“Though why,” the Quince concluded, “I can’t say.” She passed her hand lovingly over the swollen belly of her angelica jar; angelica, to promote women’s courses. “I’ve always been much more partial to females myself.”
After this conversation with the midwife, I was completely at ease to have her in our house. I might have accepted Italy’s birthing-demons if I’d stayed in my homeland the rest of my life, never knowing any others. But I was much more skeptical when confronted with a new, different, conflicting demonology. The Quince’s unsentimental dashing of my secretly held hopes strengthened rather than diminished my trust in her. I liked her hard, no-nonsense view of the world and, while trusting souls to her might cause scruple, I had no problem about bodies, either my lady’s or my unborn little master’s.
It seemed clear that the sense of threat I’d gotten from her came rather from Safiye. And now that Baffo’s daughter was farsakh upon farsakh away—whether by land or by sea made no difference to those who stayed behind—the threat was gone, too.
***
From the first twinge of life she felt inside her, my lady loved that child of hers with a love women dream to find in husbands; later, thwarted there, in lovers, and most are lucky if they are content to find it in fairy tales. It was a passion that did not consume, or turn the possessor inward, but gave her a quiet, joyful strength and compassion for those in the rest of the world who were not blessed as she. So Esmikhan would not allow me to take the mirth in the episode of Safiye and the leaky ship I would have.
My lady’s joy and strength were like a sore thumb that seemed to catch on everything, and she took great, cautious steps to avoid injuring the weaknesses of others.
Her new, sublime compassion fell short of Madonna quality in this, however: it did not prove to be immortal.
Her babe, a boy, though he gave a healthy yell when he entered the world that midsummer, left it again within the hour.
At first I took comfort with the thought, Time will heal this. She is young. She is not the first mother to lose a child. With time, she will conceive again.
But instead, that time extended into a hellish eternity for Esmikhan Sultan, who conceived, bore, and then immediately lost another small son.
I knew nothing of birthing rooms. I only saw the tiny white bundles hastened off to the graveyard with hardly a wink from religious authority. I saw the Quince’s hard, grim look—in want of baking and sugar I thought. And I heard—helplessly—Esmikhan’s grief. My lady, though always patient and submissive to the will of Allah, could not come through this tragedy unmarked.
During this time, I almost came to believe in the malicious old jinn-hag who was said to haunt birthing rooms seeking to steal infants or their mothers. I heard some of the women speaking of this witch in hushed tones. And though Esmikhan wouldn’t let the hag’s name pass her lips at any time lest she call the jinni to her thereby, I could tell by her fearful glances to dark corners that she, too, believed.
But the Quince’s hard look did not believe. That’s life, was all I read there. And because she had forced me to accept my life, I accepted her word. Safiye, after all, was never anywhere near our tragedy.
Yet, there are days, midsummer days, when the sky over Constantinople is a thick, dusty, putrid yellow. Many such days I suffered when I was being unmanned. On just such a day my mistress’ first son was born and died. On such days, the city, usually so divine, shows her mortality like capers, growing in every crack.
PART II: SAFIYE
V
Safiye unfolded herself from the confines of the carriage and, though veils and wrappers still burdened her, she stretched her long limbs to rid them of the cramp. They’d just been visiting within the city. The cramp, she knew, was not so much from being cooped up with three other women in the velvet-lined box for the short ride as it was from seeing yet another winter pass. Yet another martial parade of tulips was splitting its green sheaths with vibrant color in the courtyard of the serai. Yet another winter had passed with the power she had sensed and craved upon first entering the marble harem beast still eluding her—or at least, not growing as quickly as she liked.
It was the end of winter in the year of Our Lord 1564 as the Christians tell the passage of time. Safiye was sixteen years old; she had been among the Turks now for a full eighth of that time, the oldest, most vigorous eighth.
Every passing day confirmed her understanding of the workings of this system into which she’d thrown her lot, her appreciation for the magnitude of power it could give her, outstripping anything she’d hoped for in Venice. But the heedless passage of time exaggerated her frustration at the slowness with which she could make that power hers.
Yes, she knew that paying calls, binding the highest-placed ladies to her with gifts and acts of graciousness was necessary. She exerted herself in this direction; there wasn’t a woman among the Turks now who wouldn’t take seriously her most offhanded comment. But how she wished to pierce the gauze of this veil, to reach—more importantly, to affect—the hard reality of the men’s world beyond!
How to do this? The tenseness in her limbs demanded some action, but her mind couldn’t name it. It was like sitting passive, immobile, for hours on end while a friend painted your hands with henna paste. Most Turkish women—perhaps because they’d experienced having their hands painted since they were children—were content with such endless waiting. Safiye thought
