The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire (14 page)

“I don’t know about the men who are admitted to your harem.”

She whirled around to face him.

“Are you clean?” demanded the Sultaness. Ivan Postivich noticed beads of sweat on her pale forehead. “Tell me, Saffron, has the janissary been washed thoroughly?”

“Emerald performed the prescribed ablutions himself,” responded the Head Eunuch.

She sniffed the air. “There is an acrid odor of man about him that is foul. It pollutes my harem with its stench.”

“I can take him back to the hamam again, myself, Your Highness—”

“No, leave him here! I will endure his presence and disgusting odor. Light incense! Bring us mint tea to cleanse my throat. Sit, janissary.”

Ivan Postivich crossed his legs upon an enormous silk cushion.

“I have dreamt again and smell the rotting flesh,” she said, her white hands pressed against her cheeks, making a temple over her face. “Men’s jaws opening wide, exposing rotten yellow teeth that crumble as they scream to me, with no sound issuing from their stinking mouths.”

The Sultaness gasped as she covered her nose and mouth with a linen handkerchief scented with lavender oils. “Can you not smell it now, the vile odor of rot?”

Ivan Postivich sniffed the air, placing his hands on his hips. He drew an exaggerated breath, his great chest expanding. He smiled slowly as he exhaled.

“I smell nothing but the sweet feminine aromas of talc and jasmine. Perhaps a pot of musk. The warm smell of bathed women, hungry for a man between their thighs.”

“Your impertinence is astonishing,” said the Sultaness. Suddenly she gagged and crumpled her face into her fists. “I cannot abide a minute longer this hideous stench! Perform what Christian miracles you have done this past evening. Take away the demons, janissary, I command you!”

Ivan Postivich watched the Ottoman Princess in amazement. He relished this moment, to have the Sultan’s sister beg succor from one who had been taken as a slave as an innocent boy. A born Muslim, an Ottoman princess, pleading for the solace of confession, that holy ritual of Christianity.

“I perform no miracles and I am no longer a Christian. I was circumcised and converted quite thoroughly as a young boy, made to renounce my faith, my homeland, and my family. Last night, I merely sat here as I do now, listening to you, as a servant to an Ottoman princess. If there was a miracle to cure you, it was Allah’s gift, for I am not capable of the deed.”

The Sultaness removed her hands from her face and straightened her spine. She would show no further signs of weakness.

The Head Eunuch knocked and entered with two Circassian slaves, golden curls brought up into twisted braids atop their head, where crimson caps perched.

One served the tea with a flourish, pouring from a great height above the cup. The other presented a cup to the Sultaness, after first testing it for poison.

“No,” said the Sultaness, peevishly. “Serve my guest first.”

The surprised slave took the cup to the janissary, who examined her fair face with a man’s hungry eyes. He took the cup without ever looking at it.

“She pleases you,” said the Princess, observing his rapt attention.

“Of course,” said Postivich, his eyes still fastened on the beauty of her face and bare throat. “I am a man; how would I not be pleased with an attractive woman? Especially one without a yasmak to obscure her beauty.”

The slave blushed but showed her pleasure at the attentions bestowed upon her by the Sultaness’s honored guest with a dimpled smile.

“A veil is an invention of man to protect what he feels is his property. None of my slaves wear the yasmak; we show our faces to Allah without shame.”

The janissary could not keep his eyes off the girl.

“That is all, Leyla; you are dismissed for the evening,” snapped the Sultaness. “We must have our privacy.”

“Leyla means ‘black.’ Why do you call her that, when she is so fair?”

“ ‘Black and abundant as the night’ seemed to me a good way to name a blond Circassian. We enjoy our whims in the harem.”

Postivich shrugged. He did not understand women’s silly entertainments, nor did he care to discuss them. He only thought of the opportunity to lay his rough hands on the young woman’s creamy skin and ravish her. What they did in their leisure time was of no importance to him.

The Sultaness studied the janissary’s reaction. She combed her auburn hair with her jeweled fingers.

“I see your disdain so plainly, Ahmed Kadir. You despise me and you loathe the attention women receive in my palace, when you feel women are only on earth to please men. You are a fool.”

Ivan Postivich sipped his tea, looking deep into the cup. It was true—Esma Sultan toyed with her power, pretending women were equivalent of men. Her behavior was blasphemous and an affront to Allah, who decreed that man, in Mohammed’s words, was the protector sex of the women.

“What do you wish to tell me tonight, Sultaness?”

Esma Sultan looked at the fine porcelain teacup, contemplating. She slowly lifted her gaze to the janissary’s eyes, her own eyes tawny in the flickering candlelight. She licked her lips before she spoke.

“I will tell you a tale that will comfort me. A time of innocence and childhood.”

Ivan Postivich felt a sudden stab as a fleeting memory of his own short childhood raced through his head.

“I will tell you about a little girl, a long time ago in the harem. Her name was Sophie, and she was admitted to the Serail when I was about nine years of age.”

Then Esma Sultan looked about, as if surveying the room for spies. She clapped her hands and Saffron appeared.

“Secure the doors and open all the fountains. I want no one to overhear our conversation, Saffron.”

The Head Eunuch nodded deeply and backed away from the Sultaness, his head still inclined. Soon a plashing of fountains, both inside and outside the palace, could be heard.

“My tale is for you alone, Ahmed Kadir,” she said. “The Sultan’s ears are everywhere, especially in my palace.”

“Sophie could not speak Ottoman, or Arabic, or Persian, when she arrived, only a guttural tongue of the Northern Provinces. At first, I thought she could not speak at all, but could only utter nonsensical sounds of grief as she rubbed her knuckles into her green eyes to wipe away the tears.

“I judged her near my age, perhaps a few years younger. My mother explained that she was brought from lands far to the north in a trade to please my father, the Sultan. She was to remain under the supervision of my mother and receive the same education as a princess.

“She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

“ ‘You must be kind to her, Esma. But beware of becoming her dear friend. It will only sadden you.’

“I did not understand my mother’s words. I was greatly entertained at the thought that this yellow-haired girl would become my playmate and sleep in the same room as my mother and me. I sat next to her as she lay exhausted from tears and I stroked her golden head, murmuring Ottoman lullabies to soothe her fears.

“ ‘Don’t cry,
kucuk
,’ I said to her, for she was indeed smaller and younger than I.

“Though she could not understand a word of Ottoman, she raised her head and stared at me. I think she saw there was kindness in the harem and she would no longer be handled by the rough probing hands of her male captors, whose fingers touched her childish genitals to assure themselves she was a virgin and could be admitted to the sanctity of our harem.

“This was a time of innocence, when I did not understand the true purpose of a harem. It was a child’s paradise, where I was spoiled and pampered and indulged beyond all shame.

“Despite my mother’s admonitions, Sophie and I grew to be dear friends. She was more family to me than my cousin Hatice, sister of Selim. He was rumored to be the next Sultan after my father, and I relished the thought of my good, gentle cousin one day ruling the Empire. It seemed so distant a hope, though, for at that time, he was kept locked away in the Cage of Princes. We were only able to see him on feast days, and I looked forward to those opportunities to see him seated at the right of my father.

“But his sister Hatice was petulant and lazy. I much preferred the companionship of my new little blond sister.

“She escorted me everywhere, my Sophie, acting as my handmaiden, albeit a spirited one. The most cherished of our outings was in the security of the Imperial coaches, escorted by the eunuchs. We were allowed to watch through the perforated boards of the carriage the cirit and polo games where my brothers would ride against the Kapikulu.”

Esma Sultane smiled wearily at the janissary.

“That is where I first saw you, Corbaci, and your accomplished feats on horseback. You were the youngest of all the players, but the Horse Master thought you capable. I was one of the many Ottoman princesses peeking out from behind the heavy velvet curtains of the Imperial coaches, as young slaves fanned us with ostrich and peacock plumes in an attempt to cool the stifling heat. Outside the coach, we were flanked by dozens of Solak guards and two eunuchs were positioned against the carriage door.”

Ivan Postivich suddenly sat erect.

“You watched the matches?”

“Yes, cirit and polo were our favorite entertainment. There was nothing that could calm the soul of my dear companion like the sight, even the smell of horses. Though we were never allowed to leave the confines of the coach, she pressed her eyes and mouth against the grille of the laquered coach and drunk in the odor of the animals, intoxicating her with their scent.

“She cheered the Kapikulus faithfully, which infuriated me as it clearly was treason to favor anyone but the Ottoman court. Still, despite my berating, she thrust her small white fist in the air when your orta scored, and she talked incessantly about the horses and the riders’ skills for days after.

“It was the first time I ever heard her utter a word about a man, except in terror.

“I learned I could soothe her with legends about horses and so every night, I would have a new tale to tell to lull her to sleep. She preferred stories about
women, so I sought in our Topkapi libraries for stories of equestrian feats. I ordered my tutors to scour all Constantinople for accounts of women and horses to indulge my little friend. Books and parchments arrived as presents from Persia, Egypt, Afghanistan, from noblemen wanting to curry favor with the Sultan by satisfying the whim of his favorite child.

“I read Sophie tales from our great Turkish poet Dede Korkut. Sophie’s favorite was the story of the Prince Bamsi Beyrek, the son of Prince Bay Bure, who came to claim the hand of our dear Princess, Lady Chichek. But it was not the royalty who would capture her attention, as she begged me to skip over those parts. Instead she waited for me to arrive at the part about Princess Chichek’s handmaiden who challenged the prince to three duels: archery, wrestling, and horsemanship, before he had the honor of meeting the Princess.

“I would imagine the horse races and archery on horseback between the woman servant and the prince and Sophie would clap her hands in delight. The nameless servant held her reins in her teeth, commanding her horse entirely with her seat and legs as she threw the cirit jereed. It was not until the third competition that the woman finally met her shameful defeat, according to the poet—when wrestling, the prince seized her breast and pulled her under him, pinning her and winning the challenge.”

The janissary laughed, and then bit his lip to contain his mirth. Esma Sultan watched him, her eyebrow raising high into an arch.

“Sophie hated the ending of this tale, so I would repeat the parts where the handmaiden followed the creed of ancient Turks, devoting themselves to the cult of the horse. I wanted her to think well of the Turks, her captors. Only with the stories of the horse could I see her fear and hatred of us melt away.

“ ‘Of course, Sophie,’ I would say, ‘you know the ancient creed is that a Turk is born in a hut, lives in freedom, and dies on horseback on the prairie.’

“ ‘Freedom,’ she would whisper as she fell asleep against the cushions.

“Seeing how she reveled in the ancient legends of the horse, I ordered the eunuchs to find wooden carvings for her of horses in the Bazaar, so that she might play on the tiles of the Serail and lose her fear of men and her adopted homeland. Indeed as she played, a eunuch could finally approach her without instilling terror and she would simply dismiss him from her thoughts, her fingers playing dreamily on the smooth wooden replicas of her beloved horses.

“The ancient stories of Scheherazade clearly captured her attention. I told her the story about the two Sultan princes and a princess who were set adrift
on the river by their jealous aunts and how all three grew up to become skilled archers and equestrians. In the end it is the skill of the princess and her wisdom that saves her brothers’ lives and finally leads to joining their long lost parents at the palace.

“She adored the stories from ancient times when Turkish, Persian, and Arab women rode horses as warriors. I would list them on my fingers: Zenobia, wife of Odenath, the king of Palmyra, rode with her husband to battle against the Persians and the Goths. Zaydi chieftain Sharifa Fatima, daughter of an Imam, conquered San’a. The kings of Persia employed female bodyguards. The great poetess El-Khaansa, during the lifetime of Mohammed, laid down her quill and earned a reputation as a warrior. And the Prophet’s youngest wife, Aisha, rode in front of her army, screaming death cries as she descended into the field of battle.