Reign of the Favored Women (35 page)

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.”

“That is only Safiye’s wishful thinking,” Umm Kulthum said. “She doesn’t want her son ever to be lured from her influence as has happened to Murad and which is even now breaking poor Nur Banu’s heart. Actually, Esmikhan Sultan, if I may be frank, I should think you’d be glad to keep your daughter out of that brawl which is sure to break out—Allah forbid—when Muhammed comes of age.”

Such observations were too clear and too insightful for them to have originated with the Mufti’s wife herself. I think even my lady realized they, too, must have been gathered at this last visit to Nur Banu’s part of the Serai. Esmikhan had this advantage over her hostess: She had been raised in the palace where tact had more value than an orthodox adherence to truth. She reminded herself severely of the more sober purpose that brought them there and she smiled politely.

“I mean no insult, lady,” she said. “If I appear hesitant, it is only through disbelief. I am unable to believe that Allah should bless such a house as ours, tinged with politics and war and slavery as it is, with the blessed peace and wisdom of a great house such as yours.”

Umm Kulthum, without Nur Banu’s coaching, could never suspect duplicity. She sat on her cushions and smiled broadly and simply at my lady’s comment and comforted her forthcoming widowhood with thoughts of a wedding soon to follow.

Fortunately, there was no time for further discussion on the subject, for at that moment one of Umm Kulthum’s eunuchs brought a message from the men’s quarters. We had to leave at once. With all our concern for the old Mufti, we had ignored the earlier notice we had received that the Vizier of the Cupola, Piale Pasha, had failed to attend the previous day’s Divan for some indisposition. The indisposition, we now learned, was the plague and, as if it had the help of his younger, stronger body instead of its hindrance, it had done its work much faster than on the frail old Mufti. The Vizier lay now at death’s very door and it was only with the utmost haste that we could hope to arrive before the last Fatiha was said for him.

Selim had given Piale Pasha his second daughter, Esmikhan’s half-sister Gewherkhan Sultan, to wife. The union had not been blessed with children, but it was a union of hearts uncommon even when the marriage is for love. The passion, even after so many years, was so intense that many, including the Sultan, said it interfered with the Vizier’s duties and Esmikhan would be the first to admit that her relationship with her sister had not been the same since those sheets were first bloodied.

But if ever Gewherkhan needed her sister, it would be now. Some even chose to take a lesson from this: Let not your marriages grow too close, for Death and Allah are the portion of all. It was clear that Gewherkhan Sultan would not enjoy the easy, gossipy drift into widowhood Umm Kulthum did.

Sokolli Pasha was not without his emotion at this passing, either. Indeed, he left us to find the way to the Vizier’s house on our own and hurried on ahead, as if a brain for deployment of troops and political intrigue could do anything against the plague doctors had not already tried. Piale Pasha, although close friends with Uweis and his circle, was not below opposing them when his conscience told him so. He had the passion of a virtuous woman behind him and there were some things Gewherkhan Sultan would not let him stoop to. My master would find the Divan a very lonely place indeed with both the Vizier and the Mufti gone hand in hand over the hair-thin bridge to Paradise.

Ineffable are the ways of Allah. By nightfall, both men were dead. The professional mourners from the Mufti’s had offered the names and addresses of their sisters and cousins to fill the quota at the Vizier’s. Between the two houses, the women had earned enough to keep them ‘til the next plague before two parallel columns inched their way to the cemetery come morning. My master took the privilege of carrying the bier in both.

And when he returned home, he sent for Michael Cantacuzenos. Until the Greek came, Sokolli Pasha took comfort in composing another long letter to Cyprus.

Soon the first rains of autumn came, flushed out the disease, and cleared the air. Everyone breathed easier and freer; merely filling the lungs brought a smile to the faces one saw in the street.

But there was one major hindrance to free breathing in our harem, and Umm Kulthum’s visit certainly did not help it go away. She came and kissed Gul Ruh moistly on the cheek and asked pointedly how work on her trousseau was coming, for she would soon have need of it. Gul Ruh, who never pierced needle with thread with any confidence, balked at the idea and said nothing.