At last, with Ferhad out the door, we did this. Esmikhan sighed, and I looked at her across the board: a little too plump, a little too happy because inside she was a little too sad. At the sacrifice of her happiness, all of the Islamic Empire had been saved.
XXX
Suleiman’s death was not made known to the general public for another whole month, not until the month of Rabi’ al-Akhir and the winter season were both well underway. Only then did the great cannon boom from the Fortress in a death knell; only then did my lady remove the mirrors from her rooms, cover the walls with crepe, and dare to weep openly.
And Suleiman was laid to rest in the pillared mausoleum in the midst of the garden on the dawn-side of the mosque the great Sinan had built in his name. Finally, the Magnificent rested beside his own beloved Khurrem Sultan.
Every day for forty days, Aunt Mihrimah held a recital of the complete Koran to assist the great monarch’s soul to heaven. A similar public recitation happened during the same period around the tomb at the Suleimaniye mosque. But Aunt Mihrimah’s was private, for women.
And for forty days, we attended. In the courtyard through which the sedans passed, Mihrimah’s vast wealth fed the poor in a charity whose merit would rise to heaven with the dead man’s soul. The room upstairs drowsed with too-warm braziers and the old woman’s smell of fading chrysanthemums. Downstairs was bread and pilaf; upstairs, the dainty, sweet but chalky bricks of halva. And “Bishmillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim,” the chanted names of God, were punctuated by loud sips cooling the aniseed or ginger tea. Or small cups of an infusion of jasmine, black elder, and rose petals with which the Quince dosed the season’s first cold which, over the forty days, spread from one end of the company then back again. This concoction cloyed achingly just as it was, but required huge quantities of sugar to mask the true bitterness hidden beneath the outward smell.
Women chatted quietly together under the comforting—if not to say stifling—quilt of holy words. Children played together between their mother’s knees. All in all, two sessions were more than enough to assure me I could expect a most soporific forty days. But then, on the third or fourth day, Nur Banu put in an appearance. What was even more startling-—we thought them still in Magnesia for the winter—Safiye came with her and the young prince Muhammed.
My lady’s squeals of delight totally buried an ominous recitation of the terrors of hell. And she and Safiye greeted one another with embraces and busses on both cheeks.
Crossing the room to overhear their words did seem too hovering. But without moving I could eavesdrop on Nur Banu as she greeted her own best friends.
“Yes, she has abandoned my son in Magnesia,” the older woman said. “‘It is best to be in Constantinople for the health of the child,’ the Fair One says. ‘The Quince is here.’“
I stole a glance across the room to witness the warmth with which the midwife greeted her prize patient, then returned my attention to hear the rest of Nur Banu’s recitation, competing with the Recitation of Recitations, the Koran.
“‘The center of government will be instructive for a young prince,’ she says. For an infant? I don’t think so. Before summer, he’ll be running, inshallah. Where can the cool spring of my eyes run here? Besides, what can be wrong with learning how his own father runs a sandjak? That was the instruction I gave my Murad—may Allah keep him—when he was my grandson’s age. He has turned out well, I thank the Creator. But—this is what the Fair One says, and my son believes her. I say she has abandoned him, but who cares what I think in all of this? Be sure I’ve sent Murad replacements for his bed. A number of other beauties so he will not be cold this winter. What does she say to this? What can she say? She chose to abandon him. She must live with the consequences.”
One woman asked with as much tact as her curiosity would allow: “And how are things between you and her?”
Nur Banu replied smugly: “She is much humbled, thank Allah, that Selim inherited instead of Murad as she was plotting for.”
“You have the Grand Vizier to thank for that.”
Nur Banu scowled at the speaker and then defended her former lover with the vehemence of a current one. “Selim inherited because he is who he is, his father’s only living son, not for any other reason.”
“Well, I have heard Sokolli Pasha saw to it that Selim came to the throne so he—the Grand Vizier—will have a freer hand to run things his way. Selim is not a man to try to thwart him in anything.”
“Don’t wise ones say, ‘Never trust the harem’s gossip?’“
The gossiper blushed and stinted.
“It is true,” Nur Banu went on, anxious to display her own knowledge of affairs, “that the Fair One curses Sokolli Pasha day and night. But she must have someone to pin blame on for her disappointment. It is Allah’s will. She must learn a pious submission or she will be among the troops the angels herd hell-ward on Judgment Day. Of this you may be certain—and Allah knows best.”
So the interest of the women in the kadin’s entourage returned to the recitation at hand. I helped myself to a cup of anise tea, hoping it would warm me of the chill that had suddenly crept up
