“At Bayram. We met a few times.”
Even Hürrem was stunned by the girl’s admission. That this meek little mouse had been meeting a man secretly for years was unthinkable. Where was the Valide all this time? Hürrem’s mind, wide open to the most outrageous rumors of duplicity and deceit, could barely grasp the sheer audacity of what she was hearing. But with some effort she managed to make the leap and began to deal with the implications of Saida’s confession.
“Has he seen you unveiled?”
The girl’s silence was as good as an admission.
“He has seen you unveiled. You, the Sultan’s daughter, who claim to love your father better than your own life.”
“I do love him,” the girl protested.
“This Jewish page has put a stain on the Sultan’s honor, a stain that can be erased only by death,” the Sultana pronounced.
“But what if the Grand Vizier is lying? What if this report is a ploy of Ibrahim Pasha’s? What if Danilo de Medigo is innocent?”
“Then we will have eliminated one unimportant Jew,” the Sultana snapped. “But if this story is true we will have saved the empire. No question, he must die! And he must die before he makes any more moves against the Sultan.”
Hürrem rose to her feet and headed for the open doorway. “Fortunately, the Padishah has given me the means to accomplish my duty.” She thrust the door curtain aside and shouted down the corridor, “Call for my Men in Black!” Then, turning back to the princess, “For you I have only one question, my princess. Take care how you answer it. Your very life may be in the balance here.” She paused to let this sink in, then asked, “Do you still have your virginity?”
“Yes, madam.” Seeing a hint of disbelief on the woman’s face, Saida added, “I swear it on my grandmother’s grave.” There was no mistaking the sincerity of her oath.
“Then your life will be spared. But get out of my sight before I have a chance to regret my generosity.”
As the shivering princess backed out of the room, she heard the echo of an angry voice shouting, “Where are those men? I need them now!”
Out of earshot, Saida called out to the steward awaiting her. “Narcissus, come quick!”
Ten minutes later she was back at the Sultana’s doorway, suppliant, pleading.
But once aroused, the Sultana was not easily appeased. “What brings you back here?” she barked. “Did I not send you home? Have you now become disobedient as well as disloyal?”
“I could not leave without expressing to you my regret . . . my shame . . . my folly.” The girl was literally groveling. “How could I have been so blind as not to see that this Jew was only using me to reach my father? Maybe to steal state secrets and pass them on for money to the Venetians. Or was he in league with the Persians, do you think?”
“They have spies everywhere,” the Sultana informed her in a tone not quite as steely as before.
Encouraged, the princess raised her head to reveal the ravages of her tear-stained face. “I am so ashamed. Please don’t tell my father. Please, I beg you.”
After a long moment of deliberation, the Sultana replied, “I will keep this from him, not for your sake but for his. If he were to learn of this betrayal, it would break his heart. He will never know of this shame. No one will. Dead bodies wash up on the shores of the Bosphorus every night. What is one more or less? Now it is time for you to go.”
“Not yet. Please.” The princess reached up to grasp the woman’s clenched fist. “I know I have no right to ask. You have already saved me from making a grave error. But I need your comfort. Without my grandmother to watch over me, I am so confused.”
As the girl raised her hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, she caught a glimpse of softening around the Sultana’s hard-set lips.
“My grandmother always told me that if I was in trouble you would come to my aid,” she went on. “What can I do to make amends?” Now she was on her knees, the perfect penitent. “I would gladly marry the admiral tomorrow.”
“Too late. What is done is done and cannot be undone. Your father has already canceled the wedding plans. He would not be pleased with further alterations.” Once again the woman’s lips were set in a thin hard line.
“Perhaps the two of us could audience him together on the day of his arrival.” The girl spoke softly, timidly. Raising her head, she caught a glimmer of interest in the beady black eyes. “You are the one he trusts. He places all his faith in your wisdom. If you spoke on my behalf he would not be angry.” She lowered her head and added in an almost inaudible tone, “I fear my father’s wrath.”
This time her tears and pleas appeared to have reached the Sultana’s heart. In a regal gesture she placed her hand on the girl’s forehead like a benediction.
“Your humbleness and modesty have touched me. I will help you. We two will visit the Sultan together. Do not worry, my child, your father will not be angry and the blackguard Jew will never bother you again. My men will see to that. They never fail.”
As she reached out to embrace the object of her beneficence, she failed to notice that the girl had turned ashen and was trembling.
“Now run along and dream sweet dreams of a beautiful life to come.”
But the girl did not move. Graciously the older woman reached out to help her to her feet and, with the slightest of pressure, turned the girl toward the door. “Be off with you now.”
Almost like a sleepwalker, the princess headed for the doorway, turned back suddenly, and once more fell to her knees. “I beg of you, madam, do not send me away. At least allow me to drink a cup of tea with you before I go. Just a sip as I used to do with my grandmother. She always said I brewed the best tea in the world. I miss her so much.”
Seconds went by in silence. Then the girl felt the pat of a hand on her cheek. “You poor child. Of course I will take tea with you.”
“Am I forgiven, then?” Saida’s eyes were wide with genuine surprise.
“Forgiven.”
“And may I spend the night close to you? I so need a mother now.”
“Very well.” The Sultana gave her assent with a nod.
“You are the soul of generosity, madam. I will send my slave at once to inform my household that I will not be returning this evening, and then with your permission I will prepare our tea.”
“Permission granted. Before we sleep we will drink a cup together in love and forgiveness.”
Saida threw herself into the Sultana’s open arms for a final embrace, then hurried off to give Narcissus his orders for the night and to prepare a pot of her grandmother’s favorite tea — double strength.
59
RENDEZVOUS
Walking off the practice field for his water break, Danilo allowed himself a rare moment of self-congratulation. Four perfect thrusts out of five. It was good to know that he hadn’t lost his skill with the gerit, and good to be back in the routine of the practice field. He was thinking that after the final thrusting drill, when the other pages had dispersed among the stews of the Galata docks, he would return to his cubicle in the School for Pages and plan how to approach his upcoming audience with the Padishah.
Tonight when he met with his princess he would have a chance to try out his words on her. Who better to consult on the correct phrases in which to address a sultan? She was, after all, his language tutor once.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the round face of the princess’s slave, Narcissus, bobbing up and down behind the giant water cask at the side of the field. With a barely discernible nod, the eunuch motioned him toward the shady grove behind him, where he would be waiting as always to transmit the details of the time and place for that night’s rendezvous. Would they be treated again to a ride in the royal caique with its brilliant white hull and gilded mountings? Not for the first time Danilo wondered how Narcissus managed to produce these elegant surprises.
In all their years of furtive meetings, the eunuch had always kept his distance. But today he grasped the page’s arm from behind and steered him with crude force toward the gates that separated the playing field from the Eunuch’s Path. Danilo could feel the strength of the slave’s massive body as it propeled him to the end of the field and out the gates.
“Why are you pushing me? Where are we going?” he inquired with some asperity.
No answer. Instead he was dragged along the Eunuch’s Path through a small opening in a thick hedge leading to a garden in the Second Court, where he was given the terse instruction, “Keep your head down. We must not be seen.”
“Why not?” Again, no response. “Where are you taking me?”
This time, he got a short answer. “To a place where you will be safe.” The slave took a moment to look from side to side, and then nodded with satisfaction. “So far we have not been followed.”
The garden they came into was so serene, the birdsong so sweet, and the scent of the oleander bushes so calming — so out of keeping with the frantic manner of his guide — that Danilo concluded this must be another one of Princess Saida’s pranks. Why not play the game, he asked himself, at least until he got to where he was being led, which seemed to be in the direction of the stables. So he hustled along silently behind his guide through the huge, carved wooden doors of the stable and obeyed a whispered instruction to get down on his knees and crawl past the quarters of the Master of the Horse toward a long row of stalls, most of them empty, awaiting the imminent return of the Sultan’s household steeds from Baghdad. Then, halfway down the aisle, the eunuch turned and grabbed him by the shoulders so abruptly that he stumbled and fell flat on his back on the straw-covered floor of a stall, where he found himself staring up at the fine, familiar cock and balls of his horse, Bucephalus.
Now the eunuch spoke, quickly and breathlessly. “Your life is in peril. Men are out searching for you all over the city with orders to kill you.”
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
The slave cut him off. “Be quiet. There is very little time. I must go and make the payment for your passage to safety. But my orders are not to leave you alone until you give your word — on your father’s life — that you will not leave this place until either I or the princess comes for you.”
In genuine bewilderment, Danilo asked, “Where would I go?”
To Narcissus, the question was beneath notice. “There may already be men stationed at your dormitory and patroling the Doctor’s House. But here, you are safe. The Sultana’s guards are dolts. They cannot imagine that you might be hiding in the stable, right under their noses. And if by chance anyone does come looking for you, you can bury yourself in the straw. I must go. Do you swear?”
What did he have to lose? “I swear,” Danilo replied.
“On your father’s life?”
“On my father’s life. But I have a question. Where is the princess?”
“She is drinking tea with the Sultana,” the slave answered, po-faced, and then added, with the merest suggestion of a smile, “The Sultana has become very fond of the special tea the princess brews, and the princess always keeps a stock of the doctor’s calming tea on hand should the need arise.”
For the first time in the encounter, Danilo wondered if the slave’s bizarre behavior was indeed more than a prank.
“What do you think, Bucephalus?” he inquired of his horse after Narcissus had left. “Is this one of Saida’s tricks or are there really men coming to kill me?”
The horse’s answering neigh gave Danilo the comfort he was seeking, and he settled down in the straw beside his faithful steed to await the arrival of his princess.
Before long she dashed into the stall breathless and disheveled.
“Thank God you are here.” She reached out to touch him as if to reassure herself. “I was afraid you might have been carried off somewhere and I would never see you again.”
“Are you telling me that Narcissus’s story of men out to kill me is true?”
“Of course it is. Why would he lie?”
“I thought it was one of your pranks.”
“Were it so. Hürrem’s Men in Black are already out there looking for you. I saw them patroling your father’s house.”
“But why? Tell me.”
“A letter arrived from the Grand Vizier denouncing you as a traitor. The Sultana has given her men orders to kill you.”
“That can’t be. The Sultan will never allow it. I am high in his favor.”
“Too late. These men will find you and kill you and bury you before the Sultan arrives. By this time tomorrow you will be dead.”
“Are you telling me that she has the power to do that?”
“She is the Regent. She rules in his absence. She believes you to be a threat to my father and she has sentenced you to die,” the princess explained.
“But she doesn’t trust the Grand Vizier. She knows him to be a liar. How can she put any faith in what he says?”
“She told me that when it comes to treason, you have to take your information where you find it.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“You had better believe it. By the time the Sultan grants you an audience you will have disappeared, and the rumor will be spread that you went down to the Galata stews to get in trouble and found it.”
“Are you certain of this?”
“What will it take to convince you?” She dug into her pocket, pulled out a satin bag, bunched up her skirt, and dumped the contents of the bag into her lap. “These are my grandmother’s famous pearls. They are matched perfectly so they will fetch more if you sell them as a set. But if you need to, you can sell them individually.”
“I can’t take your grandmother’s pearls.”
“You must.” Her tone was urgent. “A wanted man needs money to escape, money for food, money for bribes, money to settle somewhere. You are the love of my life. These pearls will save you. Besides” — she paused, bit her lip, and averted her eyes — “there is something I want from you in return.”
“Anything.”
“Listen carefully.” She leaned forward and fixed him with the full power of her gaze. “I want you to make love to me tonight. I want you to take my virginity.” Then she added almost in a whisper, “I cannot bear to have a stranger make me bleed.”
Every muscle, every bone, every sinew in his body was pressing him to take her in his arms. But he turned aside.
“Unless I do not please you.” She drew her cloak close around her body modestly. “Perhaps my body is not soft enough.”
To this he had no trouble making an immediate response. “Your body is perfection.”
“Then why waste time talking?”
“I am thinking of your honor,” he explained.
“My honor?” She took a deep breath and straightened her back proudly. “To bestow my hymen on the love of my life is honor enough for me.”
This was an aspect of her honor he had never thought of.
“But I cannot bear for you to be drowned in a sack to pay for a sin that I committed.” Even the thought made him shudder.
“I see. You are afraid that if you take my virginity my father will be obliged to kill me to wipe out the stain on my honor. Is that it?”
“I will not allow you to be killed — or even punished — on my account,” he replied.
“You are truly my knight,” she cooed as she reached over to run her fingers softly down his cheek. “But you keep forgetting, my paladin, that I am a harem girl. Remember, I spent my childhood in my grandmother’s hamam, listening to the concubines chatter. I know all the harem tricks.”
“Such as?”
“Such as how to restore a perforated hymen at every rising of the new moon if need be.”
“You learned that in the harem?”
>
“All it takes is an amalgam of crushed rezacahi grapes and ground musk root,” she reported as casually as if she were passing on a recipe for pilaf. “A few dabs are enough to close off the passage, and the paste takes only takes ten minutes to harden into a perfect replica of the original membrane. Then — abracadabra! A newly minted virgin.”
“And what about the bloodied sheet?”
“Ah, yes, the bloody sheet.”
Now he could see lurking around the edges of her kohl-lined eyes traces of his mischievous playmate of old.
“For that I will need a small bladder of pig’s blood to hide under the pillow on the wedding night, and a pin to prick it at the certain moment. The next morning a bloodied sheet will be held up by the bridegroom to show his prowess and prove my virginity.” She paused thoughtfully. “Men want virgins. Women learn how to supply what men want.” She held out her arms, careless of the cloak sliding down her body. “So let us strike a bargain, my knight. I will restore the lost virginity and you will take care of the lovemaking. Agreed?”
Taking her face in his hands as she had done so often with him, he answered, “When love commands, the lover has no choice but to obey.”
Whereupon he set about dedicating his full attention to the task his old tutor had assigned him.
Given the relentless single-mindedness with which his fellow pages pursued their pleasure on their all-too-rare visits to the stews of the Galata docks, Danilo could hardly be counted their equal in lovemaking experience. His total sexual encounters to date were few in number. And even those had been undertaken more to prove his manhood to his comrades in the School for Pages than to satisfy his own desires.
As for his partner in the enterprise, in spite of whatever worldly information she had picked up in the fleshpots of the harem, Princess Saida herself was a virgin who lacked any practical experience. It could be said that the lovers entered into their adventure as a pair of innocents, having to find their path together in a strange and unfamiliar country. But mutual passion, longstanding trust, and above all a deep and abiding affection led the way.
The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi Page 41