Mountains southeast of Mylasa, mid-June 1438
The rider came back at the second hour of the afternoon and pulled his horse up short of Yakub's bridle.
"They have found him, Bey. Two hours ahead, at a spring."
"Alive?"
"No, Bey."
Yakub looked at him for a moment and then signaled the column on. He did not speak for the next stretch of the ride.
Turgut came up on his right and rode in silence with him.
At the spring the column halted of its own accord.
It was a place where the road bent around a shoulder of rock and a thin stream came out under a flat stone. There were trees enough for shade. Twenty horses stood tied along the line of brush, and a small fire had been lit and gone out without anyone tending it.
The body was laid by the spring on the road side.
Yakub dismounted and walked over without hurry. Orhan was thinner than he had expected — the shoulders narrow under the linen, the cheekbones sharp, a long body that had not eaten well in weeks. He had been stabbed four times in the chest and the throat was open across the front, though there was less blood on the ground than there should have been. The signet ring was still on his right hand.
Yakub knelt on one knee. He took the ring off — it came off easy; the hand was thin — and looked at it. The seal of the House of Osman, cut deep, worn at the edges from years of use. He put it in the small pouch at his belt and stood up.
The men who had killed Orhan were standing apart from the others, ten of them in a loose cluster against the rock. Yakub had marked them as he came up. They had the watchful look of men waiting to be paid.
Their leader stepped forward when Yakub turned his head.
He was not young. Forty perhaps, a captain's beard, a long sword at his belt that he had not unbuckled. He bowed low and waited.
"Speak."
"Bey. We took the traitor for you. We have served Sultan Ali's house. We waited here for you to come."
Yakub looked at him for a long moment.
"You did not do this for me," he said. "You did it for yourselves. You were his men. You ate his bread for a year."
The captain began to speak again. Yakub raised one finger and he stopped.
"You will not be welcomed at Bursa, or at Konya, or at Cairo. You waited here because you had nowhere else to be."
He turned to Turgut.
"All ten."
Turgut nodded once and gave the order to the captains. The ten were taken away from the spring to the open ground beyond the trees, and the work was done there. Yakub stayed by the body and watched from where he was. The first stroke came clean. The second man went less well, he tried to look back at the line behind him and the stroke caught wrong and they had to do him again. After that they were quicker. Yakub watched the line move down to the last, who was a younger man and did beg, briefly, and was struck while still on his knees.
When it was over Yakub called the captains in.
"He rebelled against the House. He died trying. He was still a prince of Osman's blood." He let the words settle. "He goes back to Bursa, to the family ground. Wrap him properly. He gets the rites of a prince who lost his way."
The captains bowed.
The body was wrapped in clean linen they had brought for their own dead, and laid on a litter slung between two horses. The column formed up and turned north. By the time the sun was on the western ridges the spring was an hour behind them.
Bursa, eleven days later
The walls came up on the second turning of the road, where the orchards ended and the open ground rolled toward the hill. Yakub saw the new stonework along the upper courses before he saw the gates. The masons had been at the south face since spring; the work was nearly done. Above the wall the dome of the Ulu Cami sat clean against the late afternoon sky.
The chamberlain met him at the gate.
"Majesty. A Mamluk envoy has been waiting six days."
"Whose man?"
"A senior amir, by his bearing. He travels with twenty men and a Cairo secretary. He has been gracious about the waiting."
"Place him at his ease. I will receive him tomorrow morning, in the hall, with the Sultan."
"Yes, Majesty."
"The body of Orhan goes to the Muradiye for the night. The rites tomorrow after the envoy. Make the arrangements quietly."
The chamberlain bowed and turned for the gate. Yakub rode on into the city.
He came down through the upper lanes and crossed the lower market to reach the palace road. The bazaar was open. Silk was being reeled in the workshops as it had been a year ago. At the foot of the lower town, where the road bent toward the foundry yard, he saw a cart being loaded with a new bronze piece.
At the palace gate he was met by the inner chamberlains and conducted directly to the small audience hall where the boy Sultan Ali was kept on formal mornings. He sat on the low cushioned seat in a robe of green and gold that was too large for him, with his guardian standing two paces behind. The room was lit by the late sun through a high lattice.
Yakub knelt on the worked stone before the seat and kissed the boy's hand.
"Majesty. The matter is finished. The prince Orhan is dead. He died at the hands of his own men, in the mountains. I bring his body back to Bursa for proper burial in the family ground."
The boy spoke the words his guardian had given him, and got most of them right. "The rebel is dead. The House is — the House is whole. We thank our regent for his service."
Yakub bowed his head.
"Majesty."
Yakub rose. He withdrew with the formal steps. In the corridor outside Turgut fell in beside him, and they went together through the inner courts to the working chamber.
The audience hall, the next morning
The formal hall was full at the eighth hour.
The Sultan sat on the raised seat in a fresh robe, his guardian behind him, four chamberlains in their places along the wall. Yakub stood at the right of the seat, in dark green, with the heavy chain that marked him regent. Turgut stood two paces behind Yakub's right shoulder, in working dress, no ornament. The other ministers were ranged along the wall.
The Mamluk envoy was conducted in.
He was a tall man of about fifty, in the white and gold of a senior Cairo amir, with a stiff bearing that did not bend at the doors. He had a sun-darkened face that did not change as he entered. His Mamluk secretary walked behind him, a thinner man in dark blue with an ink-case at his belt. They came forward together to the proper distance and the envoy bowed.
"His Majesty Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, Servant of the Two Holy Sanctuaries, sends greeting to His Majesty Sultan Ali, of the House of Murad, and to the regent of Bursa."
He spoke the formal words clearly and to the end without varying his tone. Ali received them. The guardian prompted the formal answer.
The gifts were brought in.
A robe of honor for the Sultan, in pale silk worked with verses at the hem. A smaller robe for Yakub, in a darker silk. A Qur'an in a worked leather case, copied by a Cairo master whose name was given. And a kalemdan in gold — a scribe's writing case, the work fine, the gold visibly more than ornamental but less than princely.
Ali received the gifts. The formal exchanges were spoken. The envoy bowed three times and withdrew the proper distance.
Yakub stepped forward and gave the closing words. He thanked the envoy on his Majesty's behalf, named Jaqmaq with full title, and invited the envoy to a working audience in the small chamber.
The small chamber, an hour later
The envoy began without preamble.
"His Majesty has instructed me to speak on three matters. With your permission, regent."
"His Majesty's voice is welcome at this table. Speak."
"The first is recognition. His Majesty in Cairo recognizes the legitimacy of Sultan Ali under the regency of Yakub Bey. The recognition is formal. It will be entered in the records of the diwan in Cairo, and proclaimed at the Friday prayer in the Holy Sanctuaries when the next opportunity is proper."
Yakub inclined his head.
"His Majesty's recognition is received with the respect proper to a Servant of the Two Sanctuaries. Cairo holds the holy places. This is the natural order of the faith. We thank His Majesty for the recognition formally and in writing as he wishes."
The envoy continued.
"The second is the matter of Karaman. His Majesty would propose a formal peace between the regency of Bursa and the Sultan of Karaman, with Cairo as guarantor. The current frontier to be recognized by both sides as permanent. Ankara to remain in Karaman hands by right, not by occupation. His Majesty will despatch a chief qadi to oversee the negotiation of specific terms, if the regent accepts the principle."
Yakub did not answer at once. He had expected the recognition of the current line, but not the by right language, which would mean renouncing the Ottoman claim on Ankara — territory the House of Osman had held for years and that he had been quietly preparing to recover when the time was proper. After a moment he said:
"Karaman has been repelled. We have no appetite for a second war. We accept the principle of the peace. Send your qadi. The specific terms will be argued at the table — including the form of the recognition, which is not yet settled between us and Karaman, and which Cairo's good offices will help to settle."
The envoy received this without expression. The secretary wrote.
He moved to the third.
"His Majesty would propose, as a sign of brotherhood and of the proper relations between the House of Osman and the Holy See of Cairo, an annual gift from Bursa to His Majesty's diwan. The amount and form of the gift to be agreed at the regent's discretion. It is not a tribute. It is a customary exchange between brothers."
The room was quiet.
"It is not tribute," Yakub said. "But customary exchanges of that form are between unequals, between a kingdom and its protector. We are a kingdom in our own right under His Majesty Sultan Ali. We can exchange gifts as equals — and we will, in due season, when His Majesty wishes to send and when we wish to send. But there will be no annual schedule on either side. Brothers do not keep accounts."
"His Majesty had instructed me to ask. I have asked. The regent's answer will be carried faithfully."
There was a silence. The envoy was waiting to see if the regent had finished. Yakub set his hand flat on the table.
"Now I will tell you something, and I will ask you to carry it to His Majesty in my own words."
The envoy inclined his head.
"The man on the throne in Constantinople is not the prince your father's generation remembered begging through Italy. He writes letters to the Pope as a Caesar of the East and the Pope answers him as one. He commands cannons such as no Muslim power has fielded, in numbers we cannot yet count. He commands an army built to march, year after year, without thinning. He will. When he does, I will hold what I can with what I have. But he will not stop at Anatolia. A man who has restored what was lost in his father's day does not sit down content. Cairo should weigh what comes after Bursa, while there is still time."
The envoy did not write. The Mamluk secretary did.
"I will carry your words, regent. In your own measure."
"Carry them faithfully."
"His Majesty will be informed."
The envoy bowed. The audience was finished. He and his secretary withdrew with the proper steps.
When the inner door had closed behind them and the chamberlains had been dismissed, Yakub sat down at the table.
The upper chamber, late afternoon
The chamber overlooked the city from the south face of the Hisar. The shutters were folded back. From the window Yakub could see the dome of the Ulu Cami, the tiled roofs of the lower town, the smoke rising thin from cooking fires along the bazaar, and beyond all of it the line of the plain running away west toward the sea.
Turgut waited until the chamberlain had gone. "Cairo will do nothing for us."
"No. The kalemdan was for our quiet." Yakub stood and went to the window. The evening had cooled, and down in the lower court the envoy's pack train was being made ready for the road south. He watched it for a moment before he turned back.
"Biga needs the masons before autumn — the walls there are older than these, and the new pieces from the foundry should go with them. What about the musket men under Hasan, are they still drilling?"
"Fifty of them. The foundry pieces fail more than they fire. Three barrels split last week. Hasan keeps the better ones for drill and the rest for parts."
Yakub turned from the window.
"Three barrels in a week. By God's name, what is that dog doing on his floor."
"Bey —"
"Tell him from me. If another splits this week I come down myself, and he can explain to me with his own hands what he is doing with my silver. In those words."
Turgut inclined his head.
"Sixty by Ramadan. Pieces that fire. I am done burying my men for that son of a whore's work."
"It will be carried."
Yakub took the signet ring from the pouch at his belt and set it on the table. Turgut looked at it once and did not ask.
"The Muradiye tonight," Yakub said. "After the rites. It goes into the chest with his father's seals."
"Yes, Bey."
Turgut bowed and withdrew. The latch caught behind him.
Author's note: In our timeline, Mamluk Sultan Barsbay died in June 1438 and Jaqmaq's succession ran through few months of regency and a brief reign by Barsbay's young son. Here I've compressed that: Barsbay dies earlier in 1438, the coup happens faster, and Jaqmaq is already firmly seated and sending senior envoys by mid-June.