Somewhat cautioned, Safiye said, “Beg pardon, madam.” The humble inclination of her head was not too much to ask. Newly confident in her own purpose, Baffo’s daughter could afford to give this consolation to her rival. “Forgive me, but I’m afraid I did not attend your words.”
Nur Banu snorted with sharp disdain, her obsidian eyes flashed. But Safiye was pleased to see that the older woman was full of news that pounded toward success too assuredly to use much caution.
“I said, insolent miss, that we shall all shortly know the pleasures of a sea voyage.”
“My prince promised me one, yes.”
“This is thanks to my prince’s father, not to yours. As we can all plainly see by your disgracefully flat belly, you have no prince.”
“Life and death are Allah’s will,” Safiye said, working on her humility.
“But some things we on earth can, with the help of Allah, effect. Like the promise I have extracted from my son. He will never marry you. He has promised me, as he loves his mother.”
“You have taunted me with this before, lady, but I have known promises to be broken. With the right allurements.”
“He will certainly never marry you as long as you remain childless.”
“And I have made an oath of my own, lady. I shall not have a child until I have the full power of a wife.”
“How can a Sultan marry himself to a childless woman? It would be an omen of dearth and sterility for the entire realm. Even Khurrem Sultan had proven herself with several fine sons and a daughter before our master Suleiman made her his legal wife.”
“But this old, tedious threat is not what you came in here to tell us,” Safiye said, winning the room’s gratitude that they did not have to hear it all again. “You said something of a sea voyage, I believe.”
“Yes, the entire harem, not just one selfish girl, is to have the pleasure.”
“This is good news, my lady.” Safiye saw no cause to let up on her self-effacement. “We are all to sail that part of the trip to Kutahiya we can take by water, then?”
“Not to Kutahiya. No, not to Kutahiya, to which you so selfishly aspired. And for which pride, I thank Allah, you were justly thwarted by our master Suleiman’s great wisdom.”
Safiye didn’t flinch. Nor did she disguise the fact that she had been studiously avoiding any packing herself. “Have you come to tell these girls they must give up their packing, then? Are we to spend the unbearable heat of the summer right here where we are, in Constantinople?”
Nur Banu’s voice glowed with triumph. “I am pleased to say we shall journey, and that most of the journey shall be by sea.”
The predictable murmurs of wonder and delight sparkled throughout the room at this. Safiye smiled to herself. This reaction among the harem’s inmates demonstrated that she had made the older woman show more of her hand than before.
Careful, Safiye warned herself. Forcing a mere slip off balance into imprudent speech is no triumph.
Safiye turned what was left of her smile into a fealty gift to Nur Banu. Then Baffo’s daughter waited ‘til the echoes of the harem’s pleasure at this announcement had slipped off the tiles and sunk into the plush of the room’s carpets before she spoke again. She wanted no ear to miss what she would draw from Nur Banu next.
“Where are we to go, then, my lady?”
“Magnesia.”
The announcement had the force of a swordman’s parry and the room flew up before it in all directions like leaves before the wind of a passing blade.
“Magnesia!”
“By sea!”
“Oh, do you remember...?”
“How happy we were there!”
“It was before my time but...”
“I have heard such wonderful things!”
“All praise to Allah, the source of good.”
“But this is wonderful news.”
Safiye let the others take their pleasure. They’d thank her for it later, long after they’d forgotten whom they were thanking now.
But at the first lull in the chatter, she interjected: “Lady, this is wonderful news indeed. At least—I pray to Allah that it is good news.”
“Whatever are you insinuating?” Nur Banu turned to her with a lash of whip black eyes.
“Nothing—I hope, as Allah is merciful. But your master Selim—he isn’t shirking his duty, is he? I thought we went to Kutahiya to join him where he must serve his father and his lord as sandjak bey—as provincial governor. And as I know you would not shirk your duty to join with him, my next thought is...”
Safiye felt another blow of those eyes, but she refused to stop.
“We all know Selim is sometimes—how shall I say it?—apt to be drawn from his duties by the lure of—No, forgive me. I forget myself.”
“You do indeed, girl,” Nur Banu hissed. “Let me set you straight at once. Selim shall not be sandjak bey of Kutahiya any longer.”
Since the only reaction among the rest of the girls was a breathless silence, Safiye volunteered to fill it. “Oh, Allah save us. Then it’s as I feared!”
“As you feared, simple girl? As I prayed! No more Kutahiya, where we were banished when Selim, in the heat of youth, fomented civil war against his brother.”
“Brother Bavazid is dead, a traitor’s death these two—three years. Since before I came to the realm of Islam, lady. If reprieve were assured, I, for one, would have expected it sooner. But”—Safiye was cautious to conclude—”Allah knows best.”
“Allah does indeed know best. You expected it sooner because you don’t understand the just deliberation of the Shadow of Allah on earth. But this is the very news I bring. The sandjak of Magnesia has always been given to heirs apparent”
“Because it lies the shortest distance from the City of Cities, Constantinople.” Safiye held her own. “In
