The Venetian Contract

by Fiorato, Marina

  Now, fourteen years later, she understood that seed of dread. She had been waiting for the top to fall, wanting it but dreading it too, hoping with some small fibre of will that the top would spin for ever; knowing that it would not. Now she watched the Dervishes, waiting for one of them to fall, until she heard the rasp of the curtain being drawn behind her. She turned to see one of the Odalisques, and knew what she would say before the girl spoke. ‘Come and see.’

  As she rose, stiff in every sinew, Feyra turned back once, to the Dervishes.

  They were still spinning. It was Nur Banu who had fallen.

  Chapter 3

  ‘I am Cecilia Baffo.’

  Feyra was seated on Nur Banu’s bed. The Valide Sultan looked weak, and her pale skin was darker than ever, the veins mottling. The poison was gaining on her. Feyra might have thought her mistress was raving, but she was still alert and lucid. Feyra shook her head in confusion.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Valide Sultan tried to raise herself up a little on her pillows. ‘What do you know of me?’

  Feyra parroted what she had heard from Kelebek. ‘You were captured by corsairs and brought here to the Sultan Selim, may he rest in the light of Paradise.’ Feyra knew that Turkish horsemen were feared the world over; supreme in battle, descending from the hillsides upon their enemy ululating like banshees.

  ‘Captured by corsairs.’ Nur Banu gave a small smile. ‘Yes, that is my legend. Captured by corsairs; but this is not the half, the quarter, no, not the slightest piece of my history.’

  ‘I thought I knew everything,’ said Feyra, bewildered, for they had shared so many secrets over the years.

  ‘Speak to me in our tongue.’

  Feyra knew her mistress meant Phoenician. If they were to speak in that tongue, she was about to hear a great secret. Greater than the time when Nur Banu had concealed her husband Selim’s death from the world for three days until their son and heir, the current Sultan, could be recalled from the provinces. Greater than the times when Feyra had helped her mistress divert money from the treasury, and take caskets of money to put in the hands of the architect Mimar Sinan who was building a mosque in Nur Banu’s name. Greater than all the times when Feyra had arranged meetings between Nur Banu and her allies from various nations around the world, to oppose or attenuate her rash son’s policies.

  ‘I find Phoenician difficult.’

  ‘Feyra. Not Phoenician: Venetian.’

  A word misheard as a little girl was now the password that opened a map for Feyra. Her mouth opened too.

  Nur Banu exhaled in a long sigh. ‘Yes, I am Venetian. I have allowed everyone to forget it. I have almost forgotten it myself. But when I lived in that life, I was Cecilia Baffo, daughter of Nicolò Venier.’

  ‘Venier?’ Feyra uttered the name that was a curse in Constantinople.

  Nur Banu caught the intonation. ‘Yes. My uncle is Sebastiano Venier, Admiral of Lepanto and Doge of Venice.’

  No wonder the general population had been allowed to forget this. The Venetians had been enemies to the Turks for centuries, had taken their gold, raped their women, and even desecrated the graves of their Sultans. Mehmet II’s crown had been taken from his tomb by Venetian marauders with the hairs still attached. And worst of all, most reviled of these pirate conquerors, was Sebastiano Venier, the figurehead on the warship that was Venice. The Doge’s reputation was trampled daily in the pamphlets sold on street corners and his image burned in the alleys. Since he had crushed the Ottoman fleet a few short years ago at the Battle of Lepanto, the Sultan and all his people breathed revenge day and night.

  ‘Yes. You will have noticed my son holds no love for me. He thinks my policies are pro-Venetian, that I have a partiality for my old home. And he is right.’ The Valide Sultan looked from the window with eyes that now saw a different view. ‘Oh Feyra, have you ever seen a city that floats on the sea? Have you ever seen towers that reach like spears instead of crouching in domes; have you seen a blade that is straight and not curved? Have you ever seen glass that glows like a jewel and palaces where hard stone is rendered as delicate as lace? Now my son plots the worst of all things against Venice, and only you can prevent it.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, Feyra, you. You are my Kira; you go between me and the world. But the world is bigger than this city. I’m going to send you on the hardest errand of all.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘To understand that you must know my history. I was born Cecilia Baffo, daughter of Nicholas Venier and Violante Baffo. My father was Lord of Paros, governor of the thousand small islands off the coast of Greece called the Cyclades, under the rule of the Republic of Venice. Although I lived, at that time in Venice, I was staying on the islands with my father in the summer of 1555 – 962 by our reckoning.’

  Twenty-one years ago, thought Feyra. Before she herself was born. ‘And it was there that you were captured?’

  ‘In one sense, yes. There was a great Masque held at our palace at Paros, to celebrate my betrothal. I was to be given to Ridolfo Falieri, a man of great wealth, and on the night that I was given to him, I fell in love.’

  ‘So he was a good man?’

  ‘Not at all. He was old and cruel and crabbed with age – the match purely dynastic. No, I did not fall in love with him. There was a sea captain at the Masque, a young protégé of the Sultan, whose ship was moored at the island to pick up supplies. Within the space of one hour I had given myself to him. The corsairs were his crew; we took my father’s horses and rode to the shore, but I went willingly. I wanted to put the sea between myself and Ridolfo, true; but I could not bear that the captain should sail away without me.’

  Feyra pleated the sheets between her fingers. ‘It was my father that you loved.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘It was your father,’ her mistress confirmed. She looked at Feyra closely. ‘And by the time we reached Constantinople, I was with child.’

  Feyra went still. She could see that her mistress was beginning to have difficulty speaking; she could hear the slur in the words. She barely dared breathe. She needed to hear this next part.

  ‘Oh, Feyra, I was not careful, like you are. I see the way you dress yourself, the pains you take to hide your light. I was not chary. I walked in Sultanamet in my fine Venetian gowns, blooming with my love and with my child, my face uncovered, my hair dressed in ringlets. I was handsome then, Feyra, I had golden hair and pearly skin and sea-coloured eyes. One day as I walked back from the Bazaar a litter passed me – the Sultan Selim was within, and as the breeze blew one of his curtains opened and our eyes met for an instant. It was enough. By nightfall I was in the Harem, I was given the name Nur Banu Afife, and Cecilia Baffo was no more.’

  ‘What did my father do?’

  Cecilia gave the ghost of a smile. ‘He raged and screamed. He came to the palace and broke down the doors with his bare hands, demanding the return of his lover and the child in her belly. He was taken by the guards to the Sultan and told that if the child was born a boy it would be killed, for it could not live to challenge any true heirs born to my body. The Sultan himself did not lie with me until the child was born. He waited to claim me. It was a terrible few months Feyra, to wait for my child.’

  ‘But the child was a girl, wasn’t it?’

  Feyra didn’t need the affirmation of Cecilia’s weak nod. Suddenly all was clear: her daily visits to the Harem for as long as she could remember; that her mistress had not raised her voice to her until today; that Nur Banu herself had taught her to read and write and speak the language of her youth; that she’d encouraged her in her medical interests to garner the knowledge that other women were rarely given.

  ‘Your father was given rank and status in return for his acquiescence; and he was given you, his daughter, to raise in peace in the city. He was given your life in return for two things: his absolute loyalty to the Sultan and all his heirs, and his promise that he would never attempt to see me again. And I have nev
er seen him, Feyra, not once from that day to this.’ Nur Banu’s eyes turned to glass. ‘By the time we battled the Venetians at Lepanto your father was an Admiral, the very rank my uncle the Doge held for the Venetians. I watched from this very window, Feyra, straining my eyes, imagining I could see all the way to the Straits of Patras where the two fleets met, where my lover Timurhan and my uncle Sebastiano fought each other with fire and cannon, under the orders of my husband Selim.’

  Feyra had to lean in to hear her now.

  ‘I became happy again, over time. I came to love my lord the Sultan, not with the youthful passion I had for your father, but with a growing respect and companionship. He was a good and kind man, as different to our son as night is to day. I learned how to make myself indispensable, and rose from Odalisque to Concubine, Concubine to Kadin, Kadin to Sultana. I began, slowly, to exert my influence, to promote pro-Venetian policies. But when my husband died, as you will remember, all that ended. You will well recall, Feyra, how we strived to ensure Murad’s succession, and you will know, now, why I trusted you and no other to help me in that endeavour. But it had been better if I had let Murad’s rivals take the throne; for my son is truly evil, and is consumed with hatred for Venice and, by association, for me.’

  Feyra climbed into the bed now, and brought her ear close to her mistress’s dry and cracked lips. The Valide Sultan moved one bloated arm across Feyra’s body in an embrace, and smiled the ghost of a smile, as if the intimacy gave her great happiness.

  ‘Do not pity me. I have had the private consolation, all these years, of having a child who is the light that lightens my days. He does not know, my son, who you truly are, for he was born a year later and my ladies kept the secret well. I was able to keep you close, and watch you grow. You are so clever, courageous and kind. I see Timurhan every day, in you.’ The mention of her old love roused her a little, and her voice became a little louder. ‘You must not tell him any of this, promise me. It is very important that you do not, for he is a player in this tragedy of my son’s.’ She raised a swollen hand, with a visible effort, and cupped Feyra’s cheek. ‘If I were to wish for one thing, I would wish you a little less beautiful. It is well that you are to leave the city.’

  Feyra felt a thrill of fear. ‘Why must I go?’

  ‘My son has conceived of the most evil plot against Venice …’ The hand that held Feyra’s cheek began to shake. Feyra moved her fingers up to the wrist with concern. Anger was her mistress’s enemy for it made the blood rush and the humours churn, the spores would be crowding to her organs now.

  ‘Calmly. Say on.’

  Nur Banu pulled the wrist away and began wringing her hands – but no, she was working to loosen a ring from her distended finger, the crystal band that she always wore, ‘Take this,’ she said, her eyes closing and her speech beginning to clot. ‘Tell my uncle the Doge, tell him. And if you need sanctuary, there is a house with golden callipers over the door. A man named Saturday lives within. He will help you.’

  Feyra took the ring, without looking at it. She had barely listened once she had heard the name of the Doge. She propped herself on her elbow, drenched with dread. ‘Tell him what?’

  But Nur Banu’s eyes were blank and staring.

  ‘Take the ring where?’

  Cecilia Baffo’s eyes widened before they closed. She spoke with her eyes shut. ‘To Venice, of course.’

  Feyra leaned down and laid her cheek to her mistress’s lips. She could not yet think Mother. The Valide Sultan’s breath was short but regular: she still lived, but Feyra knew there would be no benefit in rousing her. A shock would possibly be too much for her beleaguered heart.

  Feyra looked out of the window across the sea that led to Venice. The sun was high in the sky, the boats crowding the mouth of the Bosphorus. Some alchemy had turned the lapis water to gold. Little black boats broke the light; some crossing the sound to Pera and back, some setting sail for distant shores. How heartless, thought Feyra. How can trade continue, how can people still need silk and salt and saffron while a human life ends here?

  Feyra had been at the bedside of death many times, and knew that when the dying had something to say, they rarely choked out their last word cleanly and then expired, whatever the Osmanli storytellers might say. Feyra’s one, faint hope was that Nur Banu would rally one more time before the poison claimed her, as her body made one more desperate effort to fight the spores of the Bartholomew tree. But she could not expect that Nur Banu would be as lucid as she had just been. Feyra was thankful that she had had the time to hear her mother’s story – and her own – but now she needed to hear what her mistress would ask of her; and the meaning of the ring.

  She turned the ring on her finger in the morning light. It was beautiful, the craftsmanship exquisite; the crystal band very clear, with some sort of coloured pattern on it. Now she saw that the colours were not a pattern, they were tiny horses, four of them, galloping around the band. She peered at them: they were beautifully rendered, in glass, enamelled on the clear crystal of the band with some tool that must have been the size of a pin’s point. Each horse was of a different hue: one was black, one red, one white and one the greenish colour of bile. Having contemplated, not one hour ago in the Samahane, the prospect of fleeing with her father, Feyra knew now she could not quit her patient. She had to know everything. She did not have to wait long.

  ‘Feyra, Feyra …’ It was little more than a whisper.

  Feyra wrapped her hand around the older woman’s again. ‘Come and see.’ The breath was foul now, as if death were crawling out of Nur Banu’s mouth. ‘They are coming!’

  ‘Who?’ asked Feyra.

  ‘The Four Horsemen.’

  Nur Banu’s mind must have addled now. She was making some association with the ring she had given Feyra, and perhaps also the four horses that had taken her away from Paros. Feyra spoke soothingly. ‘No, no they are not coming.’

  ‘Yes, yes … I see them! They are bringing Death!’ The sea-blue eyes were staring now.

  ‘No, they are not coming,’ Feyra attempted to assure her, ‘I can see all the way across to Pera, and there are only a few boats there. There is no one in the room, no one at our door.’

  ‘They do not come to me,’ protested the dying woman. ‘They ride to Venice! The Great Tribulation is riding to Venice. They gallop across the waves, with the white horses, yet only one of them is white, the others are of another hue.’

  Feyra looked down at the ring again, at the tiny etchings. One of the horses was enamelled in white. ‘Only one of them is white, the others are of another hue.’ Perhaps her mistress was not raving after all.

  ‘What do they mean? What do the horses bring?’

  ‘Come and see, come and see, come and see.’

  Feyra moved as close as she could. ‘I am here, Mistress.’

  Suddenly, Nur Banu sat bolt upright and spoke with a strength that belied her beleaguered body. ‘When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”’

  She sank back down on to the pillows, her voice a whisper once more. ‘It is written. It is written in The Book.’

  Feyra became agitated. She was no wiser. The Valide Sultan was wasting words. Soon she would no longer be able to speak, and she was wasting words on cant about wine and oil?

  ‘What book?’

  ‘I have not read it for years. They do not let me here. The Book, the Book of Books. It tells of the Great Tribulation. Come and see come and see come and see.’

  Her eyes were staring, and Feyra knew the Valide Sultan’s time was coming to an end. She tried a different question. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Timurhan carries the first horse, the black horse,
in his ship. Go with him, prevent him. He is followed hard upon by the red. When the third horse comes, the white horse, the conqueror, Venice will be no more. Then the pale horse will be the king of all dominions; for it is he that is the most terrible, it is he that all men fear.’

  ‘Who is the pale horse?’

  ‘Death.’

  The single syllable echoed around the quiet court. It seemed to be an end: the final word. But then the Valide Sultan turned her head on her pillow and looked Feyra in the eyes. She spoke quite normally. ‘Am I going to die?’

  There seemed to be an obstruction in Feyra’s throat, a great cold stone blocking her voice. But she had never lied to her mistress. ‘Yes.’

  As if she were a little girl, as if she were the daughter and Feyra was the mother, the Valide Sultan said, in a voice that was small and afraid, ‘Will it hurt?’

  Feyra thought of the hawk she had fed with the spores of the Bartholomew tree. Of how the bird had looked two, three hours after infection. She thought of how Nur Banu would look, in another hour, and of how her organs would feel as they were pulped as the merlin’s had been. Heart breaking, the last thing she said to her mother was a lie. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You will not feel a thing.’

  In another hour, Feyra was as sure as she could be that her mistress was dead.

  The Valide Sultan’s eyes were open and staring, the flesh mottled as black as a bruise. Feyra closed the eyes that were as blue as the sea, this sea and the one that cradled Venice, and then she tiptoed from the room.

  Feyra knew it was time to find the doctor. She stumbled back to the Hall of the Ablution Fountain. The last time she had been here her world had been the right way up. Now her entire future was uncertain and she had found and lost a mother in a brace of hours.