The party was immediately alive with exclamations, congratulations and questions: when was she due? what did she hope it would be? (another son of course), and how did she feel? Those who were barren came to her to crave a talisman that Allah might likewise favor them.
While all of this was going on, I stole a look at Nur Banu to see how she was taking this disruption of the order of her party and the usurpation of her status as hostess and center of attention. To my surprise, I saw neither anger nor frustration in her eyes. Her demeanor seemed as sweet as the heavy scent of the lilies that hung like a liqueur over the garden. Her look seemed, like some of the gaudier hybrids, to have a cultivated, almost artificial air.
I could not suppress the thought, nor yet would I find explanation for it: It is as if she knew all along. Almost as if she planned it this way. Nur Banu, I thought, might well have learned of Safiye’s condition from spies or bathhouse attendants, but that it could in any way serve her purposes I could not imagine. Yet, I thought, it almost seems as if she sees that Safiye has fallen into her trap.
Nur Banu bided her time. She sat on a rug with her hands quietly folded in her lap until the furor raised by her rival’s announcement had settled like dust in a stifle. Nur Banu was content to wait until, of her own accord, every woman fell silent, took a seat, and looked up at her hostess expectantly. When even Safiye could not resist the raising of the bow of her brow in wonder, Nur Banu at last began.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Valide Sultan as if suddenly coming to herself under this general scrutiny. “What sort of hostess must you think me? That you have all been here so long and I have yet to offer you refreshment.”
She clapped her hands sharply and immediately a slave girl stepped through the doorway of the kiosk, bearing a ewer of rose water, an empty bowl, and a napkin. With downcast eyes and perfect manners, the girl moved among the guests from the most honored down to the least to allow each to wash her hands and face of the dust of the road. There was utter silence as she did so, but not because of her actions. It was a courtesy expected even in poor homes where only a pitcher of well water might substitute for that of roses and a younger daughter, perhaps, for the slave.
But “Not since she first presented Safiye,” one who had been in attendance on both occasions recalled afterwards, “Never since Safiye has Nur Banu—or anyone else for that matter—produced a girl of such exquisite beauty.”
She was like some tiny white porcelain vase in which one sets a single violet upon a shelf and it beautifies the entire room. Beneath the lucid skin, her bones seemed like a bird’s, supple and breathtakingly fragile. Although it hurt one’s stomach—the fear that even breath might break her—yet one could not hold back the desire to immediately scoop her up in one’s arms, protect her, fondle her, prove to every sense that she was not just air.
Her blackbird eyes showed intelligence beneath the thick and perfect curve of lashes, so there was more than just a shell. Her hair, which Nur Banu had dressed for her under a small purple cap and gossamer veil, fell to the knee, thick, black, and curly, of such mass that it seemed greater than the rest of her body put against it. And her breasts, which on any other frame would have seemed of average size and beauty, on hers were voluptuous, two soft mounds of honey-almond paste.
No two women could be more unalike than Safiye and this girl, the former tall and fair, the latter tiny and dark. But each was the perfection of her type. Probably only once in so many years does the Almighty allow such beauty upon the earth, or we should all destroy ourselves for its sake, like offerings upon a heathen altar.
At last the party could contain itself no longer and began to ask all at once: “Where did she come from? How did you find her? She must have cost a fortune. What do you plan for her?”
Nur Banu smiled and replied, “She’s Hungarian. I can’t tell you how we scoured the markets for her...” until the questions and answers were all a jumble and could not be matched. Then it was better to let Nur Banu have the floor and say what she would say.
“I can only hope,” she said quietly with a heady, lily-scented smile, “that my son is as full of questions as you, my friends, when he sees her. He is prone to addictions, and the only way, it seems, to rid him of one is to give him another. And for that next one, yet another...”
“You mother of the jinn!” Safiye hissed under her breath. “You wouldn’t.”
Others bade her be still and not insult their hostess so. Had they not all vowed before Allah and under a satin slipper to obey her? But Nur Banu continued in calm confidence and raised her hand as a sign of peace. I have known the ambassadors of such peace to wear daggers up their sleeves in the Divan.
“Forgive me, mother of my grandson, if I offend.” The Queen Mother smiled gently. “You are with child and cannot wish to entertain Murad now. Truly, I thought only to give you a rest after these thirteen years. Even Suleiman was never so constant to Khurrem Sultan, and her power never seemed to lack because of it.”
Safiye was on her feet now, calling her ladies and eunuchs to her. She would leave at once and endure such treatment no longer.
When she had gone there was an awkward pause in which the little slave girl stood dumb and helpless in
