Sofia

by Ann Chamberlin

  I realized by this time it was the dervish. He cautioned against unnecessary speech and then spoke on hastily in his hoarse yet mystical whisper. “They mean to give your young lady to Orhan’s son. This very night. You must fight out of it. There is no other way. For the sake of her virtue and your life, I pray Allah may side with you in this.”

  I weighed the weapon in my hand and found it heavy and good. It sparked in me feelings of strength and sudden wholeness which I see now were returns to the foolhardiness of youth. But at the time they were gratifying.

  I turned to thank my benefactor, but he had disappeared. Surely I would have seen him against the light if he’d gone out the door and back into the main room. But it was too dark to see in the other direction, and even after a few low calls, “Ya shahim, ya shahim!” I failed to hear him as distinguished from the stirring of the goats behind me. So I shrugged and went to the brightly lit doorway to observe the situation for myself.

  A silence had fallen over the drinking men, and at first I hoped they might have retired for the night or sunken into a stupor over their cups. But it was a silence of heavy anticipation which Crazy Orhan broke with the loud announcement, “Bring in the girl!”

  Thus did I learn that the triumphal dishonoring of Sokolli Pasha was to be public, not private. And I realized as two brigands shoved their way past me armed with torches that, dagger or no, against such odds I might not even exist. I could only kill one or at the most two before they finished me off and Esmikhan was left not only honorless, but friendless as well.

  “Up, Princess, up!” The men leered with demon faces in the torchlight over her pile of hay. “It’s your wedding night.”

  Esmikhan did not yet comprehend their cruel jest as she stumbled past me. Her feet were still heavy with sleep, yet she was conscious enough to weep over the fact that they had discovered her unveiled. That she had clumsily managed to replace her coverings by the time she was hauled by the elbows into the center of the main room’s blinding light was little consolation. Nor could I meet her eyes through those veils to offer comfort, though they pleaded with me to do so. I was as helpless as she.

  Directly across the room from me was the door to freedom, and next to it sat Safiye. She had obviously been there quite a while, bare-faced and unashamed in the company of all those men. I guessed she had tasted some of the forbidden wine, too, from the pretty pink glow in her cheeks and the moist sparkle in her eve. Would that they were tears and discomfort for the fate of her friend! But I saw clearly that they were not.

  Next to her sat Crazy Orhan, who had given up the place of honor to his son that night. But he had not quite given up control of the assembly with that seat, for he called the next move. “So, my son. To your business! And the best of luck!”

  Safiye did not smile at these words as the rest of the company laughed and cheered. But she also did not squirm or look away.

  The young man got to his feet and strode up to Esmikhan, vainly trying to huddle in the middle of the room. She was surrounded on all sides, no wall to put her back to, so although she remained on her feet, I could tell she wanted to shrink into the straw mats and rugs on the floor. She looked more tiny and helpless next to that strapping figure of a brigand than I would ever have imagined possible.

  The drink and attention made him graceful, that son of Orhan, something of a dancer with a strong bent toward showmanship. He removed Esmikhan’s wrapper and veils with a flourish that even her weak struggles and protests could not detract from.

  ‘Take that, you swine-eating Sokolli!” Orhan cried, and his men echoed him.

  Esmikhan hid her face in her hands as it she’d been lashed with a whip. The young brigand forced these hands apart and, with her chin caught tight in a vise of thumb and finger, he lifted her pretty round face to the light, and turned it full circuit around the room. Esmikhan kept her large dark eyes— I’ve often thought them her best feature—-tightly closed as if against blinding light, but this did not detract from the company’s loud and lusty appreciation of the display.

  “O Sokolli, may it burn you as the iron did my eve!” cried the voice of revenge.

  Awash with sweat, my hand slipped almost uselessly on the handle of my dagger. But what was I to do? Take this horror as the will of Allah, and amply stand and stare in awe at it? The only other option seemed to be to instantly jump into the center of the room and plunge a knife of mercy into Esmikhan’s heart. I might have time then to turn it on myself. If I did not, a dozen brigand hands would very shortly finish the task for me. It would take a great deal of courage, strength I was not sure I could muster. But there seemed no other way. I closed my eyes and silently called on heaven for the attempt, committing myself to Its hands.

  Meanwhile, the ruttish dance went on in the center of the room.

  Whimpering like a puppy wounded quite to death, Esmikhan managed to break away for a moment. But two or three pairs of even coarser hands handled her until Orhan’s son came to reclaim her. This time he was careful to hold her much tighter about the waist. And she did not struggle so much except involuntarily and settled to her fate as does a lamb to the slaughter.

  The son of Orhan forced his mouth upon hers as he fumbled with the row of pearls on her bodice. One pearl broke off in the process, and there was a scramble for it among the onlookers. But that business had resolved itself in time for all to appreciate the real prize of this activity. Orhan’s son produced it as a conjurer produces an alabaster egg from a basket we thought empty: a round, white breast. That breast could not help but hold itself up in the firmness of youth, though obviously its owner would have made it wither and sag with shame if she could.

  The heady atmosphere was sending Orhan to mimic his son on the person of Safiye. Her breasts, too, were exposed and he was already at the drawstring of her shalvars.

  Only Crazy Orhan had had a woman in months, perhaps years, and as the audience groaned and shouted its pleasure, I realized that when the son had spent himself at last—he was young and strong and four or five entries were easily within his reach—no power on earth could keep the others from making the revenge their own as well. It would kill my lady, of that I was certain. Yes, better to kill her mercifully now with one blow and what came later to me was of small mat- ter. My life had ended in the dark little house in Pera months ago, anyway. Encouraged by these thoughts. I began to move into position.

  “Hey, eunuch! Out of the way! What need have you tor a better view, capon?”

  The words threw me for a moment into sell-doubt, and before I could recover, we were all overcome by a commotion at the other side of the room.

  “Daughter of a wanton!” the brigand’s wife shrieked.

  Her next words were drowned in a shattering of crockery, but those following were more in the same tenor, “Heathen, Allah-cursed and defiled! I’ll teach you to go stealing men from honest women!”

  More broken crockery, and heavy thuds ol things that could not break against the stone walls. Safiye, the target of this attack, was now shrieking in horror and in pain as some of the missiles hit her and drew blood from the arms she raised to shield herself. Somehow she managed to reach the door and find safety in the snow outside.

  “Good,” the wife said triumphantly. “Mav you freeze to death.”

  But her anger was far from spent, and now it was Orhan’s turn to be battered. He swore, roared his wife to the devil and his men to his aid. It was in this contusion that I ran to the center of the room, and made use of the dagger. I caught my victim in the ribs under the left arm. Orhan’s son’s lungs had been exploding upward in laughter. That air now found another, more immediate outlet, and spurted froth mixed thickly with blood.

  “Now, lady,” I shouted over the din. “We must run.”

  Alas, even pulled by the hand, Esmikhan refused to budge until she had recovered her precious veils. That gave at least one man time to realize what we were about. He was the one by the door to the goats’ room, and, a^ fate would have it,
the one best skilled with the bow. I saw him nock an arrow and lift his weapon to his sights.

  We’re done for now, I thought, and shoved Esmikhan toward the door in front of me. In a moment, one of us would be transfixed by a deadly shaft. God give me the courage to allow myself to be the one!

  I heard the arrow fly and felt something like a lash on my arm that as yet gave no pain, but would very shortly. Imagine my surprise when I saw that arrow continue beyond me without a lag in force. It caught Crazy Orhan himself full in the chest.

  Surely the bowman must have drunk more than his share to shoot so badly, I thought as I shoved Esmikhan outside. And I could not resist even the threat of a second arrow flying truer to take a glance as I turned to slam the door shut behind me. I saw the dervish, having likewise armed himself with a dagger, move quickly away from the bowman’s side. I saw the bowman slump to the floor—with a slashed throat. The next brigand was too occupied with the sight of the brawl in front of him to turn and look behind; the mendicant stepped into that blind spot and raised his blade.

  “By God,” I could not help exclaiming. “The man moves like the Angel of Death himself!”

  But there was no more time to think about the matter then. I hustled Esmikhan and, since she was there, Safiye, too, across the yard and onto Orhan’s stallion. His son’s horse I took for myself, but could not begin to race them because I had to lead the girls’ by the bridle. At least I was depriving our pursuers of their best horseflesh if I could not use it to full advantage myself.

  And snow was falling, lightly, but in thick, wet flakes that quickly filled in our prints. After an hour or so I began to think, except for the fact that I had no idea where we were going, we might just have a chance to escape. Behind me, the girls began to think so, too. Safiye, at least, began to let out her tension in a string of abuse aimed primarily at me.

  “Why did you bring us away from the warm safety of Orhan’s house?” she fumed. “You are an idealistic fool. We shall be lost here in the mountains. No one will ever find us.”

  I replied nothing because at the moment I feared she might be right. The snow that covered our tracks also served to hide what primitive sort of trail there might be and moreover prevented me from taking a sailor’s bearings from the night sky. All I could do was to make certain each step was lower than the last one, taking us farther and farther down the gorge.

  “Veniero, I am likely to freeze to death. My fingers and nose are quite numb. Surely, being by Orhan’s nice warm fire, even if we were prisoners, is a better fate than this.”

  “You should have kept your wrapper and veils with you like a good girl, like Esmikhan Sultan,” I could not resist saving. “She seems warm enough. At least she is not moaning to return.”

  The truth was that the air held that curious sort of warmth it sometimes does in early snowstorms, and exercise and nervous energy made me doubt that even in our unprotected condition we had too much to fear from exposure for a while. The lower we came down the gorge, too, the warmer it became. The precipitation turned first to sleet, and then to rain in heavy, messy droplets. Unfortunately, in this form, it soon soaked us to the skin and that, I had to admit, was unhealthy. Besides, the mud was a more permanent medium for our tracks and a less stable footing for the horses.

  Safiye continued. She would not believe Orhan was dead. Could not believe that I, a lone and foolish eunuch, could orchestrate a successful escape. Nor would she heed my entreaties for silence lest our position be betrayed to any pursuers.

  “By God, I hope they find us,” she said, and shouted once or twice, making the walls of the gorge echo shrilly.

  The brigand had the right idea when he bound and gagged her, I thought. She will surely betray us. But though I’d killed a man, I didn’t know how to go about controlling this woman.

  In any case, Safiye’s complaints soon became so repetitious that it was easy to turn a deaf ear to them. It was so easy, in fact, that before another hour had passed, Esmikhan was asleep to their singsong. Safiye was too busy thinking of new things to complain about and ways to try and flirt me into listening to them. She did not realize that the head resting against her back was growing heavier and heavier.

  But she did notice—and scream—when that head dropped away altogether.

  XLVII

  Esmikhan screamed, too, because she landed none too gently in the mud in the stallion’s wake. I hastened to pick her up, but could find nothing seriously wrong with her. Nonetheless, she continued to sob bitterly, and to shake in my arms as if death were at her shoulder. Dreams of her recent scrape with dishonor must have haunted her sleep, I decided. In the end, only a promise that I would seek the very first shelter, and hide there until light, seemed to calm her. “You’ve hurt your arm,” she was able to choke through sobs then, and tentatively touched the spot.

  “Just a scratch,” I assured her. “The arrow that killed Crazy Orhan.”

  I took the time to wrap it with a strip of my light under -caftan, although it had long ago stopped bleeding. That comforted her, and she was at last willing to brave the horse’s back once more. Much against my better judgment, I kept my promise and when, in the first light of a false dawn I saw an outcropping in the rock above our heads, I led the way to it.

  “At least we are out of the gorge,” I said.

  I did not admit that, it would, in fact, be safer to wait until sunrise so I could judge better which way we should go.

  “Can’t we have a fire?” Safiye complained.

  “By God, now you’re really asking to go back to the brigands again. Nothing could give us away more. The smoke from this wet wood...”

  But the damp of our clothes was settling in hard now. I could hear Esmikhan’s teeth chattering even through her veils. So I sighed and gave in, thinking the activity of gathering wood would keep us warm at least. And since there was very little chance I could get a spark going in such dampness, it would be time to move on before the dream of a fire ever became a reality.

  Some dry leaves, twigs, and pine needles blown into the back of the overhang were a help, and I did in fact manage to get some smoke going. Even I was so cold by then that I was glad to see it come. But before my exultation quite carried me away, I heard a noise in the gorge below us. I smothered the smoke with my damp fur cloak. The girls moaned in disbelief and horror, but I motioned them in no uncertain terms to be silent.

  Our horses nickered. Old friends of theirs were approaching. Then we heard voices. Soon, although the speakers remained invisible, their words were quite plain.

  “There. Up under that overhang. Smoke. Smell it?”

  “Yes, by Allah!”

  A few moments passed while they climbed closer. In the predawn light, I saw two shadows, possibly three. They were close enough to hit with a stone, and I actually did pick one up, assuming that was what I would have to defend us with.

  “No. Look. It’s just the girls and the eunuch.”

  “I told you so. The dervish would not leave a trail like that. A trail like an elephant.”

  “He left no trail, that dervish.”

  “Are you sure he isn’t with them? The dervish?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “He left no trail, I tell you.”

  “If you ask my opinion, the dervish isn’t a man at all. Iblis, a devil, a jinni.”

  The two other men spoke words to protect themselves from such an eventuality.

  “I told you it was foolish to start after him in the first place.”

  “But the blood of our slain comrades demands it. That was my brother he killed.”

  “And six others, all our true companions.”

  “By Allah, he moved like the very Angel of Death. No, no human could have done that—against fully armed men.”

  “And then to just disappear... No, it is beyond us, comrades, as I said from the start. Let us admit the will of Allah when we see it and seek no more vengeance against devils.”

  There was agre
ement and the shadows began to retreat.

  “Well, here, let’s take the horses at least. The girls and the eunuch—thev’11 die of the cold in any case. No use letting good horseflesh go with them.”

  “No, no use at all,” the other agreed.

  In a moment, our mounts were gone, but along with them, our foes.

  “They didn’t come and get us,” Esmikhan exclaimed, amazed and thanking heaven.

  “They didn’t even care.” Safiye stamped her loot. “How is that possible? Do you know what ransom they were asking? Two thousand ghrush ! How is it possible that they could just turn their back on us so?”

  Then she went to the edge of the outcropping and shouted to the drizzle, “Fools! Damnable fools!”

  “Well, you heard what they said.” I was trying to explain our miraculous delivery to her as well as to myself. “Seven of their number must be dead, including Orhan and his son. It was Orhan who was really the driving force behind our kidnapping. His eve—it’s been burning in his head all these years and now Allah has finally given him peace. The others—I don’t suppose they had any personal grudge against Sokolli Pasha or the royal house. I think we may say that the bandits of Crazy Orhan are now effectively disbanded and will not bother the Porte again. Allah be praised.”

  “Fool!” Safiye said to me.

  “Can you think of a better explanation?”

  “Fool!” she said again, this time shouting it out over the countryside. “You praise Allah,” she returned to me once more. “But now we don’t even have any horses. The man was right. We are bound to die out here.”

  “But we can at least light a fire now without fear,” I said, beginning to gather kindling in earnest.

  Esmikhan bent to help me, and even tore off a bit of the hem of her veil to get things started.

  “Patience, dear Safiye,” she begged of her friend. “Really, we have much to thank Allah for.”

  “Yes,” I agreed as a tiny flame leaped to life. “Allah, in the person of that mysterious holy man.”