Her calm was quite unnerving. “We need only tell my grandfather’s men who we are. We need not fear them.”
“A stray cannonball may not stop to ask for introductions. And it may come from the fortress there”—I indicated the three gray stone turrets marching out to the sea on the right-hand side of our vista in easy firing range—”as easily as from any Muslim ship.”
“Muslims won’t fight without discussion first. My grandfather’s servants will hear the other side with reason.”
I’m afraid my scoffing at that idea was loud enough to offend her. “The time for discussion is past, lady, when there are forty thousand ducats to answer for as well as a small army of runaway slaves.”
“But what has any of this to do with us?” Esmikhan may have been less naive than I had hoped to keep her about the Chians’ latter infringement, for she looked at me hard.
I looked away and ended the conversation with: “Well, it is probably nothing. I see no Turkish ship.”
Not long afterwards, however, we saw a ship leave the island under sail. Only single-masted, it depended heavily on oars in the calm, but the bunting and banners decking it purported some official mission. At first I thought we might be its destination, but the vessel quickly passed by, touching us only with a gentle surge of wake.
“Isn’t that our captain on board?” Esmikhan asked.
I had to agree the man did have the same air, but then every Chian shared the blood. The man who caught our interest along with all his fellows on board this launch was dressed in brilliant red robes of an ancient cut and didn’t spare a single glance in our direction.
Eventually we lost them in the blur over against the mainland coast, which was only visible if you knew what you were looking at. Then the tomb was empty again.
No Christian bell rang at midday, which I found disconcerting, particularly on Easter. Esmikhan was more distressed that we had missed her hour of prayer, but we said them late. I kept hoping to hear bells, and she didn’t want to cheat lest her anxiety to make the hungry day pass quickly leave her a greater burden of leaden hours at the end.
Rising from the prayers gave us the view of the launch returning under the same press for haste, under the same labored power. It dropped anchor near shore, then shoved off again in less than an hour. It followed its wake back to Asia again with a different, even more noble-looking group than the first time.
“Look,” my lady said, our first exchange of words since the brief discussion of prayer time. “Aren’t there quite a number of ships across the straits there?”
Indeed, the lowering sun did seem to pick out more detail on the far shore. And the sleeping bear did suddenly seem to have all claws unsheathed in a bristling of masts.
“I’ll climb into the crow’s-nest to see,” I offered, blinking up the long height against the sun.
“Up there? Oh, don’t. Abdullah, you’ll fall and kill yourself.”
Her concern sparked a determination that caught at the pit of my empty innards. I determined to refuse the image of the eunuch, the wounded boy in need of mothering she tried to press on me with a squeeze of her hand.
“But I’ll have to get out of these first.”
I shed her hand along with my robes down to only the loincloth. In order not to have to think about the pain and shame beneath that for long, I was on the ratlines in a moment.
Less than a quarter the way up, I knew I’d been foolhardy. My feet were as tender as an infant’s, my balance skewed by the lack of practice, my head light from fasting and, with the perverse way it has of doing so, the wind seemed to pick up just to welcome me aloft. But I wouldn’t back down at this point, not for anything, not with Esmikhan’s eyes on me, tearing with sympathetic effort over the hands she clasped across her veil to hold back a scream.
“Ustadh.” Esmikhan let out her breath when I returned to the deck. She used the most reverential form of address she could for a eunuch, the one that means ‘master.’ “Ustadh, that was very brave.”
I wish I’d something else to tell her, for all that bravery. But I could no more deceive her than my eyes could deceive me—except perhaps as far as my bravery went. “It is,” I had to say, “it is Piali Pasha over there against Çeşme. The entire fleet.”
This did not seem to concern her, however. Something else did. “I...I’ve never seen a man without...without...,” she stammered, gesturing to the upper part of her body.
I laughed skeptically. “Lady, you have Sokolli Pasha for a husband.”
“It’s always dark then.” She blushed, but she didn’t stop staring at me. “And I keep my eyes closed.”
“I am not a man,” I reminded her, and quickly sashed my body out of her sight.
The first thing I decided had to happen was that the long- tailed banners—red crosses on a silver ground—had to come down from the main masts. The white-checkered Genoese flag and the Three Kings in procession had to be hauled in off the stern.
Now the five rather indolent seamen who’d been left on board to keep an eye on things decided to question my actions, as they hadn’t bothered when it was just a matter of a sprint up to the lookout’s basket. The men hadn’t any fear of mutiny; my post as ship’s mate had only been informal at best. They delegated the gruffest of their number for the task and for a moment I thought I’d have to fight him for access to the banners’ ropes.
But all I really had to do was to say the word “Turks” and suggest, “Go up and have a look for yourself if you don’t believe me.” A few blinks towards the east and all five of them were hauling in the Magi at once.
A quick glance over the other options in Giustiniani’s flag cabinet disappointed me. Something about the captain had made me willing to bet he had a Turkish flag on board for such occasions—or for when a little pirating seemed too good to pass up.
“Giustiniani, you’re more honest than I gave you credit for.”
And I cursed him as I stuffed the too-blatant flags into the empty cubicles.
Now I had to ask myself whether, Turkish banner or no, the six of us together could get the anchor up and sail this tub out of harm’s way. The anchor seemed the most difficult thing, but I wouldn’t despair until an attempt was made. The shrouds would only take a little more time than usual, that’s all. I’d shed my robes again and risk their stares in the direction of my vacant crotch to lend a hand.
But then I realized that these men had families ashore at Chios. They were frantic for the return of the ship’s boat so they could go to them. One of the men—the youngest and strongest—even risked the charge of desertion and the chance he simply wouldn’t make it to dive overboard and swim. I don’t know whether he made it or not. I do know that without him my hopes of sailing away diminished, even if I could have talked the others into the idea, which one look in their shoreward-yearning faces told me wasn’t worth the risk.
At the first sign of possible confrontation with strange men, Esmikhan had crept back under her draped awning with her maidservants. Although I had nothing good to report, I took a peek in there as my fruitless pacing brought me nearby. I told myself I went to reassure Esmikhan. But the sight of her, lounging calmly, bravely, trustingly fasting among her cushions, seemed rather to reassure me—or at least fire me with determination to think of something to do to help our situation.
And it did, in fact, give me an idea. Or rather, her shalvar gave me the idea, for she had kicked the white-and-silver-figured fabric of her yelek off her knees as she lounged. And a great expanse of the red silk of her gathered trousers was exposed. She was still wearing a very large size of this garment, as her body had yet to shake all of the effects of her pregnancy. There were plenty of cubits of good fabric about the hips and above the crotch, which didn’t begin until below her knees.
I sank to my knees before her cushions and caught her ankle, partly from emotional and physical exhaustion, partly to feel the fabric—which was as excellent as I knew it would be—-and partly to beg before I knew be
gging was necessary.
“Lady,” I propositioned. “Would you be willing to sacrifice these shalvar?”
“My shalvar?”
“Yes, and whatever white stuff you might have to spare. Take your needle and make us a banner. Proclaim your faith to the world.”
Where the thought of facing eighty galleys of Turks did not move her, banner-making as a pious Ramadhan activity did. Or perhaps—and why, at such a time, did I delude myself with the thought?—it was the earnest touch of my hand on her ankle.
In any case, I had no sooner stepped out of sight when I heard the unsettling sound of ripping silk. It was too reminiscent. Especially under the circumstances, of the sounds of rapine and looting. So I let my pacing carry me farther away, assured that if once we did get under sail, our topmast, at least, would be prepared.
Pacing stirred the thought up to my mind that I had reason to be grateful I wasn’t depending on Sofia Baffo in this strait. I remembered the Fair One’s vain attempts to make a shirt tor our slave Piero—in a time so long ago that I had had slaves. But circumstances were otherwise quite similar. Or Baffo’s daughter had persisted in making them so dangerously similar soon afterwards by her irresponsible actions.
The contrast of Esmikhan heartened me as the sun set in bleeding bandages over the roofs and rocks of Chios. She and her helpers had made good progress and continued without pause to coax a white crescent and star out of red silk with pinpricks of needles. Riding at anchor lessened the danger of fire. I hung up a chained lamp from the roof so they need not fade as the sunlight did.
The women stopped to pray, to break their last on ship’s biscuit, the dregs of an olive barrel, and tepid, stored water. The pleasanter things promised by Giustiniani and even the citric air of this port itself had come to naught. But Esmikhan allowed no complaint among her women and they went back to their work the moment they were halfway satisfied.
No matter how the four Chians divided the night among them, I determined to keep a watch myself. I certainly hoped the quiet and loneliness of the wait wouldn’t let me forget what ominous portents hung in the air. Fasting urged me towards sleep already. But the menace was clear enough that it spared me that shame, at least, by coming early.
The night’s first watch cannot have seen two hours before I picked what was more than the moon’s reflection out of the gloom. This yellow lantern light approached rapidly with the creak and slip of oars.
An “Ahoy” brought up Giustiniani’s familiar vowels and limited consonants. The Chians threw him a line and soon his shadow and those of six or seven others—enough to raise the anchor, I determined—joined ours on board.
“What’s the news?”
“Is it truly Piali Pasha off the mainland there?”
“Saints help us, have negotiations availed anything?”
“Our wives and children—are they safe?”
But the men’s pleas for tidings went unheeded. Giustiniani’s first no-nonsense words were, “Where’s the capon?”
He had never called me that before—not within my hearing. But I stepped forward to claim that abuse and whatever else he had to give me.
Discovering me made him change the address but not the tone. “Veniero, get your lady and bring her to the boat.”
Certainly his voice meant business, but to save my soul I couldn’t fathom what that business might be. “Beg pardon?”
“You heard me. I’m taking your lady ashore. We’ll keep her in the fortress. Piali Pasha turns away all our suits. He says we Chians have nothing left to bargain with; we must surrender. He underestimates our willingness to fight. Let’s see if he says we have no bargain left tomorrow morning when we send him the delicate gem-studded ear of the Sultan’s granddaughter as a present.”
XXIII
“What are you squawking for, Veniero?” The Epiphany’s captain snapped at me. “Your fate remains the same. The slave-freeing network still operates. At least it does as long as Piali Pasha stays out of our harbor.” Even against the dark I could see how his look grew keener. His earring itself seemed to sneer. “Or do you want the Turks on Chios? You want this escape route for captives to dry up? You want to remain a slave?”
Each “want” was a scourge upon my soul. It had been so long since anyone had consulted my desires in anything, perhaps that part of me had totally atrophied. Did I even know how to want anymore? The heavy disgust in Giustiniani’s voice loaded me with self-doubt. Even if I could distinguish what I really wanted from all that had been foisted upon me, would Giustiniani let me realize it any more than slavery did? His stance—patience contained with difficulty by the arms crossing his chest and backed as he was by a dozen sea-toughened men—this hardly lent me hope.
And the violence so thinly veiled in his word “capon.” My head still rang with it.
Somehow I knew I must speak, and speak I did, repeating my first words, but managing a lower register this time. “I cannot let you do this to Esmikhan Sultan.”
My fingers danced on the hilt of the dagger stuck in my sash, the symbol of my office. But I knew from experience that, like most symbols, it was of little practical use in the real world. “We will do this with you or without you, eunuch. You may stay with her or go. Go to your freedom.”
Giustiniani took a solid step towards me and I countered, backwards, brushing up against the curtains that, besides my emasculated person and showy but useless dagger were the only things that stood between my lady and Chios’ fortress.
“Our families are on that island—” Giustiniani explained the obvious and echoes of agreement rose from the men behind him—and we will do whatever we must to protect them.”
“By God—and, yes, by Allah, too—Esmikhan Sultan is the only family this world has left to me.” I said this with more firmness than I felt.
And when this raised snickers from my opponents, I added with desperation, “At least she never thinks me inferior for a loss that is not my fault. She thinks I have gifts to offer, even as I am. Exactly as I am.” I realized I sounded like a child facing bullies in the alleyway, and my voice rose until it squeaked again at the thought.
Giustiniani’s voice dripped with exaggerated pity. “Yes, well, any man who’d rather live life as a ball-less slave doesn’t deserve to be called a man—whether he is or not.”
“Freedom.” I breathed the word and closed my eyes as if life itself were fading from me into heaven behind layers of cloud.
Times like this before, a dervish had whirled in to save me—a dervish who was really my friend Husayn. A friend of the family since before I could remember, the Syrian merchant had stepped in to godfather me when others had failed. He had taken the ultimate vengeance on my castrator and so was forced to live as an outlaw in a holy man’s disguise. In such disguise, the teeming land of the Turk had disgorged him when I had need before, in the face of both pirates and brigands.
But I couldn’t hope for such a deliverance now, far off in Christian waters. I was on my own.
Isn’t that, after all, what freedom meant?
My eyes remained closed. Without having to strain in the dark to catch sight of the threatening moves of my opponents, my mind opened to other things. Beneath my feet was the comforting rock of the timbers, the lullaby they crooned in answer to the tide. This was the mother I longed for. I felt the tide itself pulsing through the narrow boards. It was rushing in now, towards Fate. The very breath of God in Creation.
My life, the entire world, seemed to teeter there in the balance. But that world also contained—I couldn’t forget—my lady’s life as well.
And then my nose, unconfused by sight, caught the smell of bilge water coming up from the hold. “Strong enough,” as my uncle used to say, “to make a blind man see.” A putrid “hellhole” made sailors rejoice. It meant the hull was sound; there’d be no back-breaking bailing this voyage. Dwellers of the most congested, filthy cities would clear the decks of such a ship. My lady countered it with ambergris and clove-stuck oranges. Bu
t seamen were willing to put up with the stench for a little peace of mind and “freedom”—so they called it—from pumping.
I felt crushed by the swells of that freedom. In their loneliness was a hidden enslavement.
And then, still with my eyes closed, I could see. I saw the threat of Giustiniani’s earring. The cross branded itself red in the back of my brain because, along with little else, it had caught the single lantern’s light.
And then, in the darkness of my still-closed eyes, I saw the simple jewelry of the other men. I remembered their trinkets, rather, from the many times I’d seen them before: combing through an enviably hairy chest as the anchor heaved, dangling from the fingers in an idle moment. Perhaps I had even seen some sign of chafing when the Genoese Giustiniani ordered a psalm read. Whatever I remembered, bits and pieces, they all came back to me now, whole and in a flash, on the breath of the incoming tide.
In spite of the show of unity, at least half of the men before me, if they wore crosses, wore the symmetrically armed crosses of the Greeks.
Four years ago, if I’d registered this detail at all, it would have been to condemn these men as benighted heretics. Four years had taught me more sympathy for other points of view, though I could never recommend my way of learning compassion. Genoese were Roman Catholics, in the Pope’s pocket; they ran this island. But the majority of the inhabitants followed the Greek rite. What of them? They made half the ship’s crew. And they had chosen their Greekness no more than I had chosen castration, nor was it much easier for them to shake.
I remembered once having heard the question asked, “How shall we tell Greek from Turk if the matter comes to blows?” It was during some threatened fray in my uncle’s ship along the Adriatic.
To this a Venetian seaman had replied, only half in jest: “Just kill them all. The fact that the Greeks are overrun by Turks only gives positive proof that God is displeased with their blind heresy. This is their deserved punishment.”
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