Free The Lake of Sorrows by Rovena Cumani, Thomas Hauge

it in a bag of salt. I want it preserved most carefully and put in a place of honor on the walls of my audience chamber, to remind me of a worthy foe.”
    He turned to face a small group of his fellow hunters that stood to one side, looking not quite pleased. “Dare I ask a selfless favor of you, my friends? Go to the palace and have them bring us some wine. Nay, make that lots of wine. You will miss this fine feast, but console yourself by ordering the palace kitchen to bring out its best for you.”
    The men, the half-dozen devout Muslims among the Pasha’s inner circle, smiled with relief, mounted rapidly and galloped off - almost colliding with Vajas the advisor, who came cantering up in the opposite direction.
    Alhi had already joined the remaining hunters. “As for us, we shall feast out here and toast the spirit of a grand enemy, while I eat his heart to win his courage!”
    Their delighted huzzahs were interrupted by Vajas’ voice, piping up behind them. “The French general Chambeaux’ adjutant has just arrived in Yannina, my Pasha and requests an audience.”
    “Damn you, Vajas, not
now!
Have you no eyes? I have brought down the finest boar of the season. We shall feast like men today. You, too!”
    Vajas froze. He had as little religion as his master, but, born and raised in a town, he had never acquired the Pasha’s love of hunting - or the savage feasting that was sure to follow when the Pasha had made a good kill.
    Nervously, he glanced at the servants, already rushing to build a fire, and at the Pasha now kneeling beside the boar with several grisly-looking knives at the ready. He weighed both in his hands, then chose the largest, and decapitated the boar with three swift, precise cuts.
    “I … I really think we should be getting back to the palace, my Pasha.” Vajas’ breakfast stirred uneasily within him, but he dared not look away from his master’s handiwork. “It is obvious that this emissary’s orders are to make your highness side with the French after the Campo-Formio agreement made by this hotspur, Bonaparte.” With a slash of the mighty knife, Alhi laid open the boar’s belly, and the sight of its entrails spilling out gave Vajas the courage to look determinedly at the horizon and press on with his recital like an anxious supplicant praying for deliverance. “Austria gave him everything they could find in Venice’s pockets — islands in the Ionian and waterfront towns in mainland Greece. We should consider how the replacement of the Venetians by the French will affect us, and — “
    Alhi gruffly cut him off. “Yes, yes, I have read your reports, Vajas. I am not one of those fool Pashas who keeps an advisor to be spared the burdens of thinking. But what we should consider is not a few islands in the Ionian sea or a few towns on its shores. We should look at the French themselves and ask us what they
want.
”
    Vajas swallowed, and swallowed again, as his Pasha groped inside the boar for its heart, carelessly ruining his fine deerskin gloves. The advisor’s voice was very thin when he answered. “The … the old France was even more weakened and decayed than the Ottoman empire, so they wanted the same as the Sultan, I think — to be left alone to enjoy the waning splendor while they could. But the new France keeps its generals ever-hungry for victory with the threat of their decapitating machines.”
    “The
guillotines.
” Alhi spoke the odd French word slowly and carefully. “Such a soft-sounding name for such a harsh creation.” He did not sound at all disapproving, though. “In my own plain words, Vajas, I see that France can transform those four towns around us to a serious threat of naval bases. To be used as a springboard. And
that
is the interesting question — a springboard to
where?
”
    Vajas nodded as un-vigorously as he could, his rebelling insides made him want to stand very still. “You are a far-sighted man, my Pasha. They have defeated all of Italy, so