MidReal Story
Janissary's Dilemma: Love, Loyalty, and War
Scenario: Fatih sultan mehmet döneminde geçen tarihi roman
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Leila Hatun
healer and confidante to Ahmet, close friend of Ahmet, petite with gentle features, wise and compassionate.
Hasan Bey
fellow Janissary under Ahmet's guidance, mentee of Ahmet, sturdy build with a stern face, loyal and ambitious.
Ahmet Kara
young Janissary, friends with Leila and mentor to Hasan, lean with piercing eyes, brave and conflicted.
I was promoted to the special guard unit in the capital.
I was only a young Janissary, but I had been chosen to serve in the palace.
The Sultan’s palace.
The Topkapi Palace, where the Sultan lived with his family and his harem.
I was to be one of the guards who protected them.
It was a great honor and a great responsibility, and I was proud to have been chosen.
But I was also scared.
The Janissaries were the Sultan’s elite troops, and we were trained to be fearless in battle.
But this was different.
This was the Sultan’s palace, and if anything happened to him or his family, it would be my head on the line.
I had been given this position because I had shown promise as a young recruit, but I knew that if I failed in my duties, I would be cast out of the Janissaries and left to fend for myself on the streets of Constantinople.
I had no family, no friends, no money.
I had to prove that I was worthy of my new position, and I had to do it every day.
I was a member of the Janissaries, but I was also one of the Sultan’s slaves.
I had been taken from my family when I was a young boy and had been raised in the barracks of the Janissaries ever since.
I had no memory of my family, or my home, or the life I had before.
I was an orphan, like so many of the Janissaries, and I had been trained to be a soldier.
A soldier, and a slave.
And now, I would be a guard.
I stood at attention in front of the palace gates and tried to keep my breathing even as the eunuch finished reading out my orders and the guards took me into custody.
It was all official and regimented, but that didn’t stop my stomach from churning and my heart from pounding in my chest.
I was just a boy, a young Janissary who had never been outside the walls of the barracks except to drill in the courtyard or march in formation.
Now I was going in the palace.
I looked up at the great stone walls that loomed over us, and I felt dizzy and giddy all at once.
The Topkapi Palace was a sprawling fortress that housed not only the Sultan and his family but also his court, his harem, and his slaves.
It was a city within a city, and it looked down on all of Constantinople like a god on high.
The eunuch led me through the gates and across the courtyard, and I followed him with my head bowed so that I wouldn’t be tempted to look around at my new surroundings.
I would have plenty of time for that later.
The eunuch took me to meet my new commander, a grizzled old warrior named Hasan Bey who had fought with Janissaries for years before being promoted to guard the Sultan.
He took one look at me and snorted, as if he couldn’t believe that I had been chosen for this honor.
“Look at you,” he said.
“You’re just a babe in arms.”
“I am ready to serve,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Of course you are,” he said.
“All Janissaries say that.
Now come along.
I’ll show you how we do things here.”
He turned on his heel and led me away before I could say another word to the eunuch or look around to see where they were taking me.
They led me down winding corridors and up narrow staircases to a small room at the top of one of the towers.
My new room.
My new home.
I stood in the small stone chamber and looked around at the bare walls and hard wooden bench that would serve as my bed.
This was where I would live now.
This was where I would sleep, eat, and train.
This was where I would stay when all of my duties were done.
This was where I would become a man.
I looked down at my hands and tried to make them stop shaking as I waited for Hasan Bey to give me further orders.
My mother tried to hide me in the priest’s house for as long as she could.
She knew that it wouldn’t do any good in the end, but she hoped she could keep me with her for just a few more days before they came to take me away.
But she didn’t have a hope of saving me.
They always came for us in the end.
My mother had done her best to keep me hidden in the woods near our village while she went about her work as the priest’s housekeeper, but it was obvious from birth that I was not one of them and that I would be taken away eventually.
The Janissaries took all of the boys who were born in our village on their fifth birthday as part of the devşirme, or blood tax, which they imposed on all of the Christian villages in our region.
They had taken my older brother five years before they took me, and we had never seen him again.
He had gone into the Janissaries, like so many others before him, and he had become one of them, body and soul.
And now it was my turn to go too.
My mother couldn’t stand the thought of losing another son to the Janissaries, but she knew that there was nothing she could do to save me.
She was just a woman, and I was just a boy, and we were nothing against the might of the Sultan’s army.
She loved me, and she didn’t want to lose me, but she also knew that if I went into the Janissaries, I would always have food in my belly and a roof over my head.
I would always have a chance to make something of myself and to be someone important.
And if I stayed with her, I would starve to death in the woods, like so many others before us.
So she did the only thing she could do.
She brought me to the soldiers herself and handed me over to them with tears in her eyes.
She gave me a kiss for luck and a blessing for my journey and then she sent me away without looking back.
She knew that if she looked back, she would never be able to let go.
And I would never be able to let go either.
She gave my hand a final squeeze and then she let go of me and turned and walked away before I could see her crying.
I felt like crying too, but I kept my head held high as I walked between the soldiers and tried not to think about what had just happened or what it meant for my future.
I was just a boy, and I didn’t know anything about being a soldier or a slave or a Janissary.
But I would learn.
Before long, I had forgotten the sound of my mother’s voice and the feel of her hand in mine.
Before long, I had forgotten who I had been before they took me away and turned me into someone new.
They brought us to the barracks to be trained as Partisans, and they made us run around the courtyard until we were sick with exhaustion.
We were just boys, but they didn’t care.
They made us run up hills and down ravines, through forests and fields and swamps until our feet bled and our lungs burned and we wanted to die.
And when we fell down, they made us get up, and when we stopped running, they made us run some more.
We ran and ran until we thought our legs would fall off, and then we ran some more.
We ran and ran until we didn’t think we could run anymore, and then we ran until we knew that we had no choice but to keep running, no matter what it cost us or how much it hurt us, because that is what soldiers do.
We didn’t know why they were doing this to us or what it would give us, but we did it anyway, because we didn’t know any better and we couldn’t do anything else, and because they were bigger and stronger and meaner than us, and so there was nothing we could do to stop them or to help ourselves.
We didn’t know what would become of us, but we didn’t care, because at least we had each other, and at least we had something to do, and at least it was better than being lost in the woods.
When I learned that I had been chosen for the special guard unit, I was filled with pride and fear, as I had never been before in my life.
I was proud to be one of the few who had been chosen for this honor, and especially at such a young age.
But I was also afraid of what it would mean to serve in the Sultan’s guard and of what I might be asked to do or to give up on his behalf.
I was not alone in my pride or my fear.
The other Partisans felt them too, as did my brothers in the Janissaries, who knew that they might never see me again when I left for Topkapi Palace.
We were all proud of what we had become, but afraid of what it might ask of us in return.
After all, being a soldier meant more than marching and drilling and saluting your superiors.
Being a soldier meant fighting and bleeding and dying for your country, if that is what your country asked of you.
And being a soldier meant serving your Sultan with all your heart and soul, even when you didn’t believe in him or his cause.
After all, the Sultan was our master and our commander and our god on earth, and so his will was our will and his cause was our cause, even when it wasn’t.
For better or for worse, he was the one who had made us what we were and given us what we had and taken us away from those who loved us and needed us most, and so it was only fair that he should be the one to take us back in the end.
And so it was with heavy hearts that we said goodbye to the harem and all the things that were in it: the kitchens where the cooks made us warm meals and sweet treats; the gardens where the gardeners grew fruits and flowers in every color of the rainbow; the stables where the grooms kept our horses well-fed and watered; the training grounds where our teachers taught us how to be soldiers and Partisans; and the barracks where our brothers lived and slept and ate and worked when they were not on parade or on duty or on campaign.
