Sofia
was the door to freedom, and next to it sat Safiye. She had obviously been there quite a while, bare-faced and unashamed in the company of all those men. I guessed she had tasted some of the forbidden wine, too, from the pretty pink glow in her cheeks and the moist sparkle in her eve. Would that they were tears and discomfort for the fate of her friend! But I saw clearly that they were not.Next to her sat Crazy Orhan, who had given up the place of honor to his son that night. But he had not quite given up control of the assembly with that seat, for he called the next move. “So, my son. To your business! And the best of luck!”
Safiye did not smile at these words as the rest of the company laughed and cheered. But she also did not squirm or look away.
The young man got to his feet and strode up to Esmikhan, vainly trying to huddle in the middle of the room. She was surrounded on all sides, no wall to put her back to, so although she remained on her feet, I could tell she wanted to shrink into the straw mats and rugs on the floor. She looked more tiny and helpless next to that strapping figure of a brigand than I would ever have imagined possible.
The drink and attention made him graceful, that son of Orhan, something of a dancer with a strong bent toward showmanship. He removed Esmikhan’s wrapper and veils with a flourish that even her weak struggles and protests could not detract from.
‘Take that, you swine-eating Sokolli!” Orhan cried, and his men echoed him.
Esmikhan hid her face in her hands as it she’d been lashed with a whip. The young brigand forced these hands apart and, with her chin caught tight in a vise of thumb and finger, he lifted her pretty round face to the light, and turned it full circuit around the room. Esmikhan kept her large dark eyes— I’ve often thought them her best feature—-tightly closed as if against blinding light, but this did not detract from the company’s loud and lusty appreciation of the display.
“O Sokolli, may it burn you as the iron did my eve!” cried the voice of revenge.
Awash with sweat, my hand slipped almost uselessly on the handle of my dagger. But what was I to do? Take this horror as the will of Allah, and amply stand and stare in awe at it? The only other option seemed to be to instantly jump into the center of the room and plunge a knife of mercy into Esmikhan’s heart. I might have time then to turn it on myself. If I did not, a dozen brigand hands would very shortly finish the task for me. It would take a great deal of courage, strength I was not sure I could muster. But there seemed no other way. I closed my eyes and silently called on heaven for the attempt, committing myself to Its hands.
Meanwhile, the ruttish dance went on in the center of the room.
Whimpering like a puppy wounded quite to death, Esmikhan managed to break away for a moment. But two or three pairs of even coarser hands handled her until Orhan’s son came to reclaim her. This time he was careful to hold her much tighter about the waist. And she did not struggle so much except involuntarily and settled to her fate as does a lamb to the slaughter.
The son of Orhan forced his mouth upon hers as he fumbled with the row of pearls on her bodice. One pearl broke off in the process, and there was a scramble for it among the onlookers. But that business had resolved itself in time for all to appreciate the real prize of this activity. Orhan’s son produced it as a conjurer produces an alabaster egg from a basket we thought empty: a round, white breast. That breast could not help but hold itself up in the firmness of youth, though obviously its owner would have made it wither and sag with shame if she could.
The heady atmosphere was sending Orhan to mimic his son on the person of Safiye. Her breasts, too, were exposed and he was already at the drawstring of her shalvars.
Only Crazy Orhan had had a woman in months, perhaps years, and as the audience groaned and shouted its pleasure, I realized that when the son had spent himself at last—he was young and strong and four or five entries were easily within his reach—no power on earth could keep the others from making the revenge their own as well. It would kill my lady, of that I was certain. Yes, better to kill her mercifully now with one blow and what came later to me was of small mat- ter. My life had ended in the dark little house in Pera months ago, anyway. Encouraged by these thoughts. I began to move into position.
“Hey, eunuch! Out of the way! What need have you tor a better view, capon?”
The words threw me for a moment into sell-doubt, and before I could recover, we were all overcome by a commotion at the other side of the room.
“Daughter of a wanton!” the brigand’s wife shrieked.
Her next words were drowned in a shattering of crockery, but those following were more in the same tenor, “Heathen, Allah-cursed and defiled! I’ll teach you to go stealing men from honest women!”
More broken crockery, and heavy thuds ol things that could not break against the stone walls. Safiye, the target of this attack, was now shrieking in horror and in pain as some of the missiles hit her and drew blood from the arms she raised to shield herself. Somehow she managed to reach the door and find safety in the snow outside.
“Good,” the wife said triumphantly. “Mav you freeze to death.”
But her anger was far from spent, and now it was Orhan’s turn to be battered. He swore, roared his