But Safiye had the gracelessness to accuse my lady’s rooms of cursing births. Esmikhan did not shake off this accusation very well. The memory of her own three dead little princes did not rise off our hearts for weeks. Even Gul Ruh proved a poor antidote for a while.
And I was more disturbed than I could even tell my lady by the word the Fig left me with as I helped bundle her back into her sedan. “Revenge,” is what I thought she said, looking straight at me. Her thick African accent made me hope I’d heard wrong. But even more unnerving was the impression she gave me that I should be glad of this information.
Safiye recovered from the tragedy faster than anyone. A stint at the grille overlooking Sokolli Pasha’s selamlik was tonic enough for her. She did have Muhammed and Aysha in compensation, growing quickly as children will.
Still, I think we were relieved—all but poor Muhammed and Gul Ruh, who wept as if their little lives would end—when Safiye finally conceded to Murad’s entreaties to join him in Magnesia. At any rate, they were gone before the worst of winter set in.
* * *
With Esmikhan and her stepmother there were no personality problems whatsoever. In fact, after all the excitement of having Safiye with us, I would at times find myself suddenly and excruciatingly bored. If one of my lady’s stepmother’s handmaids had not been among Selim’s current favorites, I think I might have gotten into some mischief of my own, just to keep in shape.
This girl was not foremost of the favorites: Those had been given a room close at hand in what was left of the main palace. And Selim’s desires were not what they once were: The burning palace had put some fear of Hell in him and he had taken to calling for the Mufti for long religious discussions almost as often as he called for debauch.
But every once in a while he would send a messenger to us for the girl. She had no attributes to speak of save this alone: She was the best of the booty Cyprus had to offer after the fourteen months of starvation and disease that were the siege. He sent for her on days when he wanted to drink the wine so much blood had been spilled for, and to glory in the one great success of his reign—the conquest of her island.
For my own diversion, whenever the girl was called for, I would see to it that I was free to accompany her. Some may see no great excitement in a long evening reading poetry or playing chess with a colleague while I waited for Selim to grow sated. It is true I would have whiled away the time in much the same way at home. But at least here the rooms were not quite so familiar. There were new faces in the company who might have new tales to tell, and I could stop by and observe how the rebuilding of the palace was coming along. Progress here was but very slow, for Selim’s heart wasn’t in the task. Nonetheless, this provided other news to bring home to my mistress. The new foundations ran along the same outlines as the buildings that had burned, so she imagined it easily.
I did keep thinking I might someday pick up some news there so close to the Sultan that would prove of more importance. But Selim had long ago forgotten there was a world outside that would shake if he but spoke. My own master Sokolli Pasha was in full control of the vast empire in all but name. Selim had retreated more and more into his own pleasure-—or, as relief from that, into his own morbid guilt, equally indulgent because it was likewise of no practical application.
I was disappointed in everything I learned—until one late afternoon just shortly before Muslims were due to begin the month of fasting in their nine hundred and eighty-second year. Christians were in the midst of Advent in the last months of 1574.
I remember I was alone in the eunuchs’ sitting room, reading a collection of pious tales. Lack of activity more than anything else had sent me to seek such reading. I was on the story of how Moses asked Allah where in the universe He was. And the ancient prophet received the reply, “Know that when you seek for Me you have already found Me.”
I had looked up for a moment from the manuscript to contemplate that divine answer, but was denied inspiration of my own by the appearance of the Cypriot girl. Every retelling of that old tale brings the events that followed so vividly to mind that I sometimes fear I shall never be able to seek Allah properly because of this stumbling block.
It was evident at once that the girl had not finished her stay. She was not dressed to go, but had only a bath towel to hide her nakedness in; because of her agitation, it wasn’t serving very well.
He’s been more perverse to her than usual, was my first thought. But things will only go worse for her if she seeks to escape him. There is no escape for a slave of the Sultan. Allah help me. How shall I convince her?
But then I noticed a high glow in her cheeks, rather more of excitement than of fear or disgust. It made her actually radiant, and if I had thought before that being a Cypriot was her only claim to favor, I now decided there was some other beauty present.
“Abdullah, please come.” She did not squeak it in a passion or shout it in fear, but whispered it, as conspiracy.
I was confused. “Into the presence of the Sultan?”
“Please, just come.”
So I marked my book with a scrap of silk and followed the naked kneading of her buttocks.
They had been in the bath. It was Selim’s fancy
