“The Greek did not hang himself,” I said. “Where is the stool he kicked away? He couldn’t have done it otherwise.”
Finally I showed the master the slip of paper I had retrieved from the dead man’s chest before any other had seen and read it. It said, “Defiler of Muslim women. Condemned to Hell.”
Later Ghanzanfer Agha offered this information to me without prompting: “By Allah, I knew the last time I met the Greek with a message from Safiye that we were seen, but I never imagined it would end like this.” And even though the man was not a believer, Ghazanfer prayed, “Allah have mercy on his soul.”
“Men from the palace must have been here somewhere near—watching our gate,” I whispered to my master that night. “Waiting for him to arrive. They have done this, master, though for the love of Allah I know not why.”
But Sokolli Pasha only nodded at my passion and my words. Perhaps it was only the calmness of the prayer, but I had the feeling he had expected this all along.
Once more, after the death of the Greek, my master spilled his grief into another very long letter to Arab Pasha.
The only reply the messenger brought back from the island was a plain dark blue woolen cloak. The cloak was hard and black in spots and rent near each spot with a ragged slash. The governor of Cyprus had been wearing it when, the report said, he was set upon by brigands (“The island crawls with them since the war’s desolation”) and killed.
“His bodyguard?” My master managed to ask this in a tone as if the news were only the reports of the wheat harvest in Bulgaria.
“That’s good news, my lord Pasha.” The messenger forced a smile. “They all escaped by the favor of Allah.”
“All?” My master’s eyes wandered for one brief moment to his own bodyguard, the chiauses from the Porte, standing at attention on either side of him. He shook his head firmly against a thought. No, impossible. That would be too obvious.
“Without a scratch,” the messenger replied, losing his smile. “My lord, what’s the matter? I thought that bit of news would cheer you at least.”
“It should cheer me that one as dear to me as a son should be killed and his bodyguard of one hundred men should not raise a finger in his defense?”
“It...it does seem odd, doesn’t it?” the messenger admitted.
“Yes, indeed. ‘Odd.’” The master’s thoughts were elsewhere, so it was a moment before he concluded, “Thank you. That is all.”
* * *
Business in the harem kept my mind facing another direction. The latest-made widow returned, seven months gone with Arab Pasha’s child. She had to be eased from wife of governor back down to one slave among many again. That was a noisy, weepy affair, and when the child was born, there was more wailing. Not only did the mother weep over the fact that she’d borne no son to carry on the governor’s name, but the little girl was sickly and demanding, yet stubbornly refused to die. And everyone else moaned, too, as the stress told on us all.
On the other hand, there was Gul Ruh’s grief. It was quiet and terrible. She wouldn’t eat for nearly a week until we forced her. But the curtains of the harem closed over this grief, too, like skin over a wound. No scar remained to show the world where it had pierced so deeply. Only after that, Gul Ruh was never the same girl—or rather, young woman—again.
Just how changed she was I couldn’t imagine until some weeks later when Sokolli Pasha asked that I bring his daughter to him in the mabein. He had not seen her, I realized, since Feridun Bey’s disappearance, for he never gave himself cause to deal with women anymore. I could tell he was nervous, but so was she, with wide eyes and a heart one could almost see, fluttering in the color on her cheeks.
I gave no more thought to this dilemma, but laid my hand on her shoulder as we slowly walked to the mabein and I promised her once again I would see to it she never married anyone she didn’t want to.
“Hello, child,” Sokolli greeted her.
“Hello, Father.” Her head was down, her chin right on her chest. One could hardly hear her.
“Well, come here, child. I won’t bite.” He laughed at this nervously as if even he didn’t expect to be believed.
She went to him, but at a certain point, covered her face with her hands before him as if he were a total stranger, which, indeed, it might be said he was. Finally, he coaxed her on his knee. He was remembering the child: The young woman looked very awkward there, and rigid with nerves. But in that position he was able to work the hands away from her face, lift her chin, and look at her. I could see her face gave him quite a start.
If he had flattered himself when she was a child that there were shadows of his features in her face, in the immobility that had come to young adulthood, he could no longer do so. Was it so plain that even he could see exactly whose features those were, or was he merely struck by their dark, young beauty—the soft, full mouth, the large, black eyes, cheeks thin, but full of bloom? Did he think, perhaps, there was something attractive in the mother he must have overlooked all these years?
Sokolli Pasha had to look away for a moment to lay those thoughts aside. When his eyes returned, he came to the business at hand: “Do you understand, Daughter, that I mean only the best for your future happiness and care?”
“Yes, Father,” she murmured.
“Good, for I have decided not to put off giving you to a good man any longer. At
