Ineffable are the ways of Allah. By nightfall, both men were dead. The professional mourners from the Mufti’s had offered the names and addresses of their sisters and cousins to fill the quota at the Vizier’s. Between the two houses, the women had earned enough to keep them ‘til the next plague before two parallel columns inched their way to the cemetery come morning. My master took the privilege of carrying the bier in both.
And when he returned home, he sent for Michael Cantacuzenos. Until the Greek came, Sokolli Pasha took comfort in composing another long letter to Cyprus.
XLIII
Soon the first rains of autumn came, flushed out the disease, and cleared the air. Everyone breathed easier and freer; merely filling the lungs brought a smile to the faces one saw in the street.
But there was one major hindrance to free breathing in our harem, and Umm Kulthum’s visit certainly did not help it go away. She came and kissed Gul Ruh moistly on the cheek and asked pointedly how work on her trousseau was coming, for she would soon have need of it. Gul Ruh, who never pierced needle with thread with any confidence, balked at the idea and said nothing.
“We must get to know each other better,” Umm Kulthum pursued. “Please, feel free to stop by my house anytime. Yes, I fully intend to make your marriage bed within the year...”
As soon as manners allowed her escape, Gul Ruh left the divan and, lest they seek her in the garden or the bath or any of the other usual places, she came bursting into my room for asylum.
“I cannot! I will not!” she shouted, then succumbed to tears.
I took her gently in my arms and let her cry it out. Emotion came over me in surges as I felt the woman in her body that was quickly overtaking the child. Had I still been a man, it was emotion that would have been dangerous for us both. As matters stood, I felt only a terrible craving to protect her from anything and everything evil, destructive, or even sad in the world. In either case, I knew I would gladly die for her sake.
When the tears had given her some measure of peace so that speech was at least possible, I said, “Now tell me what is so frightful about this Abd ar-Rahman ibn Hamid to cause all these tears. For I have never even seen him myself and all I have heard comes from his own mother. I know enough not to trust those glowing reports, so tell me what it is that you have heard.”
Gul Ruh was silent, so I guessed. “You know nothing about him either, do you? So I thought.” I spoke gently. “How can you judge a man so unseen?”
“I don’t want to see him! I don’t want to know anything more about him!”
“But I do,” I said. Before she could do more than fling a glance at me such as is usually reserved for the most vile of traitors, I continued, “How shall I know how to most effectively fight against this marriage for you if I don’t find out about the man?”
“Oh, you dear Abdullah!” The hug and kiss she gave me then were more than recompense for all my years of service.
“The trouble is, how to learn more about him? If I suddenly appear at the medrese where, as his mother says, Abd ar-Rahman spends all his time in study, I will be immediately suspected, an ignorant oaf like me among all those scholars. No, I’m afraid, my little heart’s oasis, there is no other way. You must feign some interest yourself to give me a chance to accompany you. Not too much interest, of course, or your mother-in-law will find you forward and undesirable.”
“What a good idea! I shall be so interested, I shall scare him right away for the shame of a forward wife!”
“Easy now. If you make yourself a name for being forward, no one but a gypsy would have you, even if you are an Ottoman. No, let us try this tack first and then, if that doesn’t work, we may consider more drastic means.”
Umm Kulthum’s house was right against the city’s western wall. Its roof proved an excellent place for my young mistress to watch the annual pilgrims’ departure for Mecca. Of this great festival she otherwise must have been content to only hear reports.
It pleased Umm Kulthum to no end that the only member of Sokolli Pasha’s household who accepted her invitation should be the girl she intended for her youngest son. And she was very helpful in providing opportunities for Gul Ruh (and myself) to view something more important than the pilgrim’s procession, and that was a glimpse of the man she was to marry.
The men of the household—those who were not elsewhere in town, officiating at the attendant ceremonies—did not have such a good view as the women from their second-story window. To see over the walls, they had to climb onto the roof of the kiosk that served as the family’s prayer hall, mosque, and library. This was mostly slaves and young boys, a rather undignified bunch with no supervision. One passing might have thought them the household of a tanner or a goldsmith rather than that of one of the greatest family of legists in the world.
A single young man alone did not join their antics. He sat below, reading a book. He was in sight and earshot of the festivities, giving the impression of joining in and enjoying the diversions. It was, after all, a religious holiday. But his delight in the book gave him such powers of concentration that he might have been sitting in the hush of a deserted mosque the whole while. The catcalls and laughter of his peers might have been no more than the rustling of sleepy
