Read Online The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jenny White
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knows the road well and keeps a steady pace. Kamil’s eyes graze the edge of the forest as they pass, alert for telltale colors and shapes of flowering plants, challenging himself to remember their botanical names. His fingers worry the warm amber in his pocket.
If he fails to solve this case, he will have the unpleasant task of reporting his failure to Minister of Justice Nizam Pasha. On the first Thursday of every month, Kamil must stand, hands folded before him, eyes lowered, in the drafty reception hall and wait for permission to speak. Nizam Pasha, seated cross-legged on a raised divan, listens in grim silence, regarding him with flat, unreadable eyes. When Kamil has finished, Nizam Pasha whispers to his subordinate, then dismisses Kamil with a careless wave of his fingers and a moue of the mouth, as if he has tasted something foul.
Only once has the minister spoken directly to Kamil, this during his first audience.
“Do not presume here on the cloak of your ancestors. You are naked in the sight of the padishah. Do not disappoint him.”
Nizam Pasha reports directly to the sultan, but his is only one vein among many pumping information into the heart of the empire. The secret police are the insomniac sultan’s eyes, watching, suspicious, invisible to all but a few in the palace. They spy on the police and the judges, as they do on all the other servants of the state.
Kamil reflects that his position as pasha and son of a pasha affords little protection from the secret police, who will punish not only those who displease them, but their entire families. The images of his unhappy but determined sister Feride and her young daughters flashes though his mind. And his silent father, captive to an inner world populated only by his dead wife. Kamil knows he must steer a delicate path between politically astute silence and the demands posed by proper judicial procedure and scientific investigation. This was never more important than in these uncertain days.
While the sultan wraps himself ever more closely in the cloak of religion by catering to the powerful sheikhs and leaders of Islamic brotherhoods, it is rumored that even among the sultan’s inner circle there are those who would like to see a representative government and an Islam compatible with modern notions of progress and reason. These are the men who pushed through the new legal system that has effectively taken away the power of religiously trained kadi judges and given it to magistrates, young men like Kamil with secular training and a preference for science and logic. In the new courts, magistrates argue cases before a state judge and supervise investigations. The formerly all-powerful kadis are restricted to handling local divorces and inheritance disputes, although a kadi still has a place on the bench in the Majlis-i Tahkikat, the Court of Inquiry, the highest court in the province of Istanbul. It is not surprising, Kamil thinks, that men like Nizam Pasha, whose education has been in religious medreses and who speak no European languages, should feel threatened by the magistrates under their jurisdiction.
He glances fondly at his companion in the phaeton. Michel has been his ally in puzzling through the logical complexities of many cases. His mood lifts as he remembers the pleasant hours spent listening to Ladino songs and Italian cantos in tiny clubs hidden in the alleys of Galata, Michel as his guide to the richly textured but insular world of the Jewish community. Jews and Christians had been the merchants, bankers, surgeons, and artists, the beating international heart of the empire for hundreds of years. Their presence here predates that of the Ottomans. Jewish migrants and refugees not only were gladly sheltered, but sought after by the sultans, who valued their education and acumen. The Sephardic Jews expelled in 1492 by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain were invited by Sultan Bayezid II to settle in the empire under his protection, with
If he fails to solve this case, he will have the unpleasant task of reporting his failure to Minister of Justice Nizam Pasha. On the first Thursday of every month, Kamil must stand, hands folded before him, eyes lowered, in the drafty reception hall and wait for permission to speak. Nizam Pasha, seated cross-legged on a raised divan, listens in grim silence, regarding him with flat, unreadable eyes. When Kamil has finished, Nizam Pasha whispers to his subordinate, then dismisses Kamil with a careless wave of his fingers and a moue of the mouth, as if he has tasted something foul.
Only once has the minister spoken directly to Kamil, this during his first audience.
“Do not presume here on the cloak of your ancestors. You are naked in the sight of the padishah. Do not disappoint him.”
Nizam Pasha reports directly to the sultan, but his is only one vein among many pumping information into the heart of the empire. The secret police are the insomniac sultan’s eyes, watching, suspicious, invisible to all but a few in the palace. They spy on the police and the judges, as they do on all the other servants of the state.
Kamil reflects that his position as pasha and son of a pasha affords little protection from the secret police, who will punish not only those who displease them, but their entire families. The images of his unhappy but determined sister Feride and her young daughters flashes though his mind. And his silent father, captive to an inner world populated only by his dead wife. Kamil knows he must steer a delicate path between politically astute silence and the demands posed by proper judicial procedure and scientific investigation. This was never more important than in these uncertain days.
While the sultan wraps himself ever more closely in the cloak of religion by catering to the powerful sheikhs and leaders of Islamic brotherhoods, it is rumored that even among the sultan’s inner circle there are those who would like to see a representative government and an Islam compatible with modern notions of progress and reason. These are the men who pushed through the new legal system that has effectively taken away the power of religiously trained kadi judges and given it to magistrates, young men like Kamil with secular training and a preference for science and logic. In the new courts, magistrates argue cases before a state judge and supervise investigations. The formerly all-powerful kadis are restricted to handling local divorces and inheritance disputes, although a kadi still has a place on the bench in the Majlis-i Tahkikat, the Court of Inquiry, the highest court in the province of Istanbul. It is not surprising, Kamil thinks, that men like Nizam Pasha, whose education has been in religious medreses and who speak no European languages, should feel threatened by the magistrates under their jurisdiction.
He glances fondly at his companion in the phaeton. Michel has been his ally in puzzling through the logical complexities of many cases. His mood lifts as he remembers the pleasant hours spent listening to Ladino songs and Italian cantos in tiny clubs hidden in the alleys of Galata, Michel as his guide to the richly textured but insular world of the Jewish community. Jews and Christians had been the merchants, bankers, surgeons, and artists, the beating international heart of the empire for hundreds of years. Their presence here predates that of the Ottomans. Jewish migrants and refugees not only were gladly sheltered, but sought after by the sultans, who valued their education and acumen. The Sephardic Jews expelled in 1492 by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain were invited by Sultan Bayezid II to settle in the empire under his protection, with
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