The Year of Rice and Salt

'Yes. But the Roman peninsula is fully repopulated.'

'Venice too?'

'No. Still abandoned, Excellency. It is often flooded, and the plague was particularly bad there.'

Sultan Selim pursed his lips. 'I don't – ah – I don't like the damp.'

'No, Excellency.'

'well, we will have to fight them here. I will tell the troops that their souls, the most precious quarter grain of them, will rise up to the Paradise of Ten Thousand Years if they die in defence of the Sublime Porte. There they will live like I do here. We will meet these invaders down at the straits.'

'Yes, Excellency.'

'Leave me now.'

But when the Indian navy appeared it was not in the Aegean, but in the Black Sea, the Ottoman Sea. Little black ships crowding the Black Sea, ships with waterwheels on their sides, and no sails, only white plumes of smoke pouring out of chimneys topping black deckhouses. They looked like the furnaces of an ironworks, and it seemed they should sink like stones. But they didn't. They puffed down the relatively unguarded Bosporus, blasting shore batteries to pieces, and anchored offshore the Sublime Porte. From there they fired explosive shells into Topkapi Palace, also into the mostly ceremonial batteries defending that side of the city, long neglected as there had been no one to attack Konstantiniyye for centuries. To have appeared in the Black Sea – no one could explain it.

In any case there they were, shelling the defences until they were pounded into silence, then firing shot after shot into the walls of the palace, and the remaining batteries across the Golden Horn, in Pera. The populace of the city huddled indoors, or took refuge in the mosques, or left the city for the countryside outside the Theodosian walls; soon the city seemed deserted, except for some young men out to watch the assault. More of these appeared in the streets as it began to seem that the iron ships were not going to bombard the city, but only Topkapi, which was taking a terrific beating despite its enormous impregnable walls.

Ismail was called into this great artillery target by the Sultan. He boxed up the mass of papers that had accumulated in the last few years, all the notes and records, sketches and samples and specimens. He wished he could make arrangements to send it all out to the medical madressa in Nsara, where many of his most faithful correspondents lived and worked; or even to the hospital in Travancore, home of their assailants, but also of his other most faithful group of medical correspondents.

There was no way now to arrange such a transfer, so he left them in his rooms with a note on top describing the contents, and walked through the deserted streets to the Sublime Porte. It was a sunny day; voices came from the big blue mosque, but other than that only dogs were to be seen, as if Judgment Day had come and Ismail been left behind.

Judgment Day had certainly come for the palace; shells struck it every few minutes. Ismail ducked inside the outer gate and was taken to the Sultan, whom he found seemingly exhilarated by events, as if at a fair: Selim the Third stood on Topkapi's highest bartizan, in full view of the fleet bombarding them, watching the action through a long silver telescope.

'Why doesn't the iron sink the ships?' he asked Ismail. 'They must be as heavy as treasure chests.'

'There must be enough air in the hulls to make them float,' the doctor said, apologetic at the inadequacy of this explanation. 'If their hulls were punctured, they would surely sink faster than wooden ships.'

One of the ships fired, erupting smoke and seemingly sliding backwards in the water. Their guns shot forwards, one per ship. Fairly little things, like big bay dhows, or giant water bugs.

The shot exploded down the palace wall to their left. Ismail felt the jolt in his feet. He sighed.

The Sultan glanced at him. 'Frightened?'

'Somewhat, Excellency.'

The Sultan grinned. 'Come, I want you to help me decide what to take. I need the most valuable of the jewels.' But then he spotted something in the sky. 'What's that?' He clapped the telescope to his eye. Ismail looked up; there was a dot of red in the sky. It drifted on the breeze over the city, looking like a red egg. 'There's a basket hanging under it!' the Sultan exclaimed, 'and people in the basket!' He laughed. 'They know how to make things fly in the sky!'

Ismail shaded his eyes. 'May I use the spyglass, Excellency?'

Under white, puffy clouds, the red dot floated towards them. 'Hot air rises,' Ismail said, shocked as it became clear to him. 'They must have a brazier in the basket with them, and the hot air from its fire rises up into the bag and is caught there, and so the whole thing rises up and flies.'

The Sultan laughed again. 'Wonderful!' He took the glass back from Ismail. 'I don't see any flames, though.'

'It must be a small fire, or they would burn the bag. A brazier using charcoal, you wouldn't see that. Then when they want to come down, they damp the fire.'