Chapter 543: Good Dream You Had There, Now Sleep
Celalettin feels that he has reached the peak of his entire life for these few days, ever since he has entered the city of Edirne with his troops, he has been engaged in multiple concerts, feasts, praying sessions and parades in order to commemorate his actions. The Sultan too, instead of showing any sign of sadness or hate towards him for indirectly causing the capture of the Sultana Dowager, appeared completely normal and summoned him to court.
It came as a complete shock to Celalettin upon arriving in the palace, as he saw the Sultan and the other courtiers already awaiting for him outside the gate, and upon seeing the new regent, the Sultan went up to his mount and personally assisted him in getting off his horse, then ushered him to all the monuments, gardens, halls, and estates in the entire palace as a tour guide, and finally, in the grand hall, the Sultan praised Celalettin openly in front of everyone, and offered Celalettin countless rewards, a royal marriage, and of course most importantly, the Sultan expressed his worries that he is yet too young to take over the role of governing the state, saying that Celalettin, as such an intelligent senior, is much more experienced in governing a state and thus offered him the role of a regent, which Celalettin graciously accepted without a single doubt.
Celalettin do has a wife that is now residing in the territories that has already been lost to the Rumelians a few years ago, and he has lost contact with her ever since. Honestly speaking, who knows whether that woman has found a new man or not, it is now already the time for him to carry on with his life and having two wives is totally legitimate and not a haram in the Shariah laws.
However, Celalettin has not laid his hands on a single administrative matter since the day he took over the regency, indulging himself in social events. There have been numerous people coming to his door steps to remind him that he ought to remember and fulfil the political promises he has agreed with his allies in the rebellion, and Celalettin would agree with it every single time, until he find his schedule being stuck with even more luxurious events leaving him with certainly no time during the night, and at night he got to be back home to accompany his newly married princess wife, you know, those kind of things that a couple will do at night.
This led to more and more partners who used to fight by his side slowly leaving him one after another, thinking that their old trustworthy ally has already threw his promises to them away, and indulged him into the corrupted luxuries of the nobles that they rose up against. Celalettin now, in their eyes is now a man whose soul has been sucken draw, whose spirit is no longer upright and righteous, with a foot already inside hell.
A warrior who once stood against and slain the dragon, has now became the dragon himself.
Though it seemed to be kind of strange this night, as Celalettin came back from another mass Ṣalāt al-Jumuʿah session, his newly married wife is not there in the estate, no matter how many times him called her name. Feeling strange, Celalettin went out to ask his guards whether the mistress has left the estate during the day, his guards behaved in a rather strange manner too, giving him a weird face saying that the mistress has only went to the Tunca Nehri riverbank in the day and has already come back to the house a while ago.
Celalettin trust his guards, for they have been through life and death situation for multiple times, he went to search through the entire house calling out for his new wife’s name but is returned with nothing but silence. This should not happen, because according to his house rules, the woman should be already waiting before the doorsteps when the master of the house returns home.
The light for the master bedroom is still on though, with a vague shadow coming behind the curtains visible from downstairs, it must be her, because no one else except for the two of them have the right to enter the estate. Celalettin picked up his path going up stairs, ready to give the woman a good old reprimand on the need for her to serve her responsibilities as the mistress to welcome the man of the house back home.
However, to his surprise and shock when he went upstairs, the person seated there before the wardrobe is definitely not his wife, instead it belongs to a manly figure, who is seated casually on the chair glancing through all the books and paper works. The man sensed that Celalettin is behind him, made a laugh and taunted. "Charming little estate you have there, and some pretty good security I must say, leaving me with no choice but to spend some Akçe silver coins to get my ticket here..."
Celalettin is no fool, he knows what it means for a shadowy man to end up in his heavily guarded house, so he turned around without any hesitation and began a desperate run towards downstairs. However, it seems that he has ate too much in the social gathering today, or he lost his ability to run after half a month of lavish life, the moment after he scrambled down the stairs, this shadowy figure leapt down the balcony and landed right on his back, pinning him down to the ground.
"There is no need to run, mister."
Celalettin found it hard to breathe with the shadowy man kneeling on his neck as he panted up and down heavily. But still he struggled to get up a bit and questioned. "Who.... Who sent you here?"
"I don’t know, Mister, for there are way too many people who wants to see you fall off from your seat, that even I do not know who paid my boss for me to come here and have your life."
"... Who?"
"I can only tell you, that it is those people that pushed you to this position... And that boy."
"...That boy, you mean..." Celalettin’s pupils shrunk, then made a sigh. "Fine... then, where is my wife?"
"There is nothing to worry about her, she has already been fetched back to where she came from... And it would not take long for her to be married off to another man, nothing to worry about here, you know Mister, she is a just a poor woman used for political exchanges with no choice to choose her own way of life, just like she did not choose to marry you in the first place."
Celalettin once again tried to use all of his strength to get up and fight back, but again he failed as the shadowy figure almost easily overmatched him in terms of strength. Filled with defeat and hopelessness, he asked. "At least, let me know, who are you?"
"Who am I? O Mister, I am the shadow of vengeance, I am the eagle of the night, I am the dagger of the Mighty Allah."
"Al-Ḥaššāšīn..."
With just a tiny twist of the blade, an arrowhead is pierced into the neck of the new Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Sultanate, blood began bursting out of the man’s neck sipping all over the marble floor tainting it in a reddish black colour. Celalettin watched his own blood flowing out of his neck in the last few seconds of his life, he tried to ask for help, but he could not make a single noise. And, at the last moment of his life, he suddenly realised what did the assassin mean to buy his ticket to enter this house, it certainly means that this man bribed his way into his bedroom, which means that even his guards, who used to be his pals fighting side by side for years, are no longer reliable now and have all given up on him to receive the bribe knowing that this man is here to kill their leader.
Celalettin closed his eyes in a mixed feeling, realising that he is going to die soon.
He died alone, on the well decorated marble floor of his house, which only became warm with his own blood.
It took a few minutes for the guards to enter the house and clean up the mess, and they behaved like they have already this kind of thing happening showing completely no emotion of surprise or what so ever, but of course, the new Grand Vizier Celalettin Pasha, would never be able to open his eyes again to know this, for he has already ascended to the next world to see his God. But no matter what, the political landscape of the Ottoman Sultanate is going to shift again, with the head of the newly formed ruling faction now removed from the world of the living.
