At first Murad declared he would not return unless his Safiye came, too, but his lover stood firm in her refusal to move. So then Murad made another public vow, this one being not to touch another woman until Safiye returned to him. He went with thirty witnesses to the mosque to solemnize the oath before the Mufti. After that he resigned himself with a stiff upper lip to both celibacy and political duty.
“For the sake of the woman and child I love above all else, save Allah only,” he said, and departed.
He contented himself by spending half his sandjak earnings on messengers who ran in a steady stream across Anatolia to bring the latest word on the health of his mistress, and to carry love poems and tokens to her in return.
At the end of the mourning period for her grandfather, her womb still empty, my lady determined to make a pilgrimage to visit the saint Rumi, founder of the Mevlevi order of dervishes, in Konya. His shrine was known throughout the world (the Muslim world, I should say), for the miracles worked healing the sick, the blind, and causing the barren to bring forth fruit.
My master, too, had mentioned such a plan to me on more than one occasion. He was never a man of superstition, but perhaps he felt the need of a vacation—for my lady or for himself from my lady, I wasn’t sure.
And yet there was that curious stiffness between this married couple of five full years that would not allow them to bring the subject up between them to their immediate and mutual satisfaction. Sokolli Pasha was constantly distracted by the herculean task of keeping the Empire together in spite of his master the Sultan. Even when he had attention enough to stammeringly ask his wife if there was anything her heart desired that he could give her—anything beneath the will of Allah—Esmikhan never dared mention this wish to him. To ask to cross all of Turkey without him would seem too forward and demanding of a well-brought-up Muslim girl, even one who ought, by her station as a princess of the Blood, to have been able to tell one of her father’s slaves anything and everything she wanted.
“And won’t people talk?” she fussed at the matter to me. “In all reason, staying here with my husband is more likely to get a child than crossing all the realm of the Turks.”
“Allah’s will has little to do with reason,” I eased her mind.
For his part, the Grand Vizier did not wish to give offense to this daughter of the sultans. He was afraid she might go just to please him if he mentioned it, and that could open the way to gossip and silent miseries of the worst sort.
I, though skeptical of anybody’s saints, had long ago determined to do what I could to help my lady towards a child she could keep. Having collected a staff of five under me, I decided that such a journey could be made with ease, without risk of my mistress’ virtue, and without so much strain on me that I could not enjoy it, too. It could be a change of scenery, a little excitement, like Chios, but without the danger, without the conflict in my soul. So once I made this decision, it only remained to go between selamlik and haremlik in such a way that Sokolli Pasha thought he was doing his wife a favor and Esmikhan thought she was being obedient to her husband. Thus the trip was arranged.
I should mention that, quite by chance, I met Signor Andrea Barbarigo yet again during my flurry of preparations.
There is one thing foreign diplomats learn quickly among the Turks: If you want to know something about the government, don’t ask the governors. They are either too tight-lipped, or too expensive. Ask Moshe. Between them, Moshe and his wife Esperanza had access to the best homes, selamlik and haremlik alike. They went everywhere, saw everything, and had no compunctions about telling anyone anything—for the right price—inventing tales when they had no truth to go on.
What Barbarigo had come to learn from the Jews, I do not know. I did not really care either, for within the week my lady and I were on our way south. I merely nodded at him and went about my business as he did his. I did not expect to ever see the Venetian again, and I would soon have forgotten all about the incident but for one detail.
Moshe Malchi was also known to have a private back room that could be rented—well, for whatever you had in mind. And as I turned out of the shop, I caught, in the corner of my eye, a glimpse of a familiar sedan attended by a familiar monstrous Hungarian eunuch just pulling up in the narrow alley, redolent with rats and garbage, that ran between Malchi’s shop and the next.
I always knew you for a whore, Sofia Baffo, I sent the message silently in her direction, going to the highest bidder in any game. But my lady and I are off, far out of your reach for months now. Good riddance. And quietly congratulating myself that I would never have to slip and slide on such garbage after my lady’s sedan, I went on my way.
Two days later we were on the road to Konya.
The ritual of praying five times a day, first enforced upon me and escaped whenever possible, had become a soothing time of rest and meditation that I now rarely missed. By no stretch of the imagination, however, did I feel converted. Rumi was considered a
