The Sultan's Daughter

by Ann Chamberlin

  “Another she can neglect so,” the maid said, angrily stabbing with her wooden pole into the steaming water.

  “Now Prince Murad has returned to Magnesia. He is content that all things are well here, and that Safiye and the Prince will join him there at the end of the summer.”

  “I suppose it is easy to be content when one is a prince,” the maid said bitterly.

  “These are matters of royal love, girl. You,” the laundress said with an eyebrow raised to the girl’s dark skin, “and I”—she referred to her own pocked face—”will never know.”

  “I’d say it’s ignorance of love, not knowledge, that ignores love’s product.”

  “Come, girl, the child is young. He’ll get over it. Children don’t remember anything that happens to them before they’re three or four.”

  “Yes, perhaps. And they can block out horrible things much later. But that scar on his face. That will always be there. And I’m sure whenever he touches it, no memory, perhaps, but something dark and cold. I’m sure it will haunt him ‘til the day he dies.”

  The laundress shook her head. She tried to be kind, but she was pressed with the great responsibility of washing for five hundred souls. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get this load drying. We’ve got three more to do today, and I don’t think the sun will last, by the looks of the sky. Come on, girl.”

  And the maid turned from me to pull the steaming garments out of the pot. What should her pole first drag up, however, but a tiny pair of footed trousers in cream and crimson—the little Prince’s. I left her burnishing her face with the back of her hand—tears, steam, and sweat into a high-polish black.

  XLI

  On our next visit to the palace, Safiye drew my lady off to speak in private. I thought at first, and Esmikhan thought much longer than I, that the purpose of this attention was to share some wisdom about pregnancy in the fourth month, which was about all my lady had time to think about these days. But though Esmikhan was flattered by this private attention from the darling of the harem, the two were actually very different women indeed.

  “Esmikhan, the great drums in the court of the janissaries have mustered the army.”

  “Yes,” my lady replied, wistfully rubbing the swelling of her stomach. “All the cavalry has gone, too, including that from the provinces.”

  “I suppose you miss your husband.” Safiye plied her with sympathy, but to this Esmikhan nodded rather apathetically. She bit her plump lower lip and wondered if this sudden attention from Safiye were a sign of more closeness to come, and if she should encourage it by divulging the name of her child’s real father.

  “They marched north this year,” Safiye said.

  “Did they?” Esmikhan had not cared which direction they marched, only that they had passed through Constantinople, long enough for her to receive the gift of a single budding rose, and then marched on.

  “I find that most curious.”

  “The land in all directions belongs by right to Allah and His Faithful,” Esmikhan said. She didn’t find it curious at all.

  “But you must know that your father signed a treaty of peace with Maximilian of Austria near the beginning of this year. What lies north but Austria and the plains of Hungary where our empires meet and fight? Does the Sultan mean to break his treaty? I find that hard to believe. Signing such a treaty was a terrible display of weakness. Suleiman would never have done such a thing. But because your father is not Suleiman, I also cannot believe that he would break it.”

  “Surely the Austrians, as Christians, must be won for Islam.”

  Esmikhan was trying to rise to the heights of political astuteness Safiye had set for this conversation, but her attempt only made the other woman toss her blond curls with impatience. “Well, yes, there is that. But more than that: Austria is so weak at the moment. Why bother to even treaty with them?”

  “What glory is there in conquering the weak?” Esmikhan asked. “There must be someone else.”

  “Exactly,” Safiye agreed. “But who? Who else is north?”

  Esmikhan couldn’t answer and showed by her shrug that she wasn’t really interested. So Safiye proceeded to think aloud what had no doubt been buffeting around in her mind for days.

  “Now I was certain they would go south. Yemen is in full revolt, and the rest of Arabia is threatening to follow them. Even your father, weak as he is...”

  “My father isn’t weak. He is the Shadow of Allah.”

  “Forgive me, Esmikhan—exactly. He could not risk the loss of face rebellion in the Holy Cities and Medina would cause.”

  Esmikhan gave a pious nod.

  “But Arabia is south.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course. That’s the direction we turn when we pray.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And I had Ghazanfer follow them a full day’s march. Do you know Ghazanfer, my eunuch? Bright, ambitious, yet at the same time very discreet.”

  She said these words with a sharp punctuation in my direction. Obviously these were things I was not, at least, not sufficient to her liking. And she wished I would stand elsewhere—out of earshot, preferably. I smiled and refused to comply with her unspoken wish. Since she couldn’t get Esmikhan to take the hint and order me away, she had to continue with the real purpose of all this talk.

  “And you know something else curious Ghazanfer told me? He told me that several thousand of the homeless refugees that clog the slums of Constantinople went off with more janissaries by ship into the Black Sea at the same time.

  “Where have they gone?” Safiye demanded again and, before Esmikhan could plead that it really was none of her business, she explained why indeed it was her business. “If your father knows where they have gone, he said nothing in his speech when he saw the troops off. Ghazanfer gave me that speech almost word for word. Unlike his father, Suleiman, your father takes no interest in war. His speech was all pious clichés the Mufti must have taught him and nothing more. Then he refused to join them! Even on his deathbed, Suleiman would not have done that. No, even if he does know, I’m sure your father had nothing to do with the decision and his mind is so far from the battlefield that I can’t hope he’ll let it drop within hearing of Ghazanfer or any of the other khuddam I can trust. So, Esmikhan, if your father is not running the army, who is?”

  “Don’t worry, Safiye,” my lady said. “The army of the Faithful is well directed. My husband is at their head and there is no Muslim more capable than he.”

  “You catch my drift!” Safiye said, and with an unsaid sigh. At last! “Now your husband, the most glorious Grand Vizier, said nothing of this in the Divan.”

  “How do you know this, Safiye?” Esmikhan asked.

  “If I do not have time to go to the Eye of the Sultan and hear for myself, I send Ghazanfer—every day.”

  “Ghazanfer seems to be everywhere.”

  “I told you he was a good khadim,” Safiye said.

  “Where did you find him?”

  “I can’t stop and tell you now. Maybe another time. What I need you to tell me is whether or not they held the war council at your house. For security reasons, perhaps. It is clear they did not hold it here.”

  Esmikhan said she couldn’t remember. “He holds so many meetings, you know,” she said. “I hardly notice anymore.”

  “The Master of the Imperial Horse would have been there,” Safiye prompted.

  Esmikhan blushed. “Yes, now that you mention it, there was...”

  “Go on. He did meet with Sokolli, then, at your house.”

  Safiye encouraged Esmikhan’s blushes and hesitation. “The general of the janissaries would have been at this particular meeting, too.”

  And the other viziers and Kapudan Pasha because the navy was used, I filled in to myself, for I remembered the meeting well. And the Mufti, the Sheikh al-Islam, was there. He had to give his blessing to this course, for it is somewhat irregular. Of course he did in the end. How could he refuse the reconquest of lands th
at had once belonged to Islam but which, in the last ten years, had fallen into Russian Christian hands? But I said nothing aloud.

  “Well, I suppose I do remember such a meeting—vaguely,” Esmikhan confessed after more prodding. “But I don’t remember talk of war. All I remember was some talk of canals—building canals—and that is the work of peace.”

  “Canals?” Safiye mused. “I know that building a great canal to join the Mediterranean and the Red Sea is a favorite project of Sokolli Pasha. He believes the Faithful could control all trade from India, China, and points beyond with such a short water route through Suez. Who in Europe would then buy from the Portuguese or Spanish who must sail months around Africa when we could offer such a cut rate?”

  “My husband is a very wise man,” Esmikhan said.

  “He is indeed,” Safiye replied. “But no one in their right mind is sailing on the Red Sea these days, what with all Yemen in revolt, throttling it off at the neck.”

  Esmikhan had no very clear notion of geography but the notion that a sea might have a neck that could be throttled was very touching to her.

  While she mused on this with pathos, Safiye continued, “And since the army has gone north, not south, it seems clear Sokolli Pasha does not mean to try and pacify things there so he can build his canal in Egypt.”

  Esmikhan shrugged helplessly. “I thought they were talking about canals.”

  I was quite amazed at how closely Safiye’s thoughts followed the actual discussion. It was almost frightening how little had avoided first assimilation into her mind, and then the acuteness of her conclusions. As a matter of fact, however, Esmikhan was right. The major topic of discussion had been canals. Lala Mustafa Pasha, the Second Vizier, had interests in Syria and Egypt and he had spoken almost word for word those arguments we had just heard Safiye give to try to persuade the army to march in full force against Yemen that year. The Mufti, too, spoke in favor of saving the Holy Cities from falling into the hands of the Yemeni heretics.

  But then my master had produced a great old book, one of the many I often saw him pouring over late at night when nerves wouldn’t let him sleep. It was in Greek, at which the Mufti had coughed and declared, “A godless tongue “but Sokolli Pasha had insisted on translating for them anyway.

  “In the days of the Empire of Alexander the Great, a man named Seleucus Nicator had proposed the building of a canal between the Don and Volga Rivers.”

  “Worse than a Christian,” the Mufti had said. “A pagan.”

  Lala Mustafa Pasha, a man addicted to power, had been more cautious once someone had pronounced the magic, tantalizing words “Empire of Alexander the Great.” Still he had questioned, “What would be the use of such a canal in such a faraway land? It would take years to build, and to what purpose?”

  “It would not take so long as all that,” Sokolli Pasha had insisted. “There is a point where the two rivers come within but thirty thousand paces of each other. A man can walk that in a day and the ground between them is all but level.”

  “I still do not see to what purpose this is.”

  Sokolli Pasha had pulled out a map and showed them. “The River Don flows into the Black Sea, easily accessible to us here in Constantinople. Our ships could sail up the river, across the canal, and into the Volga which flows into...”

  “The Caspian Sea!” Lala Mustafa had exclaimed for himself. “Which puts us right at the heart of...”

  “Persia!”

  “Exactly. Remember how many men we have lost over the years because of the dangerous and rugged crossing that must now be made across land, through Armenia and Kurdistan. Any time we wish to fight Persia, we must lose so many men, untold animals and supplies—and time!—all before we even see their banners flying. Two months, more or less, coming and going each time. And that’s once the snows have melted somewhat.”

  “And we never had much success getting heavy cannon and artillery through the mountain passes,” Lala Mustafa had admitted.

  “What rejoicing there would be in heaven and on earth ii we could make the heretic Persians submit to the true Sunna!” Even the Mufti had seen the logic of the plan.

  “Not only that, but beyond Persia—access to the Volga leads us right into the heart of Asia. It would be a water route almost equal to that to be gained by splicing the Suez, with less strain and manpower. The benefits of such a monopoly would make our land rich for all centuries to come.”

  “Allah willing,” the Mufti had been careful to interject.

  “Such a project would mean we’d have to control Astrakhan,” Lala Mustafa had mused.

  “Yes,” Sokolli had agreed. “Once the proud, strong land of the Tartars, our brothers both in faith and in the Turkish tongue. Ten years ago Astrakhan fell to the Russian barbarians. The dead remain unavenged, the captives still in chains, and our cities full of the refugees charity cannot support, vet who have lost the land of their fathers so they cannot support themselves, nor send us the rich gifts they were wont to.”

  “They will fight like demons for their land,” Lala Mustafa had agreed, “and they will willingly join us in building the canal. Afterwards I don’t think they would be at all opposed to increasing the tribute gifts in order to gain the privilege of joining their rich land to our empire.”

  It had not taken much more talk for the plan to find unanimous favor and the blessing of all. I knew all of this as I watched Safiye probe my mistress for details she couldn’t remember, but I said nothing. Esmikhan, too, soon lost patience and tried to change the subject.

  “Where is my sweet little nephew, Muhammed, Safiye?”

  “Oh, somewhere inside. I’m sure his nurse is taking good care of him.”

  “How is his little cheek healing? Will there be a scar?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Allah defend him!” Esmikhan exclaimed in sympathy.

  “My dear, there is nothing either you or I can do about it now,” Safiye said impatiently, “so you might as well help me find out what you can about the army’s movements this year. It does make me angry when your husband keeps things a secret like this.”

  “No doubt he is afraid of spies.”

  “No doubt, but I am not a spy. My interest is all with the Ottomans. I have the future of my son to think about.”

  “It seems to me you might do better for your son if you were with him more.” Esmikhan said this cautiously. She was still very much in awe of Safiye, for all their years of friendship. Beautiful women can have that effect on their own sex as well as on men. Eunuchs alone can learn immunity, and that only with concentrated effort.

  “When—if Allah wills—my son grows to be a man, he will be the Sultan. He will have to know about the Divan and janissaries and war—all such things. Allah willing, he will not be a monarch who sits home idling with the harem favorites when the army marches.”

  “You might wish him to idle with his mother, however,” Esmikhan suggested.

  “But how can I teach him if I don’t know about these things myself?”

  Esmikhan was silent, for she knew no answer to this except, perhaps, one she carried like her unborn child, close to her heart, and whose time had not yet come.

  As we turned to rejoin the rest of the women, Safiye happened to catch my eye with her sharp brown ones. She paused, then spoke in Italian. “You know, don’t you, Veniero? You were there when they held that meeting, and you did not have babies on the brain.”

  I smiled quietly.

  “Tell me,” she pleaded. “Tell me where they have gone and why.”

  “I think my lady is right,” I said in Turkish. “You would do better to spend more time with your child.”

  XLII

  Not half an hour after I’d sent the messenger on his way to Astrakhan with a notice for the Grand Vizier that his wife had come to her time, another man arrived with news from the front. They must have passed one another in the streets by the quay, and perhaps even salaamed and wished each other “A joyful
arrival.”

  Yet the news from the front was as different from the good tidings of home as night is from day. The invasion of Astrakhan had woefully miscarried. Although it was at first successful, a force of a mere fifteen thousand Russians had come upon the Turks as they worked, unarmed at the canal, and put them to a dreadful, confused flight. The hand of Allah seemed to be against the expedition, too, for even of those who had managed to reach the safety of the boats without being ambushed and hacked to pieces, a mere seven thousand were returning. An early, sudden winter storm had surprised the ships at sea and sunk half the fleet.

  Sokolli Pasha, the messenger said, knew that the disastrous news would precede him into Constantinople, and he wanted his wife not to fear unduly. She should know that he, at least, thanks be to Allah, was safe and would be home as soon as he could.

  I waited as long as I dared after the messenger had gone to his barracks before going up to the birthing room. I had decided I would not break the news until after the child was born, but my lady read my face, and then it was better that she knew all than that she be kept guessing with nothing.

  She gave a little cry when I had finished, whether from the labor or my words, I knew not.

  “Please, do not fear, lady,” I said. “Your husband sends word that he, by the mercy of Allah, was spared.”

  “But what about...?”

  Pain, or again, perhaps dread, cut her words short, but I knew she could not help but think of the child’s father.

  “I’m sorry, lady. I do not know. I will try and find out and let you know as soon as I can.”

  Tears pressed silently from her eyes, but she nodded gratefully as I left.

  I returned to the house at nightfall, having heard nothing. Even the disaster was as yet unknown in the streets.

  “She’s having a hard time of it,” the Quince greeted me.

  The midwife had poured gunpowder in a thin line across the threshold, and I knew if I crossed it, I could not come out of the birthing room again, for it was believed I would take the strength of pangs with me. They would only torment and bring forth nothing, so I stayed without and only peered in from time to time. The room was dark, and made darker still by the thick clouds of burning sandalwood and frankincense that were to make the labor sweet. I wondered, rather, how Esmikhan could even breathe, and I shrank when I imagined the incense drying in a still, suffocating mask on sweat and tears. I could barely make out the glimmer of the gilded cover of the great Koran the Quince had hung as a talisman above the point where the baby should be born. I couldn’t distinguish the figure of my lady huddling on the birthing stool beneath it from those of the other women—her maids and some from the Serai—who were in attendance to give her encouragement.