The Grand Vizier looked at me keenly over his falcon’s beak of a nose. “It went well, Abdullah.”
“Thank Allah.”
“And thanks to you as well, Allah’s servant.”
“And your servant, my master.” I bowed, arms across my chest, straight from the waist.
Sokolli Pasha shrugged out of his ceremonial robe. I moved to lend a hand, a gesture I could tell he was unaccustomed to, still in many ways the raw Bosnian recruit. I found myself averting my eyes from the sight of his shoulder blades. Though still covered by under robes of lighter silk, they seemed old and tight—achingly tired. Any other man would have called for a massage. I felt tempted to undertake the task myself, but did not dare, unbidden.
The Grand Vizier was now closer to seventy than to sixty, the small vanity of henna becoming an ever deeper red on his beard as he sought to cover the encroaching grey. And his eyes—tonight—seemed rheumy with exhaustion. No one but Allah would ever know—or truly appreciate—the weight of the world that rested on the lids of those eyes.
“Tell me, khadim.”
“Master?”
I was not prepared for what he wanted to ask, “Tell me what you know of Ghazanfer Agha.” I was even less prepared for the title he attached to the end of my counterpart’s name. It took me a moment to imagine whom he might mean. Agha, lord, though euphemistically applied to all eunuchs, was a rank above ustadh in honor.
“Ghazanfer...Ghazanfer is a khadim.” Yes, that much was self-evident. I had to say more. “Ghazanfer is a khadim who knows his duty and does it.” Surely no one could argue with that statement, no matter whose side he was prompted to take.
My master nodded. He had guessed as much. No, more. But I had given him the impression that this was a man after his own heart, someone he could trust. I hadn’t meant to do that.
“Why, sir, do you ask?”
“It seems he is to be kapu aghasi.”
“Kapu aghasi?”
“Senior officer of the palace, yes. Not ‘is to be.’ Already is. Our master the Sultan declared him to that high post this afternoon. On his visit to our—to his harem.”
“But kapu aghasi is a post—a post almost equal to that of Grand Vizier—to your own, master.”
“Indeed. And it was greatly enhanced when our sadly mourned master Suleiman—may Allah give him the paradise he deserves—transferred the awkaf of the holy cities Mecca and Medina as well as that of over seventy of the largest mosques to his superintendence.”
“Safiye!” I couldn’t help but hiss between my teeth.
“Yes.” My master took off the heavy gold-banded turban and rubbed the infant nakedness of his carefully shaven scalp. “I know my master the Sultan’s harem is none of my business. But I had to suspect that a woman who could call the Shadow of Allah—heaven grant his reign last ‘til Judgment Day—to her bedside could also get him to appoint whomever she wants to a vacant post. I know his mother the Valide Sultan was putting forth candidates of her own. I even got a note or two shuffled through the sacred curtains. But—it seems the old woman has lost this round.”
Sokolli Pasha remembered himself and went to kindle more lamps in the growing darkness. Where are the servants to do this? I wondered. I bent myself to straighten the rug. At least I could do that for him, even if I couldn’t find a way to tell him of the scene I had witnessed between Safiye and her eunuch—now the whole empire’s eunuch—that afternoon.
In truth, I didn’t know what to make of the exchange myself, not in light of this latest appointment. I would have liked some help in the task. But, though I admired my master’s wisdom—the entire empire must be grateful to it for getting us through the years of Selim’s negligent rule—I was quite certain he was not the man to help me unravel the faces of women and the most taciturn of eunuchs. In the ordinary way, Sokolli Pasha behaved as if such creatures did not exist.
The Grand Vizier chuckled rather harshly—at himself, it seemed. “I guess after eight years of Selim—Allah favor him—I’ve grown too used to making appointments as I see fit. This is the Creator’s compassionate way of reminding me I am not Sultan. I am just the Sultan’s slave, after all.”
“And I, master, am your slave.” Could he take any comfort in that? Probably not, but it was the best I could offer.
The lamplight made his smile seem thin and crooked. “Yes, well, let us hope the Sultan himself be not a slave.”
“To the harem?” I asked, astonished at the idea.
“Yes. To his favored women. But Allah knows best.”
My master turned a lamp to the papers on his desk and I understood that, as I could or would say no more, I was dismissed.
XXV
I had to confess the name Ghazanfer Agha had a certain melody to it, slipping off the tongue as if grown together in one piece. And I certainly heard it plenty of times off plenty of tongues in the months that followed. Everyone in the world, or so it seemed, had business with Ghazanfer Agha. And, as rooms for a kapu aghasi had yet to be rebuilt in the Sultan’s palace, they had to be found in ours, etched out of the Grand Vizier’s space in the selamlik because more often than not, the matters of Safiye’s head eunuch were with men. The most powerful men in the world.
Safiye watched the office grow with more satisfaction than she watched her own belly.
And my master threw up
