It was one morning during this time that the Sultan was speaking to an Italian goldsmith about a new sweetmeat service he wished to commission. The tray would be a silver pond, the bowls lilies, and lapis lazuli, pearl and ruby dragonflies would perch on each spoon...
And how do I know of this meeting? I learned of it later, from the third man who was there, the interpreter, one Muslim, formerly Andrea Barbarigo, now dragoman to the imperial navy.
“Yes, your most sovereign majesty.” Andrea translated for the smith, keeping his eyes trained on the fastidious craftsman and averted from the sovereign. “The design will be the most beautiful thing I have ever been privileged to make in my career. Your majesty certainly has an artistic eye. It is my wish, however, that only the best materials be used—anything less and the toil and design will be wasted.”
“Yes, only the best,” Murad agreed. “What is the use of melting down a little on the side to line one’s own pocket if it isn’t the finest to begin with?” He signaled quickly to Muslim not to translate that part but said instead, with an unfeigned smile, “Of course. You shall have the best. The best in the world, and I am the Shadow of Allah.”
“That is my only concern.” The smith grew red with embarrassment as he suggested, “Perhaps it would be best to wait. I know there are many demands on your coffers at the moment, what with the famine and all.”
“We have a saying in Turkish,” Murad assured the man. “If prices were all equal, there would no longer remain such a thing as the best people.’ You shall have the materials you desire, and by the end of the week.”
When Muslim had translated that into Italian, the Sultan added, “What day is today? Sunday? Well, then the Divan should be sitting. Would you, my honored guest, like to see a little of the workings of the Islamic government?”
When the smith replied he would enjoy that very much, Murad said, “Come with me, then. And when we have seen this, you will not be concerned about your materials anymore.”
Murad conducted his guests through the twists and turns of the palace until he came to the foot of the stairs that led to the Eye of the Sultan. This was the grilled and curtained space that looked out over the Divan. From this hidden closet the Sultan could watch the court’s proceedings without its knowledge. Or he could not watch, as he chose. And everyone from minister to lowest waiter must behave as if he were there, just in case.
At the door to the Eye, a young, gangling eunuch, obviously a new fellow, was taken by surprise. The Sultan and his guests had already passed him by before the khadim recalled how to salaam a Padishah. And after he’d finally negotiated that, he tried desperately to make some sign of warning.
“Later, khadim, later,” the Sultan said, and led his guests up the stairs two at a time like a boy half his age. He flung open the second door at the top, then stopped short.
Muslim suddenly found himself doing something more than translating words. He had to interpret customs, and that was much more difficult.
“Good signore, I think perhaps we should leave his majesty and complete the arrangements for the casting of this project at another time.” Then in Turkish: “You’ll excuse us, majesty?”
The Sultan gave them a wave over his shoulder but no glance and Muslim hastily steered the goldsmith back down the stairs and into the courtyard by the shortest route. The yard was crowded for a day in the Divan. They would have to be content to watch the workings of government from this perspective. Muslim was glad the eunuch was a novice and more concerned with his own failings than in apprehending others’. He was also glad he had been the one just on the heels of the Sultan and that what was behind that door was his secret alone.
He had seen her. He’d known at once it was she. It could be no other. In pink and green, the colors of a peach tree in bloom. Her golden hair spun out across her shoulders and breast like a halo. With the cushions and rugs about her like the flower and bunting decorations of a holy day, she reminded him of the Madonna in the little chapel in his mother’s convent. He thought he might swoon from devotion before they reached fresh air.
XXX
And this next scene I owe to the green eyes of Ghazanfer Agha, who had been sitting in the Eye of the Sultan watching the Divan with his lady.
“Peace to you, master.” Safiye hardly wasted a moment on surprise before getting to her feet and making her obeisance.
“And to you, Safiye,” Murad returned.
“Forgive me. I was only watching the Divan today for a little diversion. I shall leave at once.”
“No, no. Stay. Sit down.”
Sit down quickly, please, the kapu aghasi read the Sultan’s thought. From the level of the floor where he continued to bow his huge bulk with difficulty, Ghazanfer saw Safiye was as tall as their common master was. The young prince may have found the woman’s height enticing once. No doubt it unnerved him now.
“My companions seem to have gone, Safiye,” the Sultan said aloud. “We shall watch the Divan together for a while.”
Murad seemed to curse himself silently. Why did he grow so red? He ran his fingers around the stifle of the sable collar that lay like a wet noose about his neck. After all this time, that she should have such an effect on him, Ghazanfer thought with renewed admiration for his lady.
Murad had had a string of girls young enough to be his daughters, and still none of them could move him like this.
Murad scratched his beard distractedly, perhaps painfully aware that grey had begun to invade it like mealworms in the paprika. Could it be that her appearance had a stronger effect on him than it had had that first evening? Ghazanfer had not been present, of course, that Id al-Adha, festival of the sacrifice, when Nur Banu’s gift to her son had been this prize, served up to him like pastries on a tray. But he could guess.
And, he guessed, there were other emotions mixed with the desire now, indeed, quite overcoming it. The Sultan knew that Safiye knew of his amours. She knew how weak he was, while all the time she sat there—so he thought—in perfect constancy. If the mere glance of her eyes were not enough to tell him she was faithful still, then there was Ghazanfer, Ghazanfer Agha settled like a bell jar over her on which was engraved the word virtue.
Ghazanfer rose unobtrusively and watched how humble his mistress became before Murad, devoted to him still. Her actions proved it. It gave her awful power over him. The lord of three continents could not meet her in the eye. He was ashamed.
“Safiye, I...” he stammered to bring forth some sort of apology.
“Say nothing, my lord, if you do not wish to.”
The Sultan took the mantle of sovereignty she handed him with those words and flung it hastily over himself for protection. But still he realized, and realized that she realized: If he was Sultan, she was Sultan Maker.
“Please, please, be seated, my master.” Safiye gestured with a sweep of her graceful arm. “Your counselors are just coming to the important decisions now.”
Murad let her reverence and the formality of the situation give him the royal will he needed to sit as if it had been his own idea. Then Safiye curled up at his feet like some faithful dog. He tried to protest and invited her to sit beside him on the divan. But she would not. And there was such power in her humility, he could not resist! He didn’t stop to think that the seat on the rugs gave the best view and hearing of the affairs in the room below, and that a modicum of comfort was the only advantage he had on the divan.
The Agha of the Janissaries was in the midst of complaining before the viziers: “I swear by Allah that if something is not done, the entire corps will have turned over its supper kettles by the end of the week.”
“And the cavalry will join the rebellion,” added Ferhad, the handsome Master of the Horse.
“There’s ground stone in the flour.”
“Rotten vegetables.”
“No meat at all last week.”
“You cannot feed your army on that and expect them to be faithful.”
“I agree,” came t
he sober voice of Sokolli Pasha, sitting just beneath the Eye where they could see little more than the bubble of his gold-banded turban. “Something must be done and immediately. With the general populace also hungry and restive, discontent in the army is like a firebrand in the powder stores. You’ve had a chance to take our offer to your men. What is their answer?”
“‘A tax for wear and tear on our teeth and stomachs.’ That’s what they’re calling it.” The young Master of the Horse enjoyed a smile. There was no doubt of his charm.
The Grand Vizier gave the man a hard look which he had difficulty meeting. “They joke at it, then? They wall not accept our best offer, one that will break the empire in any case?”
“My colleague did not say that,” the Agha of the Janissaries spoke for Ferhad, who at the moment could say nothing. Ghazanfer wondered briefly what there was between the young cavalryman and the Grand Vizier. “They are willing to bargain over such a ‘tax.’ They will take a hundred akçe a man per year.”
“We only offered fifty.” Sokolli Pasha was grim.
“A hundred is what they want.”
“Very well. See if they’ll settle for seventy-five. And we in here—” He looked around at the other viziers seated with him on the Divan. “—we will see if it is possible to meet them there.”
The two commanders bowed their way out of the room.
“By Allah!” Sokolli Pasha exploded the minute the men had gone. “It is blackmail. They will destroy the empire. They will destroy Islam. Don’t they care?”
“I doubt they do,” said Lala Mustafa, the second vizier. He spoke quietly. “It is not their empire, after all.”
“Of course it is their empire.”
“They were taken from their homes as boys. Remember?”
“So was I, by Allah. So were you. I knew if we let them marry they would begin to get personal profit on the brain. Ah, but I forget. You are in favor of this scheme.” The Grand Vizier’s voice sharpened, like a knife, as he added, “You and whoever pays you.”
“I see no other way out, my lord Grand Vizier. Do you?”
Sokolli Pasha was desperate, but he had to admit he saw none. “‘The encroachments of the rich are more dangerous to the State than those of the poor,’” he quoted instead.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing, Pasha. Just something Aristotle once said.”
“Heathen blasphemer.” Lala Mustafa brushed the quote aside.
“Be that as it may,” said Sokolli Pasha, “let us be united, gentlemen, now, and try to figure out where we are to get that extra twenty-five akçe a man. There are no taxes coming in; the sandjaks have nothing to tax, nothing but stubble in the fields. Jihad is at a stalemate on all fronts, so there is no booty.”
“There are still the bankers and moneylenders standing by.” Lala Mustafa again.
“Vultures waiting for the carcass. No, by my life. That I still refuse.”
“All the Christian governments do it.”
“Yes, by Allah, and they are condemned to hellfire.”
“Still, if we want to compete with them in the economy of the world...”
“By Allah, we do not have to compete. We are the realm of the Faithful.”
“There are some who would call that opinion short-sighted and parochial.”
“Would you call it that. Pasha? Would you?”
Lala Mustafa did not dare.
“As the realm of the Faithful, what Allah has strictly forbidden we may not do. We may not take money at interest.”
“‘Allah’s legislation has no other purpose than to ease the way of His servants through the exigencies of the times.’” Lala Mustafa quoted from a famous Muslim jurist.
“It is blasphemy to suggest such a thing in this context,” said Sokolli Pasha. “In any case, I could never agree to something that is neither more nor less than the bartering of the lives of future generations of Muslims into slavery. And the Mufti will agree with me.”
The reverend representative of the Faith was not present, but Lala Mustafa sadly shook his head. He knew it was true. “Then we have no choice but to get the money where we got the first fifty akçe.”
“How can we?”
“Debase the currency. Instead of fifty percent copper to a silver coin, make it seventy-five. So the army will really be getting only the twenty-five akçe we can afford. But they will think it is more. And the grocers they buy from wall think it is more. And the merchants. And the whoremongers. And the jewelers.”
“You really think they will do this?” Sokolli Pasha was grim. But then, he often was.
“They’ll be obliged to. It will have the Sultan’s name on it. Otherwise they would be committing treason.”
“By the Merciful One, how I hate money!”
“There speaks a man with all the fine things money can buy and a full stomach. You would not say that if you were poor.”
“It smacks of usury no matter how one wants to deal with it. We are still borrowing on the lives of our children. When a state has been dependent upon growth and growth and more growth and it finally reaches the limits of Allah—Why can’t even I accept that limit? Why can’t I see within and see what must be done and have the courage?”
“No one will call you a coward if you take this bold step.”
“No, because they’re all such damnable cowards themselves.”
“It is only a temporary measure.”
“Yes, and as Allah is my witness, I shall see that it remains so. I will not live to see temporary measures like these become tradition.”
“Amen,” said Lala Mustafa.
“As if one could say one day there was a famine, the next it was over,” Safiye could not help exclaiming up in the Sultan’s Eye. “Oh, he is a tedious old man, that Sokolli Pasha. I only wonder, my love, how you endure him.”
“Endure him? I must. He made me what I am. And my father before me.”
“There is always the executioner’s block for Grand Viziers who’ve outworn their stay.”
“Now, my dear. One way or another, I always manage to have my way. Sokolli Pasha or no.”
Murad himself seemed startled at how easily he had fallen into conversation with this woman when politics were the topic. Even the endearments came easily.
They are like some dottering old couple, Ghazanfer thought, beyond the needs of sex, who only use the bed as an excuse for a good chat.
“You are in favor of debasing the coinage then, too, my love?” Safiye asked her master.
“Yes.”
“But I remember in one of their earlier discussions of the problem, Sokolli said, ‘What man would want his name stamped on a lie?’ The coin says on it that it weighs so much in gold or silver and can be traded for so much, but any man with a scale can see that it does not. And there is your name affixed to it forever.”
“Yes, that is a consideration.”
“Which you considered, my love?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And—other things seemed more important.”
“Your new sweetmeat service for example?”
Murad seemed embarrassed that she knew of that. “Yes.” But he continued firmly. “The future might forgive me a lie on the coins. It will not forgive me if I let the janissaries take over and lose the empire.”
“Or if you show yourself as a weak ruler by bartering your jewels. My love, did you take a bribe for this?”
The way he returned her glance betrayed himself.
“Ah, I thought so. Who promised?”
“I’ll let you guess, my sweet little politician.”
“I guess it was Lala Mustafa.”
“You are very wise.”
Safiye blushed a controlled, enticing degree. “And he was bribed by lesser officials who were bribed by lesser ones who were bribed by the bankers and moneylenders. It must be a substantial pile by now.”
“It is. And you know its genealogy better than I.”
A
h, she was sitting at his feet now just in the attitude she must have had when as a young prince he’d first taken those golden curls into both his hands...
“Are you terribly disappointed in me?” he asked hoarsely.
“Disappointed? Oh, no, my love. I shall affix a string of those debased coins and wear them on my caplet proudly.” She shook her pink and green caplet set with sequins now most coyly. “Did I sound disappointed?”
“A little.”
“Well, I’m not in the least. In fact, I am very pleased. Some of that bribery money-well, you may as well know. It’s mine.”
“I see.” Murad smiled in wonder and some little relief.
“Surely you don’t expect me to live like Sokolli Pasha wants us to.”
“Away with your fine clothes?” Murad teased, plucking at the diamonds that buttoned her yelek. “And my slave girls?”
“You could not do without your girls, my love,” Safiye agreed.
“I just wanted to know. That’s all.” He said it into the pillow of her neck.
And Safiye pulled herself up on the Sultan’s knees and kissed him tenderly on one cheek. Murad repaid the kiss, then their lips met lightly.
Ghazanfer did not move a muscle. He willed even his eyes not to blink.
“Tell me, how is your Mitra these days?” Murad murmured into the golden hair. His nuzzle released the smell of heliotrope and lemon.
“Just fine. Lonely, though. She misses you.”
“And I miss her. She has such a way with the poets.”
“Yes, she does. Oh, but you’ve been so busy with that new girl of your mother’s.”
“Yes. Well, she’s a silly little thing.”
“Aren’t they always?”
Murad grunted into a smile that committed nothing. He took another deep breath of that hair, then sighed. “Send her to me tonight, will you?”
“Mitra?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. Your wish is my command, my master.” She kissed him again and was gone. The big Hungarian eunuch slipped after her dance in silence.
The Reign of the Favored Women Page 20