One in forty sons are taken. One in forty. Doesn’t sound like a lot, so you never think it’s going to be yours. Between the age of eight and fourteen, the empire selects boys from across their domain to work for them as administrators and acolytes. But mostly as janissaries. Elite soldiers; converted, trained, and fiercely loyal to the Sultan.
They say a janissary loses his mother that day. That any letters sent from him to her are not from son to mother but from a soldier to a distant foreigner. They take their names, their language, their religion. The mould them into an image of themselves. In that way, the blood tax is levied twice, as the son is taken, then killed, and replaced with a stranger.
Paddy Dobson
1st March 2023