Reign of the Favored Women (56 page)

“Can this be true? All of our lives...” I exclaimed aloud. “Are they nothing? Built on a horrible black deed like that, madness as great as that of the old Quince?”

“That’s what turned her mad in the end, not so much the drug to which she retreated for comfort when Safiye denied her love.”

“Allah, Allah,” I mourned. “Tiny, innocent babies.”

Ghazanfer did not understand all I had been thinking, but I had been silent long enough to make him guess he understood. He offered some word of sympathy which I was as yet too horror-stricken to accept with much grace.

“But Esmikhan was her best friend!” I protested.

“What does friendship mean to the Fair One before power?” he asked. “All her life she has confused the Sofia she was born to—that the Christians call wisdom—and Safiye—that the Muslims call fair. She has confused the virtues and in the confusion, perverted the power of each, supreme intelligence as well as supreme beauty.

“And ask yourself this: Why was Esmikhan Safiye’s best friend? Because she could be used. By Allah, don’t you see? She does the same thing to her own daughter.”

“Aysha?”

“Yes, Aysha. Aysha could not get a child from Ferhad Pasha when Esmikhan could?”

“By Allah, would Safiye really do such a thing? To her own grandchildren?”

“By Allah, she has already done it. And Aysha herself was spared when Ferhad died, spared to be passed on to Ibrahim Pasha. And the next Grand Vizier. And the next.”

“Nothing is sacred.”

“Nothing,” Ghazanfer agreed, “to her.”

I suddenly looked at the khadim and realized what he had been saying. “You knew about Ferhad then?”

“I knew.”

“Safiye knows?”

“Perhaps not. What I guessed—in this matter—I never told her.”

“That’s some blessing. I suppose I’m not as clever at these subterfuges as I tried to be.”

“You were a faithful guardian to your faithful women, that is what is most important. You have brought it to this peaceful, happy pass,” he said, gesturing towards another burst of laughter from within.

“Sofia Baffo,” I hissed.

Ghazanfer nodded. “Yes. She is the destruction of the heart of the harem, I fear, the very heart. This reign of the favored women is the end, mark my words, of the harem’s power. And with it goes the power of the Empire. The very thing Safiye seeks but cannot grasp—like the sunlight through these branches.”

He paused a moment and seemed to consider his next words. Perhaps he was only using the time to make certain we were alone and that Gul Ruh’s son was far off, well engrossed in his chanting.

“Aysha, Allah spare her, is but a simple girl who tries to do her mother’s will. One may well expect such a creature to be trampled in the fierceness of this press. Yet I myself will probably not be exempt from the coming purge. I who have, I hope to Allah, always tried to keep my wits about me, who understands the system so well from my good teachers in the torture chambers of the Seven Towers. I, who knew from the start that I was her creature altogether, that my life lay best in being but her right hand, silent, mute as the tongueless ones who pull the silken cord. I—I must bring the midwives to the lying in of virtuous women, knowing full well what they will do, and yet I say nothing. I must open the doors to poisoners, look the other way when the dagger strikes. Yes, I will tell you something else you probably didn’t know. The dervish that struck down your master—he, too, was in Safiye’s pay.”

“That I knew,” I said.

“You did?”

“At least in part. After all, it had been my consuming search for months after the death. Until one Night of Power. But then Mitra told me, poor girl, before she died.”

“Ah, yes. I see.”

“But by then, it didn’t seem so important after all. Revenge?” I shrugged.

Ghazanfer nodded. “You are most fortunate to be able to shrug off revenge.”

“But I have never understood why Sokolli had to die—Allah favor him. Nur Banu told my young lady it was to prevent her marriage to Abd ar-Rahman, but that never seemed reason enough.”

“No, that was but a small part of the reason.”

“Nur Banu was the one who, along with Uweis and Lala Mustafa Pasha, was most firmly against Sokolli. My master was powerful and, I would have thought, useful to Safiye in many ways against them.”

Ghazanfer shrugged. “Sokolli had come to the end of his usefulness. Particularly with the death of Michael Cantacuzenos the Greek.”

“No more than that?”

“No more. But as I was saying, about myself. I am her right hand, have been for years, and yet now even I see the knife lowering. I have been forced to take too many positions that have gangrened me. She knows it. I know it. She knows some day the infection will become too severe because she has fed it with too much wealth, too much power. I will be cut off, allowed not even a show of begging for mercy. When the day comes—and it comes soon—I will be better cut off. Better for her to come out whole and clean and strong one more time.

“Indeed, I can see this so well that I know just how it will be. I have seen so many of her victims, any one of them might have had my face. I think she will save the sword for me. A swift stroke, and I shall be faceless, anonymous. This body I take for granted, with which I served her with all of its strength—it will twitch once or twice while the janissaries cheer and the Sultan salutes them...by Allah, I’ve dreamed it so often, it’ll almost be a relief to have it happen once and for all, and then no more.”

There was sweat like a frontlet of pearls strung from every pore on his great, flat face. He continued, now in a quieter vein. “But I have another vision too. It is one of those we eunuchs hate to have, for it suggests to us that it is possible to gain our manhood back. Even for myself, who asked for the knife, that thought is sometimes so painful that I may go mad from it, like one who may scratch out his own eyes when they have offended his with too much horror...

“I asked for Mu’awiya the Red’s knife, yet in this dream I find myself in my lady’s room, alone, with her, at night. There is but a single lamp, burning low, and by its light, she smiles at me. Her hair is as golden as the burning oil, her skin like alabaster, like egg white, and spilt from the brown shell of her jacket open to her waist. Her smile broadens. She reaches for me. How she trusts me. How she longs for me...”

I made a sign that he should stop. Such a confession wasn’t necessary. It would be unendurable to both of us. But he was determined.

“No, let me continue,” he said. “Such was my dream all the first years in her service, and I, as you would, always stopped it at that point by force, by a quick plunge in ice-crusted waters, by twisting my own fingers so hard that the memory of the Seven Towers came back strong enough to turn my thoughts to other things.

“But these last few months, chased by the demons of that first dream—that of my own death—and by the revelations of the black goddess—I have no longer had the wall to stop this vision. And so I have seen how it continues.

“She reaches for me, trusting, longing...what she longs for neither of us knows. Or rather, we think we know, but we are fooled by the images of love the world has wanted us to believe all our lives. Slowly, as I touch the golden flame of her hair, I realize that she has had all the mere beastly copulation a woman could ask for. Yes, but it is love she seeks, love she ever sought when she sought power and wealth. It is a different kind of love than that the world will sell her for her golden hair and her golden coffers, however. It is a love that will finally, finally let her rest.

“As my hand runs down the alabaster of her body, gently begins to knead those breasts, I feel it so strongly beneath the coolness of her exterior. It is a heat that has all but consumed itself, a lamp that sputters and longs to be extinguished quickly and not be left to die a long drawn-out death of more and more the same. So I reach over her to the niche and catch the wick between two love-wet fingers. Then, while my hand is behind her head I reach in the darkness for one of the pillows. Gently, slowly, like a caress, I draw it up and over her face. I press down. I hold it there.

“And you know, she doesn’t struggle. Her hand is on my arm until the last and she doesn’t once sink her nails into me, as she could so easily do. Not even in pain do they clench me. But they continue to caress me as in gratitude, growing weaker and weaker until peace is hers at last.

“That is the love of a eunuch—that peace at last. Perhaps there is no greater love...Anyway, that is what I’ve dreamed. And every day, every hour, it seems more real...”

The light coming through the tree had gained a red tint now, as if the light of spirit had gained blood and needed only that elusive quality of flesh to make it material. Ghazanfer rose, wished me luck and blessings with my pilgrimage, and I returned the wish. Then he was gone; business in the belly of the palace called him. And suddenly I knew, too, that what had begun so long ago in a convent garden, a glimmer of lust for power, was about to be snuffed out.

I sat a long time beneath that tree, looking at the shapes of light upon the ground. Then I followed the branches up and saw how low and strong and inviting to climb are the limbs of a fig. Before I half knew what I was doing, I had answered that invitation and found myself seated in a crotch some five or six feet off the ground. It was not a climb such as I had once made many years before when rigging was my home and long robes only for old men’s ceremony. But I was well reminded of that day I first saw her, the convent garden, the golden hair wanton from her coif. The bawdy song she whistled came once more to my lips.

But instead of the little chapel and the refectory, through the trees, over the wall now I saw a street of weavers. And I saw they were making were the trappings for the pilgrims’ caravan, the heavy brocade for the two lead camels, the new black curtains broidered with gold for the Ka’ba. They worked furiously and their work was nearly finished. Soon it would be time for us to go. I gently touched the parchment now inside my robe.

I sat in the tree and remembered and thought. I thought about all Ghazanfer had told me and wondered what Allah’s—or God’s—will would be in all of this. I thought of that one mistake in trusting judgment that had so ruled all our lives. I wondered how often such things happen—perhaps every day—-and then I wondered if it really mattered in the end where there were truths and where lies. Other things were more important. Other things caused more joy and life.

Finally I turned all this wondering upon myself and said, “You lived your life convinced what the knife had done to you was the greatest of evils and that you could never recover from it and know joy. But was that a mistaken judgment after all? Was it mistaken, meant by God to be mistaken because otherwise you would have been too careless with those good times He did give you and always be waiting for the better?”

I thought some more and wondered until I heard a little voice from beneath me. “
Ustadh? Ustadh?
What are you doing up in that tree?” And the little boy laughed aloud.

I climbed down rather sheepishly, and to hide that sheepishness, I turned sternly to him and demanded to hear what he had been learning. He would not let me get the better of him here and recited most plainly:

“In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful:

Verily, man is insolent

Because he sees himself possessed of riches.

Verily, to your Lord is the return of all.

Adore and draw nigh to Allah...”

I poked him fondly in the belly (that belly that the grace of God had spared the midwife’s hand) and gave him the end of my sherbet and some more pistachios as a reward.

Then, as I took him by the hand and entered the house, I called him “Biricchino.” That was my special pet name for him. It is Italian. It is what my old nurse used to call me.

Agha—A term of respect meaning lord.

Akçe—A small Turkish coin.

Altena—In Venice, an upper-story patio or flat roof.

Awqaf—Plural of
waqf
, see below.

Baraka—Great holy power or blessing.

Chiaus—An imperial bodyguard.

Fatiha—The first and shortest Sura of the Koran, commonly used as a prayer.

Ghrush—A large Turkish coin.

Habibi—A term of endearment.

Haram—The Arabic root from which our word harem comes. It means many things, but in particular something forbidden and sacred.

Haremlik—Simply the Arabic
harem
, ending with the Turkish
lik
, or place, to make it parallel with
selamlik
.

Inshallah—”If Allah wills.”

Kadin—A lady, one who has borne the Sultan or his heir a son.

Kapu aghasi—A high position in the Ottoman government that included control of the sanctuaries in Mecca and Medina.

Khadim—Arabic for “servant,” used euphemistically in Turkish for “eunuch.”

Khuddam—Plural of khadim,
see above
.

Lufer—A fish that seasonally migrates between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Mabein—From the Arabic for “between”; a portion of a Turkish house between the haremlik and selamlik where a man may meet with his women without disturbing the rest of the harem.

Mashallah—An exclamation usually of wonder meaning “What Allah hath wrought!”

Medrese—An Islamic religious college.

Minhal—A camel litter.

Muderisler—Professor in a
medrese
.

Nikah—A betrothal ceremony where the marriage contract is drawn up.

Oda—A room or chamber, base of the English word
odalisque
.

Proveditore—A high official in the Venetian Republic, advisor to the commander of a military force.

Razzia—A raid.

Sandjak—A Turkish province. The word comes literally from the Turkish word for horsetail “standard” or “banner,” harking back to the Turks’ wild days on the steppes of Asia, which the sandjak bey would have carried before him.