“He still bore his arm in a sling from my grandfather’s bullet, but the only blood on him was hers and that of my kindred slain. My stomach rose at the sight and I was ill on the spot.
“‘Why?’ I choked over the vomit and the tears.
“‘Why?’ He shrugged rather shamedly. ‘We are men.’
“‘And this is what men do?’
“My friend shrugged again. ‘When we see women...’ But he could not explain it more.
“As soon as I was no longer ill, I spoke some very violent and angry words about how I would rather ‘my friend’ kill me than turn me into a butcher like himself—no better than the grandfather he had slain. I no longer had any idealism, not even for the flashy blue and yellow of a janissary. The man, I will say this to his honor, was duly humbled, horrified at war gone out of bounds. But even as a child, I could tell that war always does that, and therefore it should have been no surprise to him.
“When I shouted that I would rather become a eunuch than join ranks with him, he nodded as if he envied me. One quick cut under careful and skillful hands did have its advantages over the haphazard aim of war. When I did not change my mind, he said he would be sad to lose a companion such as me, but he supported me every step of the way and got the best cutter in Belgrade to do the job. He fired two after the preliminaries, unwilling to trust me to just any man with a knife. I went under Mu’awiya the Red. That is how I know of his artistry.
“My friend was there, holding my hand throughout, just as if I were his companion wounded on the field. As I healed, he came to visit me every day and brought me sweets and talked. He chose my name for me—Ghazanfer, bold lion—a name for the battlefield and not the harem where I was bound.
“And when at length we parted, we stood and looked at each other, aware and aching with fear and sorrow at the vast gulf that now separated our stations, a gulf that mortality could never bring together again. If ever Fate did put us in sight of one another, it would be as opponents, not friends, his male world bent on invading mine, and I must see that it did not. But we parted appreciating that without this conflict we would live very shallow and meaningless lives indeed.”
There was silence when Ghazanfer finished. We were devotees who had just shared a mystery of our religion and to speak would be to profane the moment with the mundane.
After a suitable period of reverence, silent even in the thoughts, my mind began to work again, I realized the monument of what this man had just shared with me, this man I’d hardly ever known before. Indeed, I’d often taken him to be neither more nor less than an enemy and a formidable one at that, in spite of his visit during my illness and the dog’s grass potion. I began to rack my brain for some part of myself I could share in return. I found nothing, and felt poor indeed. But rather than leave him empty-handed, I decided to divulge the one bit of information I had on him that was unauthorized.
I said, and hardly as flippantly as it may seem on paper, “Tell me.
Since Andrea Barbarigo has become a Muslim, whom do you visit for your mistress on the outside?”
I didn’t really expect an answer. I didn’t want one. I only wanted to let him know that I knew.
He looked at me closely. “The shopkeeper next door to Kira’s?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I thought you were there.” Ghazanfer nodded in appreciation. He took a puff or two on his narghile and then spoke a name, “Michael Cantacuzenos.”
I had been so far from expecting a candid answer that I had to ask before I realized that he had just honored me with one more timely piece of information: the name of his current contact.
Michael Cantacuzenos was a Greek, “flotsam and jetsam of the Byzantine Empire” my master liked to say, but he said it good-naturedly. Cantacuzenos was a friend of his and, since Feridun Bey had been forced to flee, my master’s closest confident in the capital, what with Arab Pasha in Cyprus. That was nice for the Christian community, but a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the Divan when the only man the Grand Vizier could trust was someone totally out of the political arena.
The moment Ghazanfer Agha made his meaning clear to me, I instantly saw Safiye’s hand in any number of decisions Sokolli Pasha had made in the past months. My master was incorruptible and my mistress totally uninterested in wielding her influence over him. So Baffo’s daughter had turned to the next closest thing to counteract the weight Nur Banu carried in the Divan with Uweis and Lala Mustafa in the palm of her hand. Cantacuzenos was nothing if not a talker. Sokolli Pasha only ever half listened to him, but that carelessness could make the thoughts seem to arrive in one’s mind on their own.
I nodded congratulations to Ghazanfer on the success I perceived. I also let him know I would not betray this secret—not unless absolutely necessary—and he in turn knew I would not.
Not after what had passed between us that afternoon.
XLII
The plague came late that year, but when it came, it hit hard, and in places that had hitherto been spared, at least in common memory. Pestilence hung over the late summer city like a shroud, tied in knots around the harbor and the barracks, where it always lurks, but also pulled in tight, choking bands even around the homes of the wealthy.
The Italians left Pera in droves and as many natives as could
