The Sultan's Daughter

by Ann Chamberlin

  The smile he returned to me was honest enough, but it seemed to hide some disturbing nuance I couldn’t quite place. “It’s not my doing,” he apologized about the gift. “Did I have time for such things with the army falling apart on me? You’ll go shopping for me, Abdullah, and get whatever is needed for the celebration we must give in ten days’ time. Sweets for the guests, something nice for the mother and the little girl from the” (he cleared his throat—on purpose?) “Father. Whatever you like. Whatever is customary. I don’t know.”

  I looked again at the little wooden dolls, almost afraid to ask. Sokolli Pasha answered my look and my hung head. “That came from the Master of the Imperial Horse. A remarkable young man. He and his squad managed to surprise a group of Russians, killing scores of them and rifling their saddlebags. This, he said, was my cut of the booty. He would be obliged if I gave it to my child with his best wishes.”

  And Sokolli Pasha fixed such an eye on me that I had to bow at once and escape the room.

  I fled into the harem, where I found my lady, sleeping with her daughter in her arms. Quietly, I set the wooden dolls between them where they would find them when they awoke. Then I sat in the shadows on the opposite divan and simply watched them sleep. Mother and daughter were somehow like nesting dolls themselves, a brief glimpse of eternity in the shifting patches of latticed sunlight. For though both faces seemed crushed and bruised with exertion, their identical dark curls plastered with sweat to their foreheads, there was the peace of paradise there between them.

  And I, I thought, of all the men that new babe might ever know, I alone could sit and watch them sleep like this.

  All praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds!

  The Compassionate, the Merciful.

  Unbidden, the words of the Sura came to my lips. And unbidden, I thanked whatever Power there might be for the fate It had sent me.