Chapter 603: Abdullah Up For the Job
It is hard to see man weep, especially when that man is none other than Abdullah. Perhaps Abdullah has shed tears privately in the past, when contemplating his family or his twisted fate. Still, the last time he cried openly was more than a decade ago when he first met Antonius on that pirate ship named Formidata, while still serving the Ottoman court under Mehmed II as a servant, responsible for importing medicines for the Sultan’s concubines.
A pang of sorrow pierced Antonius’ heart, witnessing his friend in such a state. But he knew that mere comforting words wouldn’t mend the situation; his actions would have to do the talking.
"There are nothing to be worried about, my brother," Antonius assured him, "I only ordered Julian to construct that dam as a last resort, a scare tactic to force the old woman inside the city walls into surrender. You see, I never intended to use it, just a threat, Hahahaha, merely a threat."
Antonius offered this explanation with a forced laugh, patting his friend’s back. But inside his heart, though, he is bleeding, knowing that he had just lied to his closest friend for the very first time.
Abdullah, not as naive as to believe the Caesar’s words, dried his eyes and posed the same question once again. " Don’t we have any better solutions?"
"..."
"We have one, but..." Antonius replied after a pause, his teeth clenched. "Come, wipe your tears, Abdullah. I need to show you something."
...
Antonius guided Abdullah to the camp’s new medical centre, a structure freshly constructed from wood and stone making it totally different from the ones made with tents, twice the size of the previous one with a hundred more beds in preparation for a sudden burst in the numbers of casualties for the incoming siege. Within this new medical centre, one room stood out, housing a single patient — none other than Sultan Beyezid II. There are a few windows connecting the room to the outside where it is guarded all the time, not just to let fresh air into the room for the Sultan to enjoy the fragrance of the flowers planted around him, but also to act as a way for the people on the outside to observe the Sultan’s situation, without letting the Sultan know.
A monarch has a monarch’s pride even when captured, for he cannot be observed and supervised like a prisoner. It is better if he lives in a world of lies, in his fantasies, although he is still stuck on that bed with his hands cuffed up for most of the day to prevent him from attempting any sort of things again.
It only took a minute for Abdullah to understand the whole story.
"It would be way too risky to hand the Sultan over the Edirne in a state like this, who knows what will the old woman in Edirne do, we cannot accept the risk, you see, if the Sultan did not attempt such things we could have proceeded on with the deal that will be good for all sides, but the actions of the Sultan blocked all the different possibilities of that happening."
"I know your concerns by now." Abdullah spoke, washing his face in the river of Martisa, with Antonius sitting by a side with his legs spread out. "It is indeed appalling to... imagine him doing an action of self-harm like this, for people have always seen him as a coward, a puppet being fiddled by the two Grand Viziers and his own mother in the past. But it seems like, in the very end, he still carries the trait of his father."
"True."
"Have you ever met Sultan Mehmed II before? Oh, my apologies, I know that you have not, but I have." Abdullah asked a question, then immediately answered it by himself shaking his beard clean of the river water.
No, actually I have, in that bizarre dream of mine.
"Upon returning from my studies in Aegyptus at the tender age of twenty, I found myself dispatched to Amasya as a servant. It was there I served directly under Mehmed, tasked with the recording of his daily affairs, activities, and spoken words. Once a month, these comprehensive reports were sent to Murad II. That period, without a doubt, was the most turbulent in Mehmed’s existence. Elevated to the stature of a Sultan and ruling an expansive empire, he presumed he was at the centre of all creation, superior to all living beings, even the venerable Candarli Halil. It was his father’s return and stern reprimand that shook his previously unyielding confidence," Abdullah reminisced, sitting beside the river of his childhood.
"And when I came to him, he was there squandering his own time sinking in leisure activities like hunting and women all day along, in which I documented all of them down and sent it to Murad II, which he gave no reply to us. It wasn’t until his son, young Beyezid II, was born that something shifted within Mehmed. It was as if the reality of his responsibilities as a father and a husband finally dawned on him. He returned to his forgotten skills of horse riding and archery, dealing with the piled-up governmental matters, and he loved his son, for once he told me that he do not expect his son to be like a lion like him or his grandfather, but at least, don’t be a dog, and it seems like Beyezid II at least lived up to his father’s achievements."
"I see." Antonius nodded. "But what is the point of telling me all of these?"
"Listen closely, my dear friend," Abdullah began, looking into Antonius’s eyes with an unyielding determination. "I’m familiar with the Sultan, having had the opportunity to tutor him in the basics of Ottoman Turkish and the Greek language. Permit me to speak with him. Entrust me with the responsibility of managing the transfer. With my diplomatic acumen, I’m confident that I can guide us to a mutually beneficial resolution."
Antonius met his gaze, shaking his head vehemently. "No, that I can never allow. It would be like throwing you to the wolves."
Abdullah raised his voice, matching Antonius’s intensity. "Your Majesty! Caesar! Consider this! Do we have a better solution? We must try this, regardless of the risk! We can’t afford to lose thousands of our men, nor can I condone the mass killing of an entire city’s population by a flood!"
"But I can’t lose you!" Antonius’s voice rose above Abdullah’s. "Everything we have today is due to your quiet diligence behind the scenes, managing governmental affairs that I couldn’t handle myself. Without you, we’d never have come so far. Your worth surpasses an entire contingent of troops and the city of Edirne combined! Why do you insist on putting yourself in such danger?"
Abdullah was taken aback.
After a few moments of silence, he sighed, a ghost of a smile crossing his face as he clasped Antonius’s hand. "There is no need to worry about me, don’t you trust my diplomatic skills? It is not the first time that I have thrown myself into situations like this, for remember that I have travelled as ambassadors to Cairo, to Venezia, to all the Christian kingdoms in the Balkans, and successfully coming out of it with achievements, do trust my skills, for this time... And the younger generations have already grown up to fill the gaps, the graduates from the Universities are already starting to fill up all the respective positions of the government on an annual basis, I have no fear about our future."
"But..."
"But no but, for I have already decided, and I promise you, that this is the last time that I will sink myself into a situation like this. Remember, Antonius, this is not just for you, it is also for the citizens of Edirne. I, am an Ottoman Turkish who chose to align and swear my loyalty to you, making myself the representative of the Ottoman race, the new citizens of our new Romania, and it is me who raised the Greater Roman Ideal integrating the old Romans and the new Romans together into a new population, so I will, and I must, be responsible for it, it is time for me to pay for the responsibility that I have carried, for my, for yours, for everyone, for the empire’s future, and stability."
"I..."
"I am determined." Abdullah interrupted. "Let me take this job."
"Fine then! I will allow you to try to speak to that God Damn Sultan first to see if there are any chance of success, and I will contact that God Forsaken woman in those walls. I will send both Mauro and Cerberus with some of my best men to you as guards to make sure that you are safe, and you are only allowed to conduct the meeting outside the walls, for if anything wrong happens, I will command the troops to start an all out attack, killing off everyone standing there to extinguish my thirst for revenge, is that clear?"
"Yes, clear as ever... Thank you, your Majesty, my friend."
"Thank you."
