In the Divan, this report was also taken seriously. The janissaries, even in rebellion, were the might and power of the Empire, the right hand of Allah. The power of their arm was equal to the power of their other parts and to curse either was tantamount to cursing the future of the Empire and Islam as a whole. It was treason; worse, it was blasphemy. Ibrahim Pasha was immediately sent with a contingent to find out if the rumor was true. Ibrahim assumed from the first that it was and would find what he looked for. What Safiye promised he might find. He went to depose Ferhad and to claim the post of Grand Vizier for himself.
Only my constant trips from my lady to Safiye and then of Safiye’s eunuchs to the Sultan’s private apartments finally got the precious firmen written and sent. Ferhad was under no circumstances to be killed.
When the message was received on the front lines, Ferhad Pasha and a few of his faithful troops were holed up in a manor that was his personal property. The smell of blood had brought most of the janissaries in line—behind Ibrahim—and they had Ferhad Pasha totally encircled. Grudgingly, Ibrahim complied with the firmen. And that was the last word we had.
* * *
Some few nights later I was awakened. Darkness was thick and heavy everywhere I looked, but what had disturbed my sleep I could not tell. All I could hear were the sounds of my colleagues asleep in the little cubicles around me. Their snores and sighs drifted in and out of the open windows like moths in search of light in which to immolate themselves.
Suddenly, something knocked against the edge of my bed. It knocked again and then would not stop, shaking things with such a violence that the corners of the earth seemed to roar.
“Who is it? What do you want? Stop it!” I wanted to cry, but by the time the words had formed, I realized it was no mortal hand and no attack against me personally, but the hand of Allah shaking all the earth as if it were no more than a feather bolster and He a housewife giving a thorough cleaning.
I did not move from where I was. It would be useless in any case, for if I did manage once to get to my feet, the earth would drop from beneath them between steps. And where should I go if I could walk? The violence attacked the palace from sea wall to sea wall and from the dungeons to the highest minaret.
My colleagues were all awake now. I could hear some of them trying to murmur prayers, but the rest were silent, holding their breath, closing their eyes tight. We began to hear things now, the crashing of crockery. Something fell from the ledge three stories up and shattered in the courtyard just outside my door. The collision of other possessions was as if a thief were rummaging through an old trunk, careless of what he would leave behind, seeking only in a mad rush that which was of the most mundane value. Children cried and a woman or two screamed, but that was all. The rest of us held our breaths and waited.
At last the earth twitched itself like a dog come from copulating, turned on its tail one more time, and settled down to sleep without a further spasm of guilt for its rash deed. I lay and listened to the returned stillness with more amazement than to the earthquake itself. Then I heard some of my colleagues out in the court wondering in low whispers. I got up and joined them, nodding in agreement at their formulaic comments on the power and mercy of Allah which is about all one can really say at a time like that.
We did not think much about the women. There were eunuchs on duty in their quarters who could come and tell us if anything more serious than lost sleep and frazzled nerves had happened. One khadim began to tell us how in his village in the mountains they had suffered such an earthquake when he was a boy that the...It was as formulaic as praising Allah, but I moved nearer to lend a polite ear. As I did, I stepped on whatever bit of crockery it was that had fallen from the top floor.
“By Allah, that I should come through the quake alive and have this happen afterwards!” I exclaimed as the other khuddam laughed in relief more than mockery and hastened, some to help stop the bleeding, others to pick up the pieces.
In the midst of this, one of my lady’s maids came running in, white as milk spilled on anthracite. I was needed at once in our lady’s rooms, she said.
With my foot still bleeding onto the rags, I was in no condition to be chasing off through the harem, so I put her off for a while. Had she never been in an earthquake before? Thank Allah, we were all alive. Trying to get back to sleep again would be the best for all concerned.
So I stalled, I stalled so long and so unforgivably that I gave my mistress time to get herself to the eunuch’s quarters. Then I knew it was no common terror that stirred her. Never in all our years together had she come to see me. It was always the other way around.
I hobbled up on one and a half feet and gave my bed for her maids to ease her onto. There she sat, speechless with tears, wringing a handkerchief and looking at me with eyes like saucers filled to the brim by a host of lavish generosity. That look stirred me enough to wave the anxious girls and eunuchs
