A Gift for the Sultan

A newly completed novel now seeking a publisher or agent.

Synopsis

In the summer of 1402, a young princess vows to save Constantinople from the Islamic horde at its gates, while other nobles, merchants, clergy, aristocrats, juvenile street fighters and foreign mercenaries prepare to profit, yield, fight or die in its defense. But the regent has secretly agreed to surrender the greatest city in the Christian world to the Ottoman sultan, and his tribute will include the princess and scores of slaves. The Turkish war chief who is to deliver this gift must hurry, to forestall a clash between the sultan and another Muslim challenger from the East.

On their journey, the bearers of Christian Greco-Roman urbanity confront the traditions of honor, magic and power of the horsepeople of the Central Asian steppes. To their mutual astonishment, they form bonds as the Ottoman women tend to the Orthodox princess, a merchant mourns the death of a rough Turkish archer, an English mercenary is shamed when he is about to murder a Turkish babe, and a janissary wrestles with his Christian-Muslim conscience. Unknowingly, all are headed toward a cataclysm that will turn their world upside down: the confrontation of Timur of Samarkand ("Tamerlane") and "Thunderbolt" Bayezid, sultan of the Ottomans. A comedy of greed will have catastrophic consequences, and a romance will dissolve into ambiguous myth.

The novel is not merely about an East-West clash that redrew national boundaries from the Balkans to the whole of the Middle East and North Africa, stimulated the voyages of discovery of America and spun into countless wars that continue even today.
It is about all that, but it is also about a larger issue: City v. Anti-City. A dominant urban civilization with all its culture, resources and vulnerabilities confronts the rage of those scorned by a civilization they don't understand and that makes no serious effort to understand them. The novel is thus a meditation on the siege of Sarajevo, New York's 9/11, and Baghdad's rubble and resistance, and all other such conflicts.

Like every city, Constantinople speaks in many voices, and so does the anti-city. From chapter to chapter, we listen to each in turn. The strongest are the prideful voice of a warrior from the Asian steppes and the prayers modulating into fury of the Christian princess, against the counterpoint of scheming and confusions of rulers, merchants and others in a maelstrom they can't comprehend. Then, as the conflicting forces converge, suddenly there is silence, broken by the scream of a catastrophe which breaks the siege and allows the city to resume its melodic hum and rumors.

The City has sacrificed its children, from street waifs to a princess, and taken advantage of a war that has divided its enemies. What it has won, though, is a mere respite. Constantinople will fall to another Ottoman sultan 51 years later, but even then the wily city will thrive by captivating its captors - and will tell lies, many and contradictory lies for its many contradictory constituencies, so that each may claim the City as its own. This real, historical sequel of the Battle of Ankara is encoded in the prologue, "The Fountain."

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Chapter 2: The Palace Garden (at The Copperfield Review; click "Fiction")

Writing "A Gift for the Sultan" (2003 Jan 3 entry in my weblog)

Left, Oguz horse archer, from Topkapi Museum, Istanbul

Top illustration: Casket with Warriors and Dancers
Casket: Byzantine, 11th century; hinges, flanges, and lock: Italian(?), 15th century(?)
Casket: ivory and bone; hinges, flanges, and lock: copper gilt
9 x 7 1/2 x 11 3/8 in. (23 x 19 x 28.8 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y. (17.190.239)

Such caskets were often borne by imperial ambassadors as presentation gifts. Precious boxes were enclosed in other splendid containers, meant to be opened with increasing delight. A large number of rosette caskets survive, which probably reflects their popularity. Copyright © 2000 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.