The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 30


Baghdad

Uzun Hussein looked expectantly toward the platform that had been erected the day before. A few moments ago a brace of horsemen had appeared, and fanned out around it. This suggested that the speech they had been assembled to hear was about to commence. Ordinarily, Hussein didn’t have much interest in speeches, even when given by sultans. He had been a janissary long enough to see three sultans come and go before this one. He would fight whoever he was told to fight without much caring about the reason, so long as his pay came regularly.

But he would listen to the Sultan Murad. The young padishah had won him over with his courage on this campaign, as he had most of the janissaries. Besides, the rumor was that the sultan was coming to tell them they were going back to the City. That was worth listening to, whoever said it. There was no place in the world that compared to Istanbul.

Not even Baghdad, the fabled city they had just conquered. Uzun could see Baghdad from where they were assembled, just across the great river. He could see many of the towers that guarded the city from here. Not all, of course. You probably couldn’t see all of those towers from any one place. He’d been told by one of the sultan’s lagimci—military engineers, mostly miners and sappers—that there were two hundred and eleven towers on the city walls.

As impressive as they were, though, even the towers were dwarfed by the mighty walls. Twenty-five yards high, in most places, and ten yards wide at the base. Uzun had walked along a stretch of those walls after the city was taken, marveling at the cunning design. Each tower was separated from its neighbor by more than a hundred paces, with a crenel every two and a half paces. More than ten thousand embrasures in all, according to the lagimci.

But that very design had perhaps been the city’s downfall. Baghdad should have been held by an immense army, one that could match its walls. Instead, the sultan’s surprise march on Baghdad had caught the Safavid heretics off balance. There had only been a relatively small force defending the city, who couldn’t keep up the defenses well enough.

Even then, it had taken several weeks to seize Baghdad. Heretics though they might be, no one claimed Persians couldn’t fight.

The sultan appeared on the platform. Hussein looked up at him with approval. Murad looked like a sultan should look, tall and strong. And when he spoke, he got right to the point.

“My wolves, you have shown the redheads what happens when they fight the followers of the true faith!” That got him a roar of approval.

“And now, the time has come for you to turn west again, to show our people what conquerors look like!” A bigger roar.

“But do not get so caught up in the celebrations of your triumph that you fail to keep your skills sharp.”

Hussein found himself a bit surprised. Murad didn’t ordinarily make noises like an odabashi worried about an inspection.

“For in the spring we will be going to teach that German king who calls himself Austria’s emperor a lesson!”

A profound silence fell. A new campaign in the spring, then. Against the Christians.

And then the roar began to build. Hussein found himself joining the roar, a roar that might have been heard in Vienna itself.

At last, a war against the true infidels. A chance for glory unparalleled in his lifetime. It seemed clear now that Sultan Murad was being lead by Allah. First the success of this campaign, more complex than anything since Suleiman’s day. Now a march—at long last—against the Christians.

From this day forth, Uzun Hussein would never think of the sultan as anything other than Murad Gazi. Perhaps he would live to see the young sultan lead them to Rome itself.