Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky,

listener discretion advised.

On the 22nd of December, 1603, the Ottoman Imperial Council assembled for an ordinary administrative

meeting in the capital of Istanbul.

The Sultan's Grand Vizier, a man named Kasim Pasha, oversaw these regular meetings, directing

the official business and foreign policy of an empire which reigned as far as Mecca and

Algiers, Budapest and Cairo.

There was really no other imperial competitor putting up much of a threat.

The Habsburgs remained far to the north, the Safavids in Persia were kept in check for

now, and while there may have been a rebellion or two among the ranks of the Ottoman empires

peasant fighters, the imperial council had their own means of brutally, ruthlessly disbanding

them.

To the Grand Vizier, God seemed to cast his divine light upon the Ottomans.

Just as Kasim Pasha set the meeting in motion, a royal secretary from the inner courtyard

of the Tukapi palace burst into the room.

Still gasping for breath, all the servant could do was point toward the letter he was holding

in his hand, a letter that seemed to come from the Sultan himself.

Kasim Pasha snatched the letter from the servant's hands and began reading, but he could barely

make out any of the words.

Was this a joke?

Certainly not.

It had all of the markings of an official royal correspondence.

...