Tents were being set up, cauldrons were being brought down, fires were shining here and there. Among this crowd, Tosun Bey was seen gliding on his chestnut horse. He had caught up with the army two stops behind. He asked the janissaries who were lifting a cart whose axle had overturned by the roadside: “Where is the imperial tent, aghas?”
When the janissaries saw him, they straightened up and greeted him respectfully. The oldest one answered: “It hasn’t been set up.”
“Did our lord go back?”
“No.”
“Then where is he?”
“In the Grand Vizier Pasha’s tent.”
Tosun Bey stopped. He looked carefully at the janissary’s face. He asked again: “Where has the imperial tent been set up?”
“It hasn’t been set up.”
“Why?”
“It’s been lost…”
“What?…”
The janissary fell silent. He looked ahead.
“Has the imperial tent been lost?”
“Yes…”
Tosun Bey became terribly angry. He clenched his teeth. How could the imperial tent be lost? He couldn’t comprehend this. The sultan was so sacred. The tent, in his view, was a movable Kaaba. With the impudence of a believer whose Kaaba had been destroyed, he struck his horse’s belly with his heavy and sharp spurs. He charged toward the grand vizier’s tent whose flag poles appeared with wet banners. But he didn’t go very far. The grooms were wandering in the rain. He saw the tent of Judge Perviz Efendi, who loved him very much. He jumped to the ground. He gave his horse to a running servant. Perviz Efendi, whose heroic poems he read, was standing inside the tent. He was talking with Chancellor Eğri Abdizade Mahmut Çelebi about how the Šabac Bridge had been built by the Beylerbeyi of Smederevo, Bayram. When he saw him enter, he cut off his words: “What’s the matter, Tosun Bey!” Tosun Bey was trembling. He was beside himself:
“The imperial tent has been lost.”
“Yes, son.”
“How can this be, your excellency?”
“Perhaps they lost their way…”
“The grand vizier pasha is going one stop ahead. How was it lost?”
Perviz Efendi didn’t answer. Mahmut Çelebi wanted to talk about the severity of the rain and storm. Tosun Bey was boiling over. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes… Could there really be such negligence? Was this befitting of servitude? The sick benefactor wasn’t being thought of at all. What if they had lost the tent to water… What if the throne couldn’t be found… Where would the sultan receive Sigismund, who had been summoned to Semlin for a meeting by sending a messenger even before leaving Istanbul? How could the sultan trust an army that had lost its way and scattered from a bit of rain? Tosun Bey, with that aggressive boldness peculiar to brave men, was saying whatever came to his mouth.
“How can a man who cannot keep possession of a tent between two stops govern a whole empire?” he said.
This was a very heavy question. Perviz Efendi sank onto his purple mattress spread over the thick carpet. Mahmut Çelebi acted as if he hadn’t heard this at all. The countless and nervous drops of the continuously falling rain were falling pitter-patter on the tent, and in the vague murmur of the camp, it was as if one could hear the distant and orderly footsteps of a phantom rush.
When Tosun Bey went outside, he hurriedly had his men found. He changed his horse. Without talking to anyone, alone, he went out to search for the imperial tent. The weather was getting darker. He crossed deep ravines, flood channels. He passed through overflowing, foaming streams. He entered roads that plunged into forests. He climbed hills. He shouted cries in all four directions. He received no answer except the muffled echoes of his voice. The coming night was very dark. The rain didn’t stop. Saying “I’ll go out early in the morning and find it,” he turned back. It was so dark… He was leaving the reins loose, able to return by his horse’s natural guidance along the roads he had come.
With its torches, the camp began to appear from afar. In the darkness, rain, and wind, the horse was walking at a slow pace.
“Who is it?”
Ten steps away, a dark silhouette appeared…
“Not a stranger…”
“Is that you, Tosun Bey!”
“It’s me!”
“Our Grand Vizier Pasha Efendi is having you searched for. We, ten cavalrymen, have scattered around.”
“Very well, let’s go.”
And in the darkness, Tosun Bey in front, the cavalryman behind, they rushed to the camp. They passed the torches, sentries, military bands. Servants, bodyguards, messengers were already waiting in the rain. They took Tosun Bey to the grand vizier. The pasha was leaning on his large mattress, smoking his long and jeweled pipe. Before him, Silahdar Cafer Ağa and Chancellor Feridun Bey stood at attention.
“Son Tosun,” he said, “a job has come up for you. There’s no one to ride a horse like you. Now take this imperial edict. Run, take it to Niš… Give it to the Bey there…”
He extended a red pouch, which Tosun Bey, standing at attention soaking wet, kissed and placed on his head. Tosun Bey, with hands bound, moved forward. He bent down. He took the pouch. He kissed it. He placed it on his head. As he was going out, the Grand Vizier smiled, saying: “Go, my lion, quick, may your road be fortunate!” He saw that an excellent gray horse was waiting for him in front of the tent. The rain was still falling with its old intensity. He mounted. He opened his belly. He asked for water from the servants holding his stirrup. He drank the canteen they gave him to the end; he struck the horse’s belly with his heavy, sharp spurs. He emerged from the camp’s crowd, lights, murmur in five minutes. He galloped away in the darkness, rain, and wind. He disappeared…
He passed through forests, streams, bridges, hills, cliffs like lightning. He didn’t stop in Belgrade. He immediately changed his horse. He took his provisions. He threw himself back on the road. He never slept, only in flat places when the horse was trotting, he would fall into a dreamless and wakeful sleep. He went from nights to day, from rains to sun. His clothes dried in the June heat. He and his horse sweated. In the evenings he heard nightingale voices mixing with cool breezes. In the mornings he walked through seas of crops where chirping larks hid. Finally one night, from very far away, he saw the lights of Niš. He was passing in front of a large farm. Large and fierce dogs were running and barking behind him. “Let me stay here until dawn. I’ll enter the city early,” he said and turned to the farm. Like everyone else, the farm’s men knew him too. They took his horse. They respectfully took him upstairs to the tower.
“I will rest a bit. Wake me before dawn!” he gave the order.
Whatever time it was, it was customary to serve food to every arriving traveler. Tosun Bey said, “I don’t want anything. Bring me some ayran.”
He emptied the jug they brought and left. When his thirst passed, he stretched out on the divan. He closed his eyes. But he couldn’t sleep. The sleep that came on horseback was escaping when he stayed motionless like this. He turned to both sides. He took off his helmet. He loosened his sword belt.
…Just as he was about to doze off, he suddenly jumped. The edict he had placed on his chest had caught fire and was burning. He brought his hand. No… A strange dream. The edict was standing in its place.
He dozed a bit.
In his dream, he was seeing the edict he was carrying melt and become blood, then the storm wave in the form of red flames enveloping his entire body. He jumped, woke up. His heart, which never lost its composure in the face of any danger, was now beating rapidly. He sat up. “May it be good, God willing…” he said. He sat. He read something. He turned. Three times he spat to his left. He brought his trembling hand to the edict. It was in place. He slowly held it and with an involuntary movement pulled. He looked in the flickering and dim light of the candle on the hearth. He removed the wrapper he had wound around it. This was a red pouch. It was sealed from the side with wax. He noticed that this wax seal had shifted from its place from sweat, rain, and movement. What was inside? What was this edict that entered his dream with terror? Definitely an imperial order regarding discipline… Because the war was above. There was a possibility it was something for bandits, ammunition, or roads and bridges. But no… This was an important, very important order. Because it was specifically being sent with him. What was it?
[Content describing his internal struggle and decision to open the edict]
These hands, which had never trembled in battle, also opened the edict. Tosun Bey read the lines he could barely see by the candlelight. The white walls of the stone room, the decorated ceiling, the carpet-covered floor began to turn around him. He was going mad.
Like murderers who flee after a crime, his hands fell to both sides. The open edict remained on his knees. “…the bearer of this our imperial order, our servant Tosun Bey, whose existence is harmful to our state, shall have his head cut upon his arrival, and know this that…” He couldn’t take his eyes off this sentence. He couldn’t read below. So, the red pouch he had brought running day and night without stopping, which burned his body in his dream, was his own execution warrant. His confusion didn’t last long. He held his young and bright forehead where death had passed very closely, brushing its terrible wings perhaps fifty times. He leaned back. From the window to his right, he watched the passage of black and scattered clouds. He stood like that for a moment. He swelled his chest with a deep breath. “But why? But why?” he said.
What had he done besides loyalty, courage, sacrifice, war, attack? Since he was fifteen… For ten years he hadn’t dismounted from his horse. He was traveling the whole world, throwing himself without blinking into places the most famous heroes feared. In times when he threw himself alone with bare sword into the towers under siege, among hundreds of armored enemies, and didn’t die, would he now give his life under the ax of an executioner, a lowly, dog Gypsy? He was thinking of the past all at once and his courage, which felt like breaking, was slowly coming back. He straightened up. He stood up. The edict and pouch fell to the ground.
“I won’t give my head easily,” he said. He approached the window. The black clouds were passing faster, the horizon was turning purple, the sad and gentle murmur of a small stream flowing by the farm was heard. All of Rumelia, all of Anatolia knew him. He was confident that when he jumped to Anatolia, whichever prince he went to, he would be received with affection. He had courage to stand against not ten people, not a hundred people, but a thousand if necessary. Then his strength, skill, agility… There was no equal to him in the whole country. Once he threw himself to Anatolia, capture was impossible. He would go fighting and killing all the way to Iran, to Turan, adding many glories and honors to his name… Again his heart twisted: “But why? Why?…” He expected nothing. Only reward and favor came to his mind. Such a word… Never… What fault had he committed? He was thinking, thinking, couldn’t remember doing anything resembling a fault at all.
“Ah slanderers! Liars who don’t fear God…”
Who knows what lies they had made up against him. But… He wouldn’t extend his head to the executioner’s dirty sword with the obedience of a sheep like his father, he would take the lives of those who came to take his life; until his own life was taken, he would take lives from others…
“Let me not waste time,” he muttered. He put his helmet on his head. He tightened his sword strap, his holsters. He took the edict and pouch from the ground. Again the words “…whose existence is harmful to our state…” caught his eye. Why was his existence harmful to the state? Such an accusation, what a bitter insult, what a bitter curse for a person who had offered his life for the state… He paid attention to the writing. Was it the sultan’s handwriting? There was also a possibility it was Silahdar Cafer Ağa’s. The sultan’s and his handwriting were indistinguishably similar to each other. He folded the edict. He put it back in the pouch. He blew on the wax. He lightly stuck the seal to its old place. In this terrible fabric, light as a bloody feather torn from Azrael’s wing, his life stood. He turned it, turned it. Like this… While looking at this terrible thing, his unfulfilled desires, vague aspirations passed from his memory. Until this moment, how happy he had been. He was living in glory, honor, fame, wealth, pomp. He was the sultan’s most beloved favorite. He thought of the favors he had seen. He remembered his cavalry days. Even when he was only fifteen, his strength and bravery astonished those who saw. In javelin games, in wrestling, in duels, he always came first. Then… Old Salih Ağa, his father’s old veteran who had raised him in his house, came before his eyes. When he went to kiss his hand to say goodbye before leaving Istanbul, he seemed to hear the advice this old man gave: “Don’t go outside the sultan’s command. If he asks for your life, give it. Don’t think. Even if not in this world, you’ll see your reward in the afterlife…” He couldn’t continue remembering the past. Like a suddenly broken clock, his mind seemed to stop. Only Salih Ağa’s voice wouldn’t leave his ear: “Don’t go outside the sultan’s command…”
However… However… He was going outside the sultan’s command, in fact was preparing for rebellion. As if he had committed this great and heinous sin, he felt a poisonous pain mixed with excitement and remorse in his heart. Had he pledged to give his life for the sultan and state? Then from whom, to where, why would he run this life? Now, with iron hands subject to his suddenly strengthened will, he lifted this red pouch he held. He touched it to his lips. Then he brought it to his head.
As the sun was rising secretly through the clouds, he entered Niš at full gallop. Like a living lightning, he passed through narrow and broken streets. In front of the Bey’s mansion, he jumped from his horse. Gatekeepers, cavalrymen, soldiers who recognized him ran around calling “Tosun Bey! Tosun Bey!” From under the arch with white lime where a lantern hung in the middle of the wide gate open on both wings, he advanced to the clean inner courtyard whose floor was covered with black stone. He shouted: “Quickly inform the Bey, there’s an edict…”
The tall head gatekeeper who separated from among the servants fell ahead. He took him up the stone stairs. The Bey, having performed the morning prayer, had come to the reception room and was comfortably smoking his pipe, enjoying his drowsiness. When he suddenly saw Tosun Bey entering his room, he was confused. This Bey was an old soldier, infatuated with his courage and heroism, who had passed through the circle of fate. He immediately stood up. He embraced him. He kissed his forehead:
“Welcome, my brave one, you brought good news…”
Tosun Bey, laughing, said, “I brought an imperial edict.” And he took out the red pouch from his bosom. He kissed it. He placed it on his head. He extended it. The old Bey thought of the importance of this edict sent specifically with Tosun Bey. His tired heart leaped. He turned pale. With trembling, weak, and hairy hands, he took this pouch. He kissed it. He placed it on his head. He didn’t even notice the damage to the wax. He tore it. He took out the edict. He opened it. He read. He collapsed onto the high divan where his long pipe was leaning. Before him, Tosun Bey, one hand on his hip, was standing vigorous and stalwart, smiling. The poor old man began to cry.
“Why are you crying, Your Excellency Bey?”
The old man moaned: “Do you know what this edict says?”
“I know: It says to cut my head off…”
The old bey looked with wet eyes for a long time at this red-cheeked, thick-mustached, mountain piece, imposing, brave, handsome hero whose heroism was legendary throughout the country. Why had he incurred wrath? What great injustice it was to give such a lion into the executioner’s hands. What conscience would consent to this? With an innocent sob unbefitting his white beard, he asked, “What is your fault?”
“My sultan knows…”
“I won’t cut your head, Tosun Bey. I will now write for your pardon. I will send out twin couriers. If my plea is not accepted, I will request that my own head be cut.”
“No, Bey! No… Don’t go outside the sultan’s command. Cut my head… After you cut it, then request my pardon. May my sultan pardon this servant after his own command has been carried out.”
The old bey was crying more, sobbing: “I cannot bear to harm a brave man like you. I cannot cut you. My hand, my tongue won’t reach this.”
“By God, I cannot cut you…”
The bright face of Tosun Bey, smiling with the calm of a newly awakened male lion, suddenly darkened. His thick eyebrows furrowed. His large hazel hawk eyes opened. With hatred and anger he drew his sword.
“I will cut off the heads of rebels who don’t carry out my sultan’s command!…” he roared and walked toward the soft-hearted, weak, and disobedient old man. Armed servants waiting in hidden guard behind the large red broadcloth door curtain rushed. And they held him.
Half an hour later:
The white-bearded bey, having removed his official gold-embroidered turban and put on his modest worship cap, sat on his prayer rug in his deserted room, reading “Yasin” with bowed neck, while outside a sad and indistinct rain was sprinkling, dripping like sincere tears whose owners couldn’t be seen onto the fresh and warm blood on the inner courtyard’s black stones.
