The Three Turks - Chapter VI

Passing years completely separated three fellows. The flow of time placed them in three separate places: one deep in a bottomless well, one scarred and bleeding in the dungeon, and the last in the warmth of a house with a woman. Sipahi, who was as stubborn as a mule, had dug a hundred feet of solid rock, yet he still had a hundred feet to go. His back was deformed from carrying tons of rock, and his eyes resembled those of a mole from squeezing in the darkness underground, making him look like a brother of Quasimodo. Akinji, who was no less stubborn than Sipahi, was a living skeleton. The lord, enraged for not being able to tame the animal in his possession, kept Akinji alive solely to torture him. One of the lord's greatest disappointments had now become one of his best entertainments. Janissary, appointed as the new steward of the lord, was by far in the best condition among all three. Through the intervention of the church and the reference of the bishop, he was now a free (and loved) man in his new community. Even the lord, previously suspicious of him (and holding a grudge for his cunning that led to his liberation), appreciated his intelligence and held him dear. These three were alienated from each other. Akinji was already isolated, and no living soul (except the tormentor and the lord watching) could visit him. On the other hand, the other two only saw each other when the new steward checked on the tasks at hand. Their dialogue was limited to orders spoken by the steward and the slave's validation through nods or refusals with long, angry breaths. It was the only protest he could raise against the rule, as all his power was either spent or kept to be spent in the hole. A decade passed under the shadow of these routines until a new disturbance arose. Death was at the lord's doorstep, as he was much older at that time. Life became a new challenge for all three men. Akinji, already suffering in misery and barely holding onto life, finally passed away due to the intensifying torment of his master. The lord's physical pain could not be alleviated by herbs and medicines, but it was somewhat eased by inflicting the same pain on his pawn. As the lord's illness worsened, so did the demise of the chained man. Sipahi washed Akinji's body, covered him with the clothes he could find, and buried him in a small grave, as his body was a shadow of its former self due to poor nutrition. It was the only day Sipahi spent away from the well. In the following days, he worked even harder, surprising the local folk who never believed such a thing could be possible. His concern was for the lord's wife. As a noble from a long-standing house (and an aristocrat without the bourgeois tendencies of her husband), she despised the enslaved soldiers more than anyone else, starting from the very day they were introduced at court. She counted the days until the triumph when the men would be rid of. Her mourning dress, full of black roses, was knitted by herself with an eagerness and joy surpassing the time she tailored her wedding dress. Even the steward was concerned and rushed to earn as fast as he could, as against the love of all for him, there was only the lady who hated him. Her Iberian blood obliged her to disgust from that "converso." She would cleanse the Christian lands from the profane by the tongue of the flame when she would be in charge. As the day of "purification" drew closer, the Janissary paid a visit to his old friend. He offered him a way out: the man could join him and his family and seek asylum at the monastery only a few miles away. Sipahi refused the offer and, with his broken Turkish (which had soured from lack of use), told his friend that his way out was the way below. Confronting years of absence, sorrow, and weariness with his enduring stubbornness, the man understood that there was no benefit in insisting on the offer. He wished his friend the best and went on his way, never to see the digger again.