The Year of Rice and Salt

The Sultan, impressed by his doctor's dedication and skill, took an interest in his case studies. The bodies of all the janissaries he had executed in the counter-coup of the year 1202 were put at Ismail's disposal, and the religious ban on autopsy and dissection declared invalid for this case of executed criminals. A lot of work had to be completed quickly, even with the bodies on ice, and indeed the Sultan participated in several of the dissections himself, asking questions at every cut. He was quick to see and suggest the advantages of vivisection.

One night in the year 1207, the Sultan called his doctor to the palace in the Sublime Porte. One of his old stablehands was dying, and Selim had had him made comfortable on a bed placed on one balance of a large scale, with weights of gold piled on the other balance, so that the two big pans hung level in the middle of the room.

As the old man lay on his bed wheezing, the Sultan ate a midnight meal and watched. He told the doctor that he was sure this method would allow them to determine the presence of the soul, if one existed, and its weight.

Ismail stood at the side of the stablehand's elevated bed, fingering the old man's wrist gently. The old man's breaths weakened, became gasps. The Sultan stood and pulled Ismail back, pointing to the scale's extremely fine fulcrum. Nothing was to be disturbed.

The old man stopped breathing. 'Wait,' the Sultan whispered. 'Watch.'

They watched. There were perhaps ten people in the room. It was perfectly silent and still, as if all the world had stopped to witness the test.

Slowly, very slowly, the balance tray holding the dead man and his bed began to rise. Somebody gasped. The bed rose and hung in the air overhead. The old man had lightened.

'Take away the very smallest weight from the other tray,' the Sultan whispered. One of his bodyguards did so, removing a few flakes of gold leaf. Then some more. Finally the tray holding the dead man in the air began to descend, until it drifted below the height of the other one. The bodyguard put the smallest flake back on. Skilfully he rebalanced the scale. The man at dying had lost a quarter grain of weight.

'Interesting!' the Sultan declared in his normal voice. He returned to his repast, gesturing to Ismail. 'Come, cat. Then tell me what you think of these rabble from the cast, whom we hear are attacking us.'

The doctor indicated that he did not have an opinion.

'Surely you have heard things,' the Sultan encouraged him. 'Tell me what you have heard.'

'Like everyone else, I have heard they come from the south of India,' Ismail said obediently. 'The Mughals have been defeated by them. They have an effective army, and a navy that moves them around and shells coastal cities. Their leader styles himself the Kerala of Travancore. They have conquered the Safavids, and attacked Syria and Yemen '

'This is all old news,' the Sultan interrupted. 'What I require of you,

Ismail, is explanation. How have they managed to accomplish these things?'

Ismail said, 'I do not know, Excellency. The few letters I have received from medical colleagues to the east do not discuss military matters. I gather their army moves quickly, I have heard a hundred leagues a day.'

'A hundred leagues! How is that possible?'

'I do not know. One of my colleagues wrote of treating burn wounds. I hear their armies spare those they capture, and set them to farm in areas they have conquered.'

'Curious. They are Hindu?'

'Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh – I get the impression they practise some mix of these three faiths, or some kind of new religion, made up by this sultan of Travancore. Indian gurus often do this, and he is apparently that kind of leader.'

Sultan Selim shook his head. 'Eat,' he commanded, and Ismail took up a cup of sherbet. 'Do they attack with Greek fire, or the black alchemy of Samarqand?'

'I don't know. Samarqand itself has been abandoned, I understand, after years of plague, and then earthquakes. But its alchemy may have been developed further in India.'

'So we are being attacked by black magic,' reflected the Sultan, looking intrigued.

'I cannot say.'

'What about this navy of theirs?'

'You know more than I, Excellency. I have heard they sail into the eye of the wind.'

'More black magic!'

'Machine power, Excellency. I have a Sikh correspondent who told me that they boil water in scaled pots, and force the steam through tubes, like bullets out of guns, and the steam pushes against paddles like a river pushing a waterwheel, and thus the ships are rowed forwards.'

'Surely that would only move them backwards in the water.'

'They could call that forwards, Excellency.'

The Sultan stared suspiciously at his doctor. 'Do any of these ships blow up?'

'It seems as if they might, if something goes wrong Selim considered it. 'Well, this should be most interesting! If a cannonball hits one of their boiler pots, it should blow up the whole ship!'

'Very possibly.'

The Sultan was pleased. 'It will make for good target practice. Come with me.'