by Roberta Rich
With the thought of that gold so close at hand, her movements quickened. She washed Leon’s armpits, the inside of the elbows, the veins etching a trace of blue on the pallid grey skin. She finished, then let the arm drop and moved to the other side of the bed.
When she lifted the other arm his jagged fingernails caught on her dress and pulled at her bodice, as though he were clutching for her breasts one last time. His nails were so long that they curled under. Cesca found a small pair of scissors in a drawer and began to trim them. She would toss the parings in the fire so that his spirit did not return to seek revenge.
Out of the corner of her eye, through the window, she saw Foscari. He was talking to Grazia, his face the very picture of sympathy. Then, he reached high into the apple tree and plucked a fruit from its branches. As he ate, he leaned forward so the juice did not drip on his jacket. Foscari had arrived the first time one rainy night last week to borrow money from Leon. Cesca had overheard Leon tell Grazia that Foscari needed ten ducats to cover some gaming debts.
Cesca grasped the corpse’s right hand. The gold wedding ring set with a diamond caught the light, gleaming. The nail beds were as deep and rectilinear as a coffin. Ink stained the callus on his middle finger where he had grasped his quill. The broad webbing between Leon’s fingers made his ring easy to slip off, and the diamond flashed as she dropped it into her pocket. Once the body was wrapped in the winding-sheet, no one would know the ring was missing.
Seeing Foscari wipe a drop of juice off his chin made Cesca hungry. When she was a child, there had been three years of abundant harvest, then one year of terrible famine—“the starving time,” her mother called it—a time when they ate bark, roots, grass, acorns, white clay, even boiled up leather shoes and boots. A memory floated to the surface of her mind. She was a child, perhaps four or five years, holding her mother’s hand in the middle of a square in Rome. Cesca wore a tattered green dress with an uneven hem.
Surrounding them was a huge, jostling crowd. The man next to her, a tanner judging by the stink of him, nearly trampled her in his haste to get to a scaffold. It was so high in the sky that she could barely see the hanged man swinging from the noose. The ravenous mob surged forward. Her mother swung Cesca to her hip and, making swift jabs of her elbows, shoved her way to the front of the crowd.
The tanner got there first and began hacking at the body. With his skinning knife, he severed a piece of leg and crammed it into his mouth. When Cesca’s mother begged him for a taste, he tossed her a bloody hunk of thigh. Her mother held it to Cesca’s lips. “To live, you must eat, my darling.” When Cesca averted her face, her mother coaxed her, cupping her hand under her mouth, speaking to her in a murmur until she eased in a small piece, encouraging her to chew and swallow. At first she wanted to spit it out, but the blood was warm and salty, the flesh springy and dense. Cesca’s throat relaxed. She swallowed and then, like a fledgling in a nest, opened her mouth for another morsel. Never had she felt her mother’s love so strongly.
Cesca returned to the corpse, swabbing Leon’s white, hairless thighs. His flaccid penis lay between his legs. She had not seen it in the light of day. Under the quilt, there had been only an unseen shaft of flesh, pushing and insistent. Leon imagined she enjoyed these encounters. And so she did, but not in the way he thought. Their grapplings were a welcome respite from scrubbing pots and dipping candles. In Leon’s bed her mind could wander. She could dream of the country, of hills and wheat ripening in the sun, of orchards heavy with cherries, peaches, and apples. Of her future.
From the pile of rags in the corner she took a long strip of muslin and tied his jaws together, heedless of whether his tongue was tucked into the back of his throat. She poured herself a glass of wine from a jug on the floor and drank it down. Then, crossing herself, she fumbled about under the shroud and, head turned aside, stuffed balled-up bits of rag into his orifice.
Cesca searched his room for the knife she knew he kept there. She picked it up. With the tip of the blade, she nudged his phallus into the valley between his legs, below the soft hillock of his belly. Then she gave it a jab. Leon had no more use for it than he had for his ducats. A pretty little farm in Bassano del Grappa, just a few rolling hectares. What an obedient little donkey I appear to be, Cesca thought—one of those biddable beasts who labours without complaint for years for the pleasure of kicking my master once.
CHAPTER 5
Imperial Palace Constantinople
CROUCHING ON THE ledge with the knife upraised, Leah slashed at her head with jerky, erratic movements. She flung down more and more hair to join the pile on the floor, pausing only long enough to hurl a curse at Hannah in Hebrew to the effect that Hannah and all of her family were the offspring of promiscuous, fornicating pigs who rutted without regard to prohibited degrees of consanguinity.
“It is a delight to hear Hebrew spoken so fluently,” said Hannah. She had an idea. “I know what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land.” Was it her imagination or had the girl lowered the knife a little? Hannah was afraid to move, but spoke in a steady voice, eyes fixed on the girl. “Like you, I came to this city because I had no choice. It was difficult at first—the language, Osmanlica, from which all vowels have been stolen, the odd provender stuffed with pistachio nuts and cinnamon, the Sephardic Jews who are so different from the Ashkenazi that they hardly seem to be Jews at all. But I have made my life here and so must you. Every day will become easier, until one day you will regard the harem as your home. You will be taught many things—embroidery, the rules of etiquette, not to point one’s feet toward one’s elder, never to speak first to one’s superior. You will, in time, become accustomed to your new surroundings.” How hypocritical Hannah felt urging such a life. The harem offered luxury and privilege, petting and cosseting, but would Hannah want such a life for her daughter should she be blessed with a girl one day? To be pampered but to be as useless as the flightless silk moths Isaac carried on heavy trays to the garden—fluttering, quivering, diaphanous creatures that beat their wings in the afternoon sun, then spun their cocoons and died at night?
Could the odalisques not be taught something more useful than never-ending embroidery to decorate cloths that required no further embellishment? Every scrap of fabric in the harem was replete with idealized landscapes of pavilions, gardens, cypress trees and water, birds, tulips, carnations, trailing vines and peacocks, fruits and nuts. To expend such time and patience on items destined for a baby’s bottom or for the declivity between a woman’s legs as a menstrual pad! It all seemed such a waste.
“Will I be taught to write Osmanlica? I would like that,” Leah said, finally lowering her knife.
“Mustafa does not permit it.” He would not condescend to give a reason, not that anyone would dare ask, but Hannah had guessed: he feared the girls would write love letters, tie them to pomegranates from the trees in the garden, and toss them over the harem wall for young men to find. And likely these bored young females would do exactly that. Who could blame them? Wouldn’t Hannah do exactly the same thing in their place?
“Where is your family?” Leah asked.
“My husband and son are here. The rest of my family live in the ghetto in Venice.” Hannah had a few cousins and a younger brother, Samuel, all of whom she missed. Her sister Jessica had died tragically before Hannah left Venice, under circumstances Hannah could barely bring herself to think of.
“You are better off than me,” said Leah in a small voice. She peered at Hannah from behind the gauzy curtain. Her beautiful face was in need of a good scrubbing. “What do you miss the most about Venice?”
Everything, Hannah thought but didn’t say. Isaac claimed that with the passage of time, her vivid imagination had transformed Venice from a city of fetid canals and Jew-haters to an earthly Babylon. Hannah noticed the girl’s posture had relaxed, though she made no move to leave the promontory of her window ledge.
“The ghetto is what I miss. The smell of cooking—sardines in brine, baby artic
hokes fried in garlic, warm bread and pudding. Here in Constantinople all I smell is the reek of sheeps’ entrails, the cloying stink of overripe persimmons, and beef tripe rotting on the butchers’ tables—” She caught herself. This kind of talk would not assist the girl. “I have been cursed with an oversensitive nose. The smells here are no worse than the ghetto at home, just different. When I was a child, my father used to tease me by saying that had Jews been allowed such an occupation, I would have made an excellent perfumer. He was right, but I am happy to be what I am—a midwife.”
“You are a kind woman.”
And you, dear heart, could use some kindness, Hannah thought. You have suffered more than most women twice your age and yet, look at you. Not bowed, not broken, feisty as an alley cat.
“Leah, you cannot control your life any more than you can control the tides. When you flail and thrash and growl and grumble, when you struggle against the inevitable, you will drown. But, if you let go and float, you will be borne aloft. Allow me to help you.”
Hannah heard the exhalation of long-held breath. She climbed onto the stool and softly touched one of the girl’s ankles, pressing her thumb on the knob of the delicate bone. As she did so, she said, still speaking in Hebrew, “No one here will harm you if you obey. Come down before the eunuchs arrive. They will not be as gentle as I will.”
Now that she was closer to the girl, Hannah could see her heart-shaped face and trembling mouth. Through the worn material of her shift, Hannah noticed her delicate clavicles. The girl was far too thin, her belly distended from malnutrition. Her skin was stretched as tightly over her kneecaps as hide on drums.
“Come down,” Hannah said. “Even a mountain lion must eat. I have a peach in my bag.”
Hannah released the girl’s ankle and held out her arms, listening for sounds of further throat clearing or, worse, the whoosh of a knife slicing through the air. There was only silence. Hannah stood on tiptoes. The girl bent over slightly, and Hannah took her hand and squeezed it.
“Be a good girl now.”
There was a flash of iron and the knife hit the tile floor and skittered against the wall.
Leah eased herself to the rim of the window ledge and held out her arms. Hannah swung her down and set her on the floor. She weighed more than Matteo but not by much.
Then Hannah took the white peach from her bag and held it out to Leah. The girl snatched it, sniffed it, and then began to take huge bites, letting the juice trickle down her chin.
“From my garden,” said Hannah. “The first of the season.”
They heard the sound of the door bolt being drawn back and Mustafa entered, flanked by two eunuchs in blue turbans.
“They will not be necessary, Mustafa. Leah is tranquil, as you can see for yourself.”
He glanced at the girl. “Good. Then I will leave you to your work.” He turned to leave with the eunuch guards, but first bent down and scooped up the knife and tucked it in his sash. The air stirred. One of the girl’s tresses tumbled from the ledge and settled on the floor. “May Allah be with you,” Mustafa said. He bowed and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Do not lock the door, Mustafa. There is no need,” Hannah said. She heard several voices in the corridor as he addressed the eunuchs. To Hannah’s relief, there was no scrape of the bolt.
Mustafa called through the door, “Two eunuchs are standing by, Hannah. If you need them, you have only to shout.”
“Leah will be sensible,” Hannah said, catching the girl’s eye as she spoke.
Before Mustafa’s footsteps receded, Leah said, “I hate him. His simpering voice, his fat hips, the way he waddles.”
“Mustafa no more wished to be a eunuch than you wished to be captured and sold into slavery.”
Leah wiped her face on the sleeve of her shift, which was a colour that was no colour—the hue of stray dogs, of kitchen rags used too long to scour pots, of poorly cured cheese.
“Do you know how the Arab slavers make young boys into eunuchs?” Without waiting for an answer, Hannah said, “When Mustafa was nine years old, he was captured by a slaver outside his village near Lake Chad with several of his cousins while they were swimming. The other boys and Mustafa were bound around the chest and upper thighs. Their private parts were cut off and the boys were then buried in sand up to their necks and given no water or food for nine days. When Mustafa was dug up, he was more dead than alive. He was the only one of the boys to survive.” She paused. “You have noticed the gold quill in his turban? He must insert that into himself so he can make water.”
Leah’s lovely face lost its hard look, her bottom lip quivered.
“The Arabs took him by caravan to Alexandria, where he was sold at ten times what a normal boy would have fetched. And then he was sold on through various markets until he reached Constantinople.”
Hannah intended the story to give the girl heart, to show her that adversity could be overcome, but Leah looked so upset that Hannah was sorry she had told her.
“Why has Mustafa sent you?”
“To examine you to ensure you are a virgin.” Hannah gestured to the divan. “Slip off your clothing and tell me how old you are.”
The girl remained standing. “I have seen fourteen summers,” she said, making no move to remove her shift.
She appeared much younger. Mountain girls often looked young because of their meagre diets of plov and gruel. Many had deformed pelvises from inadequate food.
Leah was not ready for the Sultan’s couch. Surely she had not even commenced her flowers. Dare Hannah suggest to the Valide that the Sultan wait a year or two until the girl was older? She paused to reflect. What a ludicrous idea. God’s Shadow on Earth be denied? If he wanted a girl, he had only to raise his finger and she was his. Nor would substituting another girl in Leah’s place be an option. Hannah had heard the tale, as who had not, of a Circassian slave who years ago sold her rendezvous with old Sultan Selim to another girl. The Circassian slave was never seen again. One thought gave Hannah hope. The Sultan, who was surrounded by the loveliest girls in the Empire, was like a gardener who refused to pick any flower except one—Safiye.
Leah climbed onto the divan, squatting as though tending a fire, knees hugged to her chest, her child-fragile neck inclined, head resting on her knees, chopped hair raised like the bristles on a hedgehog. She rocked back and forth to give herself comfort. As Hannah watched, all traces of Leah’s wild self disappeared. She looked now like the terrified and exhausted child she was. Hannah dug in her bag, found a vial, and poured a few drops of almond oil into her hands. She rubbed them together to warm them. She had no stomach for the job that lay before her, but she had no choice.
Leah’s toes were splayed as though they had never known the confines of sandals, much less the soft kid slippers with upturned toes favoured by the ladies of the harem. Where was the dazzling and eager virgin to awaken ardour in the loins of God’s Shadow on Earth, ruler of half the world? Where were the ample breasts, the pearly skin, and the voluptuous figure of a fully formed woman in her prime childbearing years? Hannah reached in her bag again and drew out a cotton sheet. She unfolded it, let it billow and then float down to settle on the girl. Leah drew it up to her chest until it covered her chin. Even in her present state, a scalp red with angry gashes, legs dotted with insect bites, Leah was beautiful. A beautiful child. What could be done to help her?
Hannah spoke softly. “Lie back.”
The girl sat rigidly.
Hannah waited.
Slowly, Leah eased herself into a reclining position, then curled into a ball, her face turned toward the wall. Hannah wondered if the girl had been violated by the Yürüks, a tribe notorious for their brutality.
Hannah spoke in a coaxing and gentle tone. “You are from the Circassian Mountains?”
Leah turned toward Hannah and nodded. Around her neck was a leather lanyard, which had been broken and then clumsily retied. She reached for it and showed Hannah a nazar boncuğu of mi
lky blue stone, an amulet against the Evil Eye. “My grandmother gave this to me,” she said, rubbing it against her cheek.
“Which town are you from?” It made no difference, except to encourage the girl to talk. Hannah knew nothing of Circassia and could not have named one village in the entire region. She knew only that it lay somewhere beyond the Black Sea. A few hundred Jews lived there in poor, isolated settlements. The men herded sheep; the women wove rugs on backstrap looms during the winter to sell at spring market.
“It is nothing but starving dogs, burnt huts, and charred bones now.”
“And your family? What of them?”
“I saw my father’s corpse desecrated in a buzkashi game.”
Dear God. The Yürüks were the fiercest of the nomadic tribes, their horses the swiftest, their men the most savage. “Mercy upon you. I am so sorry.” Hannah laid a hand on Leah’s shoulder. “You are a brave girl.”
“My grandmother used to say the same thing.”
Hannah arranged her equipment on a linen cloth next to the divan—bandages, herbs, vials of oil, silk thread, needle and scissors. The birthing spoons remained in her bag. May they not be needed for this girl for many years, she prayed.
Hannah glanced at Leah’s face. The girl stared at the ceiling, blinking and fighting back tears.
Hannah asked the question she dreaded the answer to. “Were you violated?”
“The Yürük who captured me dragged me to his tent high in the mountains so that he did not have to share me with the other men. He threw me down in front of his fire. He ordered me take off my clothes. He stared at me so long I thought his eyes would scorch the skin off my bones.”