Esmikhan could not smother a giggle at the wonderful brashness of the girl—woman, now—who held her hand. Safiye joined the giggle and the two scampered off as if there were years of virginity left in both of them.
***
Safiye and Esmikhan were still in the bath when, indeed, Murad did send.
“Tell him I am indisposed,” Safiye said and returned to her scrubbing.
The messenger was back just minutes later with a much more urgent appeal.
“I am indisposed,” she said again with fierce insistence and Esmikhan, giggling, joined her in splashing the messenger from the room for the safety of her silk robes.
Then the presents began to arrive.
Those who had clicked their tongues in pity were now put to dumb silence. At first they were only simple gifts: a basket of perfect peaches, a small inlaid box which, though very pretty, had seen some heavy use. Murad had not concerned himself with women before and had never bothered to lay in a store of appropriate trinkets as other men do, nor had he even thought what “appropriate” might be.
Soon, however, it was clear that he had sought out tutors, that his scouts were going farther and farther afield, with ever more money in their pouches. The silks that came, the jewels! Kutahiya had never seen the like before.
With these gifts, Safiye herself made gifts, binding carefully chosen women to her as only an unpaid debt can. Had Murad seen how little attachment his love fixed upon his lavish tokens, the despair would have devastated him.
Some few gifts only did Safiye keep and guard most jealously. These were the half dozen or so rather badly written poems that the prince had scribbled in his own hand. Safiye, of course, could not read them herself, but she was hard pressed to hide from Esmikhan—the only one she trusted to
act as her reader—the emotion they brought. Oh, yes, they were terribly bad. Even in just a few months, Safiye had been exposed to enough good Turkish love poetry at the frequent harem recitals to know bad copies when she heard them. She had always had a quick ear and discerning taste for her native Italian poets. But it was the very clumsy triteness of Murad’s attempts that made them so dear to her.
“Tell me what this word is,” she would ask of her friend who could read. And, “Where does it say that again?” trying, often succeeding, to find echoes of the way his hand had moved across her own flesh in the lines drawn out upon the paper.
“Thank you, Esmikhan.” She would excuse the girl when the latter, not Safiye herself, was obviously weary of the repetition.
Then Safiye would carefully fold the letter and push it into her bodice so as to keep it close to her heart and to prevent jealous hands from obtaining the wherewithal to work love-destroying spells. Still, neither bribes nor pleading turned Safiye from her resolve not to see him, no matter how flippant and impulsive her first enactment of it had seemed.
At the end of the week, Nur Banu could bear this unholy disruption of the peace and decorum of the harem no longer. She called the girl to her room with no one besides the Kislar Aga in attendance. The great white eunuch represented the physical hand of Nur Banu’s might. It was completely within her power to have him take any girl out and whip her—on the feet until she was lame forever or, less drastically, on her back or buttocks until she could neither sit, sleep, nor wear her fine silks for a month. Safiye imagined the temptation had more than once occurred to Nur Banu, but the older woman had so far resisted calling down such punishment. If her son, frustrated as he was, heard of it, she might lose all influence over him permanently. The eunuch, Safiye knew, was only there to lend silent force to the words her mistress would say.
Safiye was Nur Banu’s protégé, after all—her private property owned, body and soul, indeed, her creation from the very dust. Should the girl be surprised that Nur Banu could hardly control her rage when she was brought to her? But no matter how hard she tried to stand properly, her hands crossed on her breast, it was with a humility that was nothing but mockery.
“You thought you were so clever, my pretty little miss.” Nur Banu began with deepest sarcasm. “Toying with my son as if he were some scabby craftsman and you nothing but a cheap overnight whore. Well, you should know what I have just learned this morning. Murad has sent away his lovesick poets and his jewelers and called for his smoking companions once more. You played him one day too long, my girl, and within the week I shall sell you to the whoremonger who deserves such sluttishness.”
Safiye fell to her knees as if she’d been struck and ignored the look of delight that crossed Nur Banu’s face as she did so. Catching the gold-stitched hem of the older woman’s robe, she pleaded, “Please, believe me, lady, I thought only of his good. I meant only to help cure him. Please, please believe me. Let me go to him at once. I will satisfy him, if Allah may find favor with such a miserable creature as I am.”
Nur Banu smiled quietly, then told her eunuch to go tell the prince that, thanks to the persuasion of his ever-careful mother, the girl was coming.
Safiye was not deterred when she entered the mabein and saw that the danger had been grossly exaggerated. The prince had smoked a pipeful, that was all, to combat a gloomy depression, and he still found Safiye herself a much more welcome cure.
***
Nur Banu knew she was not the sole victor in this struggle. She knew her
