The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  The secretary was not like Sokolli’s previous one, Feridun Bey, whom we’d hidden all those days in the mabein. He was a man of the Porte, a slave of the Sultan. Of course Feridun Bey had been, too, but never in quite the sense of this man. We all knew this new secretary to be neither more nor less than a spy of Uweis’s faction. How my heart wrenched with pity to see this great man, my master, reduced to such a one for company!

  Of course there could be no intimate conversation with such a man. Sokolli Pasha was having him read instead from the history of Murad’s predecessors on the throne of Othman. Nothing, being reported back to unfriendly parties, could be discovered to be more loyal and pious and at the same time harmless and innocuous. Had he only wanted to be loyal and pious, Sokolli could have read the book for himself, I suppose. But he needed it read aloud. Such was my master’s craving for even so much as the lifeless drone of a fellow human voice on that dark night.

  As I stood outside the door, they came to the part in the tale where Murad the First, after all his great victories, is mortally wounded by the Serbian rebels. Here my master waved his hand for the reading to stop.

  The secretary who had seemed to be reading with glazed eyes now took on some life. I suspect the coincidence of names—Murad the First with our present Murad the Third—made him hope vent might be given to seditious comments. But it was not so. My master was as true to the present son of Othman as he had been to Selim and Suleiman before him. He simply used the pause to recite the first Sura of the Koran for the dead Emperor’s soul.

  That image of my master is branded forever on my eyelids. An unearthly light filled him as he recited, though his body remained so very grey. He huddled with age against contact with the divan beneath him, the dusty old cushions behind him and anything else physical around him. I had never thought him old until that moment. I could not help exclaiming in my heart: Here is one truly good man according to anyone’s upbringing. By Allah, I love...

  I did not finish the confession that at any other time would have been disgusting to me. My thoughts were interrupted by spoken words. “Would that the All Powerful might give me,” Sokolli Pasha said with a quiet fervor, “just such a death in His service.”

  And I slipped off before I was seen.

  Sometime near dawn I must have slept for I totally missed the call to prayers and the master’s early departure in full procession to attend the Divan. But the moment I awoke, all my tumultuous concerns for our future life together, once these confessions had been made, came crashing down upon me again. I began to wish Gul Ruh would soon get married. Then I could ask to go with her to her new home.

  But what sort of betrayal was this? I had promised to help her stay unwed, not hurry her enslavement to that shy, dull Mufti’s son. Praise Allah, what wisdom there is in keeping the sexless ones unburdened with matters of love.

  Would we could always remain so uninvolved.

  My first duty of the day, then, was to think no more about myself, but to find my young mistress and hear her mind on the matter.

  Questioning the first of her maids I discovered in the hall, I learned that she had been up since first prayers, had dragged our old seamstress out of bed, and taken her to the main sitting room where, for all the maid knew, they were at that moment busily working on the young lady’s trousseau. For had I not heard the good news? “Our lady is to be married.”

  This report I found heady with over-romanticized nonsense. Our seamstress had once declared aloud and to everyone in general that she would rather make a million sheets and pillowcases herself than have to supervise Gul Ruh in one more stitch, for the girl was hopeless with a needle and it took four times as long to unpick every mistake as to do it oneself.

  No one had been more relieved than our little monkey to hear that news and she had danced off declaring herself the happiest girl alive if she should never hear the word trousseau again. Obviously the maid had been dreaming her dreams onto another. Nonetheless, I took her at her word and headed off in that direction.

  On my way I saw something which made me forget all concerns for the future, both hers and mine. Through a window, my eye chanced to be drawn (although I know now there was very little chance about it) to a figure standing outside in the damp and autumn brown of the garden. It was the figure of an ill-clad dervish.

  XLVII

  More than once I had spoken to this same holy man face-to-face without recognition. But I now, in the mystical way of such creatures, knew him at first glance. It was my old, dear friend Husayn—or rather, in his present manifestation, the no less dear but saintly Hajji.

  I had known him since childhood. When my family was lost, he had replaced them. He had saved my life on more than one occasion, more than enough to make up for the time I’d saved his, by accident more than design. He had also taken revenge for me, killing the man that had castrated me. In committing this crime, he had willingly given up the comfortable life of a wealthy merchant for the wandering, anonymous asceticism of a dervish.

  I had not seen Husayn, I suddenly realized, since leaving Konya, when our girl, old enough now to be a bride, had not even been conceived. And at that first glimpse of my ancient friend, I realized how achingly he had been missing from my life.

  My feet shed the years and the steps between us as pitch sheds water. In a moment, I was down in the garden, running towards him and calling, “My friend! My friend! A thousand blessings on your presence here! How my eyes rejoice to see you!”

  Hajji stood as stoically as a statue—like a Christian saint instead of a Muslim—and the names of Allah dropped from his fingers (his rosary) like the last of the night’s rain from the leafless branches. He did not move to greet me. But when we were close enough to speak, the precipitate form of his words could only be allowed to one totally indifferent to society’s rules of polite, flowery greeting. He said no more than this: “Your master, my friend. I have information that there is a plot on his life.”

  I stood clutching his free hand in both of mine, grinning and panting. He said no more but looked at me steadily until the full import of his words sank in. I swallowed the silliness of my grin away—my teeth were cold beneath my lips—and caught breath to ask soberly, “How? When? Who is it?”

  Hajji chose to answer my middle question only, saying, “If he is not warned at once...indeed, it may be Allah’s will that you are already too late.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I said with a hard but still puzzled nod between each syllable. “I will go. But you must step inside and accept our hospitality until I return.”

  I found the gatekeeper, the gardener, and the gardener’s boy idling by a fire in the gatekeeper’s room. It took a bit longer to convince them—I invented more details than I knew in the end. But finally they were willing to stir from their fire. The boy I sent into the garden to find my friend and honor him with hospitality until we came back.

  Perhaps this is all foolishness, I thought as the gatekeeper girded himself about with his token weapon—a rusty old sword—and the gardener and I took up sticks to add to my ceremonial dagger. Did not the chiauses, real soldiers armed with real weapons, accompany my master as they always did? What good shall we do but cause the laughter of sober citizens as if we were the stragglers of a drunken brawl. It was with these thoughts that I warned my companions not to slow down, but to move with care. My friend had brought this intelligence and I knew he wouldn’t lie.

  “We do not want to alert the assassin,” I explained, “and give him time to evade us.”

  We made our way quickly to the Second Court—as close to the heart of the palace as I could get using the men’s entrance. In spite of my caution, our arrival seemed to be the most excitement that court had seen all day. Because of the weather, the usual crowd of spectators had stayed home from this Divan. Even of the petitioners most, it seemed, had decided their grievances could wait for fairer weather.

  A few of the most obnoxious variety of merchants, some craftsmen too indigent to go back to t
heir tools, a eunuch on his mistress’s business (so he dared not return empty-handed) and a single, ragged dervish were the only citizens hunkering in the portico. They sat talking quietly to one another or to themselves with the drop of rosary beads. There were no scuffles as adversaries met, no loud cries for justice as a meeting of the Divan could bring forth on a hot, passionate day.

  With a rabble of such proportions, the janissaries set to guard the court were at ease—at least they were until we appeared. Three men bursting in flushed with fear and haste brought them up from their gambling to stand at attention. My companions were immediately struck by the peace of the scene and hung back sheepishly, trying to look like common loiterers. This would only arouse more suspicion, I thought, so I took it upon myself to go and speak to one of the guards.

  I walked up to one I remembered having seen before: He had a horrible scar from the corner of his left eye to his chin that even left a thin bare gap in his mustache. I had seen him sometimes with Ferhad, the Agha of the Janissaries. Otherwise, men in blue and yellow all look pretty much the same to me and I always mistrust the violence that uniform represents.

  The janissary, for his part, let his hand go to his sword and he fingered it nervously as I approached. He didn’t recognize me. One eunuch’s robe looks like the next in soldier’s eyes, I suppose, and they mistrust us all for being secretive.

  “How fares the Divan today?” I asked.

  “Fine, fine, thanks be to Allah,” he said, still mistrusting me.

  A few more questions drew these details from him: All the business was done for the day and the meal had already been served.

  “The meal!” I thought aloud. “Did the usual poison taster clear it first?”

  “Of course.”

  “And no ill effects?”

  “None. Sokolli Pasha is even now enjoying his fill of the pilaf and sweetmeats. By Allah, there are times I envy that man his job.”

  I was encouraged to see this drop of guard, even though my first suggestion of poison had set the scar a-twitch with tension. “This seems awfully early for the meal,” I commented. “Why, the noon prayer had not yet been called, has it?”

  This, instead of rousing more suspicion, made the man relax further still. “No. Since they’ve sent Lala Mustafa Pasha off with most of the army to Persia, business has been slack.”

  “Look here, my friend,” I said, lowering my voice. “I’m the Grand Vizier’s head eunuch and I’ve got to-—”

  In the next moment came the announcement that the Divan was disbanding. “To attention!” A double border of blue and yellow—as neat as if sewn by the finest needle—formed itself along the path through which the dignitaries would pass in reverse order, peeling off from their seats like couples in an old Italian dance. My master was the last to enter the Divan so he received the obeisance of everyone lower. He was the first to leave.

  Still inside the Divan, yet where we outside could see him, Sokolli Pasha stopped. He said a friendly word or two to the Agha of the Janissaries. Ferhad took them as graciously as he could, but shame and humility made him awkward. Then Sokolli Pasha left the warmth and light of the Divan and entered the drizzle in the court.

  I was shocked by what I saw. For one to whom form gave so much honor, the reality beneath the Divan gave my master little or none today. His look was thin and haggard, one of exhaustion, totally beaten. Even half a day was too much when what was called “deliberation” was merely an exercise to see how many ways of countering him and flattering his enemies could be found. And for no other cause than so they could say in the off hours, “By Allah, didn’t I put Sokolli Pasha down today!” No wonder the meeting had been short.

  My attention could hardly help but draw his from dark, grey thoughts to me. Life came suddenly to his eyes and to his figure as if I were a live coal and he dry kindling. His smile was not broad, but beautiful, and the hands with which he had been anxiously wringing his robe relaxed. After a moment of what he let the world know was pure delight—I had come to see him, even after our talk last night!—he remembered where he was and his duties. This did not vanquish his smile, however, but filled him with a rash feeling of generosity to the world.

  Sokolli Pasha held up his hand for the procession to halt (you could almost hear the grumbling in the ranks behind him) and then made an announcement to our court: “Anyone with a petition—by the will of Allah—he should step forward now.”

  He would take them all today, and give each his personal attention. He did that for me. The Islamic world knows no greater virtue than magnanimity. Forgetting the cold and damp as well as my scruples, I basked in the sunshine of his honor.

  The merchants and craftsmen, too, were moved by the gesture and grew suddenly embarrassed about the pettiness and self-interest of their suits. One even tore his up on the spot and turned away, while the others hung back. Before, had they been accepted for consideration, they would have seen it as a reflection of their own greater worth. “The Grand Vizier took favor on me out of all the others,” they would brag at home, “because my presence is more forceful” or “because he knows the greatness of my establishment and had heard my name whispered in the highest courts.” Now they could make no such claim for all, from the highest to the lowest, were called forward.

  So the eunuch went first: He was on his mistress’s business, after all. My master took his petition and slipped it into the coveted velvet bag, not neglecting to murmur some personal compliment to the man. To the janissary, one khadim was like the next; not so to my master. This, too, was meant as salutation to me and I took it as such. I murmured a formulaic prayer in thanks for such honor. Then the dervish, being holier than other men and only slightly less holy than women was allowed to approach.

  Was there something in the way he moved? Some stiffness in the hip that said he concealed something under his clothes? Or was it only the sight of the dirty felt dervish cap and rope belt fastened with the stones of asceticism which suddenly reminded me of my friend Hajji and of the urgency of his message? Whatever it was, I sensed some few moments before anyone else in the court did (even before the master, who was much closer to the man than I) that these holy robes concealed an assassin.

  “Master! Master! Beware for your life!” I called out these words as the counterfeit petition touched the Grand Vizier’s hand.

  At the first sound of my voice, Sokolli turned ever so slightly in my direction, ever so slightly smiling as if my words were music to his ears. In the next instant, he knew I was in earnest and his hand went to his sword. Waving my dagger, swinging my stick, and followed by the gardener and the gatekeeper, I burst through the line of guards, as yet only dumbfounded. When he did come to life, one of the soldiers took a swipe at the gatekeeper whom in the confusion he took to be part of the attack instead of the rescue. It cost the old man an eye.

  But all of these actions were like the pitiful swarmings of an ant hill flooded with water beneath the all-powerful eye and will of Allah. The dervish had pulled out a dagger from beneath his rags and plunged it to the hilt in my master’s body.

  How protective are manners and robes in normal society! How easily we forget, with these thin screens between us, not only the grosser parts of one another’s nature, but even that flesh and pulse are there. The mere hang-—with hardly the flexibility for a pleat or the ruffle from a breeze—of the Grand Vizier’s rich, heavy fabrics had made him seem impervious. But the assassin’s knife cut through the brocade like gauze and the life blood spilled from Sokolli Pasha as if he were no more than one of the hundred common goats the palace butchers dispatch every day.

  The assassin gave a wild shout of triumph, but there was some foreign accent on his Turkish so his battle cry did not carry far or bear much weight. I left it to others to constrain him: His deed was suicidal; he did not even attempt to escape. I pushed by him to ease my master’s crumple to the ground.

  Although too weak to pull it from the scabbard, his right hand still convulsed about the
hilt of his own sword. But when I took his left in mine, he let the weapon go in order to grasp my hand in both of his. He smiled at me—like a lover, I thought, when his love had been fulfilled and spent. And though others around will testify his last word was a pious “Allah,” I, who was closer, heard my own name, “Abdullah.”

  I saw him shrink as the life went from him and that which had been truly great dissipated into other realms. Then I was grateful for the forms of religion that diverted the wildness of my grief into a quiet recitation of the Koran’s first Sura. I said it, trying to match the very tones Sokolli had used the night before when he had prayed for what he had now received: a martyr’s end.

  XLVIII

  Never have I appreciated more the haste with which mortal remains are disposed of in Islam. Sokolli’s body was never brought back into our house. Only professional wailers were, so death remained a pure and abstract thing, full of glory and myth to the inmates. I stayed with the body, however, from the Second Court to the graveyard, heedless of impurity. Also, because this transfer happened so quickly, I was able to keep my detached blur of confusion and disbelief. There was never time for horror and revulsion to seize a stranglehold upon my soul.

  In spite of the haste, the word—like all news in the city—spread faster than runners could have carried it. By the time the body was washed and ready to leave the mosque, the processional way was thronged with mourners. Every man sought to take his five or six steps beneath the bier and pressed out of his way others who came between him and the honor. I, too, worked my way to touch the wooden slats, the scrap of white linen showing through. Again and again I attained the relic, though I never felt it have any weight—miraculously, though the miracle is probably explained by the numbers sharing the burden.