Sofia
cold stone with a sound like walking in melting snow. There was in her step the haste and warmth of caresses in foreplay.I knew at once who she was. It was as if all my dreams and nightmares of the past six months had suddenly taken on material form.
“Hello, Sofia.” I said it in Italian, and with surprising calmness.
She started, having heard neither her native tongue nor her Christian name for half a year. Still, Sofia Baffo was never one to let anyone think he had bested her in any situation. She regained her composure with remarkable speed, and even let the sheet drop more loosely over one shoulder to indicate her nonchalance as she said, “Veniero! Well, this is a surprise! Still as foolish and daredevilish as ever. Still climbing convent walls.”
“I am here in Kutahiya at my master’s bidding, not yours this time.”
“A slave, are you? So am I.”
“Well, there are slaves and there are slaves, as my old friend Husayn might say.”
Delusions are the greater part of any infatuation, and removal of my physical reaction to her taught me what a flimsy thing my love had been. I closed my eyes against the pain of my loss, but afterward my speech grew steadier and I spoke in my most flowery Turkish.
“My master is Sokolli Pasha, soon to take Esmikhan Sultan to wife. I am to see his bride safely to Constantinople.”
Baffo’s daughter seemed at a loss for something else to say, as the mighty often are when faced with unwanted, unlooked-for suits. So I drew a paper from my bosom. I knew it from the other two there by its finer Turkish grade. It was an announcement I had picked up in the bazaars of Constantinople as I ran my errands and had kept out of curiosity, never imagining when and where I might use it. Posted by the Venetian embassy to the Porte, in Turkish, Latin, and Italian, it offered in the name of Governor Baffo of Corfu a ransom of five hundred ghrush for the return of his daughter, who, he had reason to suspect, was being held captive somewhere in the harems of Turkey.
I placed the paper in Sofia’s hand saving, this time in Italian, “You might find this interesting as well.”
I had successfully broken down her defenses. To unfold the paper, which her curiosity could not resist, she had to juggle the corners of her sheet most precariously. But a few rapid blinks of her eyes against some tender memory were the only other signs of weakness she would give me, even after she’d read the announcement.
Quickly, firmly, she tore the paper into a hundred fingertip-sized pieces. “My father,” she said, meeting me firmly in the eve, “underbid by a whole sack of ghrush. To people here I am now worth six hundred.”
At that moment, the door to the mabein cracked open and the voice of a young man whispered, “Safiye? Safiye? Are you there? My love, you promised you’d be gone only a moment, and I am dying of desire.”
“You see, Veniero,” Safiye said. “I can’t stand here gossiping with you all night long.”
“Safiye? my love?” the young man said again.
“No,” I agreed in rather brazen, mocking Italian. “Your responsibilities are most onerous indeed.”
I made no attempt to muffle my words and they must have carried quite far. I could usually, with concentration, hold my voice down in a man’s registers and the next thing I knew, a very wiry pair of hands was about my throat. The bubble of my voice escaped and drifted higher, ending in a squeak. I managed to keep my balance during the onslaught, for though he was a few years my senior, my attacker was neither as large nor as strong as I, all bones and angles. But I was forced against the wall by his energy, nonetheless.
Not since Husayn have I heard such abuse in Turkish as I heard then. Subsequent to leaving my Syrian merchant friend, my training had all been geared to courtliness and manners. I did not know the meaning of half the words that were spat into my face by that furious young man. Clear enough, however, was the accusation that I had greatly wronged the honor of his women and that the only satisfaction he could take was my immediate death.
Safiye’s Turkish stumbled as she tried halfheartedly to intervene, “My love! My love!”
I was so busy trying to fend off my unknown attacker’s frenzied blows that I hardly realized when other women entered the hallway. They were drawn by the yells, the thud of his flesh on mine, and my scuffles trying to defend myself. In various stages of undress, the women came to see what the matter was.
I heard the voice I already recognized as that of my new young mistress, Esmikhan Sultan, cry: “Murad! Brother, stop!”
This told me the man was a prince of the blood and I must go easy on him. But months of unexpressed anger were seething within me and, between blows, I grew reckless. By God, what could they do to me that hadn’t already been done? Even if I killed this milksop, all they could do would be a blessing compared to what they’d already done.
Esmikhan cried again: “Murad! A eunuch! Only a eunuch!”
The young prince misunderstood her. He thought she meant to say that he was nothing but a useless eunuch compared to me (he could not help but be aware of the difference in our sizes) and it made him absolutely senseless with hurt and fury. Fortunately, my strength prevailed even against such passion.
“It is just as I said,” exclaimed one of the unseen ladies of the harem.
“Yes,” replied another. “Whatever can Sokolli Pasha have been thinking? To buy such a one for Esmikhan!”
More harem talk came in snatches through the ringing of blows to my head.
“Surely he cannot have been thinking at all.”
“It is even as I was told. The Pasha is too caught up in his work to have