“Can’t I go to him?” my little lady asked.
“Goodness, no,” her mother exclaimed. “To the palace school?”
“I should like to learn at the palace school. It would be less boring than tossing a ball around.”
“Perhaps, when you’re older, my treasure,” Esmikhan said, “We might get you your own tutor at home. A nice, pious woman.”
“It would be more fun with Muhammed—may his final hour be blessed.” The two phrases existed in two different childhood worlds.
“I know, my mountain spring,” Esmikhan said no. “But you could still come and sit with me. I could comb out your hair for you.”
“Oh, Esmikhan. You won’t leave that child a hair on her head by the time she’s ten with all your fussing.” Safiye spoke with an impatient shuffle of papers.
Gul Ruh chose the nurses then, and thoughtfully invited the little dwarf girl Murad had recently given his lover to come and play, too. Still, in a way she couldn’t quite express, my little lady fully understood that the slaves, who would treat her always like a princess, might well render her as useless for her task of living as the jeweler’s enthusiasm had made the ball for play.
XI
During this interruption by the children, Safiye had gone on with the day’s correspondence. Between her and her scribe, they had gotten off half a dozen letters. Safiye’s correspondents, those I saw, included viziers and sandjak beys, as well as the Persian ambassador: a bellicose note. Words even went to Joseph Nassey, consoling him that it wouldn’t be long now before he got the Cypriot kingship Selim had promised him. Hadn’t the island fallen, true to the Sultan s oath? Wasn’t Safiye herself pulling in every favor she could on his behalf? But Nassey must be patient. What good would a war-ravaged countryside be for a king, anyway? It was better to wait and let the janissaries clean up the place yet a little more.
One letter Safiye even snatched out of the scribe’s hand, saying with a mixture of conspiracy and impatience, “Let me deal with that one.”
In no time at all, she had jotted off a note in her own hand and folded it before the ink could quite have time to dry. Safiye did not give her product the distinguishing mark of her seal, but handed it at once to waiting Ghazanfer, who knew without telling where he must go, and did so with a silent bow.
Esmikhan, for her part, could contain no other thought in her mind when children were present. Only when the rhythmic toss of the ball accompanied by a childish rhyme droned in from the courtyard with the laziness of dust motes did my lady manage to pick up the thread of her purpose where she had dropped it.
“Huma’s daughters have been forcibly converted to Christianity.”
“There are worse fates,” Safiye said, setting aside her writing with a sigh. “Besides, why would the mother want them back now that they are so corrupted with heresy and would have to bear the punishment for apostasy if they came?”
“The law of Allah is merciful. It understands that we women are weaker than men and is not so severe on us in such cases.”
“The girls’d go to prison at any rate, even if not to the gallows. I say those girls are better off where they are. Catherine has made one her treasurer. The other is a lady-in-waiting, a post of honor, not of servility as you and Huma may imagine. Besides, I understand they are married in France.”
“They were forcibly married. To strangers. And too young.”
“Like me, Esmikhan? Like you?”
Esmikhan shifted, and I went to help her plump the cushions up more comfortably.
“The girls must have children of their own by now,” Safiye suggested. “How can the mother think it a mercy to move them from their own children? What that widow really needs is to remarry herself. I may even be able to suggest someone suitable if I set my mind to it.”
“Do you think so, Safiye? And would you do that?”
“It would certainly give her something else to do so the rest of the world could get on with business.”
“Perhaps the king of France would be willing to put up the brideprice so some poor but worthy gentleman could—”
“That is asking quite a bit, Esmikhan.”
“A widow is in no hurry, not like a younger woman.” My lady’s memories of her own youthful infractions were a little too transparent in the self-condemning tone of her voice. I silently pled with her not to betray herself, for there could be no worse person to give such information to than Safiye—if the Fair One didn’t already know.
Whether she did or not was difficult for me to discern, but she did snort something like a laugh.
Esmikhan forcibly set down her own memories and returned to the matter at hand. “And I think the daughters also ought to write to their mother. One little note at least, to assure her they are happy and well. If they cannot write themselves, they must go to a scribe. And I think you could write to France’s Valide Sultan to order them to give their poor mother ease.”
“Very well,” said Safiye, letting out her breath with the force of her decision. “Luck is with you. This is my day for letters. One more cannot hurt.”
I came fully alert. Safiye could be talked into doing
