caesars, half-collapsed and half-flooded, but passable for a man who did not mind the dark and the water and the rats. It ran from a cellar under the imperial palace to a dry cistern beyond the outer wall, in the no-man's-land between the two armies.

He had walked it three times in the last week. Each time he had crawled through the mud and the black water with a lantern in his teeth and his heart in his throat. Each time he had told himself that he was doing it for the families. For the wives and children of the men who would die on the walls. For the people the emperor had condemned to death by refusing to surrender.

I am saving them, he thought. I am saving them from a man who will not save them himself.

He did not think about the purse of gold. He did not think about the house in Adrianople that had been promised to him. He did not think about the title he had been offered—the title of Bey, which no Greek had held in three hundred years. He did not think about any of those things.

He thought only about the families.

He told himself that, over and over, as he crawled through the tunnel. He told himself that when he reached the Ottoman lines and was taken to the tent of the Grand Vizier. He told himself that when he stood in front of Çandarlı Halil Pasha and made his offer.

I am saving them. I am saving them. I am saving them.

---

Çandarlı Halil Pasha was an old man.

He had served two sultans—Murad II and now his son, Mehmed II. He had been Grand Vizier for thirty years. He had seen the empire double in size and double again. He had made peace with the Hungarians and war with the Serbs and a thousand smaller treaties that had been forgotten by everyone except the men who had signed them.

He sat in the shadows of his tent and listened to Andronikos Vlastos make his offer.

"A tunnel," he said. His voice was low and dry, like the rustle of old paper. "You are telling me there is a tunnel under the walls of Constantinople."

"Yes."

"And you can lead my men through it."

"Yes. A hundred men. Perhaps more. At night, when the guns are silent."

"And what do you want in return?"

Andronikos took a breath. He had rehearsed this part. He had told himself that he would say it plainly, that he would not try to make it sound better than it was. But when the moment came, the words came out anyway, and they came out smooth and practiced and exactly the way he had planned them.

"Safety for the families," he said. "The wives and children of the city. When the city falls—when it falls, and we both know it will fall—they are not to be harmed. They are not to be sold. They are to be allowed to leave, with their goods, to go wherever they wish. And I want that in writing. In the Sultan's own hand. Sealed."

Halil Pasha looked at him for a long moment.

"You are an imperial councillor," he said. "You sit in the Emperor's own council. You eat at his table. You have sworn oaths to him."

"I have."

"And now you come to me, in the night, through a tunnel, and offer to betray him."

"I come to save the families he has condemned," said Andronikos. His voice did not shake. He had practiced that too. "The Emperor is a brave man. He is also a fool. He knows the city cannot hold. He knows the walls will fall. He knows the West will not come. And still he fights. Still he sends men to die on those walls. Still he tells the women and children to pray and be brave. He is not saving them. He is sacrificing them. I am trying to save them."

"By betraying him."

"By making a bargain he is too proud to make."

Halil Pasha was silent for a long time. Then he nodded slowly, once.

"Wait here," he said. "I will take you to the Sultan."

---

The Sultan's tent was the largest in the camp.

It stood in the center of the Ottoman lines, surrounded by the tents of the Janissaries and the household troops. It was made of red silk and gold braid, with a dome in the middle and awnings on every side, and inside it was lit by a dozen lamps that made the shadows dance on the walls.

Mehmed was eating when they came in.

He sat at a low table in the middle of the tent, with a plate of roast lamb and rice and a cup of sherbet beside him. He was twenty-one years old, and he looked even younger—thin, sharp-featured, with dark eyes that missed nothing. He wore a simple caftan of dark green silk and a white turban, and his hands were clean and his beard was neat, and he looked up from his meal with an expression of mild curiosity.

He did not look like a man who had spent the last two years preparing to conquer a city. He looked like a young scholar interrupted at his books.

"Halil," he said. "You bring me a guest at my supper."

"An imperial councillor, my Sultan. He has an offer."

Mehmed put down his spoon.

"An offer," he said. "From the council of the Emperor of Rome."

"Yes, my Sultan."

"He has come through the walls, in the night, to make me an offer."

"Yes, my Sultan."

Mehmed looked at Andronikos. He looked at him the way a man looks at a rat that has wandered into his kitchen—not with anger, but with a certain academic interest in how it had gotten in and what it expected to find.

"Speak," he said.

Andronikos spoke.

He told the Sultan about the tunnel—the old aqueduct, half-forgotten, running from the palace to the dry cistern outside the walls. He told him about the hundred men he could bring through it, at night, silently, into the very heart of the city. He told him about the families—about his desire to save them, about the bargain he wanted to make, about the promise he wanted in writing.

He spoke well. He had practiced the words for three days, and they came out smooth and convincing. He was an imperial councillor; he had spent his life speaking in council. He knew how to make a thing sound reasonable that was not reasonable at all.

When he was done, Mehmed was quiet for a moment.

Then he picked up his knife.

---

It was a beautiful blade.

Mehmed had carried it since he was sixteen years old—a gift from his father, from the days when his father had still been Sultan and Mehmed had still been a boy. It had never been drawn. It had hung at his hip for five years, in its beautiful scabbard of red leather and gold filigree, and it had never once been used. It was the sword of a Sultan—the sword of a man who had never fought a battle, who had never killed a man, who had never even seen a man killed in anger.

Mehmed drew it now.

The blade came out of the scabbard with a sound like a whisper. It was long and curved and bright—a Damascus blade, forged in the east, with a pattern like water on its surface. It was the most beautiful sword Andronikos had ever seen.

Mehmed stood up.

He walked around the table, the sword in his hand, and Andronikos watched him come. He did not move. He did not run. He did not even raise his hands. He simply stood there, frozen, while the young Sultan came toward him with the beautiful sword.

"You come to me," said Mehmed, "in the night, through a tunnel, from the council of my enemy. You offer me his secrets. You offer me his city. You offer me his life. And you ask, in return, only that I spare the women and children."

He stopped in front of Andronikos. He was a head shorter than the Greek, and half his weight, but he looked at him the way a judge looks at a condemned man.

"You ask me to buy a victory," said Mehmed.

"I ask you to save lives."

"You ask me to buy a victory," Mehmed repeated. "With the blood of a traitor."

He raised the sword.

Andronikos did not have time to speak. He did not have time to scream. The blade came down and across, one smooth stroke, and opened him from shoulder to hip. He fell to the floor like a sack of grain, and his blood spread out across the carpet of the Sultan's tent, and he did not move again.

---

Nobody in the tent moved.

Halil Pasha stood frozen. The guards stood frozen. The servants stood frozen. They had all seen men die before—they had all seen men die in battles, in sieges, in executions—but they had never seen anything like this.

They had never seen Mehmed kill a man.

He was twenty-one years old. He had never fought in a battle. He had never drawn a sword in anger. He was the scholar prince, the bookish prince, the prince who read philosophy and wrote poetry and spent his evenings in the company of scholars and scientists. He was not supposed to be able to do what he had just done.

But he had done it.

He had drawn the sword. He had walked around the table. He had struck one blow—one single blow—and cut a man nearly in half. And now he stood over the body with the blade in his hand, and the blade was red to the hilt, and there was a drop of blood on his cheek, and he did not look like a scholar at all.

He looked like a Sultan.

---

Mehmed looked down at the body of Andronikos Vlastos.

"You think I want a traitor's help," he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried. "You think I want to take the city through a hole in the ground, in the dark, with a man who has already betrayed the man he swore to serve. You think I want a victory that was bought, and not earned."

He turned to the men in the tent—Halil Pasha, the guards, the servants, the officers who had come running at the sound of the strike.

"This is my city," he said. "This is my war. I have spent two years preparing for this siege. I have cast the greatest gun the world has ever seen. I have assembled the greatest army the world has ever known. I have planned every move of this campaign for a thousand nights, and I did not plan it so that I could take the city through a hole in the ground with the help of a traitor."

He turned back to the body.

"This man came to me and offered me his emperor's life. He thought that was a gift. He thought that was a bargain. He thought I would be grateful." He shook his head slowly. "I am not grateful. I do not buy victories. I do not take them. I earn them. And if I cannot earn this one—if I cannot take this city with my own men and my own guns and my own courage—then I do not deserve to have it at all."

He looked up at Halil Pasha.

"You brought this man to my tent."

"My Sultan, I—"

"You brought him to me at my supper. You thought I would be pleased."

"My Sultan, he offered us the city—"

"He offered us a lie." Mehmed's voice was still quiet, but there was something terrible in it now. "He offered us a shortcut. He offered us a victory without honor. He offered us a city bought with blood that was not our own. And you brought him to me. You thought I would take his offer. You thought I was the kind of man who would take his offer."

Halil Pasha went white.

"My Sultan—"

"Do you know what I think, Halil?" Mehmed walked toward him, the sword still in his hand. "I think you were hoping I would say yes. I think you have been hoping, all through this siege, that I would fail. I think you have been writing letters to the Greeks—letters that you thought I did not know about—saying that I was young, and foolish, and would never take the city, and that if they would only wait, I would give up and go home."

"My Sultan, that is not—"

"I have known for months." Mehmed stopped in front of him. "I have known that you opposed this siege from the beginning. I have known that you said I was too young, too reckless, too ambitious. I have known that you have been in contact with the Emperor. I have known. And I have said nothing, because you served my father, and because you have served me, and because I do not kill old men for disagreeing with me."

He raised the sword again.

"But I do kill traitors."

"My Sultan—please—"

"Not today," said Mehmed.

He lowered the sword. He held it out, hilt first, to the captain of his guards.

"Clean this," he said. "And take the body out. Leave it for the dogs."

The captain took the sword. Two of the guards picked up the body—the body of Andronikos Vlastos, the body of the traitor, the body that was still bleeding onto the carpet—and carried it out of the tent.

Mehmed went back to his table.

He sat down.

He picked up his spoon.

He looked at the plate in front of him—the roast lamb, the rice, the cup of sherbet—and he began to eat, as if nothing had happened. As if he had not just killed a man. As if he had not just threatened the Grand Vizier with death. As if this were any other supper, on any other night, in any other tent.

Nobody spoke.

The guards stood at attention. The servants stood frozen. Halil Pasha stood in the middle of the tent, his face gray, his hands shaking, his eyes fixed on the Sultan who was eating his dinner.

Mehmed took a bite of lamb. He chewed. He swallowed.

"Halil," he said.

"My Sultan."

"You may go."

Halil Pasha bowed. He turned. He walked to the door of the tent—slowly, carefully, one foot in front of the other—and he did not look back. He did not stop. He did not speak. He simply walked out of the tent and into the night, and the guards closed the flap behind him.

Mehmed finished his supper.

He did not say another word. He did not need to. Everyone in that tent had understood the lesson. Everyone in that camp would hear the story before dawn. The Sultan had killed a traitor at his table. The Sultan had spared his Grand Vizier—for now—but the Grand Vizier knew he was next.

Nobody would ever bring the Sultan another bargain.

---

"I do not buy victories. I do not take them. I earn them. And if I cannot earn this one—if I cannot take this city with my own men and my own guns and my own courage—then I do not deserve to have it at all."

—Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

"He was twenty-one years old. He had never killed a man. He drew his father's sword, and he cut a traitor in half at his own supper table, and then he sat down and finished eating. I have seen many things in my life. I have never seen anything like that."

—Attributed to an Ottoman officer who witnessed the execution

"I knew I was next. I knew it the moment he looked at me. He did not say it. He did not need to. I have served the House of Osman for thirty years, and I have never once been afraid of a Sultan. That night, I was afraid."

—Çandarlı Halil Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire