“Although the Ottoman imperial house does maintain an ancient prejudice against marrying beneath them—and since they are the greatest empire in the world, finding peers must needs be difficult—I think, with your inspiration and that of Signor Machiavelli, I shall accomplish something.”
A touch of fear crackled along my spine. Now this was an area that might well affect me, my lady, and little Gul Ruh. I sent another protective glance out into the courtyard. All seemed well, but the light blinded my eyes so much that I couldn’t read Safiye’s writing for a moment after I returned to the dappled light within. I listened to Belqis’s phrases instead, still in praise of Catherine.
“May her last moments be concluded with good...Let there be made a salutation so gracious that all the rose garden’s roses are but one petal from it and a speech so sincere that the whole repertoire of the garden’s nightingales is but one stanza of it, a praise which brings forth felicity in this world and the next.”
I shivered again at the invocation of sincerity in a letter meant to lay a false scent and reminded myself to read more of the real one.
“I beg your understanding of the position I am in here in the East before you condemn my simpleness. I had to get to the position of favorite first. Favorite is not the comfortable once-and-for-always of a wife under the Catholic sacrament of marriage. Even having attained this position, I was still unsure of it for many years. I resisted the realization that the more children I have to bargain with, the more bargains I can strike.
“In any case, with your example, dear sister queen, what I had tried to escape when I feared my only weapon was my good looks I have now embraced. And I once thought these Turkish women so benighted in their slavery to fertility! I doubt I shall, at this point, manage to equal your own ten offspring, but I am pleased to announce that after Prince Muhammed and little Aysha—and due to Murad’s visit to the capital over the winter—a third imperial heir is on the way.”
This was news indeed! Esmikhan, I was certain, had not been told yet, or she would have been able to speak of nothing else, not even the plight of the poor widow Huma. Granted, before the letter got to France, the new prince or princess might well be born. At any rate, its imminent arrival would no longer be possible to keep a secret. But that Safiye would tell this distant queen she’d never met before she told my most devoted lady was a matter to be considered. I knew I couldn’t break the news to Esmikhan; the hurt would kill her.
Safiye sharpened herself a new pen—one of the reeds they used in the East instead of the quills of the West—and wrote on. “What an alliance that would be, my Aysha with your youngest, Hercule. The age difference is not so sharp as that between your son and Elizabeth, and the forging of Catholic to Protestant would be nothing to it. Everything from Constantinople and Paris would be crushed to powder between that alloy. I know your priests would not approve, not to mention the muftis. Still, it is pleasant to dream.
“And there is always Muhammed to your Marguerite—should you find Navarre more trouble than you can safely keep under house arrest and in need of more drastic remedy. The muftis even encourage Muslim men to marry infidel women, hoping for conversion. And women’s beliefs, of course, are of little account. I don’t think I can promise you my son will not take other wives and concubines, as the religion here allows. Marguerite might be distressed—but I imagine your nature is such that you can see the advantage here, even if youthful romantic hearts cannot.
“The shrewd mother, you have taught me, must think of such things from the cradle. At any rate, the first thing in Muhammed’s case, here among the Muslims, is to have the lad circumcised—he would never be considered a man and marriageable before this.”
What Safiye planned on that front—converting Muslim ritual to her will—I did not read. The lavish greetings having taken up more than half of her paper, Belqis must ask confirmation for her brief mention of Huma’s daughters. Then she closed: “May this reach you at an august time whose every moment is more precious than several years...”
But Safiye continued to write and I alone noticed the discrepancy. The light had now changed so that I was unable to see enough to make a full sentence of it. She turned the watermark crown upside down and crammed lines in the margins.
Meanwhile, Belqis was distracted by what she had left to do and my lady, who did very little correspondence of her own, by Belqis and her ritual. And, I must confess, such was the glamour of the scribe’s actions that I was entranced myself and failed even the attempt to move where light on the Venetian page would be better.
An imperial scribe uses gold dust for drying the most important documents instead of sand. Belqis uncorked a dal of the precious substance and sprinkled it from the head of her letter to the foot. Then she curled the paper up into a funnel and let most of the gold slip back into its container to reuse next time. Unlike sand, however, a certain amount of the gold was expected to linger, dazzling the receiver with yet more opulence.
Safiye contented herself with sand for her letter, then quickly folded the paper in western fashion, from the top down, because Belqis was waiting. Over this smaller white packet, Belqis folded from the bottom up and finally placed the seal. Before the
