“He seemed familiar to you?”
“At first, familiar yet strange. But now, in the dream, I am certain of it. In some miraculous way I cannot say—”
“But that it was the will of Allah.”
“Yes. In this case, I’ll join you, lady, in saving it was Allah’s will. By Allah’s merciful will, my dear friend Husayn has given up his luxurious life of trade and become a homeless mendicant.”
“It sounds to me as if his home is your constant aid. Abdullah, you are blessed indeed to have a friend like that.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
Truth to tell, at that moment, I had forgotten completely that there was ever any such thing as the secrets of Venetian glass.
I got to my feet and looked through the brilliant clarity of the afternoon wilderness about us, sensing I should be able to discover this dervish, my friend, Husayn, if only I looked hard enough. Like the mantle of Allah’s will. But this was only the hope of a swelling gratitude with no place to put itself. Because there was nothing left for us to do to find our way back to safety but set one foot in front of the other, I knew perfectly well that no dervish would be found.
LI
For the first time in my life, I truly appreciated the Turks’ addiction to baths, the hotter the better. I came to stand before my master and Prince Murad, clean, warm, fed, rested, and my arm doctored—yes, with comfrey and myrrh—to kill the heaviness of infection. I felt like a new man, quite literally.
At the end of one afternoon of miserable wandering, we had found a goatherd who’d given us directions, a bed, and cheese in return for a single pearl torn from Esmikhan’s dress. We got the better of that deal. At the end of two miserable days, his directions brought us to a scouting party of janissaries who, in turn, brought us to their leaders in Inönü.
But a bath washed all that misery away to no more than the cozy memory of thick, warm quilts, and crackling, warm braziers. I had the feeling of having been reborn, an exultation of immortality.
I felt so good that it was quite a shock to see how grim the faces of Sokolli Pasha and the prince were.
The girls had been given time to recover, too: baths, new clothes, sweet salves smelling of aloe and myrrh for their flea bites. Esmikhan wore her veils. They had been washed, but the hem of one was fraying: gone to our fire under the outcropping. Safiye had had to borrow veils to make herself presentable. Anyone who knew her could see that these drapes were of an older, more provincial style than she was used to. The prince could not raise his eyes to meet hers through them.
Safiye and I flanked the princess like an honor guard at this first and irregular meeting with her betrothed. But there was something even more irregular about the men we faced across Inonu’s divan. They were flanked by two others, big, burly creatures. Anyone in the palace knew enough to sidestep these monsters, not so much because of their size, though that was awesome enough, but because of the fact that they had no tongues. They committed private executions— and were trusted to tell no tales afterward.
As if he, too, showed only a tongueless cavern of a mouth when he yawned, Sokolli Pasha silently placed three instruments on the low table in front of him with his long, talon-like fingers. His face was firm with duty. Just such a mask he must have worn as he came upon Orhan with a burning poker before the man went crazy.
Two of the weapons were daggers. The third, the one in the middle exactly opposite Esmikhan, was a bowstring made of silk. Ottoman blood may never be spilt, whatever the crime. It must be strangled.
A long silence followed. Perhaps we were meant to defend ourselves in it. But Esmikhan simply bowed her head humbly under the silent weight. She was ashamed in front of her betrothed. And now she was quite convinced that what had happened to her in the brigand’s hut deserved death.
I, too, could think of nothing to say. My lady was innocent, but death would be easier to bear than the guilt she felt. As for Safiye, nothing could be said in her defense, but to blame her would be to condemn myself.
Safiye didn’t speak, either. At the time I thought it was because her very true guilt had caught up with her, and shamed her, for once, into holding her tongue. I know now it was because she didn’t realize any defense was required of her.
Sokolli Pasha swallowed and shifted his firm, thin face under the firmer, more pinched mask of his duty. He raised a hand and the mutes rocked with anticipation on their heels.
And then a groan escaped from Murad’s lips. One pale, pasty hand crossed over his eyes and smeared tears down across his cheeks. They seemed to wash away the little layer of healthy tan he had only recently acquired.
“Ten days,” he moaned. “Ten days we searched these hills for you, my angel, my most fair one, and knew not where to find you. What I have been through,” he choked, then recovered, “in those ten days.”
Safiye spoke lowly and her voice seemed to build the privacy of a bed between them. “But I am back with you now, my prince, my charm and my strength. Let us thank Allah and rejoice.”
“Rejoice! I shall go to my grave,” the prince choked again, “without you, my love. My death shall follow so quickly upon yours, my beautiful, beautiful, faithless one. My faithfulness shall pursue your faithlessness across all the vaults of
