Chapter 32

Sultan Mehmet was horrified to find a Cossack in his tent, with his feet up on his campaign throne.

"Hello, Mehmet, old boy," said Timofey. "I'm a herald."

"You'll be begging to tell me your message in a moment," said the Sultan.

Timofey grinned. The boy's tone was shrill and frightened; he was hardly any older then Timofey's brother, Juryk.

"Oh, I am, Mehmet, I am," said Timofey. "My Uncle Jeremi – it's a courtesy title, you understand – wants to know why you damned slugs don't get a move on and stop waddling along like a geriatric walking party of snails, complete with half of Constantinople on your backs. He's waiting to dictate terms to you, you know, and you're making him twiddle his thumbs."

"Guards!" Mehmet called.

Timofey grinned.

"Sorry, cherub, can't stay," he said. He took a deep breath, and slammed the bottle he was holding against the throne, and dived to one side.

The guards ran in, and breathed in the contents of the bottle, which were a mix of deer urine, fox urine, a very rotten egg, and several ageing fish.

They started being sick. One of them, who had received senna, soiled himself as he heaved, adding to the stench. Timofey went out through the slit in the tent where he had slid in, lay quiet under his plastun cloak until the hue and cry was well away, chasing the man who must have run away, and then sauntered back out of the camp, whose soldiers were chasing a fugitive who had never run.

He thought Jurij would appreciate how well he was doing in emulating the insouciant Korybut Cossack.

oOoOo

"Hello, Jurij, how are things going?" asked Bohdan, strolling into the palace where Jurko had set up an office, simply because people were used to coming here with problems.

"Why Papa ever agreed to be king, I do not know," groaned Jurko. "Being temporary Sultan is bad enough. Have you any idea the amount of paperwork running a city engenders?"

"No, and I don't want to," said Bohdan. "You aren't supposed to be doing the Sultan's work for him, only holding the city."

"But if I don't, since I have all the viziers locked up, the place will cease to function; I have a duty to my hostages."

"That was almost a whine."

"Yes, I'm sure it was. I settled a land dispute by confiscating the disputed land and giving it to the nearest mosque as both were Muslims, so both hate me; I have had several thieves flogged and sentenced to work to the value of what they stole, because I can't be arsed to do anything more to them, and I had a fire-raiser burned. He killed a man and his grandchild in the blaze before it was put out. I have no idea what the city law code prescribes, but all I can do is what seems fair."

"You'd probably make a very good king."

"If you can only make depressing comments, Bohdan, you can get the hell out," said Jurko. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Reinforcing you," said Bohdan. "We got bored harrying and looting the Sultan, so Timofey went to insult him enough to pick up his pace, and we came to see you. Aren't you pleased to see us?"

"Only if you swear you have those ruddy Tatars in check."

"Oh, we gave most of them to your father, except Timofey's new best friend."

"Thank all the saints and angels. I can't handle Tatars as well as paperwork."

"You have a petitioner," said Bohdan.

Jurko sighed.

"Tell me the problem," he said.

He had Wojciech Bobowski as a translator.

"This man is a salt seller, and salt has been going missing," said Bobowski. "He has two employees, either of whom could be the thief, concealing it in their clothing."

"Bring two large cotton sheets and strip both the suspects," said Jurko. "Two of you with nagajkas please come forward."

"You will flog them to make them speak? Both?" asked Bobowski.

"No, we are going to interrogate their clothing under torture," said Jurko. "Open all pockets and pouches and turn them inside out, and then flog them – but not the outermost layer."

The clothes were duly flogged on the sheets by grinning Cossacks.

"Lift away the clothing and pouches," said Jurko. "We have a considerable pile on one sheet wouldn't you say?" he moved forward and tasted it. "And it is salt," he said. "That is the guilty man." He pointed to the man whose clothes the salt had come from.

The man fell to his knees.

"He is begging for mercy; he has a sick child," said Bobowski.

"Then the state will pay his fine," said Jurko. "Give him twenty hard lashes with a nagajka and rub salt in anywhere it breaks the skin to teach him the value of good salt. And send a doctor to his child."

"It was an ingenious way to solve it," said Bobowski as the salt merchant bowed and scraped.

"An innocent man will have perhaps a touch of salt from the air on the outside layer of his garments, which I did not wish to be interrogated. The guilty man had traces inside his clothing," said Jurko. "Offer him work as he will not be taken back – assuming he is found to have a sick child. If he is lying, hang him."

Bobowski translated what Jurko had said.

Those listening in would spread the word; the Prince would be merciful and compassionate, but if anyone tried to make a fool of his compassion, he would be ruthless.

"Your honour, my child has been abducted!" a distraught man prostrated himself before Jurko. He managed to speak in Latin.

"Get up and look me in the face; I am no deity, but merely a man like you, and I piss and shit like any other," said Jurko.

The man rose, warily.

"It was said my daughter was abducted by a Cossack," he said.

"Then if this is so, unless he truly believed he was rescuing her in some wise, he will suffer the penalty according to what he has done," said Jurko. "Who has made the accusation?"

"The legless beggar on the Hippodrome street," said the man.

"We will go out and find him," said Jurko. "How old is your daughter?"

"She is but eight years old, your honour," said the distraught father.

"When was she taken?" asked Jurko.

"He... the beggar... said it was as she returned from the shop, buying bread, which was in the mid afternoon."

"And it is now early evening. The trail is still fairly fresh. I need to know for myself exactly how much this beggar knows."

The beggar was on a little cart, begging for alms. He took one look at a group of Cossacks and paled. Jurko had brought along several scribes as well, as he was having every judgement he made inscribed to hand over to the Sultan on his return.

"Speak the truth and you have nothing to fear," said Jurko, pleasantly. "This man says you saw his daughter be abducted by a Cossack. Can you describe him further?"

Bobowski had to put the question.

"He says, like any other Cossack," said Bobowski.

"If he would look at the Cossacks with me, he will see that some are dark, some have lighter hair, most wear a scalp lock, one is very tall, one is very short. They don't all look alike," said Jurko.

The beggar shifted on his cart.

Jurko, who could move from kneeling to standing in a single move using hopak moves, moved like lightning, pushing the man off the cart and stretching out the legs tucked underneath him, hidden in a tray like depression on the top of the cart.

"A miracle! Look how the legless has grown legs!" he said.

There were murmurs of anger directed at the beggar.

"It does not mean he did not see a Cossack abduct the girl, but to my mind, a liar in one thing can be a liar in others," said Jurko. "Tell me more."

The man's eyes slid sideways as he mumbled, with Bobowski translating, that the Cossack was average height with dark hair in a scalplock.

"He does not need his feet for his livelihood; beat the soles of them well until he remembers a bit more," said Jurko. "I think he knows more of this abduction than he is saying."

The beggar screamed, as one Cossack sat on him whilst another beat the soles of his feet.

"He says it was a moment's temptation to take pay to abduct her," said Bobowski, "Which I disbelieve for she is not the only child to vanish, according to whispers I am hearing. He took her to a special secret brothel. He is telling me where it is."

"Time to raid it, then," said Jurko, grimly. "Lock this scum up until we have seen to a rescue. This is what you get when slavery is an accepted matter, the belief that life is cheap enough to enslave anyone."

Jurko kicked in the door of the secret brothel, gutting the guard who tried to stop him. The house was surrounded by a cordon, ready to grab anyone who fled.

This was a number of rather well-clad citizens.

The child's father went in behind Jurko, and ran to embrace his child when he saw her, standing naked and tear stained under a notice proclaiming that her virginity was for auction.

"Here! Don't handle the goods! You bid with everyone else!" said a fat woman.

Helena took her out with a kick into her belly. Jurko had brought her and Róża to handle any women.

Soon they had rounded up all the staff, several clients, and had collected together a lot of traumatised little girls and boys.

"Have clothes brought for them here, and find out if the parents of missing children will accept them back after they have been so badly used, or if they repudiate them," said Jurko. "Róża, my honey, this must bring everything back to you."

"Yes, it reminds me of why I want to kill all slavers and deviants," said Róża, in a hard little voice. "I can help the ones who have been hurt."

"There's my brave daughter," said Jurko.

"Allah... Dear God, I mean!" said Bobowski. "Was your own daughter snatched?"

"Róża was a slave of a deviant, and I killed him," said Jurko. "She's adopted; her parents did not accept her, although he had gone no further than grooming her. I knew my then-betrothed wife would accept her whether she was defiled or not, since it was hardly her fault. Equally, we will take any of these hurt children who are not wanted, and raise them to fight slavery."

Jurko held court on the owners first. The records showed every client, and he had men sent to arrest them, and everyone who held a share in the place. He had three joint owners, two burly female overseers, and more than a score regular customers.

"Tell me," he said to one of the customers, who was going on about his contacts, his rights, and how he could pay any fine, "How can you see any innocent child as a sexual being?"

"Why, they flirt with their big wide eyes, begging for it, but one cannot do it to one's own children, who must be kept pure for marriage."

"I... I believe I am lost for words," said Jurko. "How many... three-and-twenty. Cut off their dicks and then hang them. And that ruddy beggar-procurer. The owners... three stakes, if you please, Kuryło.

"Three stakes it shall be," said Kuryło. "What of the women?"

"I won't impale women," said Jurko.

"Women are usually thrown over the sea wall in a sack with stones if they transgress," said Bobowski.

"Seems a little quick," growled Jurko. "Pity there's no tide in the Bosphorus or they could contemplate their deaths in terror as these babes contemplated their regular agony. On second thoughts, I can impale women, through the entrance that should be used to give life, let them receive death. Five stakes."

The crimes of those executed were inscribed on boards in all the languages commonly in use in the city. Jurko wanted to make sure that nobody thought he enacted horrific punishments for anything but horrific crimes.

"If they still linger by the morning, shoot them," he said.

"Squeamish, Ataman?" said Kuryło.

"Yes," said Jurko. "And between us both, so is Papa. Satisfied?"

"Oh, no king is perfect," said Kuryło. "And we love you for your compassion, little father of ours, and our king for his."

They were left with two dozen or so children whose parents would not take them back; and were joined by a family who had been driven out for taking their son back, and being a reminder to those who had lost children. The child whom they had initially sought and her father decided to move.

The city was, after all, large.

"And why, if children have been going missing, the ruddy Sultan did nothing about it, I don't know," growled Jurko, who had written a stiff note to the Sultan, telling him that dealing with such abhorrent things should have fallen to the regular administration and not left to the temporary ruler.

"and if you don't find such things an abomination and abhorrent, I hope your fucking balls turn green and drop off," he finished.

It made Jurko feel a little better, anyway to be rude to the sultan.