The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

The seat Andrea took was the edge of the cot which he and Sofia had had no trouble turning into a bower of bliss. In order to make himself sit now on this compacted mattress laid over sagging strings, it was necessary for him to brush a score of webbed associations from his mind. He had to realize that others, many others, had used this room for many purposes. The stench of such purposes seemed to creep out of the plaster and splitting boards to assault his nostrils. He joined himself to the rest of unbenedicted humankind with this thought, and to be no better than the redundancy of the copulating, groveling, self-interested race did not do much for his own esteem.

  To even settle himself down to the level of this stone-like creature before him—not male, not female, nor yet quite beast—that was too much to be endured. But having endured news that he would not see the revelation of Sofia, anything else was easy enough to take.

  “I suppose there is something she wants you to tell me.” Andrea found the words at last.

  “There is.”

  “Something more than that she won’t see me, else she simply wouldn’t send you at all.”

  “I am merely considering—how much of this you need to know.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, tell it all,” Andrea spouted. “You can give me no greater sorrow than you already have.”

  The great eunuch shifted on his little chair with a dangerous creak and there seemed not air enough in the narrow room for the two of them. “The tale has little to do with my lady.”

  “Tell it, ustadh, and get it over with.”

  The green in the eunuch’s eyes shifted towards the flimsy boarding of the wall over Andrea’s head.

  Andrea resisted the temptation to turn and follow the khadim’s eyes, afraid any sign of nerves would make the gelding skittish and drag the story out even longer.

  “My lady bade me,” the eunuch began, “relate to you something that happened to me yesterday morning.”

  “Nothing else?” What happened to a eunuch could be of little consequence anywhere.

  “Nothing else,” Ghazanfer replied. “But attend me first before you turn a deaf ear. Are you aware that I was once guardian to Mihrimah Sultan, Selim’s sister?”

  Andrea shook his head. He still couldn’t discern any reason why he should hear the tale, drawn with such difficulty from the huge freak, as if his mind were shut by a door that had not been swung in years. But Sofia, Andrea reminded himself, trusted this creature.

  So Andrea worked up more concern in order to say, “I beg you, ustadh, continue.”

  “It was almost six years ago now, when Selim, our present master, was as yet only crown prince.”

  Andrea noted the eunuch did not recite the customary formula praying for an eternal reign when he spoke Selim’s name. Did this betray treasonous thoughts against the master who owned him, body and soul? It certainly would explain why the eunuch felt a need to confess something he dared not speak even to others of his kind, perhaps to no other breathing soul. Andrea scooted closer to the hard edge of the cot.

  “There was in those days a youth among the imperial pages whose fair features and gentle manners won him a friend in everyone he met. He was all but guaranteed quick advancement among Suleiman’s—Allah keep his soul—closest attendants. But then Selim came to Constantinople on an obligatory visit to his father—may Allah rain blessings on our departed sovereign—and it was not two days before Suleiman’s son claimed the child as his attendant as well. And Selim demands a little more of his favorites than our departed master ever did. Alas, the poor boy’s severe Christian upbringing did not allow him to accept the master’s attentions with anything but utter distaste. And, you must know, Selim is not easy on his lovers, be they male or female.

  “In his grief, the lad turned to me for consolation. Many’s the early morning he would creep into my room before the hour of prayer. I’d wash the sex from him and—perhaps—if the master had been excitable that night—signs of rougher use—signs of favor many another slave would have been proud to wear.

  “Then the lad would cry himself to sleep in my arms. Perhaps I did wrong by this. If I did—Allah is my witness—I meant no harm. Perhaps it was wrong to coddle the boy so. I should have been teaching him clearly: No love a slave enjoys can ever equal the love of his master. Unfortunately and unknown to me, my young friend began to leave Selim for my room as soon as the prince slept, without being dismissed, without learning if his master had further desire of him. One night—and perhaps Selim had been told by jealous tongues to beware—we were discovered thus—like a mother with her babe, and the master thought the worst.”

  How could Ghazanfer speak of such things so impassively? Yet he did, reciting these terrors as no more than credits and debits in an accounting book. The eunuch was indeed a monster, humanity cut from him along with the rest of it.

  “I was taken to the Seven Towers. Surely you must know of the place on the outskirts of the palace walls, and if you have not heard of the infamous tortures that occur there, I will not disturb your nobility by a rehearsal of mine. Suffice it to say it was in the eunuch’s hospital that my lady found me.”

  Andrea found his mind wandering to where Sofia might be now, if she could not be with him. He could not believe Ghazanfer would be sitting there, so intent on his tale, if his lady were any place but safely tucked inside the imperial harem. Although—and perhaps this was what the monster was trying to tell him—a harem might be anything but safe.

  Ghazanfer continued, “Selim had determined I was to suffer eternally—eternity, at least as far as he has control over it. I was to be slowly brought to the point of death, then brought to health, then death again, as long as flesh could endure it. The master came several days to watch, and brought my friend—”

  Now, with the mention of torture and in spite of his distraction over Sofia, Andrea could not help but find the taciturn eunuch’s tale gut-wrenching and compelling. He shivered, as if the Towers’ shadows touched him, and when Ghazanfer faltered, encouraged him to continue.

  “I will tell you, my young Venetian, I’d not been under this treatment long before I was at the point of seeking my own death. It was then my lady found me and, I know not by what magic, contrived to buy me as her own. I was pleased to think Selim had forgotten his jealousy in a new love, and was easily persuaded of the fact.”

  Some of what the eunuch must have endured Andrea saw in his ravaged face and much-broken fingers—things that had only repulsed before. And the young man heard it in the tenderness and utter devotion with which he approached reference to Sofia Baffo.

  Perhaps, Andrea jolted with the perversity of the thought and studied the eunuch more closely. Perhaps my jealousy of Prince Murad has been misplaced.

  “My young friend I never saw again,” the eunuch continued, “except once. That was yesterday morning. My lady contrived to have me in attendance at the minister’s secret war counsel. Through our connections in the kitchen, I was set to serve drinks, and so became a hearer of their every decision.

  “All would have gone smoothly. The viziers and generals were agreed that the entire army should be thrown against Yemen to beat those rebels back. The Mufti had given his blessing. But then—then the Sultan arrived.”

  “Sultan Selim!” Andrea could not keep from exclaiming.

  “He who, in the intervening years, has inherited his father’s place.”

  “But I thought he no longer attended either the Divan or the war counsels. That, at least, is the wisdom among the ambassadors.”

  “So thought we all, as well,” Ghazanfer replied, “though that your intelligence should be as good may make us reconsider ours.”

  Was the eunuch amused or angered? Andrea couldn’t tell and let him continue.

  “In any case, from Sokolli Pasha down to myself, none of us could have been more surprised had we seen the Doge of Venice himself enter the chamber. But here came the Sultan with a train of followers. Foremost among them was, of course, Joseph Nassey.”

  “The Jew w
ho has been Selim’s companion since childhood?”

  “Precisely. What people may not be so free to tell your prying Venetian ears is that Nassey is more depraved than the master. He delights in nothing so much as leading the master by the hand down the tortuous road in all the unfamiliar territory of debauch. It seems clear it was Nassey who set the idea in the Sultan’s head. The Sultan himself is too muddied with wine to put two and two together to come up with any sort of plan at all if something like this irritates him. Without Nassey, whose evil stamina is ever so much greater, Selim would only rant and rave.

  “Of what plan do you speak?”

  “In a moment. I will get to that in a moment.” It seemed more difficult for Ghazanfer to name the plan than to name his master’s corruption. “First I wish to tell you that besides Joseph Nassey, the master was accompanied by—”

  “Yes. Go on.” Andrea spurred the balky gelding.

  Ghazanfer looked down and away. “By my friend, the young page. No longer favorite, yet he was still trusted to arrange his majesty’s cushions and to fetch his narghile. We were able to exchange glances across the room, glances which said, ‘Thank Allah, you are still well.’ Nothing more.”

  “And the Sultan’s plan?”

  “The ministers at first opposed the Sultan’s plan with as much tact as they dared. ‘The scheme is ill-advised,’ they said. They called upon signed treaties for witness, which the Shadow of Allah may not break lest Allah Himself be called a liar.

  “As they grew more adamant, so did he, then so again did they. At last Selim lost his temper. Now, our master is not a large man. Having seen him only from a distance, on his horse, in his huge feathered turban and when every head around him must bow, you may have received that impression. But it is false. He is not large, and his complexion and manner are quite pale and womanly, for he takes little interest in the male pursuits of hunting, riding, or war anymore. When he is sober, his small, dark eves seem bland and lifeless. But fired with drink, as he was then, he is a different man. His eyes leap, his flesh burns red, and his mouth spews fire.

  ‘How dare you?’ he cried to his ministers. ‘How dare you gainsay my heart’s desire. I am the Sultan of Islam, the Shadow of Allah. And you—don’t you know that you are my slaves? I could snap my fingers and see you all boiled in oil before noon prayer today. Your lives are nothing without my pleasure! Nothing!’

  “None of us dared move or even breathe at that moment lest it be contrary to his will. And our fear served him as vet another draught of strong wine. Under its influence, he felt—and we did, too—that he had the strength of twenty men. He snatched the sword from the waist of the nearest janissary, then snatched my young friend by the neckband. And as he did, the look of venom with which the master fixed me announced his choice was hardly arbitrary. And I had thought myself so disfigured by my torturers that no one from before could recognize me.

  Emotion swam like a fish in the blue-green of the eunuch’s eyes, then froze solid.

  VI

  “The lad made no resistance—” The eunuch’s tale continued. “—not even a whimper. Had the master asked him, he would have lain down voluntarily. But the Sultan shoved the boy down and pinned him with the sword—through the heart—to the rugs.

  “The Sultan spoke. ‘All of you! Grand Vizier, Kapudan Pasha, whatever fancy names you have, you are all my slaves, no better than that crawling worm there, and if it is my pleasure, I could do you all the same at this moment. No power on earth could stop me. Is it my pleasure? Perhaps. First, I must hear your pleasure in this matter we are discussing. Shall we make war on whom I decide, or shall we not?’

  “‘Be it according to your word,’ they all concurred as they watched—or tried not to watch—the boy’s last twitch.

  “Even the Mufti agreed. The Mufti, who is not the Sultan’s slave, who is a free-born Turk, educated in the mosque schools, and who should have no other law than that of the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet—he who should act as a check to any madness in the Sultan.

  “‘Although it is true the island has always been Christian,’ the Mufti said thoughtfully, ‘they did pay tribute to both the Mameluks of Egypt and Islam’s first caliphs. It seems therefore justified to take it for the Faith.’ “

  Andrea shook his head in disbelief, watching the terrifyingly expressionless face before him. Other griefs—even Sofia—were forgotten for the moment. “Such power in one man! If ever a Doge had a will like that, the Senate has such power that the best one can ever hope for is a very weak compromise. And with other states in Europe, it is much the same. No wonder Europe is so slow in getting anywhere!”

  “Except that,” Ghazanfer cautioned, “the place a single man wants to go may not be so healthy for the rest of the world.”

  “Well, barbarians on an island like Madagascar—no matter how they may fight—it would do them good, in the long run to be joined to the Turkish Empire.”

  “Madagascar? Is that what you thought when I said ‘island’?”

  “Of course. It seems only reasonable. It is the next step towards India, which I am sure the Sultan would...”Andrea fumbled. “You did say Yemen, didn’t you? And I reasoned...”

  “My friend. You misunderstood me. I never said the master was following reason in his design. This is the dream of a man in his cups.” A rigid sort of sorrow seemed to penetrate the eunuch’s eyes before he announced, “The Sultan has his eye on the island of Cyprus.”

  “Cyprus?”

  “Cyprus, as you know only too well, grows the best wine in the world, and the quota they have been willing to sell to Turkey in a year has never been enough to satisfy—”

  “But Cyprus belongs to Venice!”

  “Exactly, my friend.”

  The exaggerated patience in the eunuch’s voice reminded Andrea he had little enough right to be championing Venice’s cause. In one of the first waves of emotion he’d ever felt from the creature, he felt disdain. Disdain against himself. Disdain because he, Andrea, was moved—blinded—by carnal lust while a khadim, godlike, was above such constraints.

  Still, Andrea couldn’t help but exclaim: “But that is war—on us!”

  “Now you are not as casual as you were with the lives and goods of Madagascar. And Cyprus is not so far from Constantinople as that distant land. Why must you Christians always think all barbarians are only eastward?”

  “But we have a treaty of peace with the Porte. Hasn’t Selim been told?”

  “I have already told you, my friend, what the Mufti himself said about the bounds of honor surrounding that treaty. They are nothing compared to the honor of winning new lands for Islam—now. If you do not believe me, my friend, stop by the house of Joseph Nassey in the next few days. The master has promised to make him the island’s king. Nassey has already ordered the woodcarvers to carve a plate with Cyprus’s coat of arms and ‘King Joseph’ on it. It will swing above his gateway for all Constantinople to see. This is what my lady wanted me to tell you.”

  Andrea’s chest flooded with the warmth of gratitude towards Sofia. She had not forgotten him after all. But what she expected in return was still not clear, and he wanted to give her something. The desire to give was, in fact, a physical need. “Is there nothing to be done to stop that maniac?” he attempted.

  “And just a moment ago you were wishing the same power for your Doge.”

  “But what should we do?” Andrea rocked on the edge of the cot. The rough wood cut deep into his thighs, but he ignored it. “Shall I have the ambassador request an immediate audience?”

  “You have never been allowed to see the Sultan yet. What makes you think he would see you now? Besides, you are but men, and we have seen he can terrorize men and pin them to the floor like moths.”

  In a rising panic, Andrea reminded himself that his true love was thrall to such barbarians. Is this what she was trying to tell him? He stammered, “No power on earth...”

  “Now, I didn’t say that,” the eunuch reminde
d him. “Those were your words. In our realm, there are one or two powers given the strength to withstand the wild whims of the Sultan.”

  “Pray God, what can they be?”

  “Well, first, the dervishes.”

  “Dervishes?” Andrea repeated impatiently. “The dervishes are mad.”

  “They are mad, allowed to be mad with Allah, and are both powerful and incorruptible in that they never have to play by the Sultan’s rules. If a dervish is corrupted to become the Sultan’s lackey, the people are not fooled and he loses his power among them. And if a Sultan dares to wield his laws above a dervish—to kill or imprison the holy man as he may do any vizier or pasha—he will only make a martyr. Even dead, a martyr has power over a Sultan. The more horrible the death, the more powerful the martyr. No, by hanging a dervish, a Sultan only puts the rope around his own neck. Even the janissaries will always follow the drumbeats of a naked dervish before they’ll follow the Sultan’s standard.”

  “That is all very nice for a Muslim,” Andrea said, exasperated, “but what am I to do as a Christian?”

  “Yes, well, I only spoke of dervishes first so you could see how the system works. There is, of course, one other refuge from the Sultan’s will.”

  “And that is...?”

  “The harem, of course.”

  “The harem! But that’s ridiculous! Those women are his slaves, as much as you are, ustadh. And worse than slaves. They are bound prisoners, never seeing the light of day. Why, no rat in Constantinople is more subservient to the Sultan’s will than the women of his harem.”

  “Now you are looking at the harem with Christian eyes, my friend. As if they were your Catherine de’ Medici or England’s Elizabeth, to be judged by the standards not only of Christians, but Christian men as well. Try to see them through my eyes. My eyes, half-man, half-woman, half-Christian, half-Turk, and then you may catch a glimpse of what it would be like to be all Turk and all woman. It is their very removal from the open, brazen affairs of men that gives them such power.

  “If Selim were to go about terrorizing his women and pinning them to the floor—as he could, indeed, if he wished—he would lose more than a night’s paramour. He would lose his honor. Every shred of it. A thousand years of military victory could not make up for that loss, for there is nothing more important a man owns than that which is totally out of his hands—the honor of his women. He would make a martyr more powerful than a thousand ragged dervishes because it would be of his own flesh and blood, from the very center of his heart, as we say. He might as well order lepers to sleep with all his women.