The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  “He still bore his arm in a sling from my grandfather’s bullet, but the only blood on him was hers and that of my kindred slain. My stomach rose at the sight and I was ill on the spot.

  “‘Why?’ I choked over the vomit and the tears.

  “‘Why?’ He shrugged rather shamedly. ‘We are men.’

  “‘And this is what men do?’

  “My friend shrugged again. ‘When we see women...’ But he could not explain it more.

  “As soon as I was no longer ill, I spoke some very violent and angry words about how I would rather ‘my friend’ kill me than turn me into a butcher like himself—no better than the grandfather he had slain. I no longer had any idealism, not even for the flashy blue and yellow of a janissary. The man, I will say this to his honor, was duly humbled, horrified at war gone out of bounds. But even as a child, I could tell that war always does that, and therefore it should have been no surprise to him.

  “When I shouted that I would rather become a eunuch than join ranks with him, he nodded as if he envied me. One quick cut under careful and skillful hands did have its advantages over the haphazard aim of war. When I did not change my mind, he said he would be sad to lose a companion such as me, but he supported me every step of the way and got the best cutter in Belgrade to do the job. He fired two after the preliminaries, unwilling to trust me to just any man with a knife. I went under Mu’awiya the Red. That is how I know of his artistry.

  “My friend was there, holding my hand throughout, just as if I were his companion wounded on the field. As I healed, he came to visit me every day and brought me sweets and talked. He chose my name for me—Ghazanfer, bold lion—a name for the battlefield and not the harem where I was bound.

  “And when at length we parted, we stood and looked at each other, aware and aching with fear and sorrow at the vast gulf that now separated our stations, a gulf that mortality could never bring together again. If ever Fate did put us in sight of one another, it would be as opponents, not friends, his male world bent on invading mine, and I must see that it did not. But we parted appreciating that without this conflict we would live very shallow and meaningless lives indeed.”

  There was silence when Ghazanfer finished. We were devotees who had just shared a mystery of our religion and to speak would be to profane the moment with the mundane.

  After a suitable period of reverence, silent even in the thoughts, my mind began to work again, I realized the monument of what this man had just shared with me, this man I’d hardly ever known before. Indeed, I’d often taken him to be neither more nor less than an enemy and a formidable one at that, in spite of his visit during my illness and the dog’s grass potion. I began to rack my brain for some part of myself I could share in return. I found nothing, and felt poor indeed. But rather than leave him empty-handed, I decided to divulge the one bit of information I had on him that was unauthorized.

  I said, and hardly as flippantly as it may seem on paper, “Tell me.

  Since Andrea Barbarigo has become a Muslim, whom do you visit for your mistress on the outside?”

  I didn’t really expect an answer. I didn’t want one. I only wanted to let him know that I knew.

  He looked at me closely. “The shopkeeper next door to Kira’s?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I thought you were there.” Ghazanfer nodded in appreciation. He took a puff or two on his narghile and then spoke a name, “Michael Cantacuzenos.”

  I had been so far from expecting a candid answer that I had to ask before I realized that he had just honored me with one more timely piece of information: the name of his current contact.

  Michael Cantacuzenos was a Greek, “flotsam and jetsam of the Byzantine Empire” my master liked to say, but he said it good-naturedly. Cantacuzenos was a friend of his and, since Feridun Bey had been forced to flee, my master’s closest confident in the capital, what with Arab Pasha in Cyprus. That was nice for the Christian community, but a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the Divan when the only man the Grand Vizier could trust was someone totally out of the political arena.

  The moment Ghazanfer Agha made his meaning clear to me, I instantly saw Safiye’s hand in any number of decisions Sokolli Pasha had made in the past months. My master was incorruptible and my mistress totally uninterested in wielding her influence over him. So Baffo’s daughter had turned to the next closest thing to counteract the weight Nur Banu carried in the Divan with Uweis and Lala Mustafa in the palm of her hand. Cantacuzenos was nothing if not a talker. Sokolli Pasha only ever half listened to him, but that carelessness could make the thoughts seem to arrive in one’s mind on their own.

  I nodded congratulations to Ghazanfer on the success I perceived. I also let him know I would not betray this secret—not unless absolutely necessary—and he in turn knew I would not.

  Not after what had passed between us that afternoon.

  XLII

  The plague came late that year, but when it came, it hit hard, and in places that had hitherto been spared, at least in common memory. Pestilence hung over the late summer city like a shroud, tied in knots around the harbor and the barracks, where it always lurks, but also pulled in tight, choking bands even around the homes of the wealthy.

  The Italians left Pera in droves and as many natives as could sought refuge on the Princes’ Islands out in the Sea of Marmara. Two boats, both sorely overcrowded, collided in rough seas and untold scores were drowned. And when the islands were reached, even there was not guaranteed safety. Some brought the disease with them and it spread in the unnatural conditions of the islands faster, even, than in the fetid streets of slums.

  On the islands, too, there is no natural water. The water caught in cisterns and barrels during the winter rains was stagnant by summer, and that caused disease and death of a different and no more pleasant sort.

  No. Once again events proved that the best thing to do against the plague was nothing. Best to stay where one was and wait it out, trusting to Allah. Even if a body—the Merciful One forbid it—did take sick and die, there was this consolation. Those that die of the plague, like those who fall on the battlefield in the cause of the Faith or women who die in childbirth for the life of a new infant Muslim, all are counted martyrs and taken at once to sweet-scented gardens in Paradise.

  The Mufti, Sheikh al-Islam, was among this year’s victims. An old man, we all knew it would be only a matter of time before the fever killed him; he had no strength to fight it off as youth sometimes has, if Allah wills. But the news seemed to us a great justice, if not an actual joy. His position and somber learning, though evidence of great piety and favor of the Almighty, had always seemed to lack the full assurance of martyrdom since he’d allowed himself to be swayed by Selim into taking Cyprus. Now that the crown of death seemed inevitable and well deserved, our whole household removed to his home. The contagion of such holiness was something no one wanted to miss.

  My master sat up in the room where the man lay dying, amidst the smell of sickness and fumes of garlic and sage burnt to ease the way to Paradise if the not pestilence. Here disciples droned a night-and-day recitation of the Koran. The local imam tried out phrases for the eulogy while the old ears were still alive to hear and praise it. And the Mufti’s sons and a host of friends came and went as time permitted them, taking turns sitting at his side, holding his hand, renewing the wet cloth on his forehead, and exchanging conversation on topics hardly different from the somber, reverent ones the man’s dignity had always required.

  My master had great respect for the man. Although their opinions in the Divan had not always coincided, Sokolli Pasha appreciated the fact that it was only on a single occasion—when the page boy lay writhing with death, pinned through the heart to the floor—that the Mufti had been influenced by anything but the most pious and learned considerations. That was more than could be said of any of the others.

  The Mufti and my master were the only ones left in the high chambers of government who had served u
nder the magnificent Suleiman and remembered what it was like before the word bribery was even considered. The choice of a new Mufti lay with the religious institution and not with the palace. Nonetheless, my master could not help but think that the face of the medrese had changed since his dying friend Hamid had been elevated. The heavily bearded scholars in attendance at the death told beads not of glass or simple quartz but of lapis lazuli and gold. And Sokolli Pasha recognized among those present some who were little better than the purchased slaves of the Sultan, Uweis, and even Nur Banu.

  Sokolli spoke aloud to his dying friend of his most secret concerns. “What shall happen when you are gone, dear friend?” I suppose he realized this was the last time he would be allowed such luxury.

  “What will happen will be Allah’s will,” the Mufti said, no less pious in death than he had been in life.

  The lesser scholars continued to drop their beads in unison with the rich sound of a woman’s jewelry case. They said nothing, but, as my master told me later, it was clear they would not forget this scene in days to come, when the choosing of the successor took place.

  We of the harem were, of course, forbidden direct access to the man in the process of attaining martyrdom. We waited out the time with his wife and daughters. Here things were not quite so somber, and not quite so charged with intrigue.

  Umm Kulthum, a woman with the appearance of a fat-tailed sheep, was a faithful wife, but two more different temperaments can hardly be imagined. To his stability, she was flighty, to his reason, emotion. She could not even stumble her way through the simple Arabic of the Fatiha without coaching, whereas he was famous for having had the entire Koran memorized by age ten. It is certain that without the harem curtains to divide their worlds, they never would have lasted so many long years together.

  Now in the final analysis the only ill effect of this union of opposites might have been to confirm the Mufti in his opinion—easily gained from much of his reading—that all women were silly and hardly to be trusted with the serious demands of religion. What color, if any, this may have painted on his judgments throughout his life no longer seemed of importance, however. The next Mufti might just as well have a harem full of understanding and true religion—no less easy to endure without the division between them, but every bit as likely to influence his opinions.

  It was clear that Umm Kulthum’s mourning would be wild and intemperate. But it was also clear grief would not begin until her eunuchs brought the word of the actual death. Until then, sorrow, like her religion, was based mainly on outward forms—which must be just so, of course, like the proper, most fashionable sort of veil. But once those forms were seen to, there was no reason to trouble her mind with deep reflection. The consequence of the next few hours, not only on her life, but on the Empire as a whole? What worry was this of hers?

  If questioned, you would hear her be as dependent on Allah’s will as her husband’s study had taught him to be. But for her, pious phrases were born not of having stared the wonderful power of the Divine in the face and understood the utter vanity of all human endeavor. In her mind first you met all the forms, then it was Allah’s will, with the sneaking suspicion that if you’d done everything just right. His will could not help but conform to your own.

  And so the professional mourners, already called in, were allowed to pass a mirror from one face to the other. They chattered among themselves as they applied heavy coats of kohl to their eyes that would run most impressively when the time came to practice their trade. Trays of preserves and fruit in just such somber proportions as tradition called for appeared from time to time. A Koran reciter read, although no word was understood. Then, to give the professional woman a rest, Gul Ruh was coaxed into showing her skill, for my little charge had major portions of the holy book down as well.

  “A remarkable child.” Umm Kulthum smiled, and then kept up her duty as hostess by real entertainment—gossip. In her mind at least, it was gossip geared to the somber situation at hand, but it was gossip nonetheless.

  “When it comes your turn to become a widow, Esmikhan Sultan—Allah will that the day is years away—how I shall envy you.”

  Everyone carefully avoided laughing at this absurdity and my lady asked politely, “What do you mean, lady?”

  “I mean, of course, that your man is being prudent. He is putting away money now to take care of you when you are alone.”

  “But my husband is a slave of the Sultan,” Esmikhan said. “When he dies, all his wealth returns to the treasury. He cannot bequeath any of it. My daughter and I—Allah have mercy on us—shall be left with only our allowance from the palace. It is the great fear of my life.”

  “Ah, yes.” Umm Kulthum winked slyly. “But everyone knows Sokolli Pasha is keeping some by, off the Sultan’s records. Under your bed, isn’t it? That’s what somebody told me. Well, I’m sure you’ll know well enough when the time comes. Allah will it may be a hundred years from now, of course.”

  Esmikhan said nothing, but I could see the thought pinch in her plump face: Everyone knows? Then how is it that I do not know?

  A little while later I was called upon to help move a screen into the sick room, for the Mufti had sent word that he felt the Angel near and would speak somewhat to his harem before he answered the call. I took this opportunity, while my mistress was out of earshot, to ask the almost-widow, “Lady, forgive my asking, but where did you hear about my master’s hoarding of loot?”

  “Hhm? Well, oh dear me. Simply everywhere. It’s common knowledge.”

  If it’s common knowledge then does even the Sultan know—or think, rather—that he is being cheated? I thought this, but did not speak it aloud. Instead, I asked, “Well, tell me where you heard it most recently, then.”

  “Let me think. Yes, of course. At the palace. I was calling on the Valide Sultan. She was the one who mentioned it.”

  “Nur Banu. I see.”

  “She said it was common knowledge. It must be common knowledge, else I wouldn’t have brought it up, now, would I?”

  “I suppose not, lady.” Unless someone had only wished you to think it was common knowledge.

  I heard the dying man say to my master, “You’ll excuse me. Pasha, my friend,” as we approached.

  “Of course,” Sokolli replied, bowing out of the way to let the curtain encircle the bed.

  But the Mufti held on to my master’s hand for a moment longer as he said in a hoarse whisper, “Look to your harem, my friend. That is my one regret in this life, that I did not spend more time with those behind me. Don’t you answer the Angel making the same mistake I have.”

  My master nodded. These were the words of an almost-saint, after all. I thought. How pleasant that the Mufti did spend so little time with them, that he is still able to say that. If he’d spent any more, his regrets might have been as great, but they would have been for another, more bitter reason.

  When at length she returned to her own domain, the Mufti’s wife looked the farthest thing from a woman who had just said her final good-bye to the man she’d been married to for forty years. She was aglow with news and excitement and could not even be induced to take a seat before beginning.

  “I suppose they want me to keep quiet about it for a while. You know men. No feelings at all. But I cannot keep still. Listen. Such news! Esmikhan Sultan, you and I are to be relatives! My husband has suggested and yours has agreed that your daughter should marry my youngest son.”

  Esmikhan gave a gasp of disbelief which Umm Kulthum was quick to reassure.

  “Of course, my son’s father didn’t know anything about Gul Ruh until I dropped a word or two-—how she recited today and all, and what a good, pious child she is. It is his death wish. Sokolli Pasha dare not grow perverse later and change his mind. Oh, my husband spoke on and on about the unifying force of the harem and all sorts of other things too deep for the likes of me. But my Abd ar-Rahman, he did blush so nicely all the while. He always was my favorite—well, the youngest always is. I’d
say the wedding sheets are all but spread. And it does make my heart sing. Allah bless you with many sons and me with many grandsons,” she said now, turning to Gul Ruh. “We shall be so happy together, mother- and daughter-in-law.”

  After reciting, Gul Ruh had taken to keeping the vigil by playing on the floor with the Mufti’s grandchildren. Although condoning adults had smiled and said she was giving their mothers relief by minding them for a while, I had seen clearly that she set the pace for their wild frolic.

  Now she suddenly froze and seemed to shrink. Suddenly she was grown up. Suddenly she could no longer laugh and shout or even speak out of turn to her elders. I could see she so wanted to call her hostess’s announcement into question—or to refuse it outright. But she was grown-up now and when Umm Kulthum came to pat her on the head and kiss her cheek, she grew white as if growing up had given her the plague.

  “I am surprised,” Esmikhan finally found breath to confess. “Indeed, I had thought a match between Safiye’s Muhammed and my Gul Ruh would be made. Nothing has been said, of course. I just assumed...”

  Gul Ruh got up off the floor, shaking herself of the children as she did of dust and went to stand beside her mother for support—whether hers or her mother’s it was not clear.

  Yes, yes. It’s true. My cousin, Muhammed. It is he I should marry. We have been promised since we were children. But it was only Gul Ruh’s eyes that spoke. She said nothing at all aloud.

  “Oh, but you know as well as I—Allah willing—Muhammed is to be Sultan. Sultans do not marry. Who is their equal in the world? Marriages should be made between equals. And Sultans cannot afford to let their matches become victims of all the-politics and bickering that normally go on. It will not go on between us, my dear, of course. But just the presence of some foreign father-in-law is enough to suggest against it.”

  “But we thought it was time the dynasty freed itself from the machinations of slave girls and their particular interests. If Muhammed marries his cousin—and I think they are fond of each other—” Gul Ruh could not keep her head from affirming this with a quick nod. “—then the dynasty will be firm, Ottomans on both sides.”