brocade with a jeweled girdle.
“This yellow dress is more slimming to the hips-”
Her face took on a soft expression as she stood there with the gown in her hands, and she said, “Michael, tell me truly. Are you weary of your wife? Since you’ve taken to entertaining those new friends of yours you seem less close to me than you once were. Be honest with me. You’ve only to go to the cadi to be divorced from me. How should I force upon you the love your indifference has so often wounded?” She sobbed, and after a pause went on, “The love of women is a capricious thing and must ever be wooed afresh. It’s long since you brought me flowers or showed me any other attention. No, you push a purse into my hand and tell me to buy what I want, and this coldness has hurt me deeply. That’s why I have been so irritable-and perhaps that’s why I struck Alberto, who bears only good will to both of us. So you see it has all been your fault, Michael, and I cannot remember when last you took me in your arms and kissed me as a man kisses the woman he loves.”
Her wild and groundless accusations took my breath away, but shyly she drew near me and pressed her warm white body against me, saying, “Kiss me, Michael! You know you’re the only man I ever loved-the only man whose kisses really satisfy me. Perhaps in your eyes I seem old and worn out, and like all Moslems you desire a new and younger wife. But kiss me!”
I kissed her treacherous lips, and what ensued need not be told, for the wise man will guess and for the fool all explanations are vain. All I can say is that barely an hour later I went readily down to Alberto to beg his pardon on Giulia’s behalf because she had so exasperated him as to make him strike her. I asked him to overlook the hard words I had flung at him, and ended by giving him two ducats. Alberto listened without betraying by the flicker of an eyelid what he was thinking, but he took the money and confessed freely that his behavior had been most unbecoming. Peace reigned in the house once more. Giulia hid her somewhat weary eyes behind a thin veil and was rowed to the Seraglio. May a wiser man rebuke my blindness; I cannot. A man in love is always blind, be he the Sultan himself or the meanest of slaves, and it is easy for a landsman to be wise about a shipwreck. Let the clever man cast a glance at his own marriage before sneering at mine.
I was not the only blind man. Sultana Khurrem received Mustafa ben-Nakir in the presence of the Kislar-Aga and spoke with him first from behind the curtain; later she revealed to him her laughing face. When the cool Mustafa returned from the Seraglio he was like another being. He sped to me on winged feet. His eyes shone and his pale face glowed. The first things he asked of me were wine and roses, and with an autumn rose in his hand he said, “Ah, Michael! Either I’ve lost my understanding of character or we have been entirely mistaken in this woman. Roxelana is like the glow of morning. Her complexion is snow and roses, her laughter is silver, and to look into her eyes is to see a smiling heaven. No evil thought could lurk behind that white forehead. I’m out of my senses, Michael, and know not what to think of her or of myself. For Allah’s sake melt amber in wine, call musicians, sing to me, for devine poems are welling up in my heart and no one has lain under such a spell before.”
“Allah be gracious to you, dear Mustafa ben-Nakir!” I stammered at last. “Surely you cannot have fallen in love with that diabolical Russian!”
“How should I dare to lift my eyes to the gates of heaven? But no one can forbid me to drink wine mixed with amber, to scatter my verses to the winds, or to play upon a reed pipe in praise of Khurrem the beautiful.”
He wept tears of rapture while I surveyed him with distaste and said, “The Sultana is a shameless woman to flout custom and the law by unveiling her face and so leading you into temptation. How could the Kislar-Aga permit it? But tell me, did you speak to her of the Grand Vizier? And what did she say? That, after all, is the most important thing.”
Mustafa ben-Nakir dried his tears, and forgetting for once to polish his rose-colored nails he looked at me in wonder and said, “I don’t remember. I recall nothing of what we said, for I listened only to the music of her voice and her laughter until she unveiled her face. Then I was so bewitched that when she left me my head was like a blown egg. Compared with the miracle that has happened all else is indifferent to me.”
Giddy with wine he sprang up and began to dance, stamping rhythmically and joyously ringing the silver bells at his girdle. And as he danced he crooned love songs until I began to suspect he had been eating hashish. Yet his delirium infected me and filled me with an irresistible desire to laugh. I blended drops of fragrant ambergris in the wine and soon I seemed to see how destiny sped like a gazelle from the swiftest hunter, and mocked the vain pursuit.
At the beginning of winter the Sultan and the Grand Vizier returned with the army from the campaign in Hungary, after striking terror to the hearts of all Christendom and revealing the formidable might of the Ottoman Empire. For five days there were celebrations in the city and the nights were bright with bonfires. From the arsenal, colored fiery serpents sprang into the air, and burning oil was poured upon the waters until waves of fire rolled over the dark surface of the Golden Horn.
In this joyous tumult discord was drowned. The price of slaves dropped, the spahis found cheap labor for their farms, and the Sultan distributed lavish presents among his janissaries, so that harmony and peace prevailed. The people are ever willing to forgive the errors of princes, but upstarts come off less lightly. Nevertheless, Ibrahim was too proud to show how deeply he was hurt by certain stifled murmurs.
He would not allow himself to be blinded by his own proclamations of victory, or by the fireworks that he had commanded. From the steps of his palace he surveyed with a wry smile the crowds that filled the Atmeidan, and said, “War was inevitable, Michael el-Hakim. The Western menace has been removed and the time has come to set our faces to the East. Spread the news as widely as you can, and above all tell your remarkable wife, that she may bring it to the knowledge of Khurrem-sultana.”
Throughout the winter and spring Ibrahim had great need of my services. Besides an ambassador from King Ferdinand, there arrived also one from Venice to claim recompense for the service rendered us in Preveza Bay. The Venetian colony in Galata received their envoy with high honors. The Sultan, in token of his displeasure with the sea pashas, promoted the Young Moor to the command of four war galleys with which to blockade the port of Coron in Morea, recently captured by Doria. To show how lightly he valued Coron compared with Hungary, he sent thither battle-scarred old Jahja-pasha with five thousand janissaries and the curt command to decide for himself which he valued most: his own battered head or a horsehair switch at the top of Coron tower.
The Young Moor blockaded Coron from the sea, but in the summer Doria came cruising off the point with the united navies of the Pope and the Knights of St. John, meaning to break through to the fortress with provisions and powder. The sea pashas, enraged by the Sultan’s disfavor, followed the Moor with some seventy sail to Coron, where the young hero, crying on the name of the Prophet, bore down upon Doria and threw his supply ships into confusion, heedless of the guns cf the terrible carrack. For very shame the sea pashas were compelled to take a hand.
Doria now found himself forced into open battle, though his intention had been merely to run the blockade and then make of! at once. The Young Moor sank several transports while others were driven onto the rocks. Then he attacked the first of the Knights’ galleys, hove grapnels over her rail, and had already captured her by the time the sea pashas came to his support.
Amid the roar of cannon that echoed among the hills, amid the billowing, concealing smoke, the splintering of oars, and the yells of the combatants, the Young Moor showed the pashas how sea battles are fought. And these worthies in their fright forced their way in among Doria’s vessels to form a ring about the galleys of the Young Moor, whom they dragged forcibly from the deck of his prize. He was wounded in the head, arm, and side, but still he wept and cursed and cried to the devil for aid. After rowing aimlessly hither and thither and colliding with one another, the valiant pashas at last extricated themselves from the enemy and removed the Young Moor’s two remaining galleys to safety.
Doria, greatly startled by the unexpected belligerence of the sea pashas, did not attempt pursuit, but was content to land his supplies with all speed and stand away for home. The sea pashas Zey and Himeral at first could not believe in their glorious victory over the hitherto invincible Doria; then, in triumph, they hoisted all their flags and pennants and even unwound their turbans to stream them in the wind, amid the noise of trumpets, drums, and cymbals. The only flaw in their triumph was the unseemly behavior of the Young Moor, who with clenched fists and tears of indignation abused the pashas as cowards and traitors.
But who could long harbor resentment on so glad an evening? They freely forgave the stripling on the grounds that he was delirious from fever, and bound him to his cot lest he leap overboard.
Nevertheless the boy was cheered by Jahja-pasha who, having followed the course of the engagement from the shore, rowed over to the Moslem flagship that evening, bawling curses all the way until the most hardened sea janissaries turned pale. Once aboard, this doughty warrior, whose head was the stake in the game for Coron, seized
