Reign of the Favored Women (25 page)

* * *

Nur Banu bought two or three promising new girls in an attempt to replace the Hungarian and to break the spell cast on her son by Safiye and Mitra. In a market inflated by demand of her own making, they must have cost her a small fortune. I know even a scullery maid I went to buy for my mistress cost over three hundred ghrush at the time. But so far, Nur Banu’s money had only been wasted, and with more girls than she could reasonably keep busy, their idleness got them into mischief. They were not maintaining a good name for themselves as is absolutely necessary if one would see the Sultan.

One day I happened to be passing through the newly reconstructed Black Eunuchs’ Quarters where I heard a most dreadful sound. It was someone crying out in pain, yet one gone so far beyond humanity that it took effort for me to consider it human and to go and see if I could be of some assistance. I shouldn’t have gone. Two burly blacks had a girl laid out cruciform while a third turned her bare white back into deep red furrows with a rod.

“By Allah, they will kill her,” I exclaimed to the first unoccupied khadim I met. The screams were all-permeating and our conversation was marked by severe distraction on both sides.

“By Allah’s will, not,” the man replied. “At least, not yet. Their orders are to give off as soon as she is unconscious. Then they must wait ‘til she rouses, then try again.”

Though all
khuddam
are called upon to administer discipline from time to time, it is rarely more than a few heavy blows to the soles of the feet. If the girl suffers the embarrassment of an ungraceful walk afterwards, that soon passes. But blows to the back mean her career is ruined. The Sultan will never put his arms about scars, no matter how pretty the face.

“What can be wrong,” I asked, “that calls for Nur Banu’s destruction of her own property?”

“It’s not Nur Banu’s slave,” I was told, “but Safiye’s.”

“Ah. But would she destroy every girl Safiye buys so that none may come to the Sultan again? What a waste!”

“The charge is more serious than mere jealousy.”

“What’s that?”

“Witchcraft.”

The girl stopped screaming at that moment and my overtaut nerves leapt into the silence and onto that word like biting onto a cherry pit when one expects a smooth, well-cooked sauce.

Witchcraft. No more heinous crime can infest the soul of a harem than that.

“Murder and treason are less insidious.” I found my voice shawled in a whisper.

“Yes,” the man replied, “for in those cases the culprit is swiftly dispatched and that is the end of the business.”

“With this darkest of crimes, however, the witch herself may be unaware of what she has done.”

“What other explanation can there be for the Quince’s sad end?”

“Indeed.” I hadn’t considered that.

“If a woman of such intelligence can be turned mad, almost rabid—”

“This is true.”

And I couldn’t help but think of the assistant Fig, her reputed familiarity with the world of spirits. But what reason would the Fig have to harm her mentor?

“Confessions drawn under torture,” I suggested, “may only ever uncover a fraction of plots devised in the company of demons and jinn.”

“And who could say what are lies? All has to be taken as real.”

“But, my friend,” I suggested, “even death is no answer, no safeguard against the power to lurk from beyond the grave.”

“Indeed. And insubstantial spirit may haunt in silent talismans, in any dark corner, and under every flagstone.”

I felt suspicions rise from the very paving stones as I left the khadim to go about my business. There was the Fig, of course, but I seemed to be the only one who considered her.

Mitra’s blue eyes had made her suspect from the first day of her arrival. Safiye herself had taken to pinning a little mirror to her bodice so that the evil inherent in such eyes, even if inadvertent, might be reflected back again. It must be unnerving even—or especially—if a woman has no malice, to find her face reflected back off every soul she meets. But because she was still carrying royal blood, Mitra was immune from all but the most irrefutable of implications, and this Nur Banu never was able to extract, though she tried.

Safiye, as mother of Murad’s only children to date, shared this immunity. And in the end, it was only a few poor serving girls—some from Safiye’s suite, three who had waited on the Hungarian or the Quince, two Persians, and a Genoese, who, because of their origins, were suspected of setting their sympathies where they ought not to—only they ever felt the rod.

The Genoese and one of Safiye’s own girls were all who paid the supreme penalty: Tied in weighted sacks, they were rowed out into the Golden Horn one night and then pushed overboard. One could not pity them too greatly. By then the black eunuchs’ rod had wrecked such havoc on their limbs that they could never hope for more than a life of meanest drudgery.

After that, Murad, who had never seen full pregnancy before except as a child too young to remember, grew uneasy around Mitra and the swelling fruit of his own loins. He sometimes had her recite from behind a screen but without the magic of her eyes, the spell was somehow broken. He began to choose others for his bed, others his mother held out to him. By the time Mitra was delivered of a fine, healthy boy she called Mustafa—for some dear brother, perhaps, or her father, long dead—the Sultan had a new infatuation.

And witchcraft was allowed to sink for the time being into the dark and bottomless pit from which it had arisen.

I lose track of Murad’s infatuations now. One seemed much the same as the next, and as Safiye and Nur Banu were pretty well matched in determination and skill at choosing, the crown went first to one camp, then to the other. The only effect was to make the Sultan all the more defenseless before the onslaught.

What experience I have had with love—or, rather, I should keep to the word infatuation, for to use that other here is blasphemy—convinces me that there is indeed something of the dark powers in it. And time and again throughout the coming years the word
witchcraft
was heard, first from one side of the harem, then the other.

Some strange signs scratched on the post in the hall to the baths. A pile of decomposing bones and skin found in a corner. No more, and no real indication that accident rather than malice might have caused these things. No matter. The great black eunuch would bring out his rod again, like a shadow from the dead himself.

I never liked that khadim. The cutters would have done better had they left him a man and sent him to the front lines somewhere to defend the faith and put down heresy. He enjoyed his job too much.

Even if you profess no superstition yourself, an awful shiver must come to you when you hear the word
witchcraft
, once you’ve seen what it can do.

* * *

It was that same year that another kind of witchcraft made its presence felt in Constantinople. This was the effect, or so it was said, of Murad’s first words as Sultan: “I’m hungry.” There was famine in the land. The first year of his reign the harvests throughout Anatolia had been bad, and this year they failed altogether, with the drought spreading to both the northern coast of the Black Sea and into Europe.

Bread reached twenty aspers a loaf in the markets, and not everyone could pay. No one in Sokolli’s house went hungry, of course. I actually gained a little paunch as I fed more on rice and bread to thicken up the thin meat and vegetable stews. My master increased his gifts of charity to the mosques so they could feed more of the poor in their soup kitchens. As for the imperial palace, I suspect some there have forgotten there ever was a famine. Their bread remained as white as ever and the goats’ production of milk, whenever it dropped off, was augmented by greater flocks that fed on the Serai’s irrigated lawns.

It was one morning during this time that the Sultan was speaking to an Italian goldsmith about a new sweetmeat service he wished to commission. The tray would be a silver pond, the bowls lilies, and lapis lazuli, pearl and ruby dragonflies would perch on each spoon...

And how do I know of this meeting? I learned of it later, from the third man who was there, the interpreter, one Muslim, formerly Andrea Barbarigo, now dragoman to the imperial navy.

“Yes, your most sovereign majesty.” Andrea translated for the smith, keeping his eyes trained on the fastidious craftsman and averted from the sovereign. “The design will be the most beautiful thing I have ever been privileged to make in my career. Your majesty certainly has an artistic eye. It is my wish, however, that only the best materials be used—anything less and the toil and design will be wasted.”

“Yes, only the best,” Murad agreed. “What is the use of melting down a little on the side to line one’s own pocket if it isn’t the finest to begin with?” He signaled quickly to Muslim not to translate that part but said instead, with an unfeigned smile, “Of course. You shall have the best. The best in the world, and I am the Shadow of Allah.”

“That is my only concern.” The smith grew red with embarrassment as he suggested, “Perhaps it would be best to wait. I know there are many demands on your coffers at the moment, what with the famine and all.”

“We have a saying in Turkish,” Murad assured the man. “If prices were all equal, there would no longer remain such a thing as the best people.’ You shall have the materials you desire, and by the end of the week.”

When Muslim had translated that into Italian, the Sultan added, “What day is today? Sunday? Well, then the Divan should be sitting. Would you, my honored guest, like to see a little of the workings of the Islamic government?”

When the smith replied he would enjoy that very much, Murad said, “Come with me, then. And when we have seen this, you will not be concerned about your materials anymore.”

Murad conducted his guests through the twists and turns of the palace until he came to the foot of the stairs that led to the Eye of the Sultan. This was the grilled and curtained space that looked out over the Divan. From this hidden closet the Sultan could watch the court’s proceedings without its knowledge. Or he could not watch, as he chose. And everyone from minister to lowest waiter must behave as if he were there, just in case.

At the door to the Eye, a young, gangling eunuch, obviously a new fellow, was taken by surprise. The Sultan and his guests had already passed him by before the khadim recalled how to salaam a Padishah. And after he’d finally negotiated that, he tried desperately to make some sign of warning.

“Later,
khadim
, later,” the Sultan said, and led his guests up the stairs two at a time like a boy half his age. He flung open the second door at the top, then stopped short.

Muslim suddenly found himself doing something more than translating words. He had to interpret customs, and that was much more difficult.

“Good signore, I think perhaps we should leave his majesty and complete the arrangements for the casting of this project at another time.” Then in Turkish: “You’ll excuse us, majesty?”

The Sultan gave them a wave over his shoulder but no glance and Muslim hastily steered the goldsmith back down the stairs and into the courtyard by the shortest route. The yard was crowded for a day in the Divan. They would have to be content to watch the workings of government from this perspective. Muslim was glad the eunuch was a novice and more concerned with his own failings than in apprehending others’. He was also glad he had been the one just on the heels of the Sultan and that what was behind that door was his secret alone.

He had seen her. He’d known at once it was she. It could be no other. In pink and green, the colors of a peach tree in bloom. Her golden hair spun out across her shoulders and breast like a halo. With the cushions and rugs about her like the flower and bunting decorations of a holy day, she reminded him of the Madonna in the little chapel in his mother’s convent. He thought he might swoon from devotion before they reached fresh air.

And this next scene I owe to the green eyes of Ghazanfer Agha, who had been sitting in the Eye of the Sultan watching the Divan with his lady.

“Peace to you, master.” Safiye hardly wasted a moment on surprise before getting to her feet and making her obeisance.

“And to you, Safiye,” Murad returned.

“Forgive me. I was only watching the Divan today for a little diversion. I shall leave at once.”

“No, no. Stay. Sit down.”

Sit down quickly, please, the kapu aghasi read the Sultan’s thought. From the level of the floor where he continued to bow his huge bulk with difficulty, Ghazanfer saw Safiye was as tall as their common master was. The young prince may have found the woman’s height enticing once. No doubt it unnerved him now.

“My companions seem to have gone, Safiye,” the Sultan said aloud. “We shall watch the Divan together for a while.”

Murad seemed to curse himself silently. Why did he grow so red? He ran his fingers around the stifle of the sable collar that lay like a wet noose about his neck. After all this time, that she should have such an effect on him, Ghazanfer thought with renewed admiration for his lady.

Murad had had a string of girls young enough to be his daughters, and still none of them could move him like this.

Murad scratched his beard distractedly, perhaps painfully aware that grey had begun to invade it like mealworms in the paprika. Could it be that her appearance had a stronger effect on him than it had had that first evening? Ghazanfer had not been present, of course, that Id al-Adha, festival of the sacrifice, when Nur Banu’s gift to her son had been this prize, served up to him like pastries on a tray. But he could guess.

And, he guessed, there were other emotions mixed with the desire now, indeed, quite overcoming it. The Sultan knew that Safiye knew of his amours. She knew how weak he was, while all the time she sat there—so he thought—in perfect constancy. If the mere glance of her eyes were not enough to tell him she was faithful still, then there was Ghazanfer, Ghazanfer Agha settled like a bell jar over her on which was engraved the word
virtue
.