To one side of the atrium a slave had set up cushions and a low table covered with documents. As kapu aghasi, Ghazanfer Agha had offices elsewhere. But when he was not busy out in the world, it was his custom to sit here. This was the heart of the harem, a sort of mabein between the rooms occupied by Safiye and those of Nur Banu.
Nothing that went on between the two women could miss his scrutiny. I’d never known anyone to join him on his cushions—who sits companionably with the tax collector when he sets up shop in the village square? It never occurred to me that he might not like things this way, and I accepted his offer not knowing whether to be flattered or afraid.
Ghazanfer clapped his hands for service and offered me my choice of any of the palace dainties, just as if that corner were his home. To be polite, I took only a lemon sherbet, poured through a ball of snow fixed to the mouth of a brass ewer into a small glass. I intended to make the drink last as long as need be. Ghazanfer had his narghile lit and it bubbled comfortably.
We spoke trivialities—as if indeed I were a guest lately come to his villa instead of just withdrawn to his corner of the harem. But then, suddenly, and without preface he said, “All khuddam are not created equal.” Before I could reply, he continued, “Some are more resigned to the will of Allah than others. Some actually prefer this life to any other.”
“No.” I waved him off. “None of us asked to have the better part of our life cut away like that.”
“I did,” Ghazanfer said.
I could tell he was not jesting, but still I could not believe it. So I said nothing.
“When I was a boy. In Hungary,” he said. The narghile bubbled like a pot come to the boil, but whether it should be a wholesome soup or a spell of black magic that had reached its time I could not yet tell.
“I do not remember my father,” he said. The spell was cast. He was going to tell me. And I could not have pulled away from the fascination if I’d wanted to.
“When I was less than two months old,” the great eunuch said, “my father was killed defending Valpo against the march of Suleiman—on whom may Allah smile—towards Pest. Valpo is a small town. I doubt you will have heard of it. But I heard of nothing else as a child. My mother would smile and brag that my first word had been ‘Valpo’ followed shortly by the word ‘revenge.’
“I had no father, but I had four uncles and a grandfather like a grey, grizzly wolf. We had lands and herds, but they were neglected. An excuse for a living was made by raiding Turkish outposts, and when the snows came and drove the Turks down from our hills, the men of my family would still never lift a finger to help the women, my mother and my aunts, who really put the turnips and beetroot in our pot. One uncle carried a janissary musket ball in his shoulder proudly, for all that it made him less of a warrior than the rest. For compensation, on those long winter nights, he’d taken to composing epic poetry- in which our family played the parts of heroes.
‘On the great, grey walls of Valpo
The brave, the chosen few stood.
Grim on the face of Valpo,
Swords like pines in the wood.’
“I remember one day in particular after such a recitation. I’d been keeping a fierce time to the meter with my ax—hearing the rhythm, not the words—just outside the door. They wouldn’t touch the wood pile, not them. The fire would go out and they’d freeze to death before they’d set iron to anything but human flesh. Rather than see my mother weary herself with it, I’d taken up chopping the moment I could swing the ax without letting it scrape the ground. I was tall for my age and strong.
“But chopping wood was woman’s work, so my uncles would say when they’d call me away from the wood pile for target practice or wrestling. A new powder horn and musket. A sword stolen from a fallen Turk. These were my toys. And what boy of any age could resist that play? But I did.
“My mother came out when the poem was over to carry in another load of wood and she said, just as acknowledgment of my presence. ‘Someday, Bela, you’ll revenge Valpo. I know you will.’
“I stopped the ax and looked at her, bent under her load. ‘No Mother’ I said, ‘I’d rather stay here and chop your wood.’
“It would have been bad enough had only she heard that, for she was an emotional woman and prone to believe anything set to the intoxicating rhythm of epic. But my grandfather heard it, too—he’d gone out to relieve himself hidden by the shed. He came up behind me as I chopped and set his hands on my shoulders. The weight broke my swing and the ax sank among the chips of wood on the dirt floor.
“Grandfather felt my shoulders, testing their strength as he had taught me to weigh a new bow. Then he began to exert pressure, increasing it slowly, as if I were a branch he would break with his bare hands.
“‘So you want to stay with your mother, do you, boy?’ he said between teeth gritted with the effort of causing me pain.
“I could only gasp in reply. But then the pain made me angry and the anger made me strong. Strong enough to free myself from my assailant and to throw the ax at him with the energy I’d learned to throw
