“You would still marry the Mufti’s son?” I asked my young lady in surprise.
“Of course,” Gul Ruh replied.
She said it with such simple faith that if I were to disbelieve it I must be skeptical of the lisped confessions of a million children everywhere echoing the faith they’ve learned at their parents’ knees. The words harked to a time when the world still seems whole and right and, in the end, loving.
“It was the very last wash of my father,” she continued, blinking back tears I knew were brought on by an almost tangible remembrance of that last clumsy kiss upon her forehead. “And it was his father’s last wish, too. Surely it is Allah’s will.”
In place of His own will in the world of mortals, I read her logic, Allah had created fathers. It was no use my citing the counterexample of an evil. Godless father to confuse her. In her particular case, I felt, as perhaps never in maiden’s life before or since, such confidence was well placed. He never spoke of love, but Sokolli Pasha, I knew, would have gladly met that assassin’s knife a hundred times over if it could have symbolized the duty and care he felt for this child.
I might have suggested, very tenderly, that perhaps she should wait. The blessings of true love, not just duty and care, might come to her in time. I almost cited to her the case of her own mother and the night in Konya when she had been conceived in love. But in the end I did not—I could not. There was a new and different happiness in Gul Ruh, one I had not sensed in her before nor even, underestimating her as a mere child, perhaps, thought her capable of. But in the end I had to admit it was indeed happiness, or at least the seeds of happiness. and a perpetual and growing contentment with her life as woman she was cultivating here. And far be it from me to try to root it out by force.
Nevertheless, I had to warn her now of reality. Sokolli Pasha had planned to meet with young Abd ar-Rahman’s brothers the day of his death to seal the betrothal, but Allah had willed it was not to be. Her guardian was now the Sultan himself. Even so illustrious a family as the Mufti’s could hardly conceive approaching the Shadow of Allah with proposals of their own. Nor was Murad likely, even once approached, to give his approval to Abd ar-Rahman over the scores of favorites that must also be clamoring for close ties with the Ottomans.
“And haven’t you heard your mother and your Aunt Safiye making plans to break precedent and have you married to your cousin Muhammed? This so you may become a Valide Sultan as powerful as Khurrem Sultan was, the mother of princes. When such glory is held out to you, should you not thank Allah and accept it?”
“I seek to do the will of Allah,” she said, unmoved by glory.
I was convinced now of what course would bring her the most joy and I was determined to aid her on it. I watched her with Umm Kulthum, saw the woman’s warmth for the girl grow and be returned if not by love then at least by respect. I wanted to nurture that protective relationship. But frankly, I did not see how even the maddest of dervishes could have said mother-in-law, daughter-in-law were relationships forthcoming for them in Allah’s will.
Esmikhan and even Safiye had nothing but talk to keep Gul Ruh from crossing the no man’s land into Nur Banu’s territory. As they remained ignorant of her true motives, certainly of her sincerity, they considered it no more than youth’s craving for the dangerous and the forbidden. They left it at that, saying, “Well, you’ll keep an eye out and let us know what the old witch is plotting, won’t you, Gul Ruh?”
“No, more!” Safiye exclaimed. “You could do the world a favor and take poison to her the next time you go.”
“Aunt Safiye, no!” cried Gul Ruh who couldn’t be sure if Safiye was joking or not. “I couldn’t do that!”
And when Nur Banu replied to the retelling of this tale by saying, if the girl really wanted to make herself useful, yes, she could carry poison, but in the opposite direction, her answer to her step-grandmother was much the same. “Oh, no, lady. No, I couldn’t do that!” Gul Ruh remained innocently insensitive to the earnestness beneath both demands.
* * *
Meanwhile, the Agha of the Janissaries, Ferhad Pasha, presented the Sultan with a particularly choice bit of booty from the campaigns on the Persian front. It was a history of the life of the Prophet, set in verse and beautifully illustrated and edged in gold leaf. Murad was pleased at the sensitivity of the man’s soul. It caused him to weep for joy. Many another commander, he realized, would have thought nothing of tossing the book in when the rest of the rubble was torched. Or melting down the brass clasps for bullets. How to reward this man of obvious charm and even greater sensibility? There was no higher post than Agha of the Janissaries open at the moment.
“Is there some jewel,” the Sultan asked, groping, “of which you or your wife is particularly fond?”
“Me? No, sire.”
“Your wife?”
“May it please you, sire, I am unmarried.”
“Unmarried? Such a romantic soul in one so celibate? What will you be, by Allah, given a chance to taste the feasts of which the poets sing?”
“No less a man, I pray.”
The Sultan laughed with pleasure. “No less a man, indeed. Well, we shall not put off the essay any longer. I shall see you married before you ride to the front again. And not to just any of
