The Quince answered the thanks with a snort and looked away. Sofia couldn’t tell whether that snort meant, “I’m only doing what any fool should have known to do for herself,” or “Don’t mention it. I’m only doing my job.”
Faridah gave no translation for the snort. The midwife took the gratitude as an invitation to say more which, in any case, she needed no encouragement to do. If the little charwoman could hardly keep up with the transfer of words, that didn’t matter, either. Over many years, Sofia would come to have the Quince’s lectures memorized. Health was a subject the harem never tired of and the midwife never tired of exhorting in that direction, even when her hands were not needed.
“It’s good to have new blood,” the Quince began. “We are always looking for new blood. You don’t know how difficult it is to provide the masters with bed partners sometimes, as no matter what schedule she’s on when she enters our realm, it doesn’t take too long before any girl’s cycle is drawn to coincide with that of our Valide Sultan.”
“Valide Sultan.” Sofia tried the word on her own tongue and found it as sweet as the honey in her tea. “Who is that?”
“Who is that? Only the most powerful woman in the empire. The most powerful woman in the world. The mother of the Sultan.”
“And who is that?”
“Technically, there is no Valide Sultan at present. Our master Suleiman the Lawgiver—Allah save him—he lost his mother long ago. Since the death of his beloved wife and the mother of his heir, Khurrem Sultan—Allah have mercy on her soul—the household has been divided. The Shadow of Allah’s daughter Mihrimah Sultan takes care of our lord’s most immediate needs. For the rest, we have only the mother of the son of the heir to be our head.”
“And who is that?”
“The woman whose four hundred ghrush bought you— Nur Banu Kadin.”
Sofia knew without being told that this was the name of the wonderful woman with the piercing eyes. Baffo’s daughter also looked carefully beyond the translator to the face of the midwife as she replied. The Quince doesn’t like the marvelous woman. The thought surprised the harem’s newest slave; she would not have thought it was possible to be in the presence of those eyes and not be impressed. Then she remembered how the midwife’s tongue had caressed the syllables “Khurrem Sultan” and decided maybe it was only a matter of missing a dead woman and the difficulties of accepting anyone else in her place. Still, the caution with which the charwoman hedged her translation spoke of looking to her own neck.
This was all very interesting, Sofia thought, and useful information to have from the very start. There was something more, something she couldn’t quite put words to. It had to do with the Quince. She didn’t have to listen to the midwife long to realize the midwife loved women and their bodies almost to distraction. To her, they were divine, perhaps the only sort of true divinity in creation. There was something, too, in the way the Quince had handled Sofia from the very start, that very first inspection in Nur Banu’s presence. Gentleness, reverence were sensations that came to mind. Sofia had sometimes felt the same from men, even from their eyes alone. From the best sort of men, the men she knew would be the easiest to manipulate although manipulation seemed absurd with this strong and self-possessed woman.
Whatever it was, Sofia would gladly hear treatises on women’s health all day long to glean such tidbits.
“Sometimes we’re even obliged to send some girls to other palaces,” the Quince continued. “To the New Palace just outside the city walls or even farther afield, to the summer palace in Edirne—just to get them on a different schedule so they can serve the master when everyone else cannot. The birth of a baby gives one the strength to set her own rhythm for a while. Change of life, a girl just starting out, these, too, can cause oddities. We did have such a struggle getting the young Princess Esmikhan Sultan on a regular schedule. Exposure to the full moon helped. Now she cycles with her mother to the day.
“A woman at her time is at the height of her powers.” Did the Quince even blush and turn away under what she thought was the cover of Faridah’s translation? “You don’t need to worry about this yet, but that is why she should not be with a man until she has visited the baths and washed holiness from herself afterward.”
An incomprehensible argument ensued between the two women at this point. The charwoman translated something about “gross impurity” and “the curse of Mother Hawa— Mother Eve” by which Sofia understood that not everyone in the East believed what the midwife’s study had led her to. Probably very few in fact did, else the timid charwoman would never have dared to contradict so. Clearly, if she’d a mind to feel sinful, Sofia would feel right at home here in the land of the Grand Turk. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go as far as the Quince finally got their go-between to urge her, either.
“This is your Sabbath, as men have imposed one holy day on us once a week according to their schedules, Friday in Islam, Saturday among the Jews, Sunday where you come from. You should not waste this holy time on everyday tasks, nor should you allow your attention to be broken by male concerns. You should experience all of your being exactly as it is, and concentrate on its messages. This is the way to health, in the body, in the mind, and in the world at large.” Sofia decided that, with the Quince’s aid toward ignoring what she couldn’t change about her physical
