Sofia (41 page)

Murad stayed long enough for only half a glance at what the old woman held stretched out between her fingers like a tent between its gnarled stakes: the fabric of his sister’s shalvar, stained with blood. Murad nearly ran into me in his haste, and stopped long enough to meet my eyes. He said nothing, but dropped his lids for one brief second—as close as a son of Othman may ever come to a bow acknowledging indebtedness to anyone. Then he was gone, up the stairs three at a time and into the mabein where he’d told Safiye to wait.

The drums struck up a triumphal march and the old woman and her burden were paraded around and around as if it were the personal victory of every man there. I got out of their way by taking the stairs. I stood and watched the festivities from the balcony for a while, a window open for the cool night air at my back. Then I turned to retire. Imagine how startled I was to find, in the shadows at my elbow, my master, watching likewise.

I bowed, clumsy in my surprise. “Felicitations, master,” I managed to say.

“Thank you, Abdullah.” Something struggled under his rich bridegroom’s robes. “Excuse me a moment,” he said.

I looked away, embarrassed, as he turned to the window. The dark night air possessed just the quality it had had on the Grand Canal from the Foscari’s chamber so many lives and deaths ago. A dark cloud of jealous grief swept over me for what he had that I didn’t.

But then the most absurd squawk made me turn back to him with a start. I was just in time to see a paroxysm of black feathers disappear into the night. In a moment, the capon my master had loosed crowed prematurely and ineptly to set his ruffled dignity to rights under cover of darkness.

“My master,” I couldn’t help but laugh. “What on earth that?”

Over the hawk’s beak of his nose, his right eve almost winked. “I took him to your lady’s chamber with me. In case things hadn’t—worked out.”

“You would have killed him?”

“Cut his throat and used his blood instead of hers.”

“You would have done that? To cover for me?”

“I never doubted you, Abdullah. Nor your lady. Only Murad’s fair one. But what can one do with the favorites of princes? They make life difficult for the rest of us, don’t they?” He took a deep sigh. If I needed to cover for—in case—There is no reason either of you should suffer tor my deficiencies.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant but didn’t feel it was my place to pry. “So the bird flies tree, master. Congratulations I say again.”

“But more congratulations are due to you, I believe. A group of my men went up into the gorge, according to the directions you gave them, and found the brigands’ hut today. They’ve just returned with nothing but an old woman, half-mad, whom I suppose we shall have to release onto charity. More pious donations are due, I suppose, out of my purse to commemorate the event.”

“Allah’s will,” I murmured. He sounded nothing like a groom on his wedding night.

“Yes, but it is more than that. My men reported the scene in the hut; seven burly, hard-bitten criminals dead these three or four days and unburied. Abdullah...”

I blushed under his gaze. “Believe me, sir, I’m not responsible for a half of those deaths. There was another, a dervish...”

“A dervish?”

“Yes. He killed most of them. While I merely acted as diversion.”

“What sort of dervish? What did he look like?”

“To tell you the truth, sir, he resembled an old friend...but maybe I only dreamed. No, I cannot say.”

“No. It is hard to say with dervishes. Most of them look alike. It is the anonymity of being lost in Allah.”

“Yes, master.”

“And, as they’re all elusive as shadows, I think you must not hesitate to take most of the credit for this in his stead. Abdullah, I thank vou. I could not have faced my master, the Sultan, again with the dishonor of his granddaughter on my head. From the bottom of my heart, thank vou.”

He touched my arm then as if he, my master, were half afraid of its strength. “I thank Allah my trust in you was not misplaced.”

His words moved both of us unaccountably. I was glad to be able to bow now and escape something in his eyes that asked—or offered, I could not tell which—so much more.

I turned to move away without dismissal, a breach of form which Sokolli Pasha quickly spoke to cover for me. “Yes, Abdullah. Get your sleep. You have earned it well indeed.”

“Good night, master.”

“Good night, Abdullah.”

As I turned, I noticed a smear of red-brown on the back of his neck. More blood? Or was it henna that had not had time to soak into my lady’s hands properly in just one hurried half a day?

But I left him standing there over the celebration of his victory which he took little notice of, and certainly no credit for. Nor did he return to the marriage chamber that night to take his victory again.