“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, Pasha. Just something Aristotle once said.”
“Heathen blasphemer.” Lala Mustafa brushed the quote aside.
“Be that as it may,” said Sokolli Pasha, “let us be united, gentlemen, now, and try to figure out where we are to get that extra twenty-five akçe a man. There are no taxes coming in; the sandjaks have nothing to tax, nothing but stubble in the fields. Jihad is at a stalemate on all fronts, so there is no booty.”
“There are still the bankers and moneylenders standing by.” Lala Mustafa again.
“Vultures waiting for the carcass. No, by my life. That I still refuse.”
“All the Christian governments do it.”
“Yes, by Allah, and they are condemned to hellfire.”
“Still, if we want to compete with them in the economy of the world...”
“By Allah, we do not have to compete. We are the realm of the Faithful.”
“There are some who would call that opinion short-sighted and parochial.”
“Would you call it that. Pasha? Would you?”
Lala Mustafa did not dare.
“As the realm of the Faithful, what Allah has strictly forbidden we may not do. We may not take money at interest.”
“‘Allah’s legislation has no other purpose than to ease the way of His servants through the exigencies of the times.’” Lala Mustafa quoted from a famous Muslim jurist.
“It is blasphemy to suggest such a thing in this context,” said Sokolli Pasha. “In any case, I could never agree to something that is neither more nor less than the bartering of the lives of future generations of Muslims into slavery. And the Mufti will agree with me.”
The reverend representative of the Faith was not present, but Lala Mustafa sadly shook his head. He knew it was true. “Then we have no choice but to get the money where we got the first fifty akçe.”
“How can we?”
“Debase the currency. Instead of fifty percent copper to a silver coin, make it seventy-five. So the army will really be getting only the twenty-five akçe we can afford. But they will think it is more. And the grocers they buy from wall think it is more. And the merchants. And the whoremongers. And the jewelers.”
“You really think they will do this?” Sokolli Pasha was grim. But then, he often was.
“They’ll be obliged to. It will have the Sultan’s name on it. Otherwise they would be committing treason.”
“By the Merciful One, how I hate money!”
“There speaks a man with all the fine things money can buy and a full stomach. You would not say that if you were poor.”
“It smacks of usury no matter how one wants to deal with it. We are still borrowing on the lives of our children. When a state has been dependent upon growth and growth and more growth and it finally reaches the limits of Allah—Why can’t even I accept that limit? Why can’t I see within and see what must be done and have the courage?”
“No one will call you a coward if you take this bold step.”
“No, because they’re all such damnable cowards themselves.”
“It is only a temporary measure.”
“Yes, and as Allah is my witness, I shall see that it remains so. I will not live to see temporary measures like these become tradition.”
“Amen,” said Lala Mustafa.
“As if one could say one day there was a famine, the next it was over,” Safiye could not help exclaiming up in the Sultan’s Eye. “Oh, he is a tedious old man, that Sokolli Pasha. I only wonder, my love, how you endure him.”
“Endure him? I must. He made me what I am. And my father before me.”
“There is always the executioner’s block for Grand Viziers who’ve outworn their stay.”
“Now, my dear. One way or another, I always manage to have my way. Sokolli Pasha or no.”
Murad himself seemed startled at how easily he had fallen into conversation with this woman when politics were the topic. Even the endearments came easily.
They are like some dottering old couple, Ghazanfer thought, beyond the needs of sex, who only use the bed as an excuse for a good chat.
“You are in favor of debasing the coinage then, too, my love?” Safiye asked her master.
“Yes.”
“But I remember in one of their earlier discussions of the problem, Sokolli said, ‘What man would want his name stamped on a lie?’ The coin says on it that it weighs so much in gold or silver and can be traded for so much, but any man with a scale can see that it does not. And there is your name affixed to it forever.”
“Yes, that is a consideration.”
“Which you considered, my love?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And—other things seemed more important.”
“Your new sweetmeat service for example?”
Murad seemed embarrassed that she knew of that. “Yes.” But he continued firmly. “The future might forgive me a lie on the coins. It will not forgive me if I let the janissaries take over and lose the empire.”
“Or if you show yourself as a weak ruler by bartering your jewels. My love, did you take a bribe for this?”
The way he returned her glance betrayed himself.
“Ah, I thought so. Who promised?”
“I’ll let you guess, my sweet little politician.”
“I guess it was Lala Mustafa.”
“You are very wise.”
Safiye blushed a controlled, enticing degree. “And he was bribed by lesser officials who were bribed by lesser ones who were bribed by the bankers and moneylenders. It must be a substantial pile by now.”
“It is. And you know its genealogy better than I.”
Ah, she was sitting at his feet now just in the attitude she must have had when as a young prince he’d first taken those golden curls into both his hands...
“Are you terribly disappointed in me?” he asked hoarsely.
“Disappointed? Oh, no, my love. I shall affix a string of those debased coins and wear them on my caplet proudly.” She shook her pink and green caplet set with sequins now most coyly. “Did I sound disappointed?”
“A little.”
“Well, I’m not in the least. In fact, I am very pleased. Some of that bribery money-well, you may as well know.
