Andrea shook his head in disbelief, watching the terrifyingly expressionless face before him. Other griefs—even Sofia—were forgotten for the moment. “Such power in one man! If ever a Doge had a will like that, the Senate has such power that the best one can ever hope for is a very weak compromise. And with other states in Europe, it is much the same. No wonder Europe is so slow in getting anywhere!”
“Except that,” Ghazanfer cautioned, “the place a single man wants to go may not be so healthy for the rest of the world.”
“Well, barbarians on an island like Madagascar—no matter how they may fight—it would do them good, in the long run to be joined to the Turkish Empire.”
“Madagascar? Is that what you thought when I said ‘island’?”
“Of course. It seems only reasonable. It is the next step towards India, which I am sure the Sultan would...”Andrea fumbled. “You did say Yemen, didn’t you? And I reasoned...”
“My friend. You misunderstood me. I never said the master was following reason in his design. This is the dream of a man in his cups.” A rigid sort of sorrow seemed to penetrate the eunuch’s eyes before he announced, “The Sultan has his eye on the island of Cyprus.”
“Cyprus?”
“Cyprus, as you know only too well, grows the best wine in the world, and the quota they have been willing to sell to Turkey in a year has never been enough to satisfy—”
“But Cyprus belongs to Venice!”
“Exactly, my friend.”
The exaggerated patience in the eunuch’s voice reminded Andrea he had little enough right to be championing Venice’s cause. In one of the first waves of emotion he’d ever felt from the creature, he felt disdain. Disdain against himself. Disdain because he, Andrea, was moved—blinded—by carnal lust while a khadim, godlike, was above such constraints.
Still, Andrea couldn’t help but exclaim: “But that is war—on us!”
“Now you are not as casual as you were with the lives and goods of Madagascar. And Cyprus is not so far from Constantinople as that distant land. Why must you Christians always think all barbarians are only eastward?”
“But we have a treaty of peace with the Porte. Hasn’t Selim been told?”
“I have already told you, my friend, what the Mufti himself said about the bounds of honor surrounding that treaty. They are nothing compared to the honor of winning new lands for Islam—now. If you do not believe me, my friend, stop by the house of Joseph Nassey in the next few days. The master has promised to make him the island’s king. Nassey has already ordered the woodcarvers to carve a plate with Cyprus’s coat of arms and ‘King Joseph’ on it. It will swing above his gateway for all Constantinople to see. This is what my lady wanted me to tell you.”
Andrea’s chest flooded with the warmth of gratitude towards Sofia. She had not forgotten him after all. But what she expected in return was still not clear, and he wanted to give her something. The desire to give was, in fact, a physical need. “Is there nothing to be done to stop that maniac?” he attempted.
“And just a moment ago you were wishing the same power for your Doge.”
“But what should we do?” Andrea rocked on the edge of the cot. The rough wood cut deep into his thighs, but he ignored it. “Shall I have the ambassador request an immediate audience?”
“You have never been allowed to see the Sultan yet. What makes you think he would see you now? Besides, you are but men, and we have seen he can terrorize men and pin them to the floor like moths.”
In a rising panic, Andrea reminded himself that his true love was thrall to such barbarians. Is this what she was trying to tell him? He stammered, “No power on earth...”
“Now, I didn’t say that,” the eunuch reminded him. “Those were your words. In our realm, there are one or two powers given the strength to withstand the wild whims of the Sultan.”
“Pray God, what can they be?”
“Well, first, the dervishes.”
“Dervishes?” Andrea repeated impatiently. “The dervishes are mad.”
“They are mad, allowed to be mad with Allah, and are both powerful and incorruptible in that they never have to play by the Sultan’s rules. If a dervish is corrupted to become the Sultan’s lackey, the people are not fooled and he loses his power among them. And if a Sultan dares to wield his laws above a dervish—to kill or imprison the holy man as he may do any vizier or pasha—he will only make a martyr. Even dead, a martyr has power over a Sultan. The more horrible the death, the more powerful the martyr. No, by hanging a dervish, a Sultan only puts the rope around his own neck. Even the janissaries will always follow the drumbeats of a naked dervish before they’ll follow the Sultan’s standard.”
“That is all very nice for a Muslim,” Andrea said, exasperated, “but what am I to do as a Christian?”
“Yes, well, I only spoke of dervishes first so you could see how the system works. There is, of course, one other refuge from the Sultan’s will.”
“And that is...?”
“The harem, of course.”
“The harem! But that’s ridiculous! Those women are his slaves, as much as you are, ustadh. And worse than slaves. They are bound prisoners, never seeing the light of day. Why, no rat in Constantinople is more subservient to the Sultan’s will than the women of his harem.”
“Now you are looking at the harem with Christian eyes, my friend. As if they were your Catherine de’ Medici or England’s Elizabeth, to be judged by the standards not only of Christians, but Christian men as well. Try to see them through my eyes. My eyes, half-man, half-woman, half-Christian, half-Turk, and then you may catch a glimpse of what it would be like to be all Turk and all woman. It is their very removal from the open, brazen affairs of men that gives
