“Surely the Austrians, as Christians, must be won for Islam.”
Esmikhan was trying to rise to the heights of political astuteness Safiye had set for this conversation, but her attempt only made the other woman toss her blond curls with impatience. “Well, yes, there is that. But more than that: Austria is so weak at the moment. Why bother to even treaty with them?”
“What glory is there in conquering the weak?” Esmikhan asked. “There must be someone else.”
“Exactly,” Safiye agreed. “But who? Who else is north?”
Esmikhan couldn’t answer and showed by her shrug that she wasn’t really interested. So Safiye proceeded to think aloud what had no doubt been buffeting around in her mind for days.
“Now I was certain they would go south. Yemen is in full revolt, and the rest of Arabia is threatening to follow them. Even your father, weak as he is...”
“My father isn’t weak. He is the Shadow of Allah.”
“Forgive me, Esmikhan—exactly. He could not risk the loss of face rebellion in the Holy Cities and Medina would cause.”
Esmikhan gave a pious nod.
“But Arabia is south.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. That’s the direction we turn when we pray.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And I had Ghazanfer follow them a full day’s march. Do you know Ghazanfer, my eunuch? Bright, ambitious, yet at the same time very discreet.”
She said these words with a sharp punctuation in my direction. Obviously these were things I was not, at least, not sufficient to her liking. And she wished I would stand elsewhere—out of earshot, preferably. I smiled and refused to comply with her unspoken wish. Since she couldn’t get Esmikhan to take the hint and order me away, she had to continue with the real purpose of all this talk.
“And you know something else curious Ghazanfer told me? He told me that several thousand of the homeless refugees that clog the slums of Constantinople went off with more janissaries by ship into the Black Sea at the same time.
“Where have they gone?” Safiye demanded again and, before Esmikhan could plead that it really was none of her business, she explained why indeed it was her business. “If your father knows where they have gone, he said nothing in his speech when he saw the troops off. Ghazanfer gave me that speech almost word for word. Unlike his father, Suleiman, your father takes no interest in war. His speech was all pious clichés the Mufti must have taught him and nothing more. Then he refused to join them! Even on his deathbed, Suleiman would not have done that. No, even if he does know, I’m sure your father had nothing to do with the decision and his mind is so far from the battlefield that I can’t hope he’ll let it drop within hearing of Ghazanfer or any of the other khuddam I can trust. So, Esmikhan, if your father is not running the army, who is?”
“Don’t worry, Safiye,” my lady said. “The army of the Faithful is well directed. My husband is at their head and there is no Muslim more capable than he.”
“You catch my drift!” Safiye said, and with an unsaid sigh. At last! “Now your husband, the most glorious Grand Vizier, said nothing of this in the Divan.”
“How do you know this, Safiye?” Esmikhan asked.
“If I do not have time to go to the Eye of the Sultan and hear for myself, I send Ghazanfer—every day.”
“Ghazanfer seems to be everywhere.”
“I told you he was a good khadim,” Safiye said.
“Where did you find him?”
“I can’t stop and tell you now. Maybe another time. What I need you to tell me is whether or not they held the war council at your house. For security reasons, perhaps. It is clear they did not hold it here.”
Esmikhan said she couldn’t remember. “He holds so many meetings, you know,” she said. “I hardly notice anymore.”
“The Master of the Imperial Horse would have been there,” Safiye prompted.
Esmikhan blushed. “Yes, now that you mention it, there was...”
“Go on. He did meet with Sokolli, then, at your house.”
Safiye encouraged Esmikhan’s blushes and hesitation. “The general of the janissaries would have been at this particular meeting, too.”
And the other viziers and Kapudan Pasha because the navy was used, I filled in to myself, for I remembered the meeting well. And the Mufti, the Sheikh al-Islam, was there. He had to give his blessing to this course, for it is somewhat irregular. Of course he did in the end. How could he refuse the reconquest of lands that had once belonged to Islam but which, in the last ten years, had fallen into Russian Christian hands? But I said nothing aloud.
“Well, I suppose I do remember such a meeting—vaguely,” Esmikhan confessed after more prodding. “But I don’t remember talk of war. All I remember was some talk of canals—building canals—and that is the work of peace.”
“Canals?” Safiye mused. “I know that building a great canal to join the Mediterranean and the Red Sea is a favorite project of Sokolli Pasha. He believes the Faithful could control all trade from India, China, and points beyond with such a short water route through Suez. Who in Europe would then buy from the Portuguese or Spanish who must sail months around Africa when we could offer such a cut rate?”
“My husband is a very wise man,” Esmikhan said.
“He is indeed,” Safiye replied. “But no one in their right mind is sailing on the Red Sea these days, what with all Yemen in revolt, throttling it off at the neck.”
Esmikhan had no very clear notion of geography but the notion that a sea might have
