“By Allah, she has already done it. And Aysha herself was spared when Ferhad died, spared to be passed on to Ibrahim Pasha. And the next Grand Vizier. And the next.”
“Nothing is sacred.”
“Nothing,” Ghazanfer agreed, “to her.”
I suddenly looked at the khadim and realized what he had been saying. “You knew about Ferhad then?”
“I knew.”
“Safiye knows?”
“Perhaps not. What I guessed—in this matter—I never told her.”
“That’s some blessing. I suppose I’m not as clever at these subterfuges as I tried to be.”
“You were a faithful guardian to your faithful women, that is what is most important. You have brought it to this peaceful, happy pass,” he said, gesturing towards another burst of laughter from within.
“Sofia Baffo,” I hissed.
Ghazanfer nodded. “Yes. She is the destruction of the heart of the harem, I fear, the very heart. This reign of the favored women is the end, mark my words, of the harem’s power. And with it goes the power of the Empire. The very thing Safiye seeks but cannot grasp—like the sunlight through these branches.”
He paused a moment and seemed to consider his next words. Perhaps he was only using the time to make certain we were alone and that Gul Ruh’s son was far off, well engrossed in his chanting.
“Aysha, Allah spare her, is but a simple girl who tries to do her mother’s will. One may well expect such a creature to be trampled in the fierceness of this press. Yet I myself will probably not be exempt from the coming purge. I who have, I hope to Allah, always tried to keep my wits about me, who understands the system so well from my good teachers in the torture chambers of the Seven Towers. I, who knew from the start that I was her creature altogether, that my life lay best in being but her right hand, silent, mute as the tongueless ones who pull the silken cord. I—I must bring the midwives to the lying in of virtuous women, knowing full well what they will do, and yet I say nothing. I must open the doors to poisoners, look the other way when the dagger strikes. Yes, I will tell you something else you probably didn’t know. The dervish that struck down your master—he, too, was in Safiye’s pay.”
“That I knew,” I said.
“You did?”
“At least in part. After all, it had been my consuming search for months after the death. Until one Night of Power. But then Mitra told me, poor girl, before she died.”
“Ah, yes. I see.”
“But by then, it didn’t seem so important after all. Revenge?” I shrugged.
Ghazanfer nodded. “You are most fortunate to be able to shrug off revenge.”
“But I have never understood why Sokolli had to die—Allah favor him. Nur Banu told my young lady it was to prevent her marriage to Abd ar-Rahman, but that never seemed reason enough.”
“No, that was but a small part of the reason.”
“Nur Banu was the one who, along with Uweis and Lala Mustafa Pasha, was most firmly against Sokolli. My master was powerful and, I would have thought, useful to Safiye in many ways against them.”
Ghazanfer shrugged. “Sokolli had come to the end of his usefulness. Particularly with the death of Michael Cantacuzenos the Greek.”
“No more than that?”
“No more. But as I was saying, about myself. I am her right hand, have been for years, and yet now even I see the knife lowering. I have been forced to take too many positions that have gangrened me. She knows it. I know it. She knows some day the infection will become too severe because she has fed it with too much wealth, too much power. I will be cut off, allowed not even a show of begging for mercy. When the day comes—and it comes soon—I will be better cut off. Better for her to come out whole and clean and strong one more time.
“Indeed, I can see this so well that I know just how it will be. I have seen so many of her victims, any one of them might have had my face. I think she will save the sword for me. A swift stroke, and I shall be faceless, anonymous. This body I take for granted, with which I served her with all of its strength—it will twitch once or twice while the janissaries cheer and the Sultan salutes them...by Allah, I’ve dreamed it so often, it’ll almost be a relief to have it happen once and for all, and then no more.”
There was sweat like a frontlet of pearls strung from every pore on his great, flat face. He continued, now in a quieter vein. “But I have another vision too. It is one of those we eunuchs hate to have, for it suggests to us that it is possible to gain our manhood back. Even for myself, who asked for the knife, that thought is sometimes so painful that I may go mad from it, like one who may scratch out his own eyes when they have offended his with too much horror...
“I asked for Mu’awiya the Red’s knife, yet in this dream I find myself in my lady’s room, alone, with her, at night. There is but a single lamp, burning low, and by its light, she smiles at me. Her hair is as golden as the burning oil, her skin like alabaster, like egg white, and spilt from the brown shell of her jacket open to her waist. Her smile broadens. She reaches for me. How she trusts me. How she longs for me...”
I made a sign that he should stop. Such a confession wasn’t necessary. It would be unendurable to both of us. But he was determined.
“No, let me continue,” he said. “Such was my dream all the first years in her service, and I, as you would, always stopped it at that point by force, by a quick plunge in ice-crusted waters, by twisting my own fingers
