The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  “Ah, but here I am trying to explain to you something that is beyond words even as the dervish’s union with Allah is unspeakable. Usually I cannot even talk to my lady about these things. ‘Ghazanfer,’ she sighs, ‘you grow tedious and there is work to be done.’ Often I fear she does not understand the very harem she lives in. She was, after all, born and raised a Christian.”

  Here the eunuch paused, betraying uncharacteristic introspection before continuing. “Sometimes I fear she misuses the harem’s power—or, rather, rejects its power in favor of the tactics men use. If she uses that power, she must face the consequences men face, and sometimes I fear...Still, she saved my life. She is wise, good and brave...”

  “And beautiful,” Andrea added to complete his version of the vision that today had failed to appear.

  “Yes, and the most beautiful woman in the harem besides. Few are such complete eunuchs they are not aware of this. I will not speak against her. And that she would send me to you with this message assures me she has some inkling of how the power of the harem should be used.”

  “What does your lady want me to do?” Andrea still found himself helpless of decision in the face of this news.

  “That she did not tell me,” Ghazanfer said.

  “How I wish I were her slave instead of you!” Andrea burst out. “For I desire nothing more of life than to receive orders from her lips. For I myself seem...witless at this news.”

  “Would you take a suggestion from me?”

  “Gladly. For you know her mind better than anyone in the world.”

  “I think my lady has sent you this warning so you and all of Venice now on the Bosphorus can pack up your things and flee to safety. The Porte, I believe, means to send you an ultimatum tomorrow: Give up Cyprus, or face war. That will buy you some time. You can pretend to think it over. Two days, perhaps, in which to evacuate all people and possessions safely. After that, your lives cannot be vouched or bargained for in this city, whatever the harem’s power. And, perhaps, at sea, you can warn your navy of the coming storm—”

  “Navy? What navy?” The words exploded from Andrea’s heart-crushed lungs. “I have been instrumental in blowing the Venetian navy out of the waters!”

  The thought brushed his back with a chill. Was his destruction of the Venetian navy connected not only with Chios, but with Cyprus as well? He couldn’t compass the notion.

  “Turn your merchant vessels into men-of-war, perhaps...” the eunuch ventured.

  “With what? Our munitions turned the night of September thirteenth into day.”

  Ghazanfer shook his great white turban sadly. “These details are beyond me.”

  But not beyond Sofia.

  Did that thought come from the eunuch or from Andrea’s own mind? He squashed it. “Surely she cannot expect me to flee. Flee, like a coward, from the field?”

  “The power of the harem is to preserve life. Glory such as a soldier craves is not part of it.”

  “But life without honor is—” Well, what was it? Could one such as himself have any honor—or life—left? None, certainly. None without the focus of all he had done—Sofia Baffo.

  “You are young, my friend,” the eunuch was saying mildly, as if purposely to contrast their natures. “And full of hot blood. As I told you, the honor of the harem is not the honor of men, although they do hold the honor of men in their white hands.”

  “You speak in cursed Turkish riddles!” The young man quite forgot his task of diplomacy. “How can a woman love a man who is a coward?”

  “More, I suppose, than she can love a corpse.”

  Or a traitor.

  Did the eunuch’s eyes read that, or was it Andrea’s own mind that accused himself so? He would not succumb to the thought. He had only done what was necessary. “Well, by God, I do not intend to die in this fray.”

  “That will be as Allah wills.”

  For her part, Sofia wanted him alive. That was promising; she must still love him. Then a horrifying thought occurred to Andrea and his blood seem to freeze miles from the warmth of his heart. What if she was preserving him alive not for love, but for further use? To order the explosion of more Arsenals. To torture him through years as Selim had done to the young page boy—who had fancied himself spared—only in the end to take barbaric pleasure in pinning the lad through the heart to the rugs on the floor. Was it even possible that this was why the khadim had told him that horrific story, a warning with two separate meanings?

  Andrea looked hard at the eunuch and could see no denial of such a motive behind the creature’s eyes. But he read no confirmation either.

  Ghazanfer rose to leave the room. “I have done my lady’s will. More than that I cannot say. Salaam, Barbarigo.”

  “Here, here!” Andrea shook the fears of Sofia’s betrayal from him as a dog shakes off muddy water. He rose after the eunuch, pulling the locket from his neck. “Take this and give it to your lady—from me.”

  Ghazanfer held the fragile thing in his great, torture-flattened hand. “It may be Allah’s will that she never send you another message.”

  “It was my mother’s locket, but I do not care. No woman on earth is a better heir to it—and my love—than that woman you serve.”

  “Salaam.” Ghazanfer bowed again. “I pray for peace, Barbarigo, both between our countries and within your troubled heart.”

  Tucking the locket within his breast, the eunuch turned to leave.

  “Tell her—” Andrea called after, convinced now that only Sofia’s well-justified fears for her own safety had kept her away. Fears she had defied for his sake. “—tell your lady I will not leave Constantinople without her.”

  VII

  Andrea considered his options. He would go and plead peace before the Divan with such power and logic that Sofia would throw all foolish Turkish convention aside and pull back the curtain of the Eye of the Sultan. For, of course, she would be there and, no less than the viziers, be won by his speech. She would leap from there into his waiting arms...

  After that, what should happen was not so clear. Yes, there was the problem of the room and a courtyard outside filled with janissaries. But somehow that seemed a negligible factor, once he had her in his arms.

  Then there was the scenario in which he stormed the palace walls almost single-handedly, killed the mad old Sultan, and then penetrated the forbidden holy of holies. There she (he would almost write it She—divine) would be lying in sorrow and languor on a crimson couch, her golden hair like fire in luscious disarray. She would reach long, white arms out to him, her liberator, her deliverer, her true love. Again, he need not dream further than this point.

  More elegant settings stoked the fire of his brain, but practicality had whittled it down to this: an alley beside the little neighborhood mosque-converted-from-a-church a stone’s throw from the palace of the Grand Vizier. If he shifted just right, he could catch a glimpse of Sofia’s sedan through the wrought-iron gates.

  A sharp wind scudded straight off the Black Sea to attack his fingers and toes. It put out the moon as easily as one of his bravos had put out the light at the end of the alley just after the lamplighter had passed. Now the only illumination came through the heavy curtains drawn over the second-story lattices of the closest homes.

  Andrea blew on his hands to keep them flexible. They must be able to curl firmly around the hilt of his dagger.

  The call to evening prayers directly over his head brought a small congregation to the mosque. Andrea found the men who filed past his hiding place slightly unnerving, being predominantly janissaries from the exercise field. Each man carried his own rug under his arm like an open display of his soul. Andrea felt a strong urge to join them, if only for the better concealment of his own soul, one among many. But public devotion would soon make way for the privacy of tents and hearthstones.

  Already the domestic miracle of fresh-baked bread served with cabbage and earthy chickpeas seeped its scent along with a warm, greasy light through the lattice stars
and the curtains overhead. It overwhelmed the smell of rankled garbage at his feet. The balconies and jutting bays of the second stories sagged like matronly breasts.

  This image made Andrea wonder. Though no man was likely to see the deed, what about the women? Day and men and their liveliness made it easy to forget, but he knew full well that few actions in Turkey went unobserved by the silent sentinels of harem eyes. What would women think? Wouldn’t they rejoice that one of their number was about to be freed?

  Earlier, from the Pasha’s gardens, peacock cries had sounded. Now, with a ruffling of feathers, the birds settled. From that lesser house, jutting into the moonlight on his right, he heard an infant wail, very like the fowl, he thought. The mother hushed it. That most intimate of exchanges, surpassing, in some ways, even that between lovers, caught its talons in the pit of his stomach. How separate he felt from the joys of hearth and home!

  But by these means I shall Nin such pleasures for myself, Andrea insisted to his seething brain. From tonight on, I shall no longer be on the outside looking in.

  The only problem remained how long they’d waited. Sofia couldn’t be spending the night with her friend, could she? Andrea knew harem doors were universally closed and locked at dark. But he also knew Sofia. She would have her ways around such constraints.

  Another gust of northern wind, and the moon shivered out of her gauzy veil again. The faucet before the mosque would have an icicle on the end of its nose in the morning when the pious came. But he would not be there to see the prayerful, made brave by faith, crack the crust and plunge in with the muezzin’s first sleepy call of the morning. The notion gave him a brief pang which w 2ls, he assured himself, only the wind, cutting more to the quick. Andrea drew the cloak tighter about himself. He let his eyes catch heat from the faint gleam of gold trim on the sedan chair seen through the palace gates.

  This sight was enough to settle his resolve.

  In no more time than piety allowed, the mosque emptied. Then, as if on that cue, the Pasha’s palace disgorged the awaited sedan.

  Rather than heading straight back for the Sultan’s palace, the conveyance obliged him vet further by turning down this very passageway. It halted not four yards from where he stood, pressed against the minaret wall.

  Finally, wonder of wonders, the bearers were dismissed to go warm themselves in the public house around the corner.

  That left only the eunuch, leaning against the sedan door with his arms crossed over his chest, watching, waiting. And perhaps Ghazanfer wasn’t to be counted as the enemy. He had dismissed the bearers, after all. Certainly he hated Sultan Selim. And loved his mistress. He would not care to be parted from her or do an-thing she did not approve. Once the khadim saw Sofia’s joy at the prospect of freedom and Venice, surely it would not take much to bring him along. Particularly since a eunuch who had failed to protect his charge could not expect the respite of the Seven Towers before he’d find himself at the bottom of the Bosphorus.

  Andrea hoped he could keep his minions at bay long enough to give the poor capon a chance.

  Yes, the plan seemed God-ordained, just like the .Arsenal plot. Or perhaps, it was merely too good to be true.

  The grasping Turkish moon hazily lit the enclosing walls in solid blades and wedges. A low whistle rose from these stacked shadows. Andrea turned his concentration to the task at hand.

  A second replied. This whistle was almost lost in the openness where the walls gave way to the huge space of the ruined Hippodrome. The third fellow was closest to the action. His whistle came from down this tortured intestine of an alley, near where it crumbled away altogether. The solid ground under Sokolli Pasha ‘s palace and the entire neighborhood was here revealed to be a sham. Anciently, huge arched supports had leveled the natural sharp incline from the Hippodrome down to the sea. Horses for the Byzantine circus had stabled in these caverns. When the horses had gone, the homeless.

  And now...Sofia Baffo.

  Andrea worked up spit and pursed his lips to give the final whistle. Coming from the minaret’s foot, it would seem a belated echo of the muezzin.

  The instant before Andrea actually sent air through his throat, the signal to fall upon their prey, the mosque doors opened to emit one final worshipper .Andrea hissed his accomplices back again, or hoped he did. The blood pounding in his ears was so loud he doubted he could have heard his own whistle if he gave it. With growing dismay he watched the soldier smoke the moonlit air with ashen breath, then claim the last pair of boots on the sacred threshold.

  The footwear seemed black at first. Then it caught a gleam and was betrayed as red. This matched better with the cascade of exotic bird-of-paradise feathers that swung from the janissary’s turban almost to his knees. These features pronounced the man a veteran, a battalion officer, a Chief Soup Maker, that homey title which nonetheless terrorized Christians.

  Andrea flattened himself behind the minaret’s curve. Rather than coming up the alley, back towards the Hippodrome, as Andrea had been certain any soldier must, the Chief Soup-Maker turned left when he passed the mosque’s fountain and courtyard.

  Walking down towards the ruined stables, the janissary stopped and scowled a moment at the extinguished street lamp. Then, as if he thought. Well, so much the better for me, he went on. He sauntered right past the parked sedan and—did Andrea see aright?—nodded a greeting to Ghazanfer and pattered his fingers familiarly on the shutters. Then he disappeared down into the crumbled arches. Andrea could only hope the man he’d stationed down there had more presence of mind and skills of stealth than he’d credited him with.

  One more breath and we go, Andrea told himself. But before he’d drawn that breath, the plan misfired again. Ghazanfer opened the sedan door.

  Jasmine burdened the cold air like a warm blanket, lingering in layers. The veil-wrapped woman slipped out of her eunuch’s hands and down the alleyway in the very footsteps of the vanished janissary.

  All was silent for a very long moment. Even Andrea’s dithery brain stopped sending him messages.

  And then, she screamed.

  VIII

  Andrea was down the alley like a shot, barely stopping to fling the stunned Ghazanfer into the arms of the two uphill accomplices.

  At the lip of the subterranean caves, Andrea skidded to a halt. Before him sprawled the body of the janissary, the bird-of-paradise plume pitched heavenward.

  And struggling in the arms of the third bravo was Sofia Baffo. The bravo, having left grimy proof of several false attempts on the gauze of her veil, had finally found purchase over her mouth.

  “Jesu,” Andrea burst out, crossing himself involuntarily and rather foolishly for the sake of a Muslim soul. “What have you done?”

  “You said somebody might get killed,” the bravo answered, his walleye roving in spasms. “Rather him than me.”

  “But he has—had—nothing to do with this.”

  “Hadn’t he?” Perhaps it was just the defect, but Andrea was certain the bravo was taunting him.

  “Let her go,” the scion of the house of Barbarigo ordered, trying to sound in charge. After all, Sofia was listening. More than that, she’d fixed him with the keen edge of her wonderful eyes. Recognition honed there and, was it possible? Hatred? He must cure this at once.

  “What? She’s not the one you want? Feels fine to me. Right fine. You don’t want her, I’ll take her myself.”

  “Let her go. Let her walk back to the sedan.”

  “I don’t know, captain. Doesn’t feel to me like she’ll come without assistance.” Struggles jarred his words.

  “Let her go, I say.”

  The bravo complied, at least with the hand on the mouth. But the flailing he did with it in the air suggested his release was not so much of his own will but because his captive had bitten him.

  Sofia screamed again, and the curses and scuffling coming from behind Andrea, from where Ghazanfer was being held, were not encouraging.

  “Sofia, Sofia, it’s me, Andrea,” he
said as soon as the bravo’s hand had quietened the scream once more. “I’ve come to rescue you. To take you back to Venice. I’ve got a boat waiting and everything. Just come on back to the sedan and we’ll carry you there.”

  In the same moment Andrea realized first that he was going to have to help get the captive into the sedan. Indeed, that he ought to have been lending a hand sooner. And second, that the reason he hadn’t helped out was because he was hesitant to approach that belligerent bundle of silk and brocade.

  Andrea approached with caution. At first touch, the jasmine fra-

  grance filled his brain. But the fragrance was missing the undercurrent of toothsome almond; gone from her physical being was the warmth and softness of love.

  Without doubt, the woman they had captured was behaving very differently from the creature of his dreams.

  Then Andrea felt something more: The Sofia he held had a more prominent belly than the tight drumhead on which he was used to beat out his love tattoo.

  By Jesu and Maria, she was pregnant.

  Was it his child? His head was too overwhelmed to figure very clearly, but he thought it might be. No wonder she was behaving so strangely. Andrea had heard that pregnant women were subject to strange fancies and often didn’t know their own minds. He would have to think for the two—the three—of them.

  Between them, Andrea and the bravo wrestled Sofia a couple of paces. Young Barbarigo was trying to be as careful as he could, but he did have to use some force. The woman herself set her feet firmly into the men’s shins more often than she let them touch the ground.