The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  By Allah, where did he get that mare? Ferhad asked himself. She was the pinkish white color of some roses and seemed to be a mix of the best qualities of both Arabian and Turkish breeds with some of the power of the Europeans thrown in as well.

  How is it that these subordinates always manage to get the best animals? Ferhad wondered again. Far better than mine. Better, even, than any in the Sultan’s private stables.

  But Ferhad knew that if he asked, the rider would merely shrug and say, “Oh, her? Ah, I picked her up for a song—skin and bones, nothing promising there—from an old trader. No pedigree at all.” But, “No,” he would continue, “I cannot part with her. She isn’t much, but we’re friends, best friends. No, not for any price.”

  Perhaps it had been the man’s mother who’d first called him Iskandar the Horseman. Maybe he had always been that way, little, lithe, dark, hairy, with a black mustache like a curry brush. Or maybe it was just a streak of opportunism he had, like the best riders always seeking out the showiest exercise: In any profession, by hook or by crook, he would rise to the top. Was this why Lala Mustafa Pasha had specifically asked for this man?

  But now the man had dismounted and stood at attention. Why am I so intimidated by this fellow? Ferhad wondered. He felt if he spoke he would betray something to give that man an edge, so he merely handed Iskandar the written orders. Reading, at least, was his weak point: Let him struggle with it for a while.

  “We’re to ride to Hungary, then?” Iskandar asked as soon as he’d made out the gist of the writing.

  “Yes.”

  “When, sir?”

  “As soon as you can get your men together. My men have already been notified. Meet at the Edirne Gate.”

  “We’ll be there before noon prayers.”

  “Good. I needn’t reiterate how important secrecy is in this mission.”

  “It goes without saying.” The little man grinned. Then he whispered so no one else could possibly hear over the pounding of horses’ hooves in the background, “We go to knock off the Grand Vizier’s nephew and you need to remind me it’s a secret?”

  Ferhad felt himself grow red—and a little sick. “No one said anything about ‘knocking off. Our orders are merely to speak with the man. ‘Obtain satisfaction concerning the disappearance of Feridun Bay, secretary to the Grand Vizier.’ “

  “But we both know what ‘obtain satisfaction’ means.” Iskandar had not been able to read the orders word for word, yet he had read more between the lines than Ferhad had.

  “Let us hope it will not come to that,” Ferhad said.

  Iskandar grinned in response, then asked, “Was there something else, sir?”

  “No. Well, yes. I was wondering what you did with that letter I ordered you to deliver from Sokolli Pasha.”

  “I took it to the captain of the ship bound for Cyprus, as you ordered.”

  “And no one read it in between?”

  “Whatever do you mean, sir?” Iskandar grinned.

  Ferhad realized now what was so disconcerting about the grin. It was broken by missing teeth, like a lacunae in a manuscript.

  “Nothing,” Ferhad said. “Forget I mentioned it. The Edirne Gate before noon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Now for the life of him, Ferhad couldn’t imagine what it was that had ever made him trust the fellow. It must have been something, and something that affected others, too, for Iskandar had risen so rapidly through the ranks. But the last advancement had been Ferhad’s own responsibility and now here he was, catching the attention of viziers, leading the fire exercise, knocking at the door to the post of the Master of the Horse itself.

  Why did it feel like Iskandar was head of this expedition to Hungary and not he himself? Iskandar got the best horse, the flashiest drill team. Did he gain trust in the same way, and for the same ulterior motives?

  XXXVIII

  “The beglerbeg says he knows nothing, and that is that. What more can we do?” Ferhad asked Iskandar two weeks later in Buda.

  “He says so,” Iskandar repeated skeptically, almost sarcastically. “But what sort of satisfaction’ is that? It is merely his word. The word of a man entrenched so firmly in Sokolli Pasha’s own camp you’d have to drain out all his blood to change him.”

  “In any case, it’s clear Feridun Bey is already over the border.”

  “Yes, alas.”

  “There is nothing more we can do.”

  “Nothing? I am not satisfied. I doubt Lala Mustafa Pasha will be.”

  “Sokolli Pasha is the Grand Vizier. Why go on tormenting his favorites without cause?”

  “Because his days in this world are numbered. Best to latch onto those whose star is rising, not those about to set, whatever title they may presently hold.”

  “Your talk, spahi, sounds of treason.”

  “Treason is talk against the Sultan which, Allah is my witness, I never say. Where is the treason in a few words against the Grand Vizier who, after all, is a mere slave, no better than you or I? Besides, I said nothing but what is obvious to anyone. Sokolli Pasha is not only a slave, he is an old slave. He’s over seventy. Allah may call him to his reward at any time. Any time.”

  “Allah forbid,” Ferhad murmured automatically, a wish Iskandar did not bother to amen. Perhaps because it was a vain wish indeed.

  Later, a dismal rain seemed about to wash all of Buda down the muddy streets. Ramshackle houses of the refugees and sturdier buildings alike seemed on the brink of flushing into the Danube, off towards the sea, and finally, Constantinople. Night was hardly distinguishable from day under that sky. Ferhad had to notice that the streets were empty now in order to tell the time. They were empty save for mud, rain, and himself. Anyone with honest business had taken the first excuse to leave them and go home.

  Why am I so devoted to that man Sokolli? Ferhad asked himself. Even if—Allah willing—he dies a natural death, it cannot be far off. Since that night, he felt obliged to his superior with a debt no amount of servitude could repay. Sometimes it seemed to be the only night in his life, compared to which this drizzle was but an uncomfortable dream.

  It is almost as if he has graciously allowed me to share her with him, Ferhad thought. Like he gives charity to any beggar who comes to his door.

  Ferhad didn’t like to think of himself in beggar’s guise, so he swaggered a little in the empty street until he lost his balance on the mud.

  French masons and Italian artists had once made Buda a gem of a city, but nearly half a century as a border outpost had not been easy on such fragile beauty. “Once the Austrians back off a little more, we may rebuild it to Turkish taste,” the promise always was. But to date, a bath or two at the mineral springs were the only niceties that beglerbegs could not do without. It was a wild, rough aesthetic to Ferhad’s Constantinople-trained eyes, made wilder and rougher still by the years of misunderstanding between conqueror and conquered.

  The rain had soaked into the city everywhere and enlivened foreign smells: Tokay wine, paprika, sour cream, cabbage. Pork sausage. The sounds, too, were guaranteed to cause homesickness: The language seemed shackled with consonants and somewhere a gypsy fiddler played with little care for melody or feeling, only breakneck speed.

  “Gul Ruh”, Ferhad said aloud. He had never framed the words in public before and wouldn’t until he died. “My daughter.” He looked up for the moon, as he always did when his mind rode on such things, but of course there wasn’t one that night. “Gul Ruh. The old tale of the nightingale’s love for the rose. It means something that can never be.”

  Ferhad knew very well what he was doing. He would have rather been warm and dry by the fire in their lodgings, and away from such thoughts. Who would not on a night like this? But this walk was like Christ’s sop to Judas Iscariot, telling Iskandar “That thou doest, do quickly.” Ferhad knew full well that when he returned, the first words of greeting would be: “The beglerbeg! He’s dead! Assassinated!”

  Not that the beglerbeg himself dese
rved much sympathy. He was a weak, corrupted excuse for a nephew and Sokolli Pasha had seen him to this position prompted only by duty. But still in Ferhad’s mind there was Sokolli. There was still that abominable, inexplicable devotion to the Grand Vizier. As if because of that night he was related to the man closer than any nephew.

  “Gul Ruh,” he murmured again. And was glad, that dripping night, of the name’s impossibility.

  Ferhad stopped to examine the facade of one of the buildings he passed and to wonder at the barbarous style—what was left of it, for passing armies had found it a good place to pick up souvenirs. Ferhad saw that another one of the bricks was loose: a small bit of plaster in the shape of a rosette the rain had turned a rather pleasant, glossy gray. He pried it off, feeling no remorse for defacing a building already marked for the wreckers—when peace should come—and held it in his hand. It would fit just nicely in a woman’s.

  “Iskandar should be done now,” Ferhad said to himself, put the rosette in his sash, and turned back wearily to his lodgings.

  * * *

  “They’ve made Iskandar Master of the Horse, Abdullah ustadh,” Ferhad told the eunuch as he handed him the rosette made by a jeweler into a pleasant little necklace for Gul Ruh to wear.

  “Yes,” Abdullah said. “And I hear you’ve been promoted to Agha of all the Janissaries.”

  “Yes,” Ferhad shrugged as if it were nothing.

  “Congratulations.”

  Ferhad shrugged again. “I can run no more messages for Sokolli Pasha.”

  “Well, he has other means.”

  “Yes.”

  “This. For your lady.”

  Ferhad handed the eunuch a bunch of fresh blue rue. A similar flower seemed to branch and bloom in his heart as he recalled all the messages that had passed thus between him and Sokolli’s harem. Secret messages in flowers and fruits, innocent messages—-to all but the love-trained eye. And to such eyes they expressed a world lush with passion. A plane leaf for the lover’s hand. A clove to represent how slender, how sweet he found her figure. A lock of her soft, curly hair, in his bosom yet, that said he was the crown of her head.

  And now the rue. It meant the same thing in the East as it did in the West: “Remember me.”

  Abdullah accepted the bouquet with a nod and turned to go.

  “Oh, ustadh?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell your master I am sorry about the death of the beglerbeg in Hungary. I know—I know they were close.”

  “Allah’s wall,” the khadim said with disinterest. He had not known the man.

  “And—”

  “And?”

  Ferhad struggled to conceal any meaning in his eye. His red leather boots of office scuffled on the flagstones and he looked at them as he said, “And please warn your master to be on his guard.”

  “Against what?” The eunuch was suddenly all ears. “Against a similar plot?”

  “I cannot say. He must only beware. And I—I would not see—see orphans and widows made.”

  Ferhad turned and hurried away.

  PART V: ABDULLAH

  XXXIX

  “Yes, my friend Abdullah. I swear by Allah, you are wise to keep your eyes on that one when he gets anywhere near your women.”

  The voice, like muddy water flowing over gravel, and the monstrous hand of Ghazanfer on my shoulder startled me out of what had been the gaze of an idle daydream, not watchful care as he imagined. And “my women” for whom he so feared, were nowhere in sight. They were in Safiye’s rooms comparing costumes and jewels for the upcoming holiday, the Prophet’s Birthday. The pilgrim caravan had only just returned from Mecca and Medina, well-ladened from contacts made with the Faithful from India, China, and beyond. By such trade many a man had funded that holy journey of a lifetime. There was plenty to keep the ladies busy.

  What had attracted my attention—and thereby Ghazanfer’s—was the woman walking with the eunuch. Of course there was nothing odd in this—it is our duty to walk with them, either behind, hearing their orders, their complaints, their gossip, or ahead to throw up curtains, close doors, and otherwise clear the way of men. In fact, I had found nothing really strange in what I saw. It was like a panel of painted tiles one passes every day until in a moment of idleness one notices it for the first time and it sends one’s mind soaring.

  The woman was Mitra, Safiye’s Persian, whose poetry had won her such a place in the Sultan’s heart that she was pregnant again. The eunuch was likewise Persian, the startlingly handsome one new to Nur Banu’s suite. Between them was neither a veil in preparation for going out nor a list of errands she wanted to send him on. It was a folio of poetry and—though for all my study of both the romantic and the mystical poets, I still could understand but a word here and there when natives spoke Persian—I knew their subject was not the compassion of Allah.

  Very well, now that I thought of it, it was a remarkable sight. Things had become so polarized in the harem that for one of Safiye’s camp to be seen with one of Nur Banu’s was immediate cause for suspicion of spying, poison, or witchcraft.

  Ghazanfer left me and crossed the atrium to the couple. A few stern words on his part sent the girl fleeing to her room and the eunuch, with nothing left to do in that place, dawdled off with the folio under his arm.

  “Well!” I was over my start enough to joke a little when the huge man returned to my side. When I did speak to Ghazanfer, it was usually half-serious. Such a man one doesn’t care to become earnest with.

  “What was it?” I asked. “Was he spying or poisoning?”

  “Allah shield us from both,” Ghazanfer replied. Then, “I shall never trust that man.”

  I made a sign and a sound to pacify him—he was so huge even a little anger in him was frightening—but he continued as if in explanation, “I knew his castrator.”

  “So?” I said as lightly as one can who has felt the knife himself. “A butcher is a butcher.”

  “Mu’awiya the Red always called himself an artist, not a butcher. But butchers a man can usually trust, except when there’s a meat shortage. Artists, never.”

  I still dared not take him seriously, but his words made me able to name something else that had been curious about that couple. Between them had seemed to be the attraction of lodestones. I had not seen such attraction since the heavily chaperoned but haremless dances of my youth. The Turks generally worked on a system that either defied this natural law or gave it full rein. That uneasy hanging in abeyance is foreign to them.

  I made some careless comment in the direction of this new observation, asking Ghazanfer how there was any room for jealousy between eunuchs. “Our fate is everywhere and eternally the same.”

  Ghazanfer fixed me with a look which might have been the smile coconspirators exchange across a crowded room. On that great, tortured face, however, it was difficult to see more than a grimace. He gestured then for me to join him.

  To one side of the atrium a slave had set up cushions and a low table covered with documents. As kapu aghasi, Ghazanfer Agha had offices elsewhere. But when he was not busy out in the world, it was his custom to sit here. This was the heart of the harem, a sort of mabein between the rooms occupied by Safiye and those of Nur Banu.

  Nothing that went on between the two women could miss his scrutiny. I’d never known anyone to join him on his cushions—who sits companionably with the tax collector when he sets up shop in the village square? It never occurred to me that he might not like things this way, and I accepted his offer not knowing whether to be flattered or afraid.

  Ghazanfer clapped his hands for service and offered me my choice of any of the palace dainties, just as if that corner were his home. To be polite, I took only a lemon sherbet, poured through a ball of snow fixed to the mouth of a brass ewer into a small glass. I intended to make the drink last as long as need be. Ghazanfer had his narghile lit and it bubbled comfortably.

  We spoke trivialities—as if indeed I were a guest lately come to his villa instead of
just withdrawn to his corner of the harem. But then, suddenly, and without preface he said, “All khuddam are not created equal.” Before I could reply, he continued, “Some are more resigned to the will of Allah than others. Some actually prefer this life to any other.”

  “No.” I waved him off. “None of us asked to have the better part of our life cut away like that.”

  “I did,” Ghazanfer said.

  I could tell he was not jesting, but still I could not believe it. So I said nothing.

  “When I was a boy. In Hungary,” he said. The narghile bubbled like a pot come to the boil, but whether it should be a wholesome soup or a spell of black magic that had reached its time I could not yet tell.

  “I do not remember my father,” he said. The spell was cast. He was going to tell me. And I could not have pulled away from the fascination if I’d wanted to.

  “When I was less than two months old,” the great eunuch said, “my father was killed defending Valpo against the march of Suleiman—on whom may Allah smile—towards Pest. Valpo is a small town. I doubt you will have heard of it. But I heard of nothing else as a child. My mother would smile and brag that my first word had been ‘Valpo’ followed shortly by the word ‘revenge.’

  “I had no father, but I had four uncles and a grandfather like a grey, grizzly wolf. We had lands and herds, but they were neglected. An excuse for a living was made by raiding Turkish outposts, and when the snows came and drove the Turks down from our hills, the men of my family would still never lift a finger to help the women, my mother and my aunts, who really put the turnips and beetroot in our pot. One uncle carried a janissary musket ball in his shoulder proudly, for all that it made him less of a warrior than the rest. For compensation, on those long winter nights, he’d taken to composing epic poetry- in which our family played the parts of heroes.

  ‘On the great, grey walls of Valpo

  The brave, the chosen few stood.