I made my way thus far through acre after acre of nothing but men, carrying no more news than that my lady had bathed this morning and was once more willing, anxious to receive her lord. And these were the manliest of men who smoothed their chest-long moustaches protectively as they watched me pass. They guessed my message. This embarrassed me to the very root of all I was missing.
But I was determined to help Esmikhan to her goal in any way I could, and for the moment this seemed the only way to do it.
So at length I approached the field commander’s tent. I distinguished it from all the rest by size, by central placement, by fabric. Rugs and thick brocades of the finest make, patterned all over with stars, moons, stylized flowers, Koranic inscriptions in blues and greens and reds and gold patched together in a busy but harmonious and respect-commanding whole. Pillars of inlaid gold and mother-of-pearl propped the roof up well over the height of the tallest man. My master’s standard dangled seven horsetails in front. This was the place, but a swarm of petitioners and janissaries three deep, planted like so many tulips in their beds, blocked my further advancement.
“Sokolli Pasha?” I asked one more time.
I’m not certain my voice carried to the turban-brushed ear over the buzz of humanity around me. Though the janissaries were perfectly disciplined in silence, the petitioners, a motley crew, were not. In any case, I was directed around to the rear of the pavilion and around to the rear I picked my way.
Here, indeed, the crowd was much less and, to my surprise and sudden comfort, I found another khadim. I walked over to him at once, remarking only after the fact that it was Safiye’s monster, Ghazanfer, a creature in whose presence I never had felt at ease.
“Your lady...?” I meant it only as small talk.
But without a word, Ghazanfer drew back the section of tent he guarded and ushered me inside.
Safiye Baffo nested in a cocoon of rugs and cushions swaddled especially for her between the pavilion’s double walls. The prince’s favorite took up nearly all the space there was, stretching out as she did to better accommodate her larger bulk in comfort. I stumbled clumsily on a rucked up corner of rug. There really was room for only the two—Safiye and her unborn child—in there.
But the Fair One made no protest at my presence. Indeed, she seemed quite pleased to see me.
“Ah, Veniero. This will interest you.” Her succulent lips mouthed the words. And she quickly curled up her feet to make place for me on a cushion next to her.
“I came looking for my...”
Safiye stopped me with a quick firm hand upon my jaws the instant they had sunk within her reach.
“What is this place?” I hissed a whisper of Italian as soon as my tongue was free to do so.
Safiye held one finger to her own lips.
“This is the Eye of the Sultan.” She mouthed the words only, with no pass of breath, and with one hennaed fingertip, parted the curtains in front of us the meanest crack.
I caught my breath when I recognized my master’s back so close I could reach out and tickle the creases in his nape if I’d dared. The Grand Vizier sat cross-legged on a heap of cushions; Prince Murad reigned next to him. Sokolli Pasha wore a high turban of fine white linen that gave him a neat and efficient appearance, and his green robes, though flashing with threads of pure gold, were in other respects purposely somber and restrained so as not to detract from the business at hand.
Between the men’s two shoulders, fine, spring sunshine filtered through the side of the pavilion opened for air across from us. Janissaries lined the tent room, blue and yellow like shadow and light, at attention like so many pillars, these troops whose very name could make all Christian Europe quake with fear. The Vizier’s Divan was receiving foreign ambassadors this day, ambassadors who would be duly impressed by the might and wealth of the Turks and send effusive and cautionary reports home to their rulers.
The total impact of this glorious scene upon my senses and my sensibility kept me from noticing any particulars. Safiye, to whom the pageantry of all this concentrated power was obviously a common spectacle, had noticed at once all the details that made this day different from any others. She caught my arm and pointed. With this force of concentration behind me, I was able to discern that the delegation now being received, struggling with their clumsy white Turkish robes of honor, was that of Venice.
The Venetians bowed with the stiffness of coaching still behind their movements, and presented gifts: lengths of plush velvet, mosque lamps of fine Murano glass, a casket of pearls. They came to protest the actions on Chios, actions which, in my mind at least, were a foregone conclusion.
I found it more interesting to watch Safiye than my former countrymen whose friendship and influence I was now far beyond. A flash of palpitation had come to her cheeks. Did the child move within her? Or was it the memory of the child—herself—and the free, sunny days she had spent in the republic of St. Mark, hitching up her little girl’s skirts, and climbing for apples in the convent orchard? Did the sounds of our native tongue ring in her ears like a call to devotion for the tears of homesickness she had secreted away?
I
