The Sultan's Daughter (26 page)

In spite of her novel view of the game, Esmikhan was a good player. As the game wound down to her victory this time, however, she seemed to lose interest. Several times I left my “shah” open to death, “mot” (“Shahmot” is our checkmate), and she made some silly move instead, either on purpose, to draw the game and our time together, out, or because her mind was elsewhere. She spent a lot of time pretending to study the board, but in fact it was the fire within the brazier’s grate I saw reflected in her great brown eyes. If she wasn’t careful, she would let me win, and capture the little pawn called Esmikhan as well. “Esmikhan,” I warned her, reaching out to touch her hand—ivory like the board it rested on. “Lady?”

She was in the middle of turning to me with a sigh when a sound in the selamlik below brought us both to our feet.

“Whoever can that be?” she asked, and I read in her face a curious struggle between hope and despair as she thought,
My husband!

From the room where we sat, a window covered with a wooden lattice looked down into the main sitting room of the selamlik. It had been installed at Safiye’s suggestion. Safiye was convinced her friend would get on better with her husband if she took an interest in his affairs and overheard some of his meetings with diplomats and ambassadors. It certainly made Safiye a more frequent visitor in our home—when she was in town. But Esmikhan had no patience with such spying, and usually the window went unused. Now we both ran to it at once.

Mejnun, the gatekeeper, opened the door and ushered a total stranger into the room below. Mejnun called for Ali, who entered and asked what he could do for the man. The man did not speak, but showed the old slave a very small object.

“It’s my husband’s signet ring!” Esmikhan whispered and I knew she must be right, for both Mejnun and Ali set about removing the guest’s drenched and muddy wraps and making him at home.

He was a tall man, and broad. None of the width was superfluous, however. He must have been nearing thirty. Masses of dark, curly moustache had not a streak of gray. His turban must have once been white cotton, but it was now a little worse for the weather. The decorative peak in his headgear’s center had lost its shape and color, so one would be hard-pressed to call it silk and not some sort of black pudding. There was a jeweled clasp in his turban, too, in which a crest of black feathers could be stuck—a crest that had long ago blown away.

It was only when his mantle was removed that his trousers above the thigh showed their true, dry, clean color—violet—and we knew his turban peak must have originally been purple, too, a color which marked him as a
spahi-oghlan
, a member of the Sultan’s standing cavalry. Still we had no indication of rank, any more than that he had at some time or other been decorated for valor in action. A jeweled scimitar under a cloth-of-gold vest he refused to give up to the slaves—that completed the costume.

“He looks something like you, Abdullah,” Esmikhan mused.

“Yes,” I replied in a scoffing whisper. “If Allah ever willed me into a spahi uniform.”

“Go entertain him, Abdullah,” Esmikhan said.

“Me, Lady?”

“Yes, please. Those two slaves are such dolts, and you know that’s all the staff my husband left in the selamlik. A man with Sokolli Pasha’s signet ring deserves better than that. Ali will do nothing but bring him supper, and then leave him on his own while Mejnun will simply bow and stare. But you may talk intelligently to him, and make him feel truly welcome. You might also discover”—she finally came to the point—”why it is that he has come.”

Mejnun had bowed his way back to his post, and Ali had set a fire going in the brazier and brought water for the man to make his ablutions when I entered the room. I salaamed, introduced myself, and said that my mistress wished the stranger welcome. The man nodded his thanks to me, but politely did not glance towards the lattice which he could not fail to notice over our heads.

It was only then that I found some ease enough to notice what a truly stunning piece of man’s flesh he was. His eyes, though small and unassuming, were bright, and his jaw square and firm under several days’ growth of beard. He was quite tall, and of perfect and strong proportions, even for a spahi, who takes little thought but for exercise and athletics.

He moved, however, not with a swagger like many such soldiers, but with a cautious grace as if to say, “I like nothing better than to dance, to move, to run, to leap, but I will forbear in your presence because I know it is not polite to be so self-indulgent.”

Most remarkable of all was his smile. Thin, firm lips, they burst onto a perfect set of large, white teeth at the slightest provocation. Like
ataïf
, wedding pancakes, I thought, overstuffed with honey and sweet clotted cream—one had to move it quickly to one’s mouth lest the sweetness spill stickily all over. Even exhausted and on guard as I could tell our guest was, the natural set of his lips was up rather than straight across or down, and little creases at the corners, quite like dimples, told me that he grinned a lot in battle, too.

“Ferhad,” he said his name was, but he was very tight-lipped about it, as if he wished it were one syllable instead of two.

Ali brought warm tea, and then food, and the guest ate heartily—one might almost say ravenously, but he was too polite for that. On first impression he was careful not to let his exhaustion show lest it cause too great an imposition. I realized more and more clearly however that he had ridden long and hard before coming to rest in this place. I struck upon this detail and tried to use it to pry into conversation once his hunger was abated. He was washing his fingers in rosewater to finish, an act which did not seem at all incongruous to this soldier.

“Where did you come from today?” I asked. “Çorlu?”

“My horse came from there.” He smiled. “I myself left Sofija four days ago.”

“Sofija?” I said. “But that’s impossible. That’s more than three hundred old Roman miles as the crow flies.”

The spahi smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t bragging, only stating a fact, and I knew better than to doubt him further.

“You must be on extremely urgent business,” I commented.

The spahi smiled and shrugged again, but I got no more from him that night, for even as I sat there, he lay down on the divan and slept like a dead man.

When he woke the next evening, and had eaten quantities more, Esmikhan, who had refused to see any of her gossiping maids all the while he slept, sent me down to entertain him once again. I found him more relaxed and, if possible, more amiable. But he was not more communicative.

“You are, of course, welcome as our guest to stay as long as you wish,” I coaxed him. “But we are only a house full of old slaves and women. Surely the quarters of the spahis in the Grand Serai would be more entertaining for a young man such as yourself.”

Our guest smiled to show he forgave me my rudeness, but he said no more than, “Tell your women not to fear, my friend. Show them this ring if they are in doubt. They must recognize it.”

I nodded at the plain, large agate he showed me. Yes, we knew it.

“I can only say I come from their master and mine, and that the Grand Vizier and I are bearers of a heavy burden.”

Had I been listening closely, I might have guessed what his cryptic words meant, but we had to live together thus, dissatisfied, for nearly a month, before the truth was known.

The weather turned fair again, but not too hot to enjoy sitting in the garden in the afternoon. The roses, refreshed by the rain, bloomed their second bloom with a vigor I could not remember having seen in them before. Especially around my lady’s pavilion were they profuse, as if they grew without leaves at all, only buds and flowers, and they filled the air with their scent.

Ferhad passed much time in the gardens, strolling with an ease and a delight that hid whatever anxieties might be weighing on his mind. My lady, too, took pleasure in the open air and often at corresponding times, though of course there was a high wall between the gardens of the selamlik and those of the harem.

One particular afternoon when our guest had been with us over two weeks, I left my mistress alone in her pavilion playing her oud and singing a repertoire of rather melancholic songs while I had to see about some purchases Ali had made for the kitchen. I offered to send her a maid to keep her company, but she declined, saying I needn’t waken anyone from her afternoon nap on such an account; she was quite content to be alone. There are those who will say I was careless. Well, maybe so, but I certainly thought no harm.

Besides, who can struggle against the will of God?

When I reentered the garden, I remarked at once how beautiful my mistress’ song had become. I had not heard her sing so beautifully, nor yet so cheerfully, in a very long time. Like a lark ascending over the garden, I thought, and other birds would surely rise in answer.

I approached the pavilion silently so as not to disturb the song. It was I who was disturbed by the scene instead.

Esmikhan sat on her pillows in the pavilion. Dressed in pink and cloth-of-gold, so becoming with her dark hair and eyes, she looked like one prize rose among all the others. Her beauty did take me aback—a long acquaintance had made me forget that she could be striking when she chose—but there was something even more disturbing about the scene. There, standing among the roses, just behind and to the left of my mistress, stood the young Ferhad.

She knew he was there. She must have known he was there—why else the change in the spirit of her song, and the high color in her cheeks? And yet she pretended she did not know. Why? Because if she gave but the slightest indication of knowing, he would have to beg pardon and flee for his life, and she would have to throw a veil over her face, and flee in the opposite direction.

So the scene stood there, poised like a butterfly on the very point of a leaf that the slightest breeze would send fluttering away. So all stood breathless in that moment (and for how many endless moments before I came?), attempting to hold it suspended there forever.

But this cannot be,
my conscience soon caught up to my heart and said.
This is my responsibility, and eunuchs have died for allowing less.
Such destruction seemed a crime: men who think nothing of killing their fellow men are often moved to tears if they destroy a fragile butterfly. Still, it had to be done.

I kicked a pebble in the path, the young man vanished before I could blink an eye. We all took normal breath and spoke again, though the words seemed loud and harsh at first.

“How have you been?” I asked my lady tentatively. “Fine,” Esmikhan said. “Just fine,” as if it were a lie. I didn’t dare call her on it, but you may be certain I was twice the khadim after that, and I never let her out of my sight unless she was safe inside the harem.

My lady spent a lot of time over the next few days standing at the grille and looking down into the selamlik, even when Ferhad was not there. She called for no ladies, nor could I draw her to finish our chess game, or into a new book of poetry. Still, there is no harm done but a little palpitation of the heart, I thought. A little exercise in that direction might do Esmikhan good.
I control the doors between the worlds. We are still safe. Where there are no words, there can be but little love.
I found comfort and an excuse for apathy in such musings until one day when my mistress called me to her.

“Here, Abdullah,” she said, handing me a pink rose and a pale narcissus. “Would you be so kind as to take these flowers down to the selamlik and place them in a vase for me.” Then she added as a sort of apology, “I thought it might be more pleasant for our guest if he could have something new and bright to look at besides the same four empty walls.”

“Just the two?” I asked. “Surely he would be more flattered by an armful of roses. Let me send one of the girls to the garden to cut them for you. Or perhaps a whole dish of narcissus would be nice—one of those that you so carefully forced in gravel.”

“Perhaps,” she said, blushing, “another day. Today I would like just these two.”

I nodded and went to fulfill her wish, finding it odd, but certainly not amiss. Flowers were some diversion and one more innocent, I thought, than love poetry or long, sad songs. She was certainly not asking me to carry letters down to the selamlik, or anything else forbidden.

In the selamlik, I hunted for the fine Chinese vase in its usual place in the wall niche, but it wasn’t there. I was about to call for Ali to ask where it might be when I saw it already out—placed curiously on the top of a low wooden chest. There were flowers in it, too, and they seemed very fresh. They couldn’t have been cut any earlier than that very morning.

And it was a very curious bouquet altogether, not unattractive or slovenly, but very masculine. It consisted of really only one flower—an ox-eye daisy—which was flanked on one side by a leaf of a plane tree, and on the other by a sprig of cypress.

“Now I see,” I thought. “My mistress has taken pity on our guest’s poor hand at arranging flowers, and thought it only polite to send him others...”

But that thought hardly lived to take a breath before I knew it would not do, and condemned it, like some pre-Islamic father his unwanted girl-child, to the dust. In its place came, for no apparent reason, the lines of the Persian poet, so popular in the Turkish harems:

I cried so much that I heard

moaning and wailing from the cypresses.

They confided in me and said,

“0 that your heart could find peace with us,

For your beloved was flourishing, and so are we.

She was tall, and we are a hundred times taller.”

Often since I’d first heard that poem recited, I had listened for “moaning and wailing from the cypresses” as a wind passed, and often thought, like the poet, of my love who was tall and fair, but now no more. And, like the poet, I had sadly whispered back to the trees:

But what use are you to me

When it comes time for kisses?

So it was not strange that now, as I reached out to remove the cypress sprig from the vase, the lines should come to me again. What was strange was that I should also remember that the cypress, because it never loses its leaves like other trees, was often used by poets as a symbol of eternity.