The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  Ghazanfer took another breath and took the burden of my presence from his lady. “I am conscious, khadim/’he: said, “of the disruption all of this causes the peace of your harem.”

  “Do not mention what is Allah’s will,” I replied with equal stiffness.

  A glimmer moved through Ghazanfer’s eves, as if to say. It’s never Allah’s will in reference to her.

  Before I could raise my own brows in surprise, he spoke aloud in a different vein. “I fear we must impose upon your hospitality yet further.”

  “The guest is a gift from Allah.”

  “His Highness the Sultan, hearing of the danger that has threatened his peace and majesty in this room, is very desirous to see the well-guarded one with his own eves.”

  “His Highness’s wish is my command.”

  “But as it is not thought wise to move the object of his concern in her present state—”

  “We will not hear of it.”

  “His majesty will come here.”

  “We will be honored.”

  “Now. This very afternoon.”

  What could I say? “We will be honored.”

  “I know it’s a great inconvenience.” Ghazanfer dropped his formal tone in an approximation of apology. “But what else can we do?”

  For one moment I thought, Nur Banu must be beside herself with fury. Surely her new girl was condemned to failure from the start, if Safiye the Fair One remained so vital in Murad’s heart. For the only other being a sultan had ever gone to see—and did not send for to await his own pleasure— was Allah Himself in His mosque at Friday prayers.

  What else could we do? the great eunuch had asked. I couldn’t spare thought for alternatives the rest of the day. I wasn’t the only one who noted parallels: Some of the same ceremonial could be applied here as at Friday prayers. But though this parallel lent the self-propulsion of centuries-old tradition, I could not trust to that. I personally had to see to every detail.

  I ended up claiming part of the Hippodrome’s summer dust as I tried to find places for all the attendants that had to come along on this lovers’ tryst and the mounts of those who claimed the honor of riding the short distance. The viziers made a field of green, the muftis in white, the chamberlains scarlet, the sheikhs a block of blue. All these had to be made comfortable with refreshments and small guest gifts according to rank.

  My master himself had to unpack his most formal robes of heavy green silk from among scented aloes, his conical turban ringed with gold. He saw to the highest dignitaries in the selamlik. The harem, of course, was mostly left in peace: Even a sultan could claim no access to any household’s inner sanctum. But my lady had to rise to the occasion and little Gul Ruh, too, had to wear her best to greet her royal uncle.

  I take it all as heaven’s mercy that I had no time the rest of that day to consider the ramifications of this visit, either for Nur Banu or for anyone else in the empire. But I do recall thinking, on one hasty passage through the mabein, that this man from whom I so scrupulously averted my eyes as the Shadow of Allah had once tried to best me in a hand-to-hand fight. It had been when I’d first come to the harem and I’d stood my own again.st him until Safiye’s declaration that I was a eunuch had finally removed me from the young prince’s threat. I wondered if Murad remembered.

  On that same quick passage on silent, watchful eunuch’s feet, I saw little out of the ordinary in the familiar faces: Gul Ruh’s straining to whiteness in her attempt to be a grown up lady, Esmikhan’s blooming to renewed health in her brother’s presence, Safiye’s calmly triumphant—this much was expected. That Ghazanfer’s flattened cheeks wore a brush of high color—of pleasure? or shame?—was more surprising. But I took no time to consider the curiosity then.

  So it came as something quite unforeseen when at last I closed the harem doors and thought we had done with the world for a while that my master should call me back out to him in the selamlik.

  Sokolli Pasha’s private rooms had less of the feminine about them than a soldier’s barracks, than a monk’s cell. A spartan divan of rumpled cushions, a worn rug rutched at the corners, stacks of dispatches, pens and ink, maps on a low writing desk. That was all the furnishings save the overwhelming smell of masculinity barely tempered by the requisite aloe shaken out of his ceremonial robes. I could count on one hand the times even so feminine a creature as myself had entered these rooms. They were, from my perspective, a more closed sanctuary than the harem.

  The Grand Vizier looked at me keenly over his falcon’s beak of a nose. “It went well, Abdullah.”

  “Thank Allah.”

  “And thanks to you as well, Allah’s servant.”

  “And your servant, my master.” I bowed, arms across my chest, straight from the waist.

  Sokolli Pasha shrugged out of his ceremonial robe. I moved to lend a hand, a gesture I could tell he was unaccustomed to, still in many ways the raw Bosnian recruit. I found myself averting my eyes from the sight of his shoulder blades. Though still covered by under robes of lighter silk, they seemed old and tight—achingly tired. Any other man would have called for a massage. I felt tempted to undertake the task myself, but did not dare, unbidden.

  The Grand Vizier was now closer to seventy than to sixty, the small vanity of henna becoming an ever deeper red on his beard as he sought to cover the encroaching grey. And his eyes—tonight—seemed rheumy with exhaustion. No one but Allah would ever know—or truly appreciate—the weight of the world that rested on the lids of those eyes.

  “Tell me, khadim.”

  “Master?”

  I was not prepared for what he wanted to ask, “Tell me what you know of Ghazanfer Agha.” I was even less prepared for the title he attached to the end of my counterpart’s name. It took me a moment to imagine whom he might mean. Agha, lord, though euphemistically applied to all eunuchs, was a rank above ustadh in honor.

  “Ghazanfer...Ghazanfer is a khadim.” Yes, that much was self-evident. I had to say more. “Ghazanfer is a khadim who knows his duty and does it.” Surely no one could argue with that statement, no matter whose side he was prompted to take.

  My master nodded. He had guessed as much. No, more. But I had given him the impression that this was a man after his own heart, someone he could trust. I hadn’t meant to do that.

  “Why, sir, do you ask?”

  “It seems he is to be kapu aghasi.”

  “Kapu aghasi?”

  “Senior officer of the palace, yes. Not ‘is to be.’ Already is. Our master the Sultan declared him to that high post this afternoon. On his visit to our—to his harem.”

  “But kapu aghasi is a post—a post almost equal to that of Grand Vizier—to your own, master.”

  “Indeed. And it was greatly enhanced when our sadly mourned master Suleiman—may Allah give him the paradise he deserves—transferred the awkaf of the holy cities Mecca and Medina as well as that of over seventy of the largest mosques to his superintendence.”

  “Safiye!” I couldn’t help but hiss between my teeth.

  “Yes.” My master took off the heavy gold-banded turban and rubbed the infant nakedness of his carefully shaven scalp. “I know my master the Sultan’s harem is none of my business. But I had to suspect that a woman who could call the Shadow of Allah—heaven grant his reign last ‘til Judgment Day—to her bedside could also get him to appoint whomever she wants to a vacant post. I know his mother the Valide Sultan was putting forth candidates of her own. I even got a note or two shuffled through the sacred curtains. But—it seems the old woman has lost this round.”

  Sokolli Pasha remembered himself and went to kindle more lamps in the growing darkness. Where are the servants to do this? I wondered. I bent myself to straighten the rug. At least I could do that for him, even if I couldn’t find a way to tell him of the scene I had witnessed between Safiye and her eunuch—now the whole empire’s eunuch—that afternoon.

  In truth, I didn’t know what to make of the exchange myself, not in light of this latest appoint
ment. I would have liked some help in the task. But, though I admired my master’s wisdom—the entire empire must be grateful to it for getting us through the years of Selim’s negligent rule—I was quite certain he was not the man to help me unravel the faces of women and the most taciturn of eunuchs. In the ordinary way, Sokolli Pasha behaved as if such creatures did not exist.

  The Grand Vizier chuckled rather harshly—at himself, it seemed. “I guess after eight years of Selim—Allah favor him—I’ve grown too used to making appointments as I see fit. This is the Creator’s compassionate way of reminding me I am not Sultan. I am just the Sultan’s slave, after all.”

  “And I, master, am your slave.” Could he take any comfort in that? Probably not, but it was the best I could offer.

  The lamplight made his smile seem thin and crooked. “Yes, well, let us hope the Sultan himself be not a slave.”

  “To the harem?” I asked, astonished at the idea.

  “Yes. To his favored women. But Allah knows best.”

  My master turned a lamp to the papers on his desk and I understood that, as I could or would say no more, I was dismissed.

  XXV

  I had to confess the name Ghazanfer Agha had a certain melody to it, slipping off the tongue as if grown together in one piece. And I certainly heard it plenty of times off plenty of tongues in the months that followed. Everyone in the world, or so it seemed, had business with Ghazanfer Agha. And, as rooms for a kapu aghasi had yet to be rebuilt in the Sultan’s palace, they had to be found in ours, etched out of the Grand Vizier’s space in the selamlik because more often than not, the matters of Safiye’s head eunuch were with men. The most powerful men in the world.

  Safiye watched the office grow with more satisfaction than she watched her own belly.

  And my master threw up his hands and took his work elsewhere, a stranger in his own palace.

  The most pressing order of the new kapu aghasi s business was to get the pilgrims off to Mecca. The seventh month of Rajab was fast upon us, the time when the faithful would have to set off from Constantinople if they hoped to make the arduous journey in time for Dhu’l-Hijja. Of course, all the imperial city, especially the Sultan, would have a hand in their send-off, deputizing their proxies, displaying the largesse they would commission to go in their place. Some of the treasure would be given as safe-passage insurance to the wild Bedouin who beset the pilgrims’ path, some to be traded with pilgrims from other lands, the remainder to enrich the dual shrines themselves.

  The gifted mosque lamps—many, I was quietly gratified to see, of Venetian glass—stacked up in our hallways and closets. Gorgeous rugs of the finest knotting, the gold-embroidered green case which contained the Sultan’s bejeweled compliment to the Sharif of Mecca...Then of course there were the black lengths of finest silk embroidered with Koranic sayings in pure gold that would go to replace the covering of the Holy Ka’ba. The first half of a thousand needlewomen’s work had gone up in the palace fire, so this lot had to be scrambled for.

  Finally came the day when those obliged to stay behind gave the departing pilgrims a rousing procession. Albanians and Bosnians, leaping with new converts’ enthusiasm; wild, anciently pious men from the Asian steppes; naked and flagellant dervishes from Anatolia—these swelled the ranks of the locals. This year as every year, the journey began with a joyous circuit outside the city walls while man and beast were still fresh and exuberant enough not to require that every step mean progress.

  The display was always so stirring that many dropped their pedantic responsibilities then and there and joined up. The rest promised themselves and their god, “Next year, next year, inshallah.”

  The Sultan’s proxies formed the high point of the entire parade, the head of the column, great as a small army. These in turn were led by two sacred camels of ancient and reverend pedigree, never used for profane burdens. The first camel, draped in rich clothes of scarlet and gold that hid it almost completely, carried the minhal, the high pinnacled litter of gold that caught the sun and winked its holiness in all directions. The second camel bore only a small curved saddle of green velvet with silver trappings. This represented the saddle of the Seal of the Prophets himself.

  “Allah, Allah,” a hundred thousand throats moaned as the shadows of this simplest, yet holiest of sights touched them. Some of the more credulous dropped to the ground and rubbed their foreheads in the dirt as this camel passed by, as if indeed the Prophet Muhammed had not died nearly a millennium before but rode there in our very midst.

  After these two first camels came many, many more, just in the Sultan’s party alone, for every night on the way a great red and gold tent would be erected to house the Sharif’s letter and the green saddle. This tent had to be carried, along with twenty camel-loads of treasure for the maintenance of the holy places, and all this needed grooms, drivers, slaves to load and unload, water carriers, and cooks; and many of these contrived to bring their families along.

  This was only the beginning. Thereafter followed thousands of the Faithful, equal, we are told, in the eyes of Allah, but hardly so to human eyes. There were great men, easing a guilty conscience with the journey but still unable to travel without a great following. Their women came behind in closed sedan boxes-—sometimes it was hard to tell harem from baggage and eunuchs from porters. There were poorer folks who had saved all their lives for a donkey which, Allah knew, would never make it through Syria let alone the waterless Hijaz. Or a mangy camel which they could as yet drive only with difficulty; the balkings, runaways, and sudden sit-downs were a constant disruption to the proceedings.

  A large division of the army marched by like rods of iron in the height of discipline, reminding one and all that more than nature might be the enemy on the journey. Then, in a generous sprinkling like salt over the whole mélange, there were the very, very poor—dervishes, beggars, and paupers—who meant to walk the whole way. Some had not even made provision for carrying water and could hardly be told from the empty-handed audience except, in some cases, that they seemed even less prepared for an arduous journey. They would have to look to the mercy of Allah and a propensity for charity among their fellow travelers—greater on the road than at home—to carry them every step of the route.

  * * *

  No sooner were the pilgrims safely on their way than, in her eighth month of pregnancy, Safiye’s rooms were ready for her under Sultan Murad’s roof at Topkapi. The Fair One would let nothing hinder her from returning there, to the thick of the fray, although her new midwife thought it very ill-advised in what had already proven to be an eventful pregnancy.

  Organizing the exodus without much help from the over-burdened Ghazanfer Agha caused me a great deal of stress. Before the last casket of gems was quite out our harem door, I had come down with that bane of all my race, a urinary infection so excruciating I could not leave my bed. I’d begun by passing blood through the silver catheter my lady had given me as a poor substitute to flesh. In the flurry, I’d ignored it until fever and nausea allowed me to ignore it no longer.

  I dosed myself with the usual flax tea and quantities of pomegranate juice. But on that particular day at the height of my illness, I’d long since drained the juice pitcher. The tea water had gone cold and unappetizing on an indifferent stomach, and I was too sick to go for more. Well, it was my own fault, wasn’t it, for being so efficient when I was well that no one else in the palace ever learned to take any responsibility on his own?

  I was feeling so miserable, lonely, and uncared for—this being a disease of such indignity, the very embodiment of our mutilated, less-than-human state—that I had begun to actually hope it might kill me. I would not be the first of my kind to die this way. Nor—and this added to my grey outlook—would I be the last.

  Earlier I had hoped for a visit from my lady. Wouldn’t she be anxious that I was not at her side? Then I did not wish it, knowing only too well that getting her down the stairs and through the corridors to my room would be more trouble than it w
as worth. And though such a pilgrimage may not begin that way, in the end it would be my trouble she caused rather than the relief she hoped for, so basically lazy and helpless were my seconds. I wished Esmikhan happy—and quiet—where she was.

  Perhaps, then, my young lady would come, having the run of the place as she did. For a while I hoped for that cheer, and regretted that her mother must have warned her “not to bother poor, sick Uncle Abdullah today.” Then I did not want to spend the energy it would take to meet Gul Ruh’s liveliness. I didn’t want to see the cloud of concern that would drift across the vivid whites of her eyes. And since nobody else in the world mattered, I wanted death before I’d let others see me in my shame, even one bringing me more juice or giving the embers in the brazier a stir on that cold, wet fall afternoon.

  Presently, however, before a forgetting sleep could come, someone else did enter the room. It was the last person I wanted—or expected. It was Ghazanfer Agha.

  I made a clumsy struggle to get to my feet; any man who drags Agha around after him should at least have his hem kissed.

  “Pray, do not stir yourself, ustadh,” my guest insisted hastily. Don’t I know the agony of such things? Is that what his tone implied? It was impossible to tell.

  Ghazanfer made his great bulk comfortable on my rug—the only place left in my small cell to sit, what with me taking up all the divan. I hoped this did not denote an extended stay.

  Once settled, my inexpedient guest launched into a long and formalized speech. He thanked me and mine profusely and wished us “the eternal blessings of Paradise” for the “saint-like hospitality” we’d shown to him and his.

  What does this man want? throbbed through my aching head. It occurred to me—I was not so fevered as all that—that high officials are removed from the normal rounds of sociability. They never make personal visits—unless they want something.

  I tried to think of some belonging he or his women might have left behind. I tried to remember some unintentioned slight, some word I might be required to pass on to my master—in my condition! I worked my fever-papered tongue in dry desperation.