Fish out of water

July 1, 1548

Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey

You don’t need to ask what the neighbors were talking about at dinner that night. Two foreigners carried a rowboat through the cobblestone streets from the boathouse at Topkapi Palace to their little neighborhood across the street from Hagia Sophia. The neighborhood was nowhere near water.

“Mommy. Mommy. Those men have a boat,” Petrus overheard a puzzled little girl.

Soon all the neighbors stood on their door stoops shaking their heads as he and his associate André Thevet coaxed the craft through the front door of a little house and down to the basement. 

Petrus Gyllius was already fifty-five years old, but his balding head and thick white beard made him look even older. He wore a tunic, typical dress in the city; but his white skin and pointy nose made it obvious he wasn’t from Istanbul. In fact, Petrus was sent by the French King Francis, along with the King’s aide André Thevet, to Istanbul in search of old manuscripts. The collection in the French Royal Library of ancient manuscripts was considered anemic at best.

Tall, lean, and handsome Andre Thevet was only twenty-four years old at the time. A sharp contrast to Petrus Gyllius. The Thevet family designated Andre to become a Franciscan Priest before he was born. He grew up to have long curly black hair appropriate for a wandering soul. Andre had already traveled the New World and proved himself to be a good enough artist and writer to document his exploration to the delight of the more intrepid back home.

The Ottoman Arabs were again in control of Constantinople, which everyone there called Istanbul, and cared little about the fate of the old Greek and Roman manuscripts coveted by the French King. Petrus and Andre were in Istanbul because of the Franco-Ottoman Alliance: the deal was struck between Suleiman the Magnificent and King Francis more out of mutual admiration than protection. This was the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire, and Suleiman ruled over twenty-nine million subjects. He was the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the history of the world. Suleiman was the man who had everything. But the things Suleiman really liked were French. 

Gyllius and Andre were welcomed by the Suleiman’s Court and stayed in apartments next door to Topkapi Palace. By day they searched Constantinople for manuscripts. Gyllius also carefully sketched the hills of Constantinople, its ports, and landmarks. At night they partied with people they met at the Palace. In particular, Andre had become friends with the Sultan’s eldest son Mustafa, who was about the same age. Mustafa’s quarters were within the four hundred room harem that housed the Sultan’s family, consorts, and slaves. Eunuchs served the women, men outside the family were forbidden.  

Mustafa loved hearing stories of Andre’s travel adventures in Brazil, which he often shared over beers and English whores in bars in the European part of Istanbul. One night Andre even brought along the two baby caimans he’d brought back with him from his latest trip. Mustafa delighted in the reptiles’ scaly skin and sharp little teeth. Andre showed off his drawing of mature cayman in Brazil. The males grew to fifteen feet. Mustafa marveled at the potential of Andre’s little pet monsters. 

The three men were from different places, but their friendship wasn’t entirely surprising. They shared a wanderlust for foreign travel. As such, they had a fascination with topography. Gyllius was an excellent draftsman. And his skill went beyond maps into illustrating animals, shells, and birds. Gyllius was genuinely interested in everything, but his best renderings were of fish. 

One day Petrus ran into a ten-year-old boy carrying a nice fish on a line walking toward Hagia Sophia. It seemed strange as they were nowhere near water, and here the boy was carrying a fish almost as big as himself. 

“What are you doing with such a nice fish?” Gyllius inquired of the boy. 

“I’m taking it to my aunt’s house. Mother says we have enough.” 

‘You are a very fortunate family to have all the fish you can eat,” Petrus said. “Where did you catch them?”

“In our basement,” the boy answered casually, glancing to his house across the street. 

“The basement? Of your house?” Petrus was mystified.

“Yes,” the boy answered. 

Petrus Gyllius helped the boy take the fish to his Aunt’s house, then returned with the boy, hoping to see a land-locked basement where one could catch fish. 

The boy’s mother was happy to oblige. They walked down into the basement. There was a hole in the foundation between the boards. Gyllius lay on his stomach and put his head into the hole. All he could see was an empty black space. There was no sound. But it was oddly humid. He walked outside quickly and found a small stone, returned, and dropped it through the hole.

“One,” before he could count out two seconds there was a distinct splash. Petrus was astonished. 

“In fact,” the boy's mother assured Gyllius, “this is where we get our water to drink!” She lowered a bucket into the gap on a rope and pulled it back up full of fresh, crystal clear water. It was a hot day, and they all three enjoyed a refreshing cup. This basement had everything Petrus Gyllius was interested in: fish, water, and topography. He was immediately determined to solve the mystery of the fish in the basement. 

From the beginning, Gyllius knew this story ended with him putting a boat into the water and exploring whatever was down there. Where to begin was much less clear. He and Andre questioned as many of the neighbors as they could about the water, and several were getting theirs the same way. But no one knew where it came from. They couldn’t get a clear sense of the breadth of the water from the location of the houses that could access it. They asked their friend Mustafa if he knew anything about a lake beneath the city, and he, in turn, asked the Grand Vizier. No one knew anything about it. 

Before he was willing to go down into the water, Gyllius wanted to make sure the air was safe. He purchased two caged mice at the Grand Bazaar. It took quite a bit of cajoling, but eventually, they convinced the Lady of the House to allow them to take the mice to the basement. They lowered them down on a rope into the floor of the house. The next day he and Andre returned and lifted them up. The mice were alive and well. 

The only thing they needed now was a boat. Here Mustafa proved to be a perfect connection. He spoke with the boat master at Topkapi. The Palace maintained several small boats for the royal family’s enjoyment on the Bosporus. Mustafa ordered the boat master to loan the smallest one to his friends. Andre and Petrus picked the boat up with their arms, raised it over their heads, and marched around Topkapi and across Hagia Sophia to the house with the peculiar basement. 

Once inside they tipped the boat on its side. It narrowly fit down the stairs. They had to enlarge the hole in the floor by stripping out the board, but they were ultimately able to push the boat in nose-first. As they lowered it down, they felt the weight lessen as the tip of the boat hit the water. A few more feet and the boat was floating. 

The next day Gyllius and Andre returned to the house with two thick ropes, a compass, depth line, notebook, charcoal pencils, two candles with matches, two torches, and trigonometry scales. The ropes were heavy enough to lower them into the boat. The depth line had a colored fabric woven into it every five feet. They had a chart showing the color at various depths up to fifty feet. The compass and scales were for measurement. The candles and torches were to be able to see; they assumed there would be no natural light, even in the daytime. 

They tied the ropes to beams in the basement and lowered themselves into the floor. Five feet down Gyllius knew immediately what this was. It was dark, but not pitch black. He could see several classical marble columns to his right and left, and a vaulted ceiling above. He’d seen this design several times in Italy. They were in an old Roman cistern. Mehmed conquered Constantinople from the Romans. At some point over the next hundred years, the Ottomans must have abandoned the Cisterns and built different water supply for the City. Instead of learning and assimilating the best things from the Romans, they’d forgotten all about them, Petrus thought. Now that he knew what it was, the only issue left for Gyllius was to measure the cistern. 

They lit a candle and looked around. There was enough light to show several feet of columns. Even in this small sample, they could see Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian examples. Since their cisterns were underground, the Romans typically scavenged columns from whatever they could find nearby, as no one would routinely see them. So, it wasn’t surprising to see such a mixed presentation. 

They lit a second candle and lowered the depth line. The rock tied to the end quickly hit bottom. The green marker, corresponding to fifteen feet, was right at the surface. The water was fifteen feet deep. Gyllius looked up and the roof was dark. They lit both torches to see better. 

The light bounced between classical Roman columns as far as his eyes could see. The roof was made from arched vaults. Each vault was supported by four columns. The magnitude of the room took his breath away. Petrus paused for a moment and looked around without moving to soak in the beauty. He and Andre had discovered an ancient, forgotten space that was as beautiful as any roman Temple. And it was underground and underwater where their four were the only human eyes to see it in a hundred years. 

Gyllius knew that Romans used arches to support the weight. In this case, the arched roof supported the weight of the earth above. He estimated the roof was 15 feet above the boat, making the absolute height of the cistern thirty feet. The columns supporting the roof were connected by boards which no doubt provided horizontal support. The boards formed lines through the giant room, separated by the column width of about four feet. In the middle of the room, the distance between the column was double, creating a lane down the middle of the Cistern. 

The two men smiled and laughed with one another. Andre opened his tunic and removed a flask. He took a swallow and offered it to Gyllius. Although he normally didn’t imbibe, even Petrus accepted took a large swallow in good fellowship. He stared at the arched roof in admiration and delight.  

After a few minutes the explorers went back to work. Andre pulled up the depth line and they tied it to a column near the wall. They found a corridor between the columns and Gyllius rowed the boat to the other side. When they ran out of line they marked their position, went back and untied the rope, and retied it to the new location. In this manner they were able to measure the width of the cistern at two hundred and twelve feet. Andre held the torches in the front and back of the boat, and they measured the angle to the far wall. Using the tangent, they estimated the length of the cistern at four hundred fifty-three feet. 

On the long walls there was a ledge built twenty feet up. It was three feet wide. It appeared to be access to the room in case there was a need for repair. 

They rowed the boat back to the entrance, tied the boat to a column, and climbed up the ropes to the basement. Gyllius was elated. He and Andre hurried back to the Palace to tell Mustafa what they’d found. 

Topkapi Palace is divided into four courtyards. The main entrance --- two pointed spires of the Gate of Greeting--- open into the Second Court. The Second Court is lined by the kitchens on the right, and the Tower of Justice on the left. For all practical purposes, the Second Court is a large grassy park that is separated from the Third Court by the Gate of Felicity.  

As recognized guests of the Court, Petrus and Andre only needed a nod to pass the guards under the giant spires of the Gate of Greeting. They hurried through the Second Court, and headed to the left, toward the Tower of Justice. The Imperial Council was in session, and the Grand Vizier was lecturing a group of men on suppressing resistance in order to collect taxes in the far territories.  

The Grand Vizier was the second most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire after the Sultan himself. Over the generations some Sultans proved more adept than others at managerial duties. The Grand Vizier was in charge of the day-to-day operations. When things went well the Grand Vizier could count on power and wealth for himself and his family. When things went poorly, it would be his head instead of the Sultan on the gate. 

Petrus recognized a Janissary he knew at the edge of the meeting. In order to ensure troops loyal to the Sultan, the Janissaries were collected as little boys from Christian villages. They were taken from their families, converted to Islam, and the best and brightest trained to serve the Sultan in the Army. Like the Harem, the practice was clearly counter to Islamic law. But the Sultan was Allah’s representative on Earth, so no one dared talk about these kinds of inconsistencies. 

“Good day, Sir,” he said in his best Turkish. 

The soldier nodded.  

“Have you by chance seen prince Mustafa?” Petrus asked. 

The man nodded. “He was here earlier. I think he went to the Third Court, or he may be by the Gate of Felicity.”  

“Thank you,” Petrus offered. Then he and Andre walked across the second court. They approached the guard at the Gate of Felicity. 

“We’re here to see Mustafa,” Petrus announced. 

“He’s right inside. Wait here. You cannot enter today.” 

Petrus was excited, as he knew they likely restricted entrance because the Sultan himself was in the Third Court. He tried to look through the Gate to catch a glimpse of the Sultan. He’s been a guest of the Court for almost a year and really had not seen the Sultan since he was presented with a letter from the King of France when he and Andre first arrived. A few minutes later Mustafa appeared. He stood in front of the gate, a few feet from the Guard. 

“Mustafa!” Andre greeted him. 

“Gentlemen,” Mustafa welcomed them warmly. “Well, what’s the news? Where was the fish coming from?” 

 “Mustafa, it was the most incredible thing I’ve seen in my life,” Petrus began. We lowered the boat through the floor, at first it was pitch dark, but when we lit the torches...” 

“It’s a Roman Cistern!” Andre blurted out. 

“A what?” Mustafa asked. 

“A cistern. It looked like a temple, with hundreds of marble columns, and arches in the ceiling, but it holds water,” Petrus explained. 

“Wow!” he said.  

“There's one right here, as well,” the guard added from behind Mustafa. He looked over his shoulder, slightly annoyed the guard had dared listen in on their conversation. 

“There’s a cistern right here?” Mustafa clarified. 

The guard walked out from his post and pointed to a grate in the ground. See, through there,” he said. “There’s water flowing. We lifted the grate one day, and we could see columns underground as far as we could see. It used to be the drinking water for the Palace.” 

“That’s incredible,” Andre said. “The two cisterns probably connect somewhere underground, near Hagia Sophia.” 

“We must celebrate,” Mustafa declared. “You gentlemen have solved the mystery.” 

“Yes, we must!” Andre wholeheartedly agreed.  

Mustafa had many fine features as a man, but to Petrus and Andre, the finest was that the Sultan’s son always paid. They asked to join and were predictably invited. 

The three men entered a nearby tavern and sat in the back. The man at the bar knew it would be a good night when he saw Mustafa. He sent his boy upstairs to fetch some women. In the meantime, the three men sat down and made themselves comfortable. The barman filled the glasses in front of them with ale, and the first of many rounds was poured. 

“So, what really brings you two to Istanbul?” asked Mustafa. 

“We came to meet you, you handsome devil,” Andre said. The three of them laughed and clinked their glasses before drinking again. 

“Our King Francis is a learned man. And learned men have libraries. And libraries have books. The older the better. He’s sent us here to find as many of the old manuscripts as we are able.” 

“From the Greek? The Romans? Who gives a shit about those?” asked Mustafa. 

“Exactly,” Petrus proclaimed. “To you Arabs, those old papers are for starting fires. To us, they’re treasures. So, we hope to find some treasure, and pay you shit for it.” 

“Why not!” agreed Mustafa, and they toasted again. “So, you are Christians? Both of you?” Mustafa asked. 

“Yes. We are both French Roman Catholics. Petrus here is a trained priest,” Andre informed him. “This is the church in which we were raised.” 

“And educated?” asked Mustafa. 

“And educated,” Andre affirmed. 

“So, you don’t believe in Muhammad? In the Koran?” Nearly everyone Mustafa knew was a Muslim. Of course, he knew about Christians, but that didn’t mean he understood them. 

“Brother, no offense, but…” 

“Brother, none taken!” Mustafa declared. “You are among my first Christians. I do not quarrel with you. I am trying only to understand.” 

“That’s a relief,” said Petrus. 

“Yes!” agreed Andre. “We are Christians. We believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.” 

“Well, that’s not all,” Petrus said and put out his mug for yet another cup of ale. 

“That’s not all?” Mustafa asked, quizzically. “Isn’t that enough?” 

“That’s most of it,” said Andre, looking at Petrus. 

“But it’s not all?” Mustafa persisted. 

“Well, we are Gnostics as well” Peter disclosed. 

“Gnostics?” asked Mustafa. 

“Gnostics. We are Christians, but we have other beliefs as well” said Andre. 

“Such as?” asked Mustafa. 

“Such as we believe that Jesus was not the only Messiah. He was one of two,” said Andre. 

“One man-God is not enough for you? And who was the other?” asked Mustafa. 

“John,” said Peter. 

“The Apostle or the Baptist?” asked Mustafa. 

“You know John the Apostle?” said Peter. 

“Of course!” replied Mustafa. “But I know the Baptist even better. He is in the Quran. He is one of our Prophets, too.” 

“Well, we Gnostics have promoted him,” said Andre with a smile. “To us he’s also a Messiah. In our tradition, Jesus was the Messiah from the line of Kings and John the Messiah from the priests.” 

“To John!” said Mustafa, lifting his glass, “and all the priests” he added, looking at Petrus. They emptied their glasses, and the bartender hurried toward them with another bottle. 

Several ladies now walked down the stairs and joined the group. When Mehmed conquered Constantinople one hundred years earlier in 1453 the Muslims arrested the prostitutes. Over the Century the authorities looked the other way for girls who were not Arabs, or Muslims in particular. This tavern was also in the European side of the city, which always had looser morals. One of the girls was a redhead, the other two brunettes. 

All three girls were British and came to Constantinople the same way. A Turkish man who appeared to be very rich came to their farming village in England, quickly courted and married them. The girls’ fathers would plow their fields, and their mothers work in the house, thinking of how lucky their daughter was to be living a life of luxury in an Ottoman Palace far away from where they would never see them again. It was probably for the best that those parents would never know what really happened to their daughters. 

A few schools in England were now allowing girls to sit in classrooms with the boys and get an education. There would be no proper education for these girls. They didn’t have an opportunity to learn to read, but they had lots of chances to get pregnant. The tavern had three stories. The first was the bar, the second bedroom for customers, and the third was where the girls lived. Two were still upstairs. One with child, the other rocking her baby to sleep. Some of the gentlemen preferred breasts swollen with milk. So the ladies took turns caring for the babies, to allow the new mothers to go downstairs and earn tips. 

A buxom redhead walked directly in front of Mustafa and pulled the right shoulder of her dress down. With her left hand, she reached in her dress, and pulled her breast out, revealing it to the group. Mustafa’s eyes widened at a sight he had enjoyed many times before. She then did the same thing with her left shoulder and shimmying her body to pull her dress down to her waist to expose her entire chest. The group of men verbally applauded, and she bowed, then sat down on Mustafa’s lap on his left side. He reached over and fondled her, whispering something in her ear Petrus could not hear. The other two ladies did the same maneuver, less dramatically, and sat bare-chested next to the other two men. 

Petrus looked at the girl next to him and said, “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m much too old for this type of attention.” She smiled, kissed him on the cheek, stood, and giggled as she settled down on Mustafa’s right side. He smiled even bigger and put his arm around her, too. The redhead on Mustafa’s left must have been jealous because she reached up, turned his head toward her, and put her nipple in his mouth. The men all laughed. 

With Mustafa and Andre distracted by the girls, Peter pulled his pad and pencil out of his pocket and continued working on his most recent fish illustration. The Lufer he was drawing was essentially a bluefish the Turks loved in sandwiches. Peter worked with his charcoal to replicate the scales, and texture to recreate the oily feel of the fish in charcoal on paper. 

As the men settled down with the girls they continued to drink and soon resumed their conversation. “And when will these Messiahs of yours be coming back?” Mustafa asked. 

“We don’t know for sure,” Peter said seriously, looking up from his drawing. “We do know they run late. We expected them 1400 years ago.” They all burst out drunk laughing. 

“Fourteen hundred years late, are they?” Mustafa called out. The girls drank quickly from the cups they were brought now as well as the men were distracted. 

“What about a world war? I heard your Messiah requires an apocalypse before he comes back?” asked Mustafa. 

“Oh course,” said Andre. “Don’t they all?” The men laughed again. 

“Have you ever been to the Holy Land?” asked Mustafa to both of his companions. His tone grew more serious. 

“I have been across the great sea to Brazil, but not to our own holy land,” said Andre, sadly. 

“Do you mean Mecca or Jerusalem?” asked Peter. 

“Well, I assume your Holy City is Jerusalem. So, Jerusalem.” 

“Not yet,” said Peter. “But someday, I will. Someday,” he lamented. 

“Have you considered joining our Ottoman Army?” Mustafa asked. 

“I have indeed,” Peter said. 

“As long as the Knights of Templar continue to defend the roads to Jerusalem, Ottoman soldiers will be dispatched to fight them” Mustafa added. “I went as a boy with my father. Before he was Sultan. It was the best time of my life.” 

“Did you see a Knight?” asked Andre. 

“Of Templar? A Knight of Templar?” 

“Yes.” 

“I did. I saw a giant of a man, clad in male, with a white tunic with a red cross on the outside. He wore a steel helmet. And he had a sword as long as a horse.” 

“What happened?” 

“We killed him,” Mustafa said lightly. “Don’t get me wrong, he was quite a man. He died a warrior.  But we had a guard of a hundred. I don’t know how many of our it took to take him down. But he died too.” 

“So much death,” said Petrus. 

“Well, if you want to see the Holy Land, the Army is your ticket. What are you drawing, soldier?” he laughed as he said it. 

“The Lufer,” Peter said as he held up his illustration. 

“You’re drawing my lunch!” Mustafa called out. Andre smiled. “To lunch,” Petrus said. The three laughed in good fellowship and raised their glasses. “To the Lufer!” Andre added, and they clinked their mugs to toast. 

Mustafa stood up, and two of the girls stood with him. “It’s getting late and I want to take these girls upstairs before we go,” he said, corralling them with his arms. He put his face in between the redhead’s breasts and shook it back and forth. He did the same to the brunette. The girls held his head as the other laughed happily. 

Mustafa turned to the third girl with Andre. “What about you? Are you coming, or staying here with this Frenchman?” 

The girl stood immediately and put her arm around Mustafa as well as she could. 

“Don’t worry, brother, I’ll take care of her for you,” Mustafa said as he lifted the skirt of one of the girls showing off her bare ass to the men in the bar. She squealed in embarrassment and reached for her skirt. Mustafa stood at her side and held her arms in front of her with one hand and swatted her plump buttocks with the other. The men in the bar laughed as the girl feigned embarrassment and ran up the stairs.

“He wouldn’t do that if she were a Muslim girl,” Peter said.

“Neither would she!” Andre declared.

They sat back down on their chairs. Andres took a big swallow of his ale. When his glass was empty, he picked up Mustafa’s.

“Are you crazy? Talking about John like that?” Peter asked. 

“Calm down, brother,” Andre said. “This isn’t Paris. There’s no Pope here. Jesus. John. These Muslims don’t give a shit what you call your Messiah. They didn’t even notice a Roman cistern beneath their basements! They have their Muhammad, and that’s all they want.” 

“And the Knights? How long will it be before they figure out we are supported by the Bank of Templar?” Peter asked. 

“Forever?” Andre said with a smile. “Calm down, brother! Put your Priest to bed. Try to enjoy yourself!” he said collapsing into the chair. “The King of France sent us here for a reason.” 

“Yes, and it wasn’t to be drunk and whoring around.” 

“Well, not just that, Andre winked. “We discovered that amazing place today. We must celebrate.” 

Maybe he’s right, Peter thought about the day’s discovery and the cistern. A few minutes later Mustafa came down the stairs still tying the drawstring around his waist and sat down next to the other two men. They sat in silence and good fellowship for a moment then Mustafa turned to Andre and said, “Do you still have your little crocodiles?” 

“The baby Cayman? From Brazil? Yes. But they’re growing rather quickly” Andre said, “soon they won’t be safe to handle.” 

“Hey,” Mustafa said to Andre, “you know what we should do? We should let them go in your cistern. They can grow to any size, and feed on the fish, and live in freedom.” 

“A great idea,” Andre said,” as he took another swallow of ale. “We’ll do it tomorrow.” He sat quietly for a moment, Peter guessed he was sorry to see his pets go, however impractical they were. “To freedom!” Andre called out as he stood and lifted his glass. Mustafa and Peter stood and toasted with him. The men threw their glasses to the ground and stumbled out of the tavern together.