Shadow of God Read Free Page B

daughter of aTartar Khan. After some time, Selim was able, with the help of his father-in-law, to raise a substantial army.
    Bayazid and Selim, father and son, fought each other for the throne in a great battle at Edirne, in northern Turkey near the Greek border. Only the speed of Selim’s legendary stallion, Black Cloud, had allowed his escape from his father’s sword. Though he lost the battle, his heroism had impressed his father’s army of Janissaries. A legend began to grow around Selim’s name.
    As Bayazid aged, pressure began to build from the nobles of the court to send for Selim, so that Selim’s succession could be assured. The Janissaries wanted nothing of the two eldest sons, whom they knew to be as gentle and peace-loving as their father. They wanted Selim. Selim Yavuz. They, too, longed for the return to war; to ride once more against the Infidel and drink in the heady scent of blood and smoke.
    Bayazid wanted peace within his empire at any cost. So, a few months after Selim’s defeat and escape, Bayazid sent for his son, asking that he return to his home in Istanbul. Selim received the letter in the depths of a terrible winter. Still, with the help of his father-in-law, he amassed an army of three thousand horsemen, and left immediately for the capital. He drove his men eighteen hours a day, in blinding blizzards and killing cold. Hundreds of men and horses died along the way, left unburied at the side of the frozen road. To save time, Selim avoided the longer detour to the bridge over the wide Dniester River. Instead, he forced his army to ford the icy waters. There, too, many frozen bodies floated away in the black current. Finally, with his army in tatters, he reached Istanbul in early April.
    Selim approached the gates of the city fearing a trap. But, when the ten thousand Janissaries of Bayazid’s Household Guard saw him mounted upon his famous Black Cloud, they rushed to his side, cheering and proclaiming him the Sultan. The soldiers surrounded his horse and fought to touch Selim’s stirrups. They threw their hats in the air, and celebrated his arrival. Within a few days, Bayazid surrendered to his youngest son the symbol of power of the Ottoman Empire. He handed over the emblem of the Ottomans,the jeweled Sword of the House of Osman. Selim was now truly the Emperor of the Ottomans.
    The following day, Selim walked alongside his father’s litter as the old man was carried out through the gates of the city. He held his father’s hand, and there were tears in both men’s eyes.
    The crowds followed the two men silently behind the human wall of armed Janissaries and mounted Sipahis, the Sultan’s elite cavalry. After handing over his power to Selim, Bayazid wanted to return to his birthplace at Demotika, near Edirne, to spend his last days there away from the turmoil of Istanbul and the political intrigues in the Palace. As his father was carried away by the small retinue of servants and carts of personal effects, Selim and the Janissaries turned in silence and walked back to the imperial city.
    Bayazid was never to have his final wish fulfilled. Three days after his departure, he died suddenly in a small village along the wayside. Some said that he died of a broken heart after being so cruelly deposed by his favorite child. But, rumors also spread that he had been poisoned on Selim’s orders. Few doubted that this might be so, for Selim was capable of great cruelty, and was totally insulated from remorse when it came to protecting his succession as Sultan.
    No sooner was Bayazid laid to rest in his grave than Selim set about insuring the security of his reign. Bayazid had never carried out his own father’s Law of Fratricide. Selim still had older brothers with claims to the throne.
    As soon as he was settled in Istanbul, Selim gathered his band of assassins—six deaf mutes, who had worked for him many times in the past. The mutes were summoned to the Palace. They gathered before the new Sultan