A new instalment of the extraordinary and brutal story of the greatest Ottoman sultan reads like a thrilling novel. The Holy Roman Emperor might have something to say about that. Since coming to the throne 18 years earlier he has invaded Belgrade, Rhodes, much of Hungary, Baghdad and too many Mediterranean ports to mention.
He has conquered most of North Africa. True, there have been a few hitches โ he failed to capture Vienna in โ but still, as he sits on his golden perch in Istanbul, he is pretty much lord of all he surveys. Here, he takes the story on to the next phase as the swan-necked sultan sets about protecting his gains, doing-over his previous failures bits of Hungary need retaking and, most crucially, worrying about an heir. No wonder everyone is feeling on edge as the sultan tiptoes into battle-scarred middle age.
It also injects human agency into the kind of set pieces that so often bore โ those interminable sea battles, that labyrinthine diplomacy, the convoluted doings of a particularly twisty pope. Like Mantel, De Bellaigue delivers his story in a mashup of contemporary colloquialism and gorgeous descriptions. Information is. The sultan may sit on a solid golden throne, but the fragilities of the human body are never far from his calculations. He employs only deaf mutes as confidential secretaries to ensure that no secrets leak out.
His favoured courtiers are eunuchs, since they cannot breed themselves up into a dynasty of dissatisfaction: little boys are brought to the palace to have their penis and scrotum yanked off with a braided cord.
Elderly people are made to contribute too. There are, in addition, plenty of homegrown Cromwellians: men and the occasional woman from nowhere who have got to the top by making themselves useful. He started life as a pig-herder. Christopher de Bellaigue does something quite different here. Sticking closely to the written records, he deploys the skills of the novelist to bring the archive thrillingly to life.
