I was speechless, dumb for words to express my gratitude. At length I stammered the most generous thing I could think of: “You...you could come with me. I would like it better if I wasn’t a total stranger.”
“Not this year. I can’t. I have—one more bit of business to do.”
“What is that?”
But he wouldn’t tell me right away.
Instead, he gave me a small purse of gold that I might carry, along with his name, to the House of Allah. There was such a sense of resolution and new beginning about him. This sense seemed so similar to what I myself had been feeling in recent days that this purse, this physical declaration that he would not be joining the caravan quite took me by surprise.
It was a day in early spring of glorious sun. The old bones seemed young again and thrilled as if it were several months later in the year. Ghazanfer and I sat in the doorway to the courtyard. We took more interest in the pattern of sunlight tossed through the swelling buds of the fig tree outside than in the sherbets and pistachios between us. The conversation, too, seemed to hold little interest although Ghazanfer pursued it—a tale of one further palace intrigue—because it was what little common ground lay between us now.
The Sultan’s third-born son was a little fellow his mother had named Muhammed in an attempt to flatter attention away from the Greek girl’s two older boys.
“When that did not work,” Ghazanfer said, “she turned to magic instead.”
“Ah, magic again,” I nodded wearily. “That vile thing.”
“This woman found a dervish who, upon seeing her son on a horse for the first time was moved to prophecy, ‘By Allah, give that child the head of the Islamic army and he will bring the failing Empire back to the ascendancy we knew during the time of Suleiman.’ Of course the nature of our master is such that he will hear such things and believe them. Safiye had to act swiftly. Before Muhammed the Sultan could consult with the Divan on the matter, she had the child, his mother and the prophetic dervish...well taken care of.”
Ghazanfer coughed and hid his final words in a sip of sherbet for which he really had no desire. Then I saw that this was because my young lady’s littlest son had joined us in the garden. The boy was supposed to be memorizing his lessons for tomorrow and, considering his age, was doing quite well with the obscure Arabic of the Koranic passage. His tutors said he would be like his father and grandfather before him, a great scholar, and have the Book memorized very shortly.
But the child did like a break from time to time—he could hardly resist the weather. He came and ask us what we were doing, and when our only, boring reply was “just visiting,” he clambered on my knees and helped himself to pistachios. He made fighting galleys from the shells—whole ones Turkish, broken ones the “heathen Christians”—and played at sea battles for a while. And when he got too loud, I scolded him to study once again.
When the boy trotted off again, Ghazanfer smiled and said, only half aloud, “Perhaps that was one day she had mercy. The day that boy was born. If so, Allah bless her for it, for He can bless her for nothing else.”
I asked what he meant, but Ghazanfer at first refused to explain. I pressed him and at last he said:
“A son of the Blood. That lad is a threat to the throne. Even if a very distant one, there are some who might see in him a way to wrench the crested turban from Safiye’s Muhammed. At least I’m sure such a chance is not lost in her mind.”
His tone sent my mind back past the last little diversion of pistachio sea battles to the dervish-prophesied and condemned prince and I shuddered. “But thank Allah she never meddled with such distant princes.”
“Didn’t she?”
“I mean, not with any outside the palace harem itself.”
“Didn’t she?” Ghazanfer said again. “I mean, wasn’t it obvious?”
“I don’t know what you mean, my friend.” I laughed nervously.
He took another sip of sherbet and frowned darkly.
“Well, I will tell you,” he said, “as it is clear you never guessed. I will tell you because it will ease my blackened soul. Like confession to our village priest did when I was a boy. And because where I go from here, it will be better if people understand. At least people whose good opinion I cherish.”
“My friend, what are you talking about?” I laughed again at his riddles.
“I mean the little sons of Esmikhan,” he hissed as if spitting out poison.
“It was Allah’s will,” I said, shrugging, “that they should all be born dead.”
“None of them was born dead. Three full-term lads and none of them should live? The girl alone should live? Surely you have a low opinion of your late mistress’s ability to bear children.”
“What do you mean?” My blood ran cold. “The midwife...”
“Yes, the midwife. The old Quince.”
“Safiye told you this?” My clumsy eunuch’s voice betrayed me in a squeak.
“She did not, not even me, her faithful Ghazanfer.” He spoke his own name and its faithfulness with bitter scorn. “But I began to guess. Especially after the case of Mitra...”
The great eunuch’s voice faded for a moment. When he recovered, he continued, “Then one day last summer I went to the infirmary.”
“I thought the Quince was dead.”
“No. The new midwife. The Fig. I asked her point-blank what she knew of the matter.
“‘I’m not sure,’ was her reply.
“‘But you have suspicions?’ I pressed her.
“‘Things the Quince, my dear, dead lover, said when the fit was on her.’
“I pressed for details. Nothing very clear.
“‘But I know how we can find out,’ she said finally. ‘If you’re willing.’
“I was willing.”
Ghazanfer paused in his tale, sipped his drink, and rested his sight with unguarded pleasure on a
